Human Again: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Novel (Cryonemesis Book 1) (4 page)

“Maybe one day you can remove the fighting gene from people,” I said.

“The potential to fight is in our genes but the implication is strictly in the mind. And that is the hardest part to change.”

“I am sure you will find the way if you look for it.”

“That’s not what our funds are for but that's actually an interesting idea.”

“Right, I forgot that prolonging the life of rich people is more important because they can pay for it.”

He laughed.

“It’s not only for rich people; in the short-term maybe, but not in the long-term. Like any invention, it was expensive in the first days, before it became a mass product. Only kings had toilets once. You're a king now.

I laughed; it was a tiny release from the stress that started to build inside me the closer we got to Tel Aviv.

If I only knew how right he was, now that I was revived.

We got to the pickup point. I could see my army mates arriving with their parents. It looked like a ritual. Boys are going to war, parents are going back home to be worried and get stuck with news reports. I don't know what's worse; watching the news every day repeating the same stressful items, or being in a void until a phone rings.

He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Keep safe, don't be a hero.”

I walked toward the bus thinking how weird that is. Let's say if I were in WWII. I would want to be a hero and fight the Nazis. I would have gotten a gold medal for that. But here in Israel, we had a nice little war every two or three years. Suddenly being a hero didn't mean anything because no side lost and the wars didn't end. Heroes can't solve all our problems. It's better to survive and go on with your life. So you could say you did your part and let the soldiers of two years from now deal with that shit again. Hoping they won't call you to army reserves, but they usually do.

I sat next to one of my unit friends. We didn't talk for the whole two and a half hour drive. We stopped to pick up more soldiers on the way north. Nobody talked. Everyone was stressed. Listening to the news didn't help us either. But it's an addiction; you just had to know what's going on. And when they didn't have anything new to say they interviewed another ex-general/politician who was willing to talk about stuff he used to know but now was irrelevant, just to keep the broadcast alive.

I arrived at the base and met with all my unit mates. Everybody started to get pumped up in a positive way, I would say. The stress that had built in us had to be released and tunneled into action, and we were highly trained for that action. The Hezbollah was a guerrilla organization, also highly trained. They had hideouts and secret tunnels all over the mountains and between the villages. They had cost us many lives each week before Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Hezbollah soldiers weren't the ones to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at you. They were our Vietcong.

We had a quick debrief with the commanding officer, and then we went to get equipment. My commander approached me.

“You could have been an officer-in-training now.”

“I didn't want to become a stinky asshole like you,” I said with a smile.

He gave me a strong pat on the back, the kind that hurts. It's called a Chapha; it’s what men do to each other in order to show affection by touching in a manly way.

We sat down for a quick dinner fully equipped: a protective vest, helmet, ammunition, a few grenades, and a radio I was supposed to carry on my back. Some extra batteries, also. I remember thinking about who would tell Hadar about me if something happened. I imagined us reuniting after an injury. Or that she was the only one I would allow to see me if I was too fully bandaged. It had been a year since I broke up with her, and I wasn't sure if anyone thought I'd cared to let her know if something happened to me. I wished someone would be smart enough to connect the dots. This caused me to burst out into hot, wet, uncontrollable sobs in the simulation. At that moment, everything in the simulation stopped around me like the memory froze in time because I couldn't take it anymore. I was back in the simulation bed. I just couldn’t re-experience the battle that led to my death. I lost all those people: Noam, Dan, my mom and dad, my sister, who I didn't even have a chance to talk to, my army friends, my commander and my ex. I missed Hadar so much. I wondered if she was sad at my funeral, if she even came and whether it stopped her from dating for a while. And if she thought about me at her wedding or wondered what it would’ve been like to have kids with me. I wondered if Noam and Dan had kids and what they grew up to be. I wondered if my sister helped my parents in the last days. I wondered if my parents’ marriage survived my death or got a divorce out of sadness and growing apart. I wondered how my dad managed to freeze my body and fund it all these years. And why didn't they freeze themselves to meet me here?

I felt so alone the tears didn't stop. My nose ran, and my eyes hurt from squinting so hard. I lost all control of my life and of everything I had. I was in a new world with new rules and new people who had weird names and lived underground, only to survive the climate and be threatened by a crazy radical group. It was the shittiest future anyone could ever predict and I was there to live it.

All these questions gave me a little sense of reality. The tears stopped when the logic kicked in, demanding answers. I lifted the bed’s plastic cover. My eyes were wet. My face was wet. Isaac had sat looking at me the whole time. He leaned over and put his comforting hand on my shoulder.

Chapter 5

It was my second day in Knaan. I woke up and had breakfast in bed, which meant going back to the simulation and eating breakfast there. I chose a typical Knaan breakfast, which was manifested virtually into a chopped salad with lemon, olive oil and tahini, an omelet with mushrooms and green onions, and fresh bread with cheese. Isaac ate the same and was happy with my imaginative-cooking skills. It didn't taste like bugs at all. I didn't want to think how my breath would smell in reality after eating that. But he was right; when you're hungry you don't care about that.

The automated shower was next to the toilet in the room that held eight simulation beds. It was automated so people won't waste water. And water was precious to produce because it needed to be desalinated. The shower resembled a car wash: you get in, press start, and water shoots at you from all directions in thin strong streams. It's a short burst, maybe 10 seconds. Then you're supposed to lift your arms so it'll hit your armpits, and spread your legs to wash your groin. Sorry for being so detailed but it was a strange experience for me and I have to let it out. Then you're supposed to close your eyes and mouth, which you better do because the shower sprays soap all over you. If you don't, it becomes a shower of screams. They were possessive of their soap because of its limited quantity, too. After you're sprayed with soap you have thirty seconds to scrub yourself. You then get ten more seconds of water and then you can dry yourself as much as you want. Due to the facts that showering is such an ordeal, and how the air is filled with germs that are supposed to make you odorless and clean for a few days, most people just don’t shower.

Isaac and I were headed to the simulation lab. It's the room where they actually program and monitor the simulations. We took a shortcut and instead of circling the city we cut through a corridor that took us to the opposite side. Less people travelled across there so as to avoid the sound of the pipes pumping water or ventilating air. It was like going into the body of the city and seeing all the veins and arteries, with the wires being the nerve endings. All the simulations were controlled by quantum computers, which were so fast and smart that they could do a gazillion calculations a second. As such, they could come up with infinite possibilities and results for each problem. I was there because a quantum computer was going to test me for my role in the city. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I thought telling stories was boring. I wanted to do something with my life that affected people. Before I had died, I wanted to learn about mass media, or psychology, or marketing; anything that had a direct effect on people. I wanted to know how to read them better, to know what motivated them and how to drive them to action in a positive way so they could be happier and calmer. But I didn’t know anything about the people of Knaan, most of them didn’t even know each other because each one was living in their own world. How can you motivate people that have nothing to do? How can you help others feel happier if they are living in their fantasy world every day? How can you even read them if you can’t access their world? I didn’t think I could do any good as a storyteller, and I didn’t have enough life experiences to share anyway. I was sure I could do more than just that.

Isaac left to do his job and I met with Doctor Manu, the city's senior engineer. He wore light-blue overalls and had messy hair and a thick beard, like he hadn’t showered for ages. He was cross-eyed and had a black semi-circle beneath each eye. He looked like he had been looking at computer screen his whole life. His assistant was a chubby girl with curly hair, who put me on a simulation bed and then stood next to a control panel attached to the bed while Doctor Manu walked around and checked stuff like a messy professor. He then started explaining.

“So I am actually excited to meet you.”

“Can you talk slower?”

“Yes I am sorry. Is this ok?

“Yes.”

I hated when they talked so fast. It reminded me how old I was actually.

“I was told that a young defrosty had arrived, which is so rare here. You are the youngest to ever arrive.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“This is an exciting time for us. You have a young mind. You experience the simulation different than us because you are not used to it. We can actually see the changes in your brain and how it is affected by the simulation, so we can make it better.”

“What do you mean make it better?”

“Everything was initially programmed by humans, which means it had flaws and bugs. The system isn't perfect and is supposed to fix itself. But because it isn't human we have to balance it and check everything. To make sure it feels, looks, sounds, tastes and smells real.”

“So you want me to be your guinea pig?”

I had to hear an honest answer.

“No, it’s not like that at all. The simulation monitors everybody anyway. But if you would like to help us here in the lab, it would improve the simulation for everybody.”

“Sure, I guess, I’ll help. I have nothing better to do.”

“Great, you are a game changer. The team will be thrilled. Thank you.”

“But I’m willing to participate only if you test me like the rest of the kids. I want to know if I fit into a different job. I don't want to be a storyteller.”

He paused for a second. He was surprised to hear me bargain.

“Like I’ve told Padma, I don’t mind having the test but I warn you that we never saw a defrosty succeed.”

“I need to be tested for a role. Then you can run your tests.”

“Sure, you are young, maybe you are different.”

“So what is the test?”

“You won't notice it.” He signed to his assistant to start doing something and she began pushing some buttons behind my head. “This is happening on the back end of your brain. We stimulate your brain with sensory information and test the response time and neural activity between the different parts of the brain. We also have your DNA sample.”

“How does it tell you what I am good for?”

“If you're fast enough you can work in defense and security. If you have good motor skills you can be a technician, and if you have a strong logical side you can be an engineer.”

“But I am not prepared for this.”

“Like I said, it is all built upon your natural orientation. We do this test for kids when they are six years-old to see what direction they are leaning toward, and teach them exactly that. Eventually the strong side will develop over the others and we test them again every year to make sure they are on the path to the right job.”

“So you don't give them a choice.”

“Choice is not needed because they will do what they excel at, and as such, will love it and be praised for it. We don't have enough jobs and places for people to experiment. Everything must be perfect for this city to survive.”

“And what if it's not?”

“Then you do it for a few years as your mandatory service, and then leave the real world with the good feeling that you helped your friends and family to survive. You can be whatever you want in the simulation. But here, it has to be perfect.”

“Ok, I'm ready.”

“Just relax and stay still, although you can close your eyes or open them because that doesn't matter. It will only take a minute.”

Doctor Manu and his assistant stepped away to watch the test on a screen on the wall. It was the most intense minute I had ever experienced. I don’t think there is a drug in the world that could do the same as what happened to me there. I saw, heard, smelled, felt and tasted everything at once. It all happened so fast I couldn't understand what was happening. I saw lions running at me, cogs spinning, and waterfalls and geometric shapes. I saw neon colors and sunsets, snakes and trees. I heard Morse code and opera and whales and dolphins. I heard crickets and elephants, monkeys and bees. I felt metal on my hands and sand under my feet. Fire and ice. I tasted spicy and salty, sweet and sour. It all happened simultaneously. I kind of wished it to continue but Dr. Manu came back and it was over. It wasn’t pleasant at all but I actually felt every part of my body working and shooting electricity into my brain like I got hit by a lightning. He then cut a hair from my head and gave it to his assistant to put into a different device. He looked at me and smiled. Then he looked at the device and stopped smiling.

“Oh, I am so sorry.”

“What?”

“It seems like you are half monkey, half chimpanzee,” and started laughing.

“It’s just a joke I tell the kids to pass the time. I don't have the results yet.”

What is it with doctors in this place?

The device beeped and his face went blank.

“What?”

“Uh, wait a minute.”

It was nerve wrecking.

“Well, you don't fit any technical job here.”

“What about security guard?”

“Your physical condition isn’—”

“—so there’s nothing for me?”

“Your responses are slower than our minimum. The logic side of your brain isn't developed enough.”

“But I was born three-hundred ago. This isn’t fair.”

“I am sorry but we can't risk having you in a technical or a security position. It will take you too many years to train and learn what children are learning from pre-training.”

“Can’t you put me in a special program?”

“We don't have those, unless you start basic training with the six year olds.”

“I can't do that. What can I do?”

“Stay a storyteller, or a plumber, or a janitor. We need those desperately.”

Wow, so many options…this place is just shitty. I didn't want to be frozen in the first place, nor did I want to be revived. Now they put me here and tell me to clean their toilets? No way, no way. There must be something else I can do.

“Thank you so much,” I said, and left.

“What about laundry?” He shouted.

Coming from his mouth it almost sounded promising. Yeah, why not? Maybe I’ll be a laundry technician. No, I want to be a detergent engineer, or cleanliness scientist. How come in year 2321 there are still people who do these jobs? It's unbelievable. What happens if I don’t get a job and President Padma decides to assimilate me?

I walked out of the lab and I thought I should start to get comfortable in this place without a guide, if I wanted to feel part of it. I needed to clear my mind of that last experience, anyway. I started walking clockwise next to the inner wall which meant that the curve was to the right behind me. I’m sure that people noticed I was a newbie. I wished I could go outside and run. That was usually what kept my temper down. It would release all my anger and I would come back exhausted and fueled with endorphins. The problem was that I couldn't go out because that could get me assimilated or shot at. I thought about the doctor who said “Help us” on my first day, and how could I even help, and to whom. I just kept on walking and I came across a gym. I used to hate gyms. I hated running on a treadmill like a human version of a hamster wheel. I hated how everybody showed off their muscles and didn't wipe the sweat off the seats. But that's the only escape I had at the moment, and I had to run my anger off.
Stupid brain test
. I wasn't even aware of everything that happened at once. How could I succeed in something I had no control over? That was so unfair. I bet they did it at a young age to indoctrinate the children so they wouldn’t rebel later. They probably told them how special and gifted they were so the kids thought they were the best.

The gym looked quite ordinary; white facilities, black weights. The treadmill was a little different, though. Above it was a helmet hanging from wires that ran from the ceiling. I put it on. It turned out to be a simulation helmet, which made me happy because I hated running and not seeing the view change. I could choose from several backgrounds like a desert, a jungle, a savanna and a snowy plane. I chose the savanna and started running. I didn't stretch or anything, nor did I care. The simulation was so real I forgot where I was for a second and panicked. I started running and the cool thing was that when I wanted the zebras to run with me, they immediately did. I started running faster. I left my zebra friends behind and got next to a cheetah that ran faster than me. I tried to catch it and felt my heart pumping fast. It felt good.

“
Want to race
?” I heard a voice ask me.

“
Hi, you want to race?”
It asked again.

I took the helmet off. Then I saw a boy younger than me with olive skin and short hair, running on a nearby treadmill.

“I am ok, thank you.”

“
Why you talk so slow
?”

“Why you talk so fast?” I replied.

“
I talk normal. So why not?”

“I was just defrosted. I can’t compete.”

“
Are you the soldier
?”

“What?”

I couldn't understand him, and I was panting from my run nonetheless.

“S-o-l-d-i-e-r?”

“Yes.”

What a douche.

“
Let’s race. What are you afraid of?”

“Fine,” I grunted.

He was so annoying that I didn't even care to lose as long as afterward he’d let me be. I admit, it was nice talking to someone new. So I put the helmet back on and saw him warming up next to me. I made him wear leopard skin and colored his face with war paint just for fun. It made him look less annoying.