Love in the Time of Technology 1

Love in the Time of Technology 1

Joseph Veramu

Kindle Edition

Copyright 201
4 Joseph Veramu

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Content

Chapter 1:
The Fringes: Trouble

Chapter 2:
Genetica: Danger Zone

Chapter 3:
The Fringes: Getting Ready

Chapter 4:
Genetica: Disturbing Art

Chapter 5:
The Fringes: Time To Move

Chapter 6:
Genetica: Escape Plan

Chapter 7:
Genetica: Meeting Lilydeen

Chapter 8:
Genetica 5: Work To Do

Chapter 9: Escape To The Fringes

Chapter 10: Getting Acquainted

Chapter 11: Getting Ready For the Mission

Chapter 1: The Fringes: Trouble

Hidden by the canopy of
trees, Lilydeen looked with intense curiosity at the gigantic glass dome of Genetica perched obscenely like the monstrous egg of a hideous beast that had been exposed for too long. It looked deathly white as if it had lost its life blood. The city was the size of two hundred football playing areas and its glass covering meant that everything inside was climate controlled. Although the sun shone brilliantly outside, inside it could be pitch black and wintry. The inhabitants lived and moved according to their own time and season.

S
he could not help feeling intrigued with its people. What were they like? Were they aware of the pain and suffering they caused to those on the Fringes who did not wish to be part of their genetically engineered world? The most intriguing question was why the Oracle had chosen her. She felt insignificant but her number had been picked. Mario had told her.

R
oan was apprehensive of his 16 year old sister. He had caught her looking at the glass domed monstrosity with longing and he was frightened for her.

“Don’t even think about the place,” he said as gently as possible. “It’ll just bring trouble.”

Mario, 17, who worked as a unit with them looked at her with some amusement.

They were all orphans whose parents had been killed by drones or robots manning fast
heliships. The trio moved from place to place at short intervals so they would not be caught. When there was a lull in the fighting they spent time with their assigned guardians Uncle Jason and Aunt Hilda at their seaside home. They had been brought together secretly like many others and trained in hand to hand combat and the use of different kinds of lethal weapons. Those like Mario who showed uncanny talent for tech wizardry received additional training. There were no formal training schools and most learning was done in abandoned tunnels, sewer holes, warehouses and forests. They had been chosen as a team and had worked together for a number of years now.

“I’m sure there are people there who hate their lives and want to escape,” she reflected.

“Even if they wanted to do that, they wouldn’t fit here,” Roan said rather quickly. All the inhabitants of Genetica had been cloned. They had heard that the people never got sick, lived very long lives and had perfectly designed features. Only the very rich could afford to live there. While some dreamt wistfully of such a perfect life, others wondered how people without any woeful emotions to spice up their lives could ever be genuinely happy. Surely boredom would gradually set in.

“I’m sure there’s a young guy there who wants to come out,” Lilydeen said as casually as possible.

“Don’t even think of it. It’s dangerous!” Roan said sharply.

“I’m sure there’s no harm in thinking about it,” Mario said as subtly as possible.

“You keep out of this!” Roan retorted.

Mario refused to be intimidated. He was a year younger than Roan who was 18. While Roan was tall and muscular and was built for speed like a jock, Mario had delicate features and built lik
e the super nerd that he was. He was always tinkering with machines and high tech gadgets and had a reputation as someone who could hack into complex gadgetry. He was very important to the Resistance and had received special training to be linked to the Oracle program.

Mario’s tech skills had been extremely
useful. He was able to jam many of the drones’ onboard systems and bring them crashing down. His biggest challenge was re-engineering the system so that the drones would return crashing into the glass dome or better still fire their deadly rockets at the glistening shell or the heliships.

“I have a strange feeling I will go inside. Soon,”

“No!” Roan screamed. “That’s madness,” He turned accusingly to Mario. “You allowed the Oracle to use her? Don’t you care?”

“I care for her. But she has a mind of her own.” The Oracle was
based on time bending algorithms that simulated the future.

Roan
knew that Mario could hack into the Genetica system to find a path inside and a safe way out. Roan conceded that he had lost part of the battle. Once Lilydeen made up her mind, there was no turning back. A plan like this would have come from the Resistance. He sometimes felt like beating up Mario but grudgingly accepted that he was merely following orders. He was also fond of him and just couldn’t do that. Roan tried a different tact, “You want to go in to help a young guy there?”

“It’s not like that,” she laughed and then hesitated not sure how to phrase it.

“It’s always some hyped up guy, otherwise why would they send a girl?”

“
There was a signal,” Mario said delicately. That pregnant piece of information had greatly intrigued her and had been the impetus for her volunteering for the very dangerous assignment. They had assigned a salamander as her personal icon.

“
You feel she’s the best person to get him out?” Roan asked incredulously. “You could have told them it’s a crazy idea.”

“
A simulation was done and she had the lowest footprints.”

“We haven’t been very honest with you Roan. I’m okay w
ith it.”

“She’ll be able to put down markers inside,” Mario said gravely.

They were all aware that in recent times Genetica drones and whirring heliships had been causing havoc on the Fringes. They had lived side by side for many years in an uneasy peace and then things had taken a turn for the worse. They had kidnapped people for experiments and had carried out systematic killings of those suspected of attacking Genetica heliships, drones and outlets.

The world had been r
avaged by climate change, wars and economic tragedies. Governments had weakened and people who shared similar beliefs and ideas had formed their own communities. The US was a huge patchwork of countless groups living on their own; some had order while others were lawless. The rich shut themselves in glass domes.

There was a low humming sound and they dove for cover.
While Roan and Lilydeen looked at it furtively with apprehension, Mario was intrigued with the robots; their faces were emotionless as they casually shot at people. Something big was obviously happening. Why had their sent their bigger machines rather than their drones. They were on to something and Mario needed to find out fast.

Roan huddled
close to Mario out of earshot of Lilydeen. “If something happens to her, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if
something were to happen,” Mario said with so much feeling.

Although they had worked together as a unit for a few years, they had not developed a brotherly or a close friendly relationship. The situation worsened after Mario became attached to the Oracle program. They worked hard at being civil with each other but often could not handle the tensions that grew out of the decisions Mario
was forced to make or to follow. He wanted to say that he cared for both of them but sensed that making such a comment would sound patronizing and result in more arguments.

They both knew that the situation was getting worse with every passing day and their only chance of survival lay in someone going in and laying the makers for its destruction. There was no other way. The Oracle simulation program was extremely complex and powerful. It had chosen her. It was either she did it or they waited for their destruction.

Lilydeen continued to look intrigued at the hideous glass dome shining deathly white in the distance.

There was a young disillusioned clone inside and although he did not know it yet, she was going to bring him out.

Out of earshot of Roan she asked jokingly. “Are we going to be close?”

“
With clones you never can tell how they impress organic girls?”

They both laughed. As far as she was concerned, a romantic scenario was out of the question.

He was not so sure. The Oracle program’s elaborate simulation often factored in people falling in love. But this was not a good time to raise it. There was also another disturbing scenario he had seen. It involved the perfectly handsome clone, Lazer, who was efficient and ruthless. Lilydeen was in deep trouble if Lazer got hold of her. Mario shuddered when he read some of Lazer’s fantasies posted on the Genetica-
fantasia
page.

Chapter 2:
Genetica: Danger Zone

For some time Wolf had sensed that the Mx Corporation was monitoring him. From the 4
th
level of his apartment block he could see the mini drone hover silently by his window. He had deliberately acted with undue concern or interest. He had conditioned himself to breath and exhale after counting to 7 so that the drone’s on-board surveillance device would record that he was relaxed and not in an agitated state. Night after night he had the same dream, first of a salamander icon and then a girl his age walking on the sea shore. She looked rather like Chloe in Bioinformatics but had gentler eyes that were purposeful as if she was on a mission. Her actions seemed to imply that Wolf featured prominently in her plans. The dreams started after he had posted anonymously in the Twilight Web. If she was from the Fringes would it be safe for her to come to Genetica? It seemed like a highly suicidal plan. But Wolf also knew that a seemingly weak position was also a position of strength especially if the Corporation was not expecting a seemingly vulnerable intruder. There would be the element of surprise.

E
ven if she was caught, she would only have enough information for her segment of the intrusion. He gasped! If someone was really coming, how and why had they chosen him? He was sure that many other disgruntled inhabitants posted in the Twilight Web. It seemed like a lottery but they must have used some very complex algorithms to pick him. He hoped he didn’t disappoint whoever was controlling the matrix. They were closing in on him and it was only a matter of time before they searched the Twilight Web and zeroed in on his identity. 

He thought of Chloe. There was a time not so long ago when he was madly in love with her. They had done things together and had developed innovative ideas for making Genetica greater. Then he had made his disturbing discovery of the systematic killings and experiments of people on the Fringes. He had been disillusioned and confided some of his concerns
. He had been shocked by her response. She tried to convince him that this was all misinformation. Their love had been built on a lie and he found he could no longer sustain it. Worse, he also discovered that their love had been engineered by the Corporation. When he saw through the facade of false emotions, he felt he had no interest in what she stood for.

Wolf
knew however that the Corporation’s complex algorithms meant that he could only fool them temporarily. Sooner or later he would have to escape into the ‘Fringes’, where the super efficient perfect new world of which he was a part of, did not exist. That was assuming that they did not hound him there!

But how was he to escape?
Was salamander real?

If all this was a figment of his imagination t
hen there was no one who could help him. Nevertheless, he still had the inner urge to fight back and not accept defeat so quickly. Although the general impression put out in Genetica was of the ‘badlands’ where anarchy ruled and murders, rapes and other social ills abounded, he sensed that these were all exaggerated to make them feel privileged. These bleak stories fed to them daily, made them bear with the loss of freedom they gradually had to endure as Genetica progressed even further in its genetic engineering.

+++++

Wolf worked for the
Genetica Institute
(GI) a research and development subsidiary of Mx Corporation. He had recently done an analysis of its current operations and had provided data that showed variances in various sectors. It was the kind of number crunching and simulation that staff did to bring about more efficiency. But he had uncovered very sinister activities which he had deliberately left out of his report.

T
he new Director, Fing, had called him over and said he was very impressed. He said that members of the R&D Board of the Mx Corporation, the entity that ran all the 50 American glass domed engineered cities had read it and highly commended it.

Genetica
was the largest city on Earth and was alluded to as the model for others to follow. Its innovations included a waterless waste disposal system using gravity, and the network of interlinked self contained districts. He had kept hidden the data he had unearthed that implied that Genetica was dying internally and in a desperate attempt to reboot itself and stop the decay, the Corporation had begun the secret killings and the kidnappings.

The Corporation had been created by citizens
who had voted for their reps to the Board. As Genetica became super efficient, the people lost their voices and the Corporation made decisions for the good of all.

The voices of dissent had unfortunate accidents in public parks, ponds, high rise buildings and other public landmarks. The
se deaths always happened in public areas almost as if the Mx Corporation was saying that they were transparent and had nothing to hide in these unfortunate mishaps. They were also signaling subtly that those who opposed them would expire without any hassles.

“You accessed some really fantastic data. Do you have
sources for it?”

No, Wolf said, he had accessed it entirely from the
ir data sources.

“Has anyone else seen
this?” Fing asked as casually as possible.

No, he had followed procedures by bringing it first to
him.

“Not even for verification
s?” Fing persisted in a friendly bantering kind of a way.

No. But he was thinking of doing a follow-up and was hoping to enlist other colleagues.

Fing gasped for air but quickly thumped his chest good-naturedly so that it would seem that he was drawn breathless by Wolf’s initiative. “I’m overwhelmed!”

Something in Fing’s demeanor made
him hold back his findings and main data source. He had also found something insidious in Sector Z, the department responsible for defense. While Genetica had a right to defend its glass domed borders, he had stumbled upon a terrible secret.  Almost all of those killed and kidnapped were part of experiments and then harvested for cosmetics and protein supplements. The corpses were highly prized because they were organic.

Wolf missed the
previous director Zugovsky who had been his mentor and had helped him develop a number of simulation programs. Zugovsky was a philosopher and very intelligent. He had left the Institute under strange circumstances. No one had ever heard from him again or knew where he had been posted. His social network accounts had been wiped off. He had heard rumors from Roneel that he had escaped and was helping the Resistance. That rumor had greatly pleased him.

It was during this time that Wolf
had been so disoriented and frustrated and had posted in the Twilight Web (using a gecko as a personal icon). Although it was virtually untraceable and existed only in the dark web zone between Genetica and the Fringes, Wolf was not sure how far the Corporation could access its secrets. Inhabitants were discouraged from using it and were threatened with harsh punishments if they were caught but Wolf suspected that everyone who felt bored used it as a way of letting off steam.

Zugo
vsky had been replaced by the obsequious Fing. He was a
singularity human,
one of those new creations integrating technology into their human features. This enabled them to exist indefinitely. Their kind was now taking over leadership positions at all levels of the Mx Corporation. Even the CEO Dr Josef Mengele was believed to be a very powerful singularity human whose brain was linked to the super-computer mainframe. He was named after the German geneticist of the 20
th
century. His ideas about a superior species resonated very well in some quarters. Wolf had met him as a child. Dr Mengele had also visited the Institute on a number of occasions and had spoken to him. He always felt uncomfortable because Dr Mengele treated him like a son. Roneel found that amusing and joked about it.

Wolf
thought that
singularity humans
would be wise and have long term vision but that was not the case. They seemed obsessed with getting rid of old designed clones and replacing them with singularity humans. They were also preoccupied with producing as many clones as possible.

Wolf had once seen Fing’s
singularity clones
in the park. They fought all the time like wild cats despite being calmed down with smart pills. One had even wrenched the tube from the base of the neck of one of them. There was no emotion in his eyes as he jiggled the metallic tube to deaden the neurons. He found out later that he was not Fing’s son and he acted as a guardian for him. He was called Lazer. Even after his minder had zapped Lazer’s hand with an energy prod, he wouldn’t yield until the minder gave him a double zap. There were even some rumors that he was the son of Dr Mengele. That probably explained Fing’s deference to him.

Wol
f shuddered when he thought about him. He had once posted his fantasy on the Genetica-
fantasia
page where he said he’d like to kidnap a teenage girl from the Fringes as a playmate. He had gone into lurid details. Lazer who was about 16 was always pestering Wolf, 18, for double dates. He felt that Wolf was too passive and laid back and wanted to take him out on adventures. With their superbly designed cloned bodies, Lazer felt they should flaunt it. To him, Wolf was like an older brother who had disappointed everyone with his quiet humility.

Fing said that they wanted to reward him for his excellent work by sending him on a mountain skiing holiday to Aspen
where a glass domed center was recently constructed. “Take a break. You’ll return refreshed to work on the follow-up.” He made a grimace that looked like a smile.

Fing knew that he loved skiing. GI had got a good deal for the 5 day lift plus discounted meals and lodging
, he said.

He mentioned in passing that Chloe in ‘Bioinformatics’ was also going.
He sensed immediately that this was not a match making ploy. She was going to tease out information. They had not dated for a while and he was not sure if they could ever be intimate again. Chloe’s section was notorious for producing a number of strange creations, for example, rats with snakes bodies or horses with wings. Wolf assumed drily that he would be regaled with more outrageous creations when they ran out of things to say but kept his sarcasm to himself.

He
knew that she was a late bloomer and had developed artistic talents; some of her works hung in the GI foyer. He still remembered Roneel’s comments on first seeing and then examining them. “These are definitely the works of a highly intelligent robot, a machine.” Wolf had cackled at this outrageous suggestion. “My take is that she distilled our human narratives and then spat out this spattering of paint with machine like efficiency,” Roneel continued. “She calculated that her droppings would be treated as the equivalent of honey by chemically fazed citizens. It’s just glorified shit. But I won’t spoil the effect for them. They obviously are infatuated with her,” he laughed.

They should have been cautious to realize that the paintings had listening devices and
hidden cameras. In Genetica, anything that hung carefully or casually anywhere had a purpose; they monitored citizens.

Wolf
watched Fing closely.

“I envy you. I’ve so much work and can’t take a break,” Fing said very quickly hoping that he had not suspected anything. “We’ll definitely have to go together on your next trip. I’ve always been thrilled with the experience of zipping down mountains. We can go with
Lazer.”

Fing knew that
Lazer would do anything to go with him and get involved in risky escapades.

Wolf relaxed. He convinced himself that his overworked brain was just imagining things.

But just to be sure, he had not mentioned that he had talked to Roneel who had suggested a model simulation he had followed. Roneel had also pointed him to the sensitive data that he had used.

As he walked out he saw
Lazer swaggering as he was led in looking supremely confident. The term ‘survival of the fittest’ aptly applied to him. He was not remorseful that he had already caused the death of one of the teen clones.

He was programmed to succeed
and at his tender age, he was very sexually active.

“Hi,
brother heard that you’re going skiing.”

Wolf thought that the “brother” greeting was probably one of those fads that would soon wear off and be replaced by other terms.

“Fing arranged it.”

“
Lucky you.”

Lazer
admired Wolf’s body because he was one of the few ‘top of the line’ clones. He suspected that Wolf resented his near perfect features. This irritated him because he felt Wolf was ungrateful.

“Heard the latest gossip in the twilight web?” he whispered.

Wolf pretended to be ignorant even though he had heard it too.

“They’re sending someone here! From the Fringes! Can you believe that?”

“It’s probably just rumors spread from here. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.”

“You seem so sure,”
Lazer probed and searched his face.

Wolf shrugged resolving to be careful.

“I hear the girls are very pretty there and can you believe this? They are organic! I’d give anything for an organic girl my age.” He laughed.