Stand Against Infinity (3 page)

G1193 did not move. He did not defend
himself. He just sat there with his eyes glazed over, as if nothing
on earth could touch him. H662 felt bad for his fellow worker after
hearing his story, but he also knew the way society worked and
there was no way around it. Stay detached from everything else so
you could do the work. That was your first priority.

“There are only two ways it works,” said the
foreman again, as he pressed something just under the lip of his
desk. “Either you are part of the problem or part of the solution.
You are part of the problem, and so you must go.” The door
immediately opened and two guards stepped in, took the sitting man
by the arms, and escorted him from the room. G1193 never said a
word, not even a sound. His head drooped downward and he half
walked, and was half carried out.

“Thank you for your help,” said the foreman
to H662. “You may return to your work. At least someone knows his
priorities around here.”

As U1472 rode in her pod to work, she thought
about her marriage. Her husband was a good man, a hard worker, who
treated her well. He was also a good father to T-5529. How could
she ask for more? She ran through this logic every morning before
arriving at work, and she did not know why, but she felt it was
important.

Upon arriving, she rode the elevator to the
twelfth floor where she immediately began receiving calls and
console messages. She worked for a technical support company for a
range of products. She had worked past having to deal with the
first tier issues and was glad she was done with those. Now she was
on to bigger and better things. By the time a message came her way,
they had already been by the first tier. Mostly these were product
failures or replacement issues, but from time to time she would
have a chance to begin the troubleshooting process before giving it
over to the engineering department. From time to time she solved
the problem herself and that was when she really felt useful.

D1298, her supervisor approached her desk.
“How are you today?” he asked. “Have you had any interesting
cases?” She always felt nervous around him. She did not know
why.

“Just the same old cases,” she said. “Not
much to talk about.”

“I’ll just have to make sure you get some of
the harder ones then,” he said with a wink. Why did he do that?

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I’m sure you will. Hey, are you going to
make it to that meeting after work? We are getting a new product
and it is important that you be there. Just have childcare watch
your girl for a couple extra hours and you can stay for the
meeting.”

“Sure, I’ll be there.” She had put in a lot
of hours lately, but she knew it was important. She knew her
priorities. She would be there.

D1298 winked again and left her to her
work.

Y8725 was on the line. She picked up the
transmission. “Y, hey. Are you going to be at the meeting after
work today?”

“My manager just asked about it,” said U1472.
“I’ll be there. I know these things aren’t required, but they sure
feel like it.”

Y8725 said, “Tell me about it. Anyway, I’ve
been watching the way your supervisor talks with you. Did you know
he goes out of his way every day to see you?”

“Okay,” said U1472. “So?”

“Geez, how dense can you be?”

“Pretty dense, I guess,” said U1472. “Are you
saying what I think you’re saying?”

“You may be married, but you’re not dead,”
said Y8725.

“But I am married. You’re supposed to stay
with the one the government assigned to you.”

“Stay with, yes. But stay exclusively?”

“I can’t do that,” said U1472. “I won’t do
that.”

“Okay, okay,” said her friend. “I get it. I
just thought you ought to know he seems to have a thing for
you.”

“Then I’ll be careful,” she said.

“Okay, whatever.” Y8725 hung up.

U1472 put down the receiver and shook her
head. She was sometimes surprised at how little others thought of
their duties.

“I’m going to be gone for the rest of the
day, and all of tomorrow” said H662’s foreman. “And I’m going to
have you in charge. I know you are good with the workers and I know
I can trust you.”

“Why will you be gone?”

“I have to run some errands for the
company.”

“Okay, sir. Is there anything I should
know?”

“Nothing special. Just check the messages at
the end of the day. Anything you can handle, do it. If anything is
too much of a problem for you, just leave it until I return.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and when the quota report comes in, send
a copy to everyone. I’ve heard we are a little behind lately, so
it’s not good news. But now that I’ve fired our late guy, things
should pick up. I’ll look to hire someone when I get back.”

“Yes, sir,” said H662 and he returned to
work.

Later that day, A1103, tired from all the
late nights and early mornings, fell asleep in front of his robotic
welding station and he fell inside the unit. People heard the
yells, and even before H662 got to him, he could smell the burning
flesh. The man had already had both arms severely burned and one
leg was severed, hanging on by a little skin, and was laying up by
his head.

“Save me,” the man screamed from down below
on the assembly platform, his face twisted in pain.

“But you’re already caught in the robotic
assembly,” yelled back H662. “We’d have to shut down the
system.”

“Do it,” he yelled.

“No,” came an authoritarian voice just behind
him. It was the chief supervisor. “We do not stop the assembly
system for any reason.”

“But this man will die!” yelled H662.

“Then he will die. How useful would he be if
we saved him anyway? Part of the problem or part of the
solution?”

“Part of the problem,” said a co-worker.

“Exactly.” The chief supervisor pressed a
button at the terminal and the man screamed as the machine ripped
him apart. H662 jerked his head aside to turn away. He couldn't
help it. There were popping and grinding noises and then it was
over. It only lasted seconds, but it seemed like forever before the
man had died. And then everyone went back to work, walking their
separate ways, unwilling to comment on it further. It was as if it
had never happened.

All day long, H662 could not get the man’s
screams out of his head or the smell of burning flesh. He tried to
ignore his feelings of horror, but they crept up upon him and he
could not stop it. It was not until later in the day that he
realized a new feeling had replaced it. Anger.

That afternoon he heard a different scream
from the foreman’s office. He was alarmed, imagining that some
violent person must have broken in to the office and was ransacking
it. Promptly he left his station and ran quickly to the office.

When he opened the door, he was horrified by
the destruction in the room. A man was tearing pictures from the
wall. He prepared to call security, but before he turned to the
door the man turned around and it was his foreman! His shirt was
soiled and his hair disheveled. He squatted and lifted the front of
his desk to tip it over. As he did so, two large security men
deftly stepped around H662 and approached the foreman from both
sides. They each grabbed an arm and the desk fell back into
place.

Just behind security, the chief supervisor
stepped into view. “What are you doing, sir?”

“Dead! He’s dead!” H662 had never heard such
despair in his voice.

“I realize that, sir,” said the chief
supervisor. And then with a flat passionless voice he said, “I am
sorry for your loss.”

“Are you! Are you really?” The foreman tried
to shake free, but security had too firm a hold of him.

“Sir, might I remind you that you are either
part of the solution or part of the problem. Right now when I look
at you I do not see solutions.”

The foreman screamed, dropped to the floor,
momentarily freeing himself of security. Then he lunged over the
desk at the chief supervisor. He almost got both hands around the
man’s neck when the two men from security grabbed his legs and
pulled back. Once back from the desk, both of them fell on him,
holding him to the ground.

“There can be no doubt about it now,” said
the chief supervisor. “You are part of the problem.”

“Me?” yelled the foreman. “Part of the
problem? Am I? Am I really? Who is the problem around here?”

The chief supervisor signaled to the guards
and they roughly took him away. As the chief supervisor returned to
his duties, H662 stood numb at what he had just witnessed.

That night, H662 arrived at home late, as he
usually did. It was a sign that he was a productive citizen and he
generally felt good about it. However, tonight he had mixed
feelings. He thought about his foreman as he took the elevator to
the floor of his apartment. As he entered his place, he had to
squint to see since the lights were off. He expected his daughter
to be asleep, but not his wife. She must have turned in early.

He walked toward the bedroom and opened the
door. His wife lay on her side in the dimness of the room. “Welcome
home,” she said.

“Thanks.” H662 took a deep breath and
exhaled. He felt tired, so he dressed down for bed. He looked up at
his wife. “I was wondering.”

“Yes?” she asked

“Are we close?”

“Close? We’re married. We’ve had a child
together. Can you get any closer than that?”

“I mean, like if something were to happen to
me, would it matter to you?” asked H662.

“Like if you died?”

“Yes. Like that.”

“Well, I’d have to find a way to afford the
apartment, and I’d have to raise our daughter on my own.”

“Sure,” he said. “That would be hard.” Then a
thought jumped out at him and before he considered it, he had said
it, “Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we left
the city?”

“You mean move to another city?”

“No, I mean if we lived outside of the city.”
H662 knew he was walking on thin ice just mentioning the idea.

“How could you even think such things?” she
said, suddenly awake now. She sat up. “How would we live? Where
would we go? We’d be like one of the Outcasts.” There was a wild
look in her eyes. A terror he had never seen before.

“Would that be so bad? They are people too,
after all. Maybe not that much different than us.”

“But they don’t have technology. They have no
chips. They cannot work in a city. They’re just a bunch of
barbarians, living in mud huts!” The wild look had flamed to more
of a panic.

He hated to see her this way. He put up his
hands, “Okay, okay, I was just wondering. I’m sorry I brought it
up. There was silence for a couple of minutes while his wife calmed
down. “Hey, I think I’ll get something to eat before I come to bed,
okay?”

“Okay. But...don’t bring up anything about
this again. If you’re going to joke, do it at your own expense, not
mine.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Night,” she said. Before H662 had even
closed the door, her head was back on the pillow but her eyes
remained open. He could tell the talk had really disturbed her and
it might be a while before she slept.

Later, as H662 sat in the living room with
his evening carbpack he tried to imagine what it would be like to
live with the Outcasts. Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad.

The sun had been down for a few hours and the
moon put a silver-blue hue on everything, and Chavez walked alone
and cold. Finally, he saw what seemed to be dwellings ahead. They
were nothing like where he had come from. Primitive housing made
for barbarians and outcasts. But then again, he had to reconcile
himself to the fact that he was now an outcast himself. What else
could he be?

A middle aged woman sat by a fire and she was
weaving something by hand. As he drew near, she looked up. “I was
wondering if you were going to make your way here,” she said. “I
said to myself, here comes another one of those defectors from the
city, come to make a new start of it.”

Chavez felt off his guard. “Do you get many
of those? I mean, is it common?”

“All the time. And yes.” She smiled and the
fire showed her age more in the lines from her eyes and around her
mouth.

“I am Chavez.”

“A respectable name. Not many come with names
these days. How thoughtful of you.”

“I didn’t want to live with an ID
anymore.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She sat cross legged
next to the fire and kept weaving. Come, have a seat. I won’t
bite.” She motioned to a stump beside her. “So what is your story,
dear?”

Again, the shock of someone outright asking
for him to talk about experiences almost overwhelmed him. A tear
began to trickle down his cheek, and he was glad it was dark. “I-I
didn’t like it there.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said calmly.

“I tried, but I just couldn’t stay.” He fell
silent, trying to hold the tears inside.

“When did you decide to leave?”

“Two days ago,” he said. “I left my family
and everything.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She rubbed some of the
dirt from her hands. “But why? Why did you leave them? Didn’t you
have everything you ever wanted? Wasn’t it the golden age of
humanity? Wasn’t everything at your fingertips?”

She was goading him on, he thought to
himself. “No, it was horrible. This talk we’re having now could
never have happened there. Never!” He felt himself getting
upset.

“No, it wouldn’t,” she said. “Not when I was
there either.”

“You grew up in the city?” asked Chavez.

“Let’s not make this about me. You tell your
story, and then I’ll tell you mine. That’s the way it works for
newcomers. Telling your story is important, that’s the wisdom of
the people. Is your story painful? Sad? Heartbreaking?”