‘It’s knittin’ ‘em, Sal. Knittin’ these people together into new things. New kinds of people. It’s reorganizin’ the infrastructure inside o’ ‘em. Jimmy said he had intel from inside the hospital last time he came to visit me. Once they’s stuck the AI inside the bodies, it changed everything. Took lipids, aminos, even some eggs o’ the gals on the 5th floor - started buildin’ little organoids inside their bodies and brains. They act different now, the patients in here.’ Johnny breathed a sigh, of relief, ‘I’m happy I’ll be comin’ home soon, Sal. Should be another three weeks or so and I’m good enough for a chair instead o’ this bed.’
Gardenin' /
‘Controllin’ the food supply controls the biome - not only external, but internal, behaviorally.’ Johnny glanced at Sally breastfeeding his baby. ‘Ya see that, Jimmy? Long term immunity, free of cost. Ensurance, not insurance, of our continued American gene pool.’
Jimmy and Johnny looked at Sally and Suzie sitting in the living room together, going over the Mars for Mommies pages on the wall. ‘It’s for them, too, Jim. Ain’t just for us boys and our rockets and spacetoys. They need hope for a better future, too.'
Jimmy turned over the soil in the garden outside with the shovel. Jimmy saw his friend’s hand beginning to shake. ‘Sit down, Jimmy. Take a load off. The plants got the rest. Let nature do its thing.’
Mouse Trap /
It's a mouse trap, Sal, Johnny scribbled to his wife in their notebook. She was sleeping with the baby, and he needed this transaction of information to be nonverbal. Putting his pen to paper, he continued, They's got tons of US, on file. Hundreds per citizen. It's a game to them. They replicate US, and run US through these mazes, generationally. The same family, same genes, different careers, different bunkers. They're neural mapping US, Sally. Not even sure what generation of US we are, you and me. I think we're still close to the first ones, the originals, but God knows how long this has been going on for. I didn't tell Jimmy or the guys back on base yet. He looked at his wife, sleeping soundly next to the baby. Can you imagine, doing this before? What if we already had him before, too? What if we're living with or talking to our own descendants from these other generations? He put the pen down and rubbed his face with his hands, more exhausted than he'd been in long time.
Like Fertilizer /
‘Nah, Sal, ya can’t touch the invaders. They’ll call it their monarch or caste system, but the guys’s been researchin’ back on the base. They’s loaded, with biological weapons, mold, fungi. Everywhere they go they plant death and disease, it spills off o’ ‘em. Ya just gotta let nature do it’s thing with these people. If you can call ‘em people anymore. They’s like fertilizer, walkin’ around. Every where you turn.’
Bingo /
Johnny and Sally sat across from Jimmy and Suzie. The Church Rec Room Basement had been turned into a makeshift Bingo night.
‘For the kids,’ Johnny said, winking an eye at Jimmy.
‘For the kids,’ Jimmy said, winking back at Johnny.
Sally moved her bingo chip across the number that had just been called. A small holograph shimmered, and the number changed into a letter. She looked at Johnny, surprised.
‘I made a few modifications, so we can talk while we play.’
Biome of Bull /
‘Nah, no way, Sal. I ain't gonna place my kid, our kid in no kinda school program, not now. You should see the idiocy Jimmy found out hackin’ the school server systems. Any kid a little too smart? Crap in the school food to downgrade their intelligence. Any kid still thinking for themselves by the time college is on the line? Suicided. They engineered the pot, the weed, the hash, the vapes, the pen - the whatever the hell kinda pacifier they can stick in your kids’ mouths, and they use that to reduce the deductive reasoning skills of these kids. Any thinkers left not swallowin’ the professors’ bulls-hit hook, line, and sinker by the end of first tri-? Gone.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’
Planets with a Purpose /
‘What’s this, Johnny?’ Sally asked, taking the shiny pamphlet from Johnny’s hands.
‘Planets with a Purpose, Sal,’ he answered his wife, taking their newborn son in his hands as she took the pamphlet from his. ‘I got together with some of the guys while you and Suzie was doing the dishes, and we wanted you to read what we’d been workin’ on.’
Sally smiled, opening the pamphlet.
The Way /
‘The space race?’ Johnny huffed at Sal. ‘Ain't been no race for space since the 1950s. You know, Sal, our tech is always ahead of what we tell the dames at the news station. Space? Been populated for years. Ain't no race for space. Don't make sense sendin’ all those rockets up - bad for the Earth, ya know what I mean?’ he said sitting back in his chair on the porch, winking at Jimmy. ‘When you're picked for space programs, you're shown the way.’
Walking /
‘Walking through Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, Sal. I know I'm choosing you every life, we'll just switch up the scenery once in a while.’
She turned her gaze in the HoloSphere from him to everything around him. Stacks of books already written.
‘For when I get out, Sal. Just some ideas about Our Future with the little guy.’
We ain't goin' /
‘Nah, Sally, we ain’t goin’ to that stupid concert with Timmy and Tina. They don’ know what they’re in for. I heard the guys by the docks talkin’ about the mosquitoes again. So’s I pulled it up on my HoloSphere chart, the biome, goin’ back about fifty years. The kinda grass in that area - back then that grass kept the bad bugs away, the one’s with the dengue. Now’s they plantin’ new grass, that looks like the old, but it’s got this sheen to it, this, this lil’ irridescent shimmer. It attracts the diseased bugs. Let Timmy and Tina have their fun, but ain’t no beach for US, not this winter.’
The Sector /
‘No worries, here, Sal, I got US covered.’ Johnny looked at Sally as she unpacked the last of their bags from the SUV into the cabin doorway. ‘Sorry I couldn’t-’
Sally glared at him, sharply, knowing he was about to apologize again for being in his wheelchair. He turned red, for a moment, blushing the way he did when they first met. She smiled in return.
‘Anyways, Sal, I got the place covered. The inserts Jimmy gave you guys, instead of the vacc- it’s part of the Home Security System in this Sector.’
The new cabin looked like any other cabin in the middle of the woods, but it had a few updates, including the goo swimming around in their blood.
‘The Vector,’ she said.
‘Yea,’ Johnny smiled. ‘I thought you’d like that term for it. The Vector for The Sector. Anyone gets too close to you or the little guy, or anyone enters without the proper modifications, they get escorted right out.’
Sally knew by ‘escorted’ Johnny meant blown to bits outside of the perimeter. And with the war going the way it was, she was okay with that.
Perfect Person /
‘Ain't no thing as the perfect person, Sal, until there is,’ he said, sitting down in his chair across the room, looking at His Wife and Child. ‘How'd you figure out we're perfect for each other? I had a feeling…but you - you seemed more rigorous.’
She smiled, looking up from her embroidery and into his eyes. ‘You know me and science, Johnny. I figured everyone has a Soul Mate - a person designed by God for them, sewn from the same cloth, like Adam and Eve. I designed a coordinate mapping program, based on DNA. Where I'd go, what I'd buy and eat, to sustain myself, and based on the environments I was grown from, and what I wanted to do as a kid…I figured our DNA was maybe a stepping stone to each other.’
‘So when you first met me, did you know I was your Perfect Person?’
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I knew when I saw you smile.’
Spoofs /
‘We’re already on LockDown, Sal. Jimmy and me, and all the guys - we couldn’t wait to get back and tell you. Everything’s shut down overseas. Too chaotic, too-dirty dirty bombs - nothing was gonna survive. We got everyone out we could from their bunkers after their leaders - after their leaders…’ His voice trailed off, and she knew to let him have a moment - to collect his thoughts. ‘Anyways, we saved who we could. Even our top dogs, our leaders - gone. Everybody’s gone. Everything was rigged. We’re lucky we even got out.’ He looked at his wife, looked at how she was taking it all in. Stoic as usual.
He continued, ‘We got AI configured. It’s gonna drop all the data to Americans, piece by piece, plan by plan. Slowly. Until they adjust to the new way things are running. Spoofs, for now. Everything is spoofs. Don’t trust what you read, and don’t get into fights with Suzy, Sarah, Siobhan - all them housewives down at the market provocatin’ an’ like - let them figure it out their own way.’
Post War /
‘Post war kits is what we need, Sally. Can't trust anyone to do what we need for ourselves. If you can, get the word out quietly, to some women on base - don't want China or the powers that be catchin’ on. They'll half supply chain and sabotage what does go through.’
Sally listened, uninterrupting. She knew when Johnny meant business.
‘Make excuses, use the kids to gather supplies. Field trip to a clean area, get sand. Geology project, charcoal, quartz, copper, a few other conductors. Glass blowing factory, some good steel bottles. Microscopes and slides for biology lessons.’
‘Water filtration?’
‘Every kid needs to know how to survive, in case we don't.’
Pin Point /
‘I love it, Sal,’ he said, staring at the globe. ‘You know what it needs? Coordinates. Haven’t you been sewing again lately? Make a path, across the sphere, from you to me. Pin point every moment we meet, every special event, when the little guy was born - ’ Johnny paused, his eyes flashing in the HoloSphere. The image rezzed out completely. He was gone.
Vines /
She sat with the vines at her feet, coiling them in to a globe. The sphere slowly began to take shape, and the pile of vines at her feet lessened. She flicked on the HoloSphere and Johnny rezzed in to place. Something was off tonight. The holograph flickered, as if in acknowledgement of the feeling of foreboding coming over Sally.
Back in the Day /
‘We had back up, ya know, Sal? As kids. We had TV and shows and music that taught US, where our schools, pastors, community leaders failed. We had this back up fail safe. You could still look on your TV, and find a friend, or a father figure, when yer own let you down. Today's kids - they don't get this no more. They get corporations and tablets and streaming - and it's all jacked, tilted, upside down - teachin’ em the wrong things. The bad things.’ Johnny paused a moment, sighing, trying to turn over. ‘You got the list I sent you?’
Sally looked down at her hand in the HoloSphere. His note was even in his hand writing. ‘I got it.’
‘Pick them up for him, okay? It's the books I liked when I was little.’
A Message /
'There - you see there, Johnny? The women in the television show - the clothes change, based on who's watchin' the program. It tilts, from my angle, to yours. An overlay, so they get the most bang for their buck - direct advertising to each individual, the same show, shown from different angles.'
'Well, yea, Sal, they gotta increase their profits somehow and this allows more buyers, more advertisers investin.''
'But not the doormats. The doormats never change, not even seasonally. Zoom in.'
He narrowed his gaze and the television zoomed in to the mat on the foyer entryway. 'What's them patterns, Sal?'
'A message. A very specific message.'
Uncanny /
‘Johnny, are you seeing this?’ she whispered to her husband through the HoloSphere. ‘It’s crazy, everyone’s attacking each other an-’
‘Yea, I see it, Sal. What does it look like on your end?’
‘I dunno, just everyone flipped out on each other all of a sudden.’
‘I heard some guys screaming from the rooms down the hall - they’re hallucinating that each other are Uncanny - they’re not seeing reality. The AI we’s got built a bridge of trust, so it’s alright, Sal. Whatever they’re seeing ain’t real. I think they got uploaded with a virus. Just sit tight, we’ll see how long we have to wait this one out.’
Dolts /
‘They still think we’re stupid, Johnny,’ Sal spat, chewing on her hamburger. ‘These dolts from overseas come here, steal our academia, pretend to be US and our ancestors, and then rewrite our papers, our history, our science - it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘I know, Sal, I’ve seen it, they did it on the military bases, too. Come over, enlist, raised with a false sense of confidence - they think they already won US, Sal, that we’re already their captives. They’s just usin’ the data they collect, and rewritin’ it as they own.’