Children of the New World: Stories (15 page)

THE PYRAMID AND THE ASS

ON THE EVENING
when most of the civilized world was watching the Oscars on Innervision, Douglas Duncage, Ninth Incarnation, was having trouble enjoying the glamour. He sat on a leather couch in his Manhattan penthouse, sucking a Keebler Frozie Mocha, watching Natasha Smoker, Sixth Incarnation, receive her award. Her kimono fluttered in his vision, soothing his retinal sensors with silk. Innereye’s color loss was mitigated by its sensitivity to texture, a small trade-off. Douglas felt the jolt of weight as Natasha Smoker’s fingers wrapped around the award. Satellite impulses triggered the release of serotonin, and his eyes welled with tears. Her performance in
Noah’s Ark
had been phenomenal; everyone had cried when she rescued the baby gorilla from the rain.

When the commercials appeared, Douglas focused his internal mouse, blinked his right eye to click the mute button, and activated his parietal lobe to open his eyemail. Superimposed over the commercials came the bright white of his inbox folder. He’d received seventeen new eyemails since the last commercial break. Over half were work related; three were in response to his EyeDate profile; and four were from Americannewswatch.com. The news was grim. A group of radical Buddhist terrorists, known as the Sword of Transcendental Wisdom, had kidnapped an ecotour of Americans in Tibet. On a televised broadcast, the Dalai Lama denied responsibility for the kidnappings, once again condemning Soul Co. “The use of laser technology has corrupted reincarnation for profit and disrupted the natural balance of life and death,” he declared.

Fucking Buddhists, Douglas thought as he mentally scrolled down the page. It was the fifth kidnapping this month and Douglas knew enough about Buddhist terrorists to predict the outcome. Chips would be pulled from spinal cords, eyescreens would be sliced open, and the tourists would never be seen again.

Being kidnapped by Buddhist terrorists was Douglas’s worst fear, and he full-heartedly approved of George W. Bush, Tenth Incarnation’s, declaration of war on Tibet. Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama had escaped into the Himalayas and was now holed up in some cave, from where he sporadically broadcast televised screeds against America. If only they’d nuke the Dalai Lama; nuke Bush’s critics with him. He knew their liberal discourse all too well: Bush shouldn’t be permitted to be reelected for the nineteenth time just because he was in a new body; America was only in Tibet for the Himalayan quartz crystals; the U.S. government had helped fund the Sword of Transcendental Wisdom in exchange for reincarnation info; yadda, yadda. The sooner Tibet became a U.S. protectorate like Syria and Iceland, the sooner there’d be peace.

Douglas blinked off the news report and checked the response to his EyeDate profile.
Hi there, sexy. You sound high-tech. You want to meet later tonight? I get off work at ten. Blink me. K-5478.
It sounded promising. Douglas checked the clock at the bottom of his vision. There was still time to ogle some Innernet ass before getting in contact with K-5478.

Since the Personal Privacy Act had been passed, the number of online ass sites had greatly diminished. There were, however, still a couple of ass links available. Among these were Asian-male/female-ass.com, African-male/female-ass.com, and the somewhat troubling Buddhist-male/female-ass.com. This last one was certainly tempting. Douglas longed to see what terrorist asses looked like. He imagined them puckered and wrinkled from meditating all day.

Whether Buddhist asses were puckered or wrinkled would remain a mystery for, as far as Douglas was concerned, that site was off-limits. There were rumors that Buddhist-asshad been set up by the U.S. government to monitor national security threats. To log on would be to mark every file of his soul as a terrorist. No thank you. He had no interest in joining the detainees in the Virgin Islands. Douglas mentally typed in Whitefemaleass.com instead. Within seconds a mountain of pure ass filled his eyes: two round mounds, not a hair on them, with a glorious crack running between the buttocks.

As Douglas admired the perfection of the ass, the awful feeling reemerged. It was a pain he’d been suffering over the past year, and one that came with a very specific thought.
I don’t feel like myself
. The thought was particularly disturbing because there was, technically, nothing wrong with him. He was thirty-five, had accumulated enough credits over his incarnations to live luxuriously, had recently upgraded his eyedrive, and just last week had downloaded the latest version of Innercourse 4.0. What then could possibly make him feel
not
like himself? All the same, the feeling was there. And this feeling was sparked by the fact that the white ass in his vision evoked a tingling sensation in his groin, not altogether unpleasant but foreign. Back in his second incarnation he might’ve worried about his appendix, but they’d removed that organ from his cloned body incarnations ago. In addition, ever since procreation had become obsolete, erogenous nerve impulses had been scrambled. Douglas’s fear was, for this reason, unfounded.

Yet there was the sensation again. A warm, maddening heat that made Douglas want to rub his belly against the carpeting, pull his pants up and down, and grind his ass against a wall. He squirmed on the couch uncomfortably, sweating as though he’d been having Innercourse. Douglas decided to schedule a lab technician checkup when he got back from his business trip. Perhaps there was something wrong with his microchip, some misfiring of synapses. Worse yet—and he really didn’t want to consider this—perhaps he’d contracted a virus.

Douglas checked the clock: 10:14. K-5478 would be off work by now. He blinked off Whitefemaleass.com, activated VirusRub28, logged on to EyeDate, and sent K-5478 an instant blink. Within seconds she blinked Douglas back. “Hi there, D-6701, was wondering when you’d blink me.”

“Wanted to blink you sooner, but you were working.”

“If we get to know each other, I might be up for you blinking me at work.”

“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself.”

“I’m tall, skinny, have nice hair, and a really great ass.” The last four words scrolled across Douglas’s vision seductively.

“Oh yeah? I like asses.”

“Me, too. What about you? What system do you run?”

“Only the best: Eyedoc78, full brain-cell drive.”

“Hmm … you must make a lot of money.”

“I don’t do bad,” Douglas blinked, pausing for a moment before making his move. “Are we compatible?”

“Mmm-hmm. Why? Can’t you feel this?”

Douglas’s synapses fired as K-5478 tested his system with a packet. There was an immediate release of dopamine as Douglas’s chip warmed up. “Oooh, I can feel that. Go ahead and do that again.”

“You like that? How about this?”

“Oh yeah,” Douglas blinked. He used his occipital lobe to send off a long download from his hard drive.

“Mmm, I love it when you send me slow downloads. Oooh, God, it’s taking so fucking long to download!” As the words scrolled across Douglas’s vision, a large file imported into his brain. He leaned back into the couch, head sinking into the leather, as he transferred another large file to her.

“Oh, God, give me another. Go ahead, my system can take it.”

He gave her a couple terabytes.

“Mmm … fuck yes. Keep going. Don’t stop.”

Douglas hadn’t meant to stop, but he’d mis-blinked and turned Innervision back on. On the screen Brad Pitt, Tenth Incarnation, was pitching Soul Co.
Suspend your soul in your own personal quartz crystal till your NewSelf is ready for reincarnation! Heaven can wait, till then there’s Soul Co.—
Douglas blinked off the commercial. “Can you take a torrent file?”

“Ohhhh, baby, I’m a torrent player,” the words moaned. Douglas sent off the file.

“Mmmm, two can play at that game.”

Douglas felt his brain struggling to download the full capacity of the torrent file K-5478 sent him. “You’re getting my system so hot!” he blinked, trying hard not to overheat. His hands clawed into the couch as he struggled to type “Yeslh!” And now she was sending him file after file. As one file disappeared, another rode in behind with rhythmic succession. Downloads tumbled atop one another, opening and downloading, and he kept his internal eye on the mouse, scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking.

“Oh m;y Goddd, these files just keep opening and opekning. You’re ducking beutful,” she mistyped.

“You’re so fixking hort!” he trembled to think, and then his chip was buzzing with the electronic hum that comes in those magnificent seconds before all Innernet vision goes blank. “Gjdk! Gpd! GFOD!” he chanted, and she joined him, “Gjdi, Gid, GODu!” He hung on, sending off another file, and another, his screen vibrating, the hourglass turning back and forth, and as he received one last file, he sent off a final download with numerous attachments.

“Godalkdjj;lD;oiuaelmmm…” came the response.

“ASOLAKERJL;ENDL.CHKLE;N!!!” Douglas managed, his eyescreens flickering as he slid back against the couch. Slowly, his system rebooted itself, whirring beneath his skin. A few words landed on his eyescreens.

“Thanks, D-6701. Blink me again sometime.”

“Sure will, K-5478,” he blinked and logged off.

*   *   *

INNERCOURSE HAD BEEN
good that evening, and that, along with the emotional effects of the Oscars, left Douglas feeling altogether exhausted as he curled into bed and pulled the comforters around him. Douglas felt so tired that he decided not to download his dose of Seconal, and it was due to this that he had another of the unusual dreams, which had been plaguing him for the past year.

He dreamt of the woman again. They were standing on top of a large temple. He was placing the last stone into the top of the monument when he saw her. The stone slipped and fell by his feet. “They’re coming,” she said. Far below, the city blinked neon into the night. Large signs extended from the jungle of streets and houses, the glowing arches of an
M
lighting the urban landscape. Then he saw the dark bodies of tanks, and choppers cut the air. “We didn’t make it!” the woman said. From below a voice yelled,
“Fire!”
A mortar shell exploded, bricks shattered, and white rubble rained down around them. The woman took his palms and folded them over his abdomen. “This is how you remember your memories. You’ve got to remember who you are. Remember why you left and find us. We’re going to build the temple again.”

One of the helicopters dropped explosives. The walls split open, and the temple crumbled beneath him. As Douglas fell, the outline of the woman, standing far above him, receded into darkness.

*   *   *

DOUGLAS AWOKE, DEEPLY
shaken, to a lovely May morning. This would be the last time he went to bed without Seconal, he promised himself. He took a shower, got dressed, and fixed himself a bowl of Keebler Puffy Treats. He sat at his kitchen table, eating the cereal, and scrolled through his eyemails. There was an eyemail from Phillip Monto, Ninth Incarnation, the meet-and-greet courier that Douglas was flying in to connect with. The eyemail invited him out for dinner and drinks that evening, courtesy of Soul Co.’s Denver Division. There would be a Hummer waiting for him when he arrived. Douglas checked his personal eyemails. There were a couple responses to his EyeDate profile and then another series of upsetting messages from Americannewswatch.com. The Dalai Lama had issued a new speech.

“America tries to control life because they have no knowledge of their own souls. Not until America accepts the Bardo realms of reincarnation will they know peace. Soul Co.’s mission has disturbed the karmic laws of rebirth and—” Enough. Douglas blinked off the broadcast, put his bowl in the sink, and headed out of his apartment.

Outside there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the heavens were a magnificent white. Douglas felt happy. Of Innernet’s three color preferences, white, black, or gray, Douglas liked white best. Douglas had turned on his eyetunes early that morning, and as he walked toward his Hummer everything was in harmony with the music pulsing through his brain. The Hummers cued up mechanically at intersections, allowing other Hummers to motor past. Then those Hummers stopped and other Hummers rolled through in perfect playlist synchronicity. Across the street, a city worker scrubbed a wall, removing the graffiti outline of a pyramid, in time to the music. Even the pigeons that fussed about the concrete seemed tuned in.

Douglas got to his Hummer and passed his wrist over the handle. The door unlocked and Douglas climbed into the driver’s seat. He right-blinked the Hummer icon in the lower left of his vision, scrolled down his destination list, and left-blinked
OFFICE
. The Hummer started up and backed out of the spot, electronically signaling the other vehicles to allow his exit.

A number of other workers arrived at Soul Co.’s Upper Manhattan Office at the same time as Douglas. They piled into the elevator and stood listening to their eyetunes as the elevator rocketed toward the apex of the tower. Douglas’s ears began ringing. He turned down his music. “Hello?” he said aloud.

“Hey there, Doug, just making sure you’re on your way in.”

“In the elevator right now. The crystals set to go?”

“On my desk and waiting.”

“Great. See you in less than a minute.”

“Righto,” the boss said, and the connection went dead.

*   *   *

THE BRIEFCASE WAS
made of white titanium and was filled with the crystals of fifty-seven souls. It felt heavy in Douglas’s hand. His boss, a stout man in a white suit, sat behind a white desk. Behind him, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the towers of Manhattan rose in white peaks.

“You all right today?” the boss asked. “You look like shit.”

“Skipped my Seconal dose and slept awful.”

The boss grunted. “Look, you’ve got fifty-seven souls there. I recommended you for this transport because you’re the best courier we’ve got for a job this size. In other words, I can’t have you falling asleep on the plane.”

“Don’t worry, I’m awake.”

“You don’t look very awake to me. You got any Alertin?”