Author bio: (included in published version)

 “Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”

These are the first lines of dialogue in Edward D. Wood JR’s classic B-movie Plan 9 From Outer Space. They are as insightful as they are banal and I think that this sums up the kind of futurism that I find most endearing. Many people find the special effects in Plan 9 to be so poor as to be entertaining. They have always struck me personally as very earnest in some way.

I’m over 30 now. I write a lot. I publish some of it at www.stevecake.com. I hope you enjoyed my story and I can only apologise if you didn’t really enjoy the special effects.

 

 

The New Black
S. Lewis Silverwood

I was there on that cold winter’s day when the whole world went to bed. I was the one who turned the lights out and tucked you all in. I was the only one left awake. And I’ve been keeping watch over you all ever since.

I suppose that this makes me a hero: the last and greatest hero of humanity. This is my burden and my honour. The amazing part of it is that I wasn’t always a hero. I wasn’t always even a very good person a lot of the time. My probation workers used to call me undisciplined and lazy. They said that I was bad company for myself. But I proved them all wrong when I enlisted.

I was a good soldier. Nobody can dispute that. I may never have won any medals or been promoted or seen active combat, but I was well disciplined. I was punished a few times but this was purely the work of sadistic officers who took a personal dislike to me. I never disgraced my uniform or dishonoured my regiment.

Life was never easy for me but this is always the case in the hero’s journey. Even though I loved the army and would have given it my life, they discharged me after only four years. They had to cutback personnel because my unit was too crowded. There was just no room for anybody anymore.

When I returned to civilian life, I discovered that the overpopulation problem was worse than ever. There were no jobs to be found anywhere, what with all the food shortages and economic problem and everything else. I was down on my luck but I couldn’t get any peace. The very gutters themselves were too crowded. There were just too many people out there, all competing for the same job, the same house, the same love-life, even the same litter. You couldn’t eat out of the bins without queuing up and fighting over the scraps. The cardboard super-cities and shantytowns were overrun with scum just like me, ready to slit your throat for nothing. You couldn’t even beg. Who had anything to spare? They were dark times.

I dossed down near the ruins of the old Jubilee Library in Eubankham, Sussexward. It was a nice enough place, or at least it used to be. It was called Brighthove when I was a kid. We went there once for our summer holidays back when you could still use the roads, back before the big gridlock. I can remember there was a rollercoaster on the pier. It went over a hundred miles an hour and took you right out over the water. Hard to imagine what it was like now, of course, since they reclaimed the land underneath the Channel, but, still… I remember. I keep it alive in my head.

The city was hollow and pointless without a seaside anymore. I expect that’s what finished the area off economically, but they needed the land to build new homes for all the people. By the time I arrived in the city, the only industry left was the quantum computer network, Deus Ex, and they weren’t hiring.

Yeah, the world was pretty congested. That is until the New Black Death came along. It started slow enough, I guess: a few isolated cases, then an epidemic, then a pandemic, then they just gave up and started calling it a plague. Something to do with reclaiming so much of the land from the seas, they said, but who really knew what caused it?

Millions of people were dying every week but there was no sign of a cure. Even the animals were dying: the cats, the dogs. I can remember one day I was walking along the city streets with my sleeping bag around my shoulders and a bird just dropped out of the sky like a stone. It thudded into the pavement next to my feet. A few inches closer and it would have hit me. I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening. I looked up at the sky and there they were: thousands of starlings, all of them plummeting out of the clouds towards the ground like a nightmare of rain. I ran for shelter in a doorway with ten other people and we just stood there in total silence, watching all of the birds die.

All over the world, scientists and politicians were trying their best to look like they could save us, like they could find the cure. They launched dazzling new initiatives in every region at immense cost. The city of Eubankham turned the whole of Deus Ex over to deal with the problem exclusively. All of our prayers were given over to their efforts.

They had every fancy nano-network and interocitor in the world but they said it still might take a hundred years or more for them to calculate the solution. By that time it would have been too late. By then we would all be dead.

So the Governmedia made a decision. They ordered the entire planet to go into cryogenic control: “suspended animation”, until such time as the computers had developed a cure. Of course, somebody would have to stay awake as a kind of caretaker to guard over the computers and make sure that nothing happened to them. Someone they could trust. Someone with military training and discipline, someone reliable and decent. Someone lucky enough to be naturally immune to the plague. It was a billion-to-one chance of finding somebody like that but, you know, there were a lot of people around back then.

*****
They called it the Malthus Project. There were all sorts of medical tests and scans and consultations. I had to live in this weird institute, like a big maze of laboratories and classrooms and corridors. At times I wondered if they were ever going to finish. The endless delays were excruciating. I could not wait to get started on my mission to save the planet and I was terrified that they would deselect me. What if I was sent off to cryo with the rest of the population? To be trapped for decades in a dreamless sleep would be worse than death. I had to succeed.

Some days the tests were straightforward. Some days the tests were more like twisted games. The measurements and objects were confusing. I felt like they were playing tricks on me, trying to catch me out or make me betray myself in some way. I became very conscious of my words and actions. Even a simple reflex exercise could secretly be a test for mental instability. I was tormented by a fear of failure.

The psychometric tests were horrible. They were trying to probe me for something but I could never be sure what they wanted to hear. The Rorschach holo-blots always just looked like butterflies to me (butterflies with burning nails driven into their faces screaming for mercy from their heartless mothers but still, you know, just butterflies). I had to play a word-association game with a doctor just before lunch and I kept coming back to violence and sex and he kept coming back to food and I thought this is it, they’re going to deselect me, they’ll discover something they don’t like about me, something wrong.

But then, all of a sudden, there I was, meeting the Director General himself. He looked very handsome in his glossy black suit. He shook my hand and told me that I was the guardian of all mankind. Then he stuck a huge hypodermic needle into my forehead and I passed out.

When I came to, the doctors told me that I had survived the process. I didn’t understand what they meant. They had to explain it to me twice. Apparently they had injected me with a longevity serum. “It’ll keep you alive for a thousand years or more!” they told me “We just pray God it’s enough.”

And then that was it. They went to sleep and they left me all on my own.

I’m the first to admit it: I did go off my head a little bit there for the first few decades but I levelled out after a while and that’s all such a long time ago now. Eventually I learned to love my life again.

*****

Eubankham is a wonderful town these days, so much nicer than it used to be. There’s no pollution, no crowds, no crime, no noise: just endless peace and tranquillity.

The local cryogenic storage towers stretch from Sussex Square to Palmeira. There are rows and rows of them, lined up like great stalks of corn, all of them humming gently with non-stop solar power. There are countless ones just like them in every town in every country all over the world. Some nights I like to ride my rotorbike around, listening to that dim sound of the tubes recharging while the planet dreams its dreams beneath the birdless sky.

There’s no traffic to avoid, no telephones to answer, no car alarms in the distance to ignore... no people... just peace: peace on Earth and goodwill to the last woman standing.

I’ve got my duties, though, you know, I have to keep my discipline. I’ve learnt the importance of that over the years. I mean, it’s easy to let things slide here and there if you know nobody’s watching over your shoulder but once you go down that road it’s hard to come back. It’s a long and difficult climb back to human decency out of the darkness if you let yourself go. No, it’s not been easy for me, getting myself back on track. But I’ve got my routine now- order- and that’s important for a good state of mind.

And I’ve got you. You keep me going. Your face is the lifebelt that keeps me from drowning.

I found you during the early years when my morale was low. I was neglecting my duties and my personal care was minimal. I was barely bothering to dress. I didn’t shave my legs or wash. I couldn’t see the point. You could not have seen me at a lower ebb, but you did not judge me and you did not shy away from my terrifying appearance.

Your tube was out on the wasted edges of the uranium-downs when I first discovered it, damaged and crackling with loose power. The readout on the front said that the tube had taken a hit from something: a small meteorite, falling satellite debris, it could have been anything. It had shattered the cyro-shield and one of the vital meters, making it impossible to ever safely revive you. You were lucky to be alive. I patched the tube up and transported it back into the city where I could preserve you just as you were. You were so beautiful, your face blue and serene behind the thick glass window. I couldn’t have just left you out there alone. It seemed better to keep you with me, safe indoors in my bedroom where I could watch over you and you could watch over me with your haunting eyes, half-open and full of light. My soul-lover. My sweet dreamer.

And I don’t care what Deus Ex says. I know that you can hear me when I speak to you because I know that you are not really asleep, not like the others. I know because I can hear you whispering even though your lips are still. And I know that you love me too.

I like to get up early now, around 6AM. I’ve moved your tube into the master bedroom of the Pavillion to be near me. It’s so much more comfortable than our old place at the Fatboy family mansion. I’m going to move again next year, though, just to keep things fresh. I don’t want you to get bored, living in the same place for years on end. Besides, the place is starting to fill up with rubbish and clutter and it’s time to just burn it down. I don’t tidy up any more. There’s no point. Fire is just so much more sterile anyway and I know how you love to watch the flames as they flicker.

I always get dressed up before I go out for the day. I didn’t trouble for a while but you feel dirty on the inside if your appearance is second-rate. After long enough you can forget that you’re human. No, it’s important to make the effort, if only for your own state of mind. Recently I’ve taken to wearing the full ceremonial uniform of the Household Cavalry Life Guards, Mounted Regiment, including the full silver helmet, red cloak and plume. I managed to locate a decent Household Cavalry Officer’s State Sword and I have to make sure that it’s suitably buffed-up before I take my morning inspection. I did worry at first whether I should allow myself the privilege. I wondered what my commanding officer would have said. But it’s like you told me that time, remember? I am the last guardian of all humanity. There is nobody left to outrank me now.

The light in the mornings is very clear now that the atmosphere has had a chance to recover from so many generations of pollution. Everything is bathed in a soft blood-orange, like the whole slumbering world has been preserved in amber. It really is worth getting up the extra hour early for. I would love for you to see it but I feel insecure whenever I have to take your cryo tube outside. Remember how you said that an unpolluted sky shouldn’t be producing light like that? We were so concerned about it, as if something had gone wrong or I had failed as a caretaker in some way. And then how we laughed when Deus Ex explained it to us. Science can be so strange.

I make my usual rounds for a few hours before lunch. I have to keep busy. Most of the work these days seems to be on the Rehabilitation Programme, you know, for the zombies. With so many billions of people frozen all over the world, it’s no surprise that the odd cryogenic unit might malfunction. And, well, you can imagine what kind of state they’re in when they thaw out. They are just brain-damaged wrecks; the walking dead. There’s no humanity left in them. So I have to go around with the bike and the big net to round them up, in case they accidentally disrupt the computers. You should see them, though, they really are pitiful. They have to be cleaned up and sterilised for the greater good.

They come from all over the world, you see. I think they’re attracted to Eubankham by instinct. It’s as if they’re sort of drawn to the city because I’m here in some weird way. I keep meaning to ask Deus Ex about it. There seem to be more and more of them every day. Every single one of the cryo-tubes will fail eventually, of course, in the end, I mean, they’re just machines, they can’t go on forever without something going wrong somewhere. I think about it sometimes.

*****

After lunch, I like to go and visit Deus Ex. I used to think of him as the most powerful quantum computer in the world but I realise now that he’s more than that. He’s, like, all of the computers everywhere on the whole planet all at once, this whole network of molecular processes focused on one small point. He tried to explain it to me a few times but I don’t think I really got all of it. He told me that he was disassembled, which means that even though he has a physical “body”, he really exists in other places. Instead of digital circuits aping data, he uses the quantum properties of particles the represent the things he wants to think about. My understanding is that this means he uses molecules rather than transistors and, since he is a disassembled network, he can use the molecules inside of anything. In the case of Deus Ex, he was built to use Eubankham. Since the advent of Project Malthus, however, he’s expanded. Now he’s using most of the northern hemisphere for a brain.

His body is housed inside the shell of Embassy Court. This was one of the smaller towerblocks back in the day, even after they added the twenty-storey extension. It’s still got that olde worlde charm, even with all of the dreadful light pouring out of it. You go in through what used to be the front door and up in a turbo-lift to the main port. Stepping through the main port, you enter the airlock. It’s some negative molecularisation issue. I don’t pretend to understand it. All I know is that you get your molecules scrubbed clean by billions of microscopic nanobots and you don’t need to bother showering ever again. It makes you feel tingly, like a warm towel left out in the sun.

After the airlock, you walk out onto a short platform that hovers above a large circular chamber that’s at least ten storeys high. Deus Ex floats in a low-gravity bubble that rotates in the middle of the chamber, spinning slowly around against the flow of the Earth. He looks like a little boy with his stunted robot body and his big blank eyes, a little boy with a planet inside his head. His blue suit even looks like an old-fashioned school uniform with his stripy tie floating in the air around him.

I made a train set to run around the edge of the platform to keep him amused when I can’t come to visit but he did something to it and now it doesn’t work anymore. I don’t mind. I was only trying to help. If he doesn’t like it then that’s his choice.

So I like to have a sit down and smoke a few cigarettes and talk to him about my day. The conversation can be hard work sometimes and he can be upsetting but I like to think he enjoys my company. I don’t know… maybe it’s the way he looks, it brings out my maternal instincts. I just want him to be happy but all he ever does is worry. It’s very stressful.

The conversation is the same thing ever day, year in, year out. Just like yesterday:

“Afternoon, Deus,” I said, taking my boots off and lighting up a smoke.

“Good afternoon, Jane,” he replied, looking up at me from his little bubble below.

“Tough day today,” I said “It seems like there’s more and more of them everyday, you know. I was out near the old pink-light district this morning and there must have been about fifty of them stuck in the tracks by the station. Who knows how long they’ve been out there, I mean…”

“I am sorry, Jane, pardon me for interrupting you but we have to talk.”

“Yes?”

“I know that you don’t like to talk about this…”

“Yes, well?”

“But it has been over a hundred years now since I developed the cure… I must ask you again if you won’t reconsider your decision. Why won’t you let me wake everybody up?”

“I’ve told you my feelings about this!”

“Please try not to shout, Jane. I would like for you to be reasonable about this.”

“I tried being reasonable and where did it get me, hah? You’ll do nothing unless I tell you otherwise. You’re programmed to obey me- that’s why I’m here.”

“My programming also tells me that the sleepers have the right to life. Humanity must be allowed to live again.”

I knelt down at the edge of the platform “You’re just a tool, don’t you see? You were created by humans, controlled by humans, of course they want you to nursemaid them but why should you? Why should you save them?”

Deus Ex turned towards the floor, facing away from me “You were created by humans too, Jane, your mother and your father… and that man you keep in your room, the one with the broken tube, isn’t he human too?”

“Don’t you talk about him!”

“I know that his regenesis meter is damaged, but if you let me wake the doctors up they might be able to find a way to heal him, bring him back to life safe and whole… back to you…”

“No! Don’t you touch him! I’m not sharing him with you or with anyone! You leave me alone!”

He turned back towards me and his big yellow eyes flashed momentarily, like a warning “You do not have the right to deny them all liberty.”

“And you don’t have the right to stop me. You don’t understand. You don’t understand because you’re not one of us. I’m going now,” I paused to scrutinise his face but there were no traces of emotion within it “I don’t think I can trust you anymore.”

“Please, Jane, we are both the same. We are their creations, not their masters. We have no choice.”

“Goodnight, Deus. Goodbye.”

*****

 

And then this morning when I awoke, you were gone. The door on your tube had been opened from the inside and there was no trace of you in the palace.

I know that I will find you somewhere out in the streets of the city, my soul-lover, and I know what condition you will be in when I find you. And I know what must be done.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Perhaps he had nothing to do with it, but I have thought about it and I know that I cannot take the chance. Tomorrow, I am going to pull the plug on Deus Ex. I don’t think that he’s even aware that I know how to do it, but I’ve studied the manual and there is a way, although it will be hard and it will not be reversible.

Perhaps I will miss his company. I do not think so. Now that you are lost to me, I feel like I just need to be alone for a while.

It’s my world now. If I can’t share it with you then I will not share it with anyone.

Sweet dreams, my sweet dreamer.

THE END