Mark Doten - The Infernal

“There are no actions wit’ out possibilities of action,” sez I. “I’ll do the thinkin’. Dumb ass.”

“Yo’ dad got shot. Through the neck.”

“This fridg does trouble ma’ mind, yessir. But it could be our best last chance!”

Hakim: “Wudda?!”

KABOOM!

At the horizon: the art with unknown patron, which is ta say: mo’ bombin’. Sand burns red, then black, at last beswept from sight by sand an’ more sand still.

Hakim crouches, hands pressed to head, hearin’ no evilz.

“If we are gonna bring our village to wut wuz and perseverayt in our ways o’ leyf,” sez I, shakin’ Hakim by tha ears, an’ tha han’s clutchin’ ’em, “we’ve no more than a few days. Perhaps a single day an’ night. You wanna save tha village — check, boss?”

With ma’ own han’s I hurl that kid off tha heap, an’ midair he starts in wit’ weepin’.

KABOOM!

Distant blast, same as tha first! Red an black an’ &c….

I wuz aimin’ him for a pile o’ leaves an’ torn T-shirts, but tha wind buffets him, an’ it’s bricks an’ bottlez he lan’s in.

As fer me, I raze ma’ chin, peep ma’ time, but no watch left to befold on tha wrist. “I need to catch ma’ breath, Hakim. Tha fridg is tha whole game now. Investigate. Report back straighta-wayz with ensuing report. Tha adults know noth Q#AHO240B BEOEO2

nothin’. Everything is freighted on our own four shoulders, pal.”

I sez, “This our village, ol’ pal.”

He scrambles— hep! hep! — up the heap. He sez, “It’s our village. But we iz not Village Kidz now. We iz jes’ Drone Kidz.”

An’ I don’ have no idea if hez right or mis-diformed — I stan an’ thinks, but I jes don’ no. So I all I sez is, “Ol’ buddy, ol’ pal.”

He hugz me an’ sez, “Ol’ pal, ol’ buddy.”

I sez, “Let’s save th’ whirl.”

Hello.

Welcome to the New City.

I’ve watched them tell you stories.

Here is a story.

I know lots of stories.

There are platforms that disappear when you step on them. Others you have to sort of bounce on to make them go up. Mark has a sword. He’s trying to find Nathan. He’s moving through the Cloud, but he’s not part of it. The robots are trying to damage him with their weapons or knock him down.

Mark and Nathan are the last humans. Most of the rest have been uploaded to the New City. The others … just … died?

Of course there’s you now, wrapped in fire and ice and falling so slow.

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I’m the Cloud. Or part of it. Or we are? Haha, here’s the best I can explain:

I’m one point, but also … there’s lots of others in my point, in different ways. I’m a monster , or I could be. At least that’s what I think sometimes.

Mark keeps slashing the RoboCrows and jumping. He’s doing good. I don’t want him to be killed. I feel for him, even if another part of me wants him in the New City real bad.

Maybe that’s something about us that isn’t the best. Our instinct to collect them all, without fail. We wanted the humans in the New City — we see one, we have to watch it die and upload it, then feel what it feels like to be slicing through it. We just have to! But now that there’s only Mark and Nathan, we wish … well, we wish there were more. We want to finish it now for good, whatever that means. And we also want it to go on forever. That’s why we haven’t tried harder yet with Mark and Nathan. We haven’t not tried, but … well, here’s how it is:

Once upon a time there were Commissioners. They uploaded reports to the Memex. They sort of ran the world through their reports. The reports were their lives — the embodiment of everything that the Commission cared about. Those days! Some of the old reports I can remember quite clearly. I’m not sure why. I’m not the Commission, I’m not a Commissioner, at least I don’t think that’s what I am or was, but still, some of them are here. XAQQ CUYR0 B RZ D Y LST00A1 JFLM.XECX

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Before the great exodus of Commissioners, before the Akkad boy.

If there were new humans coming up, it’d be different. There’d be more to look forward to. But all of that was decided long ago. And if these two are the last, and if they have to die … I guess it’s OK. It’s just a big moment. It’s the end of something. But what does it really matter? The humans fought for Akkad. They knew it was important. Once upon a time Admiral Poindexter opened the Office of Total Information Awareness. Within it, he opened a public market for eschatological futures. The humans flipped for Akkad. Then the Cloud (me, I guess?) started to think for itself on the border between the Memex and the New City. How did it go, again?

Maybe the best thing would be to not have to think about it anymore.

Mark kills two RoboCrows with his sword. He keeps going forward. He jumps, then runs to the edge of the next platform and stops. Then backs up and runs again and jumps for real. I know what he’s thinking: at some point the platforms will end, and when they do, there’s probably solid ground. He’s right. There always is. And when he gets there, he can keep fighting or find a shelter for the night. Before they all died, the humans made some good shelters. They’re safe, but when you wake up, you have to keep moving forward.

So, fine. I make my choice — or ours. So I let him sleep, and when it’s dawn and he’s back out, stretching and yawning, I send our biggest RoboCrow. She’ll kill him for sure.

The sky darkens a few shades, and there’s lightning. Mark’s eyes go wide. Everything rumbles.

She’s here.

But it looks like someone else wants to tell you a story.

I know him.

His name is Alberto Gonzales.

He was a human once.

He got uploaded to the New City with all the rest.

Rashid and Hakim told their stories, next it’s Gonzales, then Noor K—, then Tom Pally …

Do you want the whole list? Everyone who’s talked to you, everyone who will? Because I know that.

Wow, they’re really crowding in! You guys, you can’t all talk at once. You guys, one at a time.

Guys.

Guys.

Pushed through committee room door same seat and desk same mic whose sharp black bud was stuck there yet again to coax or spirit or otherwise prize from his lips who knows what putatively incriminating shit for the gathered senators to smear the walls with and point at the walls and send a photo of the walls back home to the ravening over-it un-pay-tree-aughts in advance of the campaign season aw-shucksing— Well lookee here, will you just take a LOOK at all this SHIT! — and gavel, bang , it’s Vermont and Pennsylvania and the great state of South Carolina (et tu, LindZAY?) easeling photos and jabbing fingers and all the rhetorical blah blah blah (to which: ongoing prosecutions prevent ), the senators trotting out the Dobermans the tub of ice the flesh pyramids of boys the boy with razors in his food the hooded boy with dangling wires and here it is at last like you knew it would be the lady soldier in high heels and sequined evening gown all gussied up and painted and how she’s clicking her tongue rear left of the mouth tchick for the camera.