Autonomy (part 6) A Dystopian Adventure Story About the End of the World [Written by Matthew Munsey]
It had been three hours since that sideways scene in Trip’s doorway, or it felt like it, at least. That first conversation had been the hardest. That first foray into the brave new world that had been all around them, only unseeable until now, veiled by mists wrought of secrecy and lies. For their whole lives Jack and Barbara had had the luxury of high expectations. There wasn’t a question before of how well done the steak would be, or whether or not there would be money in the bank for gas next week. No question that when you had that runny nose it would be gone in an hour, just head down the corner with a buck and change, and you’ll be fine. Not anymore. For the first time in their lives Jack and Barbara had had a reason to feel fear, to feel discontent, to feel uneasy. And it was terrifying them.
For a while there wasn’t much more Trip could say. They were still soaking it all in, he could tell from the looks on their faces; those two, they were not ready for the rest just yet, so he gave them some time. The three of them sat quietly around Trip’s musty little living room table, hardly even breathing at one another. The thing only stood about a foot off of the ground, and there were no chairs around it, only these funky little red and blue pillows. The room felt something like as if some crazed ancient opium enthusiast had brought all of his shit to the city, frills and tassels and all, and set up a fucking newsroom. It was nuts, but in a strangely serene way. Like two great worlds colliding in space, but with no great devastation when the smoke had cleared, just one big hunk of smoldering rock and dust and destruction. And potential. There was a kind of insane comfort to the room, as if it was telling you, ‘hey now man, don’t stress, even if the world all goes to hell, who cares? You gotta tear some shit down to build it back up again, don’t you?’
Well, maybe comfort isn’t the right word. But it’s close.
Those newspapers really were everywhere. Jack had hardly had time to take stock of it all, what with all of the excitement, but now sitting here, cooling down as best as he could, he finally took a second to look around. Jack had been around before, of course, seen the pillows, seen that beautiful red and black oriental rug - the one piece of furniture Trip had that just about anyone would be into, and sure a newspaper or two thrown around, one had even been in a frame Jack recalled, but he didn’t see it anywhere now. But never before had Jack seen so damn many copies of news. Printouts littered the floor and were stapled to walls, older copies of real hard stock papers were stacked one on top of the next in some spots so high that Jack was sure if he had walked over to them, he wouldn’t have been able to see over the tops. There must have been thousands of them in here. Thousands of days, thousands of stories, thousands of lives. As Jack thought these words suddenly Trip spoke up again.
“Taking a survey of the scene, Jackie boy? It’s a little more cluttered in here since the last time we hung out.” He said these words with a wink and smile, flashing that Cheshire grin again for what felt like the hundredth time of the day, but with a noticeably less amount of vigor than Jack was accustomed to. Jack figured that that really said it all right there, but he asked the question that he had assumed the whole time Trip had been waiting for one of the two of them to voice.
“So then man, what the hell is all of this shit?”
And so with a small chuckle and a sigh as he stood, Trip once more began to fill the air with his words, and to fill Jack and Barbara, once again, with that feeling of unease, of which they were so unaccustomed to.
The first paper Trip handed to Jack and Barbara held the date October 20, 1987, and was entitled The Boston Herald. As the two held the thick white and gray paper in each of their hands, they examined the cover morosely. The front page was adorned widely with a large arrow graph, the kind you’d see on TV in one of those shoddily chopped together insurance ads, but unlike those oh so poorly conceived advertisements, this arrow was heading jaggedly, yet steadily down. The heading read, simply enough, Meltdown on Wall St. From the back of her throat, her words slightly shaken Barbara spoke up.
“I remember hearing all about this.” Her words came as though they were transparent, as if they had taken far longer than usual to arrive from her mouth to her lips. Slowly she swallowed and continued. “I remember my grandfather, years and years ago telling me about this, about how this was the day that the world had almost ended, or something like that? He was always talking about crazy shit.” Barbara had spoke fluidly at first, as though she were a faucet left on just enough for the water to stream gently out. Her last words had come in a torrent. “I mean, he wasn’t right in the head” She continued. “They had always told me that, mom and dad…” At this she trailed off and looked away. Jack looked to her hoping to comfort if he could, he knew about how shitty she had had it as a kid, her parents being the people that they were. But she only looked away, resigned to her own remembrances.
Trip looked on, waiting calmly, and for the first time with what seemed like at least a twinge of unease of his own. But at last casting a somber gaze at Barbara, and then at Jack, then back, Trip continued as gently as he could.
“Well, that old man might not have been as crazy as your folks might have liked to let on, Barbie, because in at least this instance, he was right.”
Immediately Barbara’s whole body tightened, but Trip seemed not to notice.
“You see, back in the late 80’s there was some real trouble going on. The market was in the toilet, the United States, as they were, were locked in an unwinnable war, there was more crime on the streets than there had ever been, more drugs, more bad, in other words. And just like it always is, always has been always will be, when a country is failing, so are the fat cats who bankroll the thing, and boy let me tell you guys, these fuckers just weren’t having it.
Suddenly Barbara interjected. “Not as crazy as my folks might have liked to let on?” She spoke these words incredulously, as though she could hardly understand them even coming out of her own mouth. “Not as fucking crazy as they would have liked to let on?” That one was more of a scream. She had rocketed up from her pillow seat and was standing eye to eye with Trip now, glowering raggedly into him. All Trip did was smile, and continue.
“So they made a change. There was a man named James Slyreich, a scientist living somewhere in Italy at the time, but who had made great progress for the Germans not forty years prior. In his work professor Slyreich had been intimately associated with the practice of forced eugenics. The idea that instead of trying to sway the world into one genetic direction through the means of law or decree, science could be used instead to simply force it there. Putting his patients through rigorous tests and examinations, Slyreich was able to begin unearthing the mystery of how our minds were formed. Of why we reacted to fear, and to love. Why we sang when we were sad or closed our eyes when the terror was just too much to handle. Yes, Slyreich delved into it all, every orifice of the human mind, every practice and principle he could get his fingers around he did, tearing and gnawing them forth from his subjects one profound insight after the next. In his research, Slyreich was a great success. He documented countless areas of the human condition that no one had ever before even dared to examine, never mind fully explore. However, in practice, the good doctor failed. He found no way to control the way man was made, no way to harness the power of creation. And so in shame he fled, him, along with his notes. A complete guide to the human mind, every piece of the puzzle needed to make something that had been deemed unmakeable. Every piece of the puzzle needed to make something alive. And he wasn’t heard of again until October 20th, 1987, the day the world, as your Grandfather, Barbie, rightfully put it, may very well have ended.”
During this Barbara had collapsed again to the floor, no fight left in her after hearing something like that. But still her resolve remained and so she asked the question that was digging at her, not the one that needed to be asked, but the question that she needed to ask. “Well why would Grampy have known about any of that?” She fell silent again for a moment. “Why would he have known that the world almost ended but I never heard about it from anywhere else? I went to school, I read the books, you don’t think they would have mentioned it?”
For a moment all Trip did was look right at her, then he said. “Barbie, I’m sorry, but that I do not know.”
“What I do know,” he continued, “Is that Slyreich, that dirty bastard, was hired by what was still then the United States to put an end to the crisis. To stop the hunger, to stop the crime. To save the world. Two years later the Company emerged, and along with it the first generation of what they had hailed to be the savior of us all. It wasn’t long before there was a maintenance bot on every corner, and a domestic in every home. The company was considered by all as an answer to the problem, a solution to the world's woes. No one then could have predicted how badly things were to one day go.
Dear Reader. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this story, and to let you know how much it means to me that you did! If you enjoyed this story (or hated it), please do not hesitate to let me know in the comments section! If you did enjoy this story, it would also mean a lot to me if you would be so kind as to upvote, resteem, and generally just let people know that you thought that what you read was worthwhile! Thanks again Reader, and I hope to see you next time! -Matthew Munsey
Sooooo good!!!