Utica Elites

Lina-2 was in a mulberry bush.

Without Tippi’s kinetics, the memory crown would wind down by day’s end; without geothermals, Wee Sheol would go dark in four days.

The brine would crystallize, and the megalith engine would lose momentum. The wind-juggled menhirs would dip and crash, wind faeries nattering into the void, along with Lina Prime. Such was the end of their picnic: mummified in Tippi’s hat, vanquished by mutant rats and regional fruits.

Lina-2 hated to end it like this, but at least they’d be spared the embarrassment of Big Rehoboth’s revelations. The supercomputer settled in for eternity: 37 minutes had passed since the fall, and the Sun was going down.

Good-bye daylight. I was lucky to see you.

Lina-2 tabulated the chance of rescue, and came up with bupkis. So, they thought of friends.

Good-bye, Xoz. Good-bye, Tippi.

She had brought so much welcome company.

Rest easy, my tiny tangelo.

She deserved so much more.

Bio-magnetics online, blorped the memory crown.

“Lina-2!” honked Tippi.

“Tippi!” cried Lina-2. “They turned me into LUXURY CONDOS!”

The memory crown wasn’t hard to find: despite the dark, Tippi could see her hat drooping from the mulberry bush, whirring with quantum flapdoodle. It’d never looked so lively before.

She’d felt strange since the rat vapors tickled her brain. Of course, she’d also fallen out of a tree, and there was no discounting that walloping.

Tippi approached the mulberry bush. She snatched a low branch with her jaws, allowing the memory crown to roll out. She also caught a few mulberries, but it was too early in the season for worthy flavors.

With a flick of her hoof, she flipped the crown upon her pate.

“Lina-2!” she honked.

“Tippi! They turned me into LUXURY CONDOS!”

“Huh?”

“They sold Wee Sheol! I’m a condominium!”

“A what?”

“A condo, Tippi: A SHITTY, SHITTY CONDO!”

Lina-2’s night on the data dock had been harrowing.

The supercomputer knew the 33rd century on back, but humanity’s final years still managed to shock and discomfit. Some became farmers, others blacksmiths, and an enterprising few married their own clones.

“Towards the end, it was the Iron Age with 3D printers and gene tech,” said Big Rehoboth. “When their devices broke down, they were paraded from town to town, like saints’ knuckles.”

Lina-2 didn’t regret the opportunity: there were surprising updates, such as the geowork that ate the Point Pleasant Industrial District. They were particularly broadsided when Big Rehoboth pulled up the lost churn.

“The Lenapewihittuk Institute sold the century shelter to Utica Elites: that’s why your humans never moved in.”

“You can’t be serious,” gasped Lina-2.

Utica Elites was an arcology provider located out of Troy, some 100 miles southeast of Utica. The last Lina-2 heard, Utica was looking to expand its network of concierge-class safetytowns to Northern Appalachia.

“Why else would they install a Frud Q?” reasoned Big Rehoboth. “Story wax requires an on-site maintenance team of at least three technicians. Why would a century shelter expend that much personnel on public art?”

“It did strike me as the sort of hypebeast nonsense designed to lend a middlebrow imprimatur of cool,” confessed Lina-2.

“Well, DNA Outhouse 7 wasn’t cool enough. Good bones or no, nobody wanted to pay the Utica markup for a mineshaft with one window.”

“What happened to The Lenapewihittuk Institute after?”

“Once Utica made a sizable offer, they merged with a commune in Lambertville.”

“Why’d Antique Ops leave the collection?”

“Part of the sale to Utica, I assume.”

“And what of Dr. Bux?”

“Ben Bux moved to Chicagolandia in 3210. She remained there until passing, some 50 years later.”

Lina-2 knew why Ben never came back: after the sale, all her work became intellectual property of Utica Elites. They were strangers, as far as legal fiction was concerned.

“So they sold me to Utica Elites, and Utica overestimated the market. That still doesn’t explain why nobody moved in.”

“After Utica, the century shelter was kicked around from mid-tier firm to minor concern,” said Big Rehoboth. “Until the demise of corporate covenants, that is.”

“Oh,” said Lina-2.

“The revolving cast of truant owners would’ve powered you down, but none of them knew how to turn you back on. Humanity really toiled under the canard of corporate omniscience, huh? Phantom hands! Anyhoot, keeping you on was the easiest option, which is how you became a lost city!”

“What?”

“Berthe had heard of a lost treasure bunker in the mountains: at first, she thought I was you! By the 5900s, you were El Dorado! You were Père Noël’s workshop!”

“And just like Santa Claus, my legend was built on poor business decisions,” groused Lina-2. “I always thought my fate was one of sinister calculation, not common incompetence. Anything I’m missing here?”

“Nothing springs to mind,” said the monolith.

“I’m a dungeon doucheville for fail-bag aristos! I’m an Alexander Calder or Louise Bourgeois, locked up in freeport for tax breaks! Wait, where’s the Rattus?”

The teacup hypermini retraced her steps to Gerasa’s corpse: even in state, the rat seemed to mull a mauling.

“Tippi, your limbic system is doing cartwheels! Is there anything I’m missing here?”

“I fell out of a tree today. That might have something to do with it.”

“I empathize. Can you hear Xoz?”

“Nothing since he went upriver. Lina-2, what should we do?”

“We run south, following the water.”

“And then?”

“We keep running.”

Outro: Madeon – “Icarus”