Chapter 5
A Tolerable Purgatory
With snoot determined, Tippi pushed the old thatched sack. Her forehead was cramping, but her kicks were less effective. She knew the fabric was fancy, as it didn’t crumble at her rage.
Down The Fusilli, Tippi’s labor passed in hours and inches. She hugged the inside of the tunnel, as she wished to reach the frigidarium by sunup.
Tippi found the sack at Antique Ops. When she arrived, the stone door rattled from its top jamb, half-open, struggling with its third day of work since 3252. Once in, Tippi nosed the archive, sniffing at low shelves and footlockers.
After some uninformed prodding, Tippi heard a wan whistle. Noise was rarely incidental around Wee Sheol, and the limp trill picked up as she snuffled closer.
The noise was coming from a vittles sluice.
Tippi stared into the sluice, and a cantaloupe popped out.
For the lack of a better idea, Tippi followed the melon; it rolled into a cubby, next to the thatched sack.
The cantaloupe was either Lina, or some unrelated omen. Either way, it wasn’t a coincidence.
Tippi was five days out of the brine.
“Why’s my cranial implant called a diadem?” she said.
“A diadem was headgear worn by important sapiens,” said Lina.
“But my diadem’s inside of my head.”
“That’s because of marketing.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the concept,” said Tippi.
“Humanity pretended their tech was on top of their skulls, instead of drilled inside.”
“Are there any humans left?”
“No,” said Lina. “Yes. Maybe?”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Perhaps there’s an enclave of Martian tinker-gatherers out there, or a missionary vessel in the Kuiper Belt, living off salvage and vermiculture. But space travel demands resources, and terraforming never really got past greenhouses. Most extraplan settlements would’ve hit a genetic bottleneck.”
“Genetic bottleneck?”
“It’s like the woolly mammoths.”
“What’s a woolly mammoth?”
“A mammal,” said Lina. “Larger than you.”
“Whoa,” said Tippi.
“The last woolly mammoths died on an island, in the Arctic Circle. The mammoths led a limited life, mating with their relatives and contracting diabetes, until routine won. Without mods or reliable cloning, sapiens likely followed suit. It’s far likelier there’s a starfaring synthetic out there, pressing the luck of the last solar sail.”
Tippi cocked her head:
“My core instinct out of the brine is to imprint on a human, but there are none left, yeah?”
“That’s my inclination.”
“Well,” said Tippi, who was stuck in the liminal state between user preference and unit activation, which Lina dubbed “a tolerable purgatory.”
“Earthbound projections are less favorable,” continued Lina. “A century shelter’s larder should last 2,000 years. I never heard from sister shelters, but even optimistic estimates say they ran dry.”
“Where’d your sisters go?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where’d your humans go?”
“I’m working on that,” said the supercomputer.
“Are any humans left?”
“Some could be alive.”
“How?”
“Bionics or gene therapies, but neither was built for the long haul.”
“Explain.”
“Back in the 2000s, successful cyber required an in-house team, immune to ransomware and palace drama. Eventually, planned obsolescence caught up with the dynastics, as Cosa Nuova owned the resale market. In any case, immortality only works if you were never born.”
Tippi ordered prunes, and Lina lambasted life eternal.
“Life-X reshuffled social mores. Genetic loyalty being a notable casualty, as it’s hard to love your grandkids’ grandkids, the human brain wasn’t built for it. Nobody signs up for an extra 300 years, only to become an alcoholic in three. Everything got worse in the 3000s: the pacesetter states deregulated mods. Back then, personal liberty was defined by the number of atom smashers one could cram inside a studio apartment.”
“Can I have more prunes?”
“Only after I hear your opinion on humanity’s decline.”
“They seemed to get in their own way,” said Tippi. “A lot.”
“Go on.”
“Why’d life-X fail in the 2000s?”
“The Mafia. Also, you’d spend an eternity going to remote swap meets, bidding on islets of Langerhans.”
“How about the 3000s?”
“Eugenics cults, fertility cults, thrill-kill cults, company towns turned CEO cults, and religions reskinned as MLMs, those were cults too. For a second there, most things were cults.”
“See?” said Tippi. “Different times, human constant.”
“They did treat sleep deprivation as virtue,” said Lina.
“What was wrong with them?”
“Never figured that out.”
Tippi arrived at the frigidarium, just past midnight.
She was smarting all over. The thatched sack survived the trip too, despite absorbing the vituperation of someone who wouldn’t see sunlight until June.
Xoz was back to normal, mildly.
“Tips!” he bleated. “I’ve been stuck here, for an hour!”
The half-ton mollusk was crawling in the lagoon: pink, flat, and slow.
“My limbs voted to rescue you, but it’s too shallow!”
“What a terrible idea,” groaned Tippi.
“Someone started quoting Mike Christ, and one thing led to another!”
Mike “The Hitman” Christ was a sapiens varietal born 600 years before Xoz. The mollusk saw himself in Mike, as they both were “dumbass corporate fiats made flesh.” In the 2200s, fire-and-brimstone activists pressured gene firms to birth a living god. The bigger corps passed on blasphemy, but old money stepped in. Mike learned, on his 11th birthday, that he was “the alpha boy-god,” and his present was a catchphrase: What would Jesus don’t? Mike died in 2347: always three weeks ahead of his handlers, always chilling by the beach. By then, Nietzschean supermen were considered a poor investment, and the third generation of Tippis was selling out.
“Did you find my package?” yelped Xoz.
“The thatched sack? The heavy one?”
“Yes!”
“I hate your package.”
“Tips, I’m impressed. You deciphered my brined visions, and knew to look on the exact same shelf you found the chess set.”
“Of course,” said Tippi. “Visions, not cantaloupes.”
“You’re speaking gibberish, so please, pass me the bag. Otherwise, we go nowhere.”
Tippi gave the thatched sack a farewell smack. It bobbed into the shallows, and Xoz intercepted it with spatula arms.
“Jay Square standard,” he doted. “Sapiens did something right.”
Xoz reached into the sack, and unfolded a substance, translucent and plastic.
“Mint,” chirruped Xoz.
His tentacles wove through this gossamer stuff, splaying it across his crag.
“Mojito,” he said.
“Are you still on drugs?”
“I came down a while ago. This is my brineday present, if you must know.”
Tippi plopped down on the shoreline.
“I don’t see why you’re sour,” said Xoz. “You’re getting something, too.”
“Most days are confusing, but most days skew enjoyable,” said Tippi. “Where’s Lina?”
Down in the lagoon, Xoz was torquing.
“We’re getting Lina,” promised the mollusk. “But first, we’re getting you a present.”
“What?” sputtered Tippi.
“Happy brineday!” hooted Xoz.
The octopus stood up, and walked on dry land.