Chapter 19
Franklin usually felt comfortable in a crowd. He liked to blend in and become one with the group. Never popular, Franklin led a solitary life; writing pulp alone in his study, he saw his publisher briefly and saw Dolly less often. Interacting with people at dinner parties that Dolly arranged made him anxious and nervous. But in the crowd, Franklin could be comfortable. For a moment he could be part of a larger organism; when the crowd laughed or moved or cheered, Franklin was with them; part of them. He belonged.
But this small crowed that stood in the dim parking lot lights outside the medium security prison in Pleasanton was different. When he looked at their young faces he saw vacant stares and in his mind he imagined there was an empty apartment or office or hotel room, somewhere private. Maybe a secluded house in a rundown neighborhood, and in that private place, a Warmbot, mindlessly following the mandate of its programming, had imitated the actions of the humans that it observed and squeezed into a Synapse Suit and then Synapped into a host body. When Franklin scanned the faces in this crowd, he saw a link into the WetWeb and then into the Warmbots that were manipulating these young people remotely.
Franklin looking into the faces in this crowd and heard Anand’s voice buzzing in his ears,
“The living are hosting their bodies to the dead.”
Franklin wondered how many people were left that were not being remotely controlled by the WetWeb. How many people were left that retained their independent minds, cut off from the WetWeb.
Franklin knew he was an oddball. Because he was uncomfortable with his body, he never opted to have a Synaptic Interface implant device. Even at the height of interface implant popularity, Franklin stood apart from his peers. Not by choice, but because he had always stood apart.
Franklin tried to think through the rate at which the WetWeb and the Warmbots were displacing the thinking people in the society around him. The military was providing an ongoing supply of fresh corpses which were being routinely converted into use as Warmbots. This had been going on since the first Warmbot came online. First for military use, and then they were introduced as domestic servants. The brain-stem interface device implant operation had been popular since his college days. More popular than tattoos or body piercing, brain Stem implants that allowed the person to rent their body via the personal hosting services network and earn a fee, or alternatively, simply allow free hosting of their bodies so they could avoid the boredom of their daily routine, whether it was work or school.
Franklin realized that once an individual relinquished control of their body and a Warmbot began manipulating them remotely, there was nothing to cause a break in this link. The Warmbot controlling the living host could continue to dose the living host with Somnambutol and continue living out their life indefinitely.
Franklin stood apart from this crowd. Looking at them standing with blank stares; he had no desire to blend in with this group. He saw them as a mindless cluster of pod-people. There were no individuals. Each responding to remote commands issued by a reanimated corpse that in turn was merely fulfilling the demands of its program.
A program that is designed to watch and imitate what it sees. An ever expanding database of the human society, growing exponentially, spreading out across society until… Franklin could not predict how this would end.
Alone in his thoughts, Franklin considered the implication of what Anand had disclosed to him. He also remembered his interviews with Anand and the time they had spent together.
Franklin traced the black outline of the prison buildings against the night sky with his eyes and remembered Anand’s descriptions of the windowless buildings on the secret military compound somewhere in the California desert; the place where organic robots were invented; where the dead were first connected to the living.
Franklin tired to push thoughts of lethal injection from his mind. He kept seeing the blank faces of the guards who escorted Anand from the interview room. In Franklin’s imagination it was as if Anand had stepped through the door with the thick glass window and now time and events were running in reverse. Anand Ramasubramanian and Al McKnight had brought the dead back to life, and now the dead were working the process in reverse. The Warmbots had gained access to the prison guards via Synaptic derivation. The guards sought to escape the tedium of their lives, the daily grind of prison life. But, once connected, the prison guards became captives of the WetWeb. Once they were controlled by the Warmbots, they were never released back into a conscious state.
The prison guards and orderlies were being controlled by reanimated dead people. And now they were preparing to strap Al McKnight and Anand onto a steel table and inject them with a dose of poison that would render them lifeless. It was a wretched irony. Anand and McKnight’s had invented the techniques and technology that resulted in the reanimation of the lifeless, and now the lifeless were working to render them among the dead.
In his mind’s eye, Franklin saw Anand Ramasubramanian and Al McKnight meeting together again and for the last time in the execution chamber. Perhaps this, the sight of old friends at the last would console them; perhaps they would laugh at the sad twist that was the end of the story.
Franklin began to wonder if anyone in the crowd of onlookers was here for Anand. He scanned the crowd looking for someone who could be Sadhna Singh. It was dark, but the onlookers looked undifferentiated. Franklin saw no one who might possibly be Dr. Sadhna Singh.
A dark skimmer moved slowly through the parking lot; the headlight beams arced through the crowd briefly illuminating each pensive individual as the driver turned and then parked. Franklin watched the skimmer navigate through the crowd with little interest. Judging by the size, weight and black exterior, the occupants of this skimmer were government officials or operatives. They were here to make sure McKnight met his end according to plan. No one considered Anand Ramasubramanian and his role in history. They all were here for Al McKnight.
When the skimmer was parked it doused its bright headlights. Franklin turned his back. He was not interested in the execution of Al McKnight or his high politicos who would drive about in black chauffeured skimmers.
Franklin returned his eyes to the dim outline of the prison building. It was dangerously close to midnight. Franklin was sure that at this point the execution procedure was underway. Franklin turned his thoughts back to his dark musings about the final moments; the last exchange between Al McKnight and Anand Ramasubramanian. He imagined Anand’s pitiful brown frame restrained on the surgical table. Al McKnight’s taller frame, also sadly worn by age and recent events similarly restrained.
The large black skimmer that had parked behind Franklin opened a door. Franklin heard someone getting out.
He ignored these sounds that had disrupted his thoughts and tried to remain focused on his visualization of the execution procedures. He tried to imagine the last minutes of Anand Ramasubramanian, so he could write the last chapter. He needed to find an ending for the history.
Franklin forced a mental picture of Anand based on their last conversation together; what would Anand say to McKnight, what would be his final words…
The skimmer door slammed behind him; again disrupting his rumination.
Franklin was getting irritated. He clenched his jaw and turned slightly to look at the silhouette of a man who had stepped out of the skimmer. Franklin could see he was well dressed, but his face and details were obscured in the dim light.
Looking back at the prison building, Franklin noticed a thin gold light was now emanating from behind one of the closed windows on the second floor. Franklin focused on this. It was likely that behind this window the execution was underway. This was the room where the executions were being carried out. His jaw unclenched; and he allowed his thoughts to once again imagine the final moments of Al McKnight and the end of the story for Anand Ramasubramanian.
His thoughts began to drift once again. Franklin imag
ined Anand’s animated brown hand being connected to an intravenous drip by the emotionless Synapse host orderly who was remotely controlled by an unseen Warmbot. The Warmbot mindlessly re-enacting an execution that had been observed previously, emotionless replaying of events previously observed. Anand’s hands were wet and cold.
“Franklin? Franklin Tempo?”
A voice from behind him broke his thoughts and Franklin realized that his efforts to imagine the fatal last moments of Anand were now over.
“Franklin is that you?”
Franklin turned, it was the well dressed man, and he was approaching Franklin directly. As the man grew nearer subtle clues to his identity began to register. The deep voice, the moderate stature, the confident gait; Franklin recognized him in a flash of realization, it was his publisher.
“Titus?” Franklin called with surprise registering in his voice.
Titus was quickly approaching and extended his hand in greeting; Franklin did likewise. Franklin’s manner quickly switched from private to professional. Franklin rubbed the wetness from his eyes and hoped the darkness would mask any redness or evidence of his private emotional response to the imminent execution.
Titus clasped his hand and greeted him warmly.
“Good man; Franklin,” Titus said. “I knew I could depend on you to be here; on the job to the last minute, yes, working on that content feature to the last minute, yes.”
Franklin was dazzled. He had never seen Titus Briggs outside the high office building of Brandon and Stern publishing in San Francisco. Certainly he had never expected Titus to come searching for him. Titus did not go to feature writers; the feature writers came to him.
While Titus grinned down at him and shook his hand vigorously, Franklin rapidly replayed the highlights of their last meeting together in his head. He remembered he had just returned from Savant Organic Robotics.