Chapter 20
Marcos was moving to and from a dream, in and out of the depths of his subconscious mind, so much now that he had lost equilibrium, not knowing if he was swimming to the surface or diving back down into the nether of his shipwrecked sanity. As he fought in his conscious mind, he could see the outline of a pudgy old lady dancing about; waving her arms seemingly, quite jolly.
“Please get up. Oh, golly this was supposed to work. Why is it always me who has to fudge everything?” said The Pudgy Old Lady in dire panic, waving her arms in front of Marcos’ face desperately trying to pull him from his comatose slumber.
She knew she didn’t have much time and she needed his help to save her dear friend whose passage back into her body was halted by the assassination of Mother who was now lying faceless in the centre of the ritual tent; her body being ravaged by the course of time as infinity no longer wept from her pours; millions upon trillions of centuries, unraveling in seconds.
The moon itself had now vanished from the sky and an eerie stillness had been set upon the world. Above them, the stars still shone with the now cursed eyes of the faithful Facers looking down upon her treason as their Mother; the mother of all things lay dying in a heap of shrunken flesh and brittle dusted bones.
The sky was getting darker by the second. Without the moon, everything was blacker than black. The light from the stars was frivolous as now even they started to wean and were losing their once regarded twinkle looking more like a slightly less black smudge on a very dark piece of glass. She could barely see the warmth of her own fright vaporizing in the cool night air let alone how to reverse any of this and bring her dear friend; The Fat Old Lady, back from the ungetable heavens and into her eternal flesh where they could complete their ritual and her dear friend could be adorned in a young man’s dress.
And that man; Marcos, was choking on his failing reason choosing to abandon the dancing shadows of one sight and swim towards the other end of his conscious stream, emerging to bright blinding lights that blurred and stung his senses for a moment that once cleared, left familiarity.
“Have you thought about branding?” The Project Manager said looking at the two glowingly.
“We hadn’t thought, but I guess we just assumed really, well we work for The Industry, so we just took for granted that it would take the more logical option. Is there really a difference?” asked The Woman, for the first time thinking about her own unquestioned branding and upbringing.
“I’d like to know alternatives,” said Marcos.
“Well, of course, but you do realize you would be passing on wonderful entitlements, right?” replied The Project Manager.
“What if we keep it?” asked Marcos.
“The entitlements?” replied The Project Manager confused.
“The baby” replied Marcos.
The room fell silent around him. The Project Manager sank back into his plush leather chair and a sense of bewilderment engaged his face. The Woman looked like she had just swallowed a swarm of flies. She gagged on her breath and blushed lightly, pulling on Marcos’ wrist as if to anchor him to her own self discontent or to simply shut him up.
“Marcos, please” she spoke in an urgent but hushed whisper trying to show her displease but whilst keeping their secret of her concern.
“It’s fine,” said The Project Manager calming The Woman’s disquiet. “What made you think of keeping the product? Are you interested in starting your own industry?” he continued almost condescendingly but then again, a man of enterprise would never shy of at least sniffing out the potential in a new venture.
“What happens if a child is lived out of Industry?” he asked.
“No child is lived outside of The Industry. That’s absurd. Without trained surgeons, how could you even remove the product from the woman’s stomach? It’s impossible; and learning, are you crazy?” said The Project Manager.
“I was reading a book,” said Marcos.
“Marcos, this is not the place, please, you’re embarrassing everyone,” said The Woman, her lover’s insanity mirroring on herself, forcing her to lather herself in a skin of shame and conscious ridicule.
“No, I just want to know what he thinks that’s all. I’m not saying this is what we’re going to do. I just want his opinion” said Marcos.
The Woman; like The Project Manager, sank into her chair and accepted defeat for the moment, folding her arms tight to her chest and pouting her lips angrily.
“What was the book?” asked The Project Manager.
“It was a book, like an instruction manual that I found lying on an exam room floor,” said Marcos.
“For what? Extracting an infant? Building a car?” he said jokingly.
“You do know The Industry was one of the major car makers in the world? Before the Infant Industry of course but they really were, the first extracted actually shared the same initials as the first factory that produced the motor vehicle, GM. The Industry has come a long way. So what did the manual instruct?” he asked.
“How to birth a baby” replied Marcos.
“What?” said The Project Manager baffled.
“Never mind him, sir, he gets all excited about things he finds. He is a collector in every regard. He keeps all sorts of nonsense. This is just a good example. Marcos, maybe we should think about choosing a brand now. I think The Project Manager is right, we should go with a strong brand; good global perspective, strong learning and it will redeem well in our retirement. Look at us, we are Industrialists. I’m sure our Investors are receiving a just entitlement and retirement for what we have become” she said.
“I can show you if you like,” said The Project Manager.
“Wow, really? I love this technology” said The Woman excitedly.
“Just press your thumb here,” said The Project Manager extending a grey square device with a red light flashing over a plastic plate.
The Woman put her finger on the device and a needle shot up and took a sample of her blood. In seconds, everything about her appeared on a small screen in front of the Project Manager.
“Let’s see. You had some troubles in your youth I see. Reckless, undisciplined but after completion of your learning you seemed to find the right path. I’m sure you had a lot to do with this Marcos. Now if you look here at the top of the screen you will see a set of numbers. Ok, these first numbers relate to the outcome of your choices. These numbers are exact so they show us the percentage of right and wrong choices as related to outcomes that aligned with your model and level of learning and, of course, that align with your branding. Your percentages are quite high, considering your less than illustrious start. Ninety six percent of your choices had a positive outcome, that’s quite exceptional. For your investor, to date their investment will be worth eight years of retirement. Considering the current market, I’d say at maturation, they will be looking at eleven to fifteen years of retirement. That’s fantastic” said The Project Manager.
“And if she made poor choices if her percentages were low?” asked Marcos.
“Well the investment grade would drop and the value of her investment would bottom. Anything less than sixty eight percent and you’re looking at liquidation; no retirement. Depending on the level then, well, anything lower than mid-forties and well, it’s not a nice way to leave. High forties and you at least guarantee some kind of sedative, but you know this, it’s your obligation. I’m preaching to the choir here or the altar boys or security, well you get the idea” said The Project Manager.
“And what about me?” said Marcos putting his finger onto the grey device, hardly flinching as the needle shot upwards and extracted his blood like an infant from a woman’s womb; quick and swift, without any argument.
The results appeared immediately on the screen.
“One hundred percent. This is incredible. Blue chip, well I haven’t seen a product like yourself… ever” said The Project Manager in awe of the man standing in front of him.
The Woman smiled greedily knowing that
their seed would spawn a solid investment. Marcos seemed unfazed, entirely.
“Nothing of Encounterance?” asked Marcos.
“Encounter-what?” said The Project Manager confused.
“Do you have brochures? I think our decision is already made. Marcos? What do you think?” said The Woman, finalizing the affair.
“Sure, we’ll take some brochures. Listen I have to be back at the office. Can we decide on all this another day?” he asked in a tiresome tone.
“That’s fine, this is a big choice, where best to make your investments. This is something you don’t want to take lightly, I completely understand. We’ll discuss branding in the next visit, I’ll give a complete list of variables and return prospective for all major Industry players to take to your dwelling. You can also search online if you like. Now, Marcos, you can leave if you like, I’m just going to take some measurements and assess the project length and extraction date so we can get your file on the database as soon as possible” said The Project Manager.
“It’s ok Marcos, you can head back to work. I’ll meet you online tonight and we’ll discuss all the options then” said The Woman smiling, thinking only of her winnings in her older age.
“Shall we find out the model?” asked The Project Manager swabbing The Woman’s stomach with liquid jelly.
“No,” said Marcos abruptly as he left the room, in his back pocket a tiny book slipped into the light but was witnessed by none other than the light itself falling upon the angular dimension.
“You make no choices without me,” he said, pointing furiously to The Woman.
As he trudged down the hallway his heart beat faster and with every step he felt the small booklet riding in and out of his pocket and the awareness of it got him to thinking about his career and more so, himself, whether he could call this success, this feeling in him, this distaste for being liked, for being available, for being conditioned, for making the right choices, for feigning desire in the reward and whether he loved her and whether he knew what love meant.
He wondered what it meant to be right all of the time, living to address another man’s outcome. His heart beat faster and a feeling of unwell became him. He rushed to a nearby bathroom and vomited and as he did, his consciousness carried with his indecision out of his belly and into the flood of the white sink; flowing down the metallic centre; disappearing into the black hole; trapping himself between zero and one.
He stormed out of the bathroom with his head spinning. The bright fluorescent lights were blinding and cast his conscious mind into a whirlpool of broken thoughts and sickly feelings. He focused his eyes trying to attain some direction, but every door looked the same; pale white and numberless.
“How did we even get to where we were going,” he thought.
He walked down a hallway unsure in what direction he was heading but stained by the condescendence of his wife. He felt like an infant or an invalid around her; special, for thinking different but in no way convincing.
He knew that her thoughts and her words were right. It was what they had learned, but this feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that everyone and everything that had ever been written, spoken to, listened to and learned was, in fact, wrong. Was it he who was sick or was he reacting to the sickness about him?
He pushed through a door and by all accounts it was the wrong door but as long as the door opened and he was somewhere, then it was a door and it could neither be wrong nor right for if a door were not a door, it would be a wall, meaning that every open door was, in fact, the right door. Thus, he pushed his way through and found not an exit but a long corridor, filled with anticipation.
He walked through the white corridor and past a row of seats where worried friends clung to one another, gripped by a state of sheer panic that was made all the worse by the bright buzzing lights above their heads and the sound of doors flipping back and forth as important men and women in white cloaks stormed up and down the halls, their faces stern and focused, their hands outstretched, colliding with the swinging doors; losing not an inch in their step; moving like a virus through an old man’s veins.
Every time the door swung, they would look mute, with massive eyes waiting for consoling words to dress their concern; pleading with a silent stare that screamed; “tell me she’s ok, say you got it out of her.”
Water flowed over a screen in the centre of the room that showed a list of percentages; the completion of the surgery, the condition of the investor and the number of right and wrong decisions made during the surgery; creating a sense of natural tranquility for those baited to their fears during this horrible process of Product Extraction.
Marcos walked through the swinging doors and made his way down the corridor where agitated humans in white clothing ran this way and that urged by their need to make a right choice.
The Industrialists he passed sitting in their chairs and those rushing past him dressed in white coats; the Infant Engineers, all directed a subservient eye and challenged not of his presence for worry that he may be there to collect their contracts and thus he walked by unbaited, driven by some childish curiosity, a sensation he thought The Industry had maturated and extracted.
“Take it to ICU” he heard one woman in white order to an apparently lesser stated man.
He watched the man take the infant in a small cubicle, down the corridor and out of sight and then his wonder turned him to a plumpish and stern looking woman seated behind an array of screens and flashing lights and had him ask;
“ICU?” he asked as The Administrative Attendant sitting behind a large desk pulled her spectacles down from her eyes onto the rim of her nose and raised her brow in authoritarian inquisition.
“Please just take a…” she said, in expectance of ushering the man back to his seat but then, upon fixing her sight, seeing the black uniform and the stripes upon his chest, she; like every other, bid him passage as if to buy herself more time and questioned not of his reason and instead gave him direction.
“My apologies sir. Initial Care? Sure, just go down the hall; it’s the last room on the left. Here you’ll need this” she said, handing him a mask to put over his face.
Marcos fixed his shirt and pulled the mask over his head, aligning the large breathing apparatus that lowered down to his upper chest, the massive filter sticking out like an elephant’s trunk.
“Do I really need this?” he asked in a muffled tone speaking through the voice box of the mask.
The lady didn’t respond. She returned her spectacle stare to the screen before her. Marcos leaned forward to try and sneak a peek but the lady angrily moved her screen to her left causing Marcos to feel foolish.
He tried aligning the mask once more. It was very tight around his chin and behind his ears and its size was cumbersome. Still, what choice did he have? He pulled on the straps beside his ear and with the mask affixed; he ventured down the hall and stopped at the last door, knocking once before entering.
When he entered the room, he could see a circle of men standing around a cubicle and discoursing with one another. On the far end, a man in white stood by a host of machinery and he was twisting dials and taking notes on the chart that he carried like a spare appendage.
It was difficult at first to see anything. Marcos was not used to wearing these types of masks and his initial panic caused him to breathe heavy and fill the mask with warm air fogging up his lens causing him to stupidly wipe the outside of the mask knowing to well that the problem was internal.
His stress led him to irrational behavior and it was something The Woman, who was always so logical, tried to enforce him to learn to better manage. Whenever she would say this to him it would incite even greater episodes where he would always explode in a fit of rage and it would end up with both of them saying things the other didn’t want to hear.
As he slowed his breath, his heart rate dropped and his mask started to clear. The room became visible. It was larger than a room; it was a warehouse. It was like he had enter
ed a door to another world, a world where hundreds of thousands of cubicles sat in neat rows; side by side, length by length; stretching to his left and to his right and to as far as he could see.
The ceiling was very low and from it hanged an assortment of wires and tubes all feeding from inside the cubicles, to the roof and off somewhere else out of his immediate sight. It was inspiring. He didn’t know if the awe that he felt was supposed to impress him or leave him in disbelief. Still, he stood gazing out over the rows of clear cubicles and barely visible inside, the outline of tiny frames, like small humans attached to wires and all moving to their own sporadic rhythm.
Marcos moved between one of the rows. He could see the circle of men not far from where he stood arguing with one another and he watched only for a moment, not wanting to draw any unneeded attention to himself.
He was never one for social engagement, be it personable or connected to the digi-state and did his best on every regard to avoid human interaction, preferring to counter his own thoughts and engage in his own evaluation of the outcome of others.
He walked through one of the rows and stopped by a beeping cubicle. He looked down and saw a product placed on its back; almost looking like a human, its tiny limbs slowly reaching formation, its face scrunched up, its eyes welded shut, its mouth taped over a collection of tubes that fed down its throat and into its stomach with needles protruding from tiny veins in its arms feeding a clear liquid into its system, its yellow skin; slowly blotching to a whitish, pinkish hue.
Marcos looked at the small product and thought about the material he had been reading. In the book they looked so much different; they were larger, more formed and their skin had fewer discolourations. It had to be nonsense then, what he was reading.
“Ugly things aren’t they?” said The Man in Blue.
“Are they always this small?” asked Marcos genuine.
“This is about average for extraction. They stay here for two months then they are moved to General Assembly; there they receive their base nutrition and their branding process starts. Without the machines here, they would all be dead in a day or two. The machines regulate their lungs, helping them to function while they are in formation. They also stimulate the heart rate and incubate the product in the final phases of design. It still needs to package a digestive system. The size is normal, though. They are tiny and so fragile. Designed to fail but with the machine, they become us one day. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?” he said.
“Wonder what?” replied Marcos confused.
“Which came first; the product or the machine?” said The Man in Blue cryptically.
Marcos thought about it for a second and it emptied his mind. How profound and how true. Without the machine, the product would die almost immediately upon extraction and yet it took a product to make the machine. He smiled to himself but felt dizzy at the same point. The Man in Blue turned some dials at the head of the cubicle and the beeping stopped.
“What was that?” asked Marcos.
“I’m not quite sure to tell you the truth. I just know that when it beeps like that, I press this” said The Man in Blue, pointing to a blue button sticking out from the cubicle.
“That’s why I wear a blue uniform. I press the blue button” he said.
“Who are they?” asked Marcos pointing to the circle of men.
“Partners of The Industry. They are corporate stakeholders essentially. The big one in the middle, he is The Industry, my boss, everyone’s boss” said The Man in Blue.
“How many products are here?” asked Marcos.
“You ask too many questions” said The Man in Blue walking away from Marcos and returning to his post by the massive machine in the centre of the room, waiting as he does for the sound of a blue light to beep so that he could make his way to the product and press a blue button.
Marcos looked down at the product which was now wriggling on its back, its tiny arms stretching out into the air. He leaned closer to look at the dimension and design. As his face neared the product, its hand reached and scratched his nose. He jumped back immediately into a large man behind who stopped him from falling to the ground.
“Be careful. They are every fragile. I bet you didn’t think it would do that did you?” said The Bearded Man laughing with his hand on Marcos’ shoulder, the two looking from a safe distance at the tiny product kicking its arms and legs.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I…,” he said stuttering.
“It’s ok. What’s your name?” said The Bearded Man.
“Marcos” he replied nervously.
“Is this your first time on The Production Line?” The Bearded Man asked.
“Yes. I didn’t mean to touch it, I swear I just wanted to see one up close” replied Marcos, sinking into himself and wishing he could be anywhere else other than here; sensing a great weight of authority on his shoulder and expecting to be arrested or accosted at any second.
“You’re standing in the largest Infant Production Line in the world. What do you think Marcos? Are you impressed?” asked The Bearded Man.
“I think so, I mean of course sir,” he said nervously.
“What do you do Marcos?” the man asked.
“I am a Collector,” he said.
“Liquidation huh? Do you like your job?” The Bearded Man asked.
“I like to be useful sir. I like to work for The Industry. I am really thankful for the opportunity” he replied.
“That’s not what I asked. Do you like cleaning up other people’s shit? Fixing their fuck ups, sweeping up their loss of attention, feeling others looking down at on you fearfully and disapprovingly” he exclaimed.
“They do that?”
“No of course not. Well maybe, who gives a fuck? It’s not about the work we do, it’s about the choices we make, right?” The Bearded Man said.
“Yes, sir” replied Marcos.
“Collector. Do you like to keep yourself close to your fears?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” replied Marcos.
“You live by the extent of choice. You reap on the outcome of fear. You are the final face that nobody wants to see and yet you chose to live to adorn this social isolation, why?”
“I believe in The Industry. I choose to police its ideal” Marcos said.
“Or did you choose to police your own indecision?” The Bearded Man asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Marcos.
“The reaper cannot be reaped except when in the mirror of another’s eyes he sees his own reflection. Have you seen your own reflection?” asked The Bearded Man?
“To answer that question would be to assume comprehension and to mate with such sedition would be to contravene The Industry, thus I am foreign to your words and unknown to their meaning.”
“Relax Marcos. Come with me, I want to show you something. Have you seen an Extraction before?”
“No, never” Marcos replied.
“Gentlemen, we’ll convene tomorrow, I have an important meeting now with an important man named Marcos so unfortunately I won’t have time to answer any more questions,” said The Bearded Man.
The other four men looked puzzled through their masks. They shook their shoulders at one another and made their way past Marcos and the tall man and out of the room.
Marcos followed The Bearded Man down along the row of cubicles and as he past each one; he stared long at the tiny products attached to wires. He thought about asking the man what liquid was in the tubes and what the blue button did, but his nerves spoke of reason and held him to wishful silence. He kept his feet moving feeling the man’s hand on his shoulder, urging him forward.
When they came to the end of the warehouse, there was a large metal door with strange numbers on it. Marcos looked at the zeros and ones, but they made no sense to him. The man opened the door and Marcos was taken aback.
Through the door was a room of about the same dimension and filled with tables. The roof was a lot higher than from where they had just co
me and hanging on large metallic hands was a huge conveyer that ran around the entire area. Connected to each table was a metal pole which ran to the height of the conveyer.
Marcos and The Bearded Man entered the room and they stood beside a metal frame. They were greeted by two men, one dressed in green overalls and the other in red overalls, both wearing masks of a more miniscule but equally cumbersome type. The two men saluted the man standing behind Marcos and gave Marcos himself an odd but accepting stare.
The man wearing green overalls stood beside a control panel and turned some dials and flicked several switches. The conveyer above started to move in circles in time with the giant conveyer running through the centre of the room that led somewhere outside of the complex through a break in the wall structure.
It was impressive.
A siren sounded and every table in every bay was manned by two gentlemen in coloured overalls with masks covering their faces and nets over their hair. They wore black rubber boots that rode up to their knees, making it obviously difficult to walk, meaning the men in green kind of prodded around with their legs straight, sliding from side to side like strangely obligated coloured penguins.
Their jobs required little movement and it was important that the boots sat high on their legs with their green overalls tucked inside so as to to avoid any follicles of skin or any contaminates of any nature entering onto The Cutting Floor.
Hanging from the roof of the warehouse was a large monitor that displayed their daily targets, their actual cuts and the ratios of poor to prime cutting. Within a second the noise inside the warehouse was deafening with the roar of turning belts, cranking engines, beeping vehicles, hands crashing against buttons, giant robotic arms pivoting left and right; twisting and turning around the bays and lifts taking women to extraction tables, products to cubicle bays and then women again; away for suturing.
It was so efficient, like a mechanical ballet.
Marcos stood bewildered, watching as the conveyers ran around the entire roof carrying bodies with swollen bellies and bodies with open bellies and there were small trays running under the conveyers catching any sanguine runoff on the way to suturing.
There was not a speck of dust.
Large vents on the floor and sticking out from the walls perpetually sucked air inwards removing the chance of any foreign object entering from the cutting floor to the extraction table.
Marcos could see in a bay before him, two technicians finishing with an extraction. The men in green and red overalls packed the product in an aluminum spread and placed it on a packing tray to be incubated and processed and sent to Initial Care.
The Man in Red then pressed the red button again and the tray carrying the woman lifted from the table and passed to the lift; raising into the air and then taken onto a conveyer which ran out of the complex towards Suturing.
In less than a minute, the men had washed their extraction table, disinfected their hands and were pressing the green button to accept another product for extraction.
The conveyer brought the woman to the lift which then lowered and moved a tray above the table which then lowered. The men aligned the woman under the robot arms and pressed the green button again. They stood back as the three giant arms swung into action.
The central arm was thicker and longer than the smaller more agile arms that pressed out from the sides of the robot. At the tip of the central arm was a long shiny metal finger with an edge sharp enough to cut a hole through space.
The screen in front of the men in green and red flashed. It showed an image of the woman’s body, its positioning on the table, the positioning of the product in her stomach and the projection of the cut. The two men gave each other the thumbs up and the men by the dials pushed the green button. This time, the arm swung around the table and the forearm turned to align with the co-ordinates set by the computer.
The man in green took a mask from below the table and pressed it to the woman’s face for several seconds. Once it was removed, she continued her absent stupor, but this time absolved of her contract with pain.
The forearm moved forward gently but swiftly cutting the open the belly from below the breast to slightly above the waist line. The cut was clean and fast. The woman’s expression didn’t change the entire time even when she watched as the other two smaller and agiler arms swung into action, pulling the flaps of her belly to either side and exposing the product inside of her.
The central arm then made several incisions inside the open stomach before the robotic finger retracted and was replaced by a large metallic scoop which pushed deep into the woman’s open stomach and took the product out and onto the packing table.
The product was now lying on silver aluminum wrapping which; at the press of a red button, vacuumed around the product’s frame and sent it towards cubing at the far end of the room where the noise of racing forklifts drowned out the yelling by angered foremen, bemused as workers tossed around a product like a stuffed chicken.
The men pressed another red button and the woman was taken up into the air and out of sight, the finishing of her procedure handled by technicians trained in pressing different coloured buttons on machines with different robotic arms.
“We are the largest extraction sight in the southern hemisphere. We account for thirty two percent of European investment. This here is the most efficient facility in the world. We extract anywhere from two to four thousand products per day. Would you like to see an extraction up close” asked The Bearded Man urging Marcos forward towards a bay where a man in green overalls pulled back on a handle and pressed a green button.
Marcos watched in awe as the metal tray slowly lowered down to the height of the table. The woman on the table was screaming; very different to the stillness of the women on every other extraction table.
The two men took the tray at either end, bracing before lifting and sliding it onto the table. The screaming woman was tied to the table; her ankles and wrists bound in leather straps.
“This will be interesting. Keep watching. Gentlemen” said The Bearded Man to the two men in red and green overalls, “No machines, you’re to extract by hand. Refer to your handbooks if you have any doubts.”
The two men looked at each other and nodded. One of the men took a needle and inserted it into the woman’s exposed vein. She twisted her body several times and the needle tore through her skin. Her eyes were rolling back in her head as her screams now penetrated through the industrial noise and into Marcos’ ears.
It was horrific.
She was in agony.
Marcos turned away but caught the glare of the man behind him urging him to return his stare to the table. Not wanting to upset an Industry authority he returned his sight to the table and the man in red took the needle and forced it into the woman’s other arm, pushing back and forth vigorously until a tiny squirt of blood shot out the open end.
They attached a tube to her vein which fed from a clear bag of liquid hanging above her bed. The woman thrust about trying to rip herself off the bed and looked long into Marcos’ eyes, pleading with him in every scream to get her out and to get this thing out of her stomach.
The men in red and green overalls looked at each other bemused. Marcos felt no desire to help her, but he was estranged by the situation. The Man in Green overalls moved to inject a green fluid into the clear bag. The Bearded Man standing behind Marcos shook his head signaling no. The Man in Green with the needle saluted his understanding. He returned the needle to the drawer and picked up a scalpel from the nearby metal tray.
The Man in Red Overalls lined the incision and with careful precision, they cut into the woman’s stomach, peeling the two sides back from the centre. Marcos closed his eyes and he wished he could block out the woman’s screams as the two men in green extracted the product from her stomach leaving her exposed and unconscious on the table as they underwent initial tests on the quality of the product.
The woman lay there; still and silent, out cold from the pa
in, her innards lying upon her upper chest and beside her open body. Marcos turned and vomited in his mask. The man laughed to himself and helped Marcos up; taking him outside via a fire exit to the left of the room.
The door opened to a loading bay and immediately Marcos tore off his mask and sucked in the cool fresh air. He keeled over himself breathing heavy as the man stood in his shadow with his firm hand slapping him on the back.
“Is it what you expected? I’m sorry you had to see that. They’re not always that, dramatic” The Bearded Man said.
“Is she dead? Was that normal?” Marcos asked still breathing heavy.
“She tried to hide the product. Agents found her. She thought she could extract it herself. She paid the price in the end” said The Bearded Man.
“There was no anesthetic?” asked Marcos.
“We can’t risk infecting the product. She was a defector, she deserved no grace. The product would have wasted within hours. It really is ridiculous the ideas some people get in their heads” said The Bearded Man.
“How did you find her?” Marcos asked.
“Where on earth could she possibly hide?” laughed The Bearded Man.
“What would happen? You know; if you didn’t find her? Could she extract herself? Is that possible?” asked Marcos naively.
“If the product isn’t removed, it continues growing until the host is dead. It is a product, yes, but we make it so, we make it useful. Before that, it is a virus and without The Industry intervention this product would have kept growing and growing and growing until it was wearing her feet, clenching her fist and suffocating her from the inside out. Without The Industry, there is no life. Like the hair on a sheep. It will keep growing until it wears the animal down. The wool is shaven, but it is not a coat without The Industry to make it such. A product can only become a person through learning. Until that point, it is no different than a ring worm or a cyst” said The Bearded Man.
Marcos wanted to tell the man about what he had read, but he stopped himself. What he was reading was account to treason and it made no sense. How could a product extract itself? Still, part of him wanted to question what he had read.
Instead, he thought about the screaming woman being lowered down like a rack of lamb; sliced up on the table and left exposed to die. He thought of The Woman, who had wanted to kill this thing in her belly, this virus that would feed on her youth and desirability.
He thought about The Woman lying on the table, screaming her heart out, begging for Marcos to cut her free from the binds at her wrists and ankles. He imagined The Woman as he had read in the book; squatting in the darkness, her hands between her legs like a net, her face twisting in pain, the crown of a head coming out in the shadows and touching the gentility of her hands and as she screamed in pure ecstasy, the door bursting inwards and Industry suits rushing in with weapons drawn, beating him to the ground, tearing the baby from between The Woman’s legs; taking it off into the darkness and leaving them both cradled together as flames cased in around them.
As he burst through the many sets of doors, running back down along the white corridor, he thought only of rushing to where The Woman stayed and taking her far away from this abhorrent human factory, far from the swinging mechanical arms, far from the imbecilic men in green and red overalls and far from the service of choice. His head started to spin as it had whenever he seemed to near some kind of understanding and out of his sight; from an open door, wheeled a cart that caught his surprise and his leg, sending him hurdling over himself and crashing into the floor.
He woke into darkness with the shouting of an elderly woman in his ear. Slowly his eyes began to adjust and his conscious mind stopped its listing, eventually stabilising and giving him a second to think before he came to speak.
“Oh good you are awake,” The Pudgy Old Lady said, still prodding him with a pointy little stick; his skin around his cheeks and neck now bright red from the relentless poking by the desperate old lady. Although in the deadly dark, neither he nor the old lady would be able to tell, at least not visibly.
“Who are you? What do you want from me? Where is The Woman?” he asked desperately.
“What woman? You are unique, alone, without company, unevened, unrepeated by yourself except now that you are with me of course and my dear friend. Will you help me? We have to help my dear friend. She is in danger and she will die very soon if we don’t recue her” said Pudgy.
Marcos took a moment to adjust his mind and began to debate whether this was a dream or a memory or whether this was reality suffusing a dream, carving a memory and he wondered if he should live it now or come back to it down the line as he found himself now, engaged more in his forgotten past than his forgettable present.
He wanted, more than anything at this moment, to rush back to The Woman and kidnap her; take her far from The Industry’s reach, somewhere away from all the machines, away from the technicality, away from the statistics, away from expectation, away from the ideal.
He wondered to himself, “If this is a dream then how do I wake? What secret do I have to unlock before it sheds me of its metaphoric bind?”
Thinking these things, he continued to affix his eyes and in doing; while listening to his own conscious choral, could see the mouth of The Pudgy Old Lady nattering away as if she were canting of the life she had lived and yet nothing louder than the sound of compressing air parted from her lips.
He tried to think not of The Woman, for he had to deal with this state before he could return to the other. He had to focus in his entirety on what was happening in his sight right now and ignore everything else. He needed a conscious north, but The Woman wouldn’t do. When he thought of her it brought him to unease and then to sheer panic knowing that he knew something that she didn’t and for now, he couldn’t tell her until he escaped this dream.
“My name is Pudge,” said The Pudgy Old Lady offering her hand to Marcos who now seemed to be more connected to his mind and his body.
Marcos took her hand. It was small and stubby, like her in fact, but she was so strong. The Pudgy Old Lady tugged once and Marcos flew to his feet almost choking on the wind he swallowed along the way with his mouth open and aghast.
“My name is Marcos,” he said, speaking in absolute certainty.
Marcos dusted himself off. His body was sore, but he could walk and his strength was slowly returning. It felt though as if he had a cord tied around his soul for something was binding him, stopping him from feeling like he could control his body in its entirety. His skin felt raw and it ached to touch and it pained to be left alone. His day in the sun; exposed to the elements, had left him blistered and burned bright red. He couldn’t see this effect in the darkness, but he could feel his skin as if it was made of plastic and it was cracking and bubbling with every breath.
“I can help you with that” said The Pudgy Old Lady resting her stubby hand on Marcos’ arm and in doing so, sending a chill through his bones that washed a sea of ice through his spine, down to his toes, unto the tips of his fingers and in the cracks of his eyes.
“Oh, that feels wonderful. How did you do that? Do it again” he said, his head lifting to the dark sky, relief dancing with every syllable.
“Help me and I will help you,” she said.
“I need to find someone,” said Marcos.
“Is it a woman? What is her name?” asked The Pudgy Old Lady.
“I don’t know” he replied.
“Who is she?” asked The Pudgy Old Lady.
“She is my north” replied Marcos.
“She is your north and you do not know her name?” she asked.
“Could north be known as anything but?” replied Marcos.
“Was she with you in the river?” she asked.
“What river?” he replied.
“Where you arri… oh nothing” said The Pudgy Old Lady not wanting to evoke any fright and set him into a chase again.
“Where did you last see her?” she asked, correcting herself.
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“In a room,” he said.
“Can you be more specific? What kind of room?” she asked.
“It’s an office. There were chairs and screens and pictures of my unborn child and there was a man; a Project Manager and he’s going to take my child,” he said.
“And what about the woman?” asked The Pudgy Old Lady.
“She’s going to give it to him”
“Where is the office?” asked Pudgy.
“It’s in a factory,” he said.
“Where is the factory?” she asked.
“In my head,” he said.
The Pudgy Old lady rested her stubby hands against his cheeks holding his face firm; feeling for the first time the youth and energy that exuded from his skin. She was overcome with a desire to tear his face off then and there and rub it against her body.
The desire was almost overwhelming.
She managed though to compose herself and instead pushed her pudgy face close enough to his for a slight glimmer in her eye to shimmy just enough for him to see that she was staring right into his crippled sight and as she spoke, he listened.
“I can take you to her. I can take you to your north. Can you help me with mine? If you help me save my dear friend, I’ll take you to where you need to be. I’ll save you too” she said.
“Ok,” he said, “what do you need me to do?”
The Pudgy Old Lady smiled. She thought of her dear friend and how proud she would be of her for tricking the man into helping her free her so they could both kill him and tear off his face.
“She will be so proud,” she thought.
The two walked slowly back through the thick scrub where in the clearing, the loose sand scratched at the leathered skin of Marcos’ feet; a feeling he found enjoyable though he couldn’t pick why, it was just a sensation that made him feel calm and unbothered.
“Where is your friend?” asked Marcos.
“She is up there, in the sky. Can you see?” she said pointing to an invisible smudge in the black sky.
Marcos could see nothing but The Pudgy Old Lady; whose sight was governed by love, could see the outline of her dear friend’s soul being evacuated by the sudden abandon of Mother Nature.
“Who are you people?” he asked.
“We are the Elements,” she said.
“Of what?” asked Marcos.
“Of Nature. We are her children and she is the only child of existence” she said.
“Existence?” he asked.
“You know it as god. Consciousness gives you an assumption of its presence so we gave you the word god to entertain this” she said.
“What do you mean? God is not real?” he asked.
“If it can be thought of it is real but not all that is real is affecting,” she said.
“The Industry is real. Our choices are real. Love is real” he said.
“Not in the way you have learned to express it. Your industry stripped you of your love. It redefined empathy and you recklessly traded it away for neon lights. It was a mistake we made in the development of your conscious mathematics. Someone left a zero in the calculations. It was an oversight but for thousands of years it meant nothing and then, things changed” she said.
“I am a product of The Industry,” he said adamantly.
“You are a carrier for nature, nothing more,” she said.
“I think, therefore I am,” he said, quoting some Industry cliché.
“You think therefore you charge, you charge therefore we are,” she said.
“What do you mean charge? I have free will. My thoughts are my own” he said.
“Consciousness is a charge. Your thoughts make the candle burn brighter. The things you think are just variables; they are the tools we gave you. Language, politics, religion, self, god; they are just tiny balls bouncing around your mind. As long as you engage them, your conscious mind becomes electric and, it charges” she said.
“What? Like a battery?” he said bewildered.
“Exactly. Our mother, she feeds on this energy and you are merely a lamp, a carrier of her conscious fuel” she said.
“Then what about The Industry?” he said.
“It stole our mother’s charge so, we turned off the lights and we took it back,” she said.
“What do you mean? The lights are still on. You took nothing. I was just there before I woke in this dream” he said.
“And what makes you think that this is the dream?” she said.
“It has to be. None of this is real. The Woman, I was with her. And the rooms, they’re cutting them open like cattle and stealing the children. I have to get back” he said in a panic as a memory flashed before him.
“Do you remember The Blackout, The Uprising, The Famine?’ she said, hinting towards a past he couldn’t remember.
“What is wrong with your face?” he asked.
“I know, it is not as beautiful as others, but it is mine,” she said.
“No, the hooks? It’s, it’s tied on” he said shocked.
“It is a garment, my skin dress. Of course, it is tied on. How else would I keep it from slipping to the floor?” she said.
“If you know everything, then where is she? Where is The Woman” he asked.
“She is where you left her last,” said The Pudgy Old Lady.
“Take me to her, please” he pleaded.
“If you help me first,” she said.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“Swallow the sun,” she said.