80. Only Human

Purple shafts of light filtered in through the shutters, mixing with the dull glow from the lightpads on the ceiling, catching on the haze of smoke inside the small, dank room. A holographic screen on the wall adjacent to the window displayed a darkened ‘Game Paused’ menu, and the face of a many-buttoned controller poked out from under the twisted remnants of the bed sheets like a small animal checking to see if the weather had calmed. An opened box of pizza lay discarded on the floor, only one slice gone.

The air was thick, nearly to the point of stifling, heavy with the scent of cigarette smoke and brain-calming Deep Silver Lining. A woman sat in a comfort-padded chair, head resting in her palm, elbow on the desk, her dark hair tousled and dishevelled about her head. She was quite still, eyes just barely open and staring at the shifting internal colours of her furniture.

The dispenser on her desk released another cloud of Deep Silver Lining, and like a good little human, she inhaled all she could. Her brain flooded with chemically-induced tension relief, and the girl let out a soft and pointless sigh. Her shoulders slumped a little. She exhaled. This truly was the very last thing that she expected to be worried about; everyone was doing it, right?

Maybe…

“Ellie?”

Eleanor glanced up and away from the surface of her desk to stare at the screen that had gone dim against the wall. A man’s face stared back at her. The girl let her brow crinkle in response – he had her attention.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. They’re safe.” He said, voice laden with calm, supportive concern.

Ellie took her cigarette to her lips and inhaled, letting it filter out of her noise when she breathed out.

“You don’t complain about your HMU injections. You know how long we used to live a thousand years ago? Forty years. Fifty -- maybe sixty if you were really, really lucky.” He raised an eyebrow, “And how long do we live now?”

“I don’t know, Michael,” Ellie said. Her voice was clear, if a tad hopeless and monotone.

“Nobody knows. Nobody’s died of old age in two hundred and sixty years. Nobody even ages anymore if they get their injections.”

“Thanks for the school tip on Human Development. So what?”

“I know your injections look like water, but it’s basically a tube full of machines. Do you have any idea what those cigarettes – what that cloud of Deep Silver would do to your lungs, if you didn’t take your injections? Ellie, these little robots… they-“

“They keep me alive. I know.” She interrupted.

“They’re a part of you. A part of all of us. I can’t remember the last time I was sick for more than a day – can you?”

“No.”

Michael sighed loudly and put his head on his hands briefly, smoothing back his hair, only to come back with renewed vigour. “So what’s the difference between having your body monitored and constantly repaired by billions of nanobots and a few bigger versions of them making you stronger? I mean, yeah, you’ll start to look a little different because you’ll pack on muscle tone, but that’s not even a bad thing!”

“They want to keep me awake for three days at a time, Michael. It’s not natural.”

“Nothing is natural, Ellie! This city, the trees, the air, the sunshine, and even that cigarette you’re holding aren’t fucking natural! The only thing that isn’t recycled on this floating hunk of metal and reassembled to look like something else is normal organic life like the birds and us. And even that’s not really true if you look at how many people do exactly what your job wants you to do, out of choice. They wanna give you a body that never wears down and barely has to—“

Ellie slammed her fist down on the desk. “They want to make me into a machine! One of those cold-ass kill-droids to “protect the sanctity” of a nation literally governed by a corporation run by some program on a computer!”

The Deep Silver was not providing her the tranquil rumination that it advertised. Michael seemed about to say something, but only sighed.

“I’m only fucking human, Michael. And what makes me angry is that people are losing track of what that actually means. Three hundred years ago we actually had to exercise to keep our bodies from breaking down – now we’re monitored and regulated by machines, because God forbid that we might have to work for the right to live meaningfully.”

“Ellie…”

The girl leant heavily against her desk, middle finger and thumb pinching the bridge of her nose. It took her a few moments to speak, and when she did, she was soft-spoken. “What’s wrong with wanting to live like we used to, Michael…?”

“… Ellie… There’s nothing wrong with it. But what’s wrong with using technology to get rid of all those things that our forefathers worked so hard to get rid of? People used to go hungry, Ellie. People used to have to scrape by on nothing, and so many of us died because we couldn’t provide for the whole world.”

Ellie smoothed back some of her hair and turned the dispenser on her desk away from her face.

“If it didn’t cost me more years of injections than I have saved up, I’d get that very same thing you’re being given for free. Just think of what you could do, Ellie – think of the life you could lead with that.”

“I’m worried I won’t be me anymore, Michael…”

The man just shook his head. “Your body is not you, Ellie – you, are what’s up here,” He pointed to the side of his head. “And if we always chickened out of using technology to make our lives better, then we’d still be banging rocks together back on the Surface. I think you know that. So trust me – think it over. Weigh up the pros and cons, then pick the Augmentation anyway – you’ll be able to play that stupid fuckin’ game on your wall for days at a time.”

Ellie cracked a little smile.

“There’s my girl. I gotta go now, but I’ll see you in a few days, alright?”

She nodded. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The screen faded back into the wall, and Ellie glanced at the pizza box on the floor. It’d probably reheat well.