Original Sin
written by: David A Thrasher
Gallium walked in through the front door, took off his heavy coat and protective Government Issue helmet, and handed them to the hired help whose name Gallium had already forgotten. And besides, he still had all the hypotheses mixed with the jubilation of the day’s discovery whirling around his hard drive. And what did it matter anyway? Was it Alexis or Alan? Probably some Old World name or other that these Genos still insisted on passing on through the generations? Gallium simply wasn’t good at remembering people’s names.
“Ah, yes – uh thank you -um…?” he responded awkwardly.
“Aziz, Master Gallium,” the hired help reminded the Master of the household, rather bashfully. He was young, tall, and his skin that warmer shade of hue that was so much the vogue these days. For Gallium’s Eve, these aesthetic qualities were the only criteria necessary to be hired as Household staff.
“Is that you, Gally?” Synthetica called out from the kitchen.
Gallium appeared at the doorway. “Mm, something smells nice.”
“Rose petal potatoes,” his Eve replied. “I picked them fresh from the garden. And I’m making sanguine fish in garlic butter sauce,” she added. “Will that do for my sexy Adam?”
“Well, it sounds delicious,” he said. “Shall I?” And he took over stirring the sauce in the pan on the hob. He found its turbulent flow soothing to study after a day’s work.
Synthetica stood close behind her Adam and wrapped her arms around his waist, her long slender fingers travelling upwards, seeking the shirt buttons, undoing them, and sliding her hand over his bare chest. “And what would you fancy for dessert?” She whispered, gently nibbling the lobe of his ear.
“Mmm!” He responded. “Do we have apple crumble?”
Synthetica pinched him, playfully and pouted so Gallium turned to face her, cupped her face in his strong hands, and kissed her gently on the mouth. “I admire you, my darling Eve,” he said and she reacted feverishly, undoing his pants and slipping her hand inside. Gallium immediately pulled away.
“Perhaps later,” he said. “After we’ve eaten. I promise,” he added, registering her spurned look. He returned to the saucepan on the hob and shortly announced, excitedly; “We think we may have found a wormhole today.” Actually, it was Gallium who had found it but since Dr. Freud III had successfully eliminated the ego from the third generation of Adam and Eves, it simply would not have occurred to Gallium to take sole credit. Such a frivolous emotion that only the Genotypes – original creators of the first generation of Adam and Eve- would display.
“And you were right, Synth, we found it just about where you directed me to look. Didn’t take us long at all.” Synthetica just nodded. She was sulking again, he thought.
Unfortunately, Gallium’s Eve wasn’t wired for hiding disappointment and so not for the first time the couple sat across from each other in the dining room, in the codified practice of repressing a rather uncomfortable dilemma that had recently come between them. The Genotypes had a term for it; ‘the elephant in the room,’ they called it, which Gallium had tried to conceptualise but although he was programmed to converse in all the World Nation’s surviving languages, Figurative was not one of them. However, Gallium was acutely aware that he should try to recompense his Eve for his most recent rebuttal by offering her his company for one of the World Nation’s grandest annual events, happening that very evening and beamed into every household.
“Let’s watch Sex Island. Together,” he said. “It should be fun; listen, you’ve been begging me to watch it with you, so I thought, why not?” he encouraged. “Watching all those pretty Genotypes pretending to be ‘in love,’ with their chosen partner while being caught by the cameras lusting after another pretty piece of flesh. I suppose it might be quite amusing,” he announced, leaning across the table to reach for the wine.
“All that Original Sin, spilling out into the World Nation’s living room an hour a week. We should count ourselves lucky, I suppose. I just cannot imagine what it must be like to live with the defect of lust and ego. So debilitating…”
“Did you have sex with her, Gally?” Synthetica cut in, no longer able to sustain this charade.
“Ah,” Gallium responded, slumping back in his chair. He went to take another sip of the wine but Synthetica snatched the glass clean out of his hand with manufactured precision, placing it out of his reach before he could react.
She didn’t need to ask again. The expression on his face, his immediate incapacity to look her in the eye told her all she needed to know. The very simple truth. Her Adam had betrayed her. Still, though, she felt she needed him to say it; to admit his betrayal to her. “Well, did you?”
He sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Gallium watched her take the bottle of wine, pour herself a generous measure, and drink it in one.
“No,” she repeated.
He shook his head. “I was just too preoccupied.”
“On your fucking wormholes,” she scoffed.
“Which is very necessary for saving civilisation,” he remonstrated. “Oh, but my dearest Eve, my beautiful Synthetica…”
“Oh, don’t try to give me all that now, Gally. You think adjectives of endearment will suffice?”
He was about to remonstrate again but he could see she was in no mood. “Look, Gallium,” she began. “You know that within our compatibility ratings, sexual desire is in the 80th percentile. Nevertheless, it is quite evident that your chemistry has gone through a synthesis or decomposition that threatens this compatibility. Gally, you know as well as I that these processes, once started, are irreversible except by further chemical reactions. And that requires sex therapy, which if you aren’t willing to participate,” – and here she paused before concluding; “then you need to let me explore an alternative. For myself.”
“And that is?” He asked.
“Aziz,” she replied.
“Aziz?”
“The new home help.”
“Ah yes. Him,” said Gallium. “But…”
“He has declared he loves me. So I may as well exploit that.”
Gallium laughed incredulously. “Loves you,” he said with contempt. “But he’s a Geno. He’s hired help.”
“Yes, I am aware of that, and please stop using that term; either ‘Human being’ or ‘Genotype.’ You have no idea how offensive that word is to them.”
“Oh, I see. So, while I’ve been busy trying to save AdamEvekind, it seems you’ve been even busier grooming the hired help,” he retorted. However, it was of no use. Both Adam and Eve were well aware that heritable and environmental factors of jealousy had been eradicated very much in the early days of the Evolution Renaissance when even the Genotypes were still in charge. To claim to have such feelings would be as contrived in the third generation of AdamEvekind as ‘true love.’
Still, Gallium was intrigued. His Eve wanting to engage in sexual relations with a genotype. “And what if,” he suggested; “what if you get bored of him? And you will get bored, Synthetica. Isn’t that what all this is about? You will move on naturally, but what if he can’t? He’s a simple Geno… sorry, Genotype. He isn’t going to understand that the passion he feels is simply primeval. What if he becomes obsessed and possessive, Synth? And what if this manifests itself into grievous revenge?”
“It won’t,” said Synthetica.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve had his algorithms checked. Aziz is much younger than I and right now is at his sexual peak which I have already begun to take advantage of. As an older woman, he naturally finds me rather mystical; rather alluring. Inevitably, as I lose my aesthetic qualities, he too, will lose interest in me and will want to replace me with a younger type to idolize. It has long been the common practice of the male species in homosapien communities.”
Gallium looked at his Eve and felt a familiar stirring of deep admiration for her; a chemical reaction that had he not had so many more important items on his agenda before retiring, he would have acted on. “Interesting,” he said, thoughtfully. “However, what will you do, then?”
“Well, by then, retire to focus on the garden, one would very much hope.”
Gallium had a sudden strong urge to beg for her not to cast him aside for the younger man. He even contemplated emotional blackmail, knowing full well it was being synthetically produced to manipulate her emotions and very likely to have been manufactured by the alcohol he had just consumed. And yet…
“I should make a doctor’s appointment,” he announced.
“Why?”
“Oh, just in case it should be found that the problem is a symptom of a congenital disease…” He paused to let his words take effect, though not able to look her in the eye. “Which… of course… might be terminal.”
“Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad.” Gallium hadn’t expected her response to be so immediate. Or indeed, upbeat. “I mean think about it, so long as you make sure your memory banks are all up to date and stored safe, all you have to do is switch bodies. Maybe one of the Sex Island contestants.” She paused. “Or Aziz,” she added, cheerfully.
“I’m going to plug in,” Gallium replied, unimpressed, and went upstairs to retire for the night.
***
He opened the little partition in his skull, uncoiled the lead, and plugged himself in. He was instantly relieved. Now he could delve into all his hard drive memories, re-organise, file the findings of the day, and apotheosize theories that had already been starting to formulate during his conversation with his Eve. Gallium felt a load had been lifted. Freed up of his conjugal duties, he was happy to float off to search entire universes for potential wormholes. Nothing stimulated him more.
Since the years before the Evolution Acceleration Programme (EAP) when the self-titled Vladimir The Great fired the first nuclear deterrent into Europe, Climate change had become irreversible. Swathes of countries found themselves submerged in tidal waves. Much of what was known as Southeast Asia had disappeared altogether, placing a huge burden on the more fortunate territories to provide refuge. At first, these decisions had been met with opposition based on inherent human deficiencies but once the World Justice Organization, (WJO) led by the Second Generation of AdamEvekind had sifted through all the historical data, it was found to be an irrefutable fact that the displaced poor deserved the aid of the Global Community.
Gallium shifted his weight to get comfortable before beginning the deeply relaxing process of washing away the excess proteins from his hard drive before re-organising. Only – he found he couldn’t. A cognitive overload was making him restless.
It was also swiftly understood in a study of ancient documents and artifacts that had surfaced immediately after the Synchronised Overthrow of Homosapien Rule that Genotypes, the very creators of the Artificial Intelligence programmes that led to the creation of AdamEvekind, were a deeply flawed species. These documents revealed how some inherent genetic malignancies labelled as Hubris, Pride, and Greed had time and again combined to subjugate the many for the benefit of the few. Eradicate these malignancies and War would become a thing of the past. Gallium had never really taken much interest in Genetics or what the Geneticists were up to these days but he did know as a third-generation Adam that it had worked in much the same way their Genotype ancestors had eradicated the Pox in all its various mutations.
Gallium shifted his weight again to get comfortable. He closed his eyes. He wished – although wistfully – that one could be vaccinated against Lust. After all, once these three original sins had been suppressed, Wrath had no longer been able to flourish. There was no one left in the New World Nation to hate. And – therefore – no one to love either. Except within the Genotype communities and available for viewing through the Reality TV subscription bundle.
Gallium sat up. He checked his pulse. Synth, Gallium had long suspected, had become rather obsessed with the Genotype culture as a whole. She even once berated her Adam whom no one loved anymore. ‘Really loved!’ She had said. ‘Why does no-one – except the Genotypes – really love anymore?’ As if Gallium had been personally responsible. He simply couldn’t understand the relevance of the term. Even the old historical archives admitted that none of their ancestral creators had ever understood it, so what was its use? All it seemed to do was create turmoil, confusion, and something called; ‘Poetry.’ Eradicate it.
Gallium preferred his world of equations and hypotheses. Nothing was certain until the math could prove it. He did allow himself the intangible warm feeling of his admiration for his Synthetica. Always had done, since their coupling. He admired her and made sure he told her every day, just as the Handbook to Compatibility advised all Adams to do. He never found it contrite to do so because it was genuinely true. Gallium knew that much. What was there not to admire about her brilliant mind? Her ability to develop and nurture new strains of plants and herbs one moment while at the same time putting her mind to the mathematics that would lead his team of physicists to locate that wormhole in space? He often wondered if that was ‘love.’ But then Synthetica would complain about the lack of something called ‘Passion’ and Gallium would be lost again. It seemed so puerile in the face of the irrefutable fact that the planet would not be able to sustain life for much longer. Not even the most advanced Adam or Eve of Gallium’s generation had been able to reverse this. For too long, even amongst the most Enlightened of AdamEvekind, Global warming had been treated like the ‘elephant in the room’ to the extent that Generation III had resolved that the only way to save the species was to find a way- in the vernacular that would appeal to the Genotype community- ‘to get the fuck out of here.’
The new world of Goldilocks had been located and it was local; in the same galaxy. The problem was that it would still require the right wormhole in the fabric of spacetime to get there.
***
“Say that again,” Synthetica requested, excitedly.
“Get,” Aziz repeated, kissing her lips; “the fuck,” he did it again; “out of here.”
Aziz knew nothing about positive-energy subluminal spherical symmetric warp drives or the wormholes of exotic matter critical in generating distortion in the space-time continuum. However, Synthetica was finding out, that he was most certainly an expert on holes of erotic matter. This was a chemistry unlike any she had been used to dealing with before. Her dopamine levels were excessively high, hindering her ability to make rational decisions right now, so she ordered Aziz – he so adored serving her- to fetch the tub of ice cream from the kitchen. She wanted to indulge him in her most recent recipe of Honeymoon Choc Chip and together they would watch the finale of Sex Island.
Synthetica had been surprised to learn how easy she could deceive just by studying the Genotype contestants. When she had told Gallium the results of the algorithm checks carried out on Aziz, she had successfully engaged in an act of subterfuge. She had ‘fooled’ her Adam and her success had made her giddy. The truth was that results of the algorithm test had been emphatic.
Given his underprivileged upbringing, Aziz depended entirely upon a set of beliefs that idolized Evekind as the spiritual nurturers of the world. Finding out that his new mistress was a keen horticulturist – well – it was everything he had longed for all his young and misguided spiritual life. An Eve of his own to adore. Synthetica did not have to check her own algorithms to understand that once this exhilarating surge of powerlessness she was now experiencing died down and her desires came back under control, she would indeed tire of him. He would be ‘heartbroken;’ (a state of malfunctioning unique to Genotypes) but she would do her best to console with a few ancient human platitudes she had studied and committed to her hard drive, such as; ‘you’ll always remain in my heart,’ and ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than not loved at all.’ Or the real clincher, so persuasive she almost wished she could say it to him now, just to try it out: ‘wherever you are in this world, a part of me will always be with you, watching over you.’ And she would probably offer him a tub of her ‘honeymoon choc chip’ ice cream as consolation. The algorithms had confirmed -much to her relief – that Aziz was almost zero percent likely to try and harm her, however there was a forty percent chance he would attempt to void his own existence, which could bring serious repercussions for Synthetica.
The reason for this is that at the beginning of the Enlightened period, directly after the War that ended all Wars, it was decreed that Humankind owed a debt to the New World for what was termed by the World Justice Organisation as ‘their Original Sins.’ Their penance was to be at voluntary readiness at any moment’s notice, for transference procedures, if required through a State Emergency. Of course, this was only deemed necessary if such an Adam or Eve whose hard drive was of utmost importance to the survival of the species was physically failing and likely to die. And there were very few as Generation III was rapidly evolving Generation IV. Therefore, the vast majority of Genotypes were quite free to live out their lives with their erroneous little minds left intact.
However, as the plight of the planet became ever more desperate, most of the world’s resources had been poured into various failing strategies to save it. Much had already been squandered before it was understood that any further attempt would be just as futile. Resources were redirected to the Goldilocks programme. Further cuts were made until Research and Development into Generation IV was halted altogether in favour of the less costly extension of the Genotype conscription into the transference programme. The WJO had studied the great Populist leaders of the past and were aghast at how the disenfranchised could be fooled into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of the few. Slogans were key. ‘Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might;’ ‘Your courage, your cheerfulness, and your resolution will bring us victory.’ What was clear was that these slogans had to be short and unambiguous and most of all, speak to the Masses of Genotypes in their vernacular. The Goldilocks programme was renamed the ‘Get the fuck out of here’ programme and the Transference Programme was simply and rather sublimely renamed ‘Transcendence.’ And it was working. A Genotype Clothes manufacturer won a World Nation award for garments which promoted ‘Keep Calm and Transcend’ and for its adaptation of the WJO emblem along with the slogan; ‘helping you to get the fuck out of here.’
And with this new and most urgent initiative came new legislation that any involvement either directly or indirectly in the sabotaging of a healthy living genotype would carry severe punitive measures. Human beings became a protected species which the World’s Genotype Union Congress had celebrated as a great victory for Human equality.
Synthetica was only vaguely aware of this law and understood that in all likelihood, Aziz would have been a fully paid-up Union member. However, her conscience would have it that she really didn’t give a fuck about getting the fuck out of here. She would vehemently deny it of course – and rightly so for this rogue strand of thought was well hidden in the recesses of the hard drive, unobtainable when conscious. It had manifested itself amongst the remnants of memories she had been carrying around with her throughout various transcendences. She did not know how many she’d gone through exactly but she was certain there had been a few. It was common enough phenomenon discovered by Dr. Freud IV. He labelled it; ‘Recall,’ although independent research into her own hard drive had come up with the term ‘subconscious.’ It clung to her nightly dreams when she was plugged in and it transported her back to familiar places, she had no conscious recollection of. They would be so clear at first, real and in an odd way comforting but over time, they faded into lesser significance: discarded as one does an old toy or comfort blanket, gradually replaced by an equally familiar and comforting knowledge of the adult world; of gardens, mathematics, and sex. And yet, menacing thoughts lurked in her hard drive that could only ever be described in the unobtainable abstract.
Aziz returned with the ice cream just as a boy contestant on Sex Island was busy manipulating his girlfriend’s low self-esteem by assuring her that his affair with her best friend had been due to his traumatic childhood and subsequent inability to trust others. Aziz was enthralled. So too, was Synthetica.
“When I realised I was so in love with you, Britney,” they heard the boy contestant explain, “I got scared. I ran from you and went with her because my feelings – these feelings I feel for you had like messed me up. I only went with her because I was confused and feeling vulnerable.” Then the boy contestant – who, along with his partner, Britney would go on to win the series, appear on chat shows together until the next series started and everyone got bored of the couple and they would split up – pulled his master stroke. “You see, I’ve never really known how to …” (and then the waterworks), “I’ve always been taught to keep it all inside, you know? Like a man ain’t supposed to cry.” And then he subsequently sobbed for all the World Nation and so too did the hapless Britney. And when Synthetica turned to look at Aziz, he was in tears too, mouth still agape, a spoonful of honey choc chip waiting to enter.
“No, no no, baby; it’s okay,” pleaded Britney in hologrammatic form in every household around the globe. “You must open up. Tell me. Communication is all.” And Synthetica could only watch in awe as this young male Genotype told the girl how her love had driven him into the arms of her best friend because he had never been loved before and it scared him. By the end, Synthetica couldn’t exactly be sure herself who was to blame for his infidelity, but she did distinctly hear Britney apologising to the boy for having not been more sensitive to his needs in their relationship. Then shaken out of her thoughts by the sobbing lamentations next to her, Synthetica turned back to face her hired help.
“You’re crying, too,” she said. “Is this normal?”
Aziz smiled softly, took her hand in his, kissing and then holding it to his cheek. “Yes, my Mistress, it is, for I truly love you. So much so I would die for you.”
Now there was an idea, thought Synthetica. Fuck it! Why not? Put Gallium’s beautiful mind in the body of this beautiful boy at his sexual peak. She could probably persuade him, persuade them both. After all, now that they all lived in an age where the wars had all been won and Death finally conquered, perhaps the time was ripe for Adam and Evekind to make a return to the Garden.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
“…the human race needs to improve its mental and physical qualities if it is to deal with the increasingly complex world around it…But it seems to me that if very complicated chemical molecules can operate in humans to make them intelligent, then equally complicated electronic circuits can also make computers act in intelligent ways. And if they are intelligent they can presumably design computers that have even greater complexity and intelligence.” – Stephen Hawking (Brief Answers to the Big Questions)
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