You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction Read online

  Pazuzu’s Reign will be released publically a week later.

  – To the memory of Smokey

  101 THINGS TO DO

  BEFORE YOU’RE

  DOWNLOADED

  SCOTT EDELMAN

  The last man on Earth—or rather, the man who’d been weighing whether he should linger until he inevitably became the last man on Earth—had been atop Mt. Everest for nearly a century, contemplating his planet’s mortality—and his own—when an unwelcome visitor popped into existence beside him.

  He’d long ago, centuries ago, discovered that his thoughts were clearest on top of the world, though he’d never quite figured out whether this was because of the spectacular view, the thinness of the air, or a byproduct of the unusual extended solitude that came with such a visit. Still, that was where he headed when he had anything important to consider. And at that moment, as he tried to imagine his best possible future, there was no more important question on Earth for him—or for any inhabitants of the solar system, really—to consider than this:

  Should he stay? Or should he go?

  He’d been mulling over whether enough was enough for several lifetimes as you and I (but not those who will come after us) measure them, but he’d yet to reach any conclusion, at least not with any sense of certainty. Even though he’d been communing with his truest self, his concentration compressed by the weight of the passing decades, a decision about whether he should simply remain in place until the sun reached out to meet him and it would be too late for Downloading continued to be elusive. Others may have felt the need to escape, to go on, but … why?

  And so, even after all that time alone above a world that day by day dwindled, when he heard the sound of his name, it came as an unwelcome distraction.

  That name, a complex collection of syllables which unfortunately cannot be replicated here in our time with our words, because vocal cords have not yet evolved the capacity to form sounds so strange and beautiful, was the whisper of a subtle, barely perceptible wind on certain summer nights, overlaid by waves colliding against a coral reef, married to the trickle of water from melting ice running against smooth rocks.

  The man turned his head slowly, irritated by the interruption. And after having been undisturbed for decades, a little surprised, too. Few in that distant pocket of existence bothered to visit Mt. Everest, not in reality anyway, not when it was so easy to go there in one’s mind and experience nearly the same thing.

  “Yes, that’s me,” said Husssh (which, as I’ve explained above, is not his actual name, but merely what we shall call him for the duration to make his story more easily comprehensible in our time). He didn’t bother as he once might have to alter his voice to mask the annoyance he felt. “You found me.”

  Which wasn’t quite the case. The newcomer couldn’t really be said to have found anyone, because in truth, he hadn’t been looking. But the reason he knew Husssh’s name wasn’t because they’d met while navigating their shared future, or simply because most of the population had already abandoned Earth, leaving behind few whose names it was necessary to remember, allowing him to recognize the man. No, it’s just that everyone knew everyone on sight in the elsewhen that waits for our children … if they chose to access the information, that is. When you looked at someone, you could just know. That’s how the brains of our descendants will come to work in these days.

  “Now let me be,” Husssh said, turning away from his intruder, ignoring most of the details about him that came into his mind, save that the man was but a youngster, barely 90 years old. Why, Husssh had been motionless on the mountaintop far longer than that pup had even been alive! “If you insist on staying here, do me a favor. Let’s at least sit in silence.”

  The visitor nodded and settled in gingerly, as one tends to do on a first visit to Mt. Everest, even in this future of miracles. He looked away from Husssh and down through the clouds below, knowing better than to speak, something that first glance of his face and its intense expression had quickly taught him.

  No more than a handful of heartbeats had gone by when the visitor extended his hands, causing a wafer to manifest in one and a sheet of paper in the other. Husssh was stunned. Paper? When had anyone last used paper? Flesh itself was on the brink of becoming history, and paper, for many, was little more than myth. But before Husssh could express his surprise, the man popped the square into his mouth, tore slightly at an edge of the page—Husssh could see there were many such tears down one side—and then vanished.

  He was puzzled, but at the same time, relieved—for he had a far more important question than the reason for what he’d seen that still needed answering, and for that, he had to continue on in solitude. (Though what would a second century give him that the first had not? A conclusion was not so easily come by as he’d thought when he’d first sequestered himself.) But that relief didn’t last long, for before he could settle in with his thoughts, a second traveler arrived.

  After nearly a century of solitude, two visitors in two minutes was almost too much to bear. And so when the second visitor, without even bothering to acknowledge him, mimicked the first, and a paper materialized in her hand, Husssh made a grab for it—but the invader backed quickly away before his fingers could make contact.

  “No need to be so aggressive,” she said, as she, too, tore a notch in the page, not even bothering before she did so to gaze at the panorama which surrounded them. Husssh leaned forward and quickly leapt at the sheet, this time ripping off a strip from the top as the woman pulled back.

  “Hey!” she shouted, but then, when she saw the fierce expression on Husssh’s face, quickly placed a pill on her tongue, swallowed, shook her head, and was gone.

  Husssh examined the fragment, which fluttered in a stiff wind that threatened to pull it from his hands. Across the top were the words, “100 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded.” It seemed to be the beginning of a list, and as he read the numbered items below, its contents were just as mysterious as the fact they were written on paper and had been carried by multiple intruders. He’d only managed to tear away five of the supposed hundred which the list’s title claimed it contained, but what he read made him uncomfortable.

  Which was another surprise. It had been quite a while since he’d felt discomfort.

  Have breakfast in the Marianas Trench, lunch on Mount Everest, and dinner on the Moon.

  Track and eat the last living representative of a near-extinct species. Consider what you have done.

  Ride one orbit on a ring of Saturn.

  Write a song to make someone fall in love with you. Write another which will make them hate you.

  Go over Angel Falls until you reach the bottom, then swim back up against the tide until you reach the top.

  After reading and saving the strangely familiar information, he let the scrap be tugged from his fingers and watched the wind quickly carry it out of sight.

  Once, he would have felt it wrong to litter the world in such a manner.

  Once, he would have chased after the paper and made sure to keep Mt. Everest pristine.

  Soon, though, it would make no difference. The world and all it contained would be gone. So there was only one thing that mattered now.

  Which meant it was time to come down off the mountain.

  And with the thought of going, he was gone.

  . . .

  And then he was back, elsewhere, to a spot suggested by the list, and mirrored by his memory.

  He swam vertically against the rushing waters of Angel Falls, rising slowly as he once had in his youth, the only difference being that this time he was aware of others nearby doing the same. It was much different from when he’d last attempted this, when he’d been alone, battering himself against the planet to learn who he was and whether he mattered. Now others were there, in search of—what? He knew what had moved him to accomplish this feat hundreds of years ago. But why were the swimmers who accompanied him doing it now? Because someone had placed it on a list? That seemed
absurd.

  But someone had.

  Once up top, he stood on a rock, then watched as first one, then two, three, four others climbed out of the water to stand beside him. They did not look back down toward the water from where they had come. They did not look out at the land which stretched far away beneath them. They did not turn around to consider the river which rushed to the edge, against the power of which they had fought.

  Instead, they one by one stretched out a hand to allow a sheet of paper to appear, just as the others had done earlier on Mt. Everest. Husssh noted that one sheet was more tattered than the others—thanks to rips and tears indicating achievements, he assumed—and so he knew whom he had to approach.

  Oddly, when Husssh looked at the man the way people will come to in the future, looked the way I explained earlier, he did not know him … not his name, his history, or any of the other information people will come to allow to be instantaneously shared with one another. Taken aback, he for a moment did not know what to say.

  The man saw Husssh approach, and smiled, waving the page.

  “Halfway done,” he said.

  “I can see that,” said Husssh. “But why?”

  The man shrugged, and then, before any further questions could be asked, was gone.

  Husssh could have followed had he chosen to do so, at least he thought he could have, though after that blankness of the man’s identity, he was suddenly unsure, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he turned to the others.

  “And you?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

  “It’s just the thing to do,” two of them said simultaneously. They pointed at each other, then laughed. He was flummoxed. He’d have known the two were a singleton had he been able to look at them the way he was supposed to.

  One of them rubbed his hands together, and then suddenly, there were two sheets. He thrust one of them at Husssh.

  “Here,” they said. “Take it. You don’t want to be the only one not doing it.”

  “Not doing what?” Husssh asked as he scanned the list. And then he fell silent, for in its entries, he recognized a personal history he’d thought had mattered to none but himself.

  Follow the flight path of the first man in space while contemplating your own upcoming possible final trip out into space.

  Program yourself for synesthesia and taste a rainbow.

  Have sex with a representative of all three alien species known to have visited Earth in the order they were first encountered.

  Become what once was a man. Become what once was a woman. Try to imagine what it was like to have lived in a world of frozen gender.

  Husssh looked up from the list to the ones who had given it to him. “I’ve—I’ve done all of these,” he said. “Where did this come from?”

  “Where did it not come from?” came the reply in stereo.

  Then they laughed again. And were gone.

  “Wait—” he called out.

  But they’d said all they’d wanted to say, and frozen out of the datastream, he could not follow them. He turned to the last person there, who waved in a sort of salute.

  “Good luck,” it said. And then it, too, vanished.

  Husssh was baffled.

  By the list. By the apparent multiple quests. And by the fact that he was somehow being denied access to information which had become commonplace.

  He could wait for other swimmers to arrive at the top so he could question them about it all. But as he gazed at the territory around him, he was reminded of his first visit so long ago, and he thought—he’d already spent all the time he needed to on that spot the first time around.

  He had to keep moving.

  Until it was time to stop.

  Husssh swam on his back past the Empire State Building, the ocean having long before risen to cover the streets on which you and I might have walked. The skies of New York City above him were more crowded than he had ever seen them, considering the number of inhabitants who had already Downloaded. He wondered at first whether it had always been that busy and perhaps he’d grown unaccustomed to it during his time on the mountaintop, but then he thought again, accessing the census of all who remained—he could still see the count of that, thankfully—and learned that his initial reaction has been right. There were indeed more present than there usually were.

  It was that list. It had to be. His niece—grandniece many times over, actually—who had once been his nephew and once been neither and several times had been both—would surely know what this was about. He’d stopped caring a long time ago what others thought, and paid little attention to fads and fashions, but she—even though she had her own mind—was more in touch with the tide of the times. He knew his limitations, recognized there were areas he could not access even when he could access them, languages he could not speak even when he spoke them.

  With a kick of his feet, Husssh dove down to meet her.

  Drackle was floating close to the sand, face down, prodding this way and that in the silt which had settled over the city’s streets. We’ll call her Drackle even though that is not her name (I explained before the necessity for doing this), which is the sound of a wind chime assembled of broken glass moving in harmony with the snap of an electrical surge. But since neither you nor I can pronounce either of those with the primitive tools we have been given, we’ll go with Drackle.

  “Hello, uncle,” she said, registering that he was there without a need to turn her head.

  “What are you looking for this time?” he asked.

  “A few final souvenirs,” she said. “Our time grows short.”

  When she said this, of course, she was referring to time as they will come to account for it, not as you or I do now. If we’d been there beside them, contemplating the end of things, it would still seem as if millennia proceeded before us.

  “But you won’t be able to take them with you when you’re Downloaded,” he said. “Just bits and bytes to be sent off elsewhere, beamed in the hope that something will become of them. But your souvenirs, the ones the makers left for you to find, the ones you cradled and warmed with your touch, they’ll remain here. Until …”

  His voice trailed off. In her head, at least. They were under water, after all, which meant no spoken words were being exchanged.

  “You’re so old-fashioned, uncle,” she said. “Everything I find here I’ll be able to still have with me there. They’ll be reconstructed just as I will be. You know that.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” he said. “And you know that. But as I’ve told you before, whatever you think you’ll have—will you really have? The Earth, and all who ever lived here, and all who ever died, and all that was built by those who did both, will be left behind. Swallowed. Incinerated. Gone.”

  “I’m not going to argue about it with you anymore,” she said, angrily smacking the mud, which rose into cloud, momentarily leaving them hidden from each other. “We have better things to do with the time we have left.”

  When the silt had settled once more, he saw she had stopped her excavating and spun around.

  “What brings you here, uncle?” she asked.

  He tilted his head and let her see what had transpired on Mt. Everest and at Angel Falls. She looked at the list which he’d been given.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of this before,” she said. “This list has been propagating across the planet. You’d probably have gotten one yourself had you not chosen to isolate so. Some of my friends have been trying to do all of these things before it’s their turn to Download.”

  “No, it’s something more than just that,” he said. “That doesn’t explain the holes in my connection, or why I’ve been blocked from accessing information I’ve never been blocked from before. There’s something more going on, something far less innocent.”

  Drackle laughed suddenly, and a flurry of bubbles rose from her mouth toward the surface.

  “Really?” he said. “That’s your answer?”

  “No, I’m not laughing at you, uncle. Really, I�
�m not. But did you see this one at the end?”

  He called up the list and scrolled to the bottom.

  Sleep so long that your friends have forgotten whether you are sleeping or dead.

  Learn a new word every day. At the same time, forget an old one.

  Kill someone who does not deserve to die. Within 24 hours, save the life of someone who does not deserve to live.

  Swim through the ruins of New York City.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see.”

  “That’s why New York City is so crowded today. It hasn’t been bothering me, though. Hardly anyone’s taken the time to come down this deep.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. From what I’ve seen, no one seems interested in actually experiencing any of these things. Which makes their actions hollow and superficial.”

  “Even if they don’t do it your way, uncle, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing at all.”

  “We can debate that some other time—”

  “Will there be time for another time?”

  “—but that’s not the only thing peculiar about this list.”

  She scanned it again.

  “What am I missing?”

  “I thought you knew me, knew my past, better than that. Don’t you see?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ve already done every one of them. Every one.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s interesting.”

  “And—as far as I know—I’m the only one who’s ever done all of them.”

  “That’s very interesting. But—”

  She paused, then raised a finger between them.

  “What?”

  “It seems it won’t be very long before you’re no longer the only one.”

  He thought and—glad he could still access that knowledge, at least—realized she was right.

  “But—why? What’s the point?”

  “I don’t know, but as I told you, it appears that completing the list before the final Downloading has become something of a thing.”

  “I’m not much for doing things because they’re things.”