Prime

New Normal (3 of 5)

I threw up a lot, during the weeks of these revelations. They didn't understand why. They didn't understand why I'd keep myself off, apart from everyone else.

"Your friends are here."

"Did they choose to be?"

"They wouldn't have it any other way. They visit, and have discourse. They can travel to any part of the world, see things through any set of eyes available to them."

"Except their own pair."

"Every pair belongs to them."

"That is fine for them."

"We don't understand -"

"I understand that you don't understand."

"How is that possible?"

I ask how many others are off, like me. They remain silent on this issue.

"Do you even know?"

Silence.

"Everything is kept. Every memory, every thought, every idea, good and bad, is available for use. When you see that the thoughts in your head are really not so different in any discernible way from everyone else, the burden of solitude and otherness drops away, and you can focus on pursuing your most true self."

I stared blankly at them.

"If you die, as is, everything about you, all you've seen, felt, loved, known will be lost." The body paused and looked at me sideways. "Like tears in rain."

"Did you just quote Blade Runner at me?"

"We wondered if you would get that reference. You seem to like the classics."

"It's one of my favorites."

Despite everything they said, they never attacked me. Never pressured beyond a certain set of talking points.

"Do you think they're waiting for us to let our guard down?" Paul still hasn't talked to them. I'm not sure he ever will.

"I don't think so. I think they want me, us, to...choose. I don't really think they care either way. It's not like they need us." Recently it was revealed that reproduction is still plentiful in the new era.

I stared across the green expanse of the National Mall, toward the Washington Monument. A third wave of workers had arrived, installing solar panels on the roof of every builing. The monument was now solar-plated. We were heading to the art gallery.

Life had taken a strangely easier turn. They began to leave food rations for us. Paul and I almost came to blows over whether or not we should eat them, but they were too good to turn down. The skills of a million chefs went into each one. We stopped scrounging, and lifted our heads up to look around. I'd lived in this city for seven years, but had worked too hard to really see it. That's why we we going to see art. Going to see the things that had been right in front of our faces every day, but had failed to notice. My calendar was filled with museums.

We climbed the steps, and pushed open the doors. The climate control was still running, and it was cool inside. When they had initially swarmed all of the cultural institutions, what they were doing was scanning every artwork, every book, every scrap of historic artifact they could find. Many were already online, but some of the more underfunded places had millions of items just sitting in their holdings.

But even in the new era, hardcopy backups were still desirable. They kept bodies throughout the galleries for all the neural-tourists wanting to see art in-the-flesh, so to speak. I didn't know much about art, so I found this handy; when I had questions, there was someone to ask. Paul just found it creepy.

They never spoke first, didn't acknowledged our presence unless I spoke to them. They knew we were there, though.

We stopped by the museum store, and I grabbed a book on Van Gogh. His self-portrait intrigued me, and I knew there was much more of his work to see than what was on the walls here. I flipped through the pages, stopping at an image of Starry Night. I knew it by sight, had seen it on merchandise, ties, coffee cups. It wasn't here; it was in New York. It couldn't hurt to ask about it.

"Excuse me."

"Yes."

"This painting, Starry Night, it didn't happen to be on loan here when, um, when..."

They didn't even glance at the pages I was holding up before they answered.

"No. Starry Night is still in New York."

"OK. Thanks."

I know how ridiculous it sounds to be asking a body taken over by AI whether or not a particular painting is available for viewing when you are only one of two regular humans left (that you know of).

Welcome to my new normal.