TAKING THE PLUNGE (4th Instalment)

Written by Ann Farmer

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Here’s yesterday’s instalment. In today’s instalment the Caretaker has a proposal for London – read on …

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The caretaker continues: ‘And because they don’t need more customers, they spend their time curbing the population – well, they don’t want the lower orders clogging up the roads and the spaceports, crowding out the beaches and ruining the countryside – that’s their playground! They’re saving the Planet all right – for themselves! Not that many babies were being born,’ he added, ‘but people were living too long, what with being vaxxed for everything. Longevity had gone on too long – the ‘unfit’ were getting too fit! So they started quietly encouraging smoking and alcohol again – not to mention legalising all the dangerous drugs – but it wasn’t enough. Because the rich men had found the secret of eternal life – on Earth.’ 

London looked up quickly, and the Caretaker sniggered. ‘You could say they found the way to avoid the final Judgement! But anyway, they invested in transhumanism – hooking up their brains to computers – ‘human augmentation’; then they had computer chips implanted in their brains – the ‘human-machine’. But now –’ he leaned forward again and whispered ‘- now, they’re harvesting other people’s bodies – young bodies. So they can enjoy all those physical sensations again – and again. You could call it a whole body transplant – a miserable, misanthropic old brain in a fresh, fit, thirty-year-old body! Have you never wondered why Sir David Atterbury looks only about 90 – when he’s actually 200 years old?’

London started, then looked suspiciously at the Caretaker. Again he asked: ‘How do you know all this?’

‘It’s my job to burn their sensitive files.’ He indicated the pile of boxes. ‘After I’ve extracted the relevant information of course. And before you ask,’ he continued slyly, ‘I know too many of their secrets for them to risk trying out their methods on me.’ 

London was puzzled and not entirely convinced; knowing too much about these people was likely to put the Caretaker in even greater danger of disappearing. And for a trusted agent of the powerful, he was remarkably indiscreet. ‘What with all that, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution of the last century, aka the Robot Revolution’ the Caretaker resumed, ‘they figure they don’t need so many other people – certainly not old people. And despite all the ‘diversity’ sermons claiming that the racial minorities were killed off because of discrimination, blah, blah – they’ve been doing their best to reduce the numbers, breeding only as many as are needed to do the menial work.’

Momentarily suspending his suspicions, London stared at the Caretaker – shocked, but not really surprised. Together with everything Oxford had told him in their muttered, broken conversations, it was all beginning to make sense – a horrible kind of sense. The light was beginning to dawn on London.  But how could he trust someone who seemed to know so much, and yet somehow had escaped the attention of the checkers? How could he trust anyone – even Moonbeam? She might be a spy – the Caretaker might be a spy – and yet he could not stop listening to his sinister outpourings.

‘And all their concerns about women,’ the Caretaker continued, with a sneer. ‘But where are they – that’s the question.’ And of course he had the answer. Sidling up to London, he hissed: ‘They don’t need so many women, do they? They get more than enough eggs from an aborted foetus to breed from – and that’s just to produce the menial classes. If they need more important males, they clone themselves – that way they don’t have to worry about opposition – about being overthrown. They do breed some females, of course – just for appearance’ sake, you understand. And also for educational purposes – to train the ‘cismales’ to see themselves as dangerous sexual predators and wicked misogynists. But they make sure those females are sterile.’

‘Just like a hive of bees – or a hill of ants,’ London burst out. ‘And the males, we’re just drones – worker ants – busy bees – serving those in charge – whoever they are.’

‘So you’re beginning to wonder, are you?’ the Caretaker said, with a glint of triumph. ‘The Representatives who don’t represent anybody but themselves; the Eternal Guardians who only guard their own interests! The only authentic part of their name is “eternal”.’

‘And it’s going to be that way eternally,’ London said bitterly. ‘Nothing will ever change. All those public announcements telling us how lucky and free and equal we all are, and warning about how terrible it was in the olden days, when the people were divided by something called elections, and something called the church ruled us with a fist of iron; when the old people kept all the wealth for themselves; when the non-blacks enslaved all the women and persecuted the racially diverse, the varisexuals and the multigendered -’

It was as though a dam had burst within him – all those years of being careful, suppressing his true feelings – and now it was all coming out, regardless of the dangers. ‘No one will ever challenge them! No one will ever change them! How can we, when we can’t even talk to each other? They make sure of that – and if anyone gets too close to anybody else, they disappear, to be replaced by another drone. There’s just no escape.’ He sank to his knees in despair, clutching his head in his hands.

‘That’s just where you’re wrong, my friend.’ The Caretaker came up close to him and hissed: ‘There is a way out – and I’m the only one who knows about it!’ 

London lifted his head and said dully: ‘What? But if you know about it, how come you haven’t –’

‘I told you – nobody bothers me. I’m much too useful to them.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘But you could take advantage of this escape route.’

‘I could? But where is it?’

The Caretaker stepped to one side. All London could see was a blank wall with two square hatches, one of them labelled ‘rubbish’ in peeling, faded letters. 

Puzzled, London repeated: ‘But where is it?’

‘There.’

‘The rubbish chute? It’s a way out?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘But doesn’t it go straight down to the incinerator?’

‘It does – that’s how they heat the building – all very un-green, but that’s just more hypocrisy on their part.’

‘What about that one next to it?’ 

He moved towards the hatch labelled ‘recycling’, but the Caretaker swiftly stepped in front of it. ‘Ha! Only if you want to be washed, flattened and folded into bundles with the paper and plastic. I would recommend … “

[Find out what the Caretaker recommends in tomorrow’s instalment!]

Photo by Nikita Gavrilovs