End Human – Part One

(This short story was first published in the collection of stories, Parabolas, by Guy McClung. Part Two will follow).

Jesse Miltiades Carter watched the mosquitoes land on his forearm and fly away into the fog. He didn’t know if it was the synflesh that held no attraction for them, the synvita fluid flowing through him, or the combination of both; but ever since he had passed being a half-half, those decades ago, the mosquitoes had no interest in him. A huge dog and an even larger jaguar walked with him through the rainforest.

“Half-half” – half human, half not.  The years as a drobot squad leader, platoon captain, then commander, had taken their toll. When his left leg was replaced, from the hip joint down, he crossed over – now well more than half his body was not his. “More like I’m seventy thirty,” he thought, “at least I’ve got my brain.”

“Science.” He laughed out loud at the thought. For all their science, for all their utter failures with embryonic stem cells and their stunning successes with adult stem cells, growing new ears on thigh muscle and new livers on abdominal cells, they could never make a brain. After the disasters with the embryonic cells, then the quantum leaps with adult stem cells, they thought, in their total belief in the dogmas of their religion, worshipping at the altar of the lab bench, that they could replace anything, grow anything, even make life itself. But the brain proved to be the barrier beyond which their beliefs could not take them. And adore facts and the scientific method as they might, creating life, even at the smallest cellular level, was still elusive.

“My brain and my thoughts are free,” he mused. He hummed that song from so long ago, “Die gedanken sind frei,” which the workers at Auschwitz had sung as they walked under the sign that said “Arbeit Macht Frei.”

Panthera, the Jaguar, and Pup, the dog, strode beside him as he saw,  through the dense rainforest, the lights of the settlement, dimmed by the fog.

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It was as if Panthera and Pup were littermates; but Pup had been there when Jesse had saved the hours-old cub, crying next to her dead mother. It was Pup, the protective big brother, who had slept with the cub until she was over a year old. Now, when they played, Panthera, at well over two hundred pounds, would roll Pup around like a toy.  Pup was a one-hundred-sixty pound muscle with teeth, but she never hurt him.

He had found Pup, then a puppy, with an old friend in the North who bred kangals and mastiffs. “Don’t know how this critter even happened, a kangstiff, stiffkangal, or a mangal,” his friend had told him, “And ain’t never seen him like a human like he licks you.” Now Pup’s bite, over seven hundred pounds, was dwarfed by Panthera’s awesome, bone-cracking fifteen hundred pounds of raw jaw force.

He had trained them both to disable a supposedly invulnerable drobot by attacking silently from behind and crushing the CPU under the back of the armored neck. To Panthera it was just like a turtle shell; to Pup, a large hardboiled egg. Many times they had saved him .

He heard a movement high up in the canopy. He said one word to Panther and Pup, “Harp,” and they froze,  looking up.  He remembered those years ago when they had heard the howlers attack the eagles so high they could see nothing. As the monkeys screamed, Jesse had looked up and saw parts of a nest falling toward him –  an egg cradled within. He had caught it. The egg did not break. And Panthera and Pup had looked quizzically, wondering if they would get to share it.

Jesse had rolled it over in his palm and felt its warmth. Then he had put it in one of his vest pockets. Later that evening he heard a tap-tap-tap coming from his pocket and watched an ugly downy head poking out. Again Panthera and Pup looked on in anticipation. Jim carefully helped the newborn eaglet from the pocket and into his hand. It did not cease the chi-chi-chi call of a nestling harpy eagle. Panthera and Pup realized that Jesse had a new friend which was not to be a shared meal.

The three of them raised Harp, a male, like their own child. Jaguar, dog and eaglet made a strange group. Soon Harp was grooming each of them with his talons; but very carefully. Of all the eagles of the continent, the talons of the harpy eagle were the largest and, with the eagle in a dive,  could exert a force of five hundred pounds. Not yet full grown, Harp’s wingspan exceeded six feet. It could reach seven. Jim found it beyond awesome to watch Harp take prey weighing more than a dozen pounds. And he never ceased to be amazed at the family-like bonds between what should be three natural predators.

There was a loud swooshing sound and a flutter of flashing fluid frantic whiteness from the canopy, and there was Harp at their feet. Panthera went straight to him and bent her neck. Harp cocked his head to one side and then reached up and stroked her neck with a talon. When he stopped, Panthera shook her head as if to say “Not yet,” and Harp scratched her some more. Then it was Pup’s turn. As if on signal, they all three started rolling around on the ground, like a litter of puppies, nuzzling each other in enjoyment.

Jesse shook his head and laughed. “Strangest three musketeers I ever saw. Come on, y’all, got some business there,” he said as he pointed at the fog-covered lights ahead of them, shining through the trees.

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The family did not enter the settlement with Jesse. Walking down one of the dirt streets, he noticed two of the newest Trip F roidbots, the latest top-of-the-line drobots, officially “Android Robotic Unit FFF.”  Jim noted their thicker lower necks and increased-periphery face plates. “Won’t be long,” he thought, “til they have three-hundred-sixty-degree head screens.” He wondered if the family would have any problem crushing the neck and getting to the CPU’s of these new ones. He did not know how soon they would be answering his question for him.

One of  the drobots, in scanning the street, captured an image of Jesse through the fog and initiated information processing.

It had been some years, but the cafe was still there. Sitting at a table near the rear wall, he had a view of the entire room. Three men had surrounded one of the servers who stood with her back to a wall.

“Forget it,” she said.

“Now, girl, that’s no way to talk to us,” one of the men said as he reached out to touch her.

One of the other men pinned her shoulder against the wall.

“No!” she said vehemently.

The third man said “We’ll have you saying ‘yes’ soon enough. And then ‘yes” all night.”

Before “yes” man could say another word, he felt himself lifted into the air. He flew across the room and landed, unconscious, against the wall. The other two men turned to see Jim standing there. “She said ‘no,’ ” was all he said.

The men let the girl go and moved toward Jim. No one noticed that the two Trip F drobots had entered the cafe and were recording everything.

“None of your business,” one of the men told Jim as he drew a long knife from a hip scabbard. The other man was hastily putting brass knuckles on one hand and reaching for a laseblade at his waist.

With one punch Jim obliterated the man with the brass knuckles. The man with the knife, now wary, backed away out of Jesse’s reach.

“Easy now,” he said as he circled the knife tip in front of Jesse. “It’s just a little sting before it goes in.”

“Mine too,” said Jim as he reached back between his shoulder blades and threw a knife into the man’s heart.

The girl crumpled, sobbing, to the floor.

One of the Trip F drobots moved behind Jesse and said in the best artificial speech Jesse had ever heard, “Jesse Miltiades Carter, exit this structure with us now.”

Jesse knew it was pointless to try to run from these machines. They could keep up with a cheetah, which was about three times as fast as the world’s fastest whole human. Out in the street, the second Trip F reloaded the scan results. Jesse’s visage appeared on the drobot’s screen, and then the words “Human. Jesse Miltiades Carter. End Human” began flashing, superimposed on Jesse’s face.

Jesse saw the young girl, brandishing a machete, running out of the cafe. She was too late. Before the drobot could begin to execute the “initiate end” command, its head snapped back. Its companion turned to look for a moment, its last moment, as its own CPU was torn from its neck by Pup. Panthera sat placidly now next to the CPU from the first drobot. Pup, equally calm, moved over and sat next to Panthera.  They had not made a sound. Harp flew in and sat on Jim’s shoulder.

“So, you can deal with the new model,” Jesse said, as he stroked Panthera’s neck.

The young girl stood stock still, her eyes wide in amazement.

Panthera, Pup and Harp watched the girl intently, never taking their eyes from her and the machete, waiting for a sign from Jesse. They all relaxed when Jesse said, “Thanks, little lady, good to have back up. Name’s Jesse.”

The girl did not know what to say. She looked from Panthera to Pup, to Harp to Jim and then back again to Panthera. “Maria,” she said, “my name is Maria.”

“So, folks,” Jesse said to his family, “looks like the three musketeers now have their D’Artagnan, but it’s not a man with a sword, it’s a lady with a machete.”

“How do you do that?” she stammered.

“You mean my friends, my family?”

“Friends, family ? They obey you.”

“Yes, takes some time, and a soft touch,” said Jesse. “They do more than obey, they’ve got my back. I’ve got theirs. That’s why they are family.”

“You know this is not over. I don’t know when, but this is not the end of this. More will come. Soon. The Ruler’s minions will figure this out.”

“I know, but I’ll be safe in the forest. Even with all their tech, I can hide there. And that is why I have these friends,” Jesse said motioning to his family.

“Right now, right now,” she repeated for emphasis, “let me get some food and some wine, and then you have got to hide.”

Jesse paused and looked at Pup and Panthera. There was no hesitancy. “Good,” he said, and then, when the girl returned, they followed her through the fog.

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“Here.” She had stopped in front of a small hill just beyond the edge of the settlement that was actually a huge mound of what looked to be rubble and stone overgrown with vines and plants with a few trees here and there. They could not see all of it due to the fog.

“Here?” Jesse did not understand.

She walked up to one side of the mound, and moved a wall of vegetation, revealing a massive wooden door.  When Jesse leaned against it, it moved, squeaking on ancient hinges. Maria quickly found a candle and lit it. Jim closed the door and turned to look around at the cavernous structure, old memories coming to mind, as the interior stone walls and pillars naturally brought his gaze upward.

Still looking at broken statues and faded artworks on the walls and ceiling, Jesse said, “I didn’t know any of these places still stood.”

“People prayed here, long ago.  It would have been torn down like all the others, but for some reason, on someone’s orders, the minions covered it up, buried it. Took them months.” Maria handed Jesse some more candles. “Make yourselves comfortable. This is my home now.”

Maria walked to a stone slab raised near an end of the building and sat on it, taking off her sandals. She began to lay down.

Jesse knew that her bed had been an altar and that he was in a cathedral.

When, years ago, they had first detoxed his brain, flushing out decades of toxins, and metals and contaminants, and the mercury from all the sterilizing vaccinations, his memory was as if it had been reinvigorated. Especially after the aluminum detox, he noticed that he could again remember things long ago, eight digit numbers, peoples’ names, and things that happened last week.  Now he remembered some words long forgotten as he walked toward Maria and the altar.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,”  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He instinctively made the Sign of the Cross. The whole building and the ground seemed to awaken at the words and the earth moved ever so slightly. Jesse continued:

“Introibo ad altare Dei . . ., “ I will enter unto the altar of God.

Now the Earth quivered, the altar shook, and the family were all, instantly, apprehensive.  Maria jumped from her bed, staring at it and then around the room. Panthera, Pup, and Harp were agitated, looking at Jesse for comfort.

After reciting the response, “Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum,” to God who gives joy to my youth, Jesse stopped. The earth stood still.

He had not thought of those words from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for over half a century.  It was for such a long time simply “the Mass,” but those who planned to destroy it had, they thought, denigrated it into oblivion by calling it the “Tridentine Mass,” or referring to it as “extraordinary.” But it was “the Mass” that survived the worldwide evil that now held sway. The then-new so-called “Novus Ordo Mass,” foisted on the faithful as “vernacular translations,” complete with priestesses to preside over it, contrary to Jesus’s command that only males could be ordained,  had completely disappeared. For that matter, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was no more and had not been said on earth for over sixty years.

Maria and the family did not know what had just happened.

“They called you ‘Jesse Miltiades’,” said Maria. “Who was Miltiades?”

Jesse thought back to his grandfather whose name was Miltiades and how the old man told him once that he hoped the name would be prophetic for Jesse.

“What do you mean, Grandad?” Jesse had asked him.

“Jesse,” he had said, “We are named after a brave man who survived one of the worst, most demonic emperors and one of earth’s darkest times. He lived to see the light shine again, and that is what I hope for you, my precious grand son.”

“He was my Grandad,” Jesse said to Maria. “I was precious to him and he loved me.”

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Far, far away the Ruler, who had been questioning a man kneeling before him, paused, and looked around, and then out into the darkness and fog beyond his throne room.  The kneeling man wondered if this was the moment he would end his life as he had seen so many ended over the years.

“What?” the Ruler said out loud as he felt a tingle and then a pain in his left hand.  The pain increased, spread to his right palm, down to his stomach, and then suddenly ceased. He stared at his hands and looked down at his torso.

“Shonmak,” the Ruler screamed. A short slender courtier hurried and knelt before the Ruler.

“Your Gloriousness?” he asked timidly from bended knee.

The Ruler motioned to the other kneeling man to go. He did, hurriedly and thankfully.

“Your predecessor swore to me that the last priest was exterminated over sixty years ago.”

Shonmak shook his head up and down. “Yes, yes, it is so.”

“No!” the Ruler bellowed. “No! Across the world somewhere, a few moments ago, the Mass was begun – in Latin ! by a priest!”

Shonmak did not know what to say.  He had not heard that word, “Mass,” for many years. “Your Joyousness, it cannot be.”

The Ruler pointed his left index finger at Shonmak’s feet and he began to disintegrate, crying out in agony, “No, no, no.” Those present watched, trying not to reflect any horror on their faces. They had seen what happened in the past to anyone who registered any apparent disagreement with the Ruler’s actions.

As Shonmak’s life flowed away, a moment before his lips disappeared, his last word were, “There is no Mass ! No priest !”

“His first deputy, come forward,” said the Ruler with exceeding calm.

A tall woman pushed her way through the assembled minions. She bowed and knelt before the Ruler.

“And you would be?” he asked.

“Snebin, your Goodness” she replied coldly.

The Ruler sensed something unusual. He sensed no fear in her.  And real evil. He saw her five dead children. “She is,” he thought, “truly of our own nature.”

“There is a priest,” he continued. “Where precisely, I do not know; but I will, because you will tell me – within the next twenty four hours.”

“Yes, your Kindness,” Snebin said, knowing that it was a crime to repeat, on any given day, any of the “titles of virtue” that applied to the Ruler, and had “Your Kindness” already have been spoken in his presence, she would have died. Minions had been disintegrated for being the one to say, for the second time, “your beauty,” or “your truth.” It took a special kind of trust when someone told you what names had already been used so you would not repeat them. Many an assassination was accomplished by telling someone that a title, already said, had not yet been used.

Snebin had heard of priests, but, other than that they were hateful and to be feared, that they were always male, and that they led the people astray from worship of the Ruler, she had never really learned any details about them. She did know, although she had never voiced her opinion, that the Ruler seemed to get visibly upset at even the slightest mention of them. She also knew that sixty-three years ago, when the last one thought to be alive had been beheaded, the unending fog had finally covered the last bit of the inhabited earth where the sun had shone.