The Vorkian [a dystopian novella]: The 2250 Saga Read online

  What would I do anyway, living rich in Prospo City? It wouldn’t make me any more a Prospo than I am now.

  The door opens again and in she walks. The devil in a green dress. I don’t know where the thought comes from but I stand still as she walks in and takes a close inspection of each of us.

  “So,” she says, “the first thing you learn today is customer service. We must offer exceptional service to everyone that requests a Vorkian. Because you will get your assignments through word of mouth. The better the service, the more referrals you get.”

  Shen, ever the Smartass says, “Who’ll refer us if our customers are all dead?”

  A small titter waves across the other fellahs.

  “Why their families of course. The people who receive their inheritance,” she replies.

  As she speaks, a screen protrudes from the ceiling and a 2D version of her proceeds to teach us for the next few hours, the best practices in customer service and ‘Quality Upsells’.

  The lessons are interesting if not a bit drab. I never knew there was such a thing called ‘Psychological Marketing’ or how specific colours can give off the impression of anything other than this is what pink looks like, or blue, or black.

  She tells us over and over again, “A Vorkian’s word is a Vorkian’s honour.”

  It’s the first thing I admire about the Vorkians since we started initiation. It’s their Code of Ethics.

  I love the idea—that there’s only one thing which would make anyone approach a Vorkian, and it’s their trust a Vorkian will do exactly as a Vorkian promises.

  At least there’s that, I think. Some certainty, a guarantee. Something that would never change.

  We learn the only two reasons to have a Vorkian “eliminated from the program” are one: if he is dishonourable, and two: if he fails an assignment.

  I look around at the other guys. There are a lot of Citizens like this lot throughout Apex. There’s nothing special about us. We’re all expendable. We best sell our wares well, because only the sellers will live. Non-sellers will die. I don’t have much to live for, but I have no interest in dying just yet.

  When the day ends, I approach her. “May I go home now?” I ask.

  I need to have a hot steam, rest, maybe call Dez to have a yammer about this bizarre job. I need to talk to him—I can’t handle all this change on my own. This will be different to my old job, very different, and I don’t know if I’d have it in me to kill a person. I bet he’d have a lot to say.

  Her eyes flash once and she smiles at me.

  “This is your home now, doll.” She touches my cheek with a cold, cold hand and I fight a flinch as goosebumps rise on the back of my neck. “You will share quarters in twos,” she says, and she leads us out of the room.

  I share my quarters with Shen the Smartass himself. Fantastic. Couldn’t they pair me with a quieter roommate? Someone who’s not a tool, like him?

  “What do you think?” he says, as he bunks in his spot, identical to mine. Nothing more than yellow sheets and a scratchy wool blanket. His chinless face crinkles into a grimace as he settles into the wool.

  “What do I think about what?” I ask.

  “Well about this place, Einstein,” he laughs.

  “Who’s Einstein?”

  He laughs louder. “Well good to know they pick the brightest of us,” he mutters, then turns his back to me and snores before I can ask him to repeat what he said.

  Better off, anyway. I need the silence to try to remember everything I’ve learnt.

  Two weeks later, I follow an older Vorkian out of the veda and on to the surface.

  “You’ll shadow him for a few days,” says green-dress lady. “Learn from one of the best on how it’s done.”

  We head into a waiting automated car and sit facing one another as the vehicle speeds towards Prospo City, or so I assume.

  The Vorkian tells me his name is Benta, but doesn’t say much else.

  We’re both dressed the same, in dark suits and colourful bowties. His bowtie shimmers and changes colour, depending on the angle you view it, and his suit is defo more exxy than mine—maybe silk.

  When he catches me examining him, his mouth stretches wide, his teeth gleaming as if they’re reflecting all the light from the sun, though there has been no sunlight in Apex in years. His black eyes narrow with the smile, drilling into me. With wisdom only death can bring.

  “How long have you been a Vorkian?” I ask, to keep the thought away.

  “That would be thirty years,” is the reply, followed by another toothy smile.

  I turn my eyes away from him, wondering what makes him so happy about the job.

  “So,” he says, “our client today is a Prospo lady by the name of Amara. The more we know about our clients, the more comfortable we can make them through the process.”

  “Why does she need a Vorkian?” I ask.

  I’ve been told most clients are Prospo. I’d imagine it’s coz most Citizens wouldn’t have the funds to go through with it. Still, I don’t get why so many Prospo would need Vorkians. Their lives can’t be worse than an average Citizen’s, surely?

  They live in high-rise glass towers in the cleanest city in Apex, they have more money than most of us make in several lifetimes, and they have all the best tech to do any work they need.

  Whatever the bots don’t do, the Citizens take care of. There isn’t a single Prospo family that doesn’t employ a Citizen or several more. How could their lives ever be bad enough to call for death?

  “She is tired,” Benta replies. “She has been on this earth over a century and she’s had enough. She’s ready to transition.”

  Huh. So what? She’s just bored? Why doesn’t she find a new hobby? I wonder. Or move to the moon or Mars for an adventure? Or maybe move out to one of the outer rocks off the moon? I’ve heard that can get exciting.

  Still, I stay silent until we arrive at Prospo City and disembark. We walk into a massive silver veda, bigger than the size of my entire flat. Then we come out on the four hundred and second floor as a Prospo woman greets us at the door.

  She’s a foot shorter than us, pink cheeked with purple and platinum curls. If I didn’t know she’s over a hundred years old, I’d think she was a teen dressed in her grandmother’s clothes. None of us really look our age, anyway. The nanites keep us young.

  A big red rose sits on her right ear, almost as big as her head. It gives me pause and I nearly tell her my daughter’s favourite flowers were roses. We’d smuggled a small rose bush into our home so she could smell them everyday.

  Then I realize this is neither the time or place, and I really don’t want to think of her right now. Not like this, not today.

  I shift my thoughts and pull myself back to now, to where we are.

  Where’s her Citizen helper, I wonder? Or her botbutler? It’s unusual for a Prospo to greet people at the door.

  “Come in.” She turns to walk us down a long hallway until we enter her bedroom—about three times the size of my home.

  “Why two of you?” she asks, as she lights up a small stub of jane and takes a long drag.

  “He’s in initiation,” Benta says, without looking up.

  He pulls out a small slim rectangle, black except for the edges, which are a silvery blue. It resembles a stun gun, a more sleek, more feminine version.

  Doesn’t seem like much if you didn’t know its sole purpose of existence. I know at first glance it’s a Robot Operated Sync iPersonal Executor.

  A Vorkian’s one and only weapon of choice.

  The Prospo’s eyes alight on the object and she doesn’t react but for a slight tremor in her hands.

  “Is he going to do it?” she asks. Her eyes land on me again and she gives me a small nod. The rose quivers slightly in her hair as she takes another long drag of jane.

  Benta finally looks up as the weapon pings in his hands, indicating it’s ready, “It is up to you, ma’am,” he says. “Whatever you prefer.”

  �
�Well,” she says, her eyes still on me. “Your eyes are kinder. Maybe it should be you.”

  I stop breathing, the shock of her request erasing any words from my mouth. I thought I was only shadowing Benta today, not about to carry out a—transition—myself.

  When I don’t answer right away, she giggles. It’s a surprisingly childish sound from a centenarian.

  “You seem more nervous than I am. First day jitters?”

  “I’m not,” I say quickly. “I just didn’t expect—” but before I finish, Benta flashes me an angry glare.

  Oh shit. I’m supposed to make her more comfortable, not question any decisions she’s made.

  I adjust quickly, hoping to save face, then overcompensate with, “What I mean to say, ma’am, is I would be honoured to do it, if you so wish.”

  She giggles again and I smile back. “Okay,” she says, “I’m ready.”

  She leans to the right, exposing the left side of her neck to us.

  When Benta hands me the newly charged item, I hold it steady in my hands, fighting my nerves. I didn’t expect to be this nervous. I aim it at her exposed throat, the way the videos instructed us to do. I say a soft, “I wish you a peaceful transition,” and depress my fingers on the trigger as I fight to keep my hand from shaking.

  The ROSiE doesn’t make a sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I did it wrong. Until the Prospo sighs and falls into a slump on her couch as the stub of jane falls from her fingers on to the shag carpet. Benta moves to pick it up before it burns through the material.

  Her face stays still, giving her an almost childlike look. I’ve never seen a dead person up close—they didn’t let me go see my family. I wonder if everyone has the same peaceful face when they pass.

  I wonder what my girls looked like, then pull my thoughts back as I fight tears. Today is not the day.

  Holding my right hand in my left, I try to hide the shaking. I tell myself it’s what she wanted—I tell myself, maybe she was in pain and this was the only way out of it.

  “That was—okay,” Benta says, though his tone tells me he doesn’t think it was okay at all.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and stutter through an apology, but he waves a hand my way, not listening to me.

  “You’ll get better,” he promises, before he gingerly takes the weapon from my hands and shuts it down. “This is one of those jobs where the faster you jump in and take charge, the less you’ll have to think things through next time.”

  I nod, grateful he doesn’t mention that the shaking in my hands has moved to my legs.

  “Amara didn’t feel a thing,” he assures me.

  When I ask how he knows, he says, “If she’d felt anything, we would have heard her pain.”

  I stare at the lady, suddenly frightened I could have done real damage to her, that I could have hurt her. I paid attention to the videos but what if the shaking had moved my hands an inch? I tell myself it happened because this was my first time. I tell myself I’ll get better. I’ll have to if I’m to survive this—training, this—job.

  “What now?” I say, fighting another hard lump in my throat.

  “Her wishes were to be scattered from the top of this building.” He approaches her body and gently picks her up, cradling her small form in his arms like she’s a child. I keep my eyes off her face.

  “But—” I say, as we make our way to the veda and up thirty more levels. “Is there an incinerator up there?”

  “Our ROSiE will serve as a flash incinerator,” he replies. “And this will help us keep her ashes together.”

  He pulls out a flat plastic container I recognize as a mini-vacuum.

  He doesn’t say another word until after the deed is done, just five minutes later.

  We stand side by side, silently, as I note that people give off a surprising burst of odours when incinerated—mildly fruity, then animal-like and raw, like pork, though it’s hard to find pork these days. There’s another fragrant scent in the mix too, confusing my nose. I shouldn’t feel a pang of hunger, but I do.

  We watch her ashes scatter in the wind, then disappear in waves of dust past the other buildings.

  It makes me wonder how many people’s ashes I’ve breathed in over the years, then I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I fight it, but take in a large gulp of air and try not to think of the dead Prospo.

  After we’ve cleaned up, we’re already heading to Benta’s next client. “She was referred to me while we were with Amara,” he says.

  I ask Benta how many clients he visits per day. “Four’s my comfortable average,” he says. “I used to have several more, a couple dozen on busy days. I’ve since stopped.”

  His next client is a Prospo in her mid-forties. I wonder why anyone this young would want to die, but remember Benta’s instructions that we do not challenge their decision.

  This one doesn’t speak at all, but as Benta charges up the ROSiE, the client stands up with tears in her eyes. She moves so fast to my side that I don’t realize what’s going on until she’s kissing me. The kisses are desperate and tear-filled and I want to push her away but I’m just shocked, I don’t breathe and sit still.

  “Please,” the client says, “please.”

  I can’t move though—I simply don’t know what to do. I’ve only ever kissed my wife and the occasional pleasurebot of course. So I freeze when she reaches for the buttons of my suit.

  Benta places the charged ROSiE on the table in front of us. He walks up behind the client and touches her shoulder until she turns and kisses him instead, the kisses more desperate as she pulls at his suit. “Please,” the Prospo repeats. “Please. This is how I want to die.”

  With understanding in his eyes, Benta undoes the woman’s blouse and gives me a swift glance as he does. I take the look to mean I’m about to perform my second transition of the day.

  I nod, trying in vain once again to stop my hands from shaking. My cheeks are wet with tears, blinking them away does nothing. They roll down my cheeks, onto my chin, then my shirt. I don’t move to wipe them.

  I nearly stand up to walk away—I’m by no means a prude, but this seems like it should be a private moment. Still, it’s the client’s wish, I tell myself.

  So I wait until they’re both spent and the client curls up into Benta’s arms. Her eyes are closed, her face calm, with a slight sheen of sweat on her skin. When Benta nods at me again, I place the ROSiE on the client’s neck. I blink to get rid of the blur in my eyes, wish her a peaceful transition, and depress the trigger.

  I can think of worse ways to die, I think, as Benta gets dressed again and we go about our work. In fact, the action of killing this Prospo doesn’t haunt me quite as much as it did with Amara. I wonder if that means I’ll be desensitized to it sooner than later, or if it’s because hers seemed a smoother transition.

  Benta doesn’t scold me for freezing when I was being kissed.

  “Who do you weep for?” he asks. “For her? That Prospo wouldn’t have given you the time of day in your old life.”

  He’s right and I don’t know why I cried. Still, I turn and wipe my face dry. I try to think my girls knew they were loved before they’d died. I don’t answer him.

  He says, “Good customer service is key. We do what we must, no matter how uncomfortable, no matter how it pains us, to make their transition smooth. Remember.”

  Well, so far today, I’ve proven I can kill another person, no matter how my hands shake. If I can do that one thing, I tell myself, I can do anything.

  Getting back to the Vorkian site, Benta and I walk in to find the green-dress lady in the middle of the hall. I realize she’s never told us her name, but do I want to know? I’ve started calling her Celeste in my head. I’ve never met a Celeste. It’s fitting.

  I wonder where the other trainees are—maybe still shadowing other Vorkians.

  “He did alright,” Benta says, then turns to walk into the veda and back to the surface, if I were to gather a guess.

  “Y
ou did,” Celeste agrees as she flashes a big bright grin. Not as bright as Benta’s but still as unnatural. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask as she turns a corner and I follow her like a pet. My hands started shaking again while Benta and I were in the car. I don’t try to hide the tremor now.

  “To get your reward,” she says.

  I would have guessed my reward would be to live another day. Instead, Celeste takes my shaking hand and walks me through another door into a room I haven’t noticed before.

  A big massive bed and two small side tables take up most of the space in the room, nothing else. The bed’s comforter is a dark purple, bringing out the red in her hair. She closes the door behind us as I turn to ask what’s going on.

  Before I utter a word, she’s kissing me, undressing me, her wet insistent kisses not allowing me another word or breath.

  Not until we’re both completely naked and on the bed. I don’t know if I still stink from the old job, but she doesn’t seem to mind. I can’t keep my thoughts straight, but let her do what she wants.

  At least it gets rid of the shaking in my hands. At least it erases the pictures in my head, of the dead Prospo lady, her rose, and her ashes in the wind.

  The next day, we’re trained in much the same way, then the next day, then the next.

  The next night, I visit Celeste, followed by the next night, and the next.

  Somewhere in the middle of initiation, we’re implanted with communibots in our right ears, attached to the backs of our eyeballs so future clients can contact us directly, so we can see their faces when they call.

  So an edited version of our interaction can be sent to their families if requested. And so the powers that be—whoever they are—can watch from our eye as we conduct our work.

  Then we’re told which rooms to get to, and Celeste doesn’t need to walk us through as much. Still, I visit her after every day of sales with Benta.

  Being with her erases any lasting pictures in my head, or any doubt that what I’m doing is anything but a decent job, helping people with what they really want.