I accidentally make eye contact on the morning train, which the Trevorite across from me takes as an invitation.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” His dark anime eyes calculate every exposed freckle, mole, and hair on my exposed skin.
“It’s raining,” I reply.
A perfect row of teeth smiles back. Each one has been fitted with a sensor set to the optimal temperature. He has never bitten into an ice cream bar and gotten a brain freeze. Sugar cannot corrode those canines. I see the barest hint of a tongue that looks like it is covered in solar panels. I know he has set his artificial taste buds to his favorite foods. He could eat shit, and it would taste like roasted tomatoes, garlic, and pesto.
The Trevorite taps his temple. “It’s only raining in here.”
Outside, the world is a slurry of grays. A few billboards advertising upgrades slide by and blink their neon colors before the monochrome world returns. The train car rocks slightly on its tracks. The conductor’s voice squawks through speakers, announcing the next stop. Three more stops, and I can escape this creep.
“I’ll stick to reality, thanks.”
He rolls up his sleeve to reveal his smooth, silicone-beaded skin. Words run up and down his arms; some of them are snippets of the doctrine. Others are inspirational quotes he has picked up from reading the recommended books. I wonder, briefly, when was the last time he felt cold or heat. Has he ever known the burn of a lover’s kisses on the wrist? Has he ever felt the sting of a vaccine bursting through skin?
“These skin cells cost me nothing.” He rotates his arms from side to side. Instead of veins, I see the barest hint of circuits running from palm to the crook of his arm. “The Fellowship paid for everything. I haven’t felt rain, snow, or wind in years. I no longer fear the weather.”
I laugh, a short hiccup of derision. “You feel only what they allow you to feel.”
He leans forward. “Everything is an illusion. We only know the truth once we’ve removed the corruption of our senses. You, too, could be free.”
I hug my bag to create an extra barrier between us. “Don’t pretend you know what’s best for me. All your upgrades are irreversible. Every replacement makes you less human.”
He leans back with smug satisfaction. Through his filters, my words probably smack of desperation. Has my scowl been transformed into a lost look of bewilderment and confusion? Does he even see me as a person, or an oft-told tale of spiritual ignorance?
“How old do you think I am?” He examines his fingernails, which are made of diamond. He never has to trim them. They will forever be the perfect length.
This is a set-up. I already know the answer he is going to give. “You’re going to tell me that you’re ageless, that time no longer applies to you.”
He raises a perfect eyebrow. Despite the upgrades, he hasn’t learned to filter his outputs. The rest of his body portrays calm assurance, but this one feature is not in synch. I want to point out the discrepancy just to piss him off, but he’d probably take it as a sign to go back to the upgrade center. I cringe at that thought.
“Humor me,” he says instead.
The upgrades have only been around 14 years. The Fellowship hasn’t figured out a way to replace the spine yet, and those who received the upgrades later in life have the telltale slump of old age. He sits up straight in his seat, so he can’t be any older than 40.
“You don’t look a day over 52,” I tell him.
He smiles beatifically with those white tombstone teeth. I’m not sure his upgraded ears can even hear insults properly. This conversation has likely followed whatever script has been programmed by the Fellowship. “Close enough. Do you know that I’ll never die? You may live another 1,000 crappy days, but I’ll have 10,000 perfect days because once you control the input, nothing can hurt you.”
The conductor’s voice rasps through the old speakers. One more stop. One more, and I’ll be rid of this Trevorite. Tomorrow, I can choose another car, but who am I kidding? There are Trevorites all throughout this train. They are inescapable. They are the future. I’m the past.
Still, I try to reason with him. “No amount of software can remove desire from our DNA. Even if we obtain the best, we will always want better.”
His eyebrow arches again. Does he still feel the gnaw of unfulfillment?
“Someday, you will feel differently,” he concludes.
“I doubt it.”
The conductor announces my stop, so I rise and slide past his knees. As I step into the aisle, his cold hand grips mine. “What’s your name, Friend? I will post a prayer for you on the cloud.”
“I’m Trevor.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Yes,” I say. “That one. I’ve regretted every day since I wrote that damned transhumanism manifesto.”
“The heretic.” He drops my hand.
The train shudders to a stop. My world shifts sideways with the shift in momentum. I search his eyes — those dark caverns swallowing all light and reason.
“Here’s an addendum to the doctrine, Friend.” I put a hand on his shoulder. He tenses. “We all live just long enough to become the heretics our younger selves feared.”
As I exit the train, I catch one last glimpse of him watching the words — my abandoned words — scroll across his arms. The words pulse with every beat of my artificial, eternal heart — my only upgrade — but I feel nothing, absolutely nothing but disgust.
Not at him. At me.
Jeff Gard is a full-time English instructor at a community college in Iowa. He is a recovering optimist who hopes to one day write the most absurd opening line in flash fiction. Recently, he renovated a typewriter just so he could feel his words stick to a page. His previous works have appeared in Every Day Fiction and Flash Fiction Magazine as well as other, now-extinct online magazines: Daily Science Fiction, Crow Toes Quarterly, Reflex Fiction, and The Arcanist.
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