the 8th day part II

AZ578 is a professional and being a professional he hides the pain of his emotions well. He hides them behind large, round  amber  eye and   hard heavy looking, steady hands. A young  square faced  with a strong  bristling jawline and broken nose he sustained in a boxing match two years ago.  With brusque determination, he parks his red  grav-car, then, after picking up the cylinder that rests on the passenger seat next to him, he  steps  out  of the grav car and  slides the  door shut. He crosses the marble floor of the lobby and enters the building, but only after receiving a retina -scan from the security system entrance.
He crosses the hall, and then presses the button for the lift. He waits a few seconds; tapping the long tube he had in his left hand against his foot impatiently. The steel doors slide open. As he  enters the doors slide shut behind him, with a hush.
The lift hums into life. He  reaches into his pocket and pulls out  a small box.  With a red button.  With a single  press,  he turns off the camera in the lift.  Then he  lifts  up the tube.  He opens it and pulls out a length of shining reflective material that then falls to the floor. He steps onto it.  The reflective material lifts up from the floor are begins  to wrap itself, in fine strands  around his  body.  First his calves, then thighs, then groin. Midriff. Chest. Head.  with a distracted fascination he watches his body slowly begin  to blend into the walls in front of his eyes.  He becomes invisible. He is a ghost .  There is a violent shudder before he fades and blends into the lift walls. And as he disappears his mind wanders over the conversation he had yesterday afternoon.
‘Joshua has a job for you…’ began narrow rat faced senator Pritchard nervously.  He shook his head as he handed AZ578 the blue data digital chip. ‘ its a special job…’ 578  takes hold of the data  chip without revealing  emotion  at  senator Pritchard, who  would not meet his gaze. ‘…we thought that it would be better…’ Pritchard said quietly There was a strained look on Pritchard’s face, a trace  of regret in the  eyes,  ‘…if you took the job on.’
578 looked at the face of Jonathan Peterson. ‘I don’t understand…’ he began ‘…I owe him my very existence, without…’ his voice faded off.  There was a long silence, a long hard look from Pritchard that made AZ578 quake.
‘Why? And more importantly, why me??’
‘-Because Joshua want’s you to do it…’ Pritchard answered calmly. ‘He feels, like many do, that Jonathan…  has become a danger...  a danger to the program, to  himself and to those about him….He...he simply knows too much.’
578  shook his head sadly. 
‘-Of all the people!’
We understand.’ Pritchard said his voice rich with empathy and sadness.  Yet His violet  eyes calmly stared directly at him. In the  long  silence that followed, a grav car hissed by.
‘-What If I say no?’
Senator  Pritchard smiles,‘-Of course you,  you,  have the right to say no…you have every right and we  we, understand…But also, if,if you turn it down… then… we would then have to give the job to ABD376.’
‘376 is a fucking savage. He loves  his  work far too much, he’d have him in pain for hours just for fun.’
Pritchard smiled sadly. 578 nodded.
‘Quick and clean.’
‘yes,  quick and clean.’

Quick and clean, that’s me.  The one  to do the cleaning. 578 slides through the bedroom apartment, his ghostlike body leaves shadows upon the walls the doors the seats about him, and as he sees this he knows that he cannot be seen… He is a living ghost, a spirit disembodied. He walks with determination towards his target, his mind tumbles and bounces off the walls within him over what he has to do. He stands  over the old man, who looks twisted. Why didn’t he jump, he wants  to its  obvious   that he wants to he  could have  don’t that and saved me a bullet.
‘There’s still hope…’ Peterson  muffles
He looks down upon Peterson as he starts to babble insanely.  578  cannot  hear what he  is saying. The  suit blocks  his hearing. But the fact that he is on his knees  saddens him.  This is the  great  Jonathan  Peterson.  Creator of the Joshua  system… slowly  578’s  can feel his resolve start to dwindle. He sees the man, his father , stand before him crying like a child. The gun slowly wavers in his hand as his heart begins to break.
‘my  god’ the words  sound hollow. 
‘578 cries as slowly he pulls the trigger.

578 unwinds the reflector suit and as he does so, he looks down at down at the micro-screen of the net-book upon the table. In the top right hand corner of the screen the words “High level clearance only” shines brightly, tempting him, so, despite  himself  he sits down to listen. 
“…It cannot be  stressed  enough that Dr Peterson’s work in progressive gene therapy has had a remarkable effect upon the human condition, giving humanity a chance at tasting eternity. However, the harvesting of the genetic material needed to grow the cells for the Joshua models means certain considerations regarding secrecy…”
The words are hard to follow after that. He shakes his head. ‘Harvesting?’ he asks as he reads and re-reads the article. ‘Harvesting for what purpose?’
“…Joshua  realises  that  the human has limited resources…therefore  eternal life, the luxury in our society denies, space  for future generations.  A future  where the best and the brightest  can and must survive… that being the case, there needs to  be an alignment  between  the  species known as human and the bio- machines…the program  is already written, there is simply a need for implementation…the password for this is the  8th day protocol”
It is  then that 578  starts  to screams from below. He stands up and runs to  the balustrade. He looks below to see glass  shattering  in  petals  as  machines, begin throwing their  human masters’  out  of   windows. The bloody  bodies fall like  red rain as  screaming fills the air.
my  god…the alignment has already  begun he said coldly.  The alignment has begun.

© ADH 2015