io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine.
Once a month,we featurea storyfromLightspeeds current issue.
This months selection is Does Harlen Lattner Dream of Infected Sheep?
© Lightspeed Magazine
(Part 1) by Sarah Langan; part two will post Thursday, April 10.
Does Harlen Lattner Dream of Infected Sheep?
For eighteen seconds, every warehouse, screen, and air traffic control system went dark.
The body opened too easily, like paper wrapping on room temperature butter.
A CT showed a twisted large intestine and organ dysplasia.
Hed gained thirty pounds since college.
Would Gerry recognize him?
Was Gerry even going?
Also,The Heart Is a Lonely Hunterwas a really sad book about two best friends or maybe lovers.
Theyre the only people who understand one another.
Then one of them goes crazy and leaves the other bereft.
He should have picked an upbeat novel.
Something like:Heaven Is Real So Dont Worry So Much!orDumpy White Guy Success Stories!
Now, looking at the patients innards, he was no longer glad.
He was freaked out.
Are you seeing this?
Instead of headsets, the younger generation liked to implant their Congo relays against either temporal bone.
Lattner spread the Balfour retractor, opened the incision widea six-inch slash in this John Does abdomen.
It should have been hemorrhaging.
No bleeding at all.
There were also no discernable organs.
Green light blinking, the anesthesiologist didnt know what he was looking at.
Just nodded with fake bravado.
Lattner asked the nurse, Ocean Philips.
She was old guard, from before even Lattners time.
Ocean was skinny and short with curly silver and black hair.
Shed refused to wear the Congo headset interfaces required of most nurses.
Her seniority, all those years of accumulated knowledge, had made her too valuable to fire.
At least for now.
Lattner imagined that Ocean was just as competent in her private life as her professional one.
Probably had four kids and ten grandkids.
Babysat them all, kept a clean house, everybody had jobs.
How does a person become such a thing?
Are they taught it?
Lattner widened the Balfour retractor.
He indicated for Ocean to reach her gloved hand into the mans internal cavity, root around.
See if you might find any organs, he said.
No way, she said.
So, hold the instrument for me, he said.
Was this a parasite?
Lattner found no heart or intestines.
No lungs or alimentary canal.
What fluid existed was thin, watery pink, specked with black particles.
The whole thing pulsed like breath, up and down, in and out.
This is a prank, Ocean said.
Someones messing with us.
Another time, somebody put human eyes in a bowl on their anatomy professors desk.
But people didnt play those kinds of jokes anymore.
The wormlike tubing was warm and pulsing through Lattners gloves.
Hed never have known this until right now, but a person innately intuits the presence of sentience.
This thing was or had once been human.
Its not a prank.
This is living tissue, he said.
Then he found the problem: it was knotted near the groin.
For this reason, the whole apparatus was in a spasm.
I see whats wrong.
Its this swell right here, he said.
Should I untangle it?
The kid anesthesiologist was typing on the corner Congo console.
What are you doing?
Im asking the software what to do, he said.
The kids skin was pale, with a greenish-yellow hue.
These young people didnt get out much.
Its routing me to surgical headquarters in India.
I think theres a real person there.
Whats it say so far?
This guys in arrest.
Im still at the prompts.
Its got all these questions.
Im not at the part yet where I explain the problem.
Theres not a multiple choice for this.
Lattner looked to Ocean.
She shrugged a kind ofdont ask metheyre paying you the big bucks.
He wasnt paid big bucks.
Sometimes it felt like he was paid with canned cream of corn and Pez.
Beads of sweat rolled all down Lattners forehead.
The guys whole insides pulsed and swelled, fluid rushing into the knot and getting trapped there.
Soon, hed go into cyanotic failure.
Lattner needed to do something.
Still, if he failed to untangle this knot correctly, he might kill the guy.
Thered be an inquiry.
The higher-ups would review the recording and quibble over every decision he was about to make.
Theyd look at all his prior reviews.
Theyd ask him why, right now, he hadnt sewn the guy up and awaited further instructions.
Its fine if the outcome is goodnobody cares how you got there.
But when its bad, youre neck deep.
Looking at the throbbing innards of this human-shaped being, he thought of his rich wife whod left him.
He thought of his kids, who didnt like him.
He thought of Gerry, whom he hadnt seen in over twenty years.
He was a free agent.
What did he have to lose?
You got an atraumatic clamp?
Ocean handed it over.
He clamped the knotted body to hold it still.
The metal tore right through John Does soft tissue, slicing it open.
His whole body went into a spasmodic fit, shoulders slapping steel.
Ocean gave Lattner a look that meant:Id better not go down for this.
Then she held the man.
Does body went scarily still.
Torn tissue bled strange and slow, its color cotton candy pink, vital signs going flat.
Whatever this washuman or pod personit was dying.
Right away, the thrumming stopped.
John Does fluid whooshed, all in the same direction.
Vitals rose slightly, with a pulse of twenty and oxygen levels at forty five percent.
Imagine drudgery without suffering.
The new Congo utility offers exactly this.
For years, weve heard the cries from employees.
At last weve found our solution.
It is with great pride that we proudly introduce Congo 5.0.
The solution to modern life.
An hour later Lattner watched the playback of the surgery.
In it, he appeared especially fat, bald, and middle-aged.
This was not revelatory, but rather, a familiar disappointment.
Hed gotten a two out of ten.
Lattner entered a dispute ticket, upon which he wrote:The guys organs were dissolving on the table.
Hes either an alien or a symbiote.
Fear and paralysis were appropriate responses.
But the algorithm had no matches fordissolving organsoralienso the dispute was denied.
Lattner watched his too flawed, too human body onscreen.
He watched himself fish inside the patient with his hands.Hands arent allowed!Congos voice announced.Error!
Hed saved this thing, whatever it was.
Use of hands is a violation!
), he found himself smiling.
Hed been down on himself lately.
But he was a good surgeon.
Yeah, he muttered as he watched the footage again and again.
A half-hour later, no one had gotten back to him.
He stopped at triage.
Shed given him Congo E-File paperwork, told him to fill out what he could.
Then hed thrown up blood and fainted.
How did he present to you?
She looked at him blankly.
Were his wits about him?
She was wearing her headset, listening to a voice in there instead of him.
What was it telling her?
He went to surgical processing on the second floor.
Can I see his clothes?
he asked the two admins.
This was unheard of.
Doctors never picked through patient clothing.
Its not allowed, they finally agreed.
You could hold it up in the Ziplock; just let me see.
I wont touch anything.
I have reason to believe he carried an infectious disease.
Lattner looked at one, then the other.
When I went into medicine, I thought people would respect me.
Maybe, in the name of all privileged people everywhere, he deserved exactly this.
Management had promoted him past his ability just to get him away from patients.
Through a smart Congo investment, his dad owned the hospital.
I got your message.
Looks like infection by invasive species to me.
But I cant grant you access, Dr. Tucker Rhodes said.
Actually, Congo cant grant it.
Theres no specific form and they dont let me create new ones.
They have to be preexisting.
Theres a real person in Madison, Wisconsin apparently, but the hold time is two days.
Theyre gonna call me back.
This wont wait two days.
What about next of kin?
If theres no next of kin, which there isnt, I can claim that.
Tucker typed into the Congo console.
These were mounted touchscreens.
You could, and people did, wear them indefinitely.
Theyd been known to weave inside skin, attaching there, just like the implants attached to bone.
Less than a week ago, the new Congo 5.0 app broke the internet.
For nearly a minute, everything went dark.
Lattnerd been readingHeart Is a Lonely Hunterin his apartment.
Youd think, after something like that, that people would be pissed off at Congo.
But more than that, they doubled down.
They got more implants, they installed more consoles.
Uggh, Tucker said as he pressed both hands to his ribcage and pain-grunted.
ate something bad a week ago and it hasnt gotten better.
Ill say you lied and told me he was your cousin.
You think Ill get in trouble?
Though he was still youngish, in his late forties, his skin looked sick.
Why was everyone so green lately?
Theres so much noise lately its hard to think.
Lattner got his way.
Tucker filed next of kin.
He mustered all this, returned to surgical processing.
But the people at the desk were new and didnt care that hed been through an ordeal.
They just gave him the Ziplock.
The shoes were decent work boots with worn treads.
Wrapped within all this, he found a Congo Employee Badge from the warehouse outside town.
Instead of a name, it had a barcode.
Did you guys see this?
Did you call anyone at Congo?
They looked at him like:Whos this asshole trying to assign us extra work?
Just then, the head ER doc on duty pinged him with a response to the video hed sent.
Is this a joke?
No, he answered.
Did you get a tox report?
I sent samples to all three labs.
They stayed there for a while.
Head ER doc was a political position.
He probably didnt want the stain of this on his record.
Also, it didnt fit into a neat box; would be a lot of extra work.
Dawn was just breaking.
He headed there, thinking again about the pulsing tubing, the missing organs, the strange floral growths.
Was it a fungal infection?
A symbiote that was eating him while keeping him alive?
He arrived at the hospital bed.
The patient, who should have been unconscious, was gone.
Frustrations with Congo have reached a frenzied peak in the aftermath of the Internet blackout two weeks ago.
A week after the surgery, Lattner was headed for his college reunion in Scranton.
He rented a Congo self-driving car.
For legal reasons these cars were equipped with emergency human drivers.
The guy sat unobtrusive up front, his implant flashing green, reminding Lattner of a mannequin.
This wasnt newmost jobs over the years had switched from autonomous to drudge work.
The people who performed them tended to recede inside their own skin.
But this dude was especially stiff, his breath especially slow.
He could have been sleeping with his eyes open.
The trip from Harrisburg took two hours.
Lattner passed semi-odorless gas the whole ride.
Hed done something very vain and ordered three girdles from Congo.
Hed tried on all, picked the tightest.
For instance: was he a failure?
After her confession, there hadnt been much arguing.
Theyd even kept their cookware separate.
How was that possible?
How hadnt he noticed that for twenty years, the people he called family had been strangers?
Then again, hed never been the punch in to notice much.
Months later, she broke it off with the new guy.
She told Lattner that she hadnt actually loved him.Do you want to get back together?Hed asked.
Though he hadnt wanted this, hed thought it might make life easier.
In a way, she was brave.
He wished hed done it first.
The casualties here were the kids.
But it was hard to see them as casualties, given they didnt like him.
Beatrice was sad, slow-moving, and heavyset.
Shed been prescribed the same anti-depressants that Lattner had taken during adolescence.
So he didnt think about it.
Dylan was angry like his mother and resentful like her, too.
His moods blasted through rooms like earthquakes.
Ever since the kid could walk, hed charged.
But over the years, some piece of his courage had left him, and what remained was surliness.
He no longer charged, he sat still, eyes watching with furious judgment.
Lattner felt awful that theyd turned out so badly.
He blamed Lorna, whod chosen her career over motherhood.
It was an unnatural choice.
She hadnt always been so selfish.
Early on, shed been devoted.
The throw in who cooked and cleaned and loved and supported.
But she got bitter.
Or maybe she just got too much success in her work at Congo.
She started picking fights.
Eventually, they avoided one another.
And then, somehow, they avoided the children, too.
What surprised him was that after he moved, in the silence, he missed Bea and Dylan.
Well, maybe notthem.
But he missed the idea of them.
Lately, hed come to wonder: Should he have married Lorna at all?
He could have stayed with Gerry, a man hed genuinely loved.
Would his kids, born someplace else, to a better nurturer than Lorna, have been happier?
Its true that crises precipitate change.
In the lonely silence of his new, downsized life, he found his college syllabus.
And so, Carson McCullers.
Hed been reflecting, lately.
But not a lot.
When his John Doe went missing, Lattner initiated all the protocols, filed all the correct reports.
Are you saying he got up and walked out?
He looked sicker than the day before, his skin sickly green like he needed to vomit.
I dont see how he could have.
Im saying he died and got misplaced, probably, Lattner answered.
But sure, theres a non-zero chance of nanoparticles eating humanity, so maybe he walked out.
Were saying he walked out.
I rescinded your other reports indicating otherwise.
Lattner thought about that.
Okay, he said.
If Gerry were watching Lattner right now, seeing through Lattners eyes, would he approve?
Gerryd been his secret college boyfriend.
Theyd both had jobs at the cafeteria, both smelled like fried lard.
The bravest act of his life, hed kissed Gerry while walking from work to their separate dorm rooms.
Theyd liked to read to one another at night.
Well, Gerry had done the reading.
When you meet the love of your life at nineteen, its practically unfair.
He forgot about Gerry, the way you forget about all your most important things when youre young.
He searched online, found a wedding photo.
Older, shaggier, Gerryd stood beside his buff, beautiful husband.
Gerry was happy, clearly.
It hit Lattner like an invisible hammer big as Thors, straight to the bowels.
They say love lives in the heart, but theyre wrong.
It lives in a tangled place below the belly.
Further research told the story of their romance.
Theyd met at the library where they worked.
After a few years together, their jobs got automated and they became Congo warehouse employees.
They publicly posted about these career blows.
People, presumably friends, responded with great compassion.
Lattner had never posted about personal things.
He wondered whether he should have.
No, he decided.
Revealing yourself is lame.
Do you love me?
He imagined that this thought traveled through the screen, reaching its object on the other side.
He imagined Gerry thinking of him right then, wanting him back.
These feelings had to be reciprocated, he decided in the magic of dark.
Somewhere right now, Gerry was thinking of him, too.
Then he rubbed one out.
You and me and everyone we know will die.
Maybe its a party after that, but maybe its not.
Maybe we are erased.
It seems to me that this human condition seeks to hide the big black from its own consciousness.
It is so hysterically afraid that it builds trappings and walls andsomethings fromnothings.
We eagerly occupy ourselves with such distractions because we cannot tolerate death.
But in doing so, we sleep little deaths.
When my wife left me, I woke up.
I know now that its better to live with fear.
Its better to see it clearly, and be brave.
Ive come to understand that everything we do in this world matters.
Ive come to understand that I loved you back then.
I want to love again.
I could have been with you.
I could have been alive.
It didnt matter what Gerry said after that.
It only mattered that he found the courage in himself to say the words.
Autopsy showed an invasive fungal-like infection.
The other sixty-four test subjects responded positively.
We recommend rollout continue.
It was a gorgeous day.
Bright, cherry blossom-colored sun bled through the windows and spilled across tables.
No one recognized him.
He introduced himself as Lattner: Everybody called me by my last name!
Im a doctor now!
Everybody who had a clique sat together at their own tables.
He sat with three other guys and a sad looking lady with tears in her eyes.
They had to scan the menus and give their order to a screen.
Then a waiter wearing a headset came out and brought drinks.
At his failure table, they made polite conversation about the cherry blossoms and whether Pakistan was really sinking.
And then someone said, But people dont need paper books.
The truss and Gerrys absence (Where was he?
Hed been so stupid to assume!)
had made Lattner cranky and a little mean.
Doesnt look like theyre using this fancy gym.
Look around, these kids are made of dough.
Whens the last time anybody at this table did a push up?
Everybody got quiet after that, because youre not supposed to body shame college kids or your table mates.
It makes them feel bad.
Ive never cared what other people look like on the outside.
Ive only ever been interested in their insides.
Literally, as a surgeon, but figuratively, too.
Except it sucks having to get to know someone.
They might be awful or they might be hurtful or they might be too too imperfectly human .
I think I say these awful things because I dont like my own outside very much.
I dont like my inside, either.
Hed only hurt her worse.
He looked around the table.
Four guys with empty seats all between.
Theyd started cross-talking about Congo 5.0s power outage.
I think something happened.
It did something to us, a guy said.
He was skinny with bucked teeth, his cheeks sunken.
What did it do?
a guy across asked.
He was only half listening because he was wearing a headset.
These people who wore during non-work hours: what was wrong with them?
Something, the guy said.
My wife and kids dont eat anymore.
Something was very wrong in the world and it wasnt just his divorce.
Something was happening, a kind of tipping point had been passed, and it felt like falling.
Theres so much noise all around.
Its hard to pay attention, especially when your mind is on your own broken heart.
He typed on his interface.
There werent names of the drinks, just pictures.
This seemed off-brand, given they were at a college.
He decided to have a Sexy Frida Kahlo out of secret solidarity with the sad lady.
Fifteen minutes later, a kid with a headset delivered the drink.
How do you like this job?
I used to work in this same cafeteria.
Maybe the kid would talk to him.
He and the kid would bond.
Theyd become like brothers and over the years, Lattner would give him advice, help him thrive.
Hed prove he could be a good dad.
This kid would become president and in his inaugural speech, hed thank Lattner.
Id die for you, Gerry would say, eyes wet with pain and love.Dont excite yourself.
Save that for later, Lattner would answer, rye and suave as James Bond.
Where the hell was Gerry?
The young waiters eyes glazed like they belonged on a doll.
He didnt hear Lattner through his headset.
He was carrying a full tray, moving on to the next table, when Lattner raised his voice.
Everybody at his table stopped.
Everybody at tables around stopped.Im a mess, he thought.Its the divorce, but its not the divorce.
Its like Ive been boiling my whole life and suddenly the lids come off.
Everything messy and terrible and wonderful and shameful has spewed out.
The waiter stopped, too, of course.
But his eyes stayed glazed.
Sorry, Lattner said, low.
The kid didnt hear him.
He was tall with a full head of hair and had his life ahead of him.
Maybe he was in love.
Lattner hoped he was in love.
Lattner considered taking it, knew hed never balance it right and the drinks would fall.
He didnt take it.
Do you like this job?
he asked, voice raised.
The kid was confused by the question.
His nametag wasnt a name, but a number with a scannable bar code.
I have to do this job.
Its telling me table three now.
Do you like those headsets?
My job wants me to wear them as a prophylactic against lawsuits.
The kid had gone to table three.
Your brain shuts off when youve got another brain murmuring orders in your ears.
The disuse is sandpaper, smoothing all your most interesting edges.
It was then, drunk and disheartened, that he finally found his love.
He was at the appetizer buffet, even though waiters were now serving main courses.
Drunk, Lattner went for it.
As he crossed the room, his heart pounded.
But it was him.
At first, no recognition.
Even a little feara drunk was calling his name.
But then, that smile Lattner remembered, generous and open.
Lattner stood there, his nerves too alive.
Can you die from the anticipation of future joy?
Lattner hugged back, too long, too tight.
The hug felt so good.
I think about you all the time!
Just then, the buff husband appeared.
Lattner pretended not to be heartbroken.
Have you been here this whole time?
I didnt see you!
Lattner nodded, temporarily losing his ability to speak.
Gerry slapped his thigh in a show of frustration.
I have to be goingIve got a night shift.
But lets get together!
Three drinks in, the truth came out: Youre the only person I came here to see!
The hot, amiable husband narrowed his eyes, sniffing intentions.Be afraid, Lattner thought,be very afraid.
They didnt get the chance to make plans because a bad thing happened.
That kid, the waiter, collapsed on the floor and went into a seizure.
But the smart ones had gone into tech.
The rest had gone into humanities, which no longer existed.
Lattner was on deck.
He rushed to the doll-eyed kid, held him down by pinning knees against shoulders.
he cried, and maybe that happened.
Gerrys husband turned out also to be capable and strong.
He took over holding the kid down as Lattner checked his pulse, heart, and pupils.
Just like the John Doe hed operated on, this guy had no heartbeat.
His whole chest cavity was pulsing.
Lattner got the defibs and shocked him twice.
The pulsing kept going.
It reminded him of a squid or octopusthis wet squishing just beneath his skinbut his heart didnt come back.
Fast, the local rescue service from the college took over.
Lattner tried to tell them what had happened, but they were listening to their headsets and not him.
The kids body stopped pulsing.
They put him in a gurney and carried him out.
Somehow, between finding Gerry and the kid getting carried out, hours had passed.
The center had emptied out, reunion over.
Gerry and the husband were gone.
Lattner felt a great sadness inside him, not just for his own small, disappointments.
The kid was young.
Maybe he was in love.
That was all over now.
The next morning, Gerry poked him on their friend web.
Lattner accepted the poke, got a message:Hey!
We wanted to stay with you but we had work.
Lets get together soon.
The human brain is easily replaced.
All this time, we imagined wed lose our jobs to robots.
But the robots dont want our crappy jobs.
They want to initiate the show.
At work the following Monday three John and Jane Does died in the waiting room, coughing blood.
Did we get autopsies?
Tucker was holding his belly.
Hed gone from pale green to pea green, like his gallbladder had popped.
Congo Interface wont allow it, he said.
No autopsies until further notice.
What if this new crop has the same disease as my John Doe with the mushrooms for intestines?
Having come to his personal awakening very late in life, Lattner took this cowardice personally.
Its a public health concern.
Talk to your dad.
I pinged him, Tucker said.
His secretary told me hes indisposed.
Is there a point person at the CDC?
I pinged them, too.
Their mailbox is full.
Its a three-day wait.
The robots supposed to call me back.
Lattner sat heavy in Tuckers spare chair.
This is fucked, he said.
Tucker opened his desk drawer.
Pulled out a headset.
The Doc headsets came in.
He handed it to Lattner.
The earpieces curled inside his canals, warm and pleasant.like state your employee number.
I hate it, Lattner said.
The timer went off on Tuckers headset.
My breaks done, he said as his eyes glazed over.
It took longer than usual to get a car service to take him back home to his apartment.
The driver looked just as green and sick as Tuckerd been.
At home, Lattner got tired ofHeart Is a Lonely Hunter.
It made him too sad.
People have oceans of emotions inside them.
Hospitals were filling up and so were morgues.
This wasnt the big news, though.
Congo announced that now was a great time for the unemployed and underemployed to visit Congo Work Centers.
They were willing to pay minimum wage and a half.
Feeling weird, he called Lorna.
You guys okay over there?
Her voice sounded dead.
he asked, like a question.
He was new at asking Lorna personal questions.
When they were married, hed have considered it rudean invasion of privacy.
They already lived on top of one another; why compound the problem?
I dont know how I feel because nobody ever asks me.
I just asked you.
Literally, I just asked you how youre doing, he said.
Youre lonely and no one likes you.
Then they were both quiet until he tried again.
Some guy showed up at the hospital last week with his insides all mutated.
I dont mean to alarm you.
But it seems like its something that might be going around.
I called to check on you and the kids.
There was another long pause.
Youve heard about the excess hospitalizations?
Ive been hearing about it, too.
But were okay, Harlen, she said, a surprising softness entering her voice.
Congo put the whole neighborhood on lockdown until this is resolved.
Were behind tall gates.
Yeah, he said, not feeling any more reassured.
January 30, 2034
Congo CEO Jeff Jassey testified in congress yesterday over his controversial software update.
But weve done every bit of diligence on this product.
Sometimes we think a thing is causal and its not.
Listen, we updated almost two weeks ago and excess morbidity and mortality are happening only now.
Dont you think it could be radiation or infection?
Wouldnt that make a lot more sense?
Lattner came early to the gaming restaurant so he wouldnt have to make an entrance.
The place was called Play it Again, Sam and all the walls showed retro screenies from the 2020s.
He asked for a table someplace quiet and dark.
We have an erotic experience room if you want that.
Twenty percent starter special?
She paused before answering: the headset was supplying preselected words.
Its wonderful, Mr. Lattner.
Itll clean your pipes, get your heart racing.
Though her cadence was seductive, her affect was flat.
I like men, too, he said, and this was the first time hed ever admitted this.
I like men more.
The waitress paused again, as the system ran his words through an algorithm.
The booth was red vinyl.
It was a seedy restaurant, a seedy part of town.
On his doctors salary plus Lornas Congo money, hed spent the last two decades in a gated community.
We have role play for every scenario, Dr. Lattner, the waitress said.
All kinds of men.
Twenty minutes later, fashionably late, Gerry appeared.
He wore a tan Congo uniform, a badge with a barcode.
Lattner jumped up, hugged him.
He didnt smell like lard anymore.
He smelled beer sugary and middle aged.
It made Lattner laugh.
Gerry reached out, grabbed Lattners face in his hands.
Am I that bad?
Lattnerd forgotten this, the way Gerryd needed reassurance, the way hed never been able to supply it.
Or maybe hadnt wanted to.
It would have been too committal.
I meanI love it.
Its just, were not the same.
Gerry traced his hands down Lattners face, to his shoulders, then his waist.
He tried not to be hopeful.
Maybe Gerry was in one of these free spirit relationships hed read about.
Youre definitely the same.
I dont think so, Lattner said.
Gerry sat down across.
Is that a euphemism for shitty?
I always appreciated it.
Until you told me youd screwed Candace Lyons.
But it worked out.
You did me a favor.
Hed steamed a real cotton shirt, which was buttoned to the top.
Im sorry for that.
What you did was a kindness.
Wow, did I get strung along after you.
You wouldnt believe the crap I cut and ate like a finely aged steak.
Lattner remembered then, the drama of Gerry.
The ease with which hed cried, his saint-like devotion to mind-altering drugs.
Did he even like Gerry?
Gerry told him all about it.
He told him about his husband, and the fact that they were getting a divorce.
I was so happy to have found someone.
All my life, Id been looking .
But then one day you realize you never really saw the person.
You just wanted the warm body.
Apparently, the husband spent all his time watching streamies.
He didnt want sex.
He didnt show interest in anything except lifting weights.
He used to be into me.
Now hes like a zombie.
Its worse than being alone .
Honey, I needthe touch.
Lattner told him about his time with Lorna.
Theyd had a nice life.
It had been a lie.
He thought about his big speech.
Theyd both finished their fake meat sandwiches by then.
Gerry got up, moved beside Lattner.
The lights were dim.
Most of the other customers were on their headsets, watching screenies.
No one would care.
He reached over, tucked his hand against Gerrys already erect dick.
He opened Gerrys trousers.
Gerry did the same.
Probably, it happened fast.
But to him, it was all of time.
The expanse of the universe.
Lattners pants were slick wet.
He pulled his shirt to conceal it, his white crisp shirt.
It felt decadent and insane.
He was so happy he was laughing.
They both wiped at each other with napkins, and it was such a generous, intimate thing.
Then Gerry looked at his watch.
They dock pay if Im a minute late.
He was up, leaving Lattner breathless.
You do this all the time, dont you?
Lattner asked, and he couldnt tell if he felt possessive or jealous or just insignificant.
Or none of those things.
Ive been in a sexless marriage for three years, Harlen.
Id do a gorilla.
Will I see you again?
If I know you, Harlen, you dont want me to say yes.
You want me to play hard to get.
Then, he was gone.
Lattner realized hed been stuck with the bill, then remembered that Gerryd never paid for anything.
Hed wasted so much of his life.
On his way out, a patron in a Congo Warehouse uniform fell out of her chair.
Lattner rushed to help her and as he lifted her, she coughed blood.
It trickled down her lips and it wasnt red, but dull pink.
An ambulance appeared ten minutes later, maybe less.
He watched the woman get wheeled away.
Her heart wasnt beating, but her internal organs throbbed with a slow, methodic, swish-swish.
[End of Part 1 check back Thu/10 for Part 2 here on io9.]
have made best of the year lists at NPR,Newsweek,The Irish Times, AARP, andPW.
like visitLightspeed Magazineto read more great science fiction and fantasy.
Want more io9 news?
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Part two coming next week.
