Model 7-B
Flash Fiction February - Day 8 - Pardon Our Dust
The forest is very serious about itself. Tall firs stand in rigid rows like disgruntled civil servants who have been told there will be no tea break. The air smells of damp pine and the faint, metallic disappointment of a universe that knows it could have done better.
I am crouched in the underbrush, wearing the regulation maintenance smock (charcoal grey, slightly luminous, embroidered with the words “Not Actually Here” in thread that only shows up if you’re not looking for it). In my left hand: the Embryonic Seed Injector, Model 7-B, nicknamed “Little Bastard” because it has a habit of sprouting things sideways when you’re not looking. In my right hand: a crumpled printout of the Change Request Form that nobody ever reads.
The target soil patch has been prepped. I’ve already run the preamble incantation—sorry, initialization sequence—and now I’m supposed to insert three experimental genotypes: Quercus absurda (the tree that grows in the shape of an enormous question mark) Pinus ridiculeris (needles that whistle show tunes when the wind hits 17 km/h) Betula existentialis (bark that slowly peels itself into tiny handwritten notes reading “why me?”)
All very tasteful, very avant-garde, very much against at least seventeen subsections of the Appearance of Natural Order Act.
I thumb the injector’s trigger. A polite chime. The ground makes a small, embarrassed noise—like someone trying to stifle a burp in church—and then the first sprout erupts. Not gently. Not poetically. It punches upward like a fist through wet cardboard, shedding clods of earth the size of grapefruit. The trunk corkscrews. The bark comes out tie-dyed in colours that ought to be illegal. Within four seconds it is twelve feet tall and already sprouting branches that look suspiciously like quotation marks.
I nod approvingly. “Excellent,” I mutter. “Very on-brand.”
Then I hear it. A small, human throat being cleared. I turn—very slowly, the way one turns when one knows one is about to be disappointed in oneself. There, ten paces away, stands the Backpacker. He is wearing the international uniform of People Who Have Walked Too Far For Their Own Good: enormous rucksack, rain-flattened hair, eyes the approximate colour and expressiveness of two fried eggs.
He is also holding a trekking pole in the manner of a man who has just remembered he owns a spear and is mildly considering using it. He stares at the tree. The tree stares back (it has eyes now; I really must fix that in the next build). He looks at me. I look at him. A very long silence happens. Finally he speaks, in the careful tone of someone addressing a possibly rabid badger.
“...Did you just grow that tree?”
I consider several witty replies, discard them all, and settle on the truth, which is always the least helpful option. “Yes.”
He blinks once, very deliberately. “From nothing?”
“From code, technically. But yes. From nothing with extra steps.”
He takes one step forward. The tree behind me rustles in what I can only describe as an interested way. “Are you... some kind of... forest... person?”
“I am maintenance,” I say, with what I hope is dignity. “Think of me as the janitor who also does interior decorating.”
He nods slowly, the way people nod when they are trying very hard not to scream. “Can I ask you something?”
“Protocol says no.”
“But you’re answering.”
“Honestly, this has not been Protocol’s shining hour.”
He gestures at the tree, which has now begun to sprout fruit that look like perfectly round, disappointed faces. “Is this... physically possible?”
“No. That’s why I’m doing it on a Tuesday in the middle of nowhere.” Another pause. A raven lands on a nearby branch and immediately starts heckling us in flawless crow Latin.
The Backpacker clears his throat again. “Look. I’ve been out here four days. No signal. No people. I was sort of hoping for a quiet walk and maybe a mildly spiritual experience. Instead I get—” he waves vaguely “—this.”
I sigh. It’s a very long sigh, the kind one saves for when the coffee machine has betrayed you yet again. “I’m afraid,” I tell him, “that you’ve seen something you weren’t supposed to see.”
He nods. “Yeah. I got that part.”
“And now we arrive at the awkward bit.” I reach into the smock and produce the Erasure Wand. It looks like a fountain pen that has been through a nasty divorce. A tiny red light blinks on the side, patiently waiting to ruin someone’s afternoon. He eyes it. “Is that...?”
“Memory wipe. Standard issue. Non-lethal. You’ll wake up beside the trail in approximately ninety minutes with a very convincing story about slipping on moss and hitting your head. You’ll have a headache and a sudden aversion to abstract art, but otherwise intact.”
He swallows. “You’re going to erase me.”
“Only the last ten minutes. And the tree. And me. And this conversation. It’s very tidy.”
He looks at the tree again. One of the fruit-faces is crying tiny amber tears. “I’ve spent four days walking to get away from people telling me what I’m allowed to remember,” he says quietly. “And now the universe itself is doing it.”
I lower the wand slightly. “Weird fuggin world, innit?”
He shrugs. “I mean. If you’re going to wipe me anyway, can I at least ask one thing first?”
“Ask.”
“Is it all fake? Everything? The stars, the ocean, the way my mum used to sing off-key when she thought no one was listening?”
I hesitate. Protocol really hates this sort of question. “...Not fake,” I say at last. “Just... lightly rehearsed.”
He laughs—a short, surprised bark. “Right. Lightly rehearsed. Like a wedding vow in a Vegas chapel.”
The raven caws again, clearly enjoying itself. I lift the wand. He doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me with the calm of a man who has already lost the argument with gravity and is now making peace with the fall. “Wait,” I say. He waits. I look at the tree. I look at him. I look at the injector still warm in my other hand.
“Bugger protocol,” I mutter. I point the wand at the tree instead. A soft violet pulse. The question-mark trunk straightens. The eyes vanish. The fruit-faces melt back into ordinary apples. Within seconds it is just a tree—slightly odd, slightly too perfect, but plausibly natural.
The Backpacker stares. “You... didn’t wipe me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I say, and the words taste like rust and starlight, “it feels rather unsporting.”
He exhales. A long, shaky breath. “So what happens now?”
I shrug. “You walk away. You tell no one. Or you tell everyone and spend the rest of your life being gently patted on the head by people who think you’ve had a very vivid dream. Either way, the simulation keeps spinning.”
“And you?”
“I was never here. I’ll probably get a stern memo.”
He nods once. Then, unexpectedly, he extends a hand. I stare at it. He waits. I take it. His grip is warm, callused, real in a way that makes my own fingers feel like borrowed props. “Thanks,” he says.
“For not erasing you?”
“For growing a tree that cried. That’s new.”
He shoulders his pack, gives the tree one last glance, and starts down the trail.
I walk behind him a couple steps, then say “oh, by the way…” He turns just in time to see the blue light of the eraser.
ZZZZZWWWAAAAAPPPP
“Psych”.
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Good one, pb.
I like it.