Anti-Im! Anti-Im! Day Two, a Modern Parable

By C.N. Bean

Anti-Im! Anti-Im! Day Two, continues to call upon an ancient art form, the parable, to weave a modern mystery in four parts. At the heart of the mystery that unites artificial intelligence, genetic warfare and genocide into an entirely plausible context is 15-year-old Nicole Dee Showalter, a biracial girl from a small southern town, a nobody until she becomes the active carrier of a contagious disease that modifies the human genome. She is now on trial for a capital crime she allegedly committed when she was a teen. Four years beyond 15, she is in her 40s, aging quickly from her infection and fighting not just for her life but for the lives of countless humans who carry the latent germ she circulated. The parable is full of dark moments and sayings told in a well-lit courtroom. Thank you for continuing your reading journey. Welcome to Day Two of Nicole Dee’s confession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.N. Bean
• Release date: Jan 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463093184

C.N. Bean

C.N. Bean writes novels, screenplays, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. His novels include Putnam/Penguin’s A Soul to Take, Dust to Dust and With Evil Intent. He directs and produces films. His most recent film, Poem to a Nameless Slave, premiered in numerous prestigious film festivals. His screenplay, The Dream Interpreter, became Virginia Tech’s first public film and went on to the Cannes Film Festival. His screenplays have won various awards. His poetry has appeared widely and one of his poems, “Parable of the Sewer,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Anti-Im! Anti-Im! returns an ancient genre, the parable, to the contemporary world and shares it in four parts.

Book preview

Anti-Im! Anti-Im!

DAY TWO

a modern parable by

c.n. bean

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2018 by C.N. Bean. All Rights Reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, interpretations of commonly known historical events, or used in a fictitious manner.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

…draw near and I will open my mouth in a parable.

Psalm

…coming in the clouds with great power….

Daniel

Table of Contents

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Chapter Six

I didn’t know why we didn’t go with Cap, I told the jury after I dressed in my pine-green gown, ate breakfast and continued my closing statement the next afternoon, but whatever connection might have been sparked between him and QB the night before was gone in the morning after our night in the tent, I explained, which was when QB coldly announced that we had decided to move on in our own direction. I knew I could make up my own mind and she would have said nothing, and my own mind told me to stay with Cap because he was the safer bet of the two. Cap had connections and reinforcements. He seemed to have a plan. QB, as far as I knew, had none of those things. I still hadn’t ruled out that might be an Anti-Im spy. At the same time, I knew she was set on leaving and nothing was going to change that. Why, I hadn’t a clue. I guess I stayed with her, I told the jury, because I had already traveled enough with her to know her better than I knew Cap. I had also convinced myself she needed me and not too many people had ever seen much need for me in my life. It was nice to feel needed.

Cap got us a ride west and vanished. As we climbed into the semi-truck, I felt like she might have regretted the decision by then, but that feeling passed so quickly that I wasn’t quite sure it had seriously entered my mind afterwards. Aside from Anti-Im vehicles, trains and specially licensed semi’s, there wasn’t any other land transportation—unless the black limo of some important Anti-Im official passed at great speed. Cap assured us we would be as safe in a truck as any other form of transportation, including trains. At least the driver might have a little flexibility if unusual circumstances arose.

For me, I told the jury, talking to the Clyde Jenkins, the truck driver, turned out to be one of the most interesting conversations I had ever had. He had been everywhere, seen everything and was a book of knowledge about trucks and engines. What troubled me was that I didn’t know why I should have had the same fascination about engines as he did as he told us about every car and truck he had owned.

Eventually we got to the ‘now’ of our conversation, I told the jury. I asked him about the condition of the world as he had seen it since the Anti-IMs had taken over. He said he had seen a lot of burnt cities and burned-down homes in his travels. A lot of scorched earth. They burn everything, he said, "as if to make history disappear.

QB sat in the sleeper of the silver Volvo semi-truck cab while I sat in the passenger seat next to Clyde. In his 60’s, he talked of all the ugliness he had seen in life, but how none of it was as ugly as what he had seen along highways in recent days.

He said he came from a family of 13, only one child of which had gone to college. That brother had been the smart one and predicted that one day computers would run everything. He added, "He told us computers would be our masters, and we would be their slaves.

The term ‘slaves’ struck a raw nerve in me, I told the jury, because I had long realized that slavery was already in in my blood. I told the jury that Clyde’s brother had predicted that everyone eventually would become electronically glued to their houses and apartments, no one would travel without arrangements through computers, and all financial transactions would be made from a computer or cell phone. Maybe that’s what has happened, or maybe it isn’t, Clyde confessed. All I know is I’ve seen a lot of fire-bombed land that erases the world I once knew and realize I had been seeing it all along but denied it. He named cities that no longer existed—Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta. He had driven through all of them and said he wasn’t sure who had done what, but they were all shelled, bombed and burned to charred rubble. Maybe the rebels did the burning, he said. You meet two groups. One blames the burning on the rebels who claim it slows down the drones and satellite communications by creating smoke screens. The other blames the Anti-Ims and swear they’ve seen planes drop fire bombs on cities, with heat so intense no life could survive it. All I know is all I’ve seen is the burnt. And I’ve come to understand that the Anti-Ims and us will never get along. I even know my days are numbered. But again maybe it’s been coming all along. I remember all the times I tried to call my daughter before all this and she’d text back, ‘What do you need?’ I never wrote it, but I always thought, ‘If you’d answer the phone, you’d know.’ He added, Cap’s part of my family now and had it been anyone but him who asked me to help you out, I would have turned you down because as long as I’m useful to the Anti-Ims, they’ll keep me around. I don’t want to bring on unnecessary harm because I still would like to live long enough to see us turn this thing around. Yes, I admit it’s probably impossible and my own end might happen even today, but Cap has pulled my bacon out of the fire more than a few times, and that sort of thing keeps me believing we could win if we stuck together. Besides, he threw in a case of Jack Daniels, something to give me a little peace at night. Finally, his voice got present-of-the moment serious and he said, Before we get to the next inspection station, I’m going to let you two out. You carry my Jack around the inspection station, and I’ll pick you up on the other side.

I told him, I don’t know why but I once thought I’d like to be a race-car driver.

He said, I used to tell my daughter, ‘you can be anything you want in life.’

QB spoke up, as if she couldn’t help it, saying, What you don’t know about GD is that it’s parkour one day, race-car driver the next. I bet if she survives long enough, she’ll probably want to be a man just to prove she could do it.

If that’s what I want, that’s what I’ll be, I told her and added to Clyde, Nobody likes her. I didn’t tell him she was a