The Shareholders

By H.S. Down

"Decades earlier, back when the rich wanted the poor to work, the treatment might have been offered to everyone. Imagine the immortal, disease-free worker, imagine how profitable that would have been. However, the treatment came just when it was truly apparent that too many of us were surplus to requirements. What was to be done with the new dispossessed? Nobody knew, but extending their lives indefinitely certainly wasn't the answer.

 

Then the tipping points finally tipped for real. The tipping points. They came like waves from a nameless shore adumbrated by distance and by our habitual and weary attendance to our own mortality. What would make it all real, we wondered? Then the Great Thaw came, the permafrost and northern ice gave way, and the world ran away from us."

 

In the late 21st century, Earth is ravaged by climate change. The billionaires have bioengineered immortality, fled to Mars, and rule Earth's last biospheres as their personal shares. Those left on Earth struggle to find balance as the planet tumbles into its terminal years of habitability. Ian Gateman, one of Earth's last bureaucrats, is tasked with finding a buyer for a fledgling colony of newly settled ecological refugees. As Ian travels to the estates of several visiting shareholders, it becomes clear the shareholders have other plans for humanity's future.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hunk of Junk Press
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201464110

Book preview

The Shareholders

By

H.S. Down

We are defined not by what we have, but by that which we believe is ours but cannot possess. The 21st-century will be defined by the politics of letting go.

Chapter 1: THE PARTY

THE DOOR TO THE ROOFTOP patio was ajar; orange shadow leaked around its edge and pooled around Alex Gateman’s sneakers as he watched his parents dance. With her shoes off, his mother swayed, barefoot and unsteady, as she fought for balance against his father’s rhythmless lead. With his hand pressed to the door, Alex could feel the pulse of the apartment’s community jukebox in his palm. The other residents of the apartment danced in a ring around his parents, careful not to break from their orbit.

Yellow, blue, and green strips of bunting hung loose and ran from wooden trellises, erected at each corner of the roof, and terminated in big lazy bows in the arms of a gazebo planted at the rooftop’s center. The bunting somersaulted in the wind, and in the arches of the gazebo he glimpsed the faces of children bowed with laughter. In that gazebo, its bone-white paint now peeling in leprous curls, he had sat on his father’s knee and the three of them traced the fiery tails of the rockets headed for Mars, their narrow payloads flying away from Earth like inverted shooting stars, receding into the dark of the heavens. 

In remembrance of his childhood, he leant too far through the door and his father, in completion of an awkward shuffle on the spot, spotted and beckoned him with a smile and wave. With a sigh, he obeyed. 

Alex! Where have you been, son? And as his father spoke, his mother leaned out and cradled his face in her hands; the tremors in her fingers fluttered like butterfly wings on his cheek, but he forced a smile.

Oh, you know, around, he answered.

Well, get in there while the going is good, laughed his father as he tipped his head at the three tables set by the gazebo laden with food. Alex had recognized the smell: a rich metallic aroma that reminded him of the taste in his mouth when he bit his lip. They had served real meat when Debbie’s father checked in, too. Unentitled meat served in thin, charred strips, accompanied with a murky oily dipping sauce in little white dishes. He made out a quarter of a chocolate cake, too. As he approached the tables, the scent of chocolate eclipsed the smell of meat as a heaviness and sweetness filled the air. His mother knew a word for the rich smell of real dairy and flour. Decadent was the word she used. ‘That’s not a word for food,’ he had replied. ‘That’s how they describe the old nations, in school. Not a word for food.’ But as she often did, she merely smiled and shook her head. 

Two children chased after one another and darted under his feet before running beneath the tables of food and then back around the gazebo. Behind him a piece of the dancing ring broke away, and a red-faced man stumbled into chase, bellowing over the music about the dangers of running on a roof, Guardrails be damned, you two will run right over the side!

In the commotion, it took Alex a moment to realize that his wrist was chirping at him, spewing lines of text across his forearm. Remember, it is custom for the child of a parent checking in to congratulate them with a piece of cake. Based on your mother’s latest neurological and digestive data now is the optimal moment to serve her. Without hesitation, he cleaved a hunk of chocolate cake onto a graphite plate with the serving knife and turned to go.

Fork? His forearm queried. With a sigh of exasperation, he fumbled for a fork on the table setting and placed it in the shadow cast by the mountainous slab of cake he had cut. It was easier to let the retinue of digital curators and self-help genies wire themselves into your limbs, to surrender and let them mesh into the nervous system as digital sinew. Didn’t they say, after all, that the auto-self was more reliable than muscle memory?

The cake wobbled and then fell on its side as he approached the ring of dancing couples to his mother and father. He smiled but cursed the numb ritual of all the check-in parties. Same bunting. Same stupid happy faces and cheery shirts and dresses. The same rarified food, and the same stench in the apartment’s communal bathrooms afterwards when everyone’s guts tightened and wrung the morsels of mystery meat out from their bowels. But it wasn’t the same. Not this time. It’s not every day your mother has her check-in party, he thought.

He waded through the outer ring of dancers and waited at her elbow for her to notice him; and something about waiting beside them, expectant and almost desperate for them to take notice of the outstretched cake in his hand, made him feel like a little boy again.

Oh, his mother whispered. Oh, thank you, she said as she gripped the plate with trembling hands and his father gave him a slow, daft wink. For a moment, Alex felt his lip twitch, and had to fight a scowl from his face. His father. With his empty winks and unshakeable conviction that they’d all make it to Mars. Mark my words, son. We’ll get there sooner than later. I will sleep amongst the red sands of an alien world, there is wonder yet, my boy. Don’t let them tell you there isn’t wonder out there. Suddenly, his consciousness streamed all the times his father had winked at him. Stupid, dumb, pointless winks. As if they were both in the know of something greater. His vision grew red and narrow with the thought that, despite all the winks, here she was with a slice of cake at her check-in party. The tremors had come faster than his father’s winks and far faster than the promise of a rocket ship to Mars. The twitch in his lip crept up into cheek. 

In response, his auto-self issued a soft coo and a sudden sense of calm trespassed upon him and his disdain for his father loosened, sinking away within him like a stone vanishes into the inky black bottom of a pond. He thought of his mother, her body restored by a state of permanent immateriality, venturing through a series of bright, cheerful, simulated worlds. The image came with a pang of joy.

Cake speech, cake speech, shouted their observers, and the rooftop broke into random clusters of applause. He watched his mother hesitate and her eyes widen as they moved from his father to him in a succession of panic. She grabbed his arm, and Alex noticed, as if for the first time, how much taller than her he had become. Her grip on his forearm and bicep was tight, though he could not tell if it was an embrace of love or fear. Perhaps it was both. She pivoted on her toes as if unsure of how to best address the ring of dancing couples that had formed around her.

Thank you all for coming, it means the world to me.

Which world? called the crowd in jubilance.

Our world, she replied, as had become the custom. I am as scared as I am excited. The journey into immateriality is one we don’t make alone. I want to thank my husband, Ian, and my son, Alex, for helping me make this choice. As so many of you know, it is not an easy choice. I don’t think it is ever quite possible to gain what we leave behind. Promise me we won’t lose touch. I can’t wait to be on your wrists, sharing worlds with you that we can’t imagine, worlds that seem impossible from this rooftop. We don’t need to leave an imprint on this world to be whole. And Alex felt her grip on him tighten. She took a deep rattling breath and her eyes became fierce, glistening in the cotton candy sunset of the descending northern sun. Next stop, Lotus! And the rooftop broke out in waves of applause and soulful cheers.

Alex stepped aside and watched as the ring of dancers approached his mother with their arms outstretched, their voices becoming a cacophony of ecological psalms. ‘Preserve the material, become immaterial’ and ‘There is divinity in the sequestered self’ were refrains Alex recognized from other check in parties. His own words, ‘love knows no form,’ remained lodged in his throat as a tsunami of hands, small, delicate hands, hands with crooked fingers molded by taps and swipes, skimmed her face, leafed over her titan hair and ran over her body. Alex drifted to his mother’s side and watched as she closed her eyes and surrendered to the crowd’s embrace. Serene. Calm. On the edge of the gathering he found his father, awkward and apart from his mother. Alex watched him fold his hands in a tent in his lap, and then tuck them behind his back, only to throw them to his sides. Alex watched his father scan through the crowd for him, watched as he bobbed on his toes to see over the fray of hands that continued to cocoon his mother. Without hesitation, Alex slipped back into the apartment building, murderous with the thought that, behind him, his father was no doubt smiling and still winking to himself as the plotted their future. As he descended the stairs, Alex could not shake the feeling that whatever future came to pass, he would meet it in the wake of his father’s ungainly footsteps.  

IAN GATEMAN LAY WITH his wife. The party had ended and though they had retreated together, she lay with her back to him. Ian knew it would be the last time he felt her, the last time her presence would have physicality, the last time he would breathe in the smell of her flesh, the pheromones in the top of her head. The heat of a heavy and oppressive March evening leached into their room and beaded on their flesh, and in the descent of climax, their bodies were still and loosened. Anne’s auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and then branched into tributaries across her soft and dimpled back.

No words passed between them and Ian welcomed the silence, because he longed to be sated by her presence. Desperate to hold onto her, to form a solid memory of her, he immersed himself in the constellation of freckles that dotted her lower back; freckles he had been intimate with for over eighteen years. Freckles that had come to live on the edges of stretch marks that had appeared as pale lacerations when Anne had cocooned Alex against the world. 

As Ian lay behind her, Anne spelt with her lips the one needful thing of which she was certain: their world could not possibly support new beginnings. ‘We live in the age of the epilogue,’ she reminded herself and nodded perceptibly at what she felt was a succinct and elegant presentation of the problem at hand. Faint as it was, Ian noticed her nod.

Anne, he whispered; his words were hoarse, and he could taste his breath as it bounced off the back of her neck. She turned her body into him and let her breasts fall against his chest. Her breath, still flavored by the strawberries they had eaten, fell hot against his chin in a slow suspire. Hours ago the smart shades in room had deployed themselves to hold off the heat, but now the sunset managed to curl in through small gaps at the windows’ borders to lay a tangerine shadow across her face. Ian dared not utter another word, but let her gaze find and subdue him.

Anne’s eyes often seemed cast in a state of heightened permanent alertness; a state too intelligent to be described as fidgety, but fixed in a blue restlessness. Yet tonight, Ian thought her eyes had changed. They looked calm and disarmed and Ian wandered within them into the borderlands of their early twenties, back into the half-walked trails of their conversations about having Alex, and what would lie ahead of them thirty years from now. Later, they shared cloistered and sullen murmurs about the meaningful actions they could take as the planet tumbled into its terminal years of habitability.  

Anne ran her fingers softly up and down his forearm, coaxing him back into her gaze. Beyond their room, down the hall of their Cargo-Condo, he could hear Alex’s laughter, coarse with the onset of adolescence. Her eyes remained calm, but her body felt rigid next to his, braced in faint anticipation of some possible rebuff. 

Thank you for understanding, she said. I am so sorry, so sorry to leave you both. You know ... But Ian stopped her with a solemn nod and the promise that at some point, when Alex was safe on Mars, that he would join her. Who, after all, would turn down the opportunity to join their soulmate in infinite simulated worlds? ‘he’d asked.’ She offered only a smile in reply. That evening he watched her clear out her section of the closet and pack her clothes into several blue containers. With her usual surgical precision and economy, she reduced herself to a small collection of luggage at the foot of their bed.

In the morning the three of them ate breakfast. Though Ian tried several times to convince Alex to accompany them to the Lotus Hotel for his mother’s big send off, he remained intransient; again and again he professed that he would wait to see his mother as soon as she checked in. Anne relented, bent over the sofa where he lay and planted a long kiss upon his forehead; a scene reminiscent to how she bade him goodnight when he was a toddler.

It was not a long walk to Lotus, and once they entered, the opulence of the lobby took them both aback. A white marble floor, immaculate of the usual dusty footprints that haunted most buildings in the Enclosure, flowed to a crescent-shaped reception desk. Above the desk, etched into the pale wall in black lettering, was the phrase, Become Immaterial for the Preservation of the Material. From behind the reception desk, a slender woman in a black sheath dress eyed them with an alert curiosity. She flashed them a shadow of a smile as they marveled at their surroundings.

Interspersed throughout the room were screens: each cycled through the images of the ubiquitous program Lost and Treasured Places. A montage of scenes of the natural wonders and ecologies that had been lost throughout the 21st century. Ian glanced at lush canopied forests of the Amazon, oceans, and snow-capped mountains. Beneath the screens, several men and women stood motionless, their arms folded behind their backs, and opposite them was a live orchestra playing the violin, the flute, the cello and brass accompaniments. A small plaque to the left of the orchestra informed them that for their enjoyment the string instruments had bows made of authentic horsehair.

Beethoven's ninth! Ian, how lovely, said Anne and she cast him her familiar smile of reassurance, which always seemed to outrun him. Ian nodded, although he could not recall which one was Beethoven. They paused in mid-step, and he squeezed her hand a little tighter, as the woman broke away from the reception desk to greet them.

Welcome to the Lotus Hotel! she smiled and clasped her hands in approval. We took the liberty of scanning your auto-self so that we would be able to provide you with your favorite music, Anne.         

You’re so kind, said Anne, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

That’s simply how we do things at Lotus. Everything is personalized to your taste. But, I am getting ahead of myself. I am Edna, your onboarder. Are you ready to check in?

This is my husband, Ian, he wanted to be with me for my departure. My journey to the undying lands, as it were, she added, but Ian could not place her reference.

Of course, of course, Ian, it is a pleasure, smiled Edna, revealing a mouth of pearls whiter than the marble floor. She used the smile to direct them to a hallway to the left of reception. Her smile continued in her office as she sat in front of them, her fingers clasped in a delicate tent. Behind her lithe figure, a touchscreen flashed basic information about Anne, no doubt downloaded from the archives of her auto-self.

Now, when we last spoke, you had confirmed today as your check in. Would you still like to proceed with a permanent stay? asked Edna.

Anne nodded. Yes.

Excellent. Now, I don’t want to be too intrusive, but I am required to ask you a few questions. Anne bit her lip, but shrugged her approval. Why have you decided to join our community? What is it about life in the Enclosure that has made you want to choose Lotus Hotels? asked Edna.

I suppose ... Anne started, but then paused to inhale the room. "I am just too tired. Too tired of the gray, and the heat. Too tired of my failing body.  Tired of worrying about when things will turn on us? Our son Alex ... when he was born ... well ... I just don’t know how to raise a new life as I try and learn to embrace the end of the world," confessed Anne.

Edna leaned in and held Anne’s hand, coaxing her to draw on some near-tapped reservoir of perseverance.

Does this make me terrible mother and a bad wife? Anne asked. Although Ian was sure Anne directed these questions at him, her gaze remained fixed on Edna.

Of course, not Anne, of course not, whispered Edna with a familiarity that irked Ian but seemed to further disarm Anne.

Really? begged Anne, tears now spilling down her face in great drops from her luminous blue eyes.

Really. This world is too much and, at once, far too little. It makes one so very weary. There is no scarcity like deprivation and being trapped in an ill body. Ian understands, don’t you Ian? Before Ian could respond, Edna continued, Checking in permanently isn’t the end, of being a mother or, she said, arching her eyebrow ever so slightly in provocation, a wife. We are giving you the opportunity to enjoy an eternity of ecologically sustainable living. Think of it; as a resident of Lotus you will live for as long as you wish in a virtual community of your choosing. Here you can explore seamlessly simulated worlds. The very depths of human experience will be forever at your fingertips. It is a world without limit. Can you imagine a world without limit, without scarcity, without restriction? Oh, of course you can’t! How can any of us living in times such as these? After what you have been through, all the upheaval your generation has faced, don’t you deserve a chance to experience the life you were promised? And think, admittance to Lotus will reduce your ecological footprint to nearly nothing. By making this choice, you will be conserving resources for your family.

Ian, are you still okay with this? she asked, and averted her gaze to the sleek white empty space of Edna’s desk.

With as much force as he could muster, Ian replied, Of course. You know that. I am sure we will be together again like that. And he snapped his fingers, but when she turned from him, he deflated and frowned into his lap. The conversation shifted quickly from the unrivaled opportunities of life in Lotus to a stiff discussion of the fees. The savings they had put aside was enough for a 25% down payment. With a nonchalant wave of her finger across Anne’s auto-self, Edna took the funds. She assured Ian that they would work through the details of the financing after Anne’s admission.

I can check you in today as planned. Do you have any business or personal matters you need to attend to first, though? There is no going back, and we want to ensure the transition is seamless for employers and families. This last little epilogue came quick and in a perfunctory tone, which left Ian with the impression that it was perhaps the final question before they moved on to Anne’s admittance.

No, I have let my employer know and Ian and Alex threw me a lovely check-in party. I am—we are— she coaxed Ian by rubbing his arm —ready.

Splendid, let me show you both to the transition room, said Edna.

THEY CAUGHT AN ELEVATOR in the lobby and journeyed up through the building in a brittle silence, spare the ambient elevator music, which Anne informed them was Bach. With a lackadaisical halt, the elevator doors peeled back to reveal a brightly lit yet expansive chamber. As his first steps clattered against the metallic tiled floor, Ian realized he was walking on chrome. Some hundred meters away at the room’s center, a white spherical column ascended from the floor to a vaulted ceiling. Nestled in the center of the column was a darkened screen. Below the screen at the base of the column was body-sized port that faced out into their approach like a wide-open mouth. To the right of the column, suspended from the floor by black steel rod, was a large touchscreen console.

Welcome to your room, squealed Edna, and she swept her arm towards the column as if making an introduction. While Anne inched forwards, catching Edna’s enthusiasm, Ian inspected the room further and saw that it was composed of many overlapping white metallic tiles. Each its own port, and he presumed each was a little window bay upon which to look on the intangible fuzz and hum of each resident’s digital upload. Consciousness preserved and stored, and he could not shake the image of thousands of little pickle jars, their contents jostling about in the brine.

It looks cold, said Ian.

I can assure you that only the room itself is cold. Once Anne is transferred into Lotus she will only ever be as cold or as warm as she would like to be; if you so elect, Anne, you can choose to be neither. You choose from an unlimited number of experiences, and as she spoke Edna seemed to fall into her own private reverence. Limitless choices in a time of such scarcity, what ingenuity, what a gift. She clapped as she gazed into the blank screen that peered down upon them from on high. The words limitless choice conjured for Ian an image of vast emptiness and for the first time in a very long time, he felt fear; he reached out to hold Anne’s hand, but she was already too far in front of him, her head craned upwards in silent worship, to notice him and reach back. 

Edna moved ahead them and strummed the touchscreen console to live, making the screen flicker into the image of a blue orb superimposed against an inky galaxy. Her well-made hands moved about the orb with adroit precision and drew from it green threads that soon appeared like ivy on the touchscreen; each strand featured its own heading, things like birthplace, art, love, travel, genealogy, fears, interests. Without looking up, Edna informed them that she was building Anne’s Lotus profile and that the admission process would be initialized momentarily. Ian and Anne both gave mute nods of assent.

A burst of static erupted across the screen held by the white spherical column in the center of the room. The uniform darkness of the screen was split in half by a very thin horizontal red line, which crossed through the screen’s center. Then, with the speed and motion of eyelids stung by dawn’s first light, the red line expanded up and down as the black space receded until the screen became fully red. The word Lotus appeared in white lettering down the left side of the screen, and running horizontally from each letter were the words:

Life

Outside 

The Terrestrial

Universe

Systems

Edna put her hand on Anne’s shoulder. Lotus is ready to receive your upload now. We just need to construct a life narrative, so the system knows how to receive you. Please let me assist you in creating your life narrative. Shepherded by Edna, Anne approached the base of the column, and then Edna broke stride from her, withdrew from a drawer concealed amongst the tiles an ivory crown, which she informed them would transmit Anne’s consciousness into Lotus.

Edna turned the crown over in her hand to reveal four narrow, needle-like chrome pins positioned at the crown’s front, back, left and right sides. With only gestures, Edna beckoned Anne to kneel before her as she carefully fitted the crown to her head, until the pins connected to her scalp. Confident the crown was secure, Edna