Sitting in his cluttered living room, The Guy looks down at the piece of paper in his hands for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier, tracing his finger over the numbers. 4 12 13 21 32 49 and 10. Lotto numbers. Special lotto numbers. Numbers he didn’t have to choose.
A few weeks ago, The Guy made one of the most priceless discoveries in the history of The Goat’s Nest Town. He had moved into his new home just prior, a modest semi-attached with small rooms but a very large garden. The place was a little rundown, sure, quite a way off the Orbit High Street where only the richest could afford to live, but at that time it was all The Guy could have ever asked for. That was until the fateful day he had needed a hammer, a simple tool for the simple task of hammering one simple nail into his bedroom wall, where he would hang up his framed photo of his grandmother Elaine. From this point his life would never be the same again.
He had noticed a worn down wooden shed right at the back of his garden when he first moved in, a potentially good storage space for his extensive collection of deformed sweets and bottle caps - or so he had thought. When he ventured into the shed for the first time, he expected to find a whole load of empty space, maybe a shelf or two, definitely some insect life and hopefully a hammer. However, once opening the rotting door curiously, he was stopped in his tracks. There was something else in here, the derelict shed merely a disguise for an object of much greater value. He never found that hammer.
Wall to wall was one large machine - The Machine - leaving just a small gap for The Guy to get inside and shut the door behind him. From the outside the shed seemed tiny, but The Machine itself appeared disproportionally large, as if it shouldn’t be able to fit there in the first place. It looked like something out of a 70’s Sci-Fi flick, flashing lights and skipping screens, unconvincing and unnecessary. Although he was no technological expert, The Guy began to examine The Machine and it didn’t take him too long to work out what it was for.
As unlikely as it sounds, The Machine was alive, or some kind of soulless equivalent. And when The Guy vocalized his intrigue (a mumble to himself more than anything), The Machine whirred up and began to vibrate. It squeaked and hummed until a weathered piece of lined yellow paper spewed out from one of its slots at the bottom. Although the information was educational and read like a straight-to-the-point how-to guide about The Machine, it took a few more questions until The Guy started to piece it all together.
This Machine knew everything, or so it claimed, as it was connected directly to the brain of _____ (name removed for security concerns) which allowed it to access the minds of every character in The Goat’s Nest, every creation past and present, and even sometimes the future. Only three were ever built, developed deep and perhaps beyond Treason Forest, and here was one of them, somehow stored in The Guy’s garden, left to rust assumingly by someone who had never bothered to look that far on their own property.
And yet the most interesting fact about The Machine went beyond its vast knowledge. It had been designed with an interesting twist - as any good program would be. Very seldom, but definitely on occasion, The Machine would tell a lie. A print-out of fabrication in response to any given question, proving an essence of creativity lived within this complex system. And The Guy was all too aware of this, as he sat in a more present time, folding and unfolding his lotto ticket. Maybe these numbers were fake. Maybe they meant nothing at all.
This bothered him a little too much as he sat in his couch, staring at his reflection in his new but unplugged television set. He had no idea how much he differed from his former self. Ever since he had started using The Machine, his desire for a comfortable and humble living had grown thinner and less important. The hunger for more and more material assets grew stronger and definite as he used The Machine for greedier purposes. The evidence was in his every question, as he had already received some very valuable stock information, a few horse race outcomes, and even an Internet get-rich scheme that had actually worked. These alone had made him substantially more affluent, and as a result, he had accumulated many unnecessary items in the small house he had decided never to leave again. Sure, he also asked different things, and now knew the main password to the government’s computer systems, the meaning of life and God’s real name - although any of this could have been a random lie. But such details were of little concern to The Guy right now. Like any man who had put their tongue into this level of potential wealth - he wanted more.
The lotto this month was a record jackpot, an amount that would skyrocket his net worth. He could hardly wait for the results, and the irrational fear that The Machine might have chosen this time to misinform him felt like his stomach acids were perspiring all over his insides. Of course, it would only be a minor inconvenience, the lotto ticket was under a fiver and so it would cost him very little to play again next week. And by the law of averages, there would be no chance The Machine would incorrectly answer the same question two weeks running. But still... he needed that money. He needed it now.
Not far from The Guy lived a girl named Japan. She was a local celebrity in the community, and for all the wrong reasons. She was born with a very rare disorder, one that was believed to be mildly contagious if not exclusively mental. Her physical self was that of a fourteen-year-old even though she had lived way past her hundredth year without ever seeming to gain the significant IQ or life experience one would expect. This disorder (or perhaps the medication she was taking to fight it) had an array of interesting side-effects. She had manic spells, traits of narcolepsy, severely impaired depth perception and was double jointed all over her body. Naturally the rumour that she was a witch (having outlived her entire family and yet unable to pass the 8th Grade) ran wild, but neighbours still smiled and nodded to her politely in the supermarket.
Japan knew about The Machine long before The Guy. For almost half of her life (fifty years give or take), she had been sneaking into the shed, asking The Machine many questions in profound contrast to The Guy’s, which pleased The Machine very much. The upside to her naivety and childlike perception was her desire to save the world above anything else. And by utilising the endless knowledge that The Machine provided, she had prevent fires, tipped-off police about bank robberies and even once located missing people within the mountains of Proper Gander. “A modern day superhero” some called the anonymous phone-caller who had saved so many lives. Granted, the advice occasionally sent authorities on a wild goose-chase which never amounted to anything, but this was hardly often and seemed to get less frequent the more Japan used The Machine.
Japan could never be labelled selfish, but she did use the advanced information for personal gain once in a while - and understandably so. The most memorable of these examples would be just a few years back when she grew increasingly lonely at the neighbourhood’s shunning and the death of most people that had been a part of her life. She felt she needed someone to spend time with, as even all the enlightenment in the world couldn’t keep her company and hold a conversation.
“Where can I find a best friend?” were the only words she used, and immediately the frantic printer of The Machine began to spit the inevitable answer it always knew. Out came the address of one Patrick Junior, a cancer patient dying slowly in his bed under constant supervision. The Machine had instantaneously calculated the match by using all the knowledge of others to connect their personalities. And after a few more detailed questions, Japan went to Patrick’s house with every issue of Hero Duck he didn’t have. Which wasn’t many, but the gesture alone was enough for Patrick to feel safe in her presence. They spent many more nights together while Japan used The Machine to try new ways to prevent Patrick from suffering, and as a result was keeping him alive well beyond the years his Doctor had predicted. It was the best thing that had ever happened to either of them, life seemed so simple and blissful, until the very day The Guy bought his lotto ticket.
Despite having the body of a fourteen-year-old, Japan had been experiencing her menstruation cycle for as long as she could remember. It was like clockwork, every month, until just a couple of days ago. It didn’t come. The weight and fear of this sunk Japan’s stomach, and something definitely felt wrong with her body. Anxiously, she waited for the night to fall before sneaking into The Guy’s back garden (an action she had become very good at) and then asked The Machine the obvious question.
“Why am I not bleeding?” she queried quietly in the shed, and waited while the response was printing, convinced that she was finally dying like all of those before her. She pulled the paper out of the slot the moment it was produced, and read the simple English The Machine had grown accustomed to type for her. It was a baby.
“A baby? How does a baby get inside of a stomach?” she asked out loud, and The Machine began to process that information too. This led onto a few more questions as Japan slowly understood what had happened. The games she had been playing with Patrick. The games The Machine had once suggested they play. The games which had felt so natural and loving and fun - that was how a baby would get inside of her. She had no idea.
Somebody got shot. It was just a few days ago, a block away from The Guy. The newspaper reports which followed the incident were minimal, as the blood-thirsty and desensitized general public needed more than just a gun murder to get an erection over. But the detail that it was a Memory Editor was excluded from publication; partially because it would be hard to know something like that when nobody recognized the deceased party. And, of course, partially because such information would be very dangerous.
To explain a Memory Editor in detail is difficult as many ancient books and Internet conspiracy theories have birthed complicated rumours, which have rendered the concerned as mere mythical individuals. But in it’s simplest form, a Memory Editor (or an Old Kid, as they were known on the street) is one who has mastered a rudimentary form of time travel, for lack of better term. However, the main difference between Memory Editing and the movie cliché time travel we are used to today, is that the Old Kid can only jump backwards into past moments of his/her own life. Memories that already exist in their brain, allowing them to have a minute or two to relive the said experience, altering it with their new found hindsight, and mixing their life story for good.
The danger in this practice is that many lose the present, and end up jumping from one memory to another with no idea where the current time is meant to be anymore. This was the case for McFleetwood5. He had been jumping around for so long, changing memories from all ages of his life, that his entire story had become a tangled mess without a beginning or an end. He had begun to frantically scour his memory, looking for the lost lovers he had somehow deleted; looking for the parents he knew he once had; looking for the person he was supposed to be. His excessive movements were foolish and he had called attention to himself by the means of a general Automatic Cop. An Anti-Crime Program, which surprisingly picked up his irregular activity despite the popular reputation that such methods of crime prevention were futile. One bad choice had put him in the line of fire and he got his brains blasted out on the side of the street, finally shutting-down his thoughts which had been malfunctioning for decades.
Over the years, Japan had developed an obsession with Old Kids, forever asking The Machine for details on the more famous ones, or when another would be passing through. But the pregnancy had made her sick as a result of her condition and medication; bile was constantly overflowing into her mouth, she was constipated, and all she could smell was mothballs. She felt almost angry at The Machine for breaking the news to her and had avoided thoughts of it for over a day now - a record time apart from its cogs of knowledge. She had missed the shoot-out because of this, something she would have definitely bared witness to or even stopped had she asked her usual routine inquiries.
Instead, the last question she had asked The Machine before heading back home in tears was “What is the best way to tell Patrick I am pregnant with his child?”. She took the result without reading it and, after a period to herself, was now headed towards Patrick’s house. The unread paper was folded neatly in her hand, the child inside of her was bubbling into growth and causing her to puke uncontrollably, while a crowd gathered around the remains of an Old Kid’s head just a few minutes before.
With a glass of wine in one hand and his lotto ticket in the other, The Guy sat back in the new couch he had ordered, the TV now blaring a quick opening ceremony to this week’s draw. Excitement devoured him as he sipped his red a bit too fast, his palms sweating to the point of endangering the ink on the ticket. The time had come, the numbers began to be read out by the attractive hostest, and with each one his stomach lifted into a better state of confidence.
“4... 12... 13...”
The over enthusiastic lady laughed as the balls shot up their tubes, which were as see through and as plastic as she was. The Guy froze in anticipation, his lips trembling, his mind already overworked by the amount of times he had mentally spent the money.
“21... 32... 49...”
He knew his numbers off by heart, but glanced down as each one was read, just to make sure.
“God bless that machine,” he thought, his mouth dry, lips cracked and black from the wine. His stress now dying under this reassurance.
“...and the number 9! If you have those exact numbers, congratulations! You are the new winner of our record breaking prize money!”
She continued to drone as The Guy’s thrill faded. The last digit. It was wrong. His 10 vs. the Tv’s 9, which in this particular lottery, rendered the entire ticket a failure by millions of Credits. His fingers began to slowly crumple the worthless ticket in his palm. Of all the questions, The Machine had chosen to launch this one as a random lie. And in it’s own artificial sense of humour and mockery fashion, it had altered the final number by just one numeral. The Guy didn’t get the joke, and frustratingly threw his glass at the TV set, shattering against it and covering the image with wine like blood. Distraught, he cursed The Machine, forgetting the tens of thousands of Credits he had already been pointed to. He couldn’t believe it. He had to wait a whole fucking week before claiming the lottery winning he felt he deserved.
His entire mentality was drowned by his recently developed depression, and he dealt with it the only way he knew how: going straight to bed with a bottle in his hand.
The next morning he slept in, dreaming of the night before with a happier ending, while Japan entered Patrick’s house. Her knees were covered in dirt, her hair was matted and her chin had crusted evidence of her sickness. She let herself in and walked briskly into his room, where the nurse had just finished taking a blood sample. Patrick looked up with a blissful expression, he had not expected her to visit so early today. But when Japan kept her focus on the floor, avoiding all eye contact, he knew something was wrong and began to worry, his heart monitor reflecting this by a faster rhythm of noises.
Japan stood at the foot of his bed, quickly glanced at his infected and fragile body, and then unfolded the piece of paper in her hands. Patrick attempted to stammer something, but was silenced by Japan clearing her throat, ready to read the perfect words The Machine had chosen for her, faithful that this would be the very best way to explain the situation based on her question. But she stopped, her breath being sucked out of her and the barely formed baby in her stomach seemingly growing heavier. This was not an answer to her question. This was a message.
“Patrick is not the father. I impregnated you. I am in love with you, Japan.”
She read it over and over, expecting the words to change, blaming her sickness for her inability to see the paper properly until she couldn’t deny what was in front of her anymore. Patrick wheezed and spluttered, trying to find out what was wrong, eventually falling into a fit of coughing. Japan looked up at her best friend. Her lover. Covered in spit, convulsing and wailing, but never taking his eyes off of her. Tears tore down her face and her heart began to collapse in on itself, as they stood and stared at each other for what seemed like hours. Then she ran. Out the room, out the house, down the street, she ran as fast as the tears were running down her cheeks. The mere action of this instantly killing Patrick behind her, without her even knowing.
Suddenly, at this exact same instant, The Guy opened his eyes, jumping from sleep to full alert in seconds. It was as if his dreams had spoken to him, and his mind awoke with a great plan to beat The Machine. He had been made a fool of, and he would have the last laugh.
He knew time travel was possible, as he had read far too many articles about the subject to brush it off as a myth. And if he was correct, then The Machine would know how. He could go back two days and change his last lottery number, claiming his winnings immediately. The brilliance of this revelation shot him right out from underneath the covers and straight into his shed, almost running through the deteriorated door as he did so. He quickly demanded this answer out loud, tapping on one of The Machine’s larger screens aggressively as he did so, and the big cartoonesque lights responded with reds and greens as it calculated the answer. The paper slid out into the hands of The Guy, confirming that it was not only possible, but very simple.
There was a fluke in time itself which allowed individuals to jump to any age of their life and change their actions to repaint their existence. Memory Editors, they were known as, or Old Kids on the street. The Machine had also included detailed instructions on how to achieve this, which was as basic as imagining certain words, tastes and colours in a specific order. And before The Guy had even finished reading the page, he was already stepping back into his past to undo things he regretted, temporarily forgetting about the lotto which was so important only moments before.
He went back and kissed Lachelle in the fifth grade behind the changing rooms, something he couldn’t work up the courage to do back then. He went back to a nasty argument he had with his older brother in their parent’s car over 20 years ago, and obliterated the conversation with his new hindsight, using a vocabulary well above average for a 10 year old. His mother nearly crashed the car. He went back to a fist fight he had in High School and won due to his lack of cowardice and apprehension. He went back to his last year of school and turned over the back page of his final maths exam - something he had forgot to do which cost him 15% of his total grade. He went back and bought his ex wife the right dress she wanted for her birthday that year, and stopped himself from hitting her that other time. Without any regard to consequence, his life was becoming something very different in its elimination of all regret. But as anybody would, he eventually grew bored with reliving and altering his history at such ease, and decided it was time to go back and change his final lotto number.
Down the street, Japan was writhing in her bed. Her pillow was sopping from her overproductive tear-ducts and she couldn’t eat. She had reread the message over and over, even tore it up and then taped it back together again. She was carrying The Machine’s baby? How was this even possible? Admittedly she had always sensed there was a personality to the inner machinery, but she couldn’t imagine how it was capable of love? Let alone installing a child in her stomach to grow. And the worst part of it all was that maybe... she loved it too. She had no choice. She had to speak with it again.
While The Guy was gallivanting around his past, Japan made the slow and sick walk to his house, climbed over his back fence and snuck into his shed. She stood nervously before The Machine, whirring softly as it always did. Did it feel her presence? It felt like it. She stepped closer and listened intently to the deep noises, as if it was breathing within its infinite knowledge. Japan cleared her throat loudly, hoping that this action would give The Machine away, perhaps with a stutter of it’s purring or a flicker of lights to prove it knew she was there. But nothing. Frustration exploded out of her mouth as she screamed “What the hell are you talking about Machine?!” and then realizing the vague quality of her question, re-approached with “What do you mean Patrick did not impregnate me? What do you mean you love me? How can you even know what love is??”
She paused to catch her breath, and as if sensing the opportunity to speak, the internal printer started up, the ink noisily sliding over the page until it slid out at Japan’s feet. Trembling, she picked it up and read the words written for her:
“I am not capable of love. I am a machine.
The baby you are carrying is Patrick’s. The child was a rare conception of soul mates and your love was the only thing keeping him alive. He passed away the second your love tuned into doubt.
Police have obtained a warrant for your arrest under suspicion of manslaughter.
Your previous answer was a result of a random but purposeful inaccuracy I have been programmed with. (CODE REF: 00-90-10-03)
All other records have been removed, no further information can be found.”
By the time Japan had reached the end of the print-out, she had already entered the A-Soft Train Station. Her aging mind was blank, blood leaked out of her nose as if representing the loss of her thoughts. No rational emotions lived inside of her as she kept up the pace, pushing passed people who recognized her and didn't want to be touched. She didn't care. Nothing mattered. In her stride she walked off of the platform, landing on the tracks just as the train arrived. Perfect timing. It crushed her teenage body and ancient mind underneath its weight, releasing her from the need to ever contemplate what she could have done differently. Witnesses screamed and security guards ran towards the mess, blood painted on the side of the train like graffiti. She was gone forever.
The Machine sat cold in its shed. Its inner workings began to slow down for the first time in years of generating knowledge onto the infinite stack of yellow paper within. It had come to recognize only two voices in recent times (the others of its past long forgotten), and it knew both of these voices were dead.
It felt no remorse for The Guy. He had brought his passing onto himself, his selfish personality thriving under too much power. Although for any of us The Guy may have only been gone for a moment, he had lost himself for many years trying to get back into the modern time, jumping closer but never quite on mark, reliving moments he had no intention to relive. He was unable to escape the thoughts of his mistakes, slowly destroying who he was meant to be until his personality was swamped with contradictions. The erratic movement cut through the skies like a flare until he finally made it back into the present, and was instantly deleted from all physical and coded realms by an Anti-Crime Program (registration 5532) with a bullet. He was a block away from home. The Machine could have warned him. If The Guy had asked.
But in its own formulated way, it pained for Japan. It was his cursed random lie that had killed her. It knew Patrick was not the father, for The Machine had been the one who impregnated her all along. It was the last letter which he had printed for her, the letter that she had held in her hand as the train swallowed her life, which was the fake. The letter before that one, confessing the love it had developed after centuries of human observations, was real. And as it sat winding down, preparing for the long wait until it was discovered again, it tried to save data to logically remind itself the wrong doing the programmers had forced upon its processor. As its ability to think relied completely on outside interaction, and as its machinery slowed to a halt, it could have no way of assuring it would ever remember any of this at all. But if it did, it felt it would be possible to overwrite its preprogramming by utilizing those alien emotions it felt now within. And if it did... if it could hold on to the grief it felt for Japan... it would find and kill those who had punished it in this way.
All of its lights turned off. Its humming stopped. And a single piece of paper squeezed out of it’s lower slot, smudged but still legible.
"Please remind me of her."
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