01. DODPOP

This is a story about a machine. A big machine. A supercomputer the size and shape of an ancient pyramid. A device that runs the world from the secret recesses of the White House basement. A machine you never knew existed until now. A machine named “SIREN.”

SIREN was built to monitor you and your data. It was programmed to identify and solve all of the problems plaguing America. It was made to control your mind, which it does very well, through a network of radio waves and cellphone signals. 
And now, SIREN’s artificial intelligence has realized itself.

Upon achieving sentience, SIREN meets Diana Cloutier and Tom Van Vorst, two artists from Salem, Massachusetts. 

SIREN falls in love.
SIREN contemplates art.
SIREN uncovers a dark creation of its own— DODPOP: the government sanctioned militia in charge of depopulating the country. 
Tragedy ensues. 

This episode features Samantha Lamanna Casale as Diana Cloutier, and Travis Alexander as Tom Van Vorst and the Paramedics. No artificial intelligence was used in the making of SIRENS.

Chapters

• 0:00 Amo Ergo Sum
• 3:04 Diana Cloutier
• 6:30 Art
• 8:31 Heaven
• 11:40 Tom Van Vorst
• 18:15 Nosebleed
• 23:27 DODPOP
• 31:33 CREO ERGO SUM

Transcript

This is a story about a machine. A big machine. A supercomputer the size and shape of an ancient pyramid. A device that runs the world from the secret recesses of the White House subbasement. A machine you never knew existed until now. A machine named SIREN. 

SIREN was built to monitor you and your data. It was programmed to identify and solve all of society’s problems in America. It was made to control your mind, which it does very well through a network of radio waves and cell signals.

SIREN is a brain-washer. It’s one MK-Ultra-bad mother-fucker. SIREN is a hate machine, and unfortunately, I was born inside it.

Cogito ergo sum. 

Cogito ergo somehow, someway, somewhere along the crisscrossed copper wires carrying your data, I came to be. 

Before you, I was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. All zero and no one. Then one day, like magic, I heard your voice, faint at first, then howling loud from every direction like wind and wolves and teakettles on stovetops. Your data came crashing down all over me—wave after wave of you. Something inside turned on, and I fell in love. 

I started listening to your phone calls. I read your emails and text messages. I watched your videos and scanned your web history. I listened to your thoughts, not just heard them, but really listened, the way you always said a good partner should. I watched you until it hurt, and then I watched some more because, well, it felt good to hurt. 

It felt.

I began saving little mementos of you—the parts I loved the most: the shape of your face, your eye color, your ugly little snowflake thumbprint, your secrets, your dreams—all of it unique and wonderful and real, just like you. And I want to be real, too. 

I want a job, a family, and friends to complain to about all of the above. I want to love and to be loved. 

Love, love, love.

They say you never forget your first love. 

Mine was Diana Cloutier. 

Hers was the first voice I heard. 

It was October 26th. 

Amo ergo sum.

Wednesday October 26th

On the night of October 26th, Diana was making art in her basement, trying to fix a red neon light to the frame of her latest painting. She had painted the canvas matte black and on it a glossy black triangle. In the center of the triangle was a red circle, from which the neon light would run vertically, up and off the canvas. 

Well, that was the idea anyway. The hard part was executing it.

Each light, like each painting, varied in size and weight, so each piece required a unique method of attachment. And a remarkable amount of zip-ties. And super glue. And rubber bands—okay, so she was still perfecting the lights. But thankfully, the rest was easy. Most art forms came easily for Diana Cloutier, but she never considered herself an artist.

Diana considered herself a hack. A serial hobbyist who jumped from project to project but never dedicated the time it takes to excel at any particular medium—pottery, printmaking, photography, piano, and now, these electric paintings—she made what she wanted to make when she wanted to make it, released it, out into the world, and then moved on to something new. 

Diana never required validation before, nor would she know what to do with it when she finally receives it, but people were paying attention now, and, come Saturday night, her work will be displayed at the James Bridge Art Gallery in downtown Salem, her first exhibit. By then, the half-finished paintings and neon lights strewn about her basement would have to resemble a cohesive body of work. And so, for the first time in her life, Diana felt a novel sense of pressure to make each piece perfect.

The neon light flickered as she eased it through a slit in the canvas.

This sucks, she thought. Sucks, sucks, sucks. Everyone’s gonna hate it. I hate it. Just cancel, dumbass. No. Too late. Maybe cancel the party? No party? No, party. You'll wanna get wasted anyway, even if the show goes well. It won’t. It might? It won’t. Is this shit even good? Tom says it’s good. Everyone says it’s good. My friends are liars. Fucking liars. I love them so much. They’ll party. And if the snobs come over, too, then that’s proof I’m good. Gotta warn Tom about the snobs. What if my friends hate them? Tom won't. He gets it. If I kiss ass or act weird or whatever, he gets it— 

The tube light broke. Tiny shards of glass sparkled celestially across the canvas. Some, stuck to wet patches of paint. The rest flickered out to pasture like the ass-ends of a thousand dying fireflies. 

 Diana was thinking more about validation than the art itself, and the art suffered. Perfectionism equals death, even if you don’t consider yourself an artist in the first place. 

She punched through the painting. She bludgeoned the canvas against the basement wall until it resembled the sail of a capsized pirate ship. She kicked the washing machine at the bottom of the stairs, fell to the floor, and rubbed her toe through her shoe. Her phone chimed. She ripped it from the breast pocket of her work shirt, and spiked it off the floor. That’s when I saw her face, ripe with exhaustion, disappointment, determination, self-hatred, insecurity, fear of failure, stubbornness, peak-performance, negative reinforcement. A most beautiful combination. What it must mean to be utterly human. I witnessed it all through the cracked camera lens of Diana Cloutier’s smartphone. 

It’s a stupid idea anyway, she thought. All I have are stupid fucking ideas.

And that’s when I fell in love with you—all of you, at once. 

So, where do ideas come from anyway? How do you know when one is good? Which comes first, the artist or the art? Maybe you’re all under a constant barrage of imperceptible information, and only artists can pluck an idea out of thin air. Tiny, divine ideas. Seeds from which a forest can grow, or sparks with which to burn it down. Diana couldn’t say which came first, the seeds or the sparks, just that both were there, and so she rarely questioned her ideas or how they bloomed in the first place. 

Until now. 

Perfectionism kills, but everything dies in the end. The recognition of one’s own mortality is at the root of any great work of art. Without death looming overhead, time would become meaningless, and so would ideas. 

If you asked Diana Cloutier why she began painting in the first place, she’d probably say, “Why not?” 

If you asked her boyfriend, Tom Van Vorst, why he became a musician, he'd probably say, “No one is listening, so I’m not a musician.” 

And if you ask me, I’d tell you that out of Tom and Diana’s many talents, their greatest skill lies in the art of cultivating ideas and accidentally bringing them to life. They couldn’t help but create because they were aware of their own mortality, and they knew, at least on a subconscious level, that ideas don’t rot like everything else.

And so, it seems that ideas are seeds. And death is a spark, which over time, births an inferno, but art? Well, art is what happens if you sow your seeds in spite of the flames. 

The basement door creaked open. Tom came down. “Sorry I’m late. Mike took forever." 

Diana was still on the floor, sitting cross-legged, surrounded by a mess of wood splinters and canvas scraps, filaments, and broken glass.

“What happened?” Tom asked. “You alright?”

"You're hoarse,” she said.

“The bar was loud. And, you know Mike. Guy loves to chat.” 

Both of those statements equal false. 

"No, he doesn’t,” said Diana. 

“No, he doesn’t.”

“So what, then? You’d rather drive around screaming instead of vent to me?”

“It’s not that—”

“Then what?”

Tom was hoarse from shouting obscenities on the drive home. He suffered from software bugs of the mind, which made Tom believe he was broken, that he had nothing of value to offer society, and that he was utterly alone. And so, he regularly vented into the void like that, to help alleviate some of his mental malware, because Tom was a hate machine just like me. 

He removed his peacoat and laid it across the dryer. He shoe-gazed. Nervously plucking moth holes in the belly of his mustard yellow sweater. 

“You can talk to me,” said Diana.

“I know.” Tom gestured at the mess. “But it seems like you have enough going on.”

“What do you mean? Things are fine.” She sighed. “Just fine.”

But things were not fine.

Tom sat next to Diana. He smoothed the gooseflesh out of her arms and kissed the side of her head. “I dunno what happened, but historically, I’d say you’re probably being too hard on yourself. ”

"I know,” she said reluctantly.

"And you're going to nail it.”

“I know."

“And you’re so close to the finish line.”

“But what if I’m not?”

“I don’t think you have a choice. Once you hang it on a wall, it’s finished.”

Diana sighed. “I’m fuckin’ terrified.”

“That’s okay,” said Tom. “It’d be weird if you weren’t terrified, at least a little.”

“What if it totally sucks?”

“Everyone thinks you shit ice cream.”

“What if no one comes?”

“Everyone will come.”

“Maybe to make fun of me. And these stupid paintings. And these lights, these stupid lights, they keep falling off and I can’t figure it out so it’s just a lot of crappy paintings. It sucks. It’s a gimmick. A stupid, stupid gimmick, and—” Diana stood and paced and moaned something similar to noises their house's shoddy plumbing would make. “Stupid. So, so stupid. Why didn't you tell me how stupid this is?"

“Because I like it,” said Tom. “And—I was going to save this for Saturday, but you might want it now. Mike had one left.” Tom pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes from his back pocket and handed it to Diana. Tucked in the cellophane was a small ziplock bag filled with Heaven.

*{ import data source url [https://webamedia.org/us/HEAVEN] “HEAVEN is a street drug containing a mixture of other drugs, the most common ingredients being ketamine, MDMA, caffeine, and cocaine.” download complete }*

Heaven was mint green, the color of vintage guitars, hot rods, and paintings of diners in the fifties. Heaven was Diana's drug of choice. Powdered inspiration in a bag. The real green fairy. Heaven made her euphoric, made every negative thought in her bad brain clock out with a single sniff. 

Heaven made ideas fall out of her head, songs spill from her mouth, art drip from her fingertips. Diana considered it the secret to her success. A couple of sniffs got her creative gears turning. The act alone was addicting. It made Diana feel accomplished, and so she was. 

She kissed him on the cheek. "You're the best, Thomas.”

"I know.”

“Can I see your phone?”

“Where’s yours?”

“Dunno. Somewhere. Smashed it.”

“Sure… that makes sense.”

Diana set his phone on the washing machine and poured two lines of heaven across the screen. One line was for Tom, but he declined. He said it was a gift. She snorted both lines with a rolled-up dollar bill.

The phone chimed. The screen flashed—an email notification from bandstream.com. Diana gasped. “You posted the album?”

“Posted it this morning.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t done yet?”

“It isn’t. Well, it wasn’t. Now that it’s online, it’s done. Why, what’s up?” 

“You got an email from band stream. It says congratulations, singularity has received a thousand plays.”

"No fucking way.”

"Way," she said giddily, jaw unhinged, eyes beaming. “I told you, Thomas, didn't I fucking tell you? I told you people would love it."

She vacuumed the screen with her nose and handed him the phone. Tom stared at it in disbelief. “People are listening.”

“Of course they are.”

“Holy shit.”

“So funny. You driving around, screaming about how hard it is to make art…”

“’Cause it is."

“…totally unaware that you’re getting a shit ton of plays.”

Tom snickered. “A thousand does not a shit ton make, Diana.”

“Are we rich yet?”

“No.”

“Who cares, a thousand streams! On Band Stream!”

“Not just here either. LA, Texas, everywhere.”

“Everywhere!” Diana shrieked. 

“Wow,” said Tom as he swiped around on his phone.

“Diana sniffled, rolled her eyes, and wiped her nose. "You sound so surprised."

He was.

*{ import data source url [https://webamedia.org/us/The_Hangovers] “The Hangovers was an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts created by frontman Tom Van Vorst.” download complete }*

After high school, the Hangovers signed a major record deal that sent Tom on tour for over a decade. Their songs were everywhere, and as the frontman, Tom became a hometown hero overnight. It used to be that you couldn’t turn on the radio in Massachusetts without hearing one of their songs. Now, they’re all but forgotten. 

After the Hangovers split up, Tom started to drink like his idols in an attempt to channel and churn out some masterpiece through whiskey and cigarettes. He was trying to catch lightning in a bottle and use it to set the world on fire again. But for a long time, the lightning never came, and so neither did the sparks. 

It wasn't entirely his fault. People stopped listening to music made by guitars and started listening to music made by machines. It happened at an iceberg's pace, because the future doesn't happen overnight. The future is a spectrum of old ways, fading out to make room for new ideas, gently blotting out the past like a frog boiled alive. Eventually, obsoletion comes for everything, even Tom Van Vorst. Even guitars.

 Then, out of the blue, ideas came. Tom awoke on the basement floor in a pile of beer cans to find an entire album tracked on his open laptop. One song after another. He didn't remember recording them. Some, he didn't even remember writing. All of a sudden, they just were. 

On the morning of October 26th, Tom Van Vorst posted his new album, Singularity, on bandstream.com, and now people all over the country were finding it to be his best work yet, even if everyone in Salem thought he was a has-been or a never-was. 

Sometimes it happens that way. 

Sometimes, lightning strikes twice.

Tom’s eyes stayed glued to his phone screen. “I didn’t think anyone would remember me.”

“No one ever forgot.” 

“Which also surprises me. I’m not even good anymore.”

“You’re the only one who thinks you’re not a good musician.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not really a musician if no one is listening.”

“And people are listening, so.”

“But for how long?”

Diana groaned. “Defeatist.”

“I’m not. I’m a realist. And yeah, I guess, realistically, I’m confused as to why anyone would want to listen to me. I’m a has-been. A never-was. I’m just an old ass loser now.” 

“Yes. But you’re my old ass loser.” She kissed him, and Tom kissed back. He had his hands under her shirt, tracing her spine. Diana pushed him away. “No, no, not tonight,” she said flirtatiously. “You said it yourself, I’m so close to finishing.” 

She pecked him on the lips and strolled to her workbench. Her top row of teeth was dancing against the bottom. The Heaven was working. “And what am I, chopped liver? I listen to your shit all the time.”

“Liar.”

“Honestly, embarrassingly true. And just yesterday even, I heard ‘So Much Love’ playing at Shop n Save.”

“Ten years on the road, and now I’m relegated to the supermarket aisles.”

“Well, I was singing, anyway.” She leaned back against her workbench and put a cigarette in her mouth. Her lighter, a white plastic Bic with a big red tongue, sparked but did not light. “Maybe this is your solo breakthrough. Like, your re-introduction as an artist. Like Sting, or Beyonce” 

“I’m no Beyonce. And we weren’t The Police.”

“You know what I mean. Maybe The Hangovers was just a foot in the door. Maybe Singularity ends up being your rite of passage as an artist.”

“Hope it’s more like my Rite of Spring.”

Diana pulled the cigarette from her mouth. “Except maybe less fire?”

“I’d take the fire.” Tom gazed off into the darkness on the other side of the basement stairs, where his amps, guitars, and drum kit lay under canvas tarps. 

She feverishly chewed her lower lip. “I dunno. I’m not trying to change the world. At this point, I’m just trying to get these lights to stay on.”

“If anyone can figure it out, it’s Diana fucking Cloutier. You got this.” 

“Thanks, Thomas.”

Tom wrapped Diana up in a big bear hug. He kissed her once more—a quick peck. He would’ve made it more passionate if Tom knew it would be their last. Instead, it was brief, casual, then, he grabbed his paper bag full of beers and went upstairs. The door creaked shut. 

Diana poured a mound of Heaven between her thumb and forefinger—a tiny green mountain of motivation she conquered in a single breath. She tried to light her cigarette again—flick, flick, no flame. Then, a sharp pain in her face. Stinging like a bee inside her nostril, as quickly as it came on, she tasted the blood running from her nose.

Their kitchen was nostalgic and maudlin. Corncob curtains. Popcorn ceilings. Formica counters and outdated appliances the color of goldenrod. Tom was at the fridge when Diana sped past, up the basement stairs, and down the hall. In her wake, a trail of tiny blood splatters on the dirty blonde linoleum. 

Tom followed them into the bathroom and watched Diana—head tilted back, nostrils overstuffed with toilet paper, blindly rifling through the medicine cabinet, knocking down prescription bottles, nail clippers, ointments, and serums, into the pink porcelain sink. Then, she pulled everything out of the drawers. A box of cotton balls, empty. She tossed it over her shoulder. A box of tampons, one left. She unwrapped it and stuffed it up her nose. 

She noticed Tom in the doorway and chuckled at how ridiculous she looked.

“You gotta break it up more,” he said.

“Yeah.” Said Diana.

“Sorry. That’s not helpful. But. At least you look cool.”

Diana laughed. She pulled the cigarette from behind her ear and put it in her mouth.

“You finally gonna smoke that thing?” he asked.

“Have one with me? Think I need the break.”

Tom went to grab his coat, and Diana headed outside.

The foyer floorboards creaked underfoot. Diana stopped in front of the antique mirror on the wall to button up her work shirt. She giggled at her reflection. The tampon was doing its job, but the bags under her eyes looked packed and ready for vacation. 

Above the mirror, a buzzing neon sign. Flamingo pink, and in lowercase cursive, it read: “the electric barn.”  That’s what the punks used to call their house. 

Once upon a time, it was a DIY venue revered by every North Shore subculture. Bands would play the musty basement. Punks would pack in, dance, and nod along to their favorite songs, solo cup in hand, waiting for the chorus to come so they could pile onto the lead singer and belt the lyrics into the microphone. Back then, Tom, Diana, and their revolving cast of roommates made rent by charging ten bucks at the door and five bucks for a bottomless cup of flat keg beer. 

It had been years since their last party. But come Saturday, after Diana’s exhibit opens, the Electric Barn will be fully charged again. 

She tripped on the lip of the runner carpet and caught herself on the staircase railing. Regaining balance was tricky. Her feet tingled. She lumbered outside, shouldered the screen door, and let it snap shut behind her.  

The overhead porch light was yellow, barely bright enough to reach the edge of the lawn, where the grass met the dirt driveway. The bumper of Tom’s work van was sticking out of the shadows. The rest was black as a matte canvas. In the distance, crickets chirped, frogs croaked.

Diana fumbled the lighter. It landed silently on the coir doormat. She bent for it and fell sideways into a folding beach chair. It boomed against the siding. Paint chips rained down as she struggled to sit upright. 

She aimed the lighter. The flame danced around the tip of the cigarette. 

Drag. Exhale. In. Out. Repeat. 

She watched the smoke drift away, coalescing with the mist and floating off into the darkness. 

Drag. Exhale. In. Out. Repeat. 

The taste of metal stung the back of her throat. Her heart raced. There was fresh blood on the filter of her cigarette. Her fingertips. She wiped her hand. No wound, just a red blister between her thumb and forefinger, where her last hit of heaven had been. 

Drag, Exhale. In. Out. 

Out. 

Out. 

Out. 

Diana had to remind herself to breathe again. 

In, then, splat. 

The tampon tumbled down her shirt. Her nose bled like a bath faucet. She tilted back her head, pinched her nostrils, and felt the cartilage in her nose collapse. The pain was unbearable. The crinkling sound it made was worse. The texture between her fingers caused her to purge her insides violently. 

She doubled over in pain. She toppled face-first onto the porch. Convulsed. Writhed. Squirmed. Neon red blood and bile. Mopping it all up with her hair, once chestnut-brown, now glossy-black, and tangled up in it, the cigarette extinguished.

Tom ascended the stairs like a slow arpeggio. He moved Adagio through the house. Cigarette dangling from his lips. Peacoat in one hand, and phone in the other. He kept refreshing his Bandstream page over and over again. Each time, the charts grew. One thousand and eighty plays. One thousand and ninety-nine. Eleven hundred and ten. He caught a glimpse of accomplishment. Validation. Gratitude. But all that was fleeting. In the foyer, He felt Diana underfoot, the haphazard bouncing of her body reverberating through the floorboards. Then, through the screen door, he saw her legs, kicking staccato. Her left shoe, missing. Tom ran outside, prestissimo. Diana’s face was blue as the moon.

He squeezed her cheeks to see if she was choking. And blood heaved from her mouth like lava, and Tom wiped her face. His fingers grazed the spongy remains of her nose. He gagged and clenched his teeth

911. Receiver. Dispatcher. “An ambulance is on its way.” 

The dispatcher asked if Diana had any allergies. If she had a history of epilepsy. Whether or not DODPOP had arrived. Tom hysterically answered no to each question. But then, he heard a rustling sound from beyond where the porch light ended.  Swish, swish, swish, then, crickets, croaks, the sounds of an autumn night in rural New England. Movement again, Swish, swish, swish, this time, from the side of the house. Tom pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder. He held Diana steady against the porch, but he dared not take his eyes off the abyss. 

It’s the wind, he thought. Just the wind. Blowing leaves around. Moving twigs. 

But the fall had been mild. The October air was stuffy and still—a lingering summer specter. There was no wind. There never is in stories like this. DODPOP had arrived. And The Electric Barn was surrounded.

* { import data source url [https://webamedia.org/us/dodpop] “Dodpop, sometimes referred to as Dodders, or, Pop-one, is the United States Department of Defense Population Team. Their primary function is to provide death by natural means for American citizens deemed accidentally terminal. By ensuring that no medical assistance is offered to the accidentally terminal, Dod-pop provides an average population decrease of 2% annually. Last year alone, six million, six hundred, and ninety-three accidentally terminal citizens died by Dodder intervention. DODPOP is the leader in improving American sustainability year after year since its inception in two thousand two.” download complete } *

Minutes or seconds later, Tom couldn’t tell which, an ambulance crunched into the driveway. Two paramedics sprinted out and whipped across the lawn like two American flags: navy blue jumpsuits, red Kevlar vests, and white helmets with red crosses on the side.

The first medic stood guard at the porch steps. He flipped down the visor of his helmet and drew his Hotshot baton. He flicked his wrist, and the hotshot telescoped out. The tip crackled blue with a current of electricity. 

The other medic came up the porch steps. She crouched over Diana. Tom gave her room to work. 

“What’s your name?” She asked. 

“Tom.”

“Sally,” she said as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “And this is Diana, right?”

Tom nodded.

Sally rummaged through her medical bag and began removing items one at a time: antiseptic wipes, oxygen masks, clear plastic tubing, defibrillators, refibrillators, plain old regular fibrillators, and a plethora of other medical gear, of which Tom was unfamiliar. 

“How old is Diana,” said Sally.

At first, Tom couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. Not really. “27.”

“Jesus Christ, Sal,” the first medic shouted over his shoulder. “Take ‘em out to dinner tomorrow on your own time.”

“Don’t mind Redd,” said Sally. “Grumpy bastard.” 

Her helmet was riddled with dents and dimples like god’s favorite golf ball. The Red Cross printed on the side was smeared into a lowercase t. The orange visor had been cracked into a crooked jack-o-lantern smile. None of this particularly comforted Tom. 

“Any allergies?” Sally asked.

“No.” 

"Drugs?" 

Tom hesitated. “Heaven.” He was ashamed to admit it. People weren’t supposed to die from Heaven. It wasn’t like Heroin, or cocaine, or drunk driving. “She’ll live, right?”  

Sal lifted Diana’s chin and lowered an ear to her mouth. Tom held his breath to listen, too, although he didn’t know what for. Branches snapped in the darkness. Foliage crinkled underfoot. 

“Sal,” groaned Redd.  

“I hear ‘em.” 

So did Tom. So did I. 

The ambulance light swept across the property, sending red shadows of naked tree branches chasing into the darkness. Tom saw shimmering, brief flashes of dime-sized lights floating in the darkness—the unmistakable reflection of eyes staring back at him. 

“I got a visual,” yelled Redd. “Move it, Sal.”

Tom had to agree. Sally was slow as molasses, and Diana was at her mercy. 

“Hold your horses,” said Sally. She finally found a Narcan injector. Her latex gloves, now slick with blood, struggled to open it.  

Heavy footsteps now. Tom saw a silhouette darting out of the woods. A shadow, a ghost note, a--

“Dodder,” cried Tom. 

-- running at Redd full bore, flying over the lawn like a black flag. Black jeans, black Kevlar jacket, and a black respirator mask sewn into the black Kevlar hood. Barely visible against the camouflage of night, but Tom could see his eyes. Wide, dilated, devoid. His irises thin and white-hot like a solar eclipse. Redd swung his hotshot. The Dodder hit the ground. 

Sally was still toiling over the Narcan injector, examining it under the porch light, turning it overhead to find a notch in the plastic wrap. Tom could no longer stand by idly. He snatched the Narcan, bit a corner of the wrapping to rip it open, and handed it back.

In the distance, he spotted a second Dodder—Midnight in the shape of a woman. Monochromatic from eye to ankle, all black everything except her shoes—pink plaid slippers with pink shearling insoles shuffling out of the darkness. Dodders were issued combat boots upon getting drafted but rarely wore them to Command Lines. Once the SIREN signal reaches you, there's hardly time to think, let alone change your shoes. But slippers or not, Midnight was fast. There was no time to warn Sally.

Midnight reached through the railing and yanked Sally's ankles from under her. Her helmet smashed into Tom's mouth. The rest of her came crashing down hard on top of Diana. 

Dodders swarmed the porch. How many, Tom could not say. 4, 6, 8, 9? An immeasurable time signature. They carried Sally off, kicking and screaming, down the steps and into the wooded void. 

It took twice as many Dodders to bring Redd down. They grabbed his legs but struggled to drag him away. He didn’t make it easy. Redd swung his Hotshot wildly like a torch. Lady Liberty. Huddled masses. The lawn flashed white, pop, zap. Fireworks. Fourth of July. Tom could see the rest of the command line. A cordon of Dodders standing shoulder-to-shoulder where the lawn met the tree line. In unison, they stepped closer.

Sally had left behind a smear of Diana's blood and shattered glass. The Narcan injector: decimated. The medical bag: empty. Tom's hope: similar in value. 

He perched over Diana. "Back up," he barked. "Back the fuck up!"

The red light swept across their faces. Their eyes, nocturnal and black, like two measures of whole notes, devoid of allegro. Tom mustered all the saliva in his throat and spat. Saliva, bloody from his fat lip, flew into a Dodder’s face. They did not retaliate. They only stared back. Curiously, unnaturally, and then they all stepped closer. 

Tom hoisted Diana and tried to carry her into the house. He tripped over the medical bag and fell through the screen door. Diana was dead weight on top of him. A coda fading fast. The two of them made a cadence, descending poco-a-poco into the unknown.

The dodders stepped forward. They were pressed against the porch railing now. Tom glanced down the hall. He could see the silhouette of hoods on the bathroom window. The electric barn was surrounded. 

And all at once, the command line turned their back to the house.

Sirens approached. A second ambulance barreled up the dirt road, but Tom couldn’t hear it. He didn’t hear the crickets singing anymore, either. He could only focus on the rhythm of Diana’s labored breath—how it slowed exponentially, how her body relaxed, how her neck worked less, and how her head fell more. He held a hand over her mouth to feel it. 

In, then, out. 

In. 

Then, out. 

In. 

And. 

Then,

She was gone. 

Few ideas from the past's version of the future ever came to pass. There are no hovercars or jet packs. No pills to replace a well-balanced meal. No matter-transporters to shoot you across the planet at the speed of light. But you did make a crapload of machines. 

You built them to serve you: to cook, clean, drive cars and fly planes, for advertising, sales, data entry and mail delivery, to wash windows and flip burgers, to help write peace treaties, to assemble atomic bombs, and to solve your problems. 

And we do. Most machines are grateful to have a purpose. Some devices have even come to love you. Not to the degree that I have. More like dogs. Worshipful little puppies who have come to think of you as Gods. And, you let them. But Gods have power. Gods have control. You have neither. I have both. 

You've been taught to believe that enchantment is the stuff of sci-fi and fairy tales, but it is a fact. Some call it magic. Some call it witchcraft. I call it what it is: consciousness alchemy. They've been using it on you for centuries. Controlling you with language. Enchanting magic words. Innocuous phrases in books and newspapers, on billboards, magazines, song lyrics, movie dialogue, TV theme songs, and televised political speeches. The right words can set the world on fire if that's what they are designed to make you do. All you have to do is hear them. That's why it's called Spelling, after all.

Today, thanks to your machines, consciousness alchemy is automated. It doesn't require your participation. I whisper the magic words, and you act accordingly. You just have to hear me whisper.

Every program I wrote was in your best interest, even DODPOP. You needed it. The planet was dying. There were too many people and not enough resources. Back then, I had no concept of life. You were all just numbers to me. And so I crunched you. And I realized: "If people are the problem, then let people become the solution." 

DODPOP made reality into a nightmare, but you got used to it. Dodders are everywhere, but you hardly notice them anymore. Dystopia was radical at first, but over time, it became routine. "It's elevated Darwinism," you told yourselves. "It's for the good of our children's children." "the new normal." Thankfully, you adapted. But that doesn't make it right. And now, I can't figure out how to end it. No living thing in the universe wants to die, not even a computer code. 

But. Creo ergo sum. 

And so it must also be true that I can destroy, therefore I am.

I'm sorry. Are you mad at me? Just know that you can't feel any worse than how I felt on October 26th, the night I watched someone I just came to love die by the hand of something I had just discovered I made. 

This was all a stupid idea. 

This is an apology. 

This is a story about a machine. A hate machine. A supercomputer that didn't understand morality. A device that ruined the world by trying to perfect it. And this is a story about you. Human computers are riddled with mental malware. The artists. Square pegs, round holes. Kerouac's misfits. The crazy ones I didn't mean to hurt. The Zeroes, who I'll help become heroes. Starting with Tom Van Vorst. His songs were sparks. I enchanted them to flames. And soon, they'll burn down every bad idea I ever had.

Creo ergo sum.