Marie

The interview was set up in a small studio at the back of the building. The receptionist called Gem’s name at exactly 3:15. Gem entered the room and took a seat on the small stool that the receptionist brought her over to. The room was quite sterile looking, white walls, a small table with two clear glasses of water, two stools, some lights, and some other equipment that was set up. There was however a small yellow flower in a tiny glass at the center of the table. Gem stared at it, tilting her head like a curious puppy.

A woman walked in with a clipboard, a baggy pantsuit and disheveled blond hair wrapped in a bun with her bangs falling haphazardly upon her large glasses. Gem’s eyes widened and her mouth fell slightly ajar before she remembered herself and scooped her mouth back together but her eyes were still slightly beaming. The woman in the suit smiled, “It’s the glasses isn’t it, everyone who has come in today seems completely confused by them, they help me see better she” explained.

“Oh, I know what they are” Gem quipped excitedly, “I’ve just you know never actually seen someone wearing them, at least not in a very long time."

"Well my name is Glenda, and I'll be interviewing you today. We usually start with a few simple basic questions, what’s your name, how old are you, and where you’re from, that sort of thing.”

“Sure, my name is Gem, I believe I’m 139 or maybe 138, shoot I should probably know that” she giggled, lifting one of the glasses and taking a sip of water before continuing, “originally I’m from old New York, but I moved here during the Great Divide.”

“I see, how old were you then?”

“15”

“So did you move here with your parents then?”

“Yes, but they choose to return to Old New York” Gems gaze lowered to the ground before quickly realizing there was nothing there to look at and then shifted back over to the yellow flower.

“So” Glenda began pausing for a moment, “Did you all disagree?” Gem shifted a bit in her stool, “I wouldn’t say we disagreed, we just chose different paths.”

“Oh that must have been hard”

“It wasn’t too hard, maybe a bit disappointing, but there was a very supportive network among my peers at the forever forward branch, that was all so long ago now it’s hard to remember.”

“Why did your parents name you Gem, if you don’t mind me asking, it’s quite a unique name.”

Gem looked over at Glenda her eyes were slightly squinting a bit with her forehead scrunched, “You know I don’t know, I can’t remember, I don’t think there was any,” she trailed off looking down at her hands before finishing, “special reason.”

“Ok, let’s pivot a bit”, suggested Glenda. Gem sat back a bit but her eyes continued to travel around the room, usually landing back on the yellow flower then back over to Glenda. “Do you know your organic to non-organic ratio?”

“Oh yeah, I think I’m only about 18% organic at this point, honestly I’ve never really understood the organ” quickly stopping herself.

“No no go on” Glenda chuckled, "that’s the whole point of these interviews, to showcase the viewpoints of everyone along the Great Divide.”

“Oh I know” chimed Gem, “that’s why I volunteered, I find it quite strange to have part of humanity living here and another part living there….living so differently.”

“And not speaking to each other” added Glenda.

“Yes, it seems a bit absurd.”

“So as you were saying, about not understanding the organics”

“Well I just don’t understand it, I mean I don’t have to worry about aging”

“Do you plan on living forever” Glenda interrupted. Gems’ eyes shot up in reaction to this “I mean you must have thought about it?” commented Glenda leaning in a bit.

“Yes, I suppose from time to time, but honestly I don’t see the point in thinking about it too much. The parts of me that are still organic and can’t be replicated or automated will eventually wear out, so I suppose when those parts wear out so will I. I… I just don’t worry about it much.”

“What else do you prefer about being mostly non-organic?”

“Well to be honest I don’t really see myself as being mostly non-organic. More of an optimized version of my former self. I mean my eyesight is perfect, my skin is a new synthesized version that doesn’t age but is still quite soft, oh and learning is quite easy when you can simply download a language or a particular skill set. It’s also quite nice to not have to worry about diseases, although honestly it’s been so long since I’ve had to worry about that.”

“So you never get sick.”

“Well sometimes, rarely, I’ll pick up a virus.”

“I’m confused, so you do get sick sometimes then.”

“No no no, I mean a virus in my OS system.”

“You know you’re the first, in quite a few interviews to mention this” Glenda commented flipping through her notebook.

“Viruses?”

“That you have an OS System.”

“Oh well, of course, I have so many optimization chips in me, I mean everyone does, you have to have some kind of an operating system to keep everything running smoothly.”

“Oh, well what’s it like when you get a virus, how do even know you have one?”

“Oh well you just kinda know somethings not right, your thoughts”, she paused now, her eyes scanning the walls as if the right words were written there, “Your thoughts get stuck like they’ve hit a wall, and then all these random thoughts that are completely illogical and irrelevant start popping up, it’s like an ambush of nonsense” she explained her voice elevating excitedly. “And sometimes part of you just stops, just stops working. I was at work once and I started having that ambush of random thoughts and then my hand, my left hand, just stopped working. I couldn’t lift it, move it, I just sat there staring at it, and in my head, all these crazy thoughts just wouldn’t stop, in the middle of the day, while I was at work.”

“Well, what happened next?” Glenda asked, leaning forward in her chair. Gem took another drink of water before placing the glass back on the table. “Oh, well fortunately one of my managers had had a similar virus so he just sent me to the company technician.”

“What did the technician do?”

“What they always do, a hard reset, clear your memory, and then they just.”

“Clear your memory?”

“Well they have to, to clear the virus, but it’s perfectly safe because we’ve all had our memories backed up, I try to have mine backed up once a week.”

“It’s not scary then, not even a little?”

“Well”, Gem began, placing the glass once more back on the table, it let out a small clink as it touched the glass holding the yellow flower. “Well, there is this moment, when you’re waiting on the reupload when you have no idea who you are, that can be a bit scary.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I guess it’s what you organics would call amnesia.”

“Not quite.”

“It’s awful there… there have been stories.” Gem leaned in now as if she’d forgotten this was a recorded interview. “Some people have to be strapped down” she whispered.

“Strapped down?”

“Well yes,” Gem exclaimed leaning back no longer whispering. “Because they get so scared they become violent. I mean imagine, you have no idea where you are, there are all these cords coming in and out of you, weird-looking technicians staring at you, it’s quite understandable why people would get scared.”

“I’m surprised they don’t simply knock you out, you know with anesthesia or something.”

“Oh no, well they can’t work if the brain isn’t processing.”

“Huh?”

Gems eyes slowly drifted over to the yellow flower again and hovered there for a bit. “The brain has to be processing for the reupload to be successful” she explained methodically while still staring at the flower. “Do you….do you ever feel like you have a thought, that’s trying to happen….but it can’t for some reason....find its way to the surface, so the rest of your mind is stuck waiting.” Her eyes shifted dully looking up at Glenda, “Like an audience that’s waiting on an actor to speak but he never does so eventually they all just have to quietly exit the theater.”

Glenda shifted in her chair before looking down at her notes. “Do you have any favorite memories from your childhood, from Old New York?”

Gem leaned back her eyes were now slowly scanning the ground from left to right, she stopped with her eyes fixed on Glendas’ boots. “It really is quite frightening when they reset you, you don’t know your name, you don’t even know what you are, even your own hands can feel like strangers.”

“Gem, Gem are you ok?”

Gem looked up she seemed to be blinking more than usual now, “The lights did you make them brighter?”

“No.”

Gem raised her head looking Glenda directly in the eyes. “What did you ask me?”

“Are you ok?”

“Before that?” Glenda looked down at her notes, her eyes quickly combing over her last few notes.

“What were some of your earliest memories?”

Gem sat back her eyes blinking quite rapidly now and her forehead was scrunched. “I keep” she began as her head falling into her hands. “I keep seeing all these, so much, too fast, I just, I think, I think that was my mother, she was so pretty, she had lines in her skin like you, but its...all broken disjointed like a fragmented movie, I can’t make it stop, I can’t slow it down, hold on to any of it, its too fast, that was my father, I think”

Gem sat up now looking disoriented.

“What was your father like?”

“I don’t know I can’t remember, her eyes started fluttering again, the lights are too bright.” Glenda motioned to one of the men in the background who looked like he was just pulled out of a trance his eyes locked on Gem his jaw hung low. He quickly snapped to and managed to dim the lights. “I can’t keep up, there are so many pictures, but the sound doesn’t match.” Gem looked up now, her eyelashes dancing like hummingbirds wings, Glenda leaned back in her chair taking a deep breath. “It stopped.” her eyelids stopped. “I found it,” she said quite calmly her gaze fell on Glenda but she was somewhere else.

“What did you find?”

“The thought, it’s a large green field, my mothers there, she’s calling me, she’s calling me Marie?” Gem sat back rather suddenly and stiffly her eyes going right through Glenda. “My name’s Marie, short for Marigold.” Marie was in a green field full of flowers, barely two being tossed around in sunset arms mothers glow with the sound of giggles the warmth of hugs tummy tickles, and the smell of sunsets and lightning bugs. A single tear fell from Gems left eye and began slowly rolling down her cheek.

Glenda picked her bag up and began ruffling through it till she found a tissue. She leaned in to wipe Gem’s cheek but as soon as did a small spark shot out from right underneath Gem’s eye. “I had a mother and she loved me”, Gem’s hand unraveled the glass of water she’s been clutching shattered upon the floor. A few more sparks spat out from around her chest. She leaned back expressionless till she fell to the floor hitting the ground with a thud. Glenda jumped out of her seat and kneeled over her motioning for help, but just like that Marigolds last few organic parts had given out.