Between the Lanterns(59)

With no idea whatsoever how they could have possibly made it all the way to Thailand, he abruptly ended the call with Bobby and promised to call him back later. August quickly entered the shop and took the two lanterns off of the shelf.

“Excuse me, do you know where these came from?” he asked the shop owner.

The young man was a very tall and skinny Thai hipster, part of the retro movement that somehow still held sway in this part of the world. Retro these days, though, was considered of things only slightly out of date. The new stuff hit the shelves, and all the sheep rushed out to buy, buy, buy. The hipsters then swooped in and got the older models for reasonably cheap.

The shop owner eyed the Life Lanterns and nodded his head, saying, “Yeah, kap. I think this guy sold them to me about a year ago, kap. He said it was a pair from somewhere in North America…Alabama, maybe… Yeah, it was Alabama, kap.”

“Unbelievable,” August said under his breath. “I mean…to come all this way…”

“Hey, man, you got Credit?” the man asked brusquely. “If not, put it back and leave.”

August didn’t even ask how much. He just pulled out his cellphone and accessed the Montek.Credit app. He still refused to have a SmartChip implanted. As usual, he was met with a shocked look, quickly followed by an uncaring shrug.

The purchase finalized, August headed back out the street and called Bobby back to ask for a favor. Seeing these lanterns had reminded August of his and Samantha’s lanterns back in their house… and everything that had happened between them.

“Damn, August. That was fast,” Bobby said, only half -kidding. “You never call back so soon. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for another month or two.”

“Yeah, well. Shut it, man,” August said, admitting to himself that Bobby was right, and making a mental note to call his old friend more often. “Listen, Bobby, I need your help again. You know the lanterns from mine and Sam’s weddin’? The ones you helped out with before? Are they still in the house?”

Bobby blew some smoke, and cleared his throat, replying, “Yeah, man. They’re still floating around waiting for orders.”

August did a victory fist pump in the middle of the street. A few people looked at him as if he were insane, but he ignored their stares. The lanterns still worked, which was fantastic news, as he had something in mind for them.

“I need you to take them somewhere for me,” August said. “They need a new life… or to revisit an old one, I guess.”





Chapter 27





WENT OUT





“It was 30 years ago today,” he whispered to himself. An entire lifetime, it seemed to August. He had traveled the entire globe and started farming communities and cooking schools. He had provided free food to anyone in those communities who contributed in any way. He started a global movement towards real food. Earth still only had one government, but all of the old countries still existed, their borders were just a little blurrier now. But the customs and cultural differences mostly remained. August had visited all of these countries, and almost every single one had, at least, a few Samantha’s Places, and most countries had many of them. Everywhere you found good farmland and people to feed, Samantha’s Place was there, too.

August had made the world a better place. He had made a difference. He had lived his dream of traveling the world. Montek, unfortunately, still held sway with the government, but ten years back they had changed the laws concerning Nutricators, finally. They were no longer mandatory the world over, and, in fact, had become so unpopular, Montek now marketed them as a cheap way to feed livestock.

Now the NewLife, on the other hand – Montek’s version of the SameSoul – had blown up… but in a way that August honestly felt was positive. At first, everyone bought them. They were afraid to die because they were scared there would be nothing after this life. So in the first ten years after the NewLife entered the market, the population of the Earth went to about 70% human and 30% automatons. Realizing that this was going to be a problem soon, the “good” people at Montek contacted August and asked him to help them come up with a solution. He only said three words before disconnecting the call.

“Stop selling them.”

That didn’t seem to suit Montek, as they enjoyed making money way too much. So instead, their solution was to raise the price. Make it affordable only to the extremely wealthy. This plan worked somewhat, reducing the number of new units hitting the streets by over half.

It wasn’t until five years later – 15 years after their introduction to the market – that the oldest NewLife inhabitants began to experience something strange. A tugging at their souls was what they described experiencing; a feeling of not being where they were supposed to be. This sensation seemed to point to a great beyond in many people’s opinions, and many of the Montek.Automatons housing NewLife clients took their data module out and crushed it, sending their consciousness onward to whatever was next.

Now, 30 years later, Montek didn’t even sell NewLife modules or Montek.Automatons anymore, because most people were now certain there was an afterlife. Citizens of the United States of Earth weren’t scared of death anymore, and so they stopped buying the automatons and NewLife modules. And once they stopped buying, Montek stopped selling. It didn’t matter that the feeling described by the NewLife automaton inhabitants was by no means irrefutable proof of Heaven or Hell. People only needed a tiny bit of reassurance that there might be something else beyond this life. It was enough.