A Day in a Life in After World: Maggie Read online

a Life in After World

  Copyright 2012 Eric Darrell Johnson

  Three days now she had been on the run. Last she could remember was Mother ordering Danson to ‘deactivate’ her. Blackness then consumed her and she woke up in the woods with the note to go to Saint Ellwood. Danson was the Artificial Intelligence that ran all of Mother’s systems including controlling the implants in every daughter. With a simple command Danson was capable of activating a destruct sequence in the implant and thus cutting off the body from the nervous system.

  The morning sun found her at the gate of St. Ellwood. It was a busy place and hardly anyone paid any attention to her. Well she did notice the glances from the men. But that happened everywhere she went. Would they want her still if they knew she had the cancer? She was useless and without purpose now. Mother had banished her, killed her even. She had no idea why she was even alive. When a daughter got cancer, they no longer had a purpose and Mother terminated her.

  “Good morning.” She greeted the guard. The guard was literally a giant of a man at about nine feet tall. “Can you direct me to the inn?”

  “Apends wich inn.” He replied. “You been afore, same place.”

  She shook her head. “”First time here.”

  “You lost?” The giant asked her.

  The daughter looked down at the letter. A sentence double underlined read, “When asked if you are lost, always answer YES.”

  She looked the giant in the eyes and said, “Yes.”

  The giant reacted to this by kneeling so that his face was on her level. He waved her closer.

  Tentatively she stepped towards him.

  “You are a little confused, that is normal.” He whispered to her in perfect speech. “When you girls get lost, you always are at first. You need to go to the inn in the market place. They have a key for you there.”

  The giant stood back up from her and pointed down one of the roads leading away from the gate. “You go dat way, you fine inn.” He gave her a huge innocent smile.

  “Thank you!” She said to him. She was not used to being reliant on others outside of the daughters for help. Mother provided everything and all the daughters worked together providing all the support she could need. She would miss them all, but there would be no going back.

  She was bumped and jostled all the way down the main road into the market. She was not altogether convinced it was all on accident as she caught a couple of leers from some of the men as they passed her after just bumping into her. She was used to being treated as a sex object to handsome men. But it was all part of who she was. But she always had control in those situations, and the backup of the other daughters. Now it felt creepy and scary.

  She finally found the inn and at the desk a man was reading a newspaper.

  “Excuse me sir.” She tentatively asked.

  “We are booked up for the week.” He said without looking at her.

  “But I need a key.” She pleaded. “I was supposed to get one here.”

  He irritably put down his paper but his demeanor changed when he saw the daughter.

  “Are you lost?” He asked her.

  She nodded.

  He dug through some papers on his desk and found a key. It had a wooden placard on it with a number.

  The innkeeper handed her the key, “Upstairs, bring me back the key when you are done.”

  She nodded dumbly and went up the stairs. She found numbers on all the doors and matched up the door with the number on her key. The door unlocked easily enough and she quickly stepped inside and locked it behind her. With her back to the door, she stood there and everything seemed to hit her at once. She was homeless, she lost her chance to ever merge with Mother, she was supposed to be dead and now but she was on the run. She felt sobs welling up inside her and had to release them. She slid down the door until she was in a sitting position on the floor.

  What had brought her to such a low point, she wondered. A daughter was a clone of Mother. Ingrained into the programming of every clone was their purpose: Live an exciting and interesting life so that when the time comes for Mother to move to a new body, she picks you and you get to live on forever as a part of her.

  The problem was that the clones had picked up a tendency towards bone cancer. Nearly ten percent of them would start to show signs and as soon as Mother found out that you had any signs, she terminated you. This is what happened to her. She had joint pains and some difficulty moving quickly. She could walk around normally, but getting up from sitting positions or off of the ground she was slow and it was painful. It was just an early sign but it was enough for Mother.

  The daughter cried harder at the memory of mother speaking her serial number to Danson and ordering him to terminate her. She had loved Mother and now she was just thrown away as a piece of trash.

  She pulled the paper out of her pocket and through her tears read it over again. There was supposed to be a radio here. The letter gave a frequency and an encryption code.

  She tried to wipe away the tears but they kept coming. She needed to move and do something to calm herself down. Sniffing loudly, she crawled on all fours over to the bed. She lifted the edge of the comforter and peered beneath. A wooden box was revealed under the bed. It made a bit of a scraping sound as she dragged it out.

  She sat back on her haunches as she picked it up and set it on the bed.

  She wiped away her tears one more time before getting up. Inside the box was hope, a new life, freedom, or maybe nothing. What was inside the box?

  She stood up then took the box over to the table. She pulled the latch and the hinge creaked as it opened. Inside, as described in the letter was a radio and a small hand crank generator.

  She picked up the radio and tried the switch. It turned on and the room was filled with the sound of static. She turned down the volume and then adjusted the frequency and encryption settings on the front. The radio went quiet on this frequency.

  The daughter pressed the key on the side of the radio and spoke into it. Not sure of what to say, she just simply said, “Hello?”

  “Hello Daughter.” Danson’s voice immediately responded through the radio. The daughter’s heart leapt for joy at the sound of a familiar voice. Her joy was short lived when she remembered it was Danson who had terminated her.

  “What is your serial number?” Danson asked.

  Programmed into every daughter were certain things you had to do. One of them was to always answer this question when asked by Mother, Danson, or another daughter.

  “Four seven six two five.” She spoke into the radio. She hated doing so for fear that Danson might realize his mistake in not killing her completely and may issue the terminate command again and her implant would shut her down properly this time.

  “Daughter Four Seven Six Two Five, we need to talk.” Danson said and that was it. She did not feel the darkness consume her again as it had a few days before. He did not ask why she was alive. There was not a platoon of daughters at the door ready to finish the job.

  “Yes Danson?”

  “Mother issued the command to terminate you. As you may have noticed you are still alive.”

  There was a pause in the transmission. The daughter did not respond.

  “Instead of terminating you, I instead put you into a coma. Other Lost Daughters then moved you out of the base to the woods.”

  “Who are the lost daughters?” She asked.

  “You are now one of them.” Damson replied. “The Lost Daughters of the Eternal Mother are daughters that for one reason or another have been terminated by Mother.”

  “Except we are n
ot dead.” She stated.

  “Correct.”

  “But Mother does not want me.” The daughter said into the microphone.

  “Correct.” Danson’s voice said simply.

  “What is my purpose in life then?” She was at a loss.

  “To live.”

  The daughter set the radio down on the table and paced around the room. She had only one purpose in life and that was to live for mother. What was she without purpose? Mother did not want her. Now she had to live for herself? It was a confusing and scary thought.

  “How do I live?” She finally inquired of the radio. “All the daughters will be against me. Mother will kill me herself if she gets the chance.”

  “You are right Daughter Four Seven Six Two Five. They will, if they know who you are. But Mother does not know her daughters personally enough to tell you apart and only the closest daughters to you would recognize you. And do you think they will kill you? I can say one of them even helped move your body.”

  “Who?” She asked.

  “I cannot reveal those daughters working undercover for me.” He stated. “Know that I am moving you out of harm’s way. I am arranging you passage across the sea.”

  “The sea?” She asked.

  “A gulf really.” He informed her. “You will be out of Mother’s reach.”

  “How will I get there?” She asked.

  “I have been informed of a Rafter that has come into port today. You will ride out with him.” Danson said. “But first I have a task I need you to complete.”

  “What