The Forge: Fire and Ice

THE SEPARATION OF FIRE AND ICE Mira Callahan

They tell you the process is like the separation of fire and ice.

You go into a room and they rid you of all your physical and mental imperfections. Scars are gone, your memory is wiped clean from anything traumatic that may have happened to you, and all your negative emotions and bad qualities are ripped away. Your body and mind become like fire: warm, inviting and an asset to humanity; the rejected sections are your ice: cold, malevolent and able to kill you with enough exposure.

My procedure is today and I am terrified. People have claimed to keep themselves intact through sheer willpower. But nothing gets past the Amici. Created by humanity a long time ago, these robots and supercomputers determined that the only way to preserve humanity forever is to make us perfect. And we went along with it. They watch us constantly, existing within everything from the rusted pipes in our homes to our food. They are always there, searching for any imperfections. If your brain is not fully developed yet, you can get away with mistakes as your imperfections will be removed when you are older. If you have received the procedure and an Amici determines you to be imperfect, you are terminated right then and there.

The first few recipients of the procedure were babies, so that they could live perfect lives with no chance of developing imperfections or making mistakes. Yet, when they began to show signs of not fitting into the mould, they were killed. The ‘friends’ of humanity realized their fatal miscalculation. Humans themselves had a hamartia innately built in to them. Our brains need to be fully developed before anything can settle. Children are too unpredictable and difficult to control as they have not had any exposure to the outside world. A child has no sense of right or wrong except for what is biologically built into them. After the children received the procedure, their bodies realized something was wrong and began attacking the Amici, resulting in the child’s death as both fought for control over a decaying, writhing and helpless body.

I saw one of these children die once. The president had ordered it to be put on national television so everyone could see how perfect we as a species would become. There was no time delay and no effects. Just pure footage being live-streamed from the camera. That was how confident they were in their creation. A girl named Emma who was two days old was shown on the screen. She had gotten the procedure hours before and could now speak perfect English without hesitation. I remember looking at her and smiling. I was seven years old and amazed that she could do something like that at such a young age. But at the same time, I was secretly jealous of her name because it ended in ‘a’ and all of my friends’ names did too but mine didn’t.

Emma was on the screen, answering math questions. They ranged from seemingly easy to incredibly hard. She had just finished reciting the Pythagorean theorem when the interviewer asked her what a dozen was. She hesitated. She wasn’t supposed to hesitate. She was supposed to say, ‘A dozen represents twelve of something.’ That’s what the program dictates. A camera flash taking a photo then grabbed her attention and she gazed right into it, beginning to cry. She wasn’t supposed to cry. She was supposed to register the existence of the flash and smile, being happy that someone wanted to take a photo of her. Later reports said the sudden change of lighting distressed her and caused her natural instincts to kick in. Her body sensed something was wrong and reacted. But it wasn’t right. Not even a second later, a piercing scream hit the air as she began to writhe on the floor. She kicked and screamed as if she was being murdered. In a sense, she was.

Thousands of tiny robots began exiting from every available hole of her body, taking all the water and oxygen out of her with them. Eyes, nose, mouth, ears. After a few moments, her skin and clothing began to break. The Amici were fighting their way through her body to go to their next targets with maximum efficiency. No liquid blood came out as all the water came through the Amici. Dried red spots were there however. After a second, they had all left, leaving a mass of dehydrated bones, skin and organs. All that was left was the physical matter.

The Amici look like tiny insects, ten-legged creatures who could shift and do anything with ease, holding water and oxygen in their central units. Even though it took scientists and robots alike another few months to figure out the issue, they never changed the design of the creatures. On October 12th, 2239, the government passed the Human Perfection Act, requiring all citizens to undergo the procedure for the benefit of humanity.

‘Avalon Ruiz,’ a receptionist calls cheerily. I stand up nervously and approach her. ‘Yes?’ I ask, half phrased as a question and half phrased as a response.

‘Your procedure is scheduled for today, correct? March 31st, 2256?’ she asks with the same eerie smile all the other perfect humans have. In another society, I could lie and say no. Or bite my lip in a sign of nervousness or contemplation. But here I can’t. ‘Yes,’ I reply, in a cheery voice. It is not as passive as my voice will become after the procedure, but it will still have the same joyous undertones.

She smiles again. ‘Congratulations,’ then beckons me out of the waiting room and into the surgical area. ‘Please put this on and then lie on the gurney,’ she says, handing me a white hospital gown.

The whole room I am in is already white. White door, white bed, white tools to be used by the doctor. It smells like hand sanitizer and cleaning chemicals. There is no difference in shades and no originality. The only non-white is in the glass in the mirror, so I can see myself for one last time before I’m transformed, and be proud of who I will become. For most, this is said to bring joy as they are finally going to be expunged of the cast of imperfections which held them in for so long. For me, it only brings dread.

Taking my clothes off quickly, I stand in front of the mirror naked to examine every single imperfection of my body. The first thing I notice is the scar I got on the back of my leg from when I was younger. My brother had been stupid enough to use the basement window as some sort of backboard to practice basketball when I had claimed the driveway for colouring with chalk. I was near the window when it broke and it caused a piece of glass to be lodged in the back of my leg. Due to my natural independent streak, I tried to take it out and ended up lodging it in further. Mami brought me to the hospital and held my hand as they took care of me. It only took a few minutes to heal within a healing chamber. But the doctor told me a scar would remain until my procedure.

Mami said I was being too independent at that point and I should have waited before doing something reckless. That’s always been my horrid ice quality apparently: being too reckless. I couldn’t understand what they meant by that when I was a child. According to the family robot, I had a 30% higher chance dying before my procedure than any other student in my class due to my reckless behaviours. For example, one time I ran across the street blindfolded when the crosswalk sign was red to complete a dare and gain a few dollars. And looking back on that, I do regret it. But, I’m not sure if I want to lose that impulse. I’ve controlled it more over the years and it’s made my life more interesting.

I realize I’ve been crying over the thought of losing that memory and quickly wipe the tears away, looking at my body and how asymmetrical it is. My left breast is a bit bigger than my right. I have a birthmark on my cheek which doesn’t have a counterpart. These things will be gone in a few hours and I will become equal. Perfect.

After hearing a knock on the door, I put on the hospital gown quickly and lie down on the gurney. A man in a surgical mask comes in saying nothing, just simply pushes the gurney and me down a bland hallway to the room of the death of my present self.

A needle is placed in my arm and I go woozy, falling asleep from the anaesthetic within milliseconds. Although I am asleep, my brain remains in a state of semi-consciousness. The first part of the procedure is the heightening of the senses. My sense of sound becomes sharper and I can hear every cut the doctor is making into my body with his scalpel. The scent of hand sanitizer has metastasized to the point where it is unbearable. Even with my eyes closed, I can make out distinct shapes of the lights and figures around me. This portion seems to last forever until they invade the depths of my brain for memory removal and personality transplant.

Apparently, the only way to get through this portion unscathed is willpower. They can change the undertones of your voice and remove your physical imperfections. They can add an abundance of information. But they can’t change how you feel and your memories. I focus on everything I care about, even the stupid little things. I think about Mami and Papi and how they were before and after their own procedures. I imagine the day I kissed Eric Hemlock underneath the bleachers of the football field. The scent of his cologne made me want more. And the actual fire that passed between us convinced me that he was my soulmate, not the girl he would break up with two weeks later. I notice the small details of my instinct and how I would react in hypothetical situations. If I could leave this instant, I would. But my body is in paralysis due to another shot they gave me so that they do not have to worry about the motor functions of my brain responding as they operate on the rest of me.

I keep thinking and willing and hoping and thinking and willing and hoping some more as that’s all I really can do. I push my mind to its limits, describing the touch of the bedsheet in minute detail due to my new enhanced senses. It’s decently soft and I can tell it’s made from a combination of 87% cotton and 13% polyester. The strings of fabric are interwoven delicately and were picked from somewhere the Eupleoa core lives based on the scent. The information that has been put in me tells me that the most likely place is Pakistan. I keep willing and hoping as they continue digging through my mind… into a graveyard of memories and experiences I had even forgotten about, inserting their own memories I will never have access to, creating desired personality traits and removing the unsatisfactory ones.

And then I wake up.

I buzz with new information and smile at the doctors around me who are clapping. The sound seems magnified. I scan my body, which has been purged of its imperfections, and thank the doctors for their work. And I smile, with that smile I had once called eerie and relaxed. My mind feels free and I am at peace. I am now exactly like the rest. I am now perfect.

the end