Mo(ther) Na(ture)

1

MONA

Humans blow hard.

I’m talking big, ugly chunks.

They’re pimples.

That’s not quite right, though. Even pimples have a cure. The only treatment that comes to mind for humans is eradication.

I suppose that’s not too far off. Teenagers essentially eradicate pimples the first time they use a Clear Skin spray. It would stand to reason that by curating a storm, which acted like Clear Skin, it might eradicate all human life from Earth.

I’ll unleash seven levels of hell, wipe the planet of human chaos, and delete them from the system forever.

“What in the stars above do you think you’re doing?” Penny says.

With a swish of my fingers, I clear the holographic storm system from the room, “Good morning to you too.”

“That was Earth,” Penny says.

“Wow, congratulations. You can read a map,” I say, decidedly unimpressed.

“Mona,” she says.

“Penelo-peee,” I mock.

Penny puts her hands on her hips and stares me down. I know she won’t give in, and there’s no point in waiting her out.

“It’s not like I was going to kill them all.” I wasted too much time backing up their internet to cause a functional extinction event. Damn, my stupid love of raccoon videos.

“You rolled your eyes just then,” Penny says, pointing to her pair of sapphires. “Look at me right here and say you weren’t going to mutilate them.” Her piercing stare makes me wish she shot actual daggers instead of mental ones.

“Geeze, Penny. It’s not like I try to kill off the human race every day or something.” Just every other day, but I can’t say that. “What gives?”

“That was a bit snarky, even for you,” Penny says.

I take a deep breath and muster my most innocent expression, “I wasn’t going to mutilate anything. Besides, maiming is a product of your bipeds.”

“Historically speaking, you’re a big, fat liar.”

“I’m not fat!” What I am, is going to pull her ginger hair until she screams. I go for her, but she puts up a hand to stop me.

“I didn’t mean,” Penny rubs her eyes and takes a forced breath through gritted teeth. “Look, I worked hard on humans. I don’t want you to ruin it, okay.”

“Oh, so now I ruin things? Everything Mona touches turns to dust?” I spit my words at her.

“We had an agreement. I want you to hold up your end,” Penny says.

My part in making humans was one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made. As a result, I’m never going to get into university, and I blame Penny ten thousand percent.

I scoff at her. “Is that what you’re saying? An agreement. You act as though I had nothing to do with making them. I worked hard on humans too. But sometimes, you have to move on. Cut your losses. Our agreement ended when your humans started killing my project and my future. Not to mention the mass extinction of thousands of species,” I say.

“So, it’s okay for you to have a successful project and commit genocide? You’re such a damn gaslighting narcissist, Mona. The hypocrisy never ends with you, does it?”

Penny never gives me a chance to explain.

“You’d save yourself and throw me under the bus?”

“What bus?” I ask.

“You know what bus. The metaphorical bus!” Penny is waving her hands at me.

“Can you please stop? That’s another human phrase, and I don’t appreciate it. I would never throw you under anything,” I say. “Besides, your way too heavy for me to throw around anywhere.”

“Who’s calling who fat now?” Penny’s face has turned scarlet.

“Doesn’t feel great, does it?”

Penny is tightlipped.

I know she cares about humans, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand why. Penny designed them to look like us. In fact, they’re primitive versions of our species. They develop emotions, although they are not advanced enough to control them, let alone remove them. The technology is simply not there yet.

Instead, these beasts are destructive to the point of demise. Why would she let humans go on this long? It’s beyond my understanding.

The Bio-Matrix makes them real, but it shouldn’t prevent us from doing what’s best for the world. Humans aren’t the only “real” things out there. They’re not even the only “real” things on the planet. Earth is just as real as humans. She’s bigger and supports more life than them too.

All humans seem to do is destroy. At least Earth provides.

I take a deep breath. I’m never trying to be mean to Penny. I’m just trying to make a point.

“I never said it was okay for you to fail, Pen. I never even implied as much. I’m simply pointing out that when you came to me about putting talkies on my peaceful life-breathing planet, you called them an experiment. You said, do it for the art Mona. You said, let’s turn a monkey into a man. And I thought, okay, you’re my sister. Why not give you a little slice of Earth to work with? It’s a big planet,” I say. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Mom is always lecturing me, begging me to give your twin some room to work. So, I agreed.”

Penny rolls her eyes at me, “That’s not what happened, and you know it.”

“Then, they just TOOK OVER. Isn’t it better to have something rather than end with nothing? I can’t sit by and watch the destruction of everything I worked hard to create.”

“Why can’t you take a little ownership, Mona?” You wanted to know if they could think and feel as much as I did. And guess what? They can. You can’t just flood them away whenever you don’t get your way. That’s so childish.”

“I only did that once, and it’s not like it worked anyway,” I say more to myself than her.

Penny found out about my eradication proclamation. Instead of trying to stop me, she warned those loci and big shocker. Some survived. They started worshiping her, too, absolutely beyond my understanding.

Humans are like cockroaches. They fight and climb up out of the pits of the void to live another day.

They never die.

They survive.

No matter what happens, they survive.

No.

That’s not fair. Cockroaches are far too high of a compliment for humans.

“Earth is central to my educational goals, Penny. You know this. I’m never going to get into university without an entrance project. Earth is that project. Why would I give up my future for humans?” If Penny would only listen once in a while, we wouldn’t have to have this conversation repeatedly. “I just wish you could see it from my point of view this once.”

“They’re sentient. Don’t you have any other projects to play with? The all-mighty Mona doesn’t have four backup plans?” Penny asks.

“I’m not playing around. You’re missing the point entirely. I could say the same thing about your pets. You have plenty of different species to play with, so why do you have to have humans too? I don’t believe for a moment that humans are your only entrance project. You want to talk about hypocrisy? Take a look in the mirror.” You can put them somewhere else,” I run my fingers through my curly brown hair, untangling the mess I haven’t had time to do anything with.

“That’s not the way it works, Mona. Ever heard of science? Supporting this specific life takes a particular type of celestial body. Unfortunately, when we started this entrance project, you weren’t willing to make me a second version of Earth,” Penny says.

She grabs the hairwand from our shared space and waves it over my head. In one whoosh, I have perfectly detangled, commercial-ready curls.

“My hair was fine,” I say, waving her away. “Why does your project rely on my ability to do half of it for you? That’s not an entrance project of your own. That’s you being an opportunist.”

“I’m not an opportunist. You’re playing favorites!”

“It’s not always about playing favorites, Penny. What would be the point if I made every planet with Earth’s unique environmental features? How would my project be unique? If I made you a copy of Earth, what would make my project special to the admissions committee? It’s like you’ve never heard of a little word called irreplaceable. I’m trying to get into the ivy league, not some state school. I don’t want to be like these losers living through trashy uploads. I don’t need to live a thousand lives. I just want to live one. This one. I want to create the uploads, Penny. I thought we both did.”

“We did. We do,” she says, and it’s so quiet I almost don’t hear her. “But there’s a lot of life you’re missing. It doesn’t have to be go-go-go all the time. You’d know that by now if you tried even a single lifetime upload.”

No way. I’m not about to live some menial life for eighty or ninety years and lose motivation. Uploading for a long weekend is one thing, but a lifetime? I can’t even wrap my head around it.

On the other hand, I know what I want.

Penny doesn’t. I can’t blame her for not having a life plan. Everyone can’t know what they want to be in the third grade.

Time for a change of subject. “Have you thought any more about upgrading to the SoTo chip? I’m telling you. It’s the only way to upload. Especially since you’re completely on board with the whole living other lives bit. No more gross sweaty suits or those icky patches that pull out your hair. It taps right into your nervous system and optic network.”

“And then, you’ll never have to feel anything again,” Penny says.

“What’s that supposed to mean? On the contrary, I feel everything,” I say. “When I upload to Zion, my hair is wet after swimming in the fire lakes. The feel of the flames dancing and licking my skin is as real as it gets. Food’s the same way.” I suppose on the downside when I tripped and landed face-first into a gravel pit, it hurt. I was tender for the whole weekend. But I don’t say that part out loud.

“Exactly, uploads are the ultimate defiance of death. Can’t you see Mona? You can live a hundred lives and never age. So why don’t you take your time and upload for a few years? Perfect what it means to upload to Earth. I’m not saying you have to do it for a lifetime. Just settle in and learn a few things. Enjoy life.”

“I enjoy life just fine. Besides, why wouldn’t you want all those lives you live to be as real as you could make them? The SoTo Chip is the only way to live. I’m telling you, Pen, I know what I’m talking about.”

“You’re missing the point,” Penny says.

“I guess I am because I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I say.

“You’re not the same person. The SoTo chip has side effects. One of them is your sheer lack of empathy. I wouldn’t do that to myself. The Mona I know would care about exterminating an entire planet,” Penny says.

“Exactly, I care about the planet. I care about Earth. I love it when you make my points for me.” I can’t help the smile playing on my lips.

Penny crosses her arms, “You’re such a spoiled brat. You’ve always got to have your way, don’t you? I bet you couldn’t survive one day on Earth. You’d be too afraid.” Penny averts her eyes while playing with the hem of her dress.

“I’m only afraid you’d lose the bet. Then, I’d be stuck dealing with a sad, miserable, dejected Penny,” I say.

“You don’t even know what that means Mo-Nah.”

“I’ll take your bet Penelop-pee. Let’s make it more interesting, though,” I say.

Penny cocks her head. “Oh? What did you have in mind?”

I scratch my chin. “I’ll go to Earth. I’ll even stay a week. Two, if it shuts you up. I’ll live amongst their ginormous Earthen crypts they call houses. But when I get back, your humans are gone. Done. Zip. Zilch. You rehouse them, or I will delete them all. I don’t care what you do with them, but they don’t get to live on Earth or any of my planets, for that matter. Maybe it’s time you stepped up your game and made some planets of your own.”

“Oh yea, ’cause that’s so possible to do on command. You know that’s not how it works. You studied nature, and I studied humanoid animation. There’s no clear-cut crossover between the two,” Penny says.

“Then maybe you should respect the planets more. Instead of housing your destructo-monsters on them!”

“We agreed to work together,” Penny says. She waves away her statement. “Fine, you go to Earth. But let’s not pick some arbitrary number of days. What would be the point in that?”

“I don’t know. What’s the point in any of this? Please, why don’t you enlighten me,” I make a show giving her the floor.

“You could just hunker down in a hidey hole for seven or eight days and walk away. What would that teach you? You’re offering to live in a human’s shoes for a while. So that’s what I want you to do,” Penny crosses her arms. She’s sizing me up, going in for the kill. “I believe once you’ve experienced human emotions the human way, you might be ready. When you’ve felt what they feel and walked in their shoes, then and only then can you come back and decide what to do with the human race. If that takes you a day, fine. But if that takes you a year, so be it.”

I snort, “I’ll be ready. Oh, honey, I’m going to kill them all. I’m ready to do that now.” I smile wickedly at her, “Walk in a human’s shoes. As if. What can they offer me that I don’t already have? Look around, Penny. It’s not like we’re living the life of poverty here.”

“They’re sentient beings.”

“You say that as if I’m meant to care.”

“I’ll file a motion, and they’ll be protected under the Biomatrix Sentience Act.”

“Not before I press delete, not before I ruin all the backup files, and you are left without proof or protection for your pets.”

“A threat Mona?”

“Never, it’s a promise,” I say.

“You’re clearly not ready to hear it yet,” Penny sighs. “Here’s the thing. If you play fair, I won’t remove them. You can delete them all if you want to. But only after you’ve experienced all eight basic human emotions. You do that first, and I won’t stand in your way.”

“So, I can brew the storm of the century, and you won’t try to stop me? Maybe I’ll send smoke through the trees like in that Shyamalan movie. I’ll say, that’s one human with the right ideas.”

“See, you can relate to them. Or one of them—sort of.”

Penny is reaching, but I don’t mind. The thing is, I love to watch her squirm. I love when she admits I’m right and she’s wrong. And what I love even more than that is knowing I’ll enjoy eradicating Earth of every irritating, uncivilized, putrid human being.

I push my hair out of my face and cross my arms, “Okay, I’ll bite. I’ll stay on Earth until I’ve experienced all eight little human emotions. But, like, wow. Eight is such a big number. What will I ever do with myself?”

“Yes, we’ll see, dear sister. We will see,” Penny says.

She thinks if she can make me human, I’ll have some crazy crisis of conscience and save them all. Doesn’t she get it? I’m two nano-seconds away from deleting them. I’ll have fun causing the San Andreas fault to quake while hitting Japan with another Tsunami. I’ll flood the lands and strike the human race down one by one with bolts of lightning. After all, I’ve always preferred playing with my food before eating.

How bad could living on Earth be? What would a few Earthen days be in the long run anyway? It’s been a while since I’ve visited. I used to think of Earth as a refuge. I could upload for thirty seconds and spend the night. Take a two-minute vacation swimming in the Great Coral Reef before a test, and it’s like I’ve been on a two-week vacation.

Time moves as fast or slow as I want on Earth—the perks of being the creator. Unlike traditional uploads, living the length of a lifetime virtually might be equivalent to one or two whole days in real time. When you combine that with a nutrition patch, there’s no actual harm done to my physical body. While on Earth, it can move as slowly or as fast as I want.

Unfortunately, I agreed not to intervene through uploads after Penny created her hairless apes. In her words, so things can develop organically.

Ha!

Organic, my ass. Like, I don’t see her uploading. To be fair, it’s not like I had the best luck with any species I created. I can admit that dinosaurs weren’t my highest-quality design. They didn’t do much but fight over food. It was an eat, sleep, and defecate scenario.

Dinosaurs were a massive learning curve. But when the time came for me to move on and better the whole of the world, I wiped them out.

That’s what any good creator would do.

According to the Creator’s Handbook, you must be willing to make hard decisions.

POW!

With one perfectly aimed asteroid, I liberated Earth and started fresh.