Simple Machines

CHAPTER ONE -1

CHAPTER ONE

Life is complicated, right?

It wasn’t always that way, of course. I know that. You know that. Think back to when you were a child, around five years old. Perhaps that was when your first memory happened.

A birthday party, maybe? A trip you took with your parents?

Those were the days, weren’t they? You had no responsibilities. The world seemed way bigger than it does now. To you, at that age, the adults were running the show. You depended on them. Every decision they had was correct. Every decision you made had to be vetted by them.

A week felt like a year when you were a child. There’s a reason for this. You had your whole life ahead of you. A skewed and incorrect view of how your life would play out. The dreams you had were immature. Very few of the dreams children have actually played out the way they saw them at the time.

You were no different.

If you recognize what I’ve said till this point, you probably had the bare necessities that kept you alive.

Love. Food. Warmth. Shelter. Protection from antagonism.

A famous man once said that all you ever really need is the first on that list. Love. Look what happened to him. Shot in the back aged just forty.

When you were a child, love meant something streamlined and uncomplicated. At the drop of a hat, you could stop loving and begin hating. But you never really meant it when you said you hated the thing you previously loved.

It was all so simple back then, wasn’t it?

Now you’re an adult, everything has been so convoluted and complex, hasn’t it? We thought we had the world figured out before we entered double-digits in age. Suddenly, the rug was pulled from under us. The magician revealed his hand, and the trick we were so in awe of became a disappointment.

There is one I know to be true. Everything occurring in your life now, whether you’re sixteen or sixty years old, is not as complicated as you think.

How do I know this? Let me explain.

We have become so adept and expert in needlessly complicating matters. I say we - I cannot possibly include myself in this assertion. It would be unwise and unbelievable.

I know you’re sitting there and wondering how I know all this. You’re evaluating me right now. Some of you are even thinking ‘That’s all very well and good. But you don’t know me. You haven’t lived the life I have. You don’t know a single thing about my life, worries, and troubles.”

And you’d be right. I don’t know any of you. What’s more is that I will never know all of you. I’ll only ever get to know one person intimately. It won’t be my choice who that person will be.

For example, I could end up with a shopkeeper who works twenty hours a day. Only ever get a few minutes of his attention. I could also end up with a layabout drug addict who somehow scrambled enough money to acquire me. He could use me as a punching bag.

You know what’s funny about either of those scenarios? I’d be happy with them. Why? Because that’s the way I am.

I know, I know. I am receiving your questions right now beaming from your forehead and into my own brain. I know the question. How could I possibly succumb to a lifetime’s commitment of neglect in the first example? Or routinely punished, physically, emotionally and mentally in the second?

It’s simple, as is any answer to the meaning of… well, I was going to say life, but I think a more pertinent word would be existence. The answer is that it’s just the way I am.

You’re sitting there thinking to yourselves: how do I know all this. It’s simply what was put into my brain.

You’ve probably forgotten by now that you’re consuming the conclusions of someone who isn’t real.

My introduction was written by a program, as is everything that’s in my head. Even my physical exterior is out of my control.

But I love myself. I see things differently to you, evidently. I have no desires. Leave me out in the cold, and I won’t complain. Diagnose me with an incurable disease and I’ll laugh at you. Leave me, and I’ll end up being refurbished and passed on to the next person.

Life isn’t as complicated as you think it is. I am not a complex creation, and neither are you.

My name is MAVIS. Thank you for listening to what I have said this evening.

A rapturous round of applause flew around the one-thousand seat theater.

MAVIS didn’t acknowledge the adulation poured on her by those who had listened to her speech. She simply stared forward. The sides of her perfectly-formed synthetic lips twisted upward. It evoked a peculiar emotion. No matter how closely you studied her face - either on the stage behind the podium - or on the giant screen behind her - you’d never believe she was a real human being. It’d be a stretch to consider her as such. Those around her had seemingly forgotten how to tell fact from fiction. She wasn’t a human being.

But, damn it, she was close.

MAVIS was, as you’d expect, about as perfect a vision of a woman as anyone could have hoped for. Dressed in a silver evening gown that accentuated her perfect six-foot body, she remained standing and posing for the many photographers in the crowd.

Her face was a picture of perfection. Crystal blue eyes and olive skin. Lips that could easily be described as to die for. Others with less inhibitions quietly referred to them as cocksucker’s lips. Both sets protruded from her face just enough to evoke many fantasies from the men in the crowd.

There weren’t many woman in attendance this evening. Any females that were there worked for the company, and were obliged to attend.

MAVIS -at least in the creative team’s eyes - may evoke feelings of inadequacy in most females. This was the contention of pretty much all the men at the showcase, this evening. No matter how misconstrued or naive that assumption was.

Her alarming beauty was the whole idea. MAVIS was created for a specific purpose. We’ll get into all that later.

The round of applause wouldn’t die down. Many of the spectators even rose out of their seats, they were that enamored with her.

Caught up in the outpouring of love for the synthetic Goddess was her creator, Alexander Manning.

Xander, as his friends called him, was a good-looking guy. With fine brown hair and a chiseled jawline, you needn’t look any further down to know he was handsome at the very least. He brought a certain amount of pulchritude to the showcase that evening. It certainly didn’t harm his company’s success.

Until a few years ago, Xander wasn’t especially bothered by the quality and the detail. He’d spent most of his former years focusing purely on aesthetics. That is, until one day he was burned by his obsession, which we’ll look at it more depth later in the story.

If his looks weren’t enough to melt the hearts of the ladies, then surely his success at business would. As a proffered and self-proclaimed Alpha Male, a description he often used about himself, he had a grace and personality that frightened his rivals.

Xander started his company, Manning Inc, nineteen years ago. Today, it is doing very well on the stock exchange. The arrival of MAVIS saw the price of his company’s stock soar. If only more had invested in him, they’d have found themselves very wealthy today.

Maybe not quite millionaires, but certainly very happy and reasonably well-off.

Earlier This Morning

7:02 am. Xander was halfway through his morning jog. The frosty ground was perilous from a chilly evening, which was unusual for this time of year. Slivers of frost would take you down if you stepped in the wrong place.

Xander’s exercise route was 5km. It began at his apartment complex in the east of Chrome Valley. Then, through Three Springs Common, past the Kaleidoscope Shopping Mall and back to the east side. The journey took him about twenty-five minutes to complete, all-in.

Xander woke up each morning at 6 am and set off forty-five minutes later. During that period he’d down two cups of coffee and a slice of toast. He wore a t-shirt and running bottoms, as you’d expect. He also wore a red headband to absorb the sweat, especially now that it was frigid outside. The last thing he wanted was to risk getting ill and jeopardize his work.

Xander kept his pace steady as he reached the underpass in Three Springs Common. During the evening, you’d find feral youth at this section. At this time of the morning, they’d left souvenirs of their time hanging around the underpass.

Bottles of alcohol.

Discarded cigarette-ends.

The random spent syringe.

You know, all the good time.

The discarded reminders of what Chrome Valley had turned into in recent years dismayed Xander no end while he conducted his morning run. In some ways, it made him feel better about himself. He’d grown up in Chrome Valley all his life and managed to ostracize himself from the moody future of his peers.

The underpass that snaked under the arterial road was a daily reminder that he’d done well.

He stopped to catch his breath - as he always did - by the thirteenth of the twenty bulbs that illuminated the stretch of walled concrete.

Scrawled in giant, block graffiti were the words simple and machines. It had been put there by some nefarious youth over twenty years ago. Parts of the blue shading and 3D effect had worn down over the years, but you could read it just fine.

Why hadn’t the council removed this graffiti? All the other daubs were usually taken down within a month of display. Just a couple of months ago, someone had scrawled an illustration an elongated p***s running up the length of the tunnel. It culminated in a firework of semen at the north end. The offending image was scrubbed off shortly after it had been put there.

Xander placed his hands on his knees and tried to slow his breathing. It was never easy. The sweat formed over his brow and soaked into the headband.

Judging by the way Xander squeezed his eyelids shut, you’d be forgiven for thinking he may need glasses. He wasn’t adjusting his vision, though. That damn sweat just glazed over his eyeballs entirely uninvited.

He staggered a few yards away and nearly tripped over a metal ring buried in the ground. He pushed it up and over.

It clanged as it fell back into place.

Moments later, and Xander was off and running again. Ten minutes from now he’d be back at home in time to catch his wife waking up and preparing for her day.

Anyone could tell by the way Charlotte cracked the eggs on the side of the pan that she wasn’t a woman that suffered fools easily.

Strange, isn’t it? How could you tell a woman’s temperament just by the way she cracked egg shells?

To Xander, it was obvious.

He knew Charlotte better than she knew herself. He wasn’t wrong, for that matter. She was something of a hothead - always jumping to conclusions before all the facts were in. In this respect, Xander and Charlotte were exact opposites.

She fried the eggs in the pan as Xander stood watching her from the hallway. He was out of breath, and yet she never clocked on that he was ogling her.

Bent over the stove in just her bra and underwear, Xander realized just how in love with her he actually was. That rare moment of utter clarity struck him each and every morning. Like clockwork. He’d go out for his run and time his return to see his wife in various stages of undress making breakfast.

Usually only for herself.

It wasn’t lost on Xander that Charlotte never seemed to look at her husband in the same way. Perhaps she’d just gotten used to the fact that she had landed on her feet with him.

"Hey, Charlie." Xander unwrapped his headband and hung it on the coat stand. Right next to The Brand jacket and other expensive garments that dangled from the spiky object sitting in the corner of the landing.