Transhumanity

Tina doesn’t want to kill herself. She’s just bored of this life.

Wow, seventeen and you’re bored already.

Ok, I’m not bored, but there must be more to it.

So, what is it you think is wrong with this life exactly?

Everything, I mean look at this.

Tina pauses her internal conversation, scrolls through her phone as she sits cross-legged on her bed. Her classmate, Jade, has just posted another Instagram pic. A mirror selfie in only her underwear. Jade doing her sultry look, baiting the boys. Not that Tina is making a moral judgement.

It’s just that Tina doesn’t have the need to display herself. At High School, her so-called friends think she lacks self-confidence. At home, her mom doesn’t understand why a beautiful girl like her daughter doesn’t look after herself.

Tina’s mom is a dance instructor. She had her own business back in Ukraine, but that didn’t mean they had money. Tina’s dad was a drunken bastard, as her mom said, so they lived with Tina’s grandma. Three generations of women in one apartment, with never enough money to afford luxuries. A heating system that didn’t work in winter. The smell of cabbage stinking out the whole building. Tina dreamt of another life but at the same time, it was home.

Then along came husband number two for her mom. A math professor from the University of California who was at a conference in Kiev, Tina’s mom apparently meeting him in a bar. Tina suspected they met on a dating app, but she didn’t care, was ready for a new life in the USA.

In the suburbs of Berkeley as it ended up. It’s a bus ride into town and an hour’s journey into San Francisco itself, but they have a nice house with a heating system that works and all the modern appliances each of them needs. Tina spending most of her time on her phone or iPad.

Not most of the time, but all the time. Checking what the other girls post. She’s not jealous. It’s more like experimental observation, seeing how girls are defined by their selfies.

You saying you haven’t ever taken a selfie?

Yea, I did it to see what it was like.

Uh huh, really?

Uh yea, I know what I look like.

You think you’re more beautiful than American girls?

I know I am.

Wow, that’s some confidence.

I guess it’s my Ukrainian genetics. I just don’t need to flaunt it.

You think Ukrainian girls are any better, that they’re any less addicted to their phones?

No, it’s just that everyone in the USA has higher quality tech.

Tina still has contact with friends back in Kiev. Girls who are jealous of Tina’s new American life. Boys who want to see her when she visits. And if they can have sexy photos before that. Which obviously doesn’t happen.

The thing is that Tina doesn’t fit into either life. When she goes back to Ukraine, everyone sees her as the rich girl who speaks English and has moved abroad. In the USA, everyone thinks of her as the poor Eastern European girl whose mom is a bought Russian bride.

Tina picked up the language and accent with ease, but she’s still not one of the local girls. She’s happy to be an outcast. OK, happy isn’t the right word. Because a lot of the time she’s depressed. But she embraces it. Holed up in her bedroom, scouring her devices, hoping to come across the meaning of life.

Because surely there is more to it. Whether it is working hard all your life in a former soviet state to afford a flat with no heating. Or having all the modern high-tech money can buy and spending your life taking Instagram selfies. Either way, it isn’t enough.

Tina isn’t against technology. Not at all. It’s about how it is used. Yes, she spends some of her time checking Instagram and snapchat stories. But she also reads books on her kindle, watches films and documentaries on her iPad, searches for things on her phone. Following trains of thought and online trails.

Take the phrase she heard recently in a TV series. One girl wanted to become Transhuman. It was the first Tina heard of it, which reminds her that she wants to look it up. Turns out it really is a thing. A strand of hair falls across Tina’s face as she researches. She wants to know more.

I am not going to die. I am not going to die. I am not going to die.

Luke repeats his mantra as he resets his high-caliber assault rifle, peers around the corner. He is the last soldier alive, desperate to survive. And he’s facing a killing machine. The building is in ruins, the surrounding area desolate. It looks like Chernobyl, the place deserted apart from wolves which roam the dead streets.

Maybe it is Chernobyl, Luke not sure what landscape he’s been dropped into. Maybe he should have listened more in High School. Something about a nuclear explosion. It happened before he was born. Apparently, people thought it was the end of the world.

A metal sound echoes through the building, Luke instantly alert. He ducks back out of sight, his heart racing.

It could be an animal searching for food.

Or it could be The Killing Machine.

Literally is more machine than human, cased in armor with the latest high-tech weapons actually attached to his arm.

If Luke doesn’t want to die, he needs to outwit his enemy. He’s almost out of ammunition, can’t waste any shots.

Luke weighs up his choices.

He can wait to see if his enemy appears and then open fire. But what if his hiding place has been spotted? So maybe he needs to move. And quickly.

Luke crabs sideways, moving as stealthily as possible. The way out of the derelict building is down a semi-collapsed stairway. And at the bottom of the stairway is open space until the next structure, a roofless warehouse. If he’s caught in the open, he’ll be gunned down.

Fuck.

There is no good decision here.

Luke feels trapped, frozen in indecision.

Should he just wait for his inevitable death? Keep trying to hide forever? Or get proactive and try being the hunter rather than the hunted?

Luke surveys the wreck of a city laid out in front of him. Unkempt for years, the streets are eerily silent. Hulks of machinery broken and abandoned. No sign of life. Is there even a point in Luke staying alive? What is he going to do, befriend the wolves and live off radiated berries? Once more, a sound snaps Luke out of it.

This time he’s sure.

That was the sound of movement.

The Killing Machine is near.

Luke steels himself, makes his decision. He’s not going to run for it. To get shot in the back would be stupid. He can’t let the machine win. He has to face up to it, has to be a man. Luke raises his weapon, aims at the doorless entrance.

His whole body tenses, his fingers clenched around the trigger.

Without thinking, he eats his top lip.

A sign of nervous tension.

A habit since he was a kid.

Luke repeats his mantra.

I am not going to die. I am not going to die. I am not going to die.