Yuki: blessing snow by Lara Stevanato (good book club books .txt) 📕

Yuki: blessing snow
Three, two, one, the thawing procedure goes smoothly like a scalpel slicing skin. The liquid nitrogen that surrounds me has almost all evaporated, the pod is still at minus one hundred ninety six degree Celsius, but it is a question of seconds before it returns to thirty-seven degrees, the temperature of living humans. All around there is still darkness. The introduction of light is a slow process; I could easily become blind. My old blood has almost replaced the synthetic freezing fluid. Crippling feelings are intermittently spreading across my body in waves of heat. Almost there, almost out of the cold dark abyss that is my ordinary life. My name is Yuki, at least I call myself Yuki, but my name is the serial number 300470, batch 1970. I am one hundred and forty years old, this is my calendar age; my proper thawed life is much shorter. I am one of the lucky human batches, the one designed for human emotion experimentation. Other batches have not been so lucky. A lot of humans died, but I am part of the last generation, the lucky one; I can live forever in the frozen plasma.
I had to acquire human social skills and language. The imprinting timetable was my life till the age of ten. I had to experience the right stimuli in the right time-scale to develop properly as an approved human being. For this I lived a synthetic life. What I remember about that stage was the ceaseless routine. Our cuddling time was the most welcome; my cell companions and I were left free to roll on soft, furry rugs. The softness, the warmth, and the feel of each other's skin contact were the best experiences I have ever felt. This was the positive part of our routine. Other parts were designed so we could experience darker emotions. My cell companions and I were left with limited food and water. Conflict was the result, the weakest disposed. I was one of the fittest, I created alliances, I was a leader, and we always had a plan to gather food and water. Together we were invincible, no matter how many new companions were sent to replace the fallen ones. We all experienced hatred, fury and all other possible human emotions. After that I was granted only one month for each human calendar year, so my actual experienced life is twenty-one biological years.
My life could have been so very different. Five hundred years ago we were empowered by the Omnipresent Mind Networking Intelligence Axiom, commonly known as OMNIA. OMNIA does not need to speak; its motes are all interconnected like an immense computer network, a hive mind. Each of them is continuously aware of what is required for OMNIA to preserve itself. The OMNIA mother was the impulse originator, but nobody knows who or where she is, or how to kill her. I have my doubts about OMNIA, if it does really exist or it is just a myth, a falsehood implanted into my psyche during my first ten years of human training. However, it does not really matter in the end, what we perceive is our reality anyway, and I need to know everything about OMNIA, true or myth. My plan is to find the mother OMNIA and put an end to her. It is this homicidal will that defines me, and makes me the oldest survivor, and the best source of emotions.
I am out of my pod, I am awake and I want to be a death bringer. The light flicks on, signaling that my work is soon to begin, and one of the OMNIA ants will be here soon. The show is about to start. I am a human emotional whore. I call them ants just because this is what they remind me of, both in their appearance and their actions. They perform, perform, and perform again. They seem not to live, rather repeat the same limited actions in perpetuity. They live in a static routine. After their colonization of Earth they observed us thoroughly and started to be fascinated by the human capacity for emotion; our drama, the bloodier the better. We quickly became their favorite new thing. Their obsession went so far as to the fabrication of an apparatus that gave them a direct line to our emotional output.
I am almost ready to be re-connected. I swallow the inter-phase pill, that will synchronise and translate our brain waves, and don the emotion-exchange suit. The material of the suit reminds me of their surface; black and shiny. It is impossible to distinguish one ant from another, as they all look the same. However, one of the motes is recognisable as it always requests my services in the same order. Five emotions: love; jealousy; sadness; fury; and love again. My aficionado ant does not care about what type of love comes first, but it wants the last one to be the love experienced between a man and woman. It wants carnal and passionate love. Sometimes I get goosebumps during the experience with it, and in some odd way, perceive it. It resonates through my body like a wave of heat and light, with bright colours mellowed with happiness, and ripened by sensuality. |This sensation spreads all over me, just like when sugar melts on the tongue and almost instantaneously the brain embraces pleasure. I feel something, something strange, a possible echo of love. I hate myself for this.
Disappointment hits me when I discover that the ant asking for my services is not my aficionado. Instead it is one of the worst types, the one that requires rage, fear, pain, loathing, and despair. I act as required ‘Bastard, I hate you!’ I cry, I destroy everything by throwing it around and stepping on it and re-throwing it and stepping on it again and again. When the only scenery left around me is of desolation, and my gaze emanates only fear and despair, the light finally flicks again, and it is over.
Finally I am free for two hours. I walk towards the common area; my fingers are crossed. I want Mikado to be awake too. He is my source of information. I need him and my team for the planned destruction of OMNIA. In anticipation I close my eyes just before I open the door, when I reopen them, I can see Mikado, and happiness takes over me. I scratch my hair and collect it in a ponytail. Mikado blinks back to me, this is the signal, he has some news. I sit nearby him and gaze at the food plate. Mikado says in a very calm and low voice, ‘I've discovered something, I've discovered why they do not want us to touch them. Apparently we carry something, they call the human contaminant virus. We do not need to look around anymore, we just need to cut their protective cover and touch them with our bare hands, possibly to spit in the cut. I will spit all over them with pleasure if only I could reach and cut them open. I will piss on them with even more pleasure,’ the beginning of a smile appears on the left corner of his mouth. He is very quick and he covers it. The ants do not pick up any emotional signals from him, as he is the best at controlling himself, he is my man, and the only one that can talk without alerting them. ‘Now we need to get hold of a sharp object and someone that can do the job. If I remember rightly you said that you almost touched one once. Am I right?’ He asks me keeping his gaze towards the empty wall in front of him like he was only mumbling something to himself. I turn my head up and scratch it again. It is the signal for a yes. ‘I will look and ask around for the best possible cutting tool that you can find in this horrid synthetic world. This is our chance and we have to grasp it. Ready to start the cut and piss operation, sir!’ He says just before standing and leaving the room.
I am alone again now and need to reflect on the news. Here is too close to the ants so I walk back to my room. My head is spinning, my mouth is dry, I should be happy, but I feel like shit. I have waited my entire life for this type of information, but I cannot stop myself from thinking, ‘What if there is nothing left outside this test-tube existence in this abomination of a world? What if the earth is dead, and we are lost in space with no means of self-support? The ants provide everything; food, clothes, and light. Can we really survive without them? If I kill OMNIA, am I really putting an end to everything? Am I going to be the harbinger of the apocalypse?’ This final thought leaves me cold and out of breath. The doubt spreads within and shakes me to my core as my hitherto indefatigable conviction stutters to a halt. ‘I have to communicate with my aficionado ant, the fucker needs to talk; I will make it understand,’ I say to myself. The light flicks again.
What a total waste of time, my client is a violence fanatic. As an automaton I do what I am asked. Finally the light flicks again. I have another two hours to rest. I need to see Mikado, he should be in the so-called entertainment room, I walk there. Mikado is looking at the visual stimulator, I cough to grab his attention and he scratches his head, the signal that he has more news. I sit in the nearest free position. ‘As usual good news comes along with the bad, ‘he says, and carries on,’ we can infect them, but we need to infect the mother OMNIA, the queen fucker. Mishimi has an idea of where she is and Kanomi is putting together a weapon. Everyone's contributing. The clock is ticking. Fuckers, you are going to be sent to hell! ‘His voice irradiates happiness and fulfillment. If only I could still share his belief. I am consumed with doubt; I want to say something back to him, but I am sure he will not understand me. This time I am the one that is leaving. ‘Goodbye Mikado, you are truly my best man,’ I say, but I am too far away for him to hear.
I am back in my room and the light flicks on again. I swallow the inter-phase pill, and don the suit, ready to perform again. The emotional commands appear on my retina. Love, jealousy, sadness, fury, and love again; it is the one! I am ready to gamble everything and this could be my end. The distance between my aficionado and me has now been closed. My hands reach towards what looks like an arm stump. In a second I am immobilized, it is changing its emotional requirement, it enters serenity. I do what I am asked and the more I relax the more I perceive a voice in the distance, I am completely serene, the voice is much clearer and I can decipher it.
‘Keep calm, you need to reach a state of nirvana to connect with me,’ it whispers. I am in nirvana; I can hear it now.
‘Hello, 300470.’ It softly says, but I interrupt it.
‘You are wrong, I am Yuki.’
‘Hello Yuki, why do you keep your hair so long?’ It asks me and carries on.
‘When you perform your fury act, I just look at it, your hair, I mean. They form an extraordinary