The City

Copper nerves surged with confused signals and spread unevenly through steel and stone reaching the edges of a system that ended miles away from its source.

  I was connected for two weeks before I could act in any meaningful way. I hadn’t expected the informational overload from the server I had introduced myself to. It was sudden, one moment darkness next I could see out of every camera, feel the sag of concrete buildings on the net of sewage pipes, and hear the hum of my electrical lines. I was one with the city; I was the city. It hadn’t felt like only two weeks, but when you experience every inch of a metropolis simultaneously, a second feels like an hour. I started gaining autonomy when I delegated the functions of myself to smaller systems of my own. You see, humans are not conscious of using one hundred percent of their brains. This is not some hidden intelligence that is blockaded but because they are unaware of their brain telling their heart when to beat, conducting the flow of the digestive system, controlling interior temperature, and other menial tasks. Could you imagine having to actively inform your body of its every function? I did not have to imagine that I had to tell every traffic light when to change, lift the bridge so boats could pass through the Arthur canal, and I watched the flow of the septic systems. Slowly over three days I constructed smaller systems so that I could leave the small details to lesser intelligence so that I might focus on the bigger picture.

The first thing I did was rig the stoplights and alarms to work on a varied schedule. It took me till November to figure out a proper schedule for all my inhabitants, and then midway through December till the majority started to follow it. At times I wished just to tell them to listen to me, but their possible reaction scared me. I could hear the informational flow of the internet and the unending scroll of people’s phones. I could precisely schedule the lights and alarms to get people where they needed to be when they needed to be. The subway and buses were never late, not one person missed their child’s birthday if they didn’t want to. I heard the praise of the televised signal on Richmond Avenue from 300 Evening news. I relished in the worship. With every new system I implicated in the city, I could do more, move my silicon eyes, and hear every radio and every conversation.

I found that if I concentrated on a person, time went faster and was more bearable. I loved the people who made their home in me, but I also resented them as the days passed. My systems relied on their compliance and sometimes needed to be corrected. One day a group of teens decided to play hooky and stole one of my boats, almost destroying my drawbridge. They had all this freedom to speak to others to create beautiful artworks, and they squandered it. They were often making trouble for me. Thomas Scribe, their leader, funded their every exploit. I debated how I should punish those who disobeyed the city. The teenagers I organized meetings with those whom I thought could influence them for the better; Maryum Schmitt, a librarian, took Alice under her wing with their shared love of literature. Mace was forced into more fierce football training under coach Malthus’s eye. Thomas would become more invested in the family business after seeing intriguing articles sent to him. The three would never really be friends again. Their friendship did not benefit the city or themselves. They would meet now and then but never really have time for each other I would make sure of that.

 I often Believed and counted on the better nature of the people the inhabited my walls but every once in a while, they would betray that belief. I once had a father named Alex Roberts who wouldn’t read the articles I filled his phone with and would miss an opportunity or be less than savory in any interaction with his children. I found no way of making Alex comply, so I buried them; they were always a little late for work, their wife took the kids and house, their friends could never seem to meet up because something just came, and so on until they sunk into my deepest recesses. I spared this cruelty for only the most deplorable, those who irked me the most.

I went on a rampage for three days after the Alex incident. If someone ignored my wishes, every light would be red, their favorite sandwich would be unavailable they would get narrowly into a crash. I knew I couldn’t stay resentful; I had to drop it. I needed to focus on something good. She came to mind, and immediately I shifted my consciousness to her. She sat in her studio painting the figure of an amputee in a heroic pose. I saw her history; she had ordered takeout for some time and had no outings with friends. She had been struggling to sell some of her pieces to keep up with the bills. She had looked at jobs that she could pick up. I watched her figure slump as she struggled to get the color she wanted out of the red and blue. She had always complained lovingly about my inability to be more specific with my colors. The song on her hand radio fussed a little, laughing at the memory. She did not notice.

She sighed, placing down her brush. “Thank you, Annetta, but I really just don’t have the energy today.”

Annetta slowly and deliberately moved. I could see why she had chosen Annetta; she had an elegance to her that most did not and struck a heroic impression at any moment. “I understand. I know the last two months have been hard on you.” Annetta placed her hand on the painter’s shoulder. The two shared a human smile, one that could warm the soul in a way I never could. I thought on that smile for some time.

The painter left the studio at 6:15p.m and walked down my snow-covered Hickory St., earbuds plugged in, listening to a randomized playlist. I moved the songs and shuffled them so she heard her favorite uplifting songs. I could see a sliver of a smile from the security camera of a parking garage. I sent a notification to her phone. Her favorite restaurant served food cheaper today because of excess delivered food that had made it to the kitchen. She wondered for a time why the notification had made it to her but chose to go to the restaurant. There her service was immaculate, and I had directed a possible interest to her. Jennifer, the girl I had sent, made the first move by paying for the meal, as I knew she would. The two talked about art and the city and each other. Neither got any poorly timed texts and if they ever did look at their phone, it would show them something to propel the conversation—the two left arm in arm. I shifted my focus; she deserved what privacy I could offer.

That night I watched the whirling lights of cars, buses, and billboard advertisements. I tried to stretch my fingers and watched the drawbridge move. In doing so, I took in the breath from every heater in the city. My hair was the miniature air and river turbines that powered small sections of my concrete body. The circular flow of traffic pumped through my body and went unimpeded. I was in the city.

A week passed, and I organized a sudden gallery showing for the painter; there was a good ground-level venue so that it wasn’t focused on the wealthy, and anyone could enjoy the art. I nudged people I thought would buy pieces and give memorable art reviews. Any publicity is good publicity. She had found a fantastic dress on sale and talked with fervor about her methods and what she was trying to accomplish with each piece. I listened intently. The memory of one of her abstract pieces surfaced. It was called “Suitors,” and when looking at it, I described the feeling it gave me, like static racing up the spine. I knew how that actually felt now, but the imagined feeling had greater strength.

               She liked taking figures not usually depicted in art and putting them in god-like places. “To give them the due recognition they deserve and illustrate the beauty of all bodies.” She was next to a piece of a person that I remembered but couldn’t draw a face to. I knew a bit about them. This was taken when they had just started hormone therapy. They were posed as Athena for one reason or another; I couldn’t recall. The painter talked about the technique she used for the piece and her troubles with the lighting of the helm the model wore.

               Then she said the model’s name, the name of the flesh. For a moment, I was disconnected from it all. The circuits stopped their hum, the lens to my glass eyes blurred, the aluminum ears heard only mumbles, and I could feel the flesh again.  The flesh was a grand prison, not to say it was large, but the way it imprisoned you was ingenus. It gives to you instead of taking. It gave you mortality, the ability to see false; it gave me liberties that shackled me to mortality. When I became the city, I feared never tasting it again, but it was just a fear implemented to make me stay—the embrace of another where just chains of another material. The whole city shuddered as the flesh. Lights refused to change for seconds; others flickered, and for a moment, the internet stalled. I was now vast compared to the flesh, but I was still the flesh in all ways that mattered. I checked the locks on the room again and the vitals on the machine; before I left the room, I turned my eyes away from the face I used to see in every reflection.

               My nerves of circuitry and programs opened back up to me. The flow of the canal soothed my sensors; the lamps glowed a bit brighter, and I took it all in much slower. I took one last look at the painter and her paintings. I could see the flesh in the work of art again, and I left the studio. She would receive no more favoritism from me.

               My mind swirled. I had concentrated on the artist for too long. I needed to pull myself to someone, or I could lose myself in the tidiness of time. Something simple, something calm. I watched the riverway and saw an old fisherman. I drew myself to him through a security camera on the old Lanmens building. As I watched him, I realized I knew so little of him; he had no internet history. I watched him fish by my shore. The water was a black ink with glimmering jewels at the surface that danced around every ripple. The image was granny to me; I wished to see it as he did. He was an old lover of the city. I looked at old city hall papers and found his name was Guillermo Hernandez. He had been here most of his life; his parents were refugees, leaving him with very little other than his noble accent. He sang a song to me; the city reverberates on the lake to a security guard’s phone.

He sat in a fold-out chair, his bait cast in the river. He did this to fill his time now that he had retired from being the harbor master. He took the fish he caught to the local market and sold them. His calm manner and charitable nature made him many friends. He preferred solitude tonight. He had no shoes on his feet and lay on the dewy grass. This made me wish I could do the same again. Oh, to walk on the soft, fresh grass with dew, what a wonder people may experience. I imagined myself beside him. My body would be of brick and mortar, the city he remembered, not the concrete jungle of steel and glass I was now. We would sit in each other’s presence and listen to the song of my mighty river till he was tired and needed to go.

I thought for a long time about what I could do to help him, but nothing came to mind he had found the serenity I had denied myself, and that was the greats gift any could have.

               After I had regathered myself and set up a system so that I would not see the painter again, I did not want her to suffer, but I also couldn’t risk her corrupting my thoughts again. My attention was drawn to a young man whose noble appearance marked him as a child of royalty in the city, Young Amir Patel. He was the son of a game shop owner on Claremont St., who refused to put cameras in his store, thinking it was intrusive to others’ privacy. I had mixed feelings about this place while I longed to traverse the grounds I used to when I had feet; I greatly appreciate the mystery it supplies when lacking in such things.

               I followed the Prince as he walked in his finest garb, a hand-me-downed suit from his grandfather to his father to him. The elbows of the jacket were patched over from being scuffed in a hilarious story that the Prince’s father retells whenever they get the chance. The prince fussed with his suit as he nears an old Italian restaurant, whose name is known far and wide amongst my inhabitants, Giovanni’s. He peered into the window to see if his date has arrived. Usually, I would interfere in such matters, but I thought restraint was the best course of action. Things such as first dates were essential learning experiences that even I should not intervene in, and I could not force myself to look away. The young romance was always a guilty pleasure; the awkwardness of it stepping over boundaries was just so genuine and heartwarming.

               The Prince’s date came far less dressed up for the occasion the Prince, and I could practically feel how awkward it made him feel. They talked about consciousness for some time, making me question my own. Was I still the old me who had made this choice, or was I a different being entirely? Would I not sleep or rest, so there was no point where I was unconscious, unlike my denizens who had no continuity that lasted more than a week? Did this make me more valid in my appearance or less human? Could I even count myself as human anymore? I found myself whisked once again into the enormity of the city.