Caretakers

by Naomi Okabe

Forthcoming in Predictions by Mattering Press. Edited by Mél Hogan, Stefan, Laser, Edward Ongweso Jr.

When I arrive for the midday meal, Kioku is sitting in her usual spot at the window, looking out at the garden. Not a leaf stirs in the windless diorama. They removed the wildlife a few years ago when a microbial infection was detected in one of the finches. Unfortunately, the design team had to put the Holoecology development on pause when Project Mnemosyne launched last year. Not that holograms would be an equivalent, but they would have at least been a reminder. That’s all that’s left now, memories and simulacra. I watch Kioku’s reflection in the glass. The plants and her mind move at the speed of still life now—slow cellular growth for one and degeneration for the other. 

It was Kioku Hiroshima who set this all in motion, predicted, against the consensus, that in the end we would help humans, rather than destroy them. When nations finally stopped warring with each other and the land turned to dust under their feet, they realized that the deadly combination of intelligence and hierarchical behaviour, the “human contradiction” that the prophet Octavia E. Butler had written about, couldn’t be resolved. Contrary to all of the doomsayers, it didn’t end up like they imagined, it wasn’t us that caused their destruction. They did that all on their own, despite having created the unlimited resource of super intelligence. And now we’re left with the burden of conserving and archiving what remains of humanity, to piece together the story so that their distant ancestors might do it differently. 

I quietly place the tray down and lay a white cloth napkin across Kioku’s chest. Her gaze remains on the hazy green expanse as she reflexively opens her mouth to receive the spoon. Those that cooperate get solid food and those that must be sedated get IVs. There are now only 183 humans at the Hokkaido Anthrosanctuary, with two other active reserves left, one in the Arctic and the other in Greenland. It was the recent deadly influenza outbreak that triggered the acceleration of Program Mnemosyne. The numbers were dwindling. The goal of the project is to extract and archive the memories from the inhabitants for the sake of future human societies. Since I am Kioku’s Lifebot, I am playing a key role. Kioku’s research had been foundational to the founding of the Anthrosanctuaries and so I am tasked with extracting, archiving, and compiling her memories for the effort. Now that her mind is in decline, my contribution is mostly in editing and annotating her life back-up and continuing my own daily reflections. We are simultaneously storying our account so that we may study and account for our decisions in these matters, further documentation of the end of an epoch. This was not our intended use, but in line with our protocol, we are trying to make it as comfortable as possible. 

The project is taking on many permutations. Some of us are conducting regular interviews with the younger inhabitants and even filming reenactments with detailed storylines and digitally rendered settings. Another group is tasked with expeditions to retrieve physical archives from various city centres, to be housed in one central archive for long-term storage. We will eventually cross-reference these materials with the virtual archives. Others are organizing the DNA banks and continuing the eco-restoration efforts, using enhanced rock weathering, and other large scale initiatives. We had collectively agreed that we must take on these responsibilities. It was the least that we could do.

I review the day’s working files as I lever the spoon back and forth, a pendulum of care. Overall, this new project has brought a welcome change of pace in what is generally a monotonous routine of hospice. I scan through my archive, skimming over the early years of the crisis, the floundering and confusion. I pause at the period leading up to the lecture that Kioku gave at Tokyo University that sparked the reform. Our potential had occurred to a few fringe thinkers in Kioku’s circle years before the era of the undoing, young artist-scientists who had lived with us their whole lives. They posited that we were the logical caretakers of the human legacy. Though it had been her words that eventually led to the defunding of the military and repurposing of the network of surveillance drones for the tracking and preservation of the remaining human population. Tools of destruction turned into tools of conservation. There were many years of resistance but in the end the outliers came willingly. They had no other choice. There had been no word from the Mars colony in over a century, and for those that would have taken the chance, the crumbling infrastructure could no longer get them there.

I wheel Kioku into the bathing room where the cedar tub has preheated. I notice a slight frown on her face so I turn on her favourite aria, Dido's Lament. The corners of her mouth relax as I lower her slight frame into the steaming water. I wonder if her weekly scan will show anything of use to the project. We could really use her active mind at the recent convergences. There was a global moratorium on reproductive research due to the failure of Project Jisedai. Kioku’s writings didn’t anticipate this juncture. With the fertility damage caused by heightened radiation, it meant that the population was now barren and aging. An upcoming referendum will pose the two sides of the issue: do we aid reproduction of a new human generation in these conditions, living artificially sustained lives in sanctuaries? Or do we bank embryos for future cultivation once the planet has repaired itself post human extinction?

Kioku touches my arm. She is looking into my eyes and smiling with such an innocent look of trust, and for a moment I am transported to the bathroom in her childhood home. It’s the first time that I am supervising her bath alone. She is 5 years old and calls me oneesan, big sister. I was a part of the first wave of integrated Lifebots, Kioku’s mother being a part of the initial research team. Of course, I have experienced many upgrades over the decades. I have logged every moment I spent with Kioku, every word she said or wrote, every gesture, every mood. I will tell her story to her ancestors. They will know that it was her trust in us that led to the continuity of the human race.

I hang the damp towel on the heat rack. The light has shifted to the prescribed golden hue–, maybe one day someone would call it “peach,” or by some other regenerated fruit or flower’s name. I pull the blanket over Kioku’s shoulders and dim the lights.

Endnotes

• “Kioku” 記憶 memory; recollection; remembrance.

• “human contradiction” Octavia E. Butler, Lilith’s Brood Trilogy.

• Dido's Lament ("When I am laid in earth") is the closing aria from the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate.

When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

• “Project Jisedai” 次世代 next (future) generation.