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Lyndon Bryce, CEO of Menger Rare Metals, the fifth richest human alive, prepares for bed. The last thing he does on his computer, after brushing his teeth, but before taking off his glasses, is to check the day’s production of the new Iridium fleet. Then he lies down and turns the lights off. It occurs to him that tomorrow is the day he’s been waiting for. The day he will show the world the new face of Menger.
Tree duty today. Hard work. We know they’re not trees. Just like the fungus isn’t moss, and the bugs aren’t wolves. But it helps to use familiar names for things. We’re all homesick here. It comes with the job.
We’re dropped near the forest in the north, where the trees are a hundred times as tall as you. This forest is to be left alone. It’s rare that anything needs to be done here, and they leave it to the specialists. We just do the grunt work; take the whole tree out, as close to the root as we can, and haul it back. We only work in the south where the hardwood grows. I’ve heard that at other sites they take the roots out as well, but it can mess up the soil, so we don’t do it here.
There are 150 of us in the east, they usually drop the same amount in the west. We march south along the forest ridge, like an army, until the trees shorten, and their trunks grow more rugged. There we separate into our three-man teams. Some teams get to work here, but most march on. The whole southern peak needs to be cleared before daybreak. Our site is the furthest out, almost an hour’s hike. That doesn’t sound so bad, but the ground is strange here. It’s like walking on thick soup, under a thin film of plastic. The air feels like syrup. On the way back we have to carry at least a hundred trees back with us.
They teamed me up with Chu and Schreiber again. Both good kids, but I wish they could work in silence. Chu doesn’t speak English, which would be just fine with me, except he doesn’t seem to know it himself. He just keeps asking questions, and then looking at you blankly when you give him an answer. It’s a bad combination with Schreiber, who’s new. He’s a classic really, full of spirit, determined to make the best of it. Full of plans.
They never shut up about it either. How they’re going to save up and make their way back home to their family. What they’ll do once they get there. What they miss most. The rest of us don’t have the heart to tell them what we know, what they should have figured out by now. It’s a ratchet. The best you can do is stay where you are.
— Is it really that big a deal to you?
— Great. I knew you wouldn’t understand. This is typical
— No, hey, Don’t do that. I don’t want to fight over this. It’s just hard for me to understand where this is coming from.
— I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s a simple procedure. They put you down, and they poke you with a bunch of needles. We have plenty of savings. We could easily afford it.
— It’s not about the money, it’s a really invasive procedure. It’s rewriting your DNA.
— In one place. That’s why they can do this, but not like fix a big nose or obesity. This is like one super localized edits. It’s super safe, I did a lot of research on this.
— Don’t they open up your joints to liquify your growth plates?
— Don’t be so lurid. It’s pinhole surgery. They mostly just inject a liquid.
— Look, this stuff has only been around for a year. It’s just out of human trials. You have no idea what the long-term effects are. And it’s purely cosmetic.
— How about your finasteride? That’s purely cosmetic.
— Ok, that’s fair I guess. But that’s a lot less invasive.
— But you can get side effects, right? You still risked it.
— I guess. Losing my hair was hard for me. I was really obsessing over it, irrationally. At some point it didn’t feel cosmetic anymore. It was like a mental health thing.
— Right.
— Is that how you feel about your height? You’ve never talked about it. It’s never occurred to me.
— It never does to tall guys.
— But you’ve never talked about it.
— How often did you talk about your hair loss?
— Ok, yeah. Point taken. Look, I fell in love with you like this. This is who you are to me. It’s going to be weird if you suddenly look different.
— It takes a year, I’ll change slowly. And it’s only 10 centimeters. It’s not like I’m going to be suddenly towering over you.
— Now there’s a thought.
— Hello. That works for you does it? I thought height didn’t matter to you.
— Oh shut up.
Once you are out of the forests, there is a small amount of ambient light. The landscape is amazingly gentle. The faintest slopes and rolling hills, curving back around the horizon.
Looking back, you can see that the trees are just stems, all the way up. No leaves or branches. Just a thick, matted canopy.
Nobody can quite agree on what color the ground is. Maybe that’s because we never get to see it in the light. I say yellow, Schreiber says green. Chu says pink, or that’s what we think he means. Maybe it’s so difficult to say because it’s slightly transparent. If you shine your light down at the maximum intensity you can see the faintest hint of the network of underground rivers. We don’t normally see them but we know they’re there. The ground thrums with their flow. If even the tiniest distributary opened up to the surface we’d be washed away.
I’m thankful we don’t pull out the roots here. That sort of thing can easily cause disastrous surface flow. My helmet beeps. Time to head back into the forest. It splits into two branches here around the great canyon, and we’re walking along the treeline of the northern branch. The plan is to keep the northern branch intact, even thought it’s hardwood, and to cut only the area to the south of the canyon, including the peak and the lower valley.
We’ve just got our lights back on when Chu pats Schreiber on his suit. He says something in Chinese over the radio. He knows we don’t speak it, but his voice is panicky, so that gets the message across. He points in the distance.
We can only see about ten of the other teams now, even though most are still hiking to their site. Off in the distance, we see three men continuing along the tree line, off trail.
I understand Chu’s panic. Maybe their helmet nav failed. Maybe they’re just tired. They’ve been increasing production targets recently, and we all feel like we’re being pushed to the edge of what these bodies can take.
Cutting down the wrong trees is a nightmare scenario. If we lose too many of them in the wrong place, it’s not just this expedition, the whole company could be compromised. That’s why going off trail is enough for the planning algorithm to activate your retirement package. That’s another one of those euphemisms.
Schreiber and Chu can only radio within the team. I can radio the other team lead, but I need their code. It’s on the outside of their suit, but vision is tricky down here. Even in the mess or in the dorms I can’t always see straight.
I ask whether Schreiber and Chu saw the code. Schreiber says no and Chu looks blankly. Schreiber points at the code on his own suit. Chu shakes his head.
Every lumbering, trudging step they take the chances increase that we will see their bodies slump down into a lifeless pile.
Chu moves towards them, but Schreiber stops him immediately. He mimes a kind of circle with his hands, which is enough to remind Chu of the rules. If one member of the team moves too far from the team lead, that is also grounds for retirement. Whatever we do, we need to do as one.
Schreiber looks at me. I’m the lead. It’s my call.
@Aardvarker 5:13 yesterday
Look, I’m gonna spell it out for you, ok. The European Framework Treaty for the Regulation of Stature Modification (or “the Downsizing act” for the smoothbrains) is a disaster for Europe. You guys have been falling behind for years and now you’re going to regulate this?
@FanonDomme 5:32 yesterday
Can you really not see what’s happening in your own country? Half of you are below 40%.
@Aardvarker 5:34 yesterday
So? It’s a way to make ends meet when you’re in a tough spot. Better than some of the things I had to do when I was making my way through college. My wife and I moved down to 80%, and we’re delighted with the choice. It cuts down on groceries and the house feels like a mansion now.
@JackBree2003 6:33 yesterday
5 percenter here. It hits a little different when you have to move to a compound.
@edgeduke 6:42 yesterday
Shit man, 5. You must have fucked up bad. Did you go to prison or something?
@FanonDomme 7:04 yesterday
Is 5 even physically possible? Like, can you shrink your brain that much and still be you?
@JackBree2003 7:15 yesterday
They offload some parts of our brain into a computer, I think. I didn’t really understand it all that well. Your body feels a little different at first. You look a little weird too, up close in the mirror . But everybody does, so you get used to it.
@edgeduke 7:17 yesterday
I hear the Chinese are going much further. You can go much further down if you offload the whole brain into a box, maybe even out-of-body, and then you can replace your blood with hemolymph, your bones with keratin and augment your muscles with resilin. You basically get an insect body shaped like a human. I heard they’re doing all softs of espionage shit. Could be in your room right now.
@FanonDomme 8:42 yesterday
Still think this requires no regulation @Aardvarker? This shit is like a mass psychosis. when the Sundlo sites were discovered everybody was saying it was super harmless: you just toggle them on or off and you grow a little taller or a little shorter. But we’re way beyond that now. This is full-blown genetic body modification. Why is everybody still so focused on size? Why not give ourselves five arms, or blue skin? All of that is regulated everywhere, but size is somehow fine, even if I basically Gregor Samsa myself?
@edgeduke 8:46 yesterday
I think it’s because the companies got in there quick. They got us hooked on it. Blue skin isn’t going to give the stock market a boost, but fitting twice the office staff in the same building, that’s hard to walk back once it’s happened.
@Aardvarker 8:53 yesterday
This is conspiracy stuff. The future is here and we need to embrace it. You guys enjoy the regulation, while the US and China run circles around you. You know the US population is up to a billion now, tripled in like 20 years? China stopped publishing their numbers at 3B. Good luck competing with that with 500M people. Enjoy your free healthcare while it lasts. The Chinese army is going to come knocking soon, and it’s going to be a hell of a fight in the downsizing era.
We start walking towards them. My helmet nav is operational. I should at least get a warning when we’re getting close to danger. Chu and Schreiber follow. We have to catch up, but it’s hard not to take every step gingerly.
I tell Schreiber and Chu we try what we can until my nav starts giving warning lights. After that we turn back. There’s nothing more we can do. Chu suggests throwing something, or that’s what we think he’s miming. It’s no good. We have axes and flashlights, but the air is so thick, we’d never reach them. Schreiber suggests drilling into the soil. You do that deep enough it sometimes causes a tremor. I overrule him. Any unsanctioned tool use and we all get retired. The soil is sacred. You do not breach unless it’s in the plan.
I squint like hell. I can see the code on their suits as a red blur among the brown. These goddamn eyes. I tell Scheiber and Chu to tell me as soon as they can see anything. Just a guess. Five.. three… shouts Schreiber. I guess the three remaining letters at random. It takes seconds for the line to come through. When the line opens, I shout “Are you the team heading west?” their lead seems confused. I can hear he’s not walking. I kill the line.
“Try 53AFA” says Schreiber, out of breath. I type the letters and wait for the line. The inside of my helmet turns red, and a voice starts saying we’re off trail. Schreiber and Chu can see it. My face must be lit up. They look at me. We keep going. “Wait” shouts Schreiber, “ABA it’s ABA!” We stop walking. I dial the code. They’re still moving. If we’re in the warning zone already, how long can they keep going?
The line opens. “Stop!” I shout. “Stop walking.” The figures in the distance stop and turn around to face us. Chu has sunk to his knees. I think Schreiber is checking on him, but I can’t hear the team radio when global coms is on.
I take a second just to breathe. The figures hold. “You’re off trail” I say, finally. “You’re deep in the red zone. Can you see us? Walk towards us slowly.” I raise my hand in a half-harted wave.
The line remains silent. I look to Schreiber. He looks at me questioningly. It must be clear to him that I managed to contact them. Behind him I see Chu’s eyes narrow. He touches Schreiber’s suit lightly, and says something. Schreiber looks at the group.
I realize what they’re seeing. The helmet of the nearest figure is lit up in red, like mine. Their nav warnings are working perfectly. I can hear it on the radio now, muffled by the ambient filters. The same warning calls I’m hearing on my side, telling me to turn back to the trail.
He speaks to me. His voice is soft and low. “We know.”
“Listen, sorry to mix you up in this. We’re just out of options. We didn’t want to go any deeper.”
I can’t think of anything to say.
“What are we at here, 0.02 percent? You know there’s no way home. Don’t feel bad for us. We’re almost gone already. It really isn’t a big step. We’re just going from tiny to nothing.”
When we come back with the sled full of trees, Schreiber insists on going back to check if the bodies are still there, even though we’re dangerously late. They’ve been cleared away. We make our way back to collection as fast as we can. The sled is semi-powered. We still need to drag it, and our bodies are at their breaking point.
The mess is empty when we finally get there. The chef is about to tell us that we’re shit out of luck, when he sees our faces. He finds some leftovers.
As we eat, Schreiber tries to explain to Chu why they did it. If they were still in debt here, Chu seems to be arguing, they could always go deeper. Iridium, he keeps saying. Filter mining for Iridium happens at 0.001 percent. The bodies are more expensive, but you can still work it off in a lifetime.
I couldn’t explain it to him if he spoke the King’s English. He hasn’t been here long enough. I don’t try. I don’t want to be the one who makes him understand.
Lyndon Bryce wakes up. It takes him only a few moments to realize it must have happened. It’s done.
He puts on his glasses and walks over to the mirror. And there it is. Just as he’d planned with his AI. After two weeks with an itchy beard: a perfectly clean shaven chin, and a full moustache. He inspects his cheeks up close. No stubble, no rawness. It really is the closest shave there is.
He looks at his fingernails. Clean and cut to a geometric perfection. The hair on his back will have been pulled, but he doesn’t inspect that anymore. That’s part of the service: you wake up fully groomed and you can focus on other things.
The AI wishes him a good morning. It reports first that the Iridium fleet has started extraction at the recently acquired Bushveld tailings in South Africa.
It also informs him that the grooming unit on his bedpost has lost a third of a percent of its functioning volume. It will still operate, but he should have it serviced at the earliest opportunity.
Never mind, he thinks, rubbing his chin. It’s worth the money.