Hereafter Inc.

by Mohamed Shalabi

Washington D.C.

Adam’s profile blew up across the smooth, white exterior of the Department of Security and Pre-violations building as Mara drew near. She could smell the electric current bouncing off the screen, like burnt plastic that made her nostril hairs stand. She paused in the heat, gradually lifting her gaze to the massive moving image of her son feeling shaken. The shadow of the Washington monument’s tip, repurposed as the Eagle’s Eye server tower, the heart of the city’s surveillance, skewered his skull like a sword. Seconds later, the words Enemy Subdued flashed beneath Adam’s face, like the shadows had spelled out his sentence. She gasped as a current shot through her heart, stopping it for a few seconds. Her eyes burned and she bit her lip until the burn subsided. She tasted blood.

They are lying, she thought and quickly buried that thought. Somehow, she could do that, forget tiny details of her life, simply by pressing a finger behind her ear where she could just about feel the Vagus nerve chip buried beneath her flesh.

It wasn’t working as effectively now that she was faced with Adam’s image and his sentence.

Her eyes lingered upon his face, studying his droopy eyes, taut skin, straight hair, remembering how she used to tousle it with her fingers when he was young enough to sit in her lap, wishing it were curly like her own. She had recorded that memory, saved it in his profile and uploaded it to the EE. Back then, she assumed it would come in handy as a tool for reflection. Something that would help Adam on his path to immortality.

His face melted into the wall and reemerged with the guilt-ridden profiles of two other men and one woman. In her brain, she scrolled through the rolodex of names and faces of her son’s acquaintances, but these faces didn’t make an appearance.

He shouldn’t be there.

Suddenly, a virtual flame burst through the screen, red and hot and real enough, she could feel its heat upon her skin, consuming the four profiles into virtual ash. A few of the passersby gasped before resuming their excursion. Behind her, the whole of the city including its mobile and airborne drones, was watching the wall and the face of her son being broadcast, shamed. They were watching her reaction too, to see if she would do anything drastic. No one acted drastically since Hereafter Inc., the company she started and sold to the DOSP, became part of their lives. Back then, twenty years ago, she was named a pioneer of a new industry that revitalized security in America by introducing a credit system that made people reconsider the choices they made in life… or suffer a lifetime, and afterlife, of pain.

Welcome to Hereafter Inc. Where you can literally go to hell if you step out of line. 

As Mara had expected, a camera lens winked at her just a few inches away, and she strained, fumbled to turn her frown into a smile until her face hurt. She reluctantly glanced at her wrist where a subcutaneous number, a result of the credit-chip planted there since her company started operating, flashed in green.

I am still safe, she thought and allowed herself an exhale.

Inside the building, cool air blasted across her face, but it wasn’t enough to quench the burning heat inside her. The scuffle of feet against the tiles and the small chatter she was used to hearing from her former workplace, former as of last week, was deafening now and somewhat of a nuisance. She watched all the feigned smiles on the faces around her and her stomach turned like she’d eaten something rotten. She continued past the crowds, past the courier bots towards her office, wondering if it too had changed in a week’s time. She hoped not. As a contractor for the DOSP, she acknowledged the underlying issues of bureaucracy, namely that of time and was optimistic about her office, her belongings still being where they were since she’d ‘resigned’.

Down the main corridor where only a few people and bots trailed by, the colorful posters of Hereafter Inc. that lined the dull walls flashed with messages she authored or otherwise signed off on.

She focused on the fire-orange posters that oozed with ominous tones, featuring men and women escaping an inferno blazing behind them in a pit.

Protect your State. Protect your fate. Hereafter Inc.

The sky-blue posters were calmer, featuring men and women wearing toothy grins, too wide to be normal, overlooking an endless forest enclosing a crisp lake, and bordered by tall glass buildings that touched the sky.

You’ll Be in Safe Hands for Eternity. Upgrade Today If You Qualify. Hereafter Inc.

Adam should have been there, she thought, and continued on into the bowels of the building where she was bombarded with more preachy posters that made her feel deep disdain for her past self.

Watch yourself like someone else is watching. One read, depicting a man stashing a gun in his pocket with obvious shame while the eyes of the Washington Monument, the EE, squinted at him.

Her skin prickled the closer she drew to her office. She wished she were elsewhere.

A new guard, tall and built like a wall, was standing by the automated turnstiles when she appeared in the narrow hall that cut through the building. The bars, yellow and labeled with Authorized Personnel Only warnings, were shut. She adjusted her wrist until the subcutaneous chip’s outline was green, visible. The guard squinted his no nonsense eyes at her.

When she swiped her wrist along the sensor it flashed red. His eyes met hers.

Perhaps she was wrong about bureaucracy after all. 

“I don’t know why it’s not working, but I have an appointment with Rita Wells,” Mara explained before he could ask, and with nimble fingers, she rubbed the nub where the chip was burrowed. And what the hell did she expect? That they would welcome her back with open arms after what Adam had almost done? Her skin turned hot and a sheen of sweat broke across her forehead.

“Is she expecting you, ma’am?” the man said, his voice steady, but bordering on suspicion. He turned to face her, crossing his arms, as if to prepare himself to eject her should need be. Did he know about Adam too, or was he just a hired henchman?

A second camera lens winked from his badge. They were everywhere, studying everyone’s expressions and thoughts. Judging.

The score on her wrist was still green.

“Yes. Can you please let her know I’m here?” she said and flashed him a smile.

He nodded as if speaking was too taxing. As if she were inconveniencing him. But he could not refuse to do his job. His wrist flashed green as well. He clicked a button on his shoulder and asked the necessary questions. Within a few seconds, the guard swiped his wrist along the sensor and the gate opened.

“Thank you so much!” She barely held her smile. Then she adjusted her purse beneath her armpit and scrambled off, hoping she didn’t look too guilty. The purse felt heavier than usual. She hoped the bag of sugar inside didn’t spill.

Sunlight poured into the corridor where her office was located away from public access. On weekdays, the doors were open to all employees, but Mara had to make the appointment soon and preferably when she and Rita could speak alone. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being a stranger in her old building even when the electronic placard outside her office still projected her name.

Mara Faruq. Creative Projects Director. Hereafter Inc.

When they approached her about her resignation, they did it in person. Such matters were usually left for bots or holo-mail. But her time as a contractor, as long as it was, was valuable to the DOSP despite the danger Adam represented. The process had to be more personal.

She could still remember how hot her face had turned upon hearing the news. All at once. That she was fired and that her son was accused of a pre-violation crime.

She opened the door and poked her head through. The lingering scent of jasmine and white lily reminded her of staying late nights to perfect her project. The present she crafted for Adam when he turned 20. His own virtual heaven. It was in her office where it’d always been. Almost complete, but good enough to host him.

Looking over her shoulder and finding no one around, she slipped in. There were no cameras this deep into the building. It made the employees of the DOSP uncomfortable. Plus, Mara always amused herself with the ironic thought of being under the gaze of the eye that she and her team had built. Lucky for her, the department had trusted its workers to do their jobs without being burdened by micromanaging.

Adam’s scent lingered at the threshold. Deodorant and sweat combating for dominance.

When he was still a child, he used to crawl into her office just to scare her and she pretended to be alarmed. She could almost see his shadow there, his prints in the carpet. Her eyes burned.

The walls, egg-white, were barely visible beneath the schematics of virtual worlds she’d crafted. Their names were handwritten in a corner at the top. Words only she could understand.

Paradise Lost, Jannah, the land of milk and honey, and more and more. There were others too, borne of her imagination and the stories her father used to tell her back when she was a little girl. Paradises and infernos in holy books that either enticed or deterred people into performing certain actions. The same principles she instilled in her concepts. In the past, those worlds were uncertain, unreal, but she brought them to life through long hours of work and complex strings of algorithms. There, in the corner of one of the schemes was scribbled Adam’s name. She touched it, as if it would reach out to her and yanked it off the wall leaving a butterfly of paper stuck to the pin. With a straining heart, she folded the scheme and slipped it into her purse.

No one would notice it was gone. No one would care.

Before she could leave, she checked her drawers for her prized project. Adam’s present, and found it stashed at the back of a binder, away from sight. She never told anyone about it. The virtual heaven normally sold for millions, was purchased by people who could afford the upgrade, people who had the money or the credits. But she was the owner of the company and she could craft whatever virtual heaven or hell she wanted.

Remembering it in her purse, she extracted the still sealed bag of sugar and refilled her personal sugar shaker, the one Rita adored, which resembled a small replica of an ancient Egyptian canopic jar that she left atop her desk. She took the jar with her and left the office for good.

Rita’s office was across from her own. After two light knocks, the woman opened the door with a smile. She didn’t have to put on a smile, but she did anyways.

Rita was younger than her by a few years, still in her late thirties, but work had transformed her face. Whoever said that the AI boom would lessen human suffering was a fool. Thin wisps of grey hairs defiantly poked from her bun, tinted her tar-black eyebrows.  

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come,” she said, moving out of the way to let Mara in. Mara didn’t smile.

“It wasn’t easy, I have to admit. But I need to get some things off my chest,” Mara said, walking toward her usual seat without invitation, feeling the weight in her chest multiply like a stone. She liked Rita’s office because it always smelled like ground coffee. Before she was let go, they used to sit together at her desk and sip coffee while conversing about the old days, trading anecdotes, and stories of their children. Now, the office looked bleak. The live posters plastered all around the building decorated the walls, changing every few minutes. Once blue and green, once orange and red. Even the smell of coffee turned stale and rotten.

“No, I’m glad you came. Really. I mean, I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through recently,” Rita said without looking at her.

She wasn’t sorry, Mara thought. Her children were still alive and her job was secure. Rita was just being professional, so unlike herself. That was when Mara noticed the camera mounted atop her colleague’s computer screen. It was watching her. Watching them both.

Mara fixed her smile again, ignoring the cramp that was starting at the edges of her lips.

“I was just as surprised as you were when the news came out.” Rita placed her hand across her chest, as if she were the one having breathing problems.  

Mara smirked. Were you? She wanted to say but locked the words behind her lips.

“But you know these tragedies just creep up on us when we least expect them to.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to take too much of your time, Rita,” Mara said, with a hint of impatience. She wondered if the camera caught that much. “I just want us to get right to business, if you don’t mind.”

Rita looked taken aback for a second before her expression melted into a smile. “Of course, of course.” She nodded and her fingers swiped across the large screen that sat above her desk. “Let me just pull up your file.”

“You mean Adam’s file.” That hint of defiance in her voice released a bit of tension inside her.

“Yes, of course,” Rita said and whispered. “Adam’s file.”

The space between them was suddenly filled with unspoken words and the heat Mara had radiated all day. Rita tapped her screen a few more times and in rolled a small electronic robot. It looked like a small fridge, encased in black glass. A red light flashed through its facade like an eye as it inched toward her. It could see her too, hear her. Another set of eyes and ears.

“That was quick.” Rita said, reaching for the courier bot. She clicked a button on its smooth surface and a small mechanical drawer opened. From it, she pulled a long, black device that Mara recognized as a memory chip reader. She held back a gasp as her own memory flicked back to when she saw the device the first time after her father died. When the doctors planted his Vagus chip inside it.

Her father had commanded her not to do so, he wanted to die and get it over with, as he so jokingly phrased it. But dying, falling into the void where time and space cease to exist, was against the law. Since her company struck that deal with the government, uploading one’s consciousness to the mainframe postmortem became mandatory.

“Why is he archived?” Mara asked, watching Rita unsheathe the black device. No one was ever meant to be saved in an archive.

Rita took the device that contained her son’s Vagus nerve chip, essentially his entire being, and clicked it into her computer screen. There was a ding.

“The state classifies him as state property.”

Mara’s vision narrowed until it was like looking down a tube. She did not expect this impasse. Had she really thought she could obtain Adam that easily?

“State property?” Her voice was but a whisper.

Rita pretended like she was busy, fixing her eyes to the screen so that she wouldn’t have to register Mara’s contempt. “Criminals… people involved in a crime; especially major ones are required by law to remain within the confines of the state.”

Something inside Mara popped, unleashing a fire that flared from her nose. She ignored the camera lens pointed at her face. She didn’t care, in fact, that it was pointed at her face. She didn’t even realize that she was on her feet again, closing the space between her and Rita with her craning neck and her hot breath.

“You know damn well Adam isn’t a criminal. He didn’t commit any crimes.”

Shocked and speechless, Rita’s eyes flitted to the camera. A nervous smile broke across her lips.

“That verdict was decided by the EE, unfortunately. I had nothing to do with it. You know this.”

“EE is just a machine, Rita. It can make mistakes. Hereafter is my invention. It’s not perfect.”

“That’s not highly likely. The algorithm is perfectly efficient. And ever since its inception, crime has gone down exponentially. Almost 100 percent.” Rita composed her tone every time it rose or fell, trying to maintain a professional attitude. Her eyes continued to dart back and forth between the camera and Mara’s moist eyes, like she was warning her.

Sit down, control your temper, or you’ll be dragged out of here.

Mara did just that. She assumed her composure, biting down on the truths she wanted to hurl all at once, in no coherent fashion. Her temples throbbed with the pressure of them wanting out.

“Let me remind you that EE is an infallible system. Everything that was put into its programming came from years of legal canon that was fool-proofed over the course of humanity.” Rita continued, sitting back in her seat, and knotting her hands together. “It’s your baby. Are you telling me you deliberately sabotaged your invention? I won’t believe it.”

Mara stared at her, then at her knuckles which had turned white and pink, like her skin would split and bleed. Her wrist flashed green still. She thought of another plan. A plan to infiltrate the mainframe and rescue Adam from his infernal fate. She stared back at the device which was attached to the computer screen, contemplating how her son’s identity and memories were nothing more than shots of electric current passing between semiconductors and nanochips.

An argument formed in her mind. At least there, no one could hear her thoughts. That wasn’t entirely correct. The cameras were fitted with magnetic brain scanners and emotion sensors.

The single camera glared at her, uploading every muscle twitch into the EE, translating those expressions into sins and deeds, and uploading them to the Hereafter app. The system was meant to uphold law in a world of fallible lawlessness, yet it was anything but fool proof. Even Adam with his minimal hacking experience could break into the mainframe and switch things around without the AI detecting it. She glared right back at the camera, wanting to dive through it and rip EE’s wires from the mainframe. She wanted to destroy Hereafter Inc like it destroyed her son. Or did Adam bring this on himself with his inquiries and anti-surveillance rhetoric?

“You know who he is, Rita. You know he’s a good boy.” Mara was convinced of this, but Rita looked uncertain. 

She opened her mouth only to close it again, then turned her attention to the screen.

“He wouldn’t ever harm anyone. I know him well enough.”

Rita turned the monitor around so that Mara could take a glimpse of what she was researching.

There, she spotted an illuminated scan of a brain. Adam’s name was labeled in the top right corner. This was her son. Reduced now to a trillion, trillion pinpricks of light and neuronal causeways stored onto a thumb-sized drive.

“We can review the footage together, if you like.”

Mara inched closer to the screen. She fixated on a few neuronal connections that stood out brighter than the rest in the occipital and prefrontal cortex, labeled with a series of acronyms. PFLTP2, MTLTP45, PLTP50, HLTP24. Someone had highlighted those areas on purpose. Rita touched one of the points in the prefrontal cortex. The brain map vanished behind a word document.

“This was recovered most recently before the sentence.”

Mara squinted her eyes at the gobble of words, trying to make sense of them.

“It’s a procedures list. The EE chip records sequences from the prefrontal cortex into code, into words. So, if you look here…” Rita ran her finger along a string of words.

Meet with Marcus to get guns and ammo.

Mara couldn’t believe what she was reading. She didn’t want to believe it. These couldn’t be her son’s words, thoughts. He would never–

“He was planning something, Mara. Marcus was the other suspect and when he was arrested, he was in possession of a large cache of weapons and ammo in his home.”

“But he couldn’t have. I was with him all along.”

“Which brings me to my next point.” Rita closed the message screen and clicked a point in the occipital lobe, labeled OLTP141. “Watch this.”

The screen changed to a video player and Mara blinked nonchalantly, praying in her mind that it was nothing incriminating.

The screen was focused on an alley, somewhere in DC. She recognized the buildings that were pressed together like multicolored bricks and the garbage containers filled to the brim, about to spill over. The footage moved toward a dark niche wedged between the two buildings, barely visible. There, three people, two men and a woman she recognized from the poster outside, were sipping on cigars and blowing smoke circles. They smiled as the person behind the lens approached and the man, Marcus, lifted his shirt to reveal a gun.

“We’re ready when you are, fresh meat.”

Then Adam’s voice spoke loud and clear, like they were inside his head.

“I’m ready. Meet me around 8:30 near the EE monument. Mom’s work is close by. I have access to the building. We can start there.”

But the footage stopped short before Adam could say anything else.

“That’s not my son,” Mara said, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe her own words. The voice in the video was Adam’s, but without seeing his face, she couldn’t be certain. “It’s a fake.”

The dam that held back Mara’s torrent of tears broke. Camera or not, she couldn’t care less. She wanted the eye to know that she was angry over her son’s loss and the injustice he was delivered.

“It’s a fake. Adam would never do that. Never.”

But as those words spilled out, she drew back into a memory of her own from last year. When Adam came into her office and candidly informed her of his dissatisfaction with the kingdom she had ruled over.

“Grandpa told me people used to be free back then. They could say or do whatever they wanted without being punished for it.”

Mara had warned him never to speak those words again.

But he stormed out of her office that day without promising anything.

Rita raised both her hands in the air. “Please, Mara. You’re making a scene.”

Mara knocked the camera off her desk. “I don’t care, Rita. Goddamn it. You know my son, for crying out loud. You took care of him. You know he’s a good boy.”

Rita fumbled to stand the camera again. “Calm down, Mara. Lemme get you a cup of coffee. Please let’s talk about this calmly.”

Mara slumped back into her seat, sobbing, and hugging her purse. She couldn’t spend another minute in that office.

“Please,” she whispered. Her voice tinny and strained, like she was choking. “I can vouch for him. Take my credits. It should be enough.”

Rita looked like she wanted to cry too. Her expressions softened and so did her tone when she said, “I don’t think that’s possible, Mara. He’s been convicted.”

A moment later, the same robot entered the room, this time with two cups of coffee in its belly.

Rita passed one over to Mara, like she used to in the old days. Mara clutched her purse, dug her hand into it and extracted the canopic jar.

Rita glanced at her determinately. “Drink. You’ll feel a lot better.” She moved to sit beside her now. “I know how hard this is, I swear and I wish there was something I could do.”

Was she still pretending for the camera, or was she being genuine. It was hard to tell.

Mara wiped her tears with her sleeve and opened the jar. Rita instinctively took two spoonful’s like she always did and sprayed them into her cup. Mara took none.

“You’re right,” Mara said, sniffling and nodding at the same time, imagining the virtual inferno she programmed and Adam being tossed into it. A pit of black fire. Scorpions and snakes as large as hills. Endless torment and pain. “There’s clear evidence. I can’t refute that. I just wished I could’ve done something about it earlier.”

Rita didn’t say anything but stirred her coffee with the tablespoon. She couldn’t deny her friend’s words knowing they were true. Instead, she took a sip of her drink and looked pensively toward the door, like she was thinking of a solution. She had her free hand on Mara’s shoulder and she caressed it coldly, just for show. Mara watched the green light shine on her wrist and hated how it made her pretend.

“He was never happy with the system,” Mara said. She remembered the days she’d spent crafting his heaven in her office, staying up late to add the details, every single leaf and blade of grass, every single river and cloud. All for Adam. It was his own abode for when he died an old man. A costly gift that could’ve well belonged to a billionaire. “He wanted to be just like his grandfather. He couldn’t believe a world like the old world existed.”

Rita nodded, saying, “yeah” and “I understand” a lot and sipped her coffee.

“Mothers just want their children to be happy, you know,” Mara said. Rita yawned. “I would’ve done anything for my son.”

Within seconds, Rita’s eyes rolled back into her head and she fell back onto the floor with a thud. Mara quickly got to her feet, knocked the camera off its tripod and bent over Rita to make sure she was breathing.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered before dashing to her computer. The computer was still logged into the mainframe and that was all that mattered now.

She typed commands across the screen, slashed her index right and left, scouring through the files to find Adam, while glancing sideways at the camera.

Her wrist flashed from green to red.

Her heart stopped beating and all breathable air left the room.

What did I expect?

Blood rushed inside her head like waves crashing along a rocky shore. The pressure in her temples was almost too much to handle and her head spun. Her father’s voice, muffled by the cacophony that took over the serenity inside the room, reminded her that it was better to be dead than unfree.

He had told her about his world and how it had died the day people gave up their freedom for false security. She didn’t listen to him, choosing instead to go along with her crusade… to build a safer future for her children and the children of the nation.

Her father was right.

Adam knew this too.

How was she so stupid to assume that Adam’s safety was paramount to all. That it was above his freedom and happiness. He was never happy until he could think freely, without boundaries. And she had always tried to silence him. For his safety.

Scouring the files paid off as soon as she found the right one.

I’m coming for you, she thought to herself, blood rushing in her ears. I’m gonna save you.

She prayed that no one would be alerted to her transgression. Prayed the giant guard at the gate would stay put until she was done transferring Adam’s consciousness into the virtual home she built for him.

The file opened.

She paused. Gasped. Fell into her seat when she spotted Adam, the virtual avatar that housed his consciousness, being flayed in his virtual hell by surgical machines. Unanesthetized, he screamed as his skin was slowly peeled away from his muscle and bone. She shut the file, her own sobs ricocheting off the walls. Her hands trembled, jerking her fingers across the screen. Her chest caved in on itself leaving her with no air to breathe.

Adam didn’t deserve what they were doing to him. The accusation was a hoax, she was sure of it. She’d heard rumors about hackers corrupting, hijacking, and tinkering with memories… for political reasons. How was this situation any different?

She yanked the memory device from its slot, removed her son’s Vagus nerve chip from within it, a drop of his blood had clotted around its edges, and planted it into her own memory device where heaven was crafted. The Hereafter Inc. logo carved onto the device, a remnant of her old days, shimmered.

Then she plugged it back into the screen.

Opening the file, Adam’s avatar traipsed into the heaven she’d created for him. Smile on his face, pain gone. He looked back, into the screen, as if looking at his mother, and smiled.

She caressed his face through the glass. Brushed back his thick brown eyebrows. Studied his dimples carefully and tried to tousle his hair into curls.

A laugh rose inside her as her chest filled with a cool breeze that consumed her slowly, slowly. But soon, a knock shook the door.

“Ma’am, are you alright in there?”

Mara chose not to speak but swiped away at the computer screen and uploaded the file to the mainframe. If she could plant it there, then it would be safe for eternity. If she could plant it there, then she would also unleash the virus that would destroy every other heaven and hell in existence.

And the world would be free again. 

Mohamed (Moe) Shalabi is a Palestinian-American author of literary and speculative fiction, neuroscientist, and former junior literary agent. Moe’s stories are inspired by his diverse background and upbringing in the Middle East. His writing appears in multiple literary magazines such as the Nonbinary Review, Reed, and Superstition Review. His short story Palestina was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. When he’s not working on his multiple manuscripts, Moe works as a full-time consultant in Washington, D.C. Moe is represented by Kat Kerr of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. You can follow him on twitter/X @Agent_Moe or learn more about him on his website www.MoeShalabi.com.