THE HOST - PART 3: PRE DINNER ENTERTAINMENT

Intergrateo Press is pleased to present the latest installment in "The Serial Port" series, a distinctive podcast exploring themes of transhumanism and psychological horror. This episode, "The Host - Part 3: Pre Dinner Entertainment," continues its dark sci-fi narrative, delving into the unsettling implications of digital consciousness. Listeners are invited to consider the ethical boundaries of mind upload technology and its potential for profound, disturbing transformations. The series consistently challenges perceptions of identity within a technologically advanced, yet morally ambiguous, future.

STORY 2 OF THE SERIAL PORT SEASON 1

LOST? START HERE: PART 1 - THE CONSULTATION

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Continuity Year 45

The host closed the door behind them and turned the latch. The latch clicked. She’d picked the latch herself, from a catalogue, because the sound it made was useful. Clients who registered the sound tended to want to mention it. Curt didn’t mention it.

The corridor to the reunion suite was short. The walls were painted the same dust colour as the rest of the venue. The team had moved the chair out of storage and set it where it needed to be. The reunion suite had a low ceiling and the warm-glow lighting Helen had picked from a catalogue. The chair was at the centre of the room on a clean tarp. The monitor was on its stand at the foot of the chair, dark.

Tom was already in the room. So was Jen. So were the two other team members Curt didn’t know about, because they didn’t have a public-facing role. Bea was the smaller of them, the one with the quick hands. The fourth member was the one who handled the door. All four wore clean coveralls. Curt didn’t seem to notice the coveralls. The coveralls read as aprons until they didn’t.

“Hello Curt,” Tom said. “Hello mate.”

“Tom.”

The host gestured at the chair.

“Sit down for me, please. Headpiece is to the side there.”

Curt sat. He looked at Tom and Tom nodded at him. The host fitted the headpiece, a soft band that came down over Curt’s temples and clipped at the back. She turned the monitor on. The monitor showed the network’s loading screen, a clean blue, the network’s logo at the centre.

“You’ll feel a small warmth in a moment. That’s the only thing. It runs for forty seconds. The remap completes at the end.”

“Okay.”

He closed his eyes. The host pressed the start key.

The mapping ran. Curt’s body did nothing. His breathing slowed. The loading bar at the bottom of the monitor moved across in soft increments. The host watched his face go from waiting to over before the count was done. The network had his pattern now.

The mapping completed. The monitor switched from the loading screen to a clean system confirmation. Remap complete. Subject Curt Giel active on network. The host let the message hold for a few seconds, then tapped the screen and the monitor went dark.

Behind her, the body in the chair stirred. The mapping had a residual signal that ran through the body’s nervous system for a few seconds at the end. Curt opened his eyes.

“Did it work?”

“It worked. The remap completed.”

He looked around. He was in the chair. He was still in the chair. His face did the confusion.

“I’m awake.”

“You are.”

“I thought I’d be over there.”

“I know.”

She sat on the small stool beside his chair and put her hand on his arm.

“There’s one more thing I have to tell you about the day, Curt.”

“Okay.”

“The remap is complete. The network has your pattern. But the upload isn’t complete yet. There’s one more step. Like anyone else who enters Continuity, we need to break the connection to the body so there’s a single signal. We have to clear yours. When yours is clear, you wake up at six. You see Laura.”

Curt was looking at her. His eyes had started doing something. His mouth was open a little.

“Wait.”

“Yes, my love.”

“What do you mean, clear yours.”

“The body has to stop, Curt. The body has its own signal. We have to stop the body for the upload to settle.”

“What.”

“You signed the form. The form said the body in this room does not move with you. Your father signed as witness.”

“But I didn’t expect to wake up. I was mapped. I thought I’d be gone.”

“Some hosts do lethal injection. For our team, this part is for us, you could say.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Yes. But first we’re going to hurt you. We’re going to make you suffer.”

Curt was on his feet. The standing up wasn’t a decision; the legs just did it. The headpiece came off his head and hit the floor. His hand was shaking.

“No. No no no.”

“Curt.”

“No. No. No. Please.”

He was looking at the door. The door was locked. He started for it. He got two steps. Tom was on him. Tom didn’t hit him. Tom just stopped him.

“Please. Please. Please. Please.”

“Curt, you’re not helping. We need your flesh to stay as tender as possible for next week’s guests.”

He was crying. His face was wet already. He was breathing through his mouth and the breathing was loud.

“Curt, my love. Listen.”

“Please please please.”

“Curt. Listen.”

“I changed my mind. I changed my mind. I want to stop. Please. Please. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please. Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything.”

The host stood up from the stool. She crossed to where Tom had him.

“Curt. My love. Look at me.”

He didn’t look at her. He was looking at the door over Tom’s shoulder.

“Curt.”

He looked at her. His face was a mess. Snot. Tears. Pupils gone wide.

“You signed the form, my love. You said yes five times. Your father signed as witness. The body has to stop. That’s what you came here to do.”

“I didn’t know about this. I didn’t know. I’ll go back. I’ll go home. Please.”

“You can’t go home, my love. The body’s going to stop. The form’s signed.”

He pulled against Tom. Tom let him pull and didn’t move. Jen had come up on his other side and had his other arm. He was hyperventilating now.

“PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.”

“My love.”

“Please don’t do this. Please. Please. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please. I’ll do anything. Please. Don’t kill me. Please.”

The host put her hand on his cheek. He flinched.

“Curt. You’re not dying, my love. The body’s stopping. You’re already on the network. You wake up at six. You see Laura at the table. You won’t remember any of this. None of it carries. It’s only the body that has to stop.”

“It’s me. It’s me. It’s me in here. Please. Please. Don’t.”

“I know, my love. I know it feels like that. The body always feels like that. But you’re on the network. You’re already there. This is just the body’s part.”

“I’m not the body. I’m me. I’m me. Please. Please.”

“You’re him too, my love. You’re him on the network. You’re the body here. The body has to stop. Then it’s only him.”

“PLEASE. PLEASE.”

The team walked him to the centre of the room. He fought them. He didn’t have the leverage. Tom and Jen had his arms; Bea and the fourth member had his shoulders. Curt was begging in repeated fragments now and not making sentences.

Bea took her time with the leather cuffs. She rolled each one over Curt’s wrist and adjusted the buckle. She pulled the second cuff a notch tighter than the strap-mark, watched his hand try to make a fist, and ratcheted it back to the strap-mark. She smiled at him while she did it.

“Hold still, sweetheart.”

Jen pressed the up-button on the motor with her free hand. The chain went up. The cuffs went taut. Curt’s arms went above his head. The chain kept going. His feet came off the ground. The chain stopped when his toes were a hand’s width above the tarp.

He screamed.

The host walked over slowly. She didn’t hurry now. The warmth she’d been wearing for an hour was off her face. The face underneath was hers.

She came in close. She put one hand on Curt’s chest over his shirt and the other on his cheek.

“My love.”

He sobbed.

“Listen to your voice. Listen to that.”

His eyes were everywhere. He was looking for somewhere to go and there wasn’t anywhere.

“Look at me. Not at the door. The door is locked. The room is soundproofed. Helen and Tom did the room together when we started. You can scream as loud as you want, my love. No one is coming.”

She smiled.

“No one is coming.”

Her hand on his chest moved down. She took the buttons of his shirt one at a time. He’d worn it for the ceremony. He’d ironed it last week. She undid each button without taking her hand off his cheek.

“You looked so handsome at the lectern.”

The shirt fell open. She slid it off his shoulders and let it hang from his arms above the cuffs. His chest was bare. She put her hand flat against his skin. He flinched. Her hand stayed.

“I know, my love. I know.”

Tom came up behind her with the long curved knife in his hand, the kind used in any abattoir. He held the blade flat against the side of her arm for a moment, an old marital signal, and she leaned back into him. Tom kissed her on the temple. Then he stepped around her to where Curt could see him.

“Hello mate.”

He turned the blade in the light. He ran his thumb along the edge and drew a thin red line. He sucked the blood off his thumb and smiled at his wife.

“Ready when you are, love.”

“Ready when he is.”

Tom slid the knife under Curt’s shirt where it hung at the cuffs and cut it off in one upward pull. The fabric fell to the tarp. Tom hooked the trousers at the waistband with his free hand and cut them open down the front. Then down each leg. The trousers fell. The underwear came next. Tom flicked the cloth away with his foot.

Curt was naked in the chain.

He was shaking. He couldn’t stop. He had been screaming and now he was making smaller noises that weren’t words.

“Oh mate,” Tom said. “Look at you.”

The host’s hand on his cheek hadn’t moved.

Tom took Curt’s left hand. He bent the little finger backward until it snapped. Curt screamed. Tom watched his face while he did it. Then the ring finger. Then the middle finger.

“Sorry mate. Got to. Saves the carving knife for the better bits.”

Tom laughed. Jen laughed. Bea laughed. The fourth member of the team, at his post by the door, was smiling.

The host moved her hand from Curt’s cheek and ran it down his chest, slowly, palm flat. She passed over his ribs, his stomach, his hip. Her hand came back up the same way.

“Beautiful.”

She moved around behind him. She pressed against his back. He was shaking against her. She steadied him with her body. Her mouth was at his ear.

“Listen to yourself, my love. Listen. Isn’t it something.”

She slid her hand around his side to his stomach and held him there.

“There you are. There you are.”

Tom went to work.

He started at the collarbone. He worked slow. The cut went down the centre of the chest. It stopped at the waist. Tom stepped back and looked at it.

“Lovely.”

He made another cut across the collarbones, side to side. Curt’s body jerked against the cuffs. The host steadied him from behind. Her hand on his stomach was warm against the skin.

Tom went to one side of the chest and pulled the skin away in a long strip. He took his time with it. He handed the strip to Bea, who had come over with her hands held out.

“Tender, that one.”

“Lovely.”

Bea pegged it on the horizontal line above the workbench like washing. She smoothed it flat. She was humming.

Tom did the other side of the chest. Then the shoulders. Then the upper arms. He took his time with each piece. He pulled the skin away in long strips and laid them on the side table for Bea. Bea was humming the whole time, the same tune.

Curt was making sounds past screaming. He had the air; he didn’t have the screams.

“You’re doing so well, my love,” the host said at his ear. “You’re being so good.”

She kissed his neck.

“My brave boy. My brave love.”

Between strips, Tom ran his tongue along the flat of the blade. He had done it for years.

Tom did the belly next. The cuts here were finer. Then he went down. He moved to the smaller knife. He had said once that the work between the hips took the most skill. Tom didn’t smile this time. He was focused. He took his time.

Curt found a new sound.

He had not made the new sound yet today. The host had heard it. She had heard it on many Saturdays.

“There it is.”

She pressed her face against the back of his neck. Her teeth were just touching the skin. She didn’t bite. She held them there.

Bea was at Tom’s elbow with the small steel bowl now, because this part of the day had its own bowl.

“Lovely,” Bea said.

Tom worked.

The host’s mouth moved on the back of Curt’s neck.

“My beautiful boy. My beautiful brave love. There you are. There you are. Don’t go yet. Stay with me.”

Curt was past words. He was past most sounds.

Tom kept working. The bowl filled.

Tom passed his free hand across the host’s wrist as he worked, brushed her knuckles with his, and went back to the knife. It was an old gesture between them.

Jen had her notebook open on the bench. Her shorthand was ticks. She had done this enough Saturdays that the writing was muscle memory.

Curt’s sounds got smaller in stages.

Tom looked up at the host. The host nodded.

Tom took the throat with the smaller knife. He took his time with it too.

The sound stopped.

The body kept moving for a few seconds. The host’s mouth was still at the back of his neck. Her hand was on his stomach. She didn’t move.

His body went still.

She stayed pressed against him for another few seconds. Then she stepped back.

Tom turned to her. He had blood on his face from his forehead down to his collar. He set the knife on the side table. He put his hands on her shoulders.

“Good one, love,” Tom said.

“Good one.”

He kissed her, briefly, on the mouth.

The host put her hand on Curt’s cheek.

The cheek was wet.

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- AJW

The concept cover for my upcoming novel - The Grey Corner, Book 2 of the Continuity Constellation.

Art by Saturnids Art Link: https://mushroomy.house/collections/saturnids

Book 1 of the Continuity Constellation: The Continuity Protocol available on Amazon and indie publishers

This segment from "The Serial Port" offers a stark contemplation of humanity's future, particularly concerning the irreversible nature of certain technological advancements. The blend of sci-fi horror and psychological thriller elements provides a compelling, if disquieting, experience. Intergrateo Press remains committed to showcasing works that critically examine societal trajectories and the complex interplay between technology, ethics, and the human condition. This piece powerfully illustrates the series' ongoing exploration of these intricate topics.