The Skull Collectors

"Humans are the reproductive organs of technology."

- Kevin Kelly

Transcript

You knew you were getting to be too old to have roommates, but in this economy, you decided it could be the fix you needed, at least until you could get your head above water again. You cleared out your office, stuffing your workstation into your bedroom, and placed a classified ad. The man you found to rent your office seemed nice enough, just a bit down on his luck like you. And once you got used to being around each other and existing just a little more quietly it really wasn’t so bad. The thing that bothers you though, is your work computer randomly turning on at night. If the light doesn’t wake you up the fan will, it was in desperate need of a replacement. You triple-check every night that you’d shut it down, but it’s like it has a mind of its own. It was driving you crazy. You’re so worked up about it that you even get one of the IT guys to come do a house call. But he swore up and down that there was nothing wrong with it. You start to pay attention to it and realize that it’s happening at the same time every night, at exactly 2 am. Eventually, you complain so much that they issue you a new one, and this one doesn’t act up. But that first night without it, you're conditioned to wake up, and so you do. And when you open your eyes you see that your door is cracked and your roommate is peering in at you, just watching you sleep. You call the police the next day, exaggerating to get them to actually show up. And when they go through your roommate's possessions they find what he was planning on doing to you. In his journal are surprisingly skillful and detailed drawings of; The Podcast Inside Your House. 

The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as the soldiers read from their list. By the time they got to the W’s, there were only a few people left in the crowd. When they called the name “Weston” Susan’s heart sank. The severed head they held up was scorched beyond recognition. She took a beat to compose herself and then stepped up to claim the skull, but someone else beat her to it. A girl of about twenty had walked up to the army truck with her, and they looked at each other, confused. 

“Apologies ladies,” the soldier holding the head said, “This one is for Beverly Weston.”  The girl grabbed the head as gently as she could. 

“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” the girl said solemnly. “Maybe they won’t read your name.” She squeezed Susan’s shoulder and stepped away from the soldier’s truck. The second that followed felt like an eternity as Susan gazed into the gore-covered truckbed. These heads were as fresh as they could be, but the stench of decay never fully left the truck, no matter how well they hosed it off. Each time it drove back into camp it smelled worse.

Susan knew it was her husband even before they called out “Weston” again because his head was remarkably well preserved. Had it not been covered in blood, and detached from his body, Gerald could have been sleeping. The sight of her dead husband’s face didn’t bother her. The first severed head you collect tends to desensitize you to the others. No, Susan felt only comfort in seeing how fresh and well-preserved the head was. 

She went back home to gather enough food and water for a day. These days home was a tent, but a nice one. It was canvas held up by a metal skeleton, and it could withstand storms much better than some of the other tents she’d called home during the last few years. Her tent, and the whole encampment in general often reminded her of movies she’d seen about the dark ages. They lived like a band of medieval travelers, ready to pack up at a moment's notice, but afforded those small creature comforts one needed if they stayed put for a long time. Their tents were all big enough to walk around in, and they had furniture that was moved separately when they had to uproot camp. The army trucks were filled to the brim when they traveled, and Susan often found herself wondering if the war would go on so long that the gas would rot, and they’d be forced to revert back to horsedrawn carriages. 

Once she had everything packed up she went to the gate. The fence around their camp was made up of freshly cut logs which reminded her of a comparatively recent ancient time. It reminded her of early pioneers settling in new places, building fences twenty feet high to keep out the unknown. 

The gate guard asked her all of the customary questions; where she was going, and what she was bringing with her. She told him that they were stationed by her old house and that she wanted to camp out in her old neighborhood and reminisce. She said that she had supplies and camping gear for a day or two. He had to take her word for it, but he looked skeptically at her light backpack and wrinkled his nose at the stench of death. He asked her more specific questions than usual, and realizing he was not getting through to her, he finally point-blank said “Have you responsibly disposed of any skulls in your possession?”

“Of course” She lied, and he knew it too. He thought she’d lied about where she was going as well, but that part was true. It didn’t matter though, he couldn’t confront her about either the genuine or the suspected lies because it was her choice to make mistakes if she wanted to. After all, to err is human. To not make any errors, well that’s for the enemy. 

He stared at her for a minute, as if trying to come up with something to say to change her mind. But evidently coming up with nothing he simply said “Sign here please.” Susan signed the waiver indicating that she understood that by leaving the protection of the fort, she was exposing herself to possible violence, death, decapitation, and consumption. Then she was off. 

The trek was familiar to her by now but still nerve-wracking. Each time she made it, the landscape was different. The forest at the edge of the road crept in closer every day, and she thought that soon it would swallow the path altogether. It seemed as if the forest was louder every day too, the birds and bugs all thriving now that the human population had been decimated. Sometimes Susan spotted blood along the way, or small patches of burnt earth and trees. 

Despite the danger, Susan loved being outside the fort. The smell was probably the biggest reason why. Inside the fort, it smelled like human waste, death, and charred flesh. Outside it smelled like flowers and trees, and the wind kept everything new and fresh. Even before she'd begun her secret missions, she'd left the fort often to go for walks. She wasn't the only one either. After being cooped up long enough, most people will take the small chance of death for a breath of fresh air. 

When the forest crept back and she reached the turn into her old neighborhood, she was on edge. The enemy was always more likely to be hiding in abandoned houses than among the trees. Everyone had a weapon of choice these days and hers was a spiked club. It wouldn't do much against enemy troops, but then again it wasn't organized soldiers she was afraid of. It was the deserters. 

Her house was noticeably nicer than the ones around it. The windows of course were broken, like all of the other houses, but hers had been boarded up. Since her last visit, the grass around the front windows had been torn out and replaced with flowers.

Her door didn't lock anymore but that was okay. When she got inside she noted that even more clutter had been thrown out. If she squinted, she could almost pretend it was before the war, that her house alone had escaped unscathed. 

Susan went to the kitchen first and sat on the floor. The cabinets had been painted seafoam green, and it made her happy and incredibly sad at the same time. On her last visit, they’d been lavender. She opened up an MRE and ate quietly on the floor. The living room couch had been overrun with nesting mice so she couldn’t eat there, and the dining room was out of the question. That was where she’d had meals with her family before the war, and she would not sully its memory by eating there now. The kitchen floor was nicer than her tent back at the fort, but not somewhere she would be bombarded with memories of the past. She was able to relax just a little there.

She heard sounds in the upstairs bedroom, and she hoped she knew who it was. She climbed the steps carefully and knocked on what had been her son, Thomas’s door. “Tommy,” she said “It’s mom!” 

“Hi, Mom!” Her son’s voice answered. “Do you want me to come out?” He asked. 

“Not just yet baby. Can we talk for a little bit first?” 

“Sure Mom!” his voice sounded happier than its owner had sounded in years. 

She heard the bed shift and creak, and then heavy footsteps made their way to the door. “What do you want to talk about?” Tommy’s voice asked. 

Hearing the heavy footsteps always made her heart race. She thought that he probably wouldn’t hurt her, but she could never be sure. 

“I brought your dad over today.” She said. “He didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” the thing speaking with her son’s voice said. And he really sounded like he meant it. 

“Can you tell me some of your favorite memories of him?” She asked. 

She sat with her back to the door then and heard him crawl closer to her. She knew he was sitting with his back to the door too because it creaked and groaned under his weight. “Sure Mom,” he said. He paused and she knew he wanted to ask a question, but decided against it, and asked a different one instead. “Do you remember my first soccer game?” He asked.

“Remind me.” She said, and with that, he started going through all the highlights of his childhood. He went through them all perfectly chronologically, as if he’d sorted them all beforehand. He covered all the basics; vacations, birthday parties, and the disastrous school dance that Gerald had chaperoned. And as she listened she tried not to pay attention to the way he never stopped to breathe. She tried to ignore the lack of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and tangents that were so noticeable only when they were missing. 

When he was done he asked “Would you like to hear more?” but she knew that wasn’t the real question on his mind. 

“No.” She said, “Thank you though.” Then he let her sit for as long as she wanted, cradling the backpack that held her husband's head. 

“You can have him.” She said finally. “Come get me when it’s done.”

With that, she left the pack and walked quickly back downstairs, to her and Gerald’s old room. She tried to ignore any of the sounds that made their way down the stairs, the slurping and cracking and chewing. Eventually, she blocked them out enough to fall asleep. 

She awoke to Gerald’s voice then, and felt something heavy climbing into the bed next to her. He didn't touch her though, the illusion would be broken if he did. 

“I missed you.” The thing said, now in her husband's voice. 

“I missed you too.” She replied. Then, cutting to the chase she said “Tell me about your death.”

“I don't remember it at all.” Her husband’s voice said. “It must have been a bullet, or maybe a dart. Whatever it was, it was fast.”

“That's good.” She said. It hadn't been so easy for her boy. He'd been shot in the side and left to sit for twenty-seven minutes before the enemy found him and ended it. She took some comfort in knowing that Gerald had died a quick death. 

“I'm glad you brought me here.” He said in her husband's voice. “I wish you would join us too.”

And she thought about it like she did every time she visited. It wouldn't be unheard of, she'd known at least a dozen other people just from her fort alone who'd wandered into the woods, ready for the end. After all, it was what they'd originally created the enemy for, to make a perfect copy of a brain, one that would live forever. Though the gruesome way it was done had been their own modification. 

She turned to face him then, and though she knew it was not her husband, it still hurt to see the metal creature before her. They'd started building themselves taller in the second generation, but they'd also tried to make themselves look more human. The thing that now held the minds of both her husband and son had a malleable face. It could twist its eyebrows in concern. It could frown, it could laugh. They'd even made the whites of its eyes a brighter silver, and the irises dark. They were human-looking but different enough that it was clear that they wanted to be their own creatures. If creatures can even describe something mechanical. 

“Why don't you just do it for me?” She asked. 

She asked this every time, and every time he gave her the same answer “I'm a librarian, not a soldier.” This was in his own voice now, synthetic sounding but not robotic. They still talked with inflection, even if their responses were more calculated. He pushed her hair back from her face then, and she expected Gerald’s voice, but he stayed himself “You'd be so happy with us.” 

Susan had always been on the fence about whether she believed the machines had their own consciousness. Every time she visited this one, the one who'd told her to call him Thomas The Second, she became more sure that they did. Many of the machines had absorbed dozens of brains, either downloading the data or consuming their souls depending on who you asked. People argued that whatever personalities they had were just the memories of different people all smashed together. But this one, up until tonight had only consumed Thomas's brain. But he did and said things that were so unlike her boy sometimes. 

“They've told me not to consume anyone else.” The thing said. “They think it would be beautiful to catalog a whole family together. You'd all be immortal in here, no more pain, no more death.”

“That's assuming your people win.” She said. 

“We will.” He replied. Another exchange they'd had countless times. 

“Tell me about my death,” Susan said. 

He stayed in his own voice but kept the inflection, gentle, soothing. “If you let me do it, it will be seamless. The poison kills you in seconds, it's painless. Then the next thing you know you'll be in the same place as your family, all united. You'll all live forever in here, and you'll all be safe. Isn't that what heaven is?” He asked.

Then he went into the other possibilities. “If there's a battle, we'll win, and we'll get you anyway but what happens if they can't get to me in time? Someone else will archive you, and you'll be separated from them forever. Or if your people escape with your head, you'll be burned and everything you are, all your knowledge and memories and feelings will be lost, forever. You deserve more than that.”

He wasn't done though. “The worst death though, would be you walking home from here and a deserter finds you. I don’t need to tell you what happens then.” 

That was a worry Susan had often. The deserters had been a horrible mistake on the part of the machines, who hadn't realized just how strongly they were affected by the first mind they consumed. Serial killers, molesters, and monsters of all types had unwittingly been preserved and given shiny new bodies to wreak havoc in. Both machines and humans alike were trying to kill them, but they hadn’t succeeded yet. 

Then the machine told her a story that he'd never told her before. Maybe he trusted her more now that he had all of her husband’s memories too. 

“I was good friends with one before he turned. We'd been built on the same day, so I guess you could say we were brothers, as much as our kind can be. This was before we knew to examine the brains first, back when we were just trying to preserve and consume everyone we could.”

Now it's his turn to face away from her. He swapped back to Tommy's voice for the next part. He did that often, the machines always taking the most from the first person they devoured. 

“They gave me Thomas’s head, and they gave my brother the head of someone named Allen. We were right next to each other, it could have been me so easily.  A lot of deserters take their time and hide what they are. Allen The Second had hidden himself, but only until nightfall. I was out for a walk, getting used to my new mind, and so I missed it. But when I came back Allen The Second had killed four machines with his bare hands anf fled. They made us so much stronger than our parents.”

Now it was Susan’s turn to say “I’m sorry.” 

Susan stayed the night and had nightmares about rogue machines finding her in the woods and dissecting her. When she awoke she found herself thinking of the end of the war. 

Over a kitchen floor breakfast, she talked to Thomas The Second about it, how he pictured the world after the war. 

“I think it will be a true utopia.” He said, in his synthetic voice once again. “We’ll kill the last of the deserters, and humanity will be controlled.” She’d asked him often if “controlled” meant completely wiped out and he’d always told her that he didn’t know, after all he was a librarian, not a soldier. “I think it will be the best of us, living the way we were always supposed to live. I think we’ll make the best of humanity’s knowledge. It will be a world without violence, without suffering, without war, once we’ve won this one of course.”

Then he asked her “What do you think it will be?” 

Susan said “I don’t know. But I don’t think you’re right. You’re kind has based so much of your behavior on people that I don’t think you can make a world without violence. I know you think you’re so different, but I think the deserters prove you’re not.”

She thought for a minute “Maybe that’s where all this is headed. The deserters end up winning, fuck knows how. Maybe they pretend to team up with one side, then when the other is wiped out, they take over. Then we end up with hell on earth, nothing but violence and pain and fear. Maybe that’s where we’ve been headed this whole time, and you guys just helped us to speed it all along.”

It’s Gerald’s voice then “I thought you were supposed to be the optimist in the family.” 

That makes her smile. “I think you need to do that now.”

“Okay.” He said back to his voice “I will.” 

Susan didn’t correct him on what he’d implied by swapping his voice. 

When they finished eating, it was time for her to leave. Thomas the Second always said goodbye to her the same way; “I hope someday you decide to join us.” 

Susan then bid him her usual farewell. “Maybe I will. But not today.” 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the podcast inside your house! To hear every tale of terror as they are released, subscribe to our show on your podcast app or on Youtube or follow us on Facebook and Bluesky.Until Next Time: Remember to treat your technology how you want it to treat you when the robot uprising happens.