Below the API (#8)
MONDAY
Below the API is a short story published as part of the 2024 Summer of Protocols “Protocol Incepting Lore & Literacy” program. You can find an abstract for the project, as well as an index to each chapter on the project’s landing page.
MONDAY
Marcie walked the last boxes through the open garage door to the delivery pad. She hadn’t completed all the orders yet—she’d take her time for that, but she had cleared her shelves, ignoring the orders themselves and sending her authentic works instead. The proceeds should be enough to move out and go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Roz, mark them as dropped off, please.”
“Of course, ma’am.” The yellow bubbles swirled passively.
Removing Navi had taken more fortitude than Marcie had expected. She had to wade through confirmation after confirmation—“Hey! As a PEER-compliant agent, I’m only embedded here. Continue?”—but it was the only way, in the end. She couldn’t trust Navi, couldn’t trust that voice, even if they were indistinguishable in the end. Ants.
She wiped black dust off the kiln, the shelves, Navi, and her original inventory. She tried to wipe off the wheel but couldn’t. The residue was layered thick; she’d need to scrape it, something she hadn’t done for ages. There was not just black but red, orange, and tan clays. A whole history of artifacts she had worked on before.
She picked up one of the unfinished ones from the drying rack. Pots — they were amazing, Marcie thought. Five thousand years ago, humans found that earth could be more than earth: it could be fired and formed into a pot. They could carry water, store wheat, and serve food. Then, they learned that pots could carry messages, too. They could hold both the material and immaterial. They could contain — and convey. Like artificial ants, millions of little ants carrying goods ten times their weight, infinite times their weight. From place to place. From person to person. From era to era. Little ants carrying more than their size. From place to place. From time to time. Building intricate, invisible nests within human society.
The wheel, she thought, is what makes it all work. Four thousand years ago, man wanted to create better pots, so he made a platform to hold the pot and turn it. A platform to catalyze the relationship between creator and creation. When she pressed the pedal on her wheel, invisible gears ground each other, and the world turned.
Marcie pulled her stool over to the garage’s edge and felt a brilliant noonday light shine. She relished its harsh brightness and suffocating heat. It made her feel the world directly, to be immediately a part of something.
Finally, the carrier arrived and parked in front of Marcie’s house. A rooftop door slid open, and a trio of small drones rose from the cabin. They hovered over Marcie and dropped down, scanning and relaying the boxes to the cab. Marcie watched them blandly, sweat beading on her forehead.
The last box had its shipping label face-down, and the drone couldn’t scan it, so Marcie picked it up and held it out. The drone hovered up to eye level. Marcie stared into its camera, its face. She extended the box, daring it to take it from her, but it wouldn’t. It sat waiting. Stupidly. It triggered in Marcie a pent-up rage against the stupidity of all this, the straightforward, supremely efficient dullness of it all.
Marcie threw the box down the walkway and onto the street. She heard the pot inside shatter, its box rolling across the road until it stopped. Marcie panted from the exertion.
The drone followed it, scanned the label, and returned it to the carrier.
“Good riddance,” Marcie said.
The truck began to drive down the street. After two houses, though, the truck slowed to a stop. Marcie’s heart pounded. She stared at it, willing it to keep moving. A drone ascended from the roof, carrying a battered box—her battered box. The drone dropped its quarry and returned to its carrier. The carrier lumbered on.
Marcie stared at that box. Subconsciously, Marcie wanted to steal the box back, return to the garage, and close the door. But her mind was blank. Some line had been crossed, some interface between one world and another breached. She could only watch.
When the door opened, a man walked out, shirtless, his stomach paunch extending over a set of red flannel pajamas. It was Barry. Barry from pickleball. Barry the clay enthusiast. Barry the next-door neighbor.
Raising his hand above his eyes, he squinted at the box and its imperfections, then picked it up. Turning back inside, he saw Marcie across the street, staring at him from her wide-open garage studio. He stopped and waved, a grin spreading ear to ear. He pointed down at the box and gave her a thumbs up.
Marcie waved back, the back-and-forth motion of an artisan shaping clay.