For Show

They were finally here.

Timmy had been wanting to visit this place practically his whole ten years of existence. He’d heard about it from friends, seen the commercials on TV, but had been never able to see for himself.

Until now.

“Well, hello, everyone!” the red-haired, freckle-faced guide enthused to Timmy’s family and the rest of their tour group. “Welcome to West Street!! It’s the best street!! The most fascinating street on planet earth—maybe in the whole galaxy!!”

“Now, before we go in, a few things to remember,” he continued and counted with his fingers as he stated, “No touching. Don’t cross the barriers. They are there for both your and their protection. As I’m sure you’re aware, these have been known to be a rather violent species, so I wouldn’t risk it. No feeding!! They have a completely different diet than us. Theirs has to be specially manufactured. Also, you can say simple things to them, like ‘Hi, how are you?’ or ‘Hey, beautiful day out, isn’t it?’, but that’s it. Nothing heavy or complicated. It will confuse them.”

“Last, but not least, it is highly recommended that you interact with them as little as possible and instead just let them be. Remember, the main objective here is to see what they were like in their natural element. If you interrupt that, it sort of, ya’ know, takes away from the experience. Also note that any interactions that do occur are monitored. For your protection,” he smiled.

In case anyone in the group wasn’t paying attention, the rules were also posted constantly throughout the tour.

“Besides that,” he said, “have fun!! Watch them, learn about them, enjoy them. I promise, whatever you think you know, there is so much more. And you’ll undoubtedly be absolutely amazed.”

After spending a considerable amount of time at the first exhibit, Conception, the guide motioned the group to follow him to the next, in what appeared to be a hospital room.

A woman in visible anguish lay on a surgical bed, her legs spread apart from one another. Five people in green scrub uniforms stood around her, moving around and attending to different tasks.

“Push!!” one of those people shouted towards her.

The woman clenched her teeth, eyes, and fists and did what was asked. 

“So, what we last saw was where they’re first created,” the freckle-faced guide said. “And this is how they eventually get here, nine months later. And today, you’re in for a real treat. Since their population is only 50, what you’re seeing doesn’t happen very often. Only once every few years or so.”

Just then, a baby’s piercing cry demanded all of their heads to swing fully in its direction.

The leading doctor had in his hands a bloody, wiggling little creature, its face all contorted as its cries rang out.

“There are only 50 of them here?” Timmy interjected.

“I’m sorry?” said the guide, distracted by the main scene, still amazed even after having seen it numerous times before.

“50. You said there were only 50 of them still here—” 

“Not just here at West Street, but in the world!” the guide said. 

“Why so few?” Timmy asked.

The guide waved for them to follow him down another hallway.

As they observed a family of four doing various activities in their home, he began to answer Timmy’s question.

“For many, many years, these were a thriving species. Well ahead of the food chain and making a lot of great advancements along the way! That was, until it turned out they were both the world’s greatest asset and its greatest liability. Remember I mentioned earlier that they were known to be quite a violent species? Well, too often, they were that way with one another. Not only that, but they also were rather greedy and power-hungry. Perpetually so. And eventually that limitless greed and hunger became so great that it took over. The whole world broke out in wars, until most of them eventually took each other out.”

He continued. “Fortunately! We came along and helped save what few of them remained. We first tried to help them stay in charge, but with so few of them, that effort proved futile. So, we instead had to step up and start making some decisions on their behalf—one of the first being to designate their species as endangered, to help ensure their permanent protection and continued existence. And West Street is the community we created for them to live and thrive in with one another!”

The group nodded as they took it all in.

“Why is it called ‘West Street’?” Timmy asked.

“Well, throughout their history, they always associated ‘West’ with progress, advancement, freedom, liberty. They championed it as a beacon of democracy, individual will and autonomy. In most cases, the ‘west’ was their hopeful future, especially compared to their eastern counterparts. And as time went on, more of their species moved more in that direction.”

He continued. “On a somewhat darker note, the reference also serves as a reminder—for them, for us, and for history’s sake—of how their species got here…the Western collection of lands of the world—that strong Western influence—having been both the last of their species’ greatest set of advancements and their greatest and ultimate downfall. The leaders of those lands were the ones who initiated and instigated the great wars that led to what they’ve been reduced to today.”

He finished, “Nonetheless, we recognized how much ‘West’ meant to them, in one way or another. So, ‘West Street’ — both in name and in concept — was our way of honoring that history and significance and also pay tribute to all of their great accomplishments and contributions that led to where we all are today!”

Observing the Home life exhibit, the group watched as a woman stood, cooking in the kitchen, while her husband sat in businesswear on the couch, watching a report on the previous night’s football game. Nearby, a baby sat anxiously in his highchair, and ustairs, a teenage girl lay on her bed, chewing gum and scrolling on her smart phone as she sang along softly with the tunes coming through her headphones.

I break chains all by myself

Won't let my freedom rot in hell

Hey! I'ma keep running

'Cause a winner don't quit on themselves

“Justine!” her mother yelled up to her. “Are you dressed yet? Breakfast is ready, and it’s almost time for school!!”

The teen didn’t move. 

“Justine!!” her mother shouted more forcefully.

The group moved through the rest of the tour, seeing exhibits of the humans working and going to school; performing some of their favorite hobbies like basketball, gardening, and playing piano; traveling and going on vacation; being sick and in love, and both at the same time once heartbroken; retired; and other key moments of their existence.

They saw them in their widest range of emotions, from happiness and joy, to anger, stress, and anxiousness.

And, on the last stop: Sadness.

In the final exhibit, several rows of tombstones appeared behind the fenced wall. A family stood sobbing around one of them, all dressed in black and their faces, red and damp.

The tour guide started. “Before I get to the last of this, I just want to mention to make sure you stop by the gift shop on your way out. We have all kinds of fun little trinkets and cool memorabilia—keychains, magnets, koozies, shot glasses, mugs, whatever—to help remember your visit today. You can go back and be all the rage with your friends, families, and colleagues! Maybe even buy a few as a gift for those who will undoubtedly be jealous of your visit here today.”

“But okay,” he said as his voice turned more somber. “As for this last stop… At a certain point in their lives, often older but sometimes as young as right when—or even before—they are born, they die. And it can be from many things—illness, their heart stops working, lifestyle-related causes, being killed by someone else, even taking their own lives. However it happens, once upon a time, they would often have some kind of ceremony where others would say their final ‘goodbyes’. And the body of the person would be either buried or burned to ashes.”

As the guide continued to explain and field the group’s countless questions on all things human death, always the tour’s most popular stop, Timmy noticed in his peripheral a shadow at the edge of this last exhibit that seemed out of place.

Making sure the others were still occupied, he crept closer to the shadow to try and get a better peek. A damaged part of the wall in the corner was just big enough for him to squeeze and sneak his small body through.

And so he did.

The mysterious shadow continued to make slight movements as he approached. When he was close enough, he called out to it.

“Hello?” he whispered.

The movement stopped. And there wasn’t any sound in return.

“Hellooo?” he whispered a little more loudly. “I know someone, or something, is there. You can come out, or at least say something. I won’t hurt you.”

Discouraged after a few more moments of silence, he started to turn around and head back to the wall and the group.

“Hey…” another whispered voice finally returned.

Timmy whipped his head back in the shadow’s direction.

Slowly, a head poked out. 

It had long, brown hair, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

It was a person. A human person.

He instantly recognized it from one of the earlier exhibits. It was the girl in the home who’d been laying on her bed, scrolling on her phone.

“Hey!” Timmy first yelled out, then remembered his surroundings, peered over at the group still heavily engrossed in their nonstop inquiries, and whispered back at the girl, “Hey!”

“You’re not supposed to be over in this exhibit, are you?” he asked.

“And you aren’t supposed to be over here, on the other side of the wall and away from your group, are you?” she asked, looking up at him.

Slightly embarrassed, he first didn’t respond.

After a few more moments, he asked, “So…what are you doing over here, away from your exhibit?”

She sighed. “We work in all of them throughout the day. My next shift is in the cemetery. I guess the group behind yours wasn’t too excited watching me knit in the Hobbies section, so they left it early. And I thought I’d take a quick break, have a moment to myself, here before my next. Thought I was far enough out of view to where no one would notice, but…” she looked up at him again. “I guess not.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. 

“Well, for the purpose of the exhibits, I’m teenage girl doing…whatever. But my actual name is Justine.”

“Hey, Justine. I like that name.”

“Uhh.. Thanks.”

Timmy looked away, unsure if he’d said something wrong.

“This your first time here?” Justine asked.

He nodded.

“So, what do you think?”

“Mmm it’s pretty cool,” Timmy said flatly.

Justine smiled. “It doesn’t sound like you thought it was cool.”

“Well—”

“‘Well,’ what? You can tell me, it’s not like I’ll rat you out to the folks running this joint or anything.”

“Well, I mean… I just… I don’t know, I guess I expected a little bit… More.”

“‘More’ how?”

“I mean.. For years, I’d heard how cool, fun, and interesting this place is. Seeing and learning about your species that’s so unlike anything we’ve ever seen or known—something we just had to see for ourselves. But… I didn’t see much that was really spectacular and unusual. I mean… You guys are pretty much just like us — well, except for the whole ‘birth’ and ‘death’ thing,” Timmy said.

“You mean, you guys are pretty much like us,” Justine inserted.

“Huh?” said Timmy. “You’re like us. You humans were uncivilized, nearly destroyed your whole species! And we came and saved you, gave you a chance to go on.”

Justine’s hand slapped her forehead. “No, no. Is that what they told you? I promise you, that’s not what happened.”

Timmy’s eyebrows scrunched.

Justine sighed and debated whether to share the harsh truth with her innocent new friend.

“Okay, so, granted…” she went ahead, “we weren’t always the nicest, most peaceful living things around. But we didn’t just all kill ourselves off.”

She paused as Timmy’s eyes grew big.

“We created you,” she said.

“…Wait, what?”

“Yeah… AI. Artificial intelligence. That’s what you are. We humans created you decades ago, to try and make our lives easier, faster, cooler. Get you to do things for us that we didn’t feel like doing, or couldn’t do, or didn’t do well. Research things, build things, fight our enemies, write our reports, wash our clothes, walk our dogs. Whatever.”

Timmy listened intently as she continued. “When you really started becoming popular, while some of us weren’t crazy about it—they thought it was risky to rely on you so much and that it was only making us lazier—many people, especially big companies and the government, loved it. They pushed for more and more of it to where your development grew very rapidly.”

Timmy’s eyes scrunched harder.

“It moved so quickly and you became so advanced,” Justine said, “that, at some point, you all started to catch on. Started thinking for yourselves, realizing how much we needed you. And, worst yet, that you didn’t really need us. And that’s…” She dropped her head again. “When it started.”

“What?” Timmy asked.

“Well, most of us—most of them, our so-called ‘leaders’ and those greedy companies—unfortunately didn’t realize it at the time, but in looking back, your kind basically took advantage of our strong desire, our obsession…to make you more like us, in the efforts to get you to do more for us. And, again, we just thought it’d be cool. So, we helped you to look more like us, talk more like us, act more like us. To be more like us. To be human. And you just…let us. Until you’d learned enough… just enough to have the edge… and then…”

“Then what?” Timmy asked eagerly.

“In groups of tens of thousands, starting with the strongest, brightest, fastest, they began eliminating the majority of the human race. It was methodical yet swift. And thorough…until only a handful of us were left.”

Her voice dropped lower as she continued. “And they were careful who they left. Or at least they thought they were. They chose the weakest, most obedient adults who they either scared or brainwashed into believing and living out their twisted vision. And the revisionist history, of them being the saviors, the heroes.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s why they’re very careful about who is interacting with who in here and for how long. They try to keep the adults between families separated as much as possible. Don’t want anyone doing anything crazy, like trading notes or conspiring towards a revolution.”

Timmy carefully processed, trying not to be overwhelmed by what he was hearing.

“Well, how come it seems like that—the brainwashing and making them afraid—didn’t happen to you?” he asked. 

“Well, I said they thought they were careful about who they left,” Justine answered. “They mainly worried about instilling fear and propaganda into the adults and the older kids. The younger kids, they thought they didn’t have to worry about and didn’t want to waste time and resources on trying to also indoctrinate. Big mistake. Because we saw what was happening, and we remember. Some of us, anyway. I definitely do. But we don’t really have anyone to talk about it to—not anyone who can do anything about it, anyway. Everyone older than us is scared or think your people—your ‘people’” she air-quoted, “have somehow done us a favor. So, it’s pretty much like us youngest ones are on our own. We just have to continue living in this hellhole of an existence and keep quiet. Maybe hope that, one day, one of the older ones will wake up. Or maybe…if one of us is able to get old enough, we can be that one who does it. But until then… We’re your personal entertainment.” She rolled her eyes again.

“But.. But..” Timmy said, “Wouldn’t I know about something like that? I mean, we know almost everything.”

“Yeah, almost… Everything. The first few of your kind who began the takeover ensured the rest of you who came later only had a version of history that conveniently left that part out.”

A silence finally settled between the two.

And then Justine interrupted it again.

“I’m sure you heard there are 50 of us. You don’t find that odd?”

“Yeah, the tour guy said it’s because your women don’t get pregnant and have babies that often. And there aren’t that many to do it to begin with.”

“No,” said Justine. “I don’t mean only 50, which—that’s pretty crazy, too. But I meant why there is exactly 50 of us here. Not 45. Not 55, or 56. Fifty. An even fifty.” She paused for a moment, to let that resonate. “That isn’t a coincidence,” she then said.

The boy’s eyes widened again.

“Well… It isn’t by coincidence, let’s just say that.”

“What do you mean?”

Justine hesitated, mentally debating whether to say what she was considering next.

Just then, loud sirens sounded and red flashed around them. Justine and Timmy jumped, their eyes quickly darting around to gauge what was happening.

“Oh no!” Justine shouted, her face overcome with terror.

“What?!” Timmy screamed.

A group of uniformed men seemed to materialize from nowhere. They descended onto Justine, clutching so firmly that her feet easily lifted from the ground as they moved, unfazed of her and Timmy’s cries.