1.

“Screw you, you old fart!” Zack threw his fork across the room. It bounced off his grandfather’s glasses, landing on the floor with a sound like an alarm bell. Megan burst into tears. Zack jumped to his feet, guilt at Megan’s distress further fueling his rage. “I’m going out with my friends! I’m not staying here for another one of your dinner sermons!” He whirled and ran for the door, only stopping for an instant to stroke Megan’s hair. “Sorry, sis. It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

“As God is my witness,” Zack’s grandfather roared, reaching out a hand to grab the boy’s T-shirt. “If you leave this house, do not come back!” The T-shirt tore, as Zack pulled free, and slammed out the front door, into the rain.

Jesse’s party-mobile was waiting in the driveway. Jesse hit the air-horn, just for effect. Light, music and laughter streamed out the open doors, and Zack was drawn inside, like a moth to a porch light. A cheer rose, as he piled into the back, tumbling onto the worn mattresses that had replaced the rear seats. “Zack’s on board! Zack’s on board!” The doors shut, and Zack was gone.

Someone handed Zack a beer, and he drank, greedily. Someone else handed Zack a Q. He swallowed the pill, eager for the euphoria it would shortly bring. God, how he needed to escape from the tyranny of his grandparents’ dinosaur mentality! “Who the hell wears glasses anymore?” He yelled, to no one in particular. No one heard him, over the music.

A hand touched his shoulder. Zack looked into April’s eyes, into her wide, blissed-out smile. He reached for her, and she came into his arms. Her scent surrounded and engulfed him, and he kissed her. To his delight, she kissed him back! April became his whole world.

The van got up to speed, cruising down the rain-slick highway. Zack’s restless rage finally began to abate, under the influence of beer and Quasidopa, and April. He felt the iron bands of tension around his chest loosen. He began to take deep, relieved breaths. April was warm and willing, and he thought that nothing had ever felt better in his life, than having her in his arms.

At first, Zack thought April’s scream, smothered by their kiss, was all for him. But, there was something about the angle of her neck… she was looking over his shoulder. She was seeing … what? Something wrong? Then, everything began to spin. Suddenly, Zack was in free-fall, April still wrapped around him. Was this the Q, kicking in, or the beer? But, now, there were other screams, impinging on Zack’s blissful world.

Zack’s last seconds were a spinning, tumbling cacophony. Then, there was the loudest CRACK! Zack had ever heard. His world dwindled down … to nothing.

2.

I wake, sitting on the edge of the bed. My breathing is too fast, my heart is racing. I’m coated in the cold, greasy sweat of fear. 

When Abbi touches my shoulder, I can’t smother a small, shrill cry. “Caleb?” She murmurs. “A dream?” Desperately, I turn and reach for her. It had been so real, seen through Zack’s eyes. I didn’t know anyone named Zack. But, I knew, with a sick dread, where the dream had to have come from. So, I greedily seek the comfort I know I can find in Abbi’s arms.

Some time later, Abbi’s languid smile goes a long way toward assuaging the guilt I feel for being so selfish with her. My cold, sour sweat has been replaced by a warmer, sweeter dew. When she asks, “The same dream, again?” I pull her closer, and shush her with a gentle kiss. I don’t want to let the world back in, yet.

3.

At the breakfast table, I say, “My tractor is breaking down.” Conversation cuts off, immediately. The other family members turn, various expressions in their eyes, as they gaze at me. Mostly, their eyes are full of sorrow.

On the wall screen, I replace the real-time view of wind and rain lashing the flat, midwestern landscape with a view of the barn. Our ten tractors are still in their cells. I start the wake-up sequence, and IV feeds retract from ports in their elbows; catheters withdraw, and the cleaning routines begin. Their dull, blank eyes open, reflexively.

“I have had a … A nightmare,” I tell my family. “Three nights in a row now.” I gesture to the ten “tractors,” being readied for the day’s farming. I give them the short version of the dream. All eleven of us grow somber, because we know what it means.

It’s Walter, who asks the hard question. “Are you sure, Caleb?”

I nod, and spread my hands. “His name is Zack,” I say. Their expressions mirror mine. We were never allowed to know anything about them, before they died, and became tractors. Simply knowing his name is enough to ensure another death. This time, I think, a mercy killing. “I’m going to have to call John,” I say, reluctantly.

“I hate John,” Lars speaks up. “I know it’s not Godly, but …”

“We all feel that way,” I say. “But, it can’t be helped. Let’s just get through this day”

Without a word, all of us—except Joseph—move to our webs. Joseph, whose brain is too old to adapt to the demands of teleoperation, is the overseer. Strapping in, then plugging in, we each mount a tractor.

As I secure my own connections, I take a deep breath, and force myself to relax, accepting the foreign input of vision through another’s eyes, and feeling my way into the utterly strange sensation of operating another body’s muscles. The tractors, each teleoperated by a member of my extended family, lumber out into the fields, and begin the day’s farming.

4.

The morning’s storm fades, and the unrelenting heat sets in. The tractors toil, while we stay safe in our sensor webs. At the noon break, I call John, The “repair man.”

I can barely stand talking to the smarmy bastard. His smug expression, his impeccable suit and imperious manner … I feel my hands curling into fists under the table, below the level of the camera. “It does sound like a breakdown,” he purrs. “But, it’s covered under your policy. I’ll be out by the end of the day.”

“I’ll point him out to you,” I tell John. “If there’s any chance of saving him…”

“Not very likely,” John says, casually. “Once the brain starts bleeding out of the seventeen-second loop, it’s almost impossible to maintain control of the lower brain functions. You’ll get more and more bleed-over, and it might put you in danger. And—“ he shrugs, nanchalantly, “You won’t get much more work out of him anyway. I’ll come diagnose the issue—“

“Issue!” It’s Abbi, whom I hadn’t noticed lurking behind me. “You mean, he’s reliving the end of his life!” She puts a comforting hand on the back of my neck, massaging away tension I had not noticed. 

John’s smile oozes from unctuous to sanctimonious. “Hello, Abbigail,” he gushes. “It’s nice to see you.”

Abbi tosses her head. “If we could farm our fields without your horrible, undead creatures …”

“But, you can’t, can you?” John has suddenly gone hard as flint. “Zoms are three times cheaper than robots. We can all do the math. Zoms are easier to operate and last longer, despite their attrition rate.”

“Don’t call them that,” I say, in a flat voice.

John regains his composure. “Right,” he says. “Because calling them Tractors is just, so much nicer. Look,” he switches to a mode of false empathy. “You’ve seen the statistics—it’s a different world than your grandfather’s. Climate change, the third-wave pandemic mortality rate is off the charts! infrastructure’s gone to hell in a hand basket … It’s a hard fact, but robot tractors that can withstand the climate cost hundreds of thousands each. You can keep a pen full of zoms for a season on a hundred K.” He throws up his hands. “Bots don’t work nearly as well, anyway!” He trails off, when he sees my expression.

“I know the state of things, John,” I say, suddenly weary. “But, I agree with my wife; if I didn’t need this farm, and if the crops we grow weren’t so desperately needed, and without the government subsidies, I wouldn’t touch your filthy abominations. Just … come and get it done.”

5.

By the end of the day, another storm is sweeping over the ravaged plains. Even the family, comparatively snug inside the farmhouse, is exhausted from the relentless focus of working their tractors. The tractors are stumbling, as we bring them back to the barn. The one I now know as Zack is making a low, crooning noise, and I can barely keep him walking. He weaves from side to side, and I cannot control his hands. He begins pulling at his hair, and scratching his face.

When the tractors are finally back in their maintenance cells, I trudge out to the barn, enduring the lash of wind and hail. It’s the least penance I can do, I reflect, as I walk to cell number six.

Zack is not much younger than myself. He was maybe fifteen, when he died the first time. He has short, curly, ash-blond hair. His eyes might once have been grey; now, they’re a flat, muddy color, like river silt. I stare through the plexiglass of his cell. Despite the chemical and physical restraints, his hands are still moving, restlessly. I whisper his name. And I weep.

6.

When John arrives, I’m actually glad to see him. I want this over with. Zack looks peaceful, but I know he is not. He’s trapped in a seventeen-second loop of dream time; time enough to re-live the last minutes of his life. It’s supposed to keep his higher brain preoccupied. He’s trapped in an endless dream, while his body is being used.

After a short, silent time, John nods, and puts away his diagnostic tools. He prduces what looks for all the world like a key fob. He presses a button, and Zack slumps to his knees, then lies, face down, on the barn floor. John notices my tears, flowing freely, now, as I bear witness. “Oh, don’t be such a pussy,” he says, in a “man to man,” tone. “It’s a brutal world. Those who want to survive have to do brutal things. These zoms are a dime a dozen. Farmers like you are on the front line of saving the human race!”

I turn, and punch John in the nose.