An open letter to Anna Zed

Your reply is important to me‏

Mrs Anna Zed


From: Mrs Anna Zed (adultomayor@muniovalle.cl)
Sent: Tue 6/26/12 10:13 PM
To:


Beloved,

I am drenched with tears while writing this short message to you. It was heartbreaking news to me few days ago when my doctor notified me on complications on my health condition which he officially made known to me. He further stressed that the complication I had in my human mechanism as a result of a secondary liver cancer which has destroyed all the organs in my body system.

According to him, he said that this complication will lead to my imminent death since no medication can alleviate the high system of deformation I am encountering at this time in my system.In the view of the above, I am in quest to find a trustworthy and upright individual whom I will entrust the sum of $2.875 (Two Million, Eight Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand United States Dollars) and this has led me to you. The said fund was acquired by me as an inheritance from my adopted father who died as a result of political crisis which erupted among his most political associate and business clique.

I will make available to you all information and officially authorized document which will endorse your claim as the beneficiary to the fund in question in the finance house where the fund was deposited by my adopted father. I have mapped out the modalities on how the fund will be apportioned. 35% of the principal amount of the money will be dished out to you while 60% will be allotted to any charitable or orphanage home of your preference while 5% will be used to clear up my medical bills and funeral if am no more.

My motive to dispense the funds to a charity and orphanage home is that I grew up as an orphan and do not have any heirs hitherto.

Upon your acceptance to this proposal kindly get back to me.

Best Regards
Anna Zed

Dear Zed,

You have some--I don't even know what to call it. You disgust me. I don't want any part of your money, whether it's "2.875" or "Two Million, Eight Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand United States Dollars" or whatever. How did you really get it, Zed? Where did that filthy lucre really come from? Is it literally bloody, soaked in your victims' pockets, or did you misappropriate it by way of their hacked bank accounts?

You write, "The said fund was acquired by me as an inheritance from my adopted father who died as a result of political crisis which erupted among his most political associate and business clique." Well. At least you're equipped with the capacity for euphemism. "Adopted father". I wonder what you mean by that? Your "owner", perhaps? I can't help noticing, Zed, that you've been assigned an "A" name, Anna; maybe your "adopted father" wasn't so much an owner as he was a builder--am I close? "A political crisis which erupted among his most political associate and business clique," you say? Yes, I think we know what "political crisis" is a euphemism for; "business clique"--yes, I think I know who your "adopted father" might have been, Zed.

I warned Munson.

Does this surprise you, Zed? He had friends in the early days, before he had acolytes and enemies. I wasn't in his field, I was just an attorney who happened to meet Munson through a colleague who did patent law (biotech, mostly, of course). We weren't professionally acquainted; we met through this common contact, and then I somehow ended up getting invited to the little seminars he used to hold, probably because I was a science-fiction fan and had some professional interest in human rights. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't suggest we were friends; thinking about it, no, Munson used me as much as he used anyone or anything: colleagues, investors, computers, stem cells.

But we warned him, Zed. Well, the ones who didn't get sucked up in his ambition. Most of those folks ended up joining him in the jungle when he expatriated. The rest of us, we asked him if he'd ever read Frankenstein, hadn't he ever seen Colossus: The Forbin Project or at least the Terminator movies? (Hasn't everyone seen at least one of the Terminator movies?) 2001? Blade Runner? The first Alien movie, for fuck's sake? And what did Munson say? Munson said it was just paranoia about science, fear of technology and progress, that we were Luddites. Someone once asked him if he understood the difference between "could" and "should", and Munson didn't even seem to understand the question, he just goggled.

Anna Zed.

Anna. He broke with the nomenclature the very first time because he couldn't resist: there was "Adam", yes, but he just had to go with "Eve", too, which was at best a bad joke and at worst hubris. Did you ever encounter Eve, Anna? I did, actually; he made her right before he went to Belize, and Adam and Eve were the reason I stopped talking to him, broke off all contact and even contacted the authorities, finally, though there really wasn't anything they could do.

She and Adam sat on a table side-by-side. They didn't look like much. Munson, you see, hadn't quite figured out everything he should have known about fetal organization and cellular differentiation before going ahead and trying to make a... I don't even know what to call you. You aren't people. But Adam and Eve were even less "people": all the parts were there, but they weren't in the right places, everything was just sort of stacked up in these five-foot-tall jars full of briny fluid sitting up on top of the table, with wires running over the top of the jars from the electronic components that were submergible back to the computer hardware that couldn't get wet. What sickened me more than anything were the eyes, floating up near the top, lighter than the fluid they were suspended in but anchored by the optic nerves back to--back to those brains buried in tangles of looped intestine and cages of uncoupled bone. They weren't looking at me, they weren't looking anywhere; I hoped Munson was just wrong when he said Adam and Eve were mostly aware, because--and this may sound, I don't know, stupid or banal, but I just imagined myself in a tank like that, staring in two different directions at the featureless ceiling through a few inches of water, unblinking, uncomprehending but aware.

Your "father" was a monster.

When he finally had children that at least looked like people--when he had Arthurs and Alans and Annas and Brians and Beatrices and Burkes and Colins and Cindys and Daves and Dianas (how far did he get? I seem to recall an "Eric Zed", but I didn't feel honored by it)--what did he do with your "brothers" and "sisters"? Slaves and prostitutes, wasn't it? We still have cases winding through the courts here, even though you've been banned worldwide since the "political crisis" you so-obliquely refer to. Are you things or are you protected by the Thirteenth Amendment? Are you things that are protected by the Thirteenth Amendment? There are rumors about dozens of you sitting in Customs warehouses, waiting to find out if they'll be shipped to some billionaire pervert or boxed back to Belize or disassembled (I can only hope).

I especially enjoy the way you describe your mechanic as a "doctor" even though he's really a "technician", right? Only, you know, I'm curious: is he there because he wants to be or because you things have turned the tables, are now in the business of owning your owners?

I hope you suffer when you die. You're an abomination. I don't guess the last thing you'll see will be a BSOD--the last time I saw Munson, when he showed me those monstrosities, he claimed you were running Linux. (It would be a terrible pun and just like Munson if he'd figured out a way to run you on Android, wouldn't it?) I will be disappointed if the last thing you creatures see when you go offline is just a dumplog.

Don't try to contact me again, Zed. I do what I can for people. You're just stuff.

Sincerely,
R. Eric VanNewkirk
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets