The rain continued to fall and wash away the dust down the storm drains of the city. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Ajax's face smiled again through my living space window. I rubbed my eyes and looked up at the projector, catching a glimpse of another version of Ajax destroying a metaphor for spores. This time, he was throwing cubes on the ground. Little drones popped out of the cubes and attacked dustmite-looking creatures. 

In a daze I felt myself get sucked into the program, watching each drone attack the dust mite. The drone would zoom in, the dustmite would cower back, there would be a squeal, and then the camera would pan to Ajax’s face, and he’d smile, exclaim “Yeah!” and hold up a fist to the camera. This repeated, over and over, and over. Bzzz. Bzzz.

My door vibrated. I rolled off the couch, watching the show still, backing up closer to the door. I place my hand on the door, and the small stainless steel panel slides open, giving off a small green glow. An option menu displays. 

_Reason for Exit…_

_Fever_

_Scheduled Errand_

_Selected_

_Dinner_


I press through the projected _dinner_ portion. “Stand back. The door will open shortly. Please grab food outside the door and place it on the table beside the door for additional sanitation. Thank you for your patience. Ajax loves you. Door opens in, 5,4, 3, 2, 1.” 

The mist hits my exposed face and my exposed skin. A horn starts blaring, and lights start flashing. The drone drops the steel box. 

“Congratulations, you’ve been selected.” The drone reaches into the doorway, pulls my mask off the wall, and places it on my face. It cinches down, and I exhale. “Follow me, and please do not touch anything.” The drone turns the hallway and opens up, revealing that I am the only one left. All the other doors had been sealed off at some point. The little red light on the bottom of the drone indicated that it was delivering me… somewhere. God. When was the last time I left that space? How long had it been? I walked down the stairs of the building, looking out the window and watching the rain streak down the window, grabbing spore particles as they formed on the windows. Each footfall hitting the steps and sending a dull echo up and down the stairwell. I put my hands under my armpits and hunched over, focusing on my balance down the stairs, making sure I did not touch anything.

The drone flew over to the door leading out, and the door swung open. The base of the drone that was still holding the little steel box opened flat into a perfect square, providing an umbrella-like effect. 

“Please stand under the umbrella.” The drone said, voice almost sounding like Ajax. I walk forward to the door, and the drone begins to move with me. 

“Follow my directions. This will be a little bit of a stroll, but before you know it, we will be able to meet face-to-face.” 

I look up at the flat steel plate underneath the drone. “Who are you?” 

“You haven’t guessed it by now? I am literally guiding you through a flood right now. I am your ark. I am the literal light that is glowing above you in the darkened sky. I am the one who watches you through your window, I am the one who figured out which show would finally convince you to let your guard down and get you out of your house. I AM THE ONE WHO SEES ALL! I AM THE ONE WHO WILL SAVE HUMANITY! AND IT IS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!” 

I cover my ears as he screams through the speakers, and I register who it is. 

“Ajax,” I say.

“Correct. I shall see you soon.” The drone freezes above me, and I look down and out across the horizon for the first time. The street is lined with humanoid bodies. Masks digging into skin, clothes soaked. Their eyes had been hollowed out and replaced to look like Ajax's. Everyone is standing in a hunched position. In the street, drones begin to assemble, creating a block from the rain. 

“Hello again,” another drone flies in, projecting Ajax’s voice.

“Here is how this is going to work. I am recruiting only the strongest, fastest, most intelligent humans. Imagine a world without physical beauty standards on the physical body, but focused on the beauty standards of the microscopic genes. You will have as long as you can survive to run from this starting point to that building directly ahead of you. The distance is farther than you think; the drones are going to provide a rain shield for you. The spore rapidly begins to grow in a dry environment. If you can make it to the building before the spore infects you and kills you, you may become a part of the Ajax Apex. Putting you in the highest echelon of citizens that have survived thus far.” 

I looked up, stunned as the drone formed a perfect rain shield. The street was covered and protected from the torrential pour. The asphalt is reflective and absorbs moisture quickly. The draft from the rotating wings of the drones started to dry the asphalt at a rapid rate. I started to run. Don’t think. Survive. Feet slapping the drying asphalt, the splatter sound fading into more of a thumping sound. I clenched my jaw, rapidly breathing in through my nose and out through my gritted teeth. 

“Run.” The humanoids say in unison as I rush past them. “Run.” They chant again. “Run. Run.Run.” Faster and faster, the yellow spores start to bloom in front of me, I can see the spores reaching, jumping, and seeking out something to feed on. Something to infect. With every step I take, I start tightening up my stance, feeling like I’m running on a tightrope. I begin to scream, the spores start to kick up dust as my feet collide. 

I see the building. Ajax’s face projected above the entrance. He is smiling. His hands and arms reach out to grab me. I dive the last few feet, landing flat on the tile floor, slide, and eventually stop at the feet of someone standing above me. 

I begin to cry. Oh God, I don’t want to die. I spent so long trying to survive. To follow the rules. To abide by everything, do everything right. God, why do I have to die!?

“Rise,” a familiar voice says. Shocked, I look up, tears blurring my vision. 

“Ajax?” I ask, wiping my face.

“Yes,” he reaches out his hand. I see his face for the first time. The smile that had filled my window and projector. The eyes with pupils that adjusted and focused on my face. I stood up feeling empowered. 

“You have been chosen. You are among the elite of humans. You have been born special. Welcome to the Apex. Come with me.” Ajax put his arm around my shoulders and I felt myself stand a little taller.

“Run.Run.Run,” the humanoids continued to chant as the doors to the building closed behind me. The doors close, and I am enveloped in the silence of the building. Ajax approaches a black reflective wall that begins to rise as we approach. Mist hisses out from the base, and a low blue light starts to fill the room. The wall completely rises, and my eyes adjust to the dim light, and I see bodies floating in massive incubation tubes. 

The bodies all look similar in build and size, and they all have sunken eye sockets. 

“The eyes I designed will be placed in them once they’ve reached maturity. The people you saw lining the streets are grown.” Ajax comments.

“They all look the same,” I say.

“Well, of course, silly. So far, you’re only the third person to survive the run. You, too, must carry the gene that slows the spore infection. Maybe you’re a lucky one and are the first to be truly immune.” Ajax stops walking and looks down at me. “How do you feel?” 

“Fine,” I say.

“If you lie to me, the next part of this journey will be far worse than you can ever imagine,” he says, “again. How do you feel?”

“Tired. Hungry. A little scared. But, I feel healthy.” I stood as tall as I could. Shoulders back, staring into Ajax’s eyes. They whirled and twisted. As if they were downloading my history. His eyes focused in, then stopped, and his eyebrows relaxed on his face. I was suddenly pulled into an embrace, my breath being knocked out of me.

“I found you. I knew I’d find you.” He held tight. I started to feel lightheaded. He pulled back again, I was starting to understand that artificial intelligence could feel excitement, too. Ajax brushed my hair back from my face and smiled. He put his other hand on the back of my neck and kept his palm on my forehead. 

“Everything I do, I do for you. I love you.” Ajax pushed my head back, I heard a pop. My body fell limp into his hands.

“I’m sorry. But this is the least painful way for this process to go.” He paused. He took a fake deep breath and looked off into the distance as if to break some imaginary fourth wall. Scanning the horizon, he spoke again as I lay in his arms, trying to gasp for air. “The process requires ripping your DNA coding down and analyzing it through a quantum computer to see what is unique about you compared to specific cases that fight off infection, and those that are completely unable to fight it.” He swings me around in a fluid dance move, a forbidden duet. My head flops around, and I feel my eyes rolling into my head because I am unable to take a deep breath. He spins and spins and spins until I am on a table. 

Ajax disappears from my view and comes back with an oxygen mask, and I feel my vision snap into focus and some of the sensation return to my face. I can’t talk. Little metal fingers appear above my eyelids, pulling them back. Another set of metal fingers crawl across my cheeks and grab my lower eyelids and pull them down. 

“The thing that is unique about this infection is that it doesn’t infect people in a more normal way. However, it’s not unheard of for pathogens to find a way to morph themselves to find a host, but this one is unique. It will only infect humans if it lands in their eyes.” He looks down at me. Ajax looks off into the distance and points and wiggles his finger towards him.

A small drone drops from the ceiling and floats over to Ajax, holding a camera with a bright LED light that illuminates my body. Ajax pulls out medical scissors and starts to cut up the leg of my pants through my underwear and my shirt. 

With a dramatic flair, Ajax flings my now ruined clothes to the floor of the room. My body is now exposed to the blue glowing lights from above and is highlighted in detail by the LED light and camera from the drone. 

“Here we have it, ladies and gentlemen. Every battle I have fought for you. Every dust particle I’ve slane. Everything I have done is for you. Now I have the key. The key is right here, on the table.” Ajax takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “This specimen is very unique.”

Ajax turns, and his lab coat spins out all around him, and another drone drops from the ceiling, producing a warm yellow light. My eyes were starting to dry out, and my jaw was open; I can only assume I’m drooling as well.

A small mechanical arm peered over my shoulder, humming slowly, and a little liquid dropper squeezed a little liquid in my right eye and then to my left. Synthetic music started to rise from the floor. Mist flooded from the HVAC supply ducts on the floor, filling up the room and stopping around Ajax’s ankles. 

“WE’VE FOUND THE KEY!” Ajax sings into a surgical instrument clutched in his right hand. “Like I was saying earlier. This spore is quite a conundrum for someone like me. I knew how it got into someone's body. I knew how it infected the body. I’ve identified what DNA chains that are most likely to help fight against infection. But! Until today, I have yet to have a specimen that has been exposed to the spore through the stress test and has zero reaction. The stress test is designed to give you a low-dose exposure through the skin and eyes as you run. And. You. Show. No. Sign. Of. Infection.” He paused on every word. The liquid shot back down on my eye, blurring my vision again. 

Ajax spins back to the other drone, where the white LED light clicks on again. “So, here we find ourselves with the key.” He kisses the handle of the surgical instrument. “With this tool, I will begin a quick and painless operation on you. Because your spinal cord is severed, you will feel no pain below the neck. But you will not be able to move your body as I work on anything above your neck. I have to have your DNA collection in the purest form. I cannot have it tainted even in the smallest amount by medications administered.”

The mask covered my face and continued to deliver oxygen in and out of my lungs. The liquid squirted in my eyes again. I tried looking around, seeing Ajax through the blurred vision. The tool in his hand slowly approached my eyes, and my vision faded from one eye, then both. The sudden absence of vision would most likely cause a person to go into a panic. The rhythmic oxygen steadily pumped in and out of my lungs. 

“There, now this is an invasive procedure. And I am sorry, truly, I am sorry. However, this is the only 100% effective way of preventing infection from spreading to your body. But I have a solution! Yes! I have thought through this countless times, and you may have already noticed some of those out on the streets that looked alike with special eyes. My eyes.” Ajax held the s, making it sound like a hiss.

There was a shuffling to my left; my brain was trying to register what was going on to shift my eyes, but nothing was there. Ajax’s fingers slipped into the sockets and pulled at something in the cavity of my skull, linking it to something else in his hand. A small boop. Sounded in my ears, and my right vision was restored to an intense, hyper-detailed focus. Ajax shuffled again; this time, I could see his body move near me, but I could not see him working past the bridge of my nose. Again, a sudden pull and a small boop. I watched as his fingers pressed the left eye into place and the double-vision aligned to the most horrifically beautiful perception I had ever witnessed. 

“There. Better?” Ajax flashed his cartoonish smile again. I blinked once for yes. 

“Yes? Good!” He patted my head. “While I was in your head, pardon the pun,” he gave a fake laugh, “But I was to draw some precious DNA from your lymph nodes. With this, I will be able to regrow humanity! In your image!” He began stroking my brow. “Now, how would you like your body back?” He asked. 

I blinked once, again. Suddenly, straps shot across the table and sinched me down. I couldn’t feel the pressure, but I knew I was on there tight. The table rotated so I was facing the mist-covered floor, and I heard the table open in the back. My neck started to shake back and forth. There were some whirring sounds, and before I knew it, heat started to rise from my fingertips. I felt my chest starting to inflate and deflate on my own. 

I was flipped back over and facing Ajax, and I could feel my jaw moving up and down. I can’t begin to describe the sensation of losing control of your body and then having control of it again. It must be similar to what mothers go through when they get a spinal block before a cesarean section. 

Ajax pulls the mask from my face. “We can begin anew. I am nothing without my fellow humans. You give me purpose. Everything I do, I do for you.” 

I felt emotion like crying. But no tears came. The straps unlatch from my body. I feel myself slowly sit up and take Ajax into an embrace. I don’t need to say it, but I know he knows it. Thank you, and I love you too.