Free Cronix by James Hider

it.
    John Updike
     
    It being self-evident that radical evolution has taken a quantitative leap to create an unprecedented and separate category of beings no longer susceptible to the laws of nature, free of the physical constraints of time and history, and able to endure indefinitely in a state of perpetual conscious presence, we hereby declare a new species to have emerged, entirely other than the Homo Sapiens that heralded it and that shall forever be accorded all protections and privileges while being acknowledged as a different branch of the human family.
     
    The Tarpan-Winkowtiz Act of 2337
     
     
    Glenn Rose sat in the gloom of the Station pub, contemplating his destiny. Or lack thereof. It was just after five in the afternoon, the hour when the office blocks around Liverpool Street station drained of their daily inhabitants: traders, secretaries and accountants turned their collars against the cold and spilled towards the railway termini and bus stops before night swallowed them completely.
    Glenn stared at the palm of his hand. It was this hand that had kept him going through the difficult days, the same palm that eight years before had been stared at so closely during a drunken house party by Cathy Dunswick, red-haired enchantress of his student days, who had looked up at his expectant face and proclaimed Glenn’s Destiny.
    “Oh my god!” she squealed, above the din of music and students body-slamming in the living room next door. “Glenn!” she said, looking up from the augurs of his sweaty hand and into his slightly unfocused eyes. Cathy took this gypsy stuff seriously, and Glenn, who wanted her to take him seriously too, willed himself to return her earnest gaze. “When you were a kid, were you ever trained up for something? Did you ever, like, take lessons in music, maybe, or arts?”
    Glenn, feeling pleasantly wasted, extended his lower lip and pondered. Nothing came to mind, except the thought that his protruding lower lip, rimed black by a tide of red wine, might not be very attractive. He quickly retracted it and tried to dredge up something beyond the few lackluster hobbies he had pursued in his boyhood – skateboarding, soccer, some rock-climbing in summer holidays. Not exactly the stuff fate was made of.
    “No,” he muttered, wary of letting Cathy down. “Nothing really springs to mind.”
    “Really?” She sounded surprised. “Because I have to tell you, I’ve never seen a destiny line this strong.” She pointed to a groove traversing the center of his palm. “See? It’s like you were born to something, or someone had something in mind for you.”
    Glenn shrugged, careful not to withdraw his hand from her soft grasp. His fingers looked to him as though their only possible destiny would be minimum-wage data-inputting, or wrapping sausages in greaseproof paper. But now he looked at them through the miasma of booze, minor narcotics and, for the first time, the heady skein of fate, he felt his hand held a message, a destiny that set him apart.
    He stood up, holding his hand up like a treasure map.
    “Hey Kevin, look at this,” he shouted at his flat mate, who was rummaging through empty wine and vodka bottles. “I’ve got the most dramatic destiny line Cathy’s ever seen.”
    Kevin, his face dewy with sweat from dancing, blinked. “You can’t have a bloody destiny. You’ve got man boobs already, and you’re only twenty-one.”
    Annoyed, Glenn pushed past him, sucked in his stomach and staggered slightly into the living room, where a thrashing melee danced in glorious abandon. He threw himself into the dance frenzy, his kismet hand held high and sense of happiness suddenly suffusing his body.
    The moment didn’t last long. The next song was Kylie Minogue, and the mosh pit evaporated, replaced by girls dancing with each other and smoochy couples. Realizing his plastic cup was dry, he stumbled back to the kitchen, where Cathy Dunswick, French major, siren of his suppressed longings