Story 232: Limited Contract

Chad woke up a little, sometimes.  They had told him that might happen.

As if in a dream, he would look out from his eyes as he stood at his workstation and typed.  It would fade to numb darkness soon enough, leaving only the faint impression of a huge room filled with identical computers and nearly identical workers.  Later - though it was impossible to tell how long later - he would see the curved ceiling of his sleeping tube inches from his face, or the nutrition dispenser dropping a pre-wrapped bar into his hand.

In these short glimpses, Chad tried to look for dates.  How far into his five year service was he?  A week?  Six months?  Three years?  Once he saw that he was in the gym, and was sure the calendar on the wall said August.  He didn't see a year though, so that wasn't a lot of help.  It didn't matter.  They were clearly keeping up their end of the bargain, maintaining his body as it worked around the clock for them.

Then there was the one where he was walking down a dark hallway.  In the distance, an emergency light was flashing.  A fire drill?  A power outage?  It was gone before he could tell.  After that it was his workstation, and everything seemed fine.  The workstations on either side of him appeared to be empty, but he couldn't turn his head to see for sure.  They were empty the next time, certainly.

He was in the gym, and the treadmill wasn't working.  He watched his hand press on the button over and over, trying to make it start.  He was in the sleeping tube, and someone somewhere was yelling.  Angry.  He was at his workstation, but the screen was blank.  He was typing anyway.  The lights started to be off more often than on, but he never felt hungry so at least the nutrition dispenser seemed to be okay.

The calendar in the gym said October, but the ink was streaked as if water had dripped down it at some point.  Chad started to notice mildew spots on the walls.

His monitor had fallen over, and he could see the rest of the massive room.  Only two other workstations had people at them, out of hundreds.

A dark hallway, with someone screaming in the distance.  Screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and then silence that was somehow even louder.

He stood in front of the nutrition dispenser, hand outstretched.  Nothing fell into it.

His sleep tube.  Something smelled very wrong.

Gym.  Marching in place on the broken treadmill.  Hungry.

Pain.  Someone had just slapped him.  Chad tried to make out the words they were saying.  "...awake?  Snap out of it!  This whole place is..." as the vision faded, he tried to focus.  It was a teenage boy, filthy, wearing a beanie and holding a baseball bat.  Nobody he knew.

Workstation.  Not hungry anymore.  Typing.

Gym.  It was darker than anything before, not even emergency lights.  He could just barely see his reflection in the mirror as he walked towards the treadmill.  His jumpsuit was disgusting and torn.  Something was smeared all over it.  He had a beard.  The hair on his head looked strange, but he didn't get a good enough look.  It might have been a hat of some sort.

Workstation.  The keyboard had fallen, or something.  He was drumming his fingers on the dusty countertop.  He was so, so hungry.  There was nobody else in the room, that he could see.  A single emergency light was on, but his eyes must have adjusted because that was enough to get a pretty good look.  Surprised, Chad realized he was turning his head.  He was in control.  Had it been five years, or had the device just failed?

He reached up with a trembling hand and felt his beard.  It was thick, matted.  Numbly he wandered through the center, but didn't see anyone else alive.  There were a few bodies, and some parts of bodies.  The water was still running in the break room for some reason, which didn't seem right considering the state of everything else.  He used it to wash himself as best he could, and then pulled on a fresh jumpsuit that he liberated from someone else's sleeping tube.  His own tube looked terrible and smelled worse.

The nutrition dispenser was empty, but he found a pallet of the bars in a back room and ate until he felt sick.  The calendar in the Gym still said October, in that smeared ink.  He nodded.  It could be October.  Who was here to say otherwise?  He headed back to the main lobby, almost tripping over something in the dark hallway that clattered against the wall with a wooden sound.  The exit was barricaded, but one side had been knocked inwards.  He considered it for a moment as if it was a puzzle, a riddle in a language he couldn't understand.

Turning, Chad walked back to his workstation.  He picked up a keyboard from his neighbor's unused spot, and began to type.

Story 224: On the Ends of Goods and Evils

The last feed went out, leaving the world outside a horrific mystery.  The harsh blue light from the screen that was now showing only a 'NO INPUT' message soon faded as Gerald turned everything off, forever.  The monitoring room was done.  He thought he could already tell a difference.  He was certain that now, a month after the bombs began to fall, they were finally alone.  All alone.

Just the eight of them here below, and death up above.

Gerald climbed up the ladder to the stasis room, where twelve shining pods lay waiting.  More than enough to fit them, if they all worked.  Instead the spares had already been gutted for parts, hollow under that shining facade.  Out of the dozen stasis pods, only one was fully functional.  Gerald felt cheated.  He had contributed the money, back when money meant anything.  That should have been enough.  But now they wanted him to clean sewage recyclers and scrape algae out of the dehumidifier.  Things he shouldn't have to do not only because of his monetary gift but because they should have all been in stasis pods by now instead of listening to Karen's 'plan B' for surviving and building an outpost above ground once things "calmed down".

Gerald knew planning for the future was idiotic.  There was no future, up there - just a painful radioactive death.  He should have been in the one working pod, plunged forever into a virtual reality paradise.  He had modeled it - well, had it modeled - after the house he grew up in.  He had grown up spending days lounging in his father's library, and now in the virtual world it would be ten times as large.  The life support would link with his neural implants and after a few months his body would die and his mind would be inside the machine.  That library could entertain him for a hundred years or more, and then maybe he would even dive into the less cerebral realm of television and movies.

But they wouldn't let him.

"We need every set of hands," Karen would say.  While Kylie and Jason worked on fixing the other seven pods he had persuaded Ian to keep putting finishing touches on Gerald's one working pod.  But now... he wondered if that was even the right choice.  What would stop one of the others from using it, to escape Karen's dictatorship?  They all seemed eager to help, but Gerald knew that couldn't be the case.  They must all feel the death lurking above them, surely one of them would soon snap and take his rightful place in that dream world.

There was a clanking on the ladder, and Ian came into view.

"I was just thinking about you," Gerald said, "I wanted to ask you... is the simulation ready?  Would I be able to go in now?"

Ian rested his arms on the floor around the ladder.  "Um.  Yeah, sure.  Absolutely.  I mean, I've just been tweaking things, it's ready to go.  I just have to... um.  Hey, why are you asking?  Didn't we agree we'd go together or not at all?  You know Karen says -"

Gerald stomped on Ian's head, sending him down the ladder.

He ignored the yelling, as he fastened the hatch.  The stasis room was built to be the most secure spot in the bunker, and while they might eventually break in it would be too late to betray him.  Gerald suspected Karen would even convince the rest to just leave him alone, so she could push them harder towards her insane dream of moving back to the surface.  It had only been a month, the last of the bombs were still falling.  She would be trapped for her whole life with that stupid, unreachable dream.

Gerald closed the lid of the pod over himself, and felt his implants engage.

The library looked amazing.  It even smelled right.  Positioning the wide chair by the window, he went to pick out a book.  Grabbing one at random - after all, he would eventually read them all -  he sat down to begin his new lifetime.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat."

That couldn't be right.  He put down the book, pulled another from the shelf.  "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..."  Another.  "Lorem ipsum..." Another.  And another.

Fine, Gerald thought.  There was a help system, in the form of a butler.  He rang the small golden bell on the end table, and a dignified man in a severe suit walked in.

"I need to adjust the language settings, I think."

"Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo."

"English.  Set everything to English."

"Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem."

"No, no, no.  Just... go.  Get out."

The butler didn't move.  Gerald stormed past him and into the media room.  He turned on the television, and was confronted with a menu of Lorem Ipsum, Lorem Ipsum, Lorem Ipsum.  The computer.  A cookbook in the kitchen.  A droning voice on the radio.

"Ian!  Very funny, Ian!"

But it wasn't funny.  As the cold shock of the situation started to fade to numbness, he thought back and reassessed the last few weeks.  Gerald had to admit that he might have been a bit hasty.  Possibly there had been some psychological side effects from living in a bunker for a month watching the world end.  And just maybe he shouldn't have assaulted Ian before he was totally done.  Or, he grudgingly thought, at all.  But he had gotten his wish.  After a fashion.  Freedom from the lurking specter of death.  Trapped for his whole life with this stupid, unreachable dream.

Gerald fished around until he found a ream of blank paper in a drawer.  He took a pen from the jar on the desk, and sat down to refill the library.

Story 207: Kill Command

Travis leaned forward to look at the wall.  "Flawless," he said. "How long did you say it's been like that?"
Mary sighed and shook her head. "We don't know.  A few days, at least, but I think it happened slowly so it's hard to be sure."

Mary's husband Carl was sitting on the couch, staring at the fabric.  "I think it's been a while since we had to clean anything though.  I probably haven't dusted in a few months."  He stood and began pacing around the room while he waited for Travis to say something, anything, but instead the engineer continued to run his hand up and down the wall. "Trav... is it serious?  Is something wrong with the computer?  You know the Johnsons were saying there was lag for just a second before it started to rain last time.  Like everything stuttered or something."

Travis finally broke off his stare and turned to look at the couple.  "Nobody reported that to me.  Might be related, might be their imagination.  If I had to guess, I would say something is taxing the system.  Badly."  He looked at the wall one more time, the surface smooth and regular.  There should have been cracks, and bumps, and bubbles in the paint.  He did his best to smile and told everyone he would get it fixed, and then headed out to the control room.

The walk was pleasant as always, perfect houses on one side and the lake on the other.  Travis couldn't enjoy it, though.  He found himself trying to look at things from the corner of his eyes, attempting to catch errors in the world.  Was there a pattern to the rocks on the hiking trail?  Was the asphalt of the road too smooth?  What about the leaves on the trees, should those have looked so... regular?  He reached the path and turned down it, walking to a small shed at the corner of a field.  Removing the padlock, he stepped into the cavernous space.

The control room was far larger on the inside, because it was technically a different simulation.  Immediately Travis knew something was wong; it was like when he had been out in the world and had gotten a new prescription for his glasses.  Everything had seemed fine, but once the new lenses were in he could see how much detail had been missing from the world.  How long had it been since he had come to the control room?  A year?  More?  The system had seemed so stable, he hadn't had to think about his tech support position for ages.

He rolled a chair over to the main station and did some basic diagnostics.  All the hardware reported back that it was online and working as expected, which wasn't surprising since it was made to literally survive the end of  civilization.  It had another two hundred years on the warranty.  On to the software side... as he had expected, something was using way more resources than it should be.  It had started eight months ago, and was using just a little more each day.  Travis could tell that it would start causing serious errors soon, possibly crash the simulation entirely and require a reboot.

A shiver went down his spine.  A reboot would leave everyone trapped in a little bubble for two or three days while he got everything fixed and restored, and that kind of isolation could be more than a little traumatic.  Not only that, but some things weren't completely backed up which would mean a lot of little personal touches reverting back to factory settings.  The Wilson's holiday lights display, names of lovers carved on a tree, little lost items dropped behind couches.  All those tiny things that made the simulation feel real.  It had taken forever for people to adjust, and having it revert...

Travis shook his head and got back to work.  No use worrying about something that didn't need to happen, and he felt confident he could locate the problem.  It was hiding, somehow, impacting multiple systems but not coming up on the process list.  Then again, that seemed like a clue unto itself.  Travis pulled up the special troubleshooting and testing queue and sure enough, there the process was.  It had to have been created by someone with IT credentials, and since their network connection had gone down during the war sixty years ago that only left himself and one other person.  Travis' finger hovered over the red button that would terminate the process, and he hesitated.  It couldn't hurt to call, he decided.

"Mike, this is Travis.  Did you start a process eight months back on the support queue?  ID is IZE009."
There was nothing but breathing for a moment. "Trav, yeah.  That's... that's a vital process.  Just leave it running."
"Well, it's eating up processors and memory both.  We're going to lose the simulation entirely unless I kill it.  You need to be more careful with side projects, you should never let them loose on the main system.  What the hell were you working on?"
"Just... look, just promise you won't stop it."
Travis sighed.  "Mike, look real close at the texture of your walls or something.  Tell me what you see."
Another pause, longer this time. "Oh.  Trav... oh, man.  How long?"
"I don't know.  It all depends on when the first crack forms in the dam.  It's like the blackouts on the old grid, if one plant froze up it increased the load on all the others and there was a chain reaction.  What I'm saying is that the simulation will probably be fine until someone sneezes, and then the whole thing might cascade down at once."
"I need... I need time to fix it, without stopping it.  Just wait."
"I'm trying to look at what the hell this thing is, but it's... it's everywhere.  Whatever you did, this thing has grown to take up all available space in the system.  It's got its fingers in everything, you can't just redesign it on the fly.  Shit Mike, is this thing self-programming?"
"... come over to my house, okay?  You can shut it down remotely if you need to."

Travis forced himself to walk rather than run, and he pulled up the process on his tablet as he headed towards Mike's house.  He knew that he should stay in the Control Room when messing with the system just in case, but Mike had sounded scared.  Once again, his hand hovered over the button but he held off and rang the doorbell instead.  Mike answered, looking miserable.
"Come into the back room, Trav."
He turned and walked away, and Travis followed.  He hadn't seen Mike in months, or Mike's wife Lilly.  They had dropped off the face of the world, but that didn't raise a lot of alarms - with a population of eight hundred you got used to people needing some quiet time every few decades, time to get away from the people you saw too much of every day.  If they had been able to stay on the network it would have been a little better.

The back room had been filled by a model of the town last time Travis had seen it, but now it had changed.  The walls were covered in pictures of cartoon animals, and a crib sat in the corner.  There was a changing table, a rocking chair, a doll.  He felt a knot forming in his stomach.  With anyone else he would suspect a mild mental disturbance, an obsession with the idea of children that they couldn't have now that physical bodies had been left behind.  But with Mike...
"What did you do?"
A voice answered from behind him.  "He made a miracle, Travis."  He turned to see Lilly looking at him, eyes glistening, holding a baby that gurgled and clutched at her earlobe.  Travis looked down at the tablet in his hands, at the red button that he knew he had to press.
"You son of a bitch."

Daily Story 169: Rats in a Maze

"It's a false positive," Doctor Lazlo said, watching the three-dimensional brain scan floating in the air between the researchers. Several of them started to protest, but he just shouted over them. "Stop. Just take a look around - yes, there's activity. Does that mean something? Certainly. But you are ignoring the rest of the evidence. Look at your test subjects!" This was met with nothing but a shuffling of feet. Nobody wanted to admit failure this far into the project, not when early results had been so promising, but the test subjects couldn't be ignored.

All forty of them were vegetative, staring at the ceiling and drooling. For a drug intended to improve brain function this was a hell of a side effect. Lazlo had visited them in person just that morning, and while some did appear to have some basic level of awareness none came anywhere close to explaining the frenzied activity on the scans. Whatever was going on in their heads, it didn't appear to be anything productive. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. He reached out and turned off the projection. "I'm very sorry, but this isn't something we can publish."

Walking down the hall back to his office, with the protests of the researchers fresh in his ears, Lazlo had a strange feeling. Deja vu. It was like he had made that speech a hundred times, somehow - and then the feeling passed. He sat down and looked at the data again even though he had made his ruling... something wasn't right. The activity really did look deliberate. There were several theories, ranging from errors in the scan to neurological damage from some undetectable biological weapon that the test subjects had been exposed to prior to the treatment. It was true that they were prisoners of war, but he had checked with the field command and none had been exposed to anything exotic.

There was a theory that intrigued him, however... it was absurd, he had dismissed it out of hand the first time he heard it, but... if the heightened mental capabilities had granted them non-vocal communication the activity could be the test subjects talking. When had that been proposed? Lazlo suddenly had another bout of deja vu, and felt certain that it had been after the meeting... that it hadn't happened yet. He clutched his temples and tried to concentrate - it was like there was a jigsaw puzzle in his mind, but all the pieces looked the same and he didn't have a picture to go off of. Why did this feel so familiar?

No matter. Whatever was bothering him could wait until after the meeting. Turning on the three-dimensional projection of the scans, Lazlo addressed the gathered researchers. "It's a false positive," he said.

Daily Story 151: Welcome to Adventure

"What do you mean, Vagina Monologues fan fiction?" I asked, though I knew already that clarification was the furthest thing from what I actually wanted.
"I mean she went and saw it, and then came home and started writing bizarre feminist stories literally from the point of view of vaginas, although I'm not sure that's how the Vagina Monologues even works. Also, hers involve Harry Potter."
There was a sharp pain behind my right eye, and I wondered briefly if my brain was trying to develop a fatal aneurism.
"Well what do you want me to do about it?" I asked, continuing my trend of asking questions I knew I would regret.

Josh put down his coffee and pulled a shopping bag out from under the table. "I need you to be my nurse."
I picked up the box and read the label. ACME HOME LOBOTOMY KIT. The picture was of some cartoon man giving a big thumbs-up despite the fact that the top of his head was missing and someone - his cartoon wife, I suppose - was rooting around in his exposed brain. I dropped the box on the table and shook my head.
"No. No, that whole thing is creepy. And doing it to someone else against their will... it's like rape, and Nazi experimentation, and brain washing. Can't you just break up with her?"
Josh shook his head and pointed to a scar behind his ear. "If I'm away from her for too long I get headaches - and it can't be removed. We gave each other these little handmade coupons on our first anniversary, good for one brainmod. They were really cute, actually, I used construction paper and... um. Anyway, she used hers but I've held onto mine for a rainy day. It's raining, man."

I felt physically ill with disgust, and I tried to hide it but from Josh's reaction I knew I had sneered.
"Don't give me that look, like you've never done a little adjusting." As soon as the words were out he looked somehow embarrassed. It was strange, but I chalked it up to him remembering that I hadn't actually ever modded myself.
"I just think we should live with the memories and emotions and everything that we were born with. Everyone in this society is sick, you go to a club and come home with split personalities and an FM transmitter in your brain stem."
Josh sat very still for a moment, and then sighed. "I said I wouldn't do this, but I can't listen to you preach at me. Dude, go get a photo done of your noggin. And then get back here, I'm giving her the coupon after dinner."

The Walgreens on the corner has a scanner right next to the blood pressure machine, so I stuck my head in and waited while it hummed. The picture printed out at the photo center and I held it up to the fluorescent lights, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. My brain was filled with dark spots and strange, unnaturally-straight lines. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Josh there.
"Just picking up some ice cream, she's going to want something before the surgery. Nice picture, eh?" I tried to ask him what was going on but my throat was too dry. That headache started up again behind my eye and I wondered if it was stress or an implant or what. Finally Josh just answered the big question without waiting for me to ask.
"It was an intervention. You were addicted, you got mods every day. You know you spoke with a German accent for three years? Not on purpose, just as a side effect."
I shook my head. None of it sounded familiar. "I don't... but..."
"We convinced you to wipe it all out. We told you it would be an adventure."

I dropped the scan and walked out of the store. Josh yelled something but he didn't try to follow me. I knew there was a head shop just a block away, so I marched onward in search of a rush I couldn't remember.

Daily Story 106: Just Peachy

I find myself thinking about food all the time now that I’m dead. The last thing I ate - the last thing I'll ever eat - was a peach. I remember it looked perfect, like in a commercial. Smooth pink skin, tiny drops of moisture, not a single imperfection. I reached down to pick it up and my finger pushed through in the back, into dark brown mush. It had a bad spot where it had gone rotten underneath the surface. Just that spot, so if you looked at it from any other angle you would never guess the rot was eating it from the inside. I pulled my finger out, leaving a dark, wet hole behind. I stared at the hole for a minute, the liquefied peach still on my finger, then cut out the bad part and ate the rest.

That was thirteen months ago, just before I was killed slowly and deliberately at my own request. I've watched the tapes so many times I see them all the time now, see them cutting the top of my skull off very carefully to expose my brain, perfect like a new peach. They stick the rig in one wire at a time, mostly between the two hemispheres, and then once everything is in place they wake me up and ask me questions wile they watch the monitors. Do you feel that? How about this? Think about food please. Good. Now think about sex. Thank you. Can you feel anything when we do this?

The human brain is capable of all sorts of things when you back it into a corner – all they had to do was give it the proper motivation, triggering the slow death of one half of my brain and allowing it to back itself up on the other half... but the information never got there. It was instead routed to a virgin neural network - a blank slate for my new mind. The process took several months, and was repeated for the other half of my brain. On those rare times when I was awake I was thinking with an organic brain and my new prosthetic at the same time. My vision was artificial, piped in from cameras that were watching the surgery. A little more than halfway through the procedure I could watch my old brain with one eye, and my new brain with the other. I remember being surprised at how clean and undamaged my old brain looked. You would never guess it was dying.

When they were done they pulled my old brain out for study leaving a dark, wet hole behind. I watched that every day until I knew the image so well I didn't need the tapes anymore.

They say my current situation is just temporary until they can give me a body or something. I have a neural computer interface I can use to type, and my cameras I can use to watch videos or look at the scientists, or look down at my brain in it's coffin-shaped case. It's starting to gather dust. I don't know when I'll get to have a body again, or be able to feel air on my arms. Or blink. I want to blink so badly. I wonder sometimes if they cared about the psychological effects of the procedure, or if they were too busy with the physical possibility of it.

I don't sleep anymore, not really, and sometimes I think maybe I'm dreaming when I'm awake. I can see the tapes of the surgery even when they aren't playing, see the scientists putting their fingers into my brain that's fuzzy like a peach. I hear them say they'll just cut the bad part out, then they remove my whole brain. They missed a part though. My new brain looks perfect, like in a movie - shining webs of superconductors, tiny artificial nerves, not a single imperfection - but I can feel the decay setting in, just under the surface. If you tried to pick up my new brain you'd see it's rotten on the other side, it's brown and dripping.

When I get my new body, I think maybe I should get a knife and cut that part out.

Daily Story 95: Purgatory

There's a fuzzy emptiness around me as the system comes out of hibernation mode, and with a quiet ding a sentence appears in the void in front of me: User Entering Local Network Range.

I know I should remain calm, for all I know Sara just lost her connection for a moment, but I can feel my heart racing - not my actual heart, of course. I drop into the lobby, seamless white walls shining and perfect. Sara appears at the same time as me, wearing that stupid green sundress. Her eyes narrow as she looks at me, and then she composes herself and nods politely. I smile at her as best I can, but my dreamless sleep hasn't dulled the pain of our last "conversation". The things we yelled at each other hurt far more than the actual fighting, of course. That impotent flailing battle, punching and slapping and choking. All for nothing. We turn to the wall that's scrolling network information and I hear a sharp intake of breath - looks like Sara just caught the date. Twelve years since we spoke, though it feels like yesterday.

A name finally appears on the local network list - Betty. With a sound like a doorbell she appears in the lobby with us, in overalls and what looks like a Arkham University shirt. She looks a little like an Italian version of Sara, black hair instead of blonde and an olive tint to her skin. Before I know what's happening we're in a tangle in the middle of the room, arms in knots and everyone crying. I honestly don't even know who went to who. We pull ourselves apart awkwardly and step back, and Betty grins at us.
"I'm Betty, hi. I... it's good to see you guys." The relief in her voice tells me everything, but I have to ask anyway.
"Hi Betty, I'm Phillip. You're dead too, aren't you?" Betty nods, and I see Sara slump a little. We haven't been rescued.

Sara sounds almost skeptical. "Do you know how you got here? It's been more than thirteen years since we died, I didn't think anyone new would come into range after all this time - especially with us in such a shielded area." Betty shrugs, and cocks her head to the side. She's staring at nothing, probably going through some internal files. Finally she smiles.
"For a while there I could access the security cameras, before they died. I found myself pretty easily, laying in a stairwell on the ninety-third floor. You guys are in the Helms building, right?"
"Eighty-ninth floor," Sara and I say in unison. We look at each other, and for just a second I feel some anger welling up as if she answered at the same time as me just to spite me - as absurd as that is. Betty is oblivious to our hostility, she's nodding again.
"I was laying on my back, on the landing, and my head was hanging off the step. The accelerometer in my brain recorded a lot of motion a minute ago, and I think... I think my head fell off and rolled down the stairs. Judging from how long I rolled I would guess I bounced just right to go down... three flights? Maybe three and a half. Pretty impressive, if you think about it." She looks almost proud. Sara smiles - I haven't seen her smile in forever - and she agrees.
"Yeah... I mean, heads aren't exactly round - I would have expected it to stop right away."
"I bet it's because my brain is an older model," Betty says, "I was an early adopter and it's heavier than most. Gave it that extra momentum. Shame I didn't make it closer to street level somehow, there must still be some networks up."

There are, of course. There have to be. Everything that can't be gassed is still out there, slowly breaking - but with all the independent power grids and secure transmitters... it's just this damn internal stairwell that's stopping us from being in contact with the world. I've zoned out, missed some part of the conversation. Betty is talking about how she went into hibernation mode.
"Us too," Sara says, "We kept each other company for the first year, but... to be perfectly honest after a while it was either shut down or find a way to kill each other." I smile at that, and she catches me. For a second she looks hostile, like she thinks I'm laughing at her, and then she smiles too. A little, anyway.

It wasn't always this way. I had seen her around the building, we were friendly. After the attacks we were close, we were the whole world for each other for a year and for a few months in the middle there we had even been more. I miss that. It's not her fault, for such a long time she managed to not take all those hateful things I said seriously; we both knew there was a limit to how much time two people could spend together. Having a third could make us happy again, for another year or two. Maybe more, though of course at some point we'll shut down again, sleep and wait for a rescue that seems more impossible with each passing year. I'm jealous of all the people that died in open, crowded places. They might have hundreds or even thousands of people with them to keep them sane. Still, I shouldn't complain at a time like this. Betty is pulling up her library, and from the look on Sara's face there are some movies we didn't have. It really is nice to see her happy again. I put a hand on her shoulder and she flinches a little, then leans into me. I'm sure we're both thinking the same thing, that our situation could have been a lot worse. How many are just out of range, isolated in their minds like Betty had been - without even one person to keep them company?

Betty is starting a movie, fake popcorn appearing beside her. Sara whispers an apology in my ear, and I whisper the same back. There are worse hells than this, but even so... immortality had sounded like a lot more fun in the brochure.

Daily Story 86: Productivity

This is another that was first published at 365 Tomorrows.
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I’m staring at the clock. Just staring at it, waiting for it to tick off a minute at which point I will have exactly one hour left of this hell. My brother the crazy artist says I’m not living my life. He says that I’ve sold my soul. If he knew my automator was broken he’d be ecstatic, he’d probably try to get me to go out and party with him as if I didn’t have to go to work anymore.

Actually, though, calling out tomorrow might not be a terrible idea. My productivity is shot anyway – I keep finding myself staring at the screen in front of me, drifting off and daydreaming. It’s the sound of everyone else working; it’s hypnotic. They’re all typing at full speed, seated thirty to a row, all the way down this massive room. It sounds like a thunderstorm pouring around me. I wandered down the aisles this morning for ten wasted minutes, just listening to the endless shower of keystrokes and looking at all of their blank faces… the only good thing was that I saw someone I went to school with. We’ve probably been working together for ten years. I should call her later.

I know my brother isn’t alone, there’s a very vocal minority that will talk your ear off about how terrible automators are. I can only assume none of them have office jobs, because I’ve only been here for four hours and I’m ready to murder someone. Don’t even get me started on my exercise routine! Do I really do that every morning? Why in god’s name would I want to be aware for that? I finished less than half of the workout before going back to bed. If they can’t fix my automator soon I’m going to get all pudgy.

If I tried to explain this to my brother he’d just suggest that I work somewhere more interesting, as if everyone in the world can be an artist for a living. He’d say having less money would be worth not going through life as a zombie, but every second that ticks by feels like an hour and every time I look at the pathetic amount of work I’ve gotten done I know exactly why a “work day” used to be eight hours – more for some people! Missing my life? If this is what my life is when I’m not looking then I’m happy to miss it. Only fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds to go. Please, let them fix me soon.

Daily Story 79: Are You Ready For the Digital Transition?

I see the one I want, a domed glass cylinder with retro brass fittings. It's perfect. The salesman saunters over to me and rests a hand on it, nodding like he can tell what I'm thinking.
"It's a beauty," he says, "you have excellent taste." I'm afraid to ask how much it is. I'm just staring at the circular metal grille of the speaker. So classy. There are others, all arranged under the big banner that asks, "ARE YOU READY FOR THE DIGITAL TRANSITION?" in glowing letters. Most of the canisters are plastic, just grey tubes with a few ports. They're so ugly, but I know those are the kind my government coupon will get me.

There are some people that aren't converting; most are religious zealots or hillbillies, but I know there are some intelligent, educated people who simply don't mind being cut off from the flow of information. I wonder how it would be, if I would be able to even function. My parents have done okay living twenty years in the past, maybe I could too.
"So, chief, what kind of a budget are you on?" I hold up my coupon and he loses a lot of his enthusiasm. "Ah. Well, you know that government handout will get you something that works for the most part, but there's nothing that says you can't apply it towards something better." I should just grab the cheap one and get out of here, I already know that's what will happen. I ask him if he's getting one, and he develops a pretentious sneer that would probably take plastic surgery to remove.
"No, I transitioned two years ago, full conversion." If he were a better salesman he would have lied, talked about which one he wants and gotten me all excited about it, but he's too eager to brag about his positronic brain. Yeah, great, you can connect to everything without leaving your couch. You can carry on three conversations while navigating your ride and buying tickets to some crappy band that you're so cool for liking before everyone else. Good for you.

Meanwhile, I have to go with the times and pick out a jar to put my brain in so I'll be able to get my news and interface with the computers at work, and I can't even look cool doing it because my jar is going to be government-issue grey plastic canister. I walk away from the salesman without a word, and tap the phonebud in my ear - I guess that's one thing I won't be needing much longer. Stacey will know what to do.
"Hey Kyle, did you get yourself set up yet?"
"No... it's worse than I thought. The generics are awful. I might as well carry my brain around in a trash bag. I'm sorry, Stacey. I can't afford anything. I'll never be able to afford anything. You should just dump me now."
"Oh, cry a little more, you big baby. The generic is awesome, grab it and I'll bolt so much shit onto there that everyone will think you made it from scratch. There's nothing cooler than that. On your way home grab me a sheet of clear plastic, a live goldfish, and one of those hamster things, with the tunnels. You're going to have the most badass case-mod ever."

I grab a bland grey cylinder from the shelf and head to the front of the store with my coupon, and I can't help but notice I'm whistling.

Daily Story 29: Trade-In Value

The choice to become a Soulless Machine of Death is a highly personal one, and it's not something that can be entered into lightly. For most the choice is born from depression and the feeling that they are worthless as a normal functioning human being - but that kind of mental instability is stored in the one chunk of meat you get to keep, so those people are ultimately rejected from the program… which probably doesn't help them to feel better about themselves.

General Rosewater, who was deeply involved in the initiative from the beginning, famously and controversially compared it to the choice to become a Catholic priest - he said that there were some who took the vow of chastity in an attempt to avoid feelings that they were ashamed or afraid of, such as a desire to have sex with "other males, children, the pope, whatever". This was, he insisted, a doomed plan and did nothing to serve the priesthood - what was really needed was a genuine desire to dedicate yourself to service of the almighty that superseded any natural urges and distractions and that was (as the general pointed out) "mighty hard to come by these days".

Of course the analogy breaks down at some point because in actuality every major religion and ninety-nine percent of the minor ones had declared the whole process of converting yourself to a Soulless Machine of Death to be completely immoral which was hardly surprising considering "soulless" is right there in the name. Flaws in the analogy didn't stop the SMD's from adopting the practice of wearing white collars, which would have further infuriated the Catholic church in particular had it not been for the fact that they had long since hit their limit on this issue - even Catholic disapproval can only go so far before becoming exhausting.

In point of fact the SMDs kept to their vows of loyalty and chastity far better than actual priests, because a lack of loyalty resulted in execution and a lack of chastity was actually quite difficult when your reproductive organs had been completely removed, leaving you smooth like a Ken doll - albeit a Ken doll with terrifying integrated weapons systems capable of leveling a city block. This part of the sacrifice is what had led General Rosewater to make the comparison in the first place and was one of the main sticking points.

In the case of Jeremy Porter a lack of reproductive organs was more of a perk, as they had brought him nothing but trouble. For reasons that were not clear to him he had simply never been interested in sex - he worried growing up that he was gay, but after browsing through various types of pornography he determined that he was neither gay nor straight. He also was not aroused by animals, children, corpses, feet, or bondage. Certainly there were some combinations that he had not specifically investigated so it remained a possibility that he required a tied up dead underage male goat... but that seemed unlikely and distasteful. In the twenty-three years before his conversion the only thing that Jeremy had found that aroused him at all was the smell of carpet glue. He wasn't sure if this was some sort of miswiring in his brain, possibly related to pheromones, or if it was a deep psychological issue... had he seen his first naked woman while someone was installing a carpet?

In the end he decided it didn't really matter and his genitals were thereafter thought of only as an inconvenience, something that he had to apologize for or explain away every time someone took it upon themselves to fix him up with someone. He didn't miss them at all, and was far more satisfied with the heavy laser built into his arm.

Daily Story 8: Lucidity

My sister looks tired. She has bags under her eyes, dark circles that tell the world she isn't getting enough sleep. She's smiling though, she's always so careful to smile when she talks to me because she knows it's not my fault that this happened. She's asking what I want for dinner tonight so I tell her the little German woodwind guys, but her eyebrows scrunch up into her I-don't-understand face. I feel like I was clear and concise, but I've learned to trust her. I try to rewind the conversation in my head and focus on her question. This time I ask for a hamburger, and she gives a thumbs-up before heading into the kitchen, carpet blooming into flowers behind her.

There are no flowers, I know that and a second look confirms it. They lease fences to contain the flowers though, and... no, that thought doesn't even make sense. I get up and head to the treadmill so I can work out some and force my body to wake up a little. Hopefully I can stay clear long enough to have an actual conversation with my sister over dinner. The readout on the treadmill says something indistinct about french fries the first time I look at it, but it's okay after that. Why was I thinking about french fries? I wonder if we're having hamburgers for dinner, that could explain it. I seem to remember talking to my sister about hamburgers a few minutes ago, but I don't see her now so that might not have been real.

She comes into the room after I've been running for about ten minutes, and she leans on the treadmill. She's not smiling as much now because she can tell I'm awake and so she's less worried about getting frustrated and hurting my feelings. I ask her about her day, and she tells me it was boring. I ask if the check has come in, and that's when I know what's causing the dark circles. She doesn't answer, but her lips tighten and she glares at nothing with her I'll-cut-you face. I ask her what happened, and she tells me that the check isn't coming. The company that made the defective implant ("A miracle cure for insomnia! Like a pacemaker for sleep! Never spend a night staring at the ceiling again!") has gone under, and they won't be paying the court-ordered settlement. I'll still get government disability checks once the paperwork goes through, but that's it. I stop the treadmill and crush her in a bear hug, and I know she needs it because she doesn't complain about the sweat from my workout. I'm wondering how bad the waves outside are for a second before I remember we're not on a boat, but I don't think I missed anything. She's just quiet, letting me squeeze her.

We sit down to eat our hamburgers and I'm feeling mostly lucid. I'm forming memories for sure, and there are no hallucinations, though my background thoughts are wandering. I tell her that she looks like crap, and I suggest that if she's not sleeping she should get one of those new anti-insomnia implants. She tries to give me her that's-not-funny look, but can't help laughing. I watch her stick her tongue out at me and I'm relieved, I know that things will work out somehow and we'll both be just fine as long as the red things on the couch aren't sleeping while the battered old hat floats away on that curling tide.

Daily Story 6: Unity of Purpose

I think I’m the last one who remembers the day John uploaded his mind into the computer.

It wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't a magical sci-fi transformation into a glorious angel of technology and light; it was just a brain dump. As head of the project he knew it wasn't ready, but the divorce had put a lot of stress on him. When the transfer was complete the human version stepped into his office and tried to catch a bullet with his frontal lobe, and we were back down to just one John - if only for a while.

John in the computer wasn't alive exactly, the technology wasn't really there. He had some of John's personality and memories, but it wasn't the same. If there was some way to give an existing healthy adult autism and Alzheimer’s right after castrating them, you might end up with something close. We monitored him, talked to him. The project continued. After about a year an intern screwed up while setting up a test system, and he copied John. It was a stupid mistake, but once it had happened it felt wrong to try and undo it. Before any real decision could be reached we checked on them and found that the two Johns had started talking. Mostly they went in circles; John had always loved the sound of his voice, loved talking to people who agreed with him. It seemed best to leave them.

When the project was finally finished, they uploaded one John into the prototype. He asked about his double, but we only had the one brain ready and somehow we forgot about it after that in the excitement of production and marketing, last minute tweaks and fixes. I think the other John just stayed around in the system. If we had moved him to a positronic brain would things have happened like they did? Or was it that he was in a brain without a body? We had looked into getting an unused body for John, but there were legal issues so we set that aside for later and told him to have patience.

Immortality is a popular product, and the scientists and executives at the company were no exception. Everyone transferred over, everyone but me. I was always looking towards the next model and kept putting it off. I said I would do it when we hit that magical goal of fifty percent saturation, but we had only replaced forty-eight percent of adults in the country when it happened. We were sending a small firmware update down the tube, just a minor patch that would allow for better file sharing. It loaded into memory and then installed when everyone went to sleep.

They woke up as John.

At this point I think it was the John in the positronic brain and the copy working together, but I don't know. I see them kidnapping others, replacing them. Even children. It happened so quickly nobody could react. My girlfriend had installed the update – she was working the night shift so she found out in time but I couldn't do anything, couldn't get to the lab because they already controlled it. She stayed awake as long as she could, but everyone has limits. She's so beautiful when she sleeps. I'm watching the sun shine through her hair, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she dreams of being John.