Write Ahead The Future Looms
Volume 1
January 2019 & February 2019 Write Ahead The Future Looms
A cyberpunk magazine from Britain and Zurich
table of contents
We Live As We Dream, Alone, Ashley Naftule We Live As We Dream, Alone, Ashley Naftule Story Four : Story Four : We Live As We Dream, Alone, Ashley Naftule Story Four :
Story Five
Story Four
Glamorous Corpses, David Tallerman Glamorous Corpses, David Tallerman Story Five story Five :
Story Two
Story Three
'Victed, L.P. Melling 'Victed, L.P. Melling Story Two : Story Two :
Story One
Other, John K Webb Other, John K Webb Story One
The Future Is Always Perfect, Dennis Mombauer The Future Is Always Perfect, Dennis Mombauer Story Three :
“I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign.” ― William Gibson
The Outsider, Forgotten?
The memory came on like fever dream, in obscene clarity: a moonlit room, a child's bed, the crude crayon markings against wooden sidings, a warm draft through the window, gunshot, scream, and at first it doesn’t correlate with the bloodied figure now standing in the doorway, but once whisked away to the car in pajamas and driving very fast and hearing the awful wailing sirens it clicks— “Yes? Can I help you?” I hadn't heard the door open. This was Mr. Tormiah, I knew, because the letterboxes downstairs in the lobby matched names with apartment numbers. He was in a robe and slippers, even though it was after noon, munching tic-tacs to an audible rhythm. “Yes,” I said, smiling, “my name is Harold.” I extended my hand, but Mr. Tormiah declined to shake. Staring at me and still grinding teeth, he said, “What do you want?” “I'm obligated under threat of federal prosecution to inform you and everyone else living within proximity—proximity in this case defined as this floor of the apartment complex—“ “Just spit it out.” “—I'm a registered ISP on mimetic-implant release.” Mr. Tormiah stopped chewing, raised one thick eyebrow. “I'll be your neighbor for the next sixteen weeks,” I finished. Then, after neither of us spoke for several moments, I offered, “If you find this objectionable, you can contact the property owners—“ “No, no,” Tormiah blustered, shaking his head. He gave my still-outstretched hand a limp shake, then, absurdly, offered his tic-tacs. I declined. Tormiah shifted and coughed. “Please, come in. I've always been interested in you people.” Then, paling with embarrassment, he qualified, “I think it's ridiculous, the way ISP's are demonized, as if they're any more dangerous than the rest of us!” gave a nod I considered amiable. “Please,” said Mr. Tormiah, “why don't you come in?” Another memory raked against my mind's eye: mildew-smelling closet, cramped with clutter, locked from outside, dark save the slivers of fluorescent light filtering in through the cracks, sharing space with crawly things, obsolescence amongst obsolescence, forgotten for days— I smiled and said. “Yes, of course.” The door whispered shut behind us. Mr. Tormiah went to the couch, cleared off worn socks, old cartons of food. A cigarette lay burning in an ashtray that was close to overflowing; he took a drag and stubbed it out. Outside, the honeycomb architecture of skyrise-arcologies choked the horizon. “Have a seat.” I sat. Tormiah flopped onto a curved hardfoam chair, opposite the couch, the distance between him and myself a Lagrange point between safety and propriety. I was an Identified Sociopathic Person. Mr. Tormiah—or Gary as he insisted on being called—had a drinking problem. Of course, he didn't admit it outright. There were empty bottles on the kitchen counter, arranged just too neatly to be anything more than a mere gesture at sobriety or organization. And, more urgently, the smell of liquor beneath tic-tac mint. “I work from home,” said Gary Tormiah, in answer to my cursory inspection. “Software development. I like ordering Chinese,” he finished, grimacing. “Sounds important.” “What, eating Chinese?” “I was referring to your work.” “Yes, well—it keeps me busy.” “What field does it pertain to? Bioengineering, maybe?” “No, not that—un-specialized, odd jobs, you know.” “A regular back-alley programmer then.” Gary grimaced again, rubbed his neck. “No, I'm legit. Routine maintenance, server upgrades, that sort of thing. Odd jobs.” “I see.” We shared a brief silence. An indistinct knot of memory danced behind my eyes. Tormiah must have noticed. “You said you were on mimetic-implant release,” he said. Once the flash-visuals had passed, I responded in an even tone, “The implant harbors unpleasant childhood memories, things other people don't want to remember.” “Because you can't feel the emotions attached to those unpleasant experiences,” Gary finished. I shrugged. “Aren't they deeply compressed? Inaccessible?” I allowed myself a slight chuckle. “It's amazing how closely the words 'repress' and 'compress' resemble one another.” Gary retrieved another cigarette, lit it. I noted a slight tremble in his hands. After taking a drag, he said, “Except one is computer-science and the other is psychology.” “It makes very little difference,” I said. “Eventually, it all gets fragmented, escapes, bubbles up.” “Well, my work has nothing to do with that, at any rate.” “It was either lifetime confinement to a sanitarium or—this.” I touched a finger to the area of scalp that concealed the implant, the layer of polycarbon skin and plastic hair. Gary Tormiah, seeing that, gave a noticeable shudder, and after a few more minutes of amicable talk he shook my hand and showed me out. Very lonely man, I figured, wanting the company of a societal-pariah like myself. Whenever he walked past my door I could hear the change-jingle sound of tic-tacs. I thought that initial encounter with Mr. Tormiah would be our last, thought I'd have to reevaluate my approach vis-a-vis neighborly content, perhaps restructure all future meetings to accommodate more nervous folk. Thankfully, it never came to that. A few nights later he showed up unannounced, knocking on my door at the insomniac's hour, the arcologies' congealed afterglow filtering in a neon pink. I was, of course, awake. I was working on my projects. “Your what?” “My art projects.” Gary nearly tripped over himself, giggling madly. He waved at me. “I'm sorry Harold,” he said between laughs. “I wasn't aware you—could do that.” He did the wave-thing again. “I really apologize, had a couple drinks.” I nodded as if to say, No problem. I went to the kitchen and poured us two glasses of water. After sipping, Gary said, “Thanks.” I went back to my station, to the project I was working on. The wooden desk was cluttered with fiber-optic cables, steel coils like the bindings of notebooks, small square sheets of iron, thin nails, sodding, clay that was dark maroon and warm to the touch, and those tiny LED bulbs and their connectors. After a few more tentative sips on his water, Mr. Tormiah stumbled over. “What is it?” He whispered, gesturing with his free hand. “It's a sparrow, not finished,” I answered, turning the clockwork-thing's face so he could see. “A sparrow? No one's seen a sparrow in years.” “I know.” Gary took another sip of water. Some of it trickled down his chin, but he didn't seem to notice, or care. The sparrow's face was only half-constructed, the intestinal tract of wires and microfilaments—its brain a motherboard-SSD combo piece I'd salvaged from a discarded laptop—exposed, slick with oil. “But why? Why make this?” I explained my arrangement with the FSI, the monthly stipend, how the mimetic-implant made working an actual job an unbearable experience. It was sensory overload. No telling what could further fragment the compressed memories. A color, a particular scent, a loud sound, molecular shift in light frequency, change in air pressure, anything. Working on these projects was an act of concentration, of living in the moment: wire to wire, metal to metal. Of course, telling him anything else would have just scared him. When I'd finished explaining, I chanced a look at Gary Tormiah. He was staring into his now-empty glass with a hard, serious expression. “I'm also talking with a lawyer. Potential class action lawsuit against the Federal Sociological Institute regarding faulty implants.” Gary nodded, but didn't look away from the glass. Then, with that same quiet tone, he said, “You called it art. An art project.” “That's right.” “It's a means of expression then.” “Sure.” “So what does this—,“ gesturing at the sparrow, “—express?” “I don't know,” I said. “Bullshit.” I shrugged. “Actually, Gary, I don't know.” I considered for a moment. “Freedom, then.” That part was true enough. I expected Gary to at least smile at this, lighten up; still that expression hung on his face like a dark curtain. “I guess it'd be impossible for you to understand,” he said. “Being devoid of emotion.” I nodded. Gary Tormiah was wrong. Guilty, hence the drinking. That's always the problem, always what draws people to me: the guilt brought upon by my being psychologically inferior or ill-equipped to handle things. The implant's fragmentation had begun as a drip, a leak. Memory here, memory there. Shoddy compression. It'd gotten worse, at times an unbearable cacophony of sensory data. Sleeping is what does it, delta waves mistaking all that code for real subconscious material. A bad dream is not simply a bad dream but a herald of waking terrors. I sleep as little as possible. I keep myself going with careful, measured doses of industrial-grade amphetamines. But, when sleep does come on as an insurmountable wave of exhaustion, I take something else, something that represses the limbic system's ability to create dreams and thus its ability to fragment the implant: Lovon, what I took for this expressed purpose. What Gary Tormiah eventually wanted from me. “I can't sleep.” “Why not?” Gary shook his head slowly. Defeated. “Bad dreams,” he said. “Come in.” It'd been about a week since he'd knocked on my apartment door. We were both sweating in the AM humidity. I explained in passing that my air conditioner was broken. “Bad dreams, Harold,” he repeated. Gary flopped onto my couch, closed his eyes. “Why are you having bad dreams?” Gary didn't answer, just shook his head. I'm not the drinking type. I prefer clarity, precision, forethought. The only thing I lose myself to are my projects. I like plans. “Gary, why are you having bad dreams?” I think he started to cry, but it may have just been sweat. “Harold,” he said drunkenly, “Why do you have bad dreams?” “It’s all in my head.” “Is that an answer?” I smiled, even though Gary's eyes were still closed. “Let's get you back to your apartment.” Between the sighs and other complaining-noises, I got him to his feet and led us out into the hallway, my shoulder jammed under Gary's armpit. “I haven't slept in two days,” he mewled. “I know, you'll be okay.” He tried to retrieve a cigarette but dropped the pack. I told him to leave it and ignored his incoherent protestations. When we got to his apartment door, I prompted Gary to open his eyes, let the retinal scanners do their work. Once inside, I laid him on the hardfoam chair, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “You're a good guy, Harold.” He said, suddenly alert and too-loud. His shirt was soaked through. “I'd like to think so,” I said, handing him the glass. Gary chugged half of it, burped, set it down on the carpet. Gary Tormiah looked at me with that hard, drunk, sad face. “I need help, Harold.” I nodded. “I have something that will help you sleep, but—“ “I just need some—for tonight. First and last time, I swear.” “Sure, Gary, sure. No problem.” I retrieved a few Lovon from my back pocket. I was always prepared. Gary dry-swallowed the two pills as I looked on. “But you know this isn't fixing the underlying issue,” I said. “I know, I know—“ “So why are you having bad dreams?” Lovon takes a minute or two to activate. It has to be broken down in the liver, pass through the kidney lining, enter the blood stream. Gary opened his mouth as if to speak, but only croaked, closed his eyes. Finally he said, “There's something I should have told you.” “And what would that be, Gary?” “Something about—about my work. The software. Harold—“ I laughed then, because the situation seemed a kind of punchline: funny, yes, but empty. I felt nothing. “I know, Gary. I've always known.” Then, putting my hand to his forehead, I said, “Just relax. Go to sleep.” Another reason I wasn't the drinking type is because Lovon, when bonded with alcohol, forms hyper-dense clusters of carbon; this, in turn, triggers an autoimmune reaction. The body shreds its own circulatory system to pieces. Untraceable. Considering my extensive use of Lovon, drinking was impractical at best and suicidal at worst. “Harold, I think I'm bleeding.” “Oh, it appears that you are.” Fine streaks like pen-marks of bright crimson were cascading down his nose, ears. Soon the eyes would erupt, too. “Harold,” he cried, “I'm sorry, so sorry—the software—your implant—“ And then his eyes rolled back, his skin mottled purple, and Gary died. Using tissue paper, I wiped my prints from the glasses, everything else I touched. Gary was the ninth one I'd gotten to. There were many more to come. The subsequent investigation wouldn't take long: a man, Verified-Depressed by the FSI, decides to end it all with illegally obtained Lovon after his nightly bender. Walking down the hallway, I picked up Gary's cigarettes and lit one for myself. In retrospect, he wasn't all that bad of a man. Guilt is proof that good people can do terrible things and still be good people. It's not something I could ever know. Gary, for his part, had at least achieved some measure of peace. And soon, so would I. The clockwork sparrow was finished now. It twitched its head and chirped a merry electric-beep as I entered the living room. I smiled at its rusted little face, the eyes blue and dull as marbles. It was illegal for an ISP to transfer data to another device, and in practical terms it was an easy matter for the FSI to trace these things. But no one would ever consider the sparrow as anything more than an idle curiosity. The trode-set was black market tech, stuffed into the innocent shape of a briefcase. Originally used by intelligence agencies in the late 21st century for the purposes of extracting, reading, and interpreting brain signals. Painful process, meant to be painful. In layman's terms, there's an output but no input; I've engineered the input connectors and jury-rigged a data-transfer system. Not too different from the same device that dumped several hundred terabytes of memories into my implant. When the time comes, I'll transfer every byte of information into the silicon brains of my projects. But not yet. The person I am now, built on the broken, pained foundations of others: if I excise that particular Otherness about me, who would I be? No, the job must be finished first. And when everything is done, I'll put the sparrow and the rest of my projects on display somewhere—a nice public space—so everyone can see, so transparent and open that no one would ever suspect a thing. They'll sit on their pedestals in the galleries of the world, beeping stupidly, the custodians of terrible infant memories. Clockwork things that can't comprehend their own data. Just like me. I went over my list, searching for my next target. Closed my eyes, picked one at random. I wonder what the next one’s guilt will be? ------------------
Other, John K Webb
“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.” -Jess C. Scott The Darker Side of Life
&
dangerous than the rest of us!” I gave a nod I considered amiable. “Please,” said Mr. Tormiah, “why don't you come in?” Another memory raked against my mind's eye: mildew-smelling closet, cramped with clutter, locked from outside, dark save the slivers of fluorescent light filtering in through the cracks, sharing space with crawly things, obsolescence amongst obsolescence, forgotten for days— I smiled and said. “Yes, of course.” The door whispered shut behind us. Mr. Tormiah went to the couch, cleared off worn socks, old cartons of food. A cigarette lay burning in an ashtray that was close to overflowing; he took a drag and stubbed it out. Outside, the honeycomb architecture of skyrise-arcologies choked the horizon. “Have a seat.” I sat. Tormiah flopped onto a curved hardfoam chair, opposite the couch, the distance between him and myself a Lagrange point between safety and propriety. I was an Identified Sociopathic Person. Mr. Tormiah—or Gary as he insisted on being called—had a drinking problem. Of course, he didn't admit it outright. There were empty bottles on the kitchen counter, arranged just too neatly to be anything more than a mere gesture at sobriety or organization. And, more urgently, the smell of liquor beneath tic-tac mint. “I work from home,” said Gary Tormiah, in answer to my cursory inspection. “Software development. I like ordering Chinese,” he finished, grimacing. “Sounds important.” “What, eating Chinese?” “I was referring to your work.” “Yes, well—it keeps me busy.” “What field does it pertain to? Bioengineering, maybe?” “No, not that—un-specialized, odd jobs, you know.” “A regular back-alley programmer then.” Gary grimaced again, rubbed his neck. “No, I'm legit. Routine maintenance, server upgrades, that sort of thing. Odd jobs.” “I see.” We shared a brief silence. An indistinct knot of memory danced behind my eyes. Tormiah must have noticed. “You said you were on mimetic-implant release,” he said. Once the flash-visuals had passed, I responded in an even tone, “The implant harbors unpleasant childhood memories, things other people don't want to remember.” “Because you can't feel the emotions attached to those unpleasant experiences,” Gary finished. I shrugged. “Aren't they deeply compressed? Inaccessible?” I allowed myself a slight chuckle. “It's amazing how closely the words 'repress' and 'compress' resemble one another.” Gary retrieved another cigarette, lit it. I noted a slight tremble in his hands. After taking a drag, he said, “Except one is computer-science and the other is psychology.” “It makes very little difference,” I said. “Eventually, it all gets fragmented, escapes, bubbles up.” “Well, my work has nothing to do with that, at any rate.” “It was either lifetime confinement to a sanitarium or—this.” I touched a finger to the area of scalp that concealed the implant, the layer of polycarbon skin and plastic hair. Gary Tormiah, seeing that, gave a noticeable shudder, and after a few more minutes of amicable talk he shook my hand and showed me out. Very lonely man, I figured, wanting the company of a societal-pariah like er e, “But why? Why make this?” I explained my arrangement with the FSI, the monthly stipend, how the mimetic-implant made working an actual job an unbearable experience. It was sensory overload. No telling what could further fragment the compressed memories. A color, a particular scent, a loud sound, molecular shift in light frequency, change in air pressure, anything. Working on these projects was an act of concentration, of living in the moment: wire to wire, metal to metal. Of course, telling him anything else would have just scared him. When I'd finished explaining, I chanced a look at Gary Tormiah. He was staring into his now-empty glass with a hard, serious expression. “I'm also talking with a lawyer. Potential class action lawsuit against the Federal Sociological Institute regarding faulty implants.” Gary nodded, but didn't look away from the glass. Then, with that same quiet tone, he said, “You called it art. An art project.” “That's right.” “It's a means of expression then.” “Sure.” “So what does this—,“ gesturing at the sparrow, “—express?” “I don't know,” I said. “Bullshit.” I shrugged. “Actually, Gary, I don't know.” I considered for a moment. “Freedom, then.” That part was true enough. I expected Gary to at least smile at this, lighten up; still that expression hung on his face like a dark curtain. “I guess it'd be impossible for you to understand,” he said. “Being devoid of emotion.” I nodded. Gary Tormiah was wrong. Guilty, hence the drinking. That's always the problem, always what draws people to me: the guilt brought upon by my being psychologically inferior or ill-equipped to handle things. The implant's fragmentation had begun as a drip, a leak. Memory here, memory there. Shoddy compression. It'd gotten worse, at times an unbearable cacophony of sensory data. Sleeping is what does it, delta waves mistaking all that code for real subconscious material. A bad dream is not simply a bad dream but a herald of waking terrors. I sleep as little as possible. I keep myself going with careful, measured doses of industrial-grade amphetamines. But, when sleep does come on as an insurmountable wave of exhaustion, I take something else, something that represses the limbic system's ability to create dreams and thus its ability to fragment the implant: Lovon, what I took for this expressed purpose. What Gary Tormiah eventually wanted from me. “I can't sleep.” “Why not?” Gary shook his head slowly. Defeated. “Bad dreams,” he said. “Come in.” It'd been about a week since he'd knocked on my apartment door. We were both sweating in the AM humidity. I explained in passing that my air conditioner was broken. “Bad dreams, Harold,” he repeated. Gary flopped onto my couch, closed his eyes. “Why are you having bad dreams?” Gary didn't answer, just shook his head. I'm not the drinking type. I prefer clarity, precision, forethought. The only thing I lose myself to are my projects. I like plans. “Gary, why are you having bad dreams?” I think he started to cry, but it may have just been sweat. “Harold,” he said drunkenly, “Why do you have bad dreams?” “It’s all in my head.” “Is that an answer?” I smiled, even though Gary's eyes were still closed. “Let's get you back to your apartment.” Between the sighs and other complaining-noises, I got him to his feet and led us out into the hallway, my shoulder jammed under Gary's armpit. “I haven't slept in two days,” he mewled. “I know, you'll be okay.” He tried to retrieve a cigarette but dropped the pack. I told him to leave it and ignored his incoherent protestations. When we got to his apartment door, I prompted Gary to open his eyes, let the retinal scanners do their work. Once inside, I laid him on the hardfoam chair, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “You're a good guy, Harold.” He said, suddenly alert and too-loud. His shirt was soaked through. “I'd like to think so,” I said, handing him the glass. Gary chugged half of it, burped, set it down on the carpet. Gary Tormiah looked at me with that hard, drunk, sad face. “I need help, Harold.” I nodded. “I have something that will help you sleep, but—“ “I just need some—for tonight. First and last time, I swear.” “Sure, Gary, sure. No problem.” I retrieved a few Lovon from my back pocket. I was always prepared. Gary dry-swallowed the two pills as I looked on. “But you know this isn't fixing the underlying issue,” I said. “I know, I know—“ “So why are you having bad dreams?” Lovon takes a minute or two to activate. It has to be broken down in the liver, pass through the kidney lining, enter the blood stream. Gary opened his mouth as if to speak, but only croaked, closed his eyes. Finally he said, “There's something I should have told you.” “And what would that be, Gary?” “Something about—about my work. The software. Harold—“ I laughed then, because the situation seemed a kind of punchline: funny, yes, but empty. I felt nothing. “I know, Gary. I've always known.” Then, putting my hand to his forehead, I said, “Just relax. Go to sleep.” Another reason I wasn't the drinking type is because Lovon, when bonded with alcohol, forms hyper-dense clusters of carbon; this, in turn, triggers an autoimmune reaction. The body shreds its own circulatory system to pieces. Untraceable. Considering my extensive use of Lovon, drinking was impractical at best and suicidal at worst. “Harold, I think I'm bleeding.” “Oh, it appears that you are.” Fine streaks like pen-marks of bright crimson were cascading down his nose, ears. Soon the eyes would erupt, too. “Harold,” he cried, “I'm sorry, so sorry—the software—your implant—“ And then his eyes rolled back, his skin mottled purple, and Gary died. Using tissue paper, I wiped my prints from the glasses, everything else I touched. Gary was the ninth one I'd gotten to. There were many more to come. The subsequent investigation wouldn't take long: a man, Verified-Depressed by the FSI, decides to end it all with illegally obtained Lovon after his nightly bender. Walking down the hallway, I picked up Gary's cigarettes and lit one for myself. In retrospect, he wasn't all that bad of a man. Guilt is proof that good people can do terrible things and still be good people. It's not something I could ever know. Gary, for his part, had at least achieved some measure of peace. And soon, so would I. The clockwork sparrow was finished now. It twitched its head and chirped a merry electric-beep as I entered the living room. I smiled at its rusted little face, the eyes blue and dull as marbles. It was illegal for an ISP to transfer data to another device, and in practical terms it was an easy matter for the FSI to trace these things. But no one would ever consider the sparrow as anything more than an idle curiosity. The trode-set was black market tech, stuffed into the innocent shape of a briefcase. Originally used by intelligence agencies in the late 21st century for the purposes of extracting, reading, and interpreting brain signals. Painful process, meant to be painful. In layman's terms, there's an output but no input; I've engineered the input connectors and jury-rigged a data-transfer system. Not too different from the same device that dumped several hundred terabytes of memories into my implant. When the time comes, I'll transfer every byte of information into the silicon brains of my projects. But not yet. The person I am now, built on the broken, pained foundations of others: if I excise that particular Otherness about me, who would I be? No, the job must be finished first. And when everything is done, I'll put the sparrow and the rest of my projects on display somewhere—a nice public space—so everyone can see, so transparent and open that no one would ever suspect a thing. They'll sit on their pedestals in the galleries of the world, beeping stupidly, the custodians of terrible infant memories. Clockwork things that can't comprehend their own data. Just like me. I went over my list, searching for my next target. Closed my eyes, picked one at random. I wonder what the next one’s guilt will be? ------------------ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. 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Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit
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“What use was time to those who'd soon achieve Digital Immortality?” ― Clyde Dsouza, Memories With Maya
like myself. Whenever he walked past my door I could hear the change-jingle sound of tic-tacs. I thought that initial encounter with Mr. Tormiah would be our last, thought I'd have to reevaluate my approach vis-a-vis neighborly content, perhaps restructure all future meetings to accommodate more nervous folk. Thankfully, it never came to that. A few nights later he showed up unannounced, knocking on my door at the insomniac's hour, the arcologies' congealed afterglow filtering in a neon pink. I was, of course, awake. I was working on my projects. “Your what?” “My art projects.” Gary nearly tripped over himself, giggling madly. He waved at me. “I'm sorry Harold,” he said between laughs. “I wasn't aware you—could do that.” He did the wave-thing again. “I really apologize, had a couple drinks.” I nodded as if to say, No problem. I went to the kitchen and poured us two glasses of water. After sipping, Gary said, “Thanks.” I went back to my station, to the project I was working on. The wooden desk was cluttered with fiber-optic cables, steel coils like the bindings of notebooks, small square sheets of iron, thin nails, sodding, clay that was dark maroon and warm to the touch, and those tiny LED bulbs and their connectors. After a few more tentative sips on his water, Mr. Tormiah stumbled over. “What is it?” He whispered, gesturing with his free hand. “It's a sparrow, not finished,” I answered, turning the clockwork-thing's face so he could see. “A sparrow? No one's seen a sparrow in years.” “I know.” Gary took another sip of water. Some of it trickled down his chin, but he didn't seem to notice, or care. The sparrow's face was only half-constructed, the intestinal tract of wires and microfilaments—its brain a motherboard-SSD combo piece I'd salvaged from a discarded laptop—exposed, slick with oil. “But why? Why make this?” I explained my arrangement with the FSI, the monthly stipend, how the mimetic-implant made working an actual job an unbearable experience. It was sensory overload. No telling what could further fragment the compressed memories. A color, a particular scent, a loud sound, molecular shift in light frequency, change in air pressure, anything. Working on these projects was an act of concentration, of living in the moment: wire to wire, metal to metal. Of course, telling him anything else would have just scared him. When I'd finished explaining, I chanced a look at Gary Tormiah. He was staring into his now-empty glass with a hard, serious expression. “I'm also talking with a lawyer. Potential class action lawsuit against the Federal Sociological Institute regarding faulty implants.” Gary nodded, but didn't look away from the glass. Then, with that same quiet tone, he said, “You called it art. An art project.” “That's right.” “It's a means of expression then.” “Sure.” “So what does this—,“ gesturing at the sparrow, “—express?” “I don't know,” I said. “Bullshit.” I shrugged. “Actually, Gary, I don't know.” I considered for a moment. “Freedom, then.” That part was true enough. I expected Gary to at least smile at this, lighten up; still that expression hung on his face like a dark curtain. “I guess it'd be impossible for you to understand,” he said.
come on as an insurmountable wave of exhaustion, I take something else, something that represses the limbic system's ability to create dreams and thus its ability to fragment the implant: Lovon, what I took for this expressed purpose. What Gary Tormiah eventually wanted from me. “I can't sleep.” “Why not?” Gary shook his head slowly. Defeated. “Bad dreams,” he said. “Come in.” It'd been about a week since he'd knocked on my apartment door. We were both sweating in the AM humidity. I explained in passing that my air conditioner was broken. “Bad dreams, Harold,” he repeated. Gary flopped onto my couch, closed his eyes. “Why are you having bad dreams?” Gary didn't answer, just shook his head. I'm not the drinking type. I prefer clarity, precision, forethought. The only thing I lose myself to are my projects. I like plans. “Gary, why are you having bad dreams?” I think he started to cry, but it may have just been sweat. “Harold,” he said drunkenly, “Why do you have bad dreams?” “It’s all in my head.” “Is that an answer?” I smiled, even though Gary's eyes were still closed. “Let's get you back to your apartment.” Between the sighs and other complaining-noises, I got him to his feet and led us out into the hallway, my shoulder jammed under Gary's armpit. “I haven't slept in two days,” he mewled. “I know, you'll be okay.” He tried to retrieve a cigarette but dropped the pack. I told him to leave it and ignored his incoherent protestations. When we got to his apartment door, I prompted Gary to open his eyes, let the retinal scanners do their work. Once inside, I laid him on the hardfoam chair, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “You're a good guy, Harold.” He said, suddenly alert and too-loud. His shirt was soaked through. “I'd like to think so,” I said, handing him the glass. Gary chugged half of it, burped, set it down on the carpet. Gary Tormiah looked at me with that hard, drunk, sad face. “I need help, Harold.” I nodded. “I have something that will help you sleep, but—“ “I just need some—for tonight. First and last time, I swear.” “Sure, Gary, sure. No problem.” I retrieved a few Lovon from my back pocket. I was always prepared. Gary dry-swallowed the two pills as I looked on. “But you know this isn't fixing the underlying issue,” I said. “I know, I know—“ “So why are you having bad dreams?” Lovon takes a minute or two to activate. It has to be broken down in the liver, pass through the kidney lining, enter the blood stream. Gary opened his mouth as if to speak, but only croaked, closed his eyes. Finally he said, “There's something I should have told you.” “And what would that be, Gary?” “Something about—about my work. The software. Harold—“ I laughed then, because the situation seemed a kind of punchline: funny, yes, but empty. I felt nothing. “I know, Gary. I've always known.” Then, putting my hand to his forehead, I said, “Just relax. Go to sleep.” Another reason I wasn't the drinking type is because Lovon, when bonded with alcohol, forms hyper-dense clusters of carbon; this, in turn, triggers an autoimmune reaction. The body shreds its own circulatory system to pieces. Untraceable. Considering my extensive use of Lovon, drinking was impractical at best and suicidal at worst. “Harold, I think I'm bleeding.” “Oh, it appears that you are.” Fine streaks like pen-marks of bright crimson were cascading down his nose, ears. Soon the eyes would erupt, too. “Harold,” he cried, “I'm sorry, so sorry—the software—your implant—“ And then his eyes rolled back, his skin mottled purple, and Gary died. Using tissue paper, I wiped my prints from the glasses, everything else I touched. Gary was the ninth one I'd gotten to. There were many more to come. The subsequent investigation wouldn't take long: a man, Verified-Depressed by the FSI, decides to end it all with illegally obtained Lovon after his nightly bender. Walking down the hallway, I picked up Gary's cigarettes and lit one for myself. In retrospect, he wasn't all that bad of a man. Guilt is proof that good people can do terrible things and still be good people. It's not something I could ever know. Gary, for his part, had at least achieved some measure of peace. And soon, so would I. The clockwork sparrow was finished now. It twitched its head and chirped a merry electric-beep as I entered the living room. I smiled at its rusted little face, the eyes blue and dull as marbles. It was illegal for an ISP to transfer data to another device, and in practical terms it was an easy matter for the FSI to trace these things. But no one would ever consider the sparrow as anything more than an idle curiosity. The trode-set was black market tech, stuffed into the innocent shape of a briefcase. Originally used by intelligence agencies in the late 21st century for the purposes of extracting, reading, and interpreting brain signals. Painful process, meant to be painful. In layman's terms, there's an output but no input; I've engineered the input connectors and jury-rigged a data-transfer system. Not too different from the same device that dumped several hundred terabytes of memories into my implant. When the time comes, I'll transfer every byte of information into the silicon brains of my projects. But not yet. The person I am now, built on the broken, pained foundations of others: if I excise that particular Otherness about me, who would I be? No, the job must be finished first. And when everything is done, I'll put the sparrow and the rest of my projects on display somewhere—a nice public space—so everyone can see, so transparent and open that no one would ever suspect a thing. They'll sit on their pedestals in the galleries of the world, beeping stupidly, the custodians of terrible infant memories. Clockwork things that can't comprehend their own data. Just like me. I went over my list, searching for my next target. Closed my eyes, picked one at random. I wonder what the next one’s guilt will be?
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Editors: Henry Charles Gysin & Stanley Hendren