Ware

A Science Fiction Short Story

Hello all!

It has been a minute since you’ve heard from me. And by a minute, I mean many many minutes. Life, ultimately, happens, and a new teaching job while simultaneously working on my Resident Educator program has left me very little time for creative pursuits. Writing has been mostly note-taking and outlining lately, blueprints for projects I can’t wait to flesh out when I have more time to sit and write. But I’ve also been slowly pecking away at the revision of a piece I finished last spring, a science fiction short story, which I have decided to share with you in this post, in the hopes that you take a chance and give it fifteen minutes of your day.

If you read my earlier post about genre, this is the piece I mentioned when I wrote about jumping into science fiction. The story starts out with a stretch of world-building, but quickly zooms in on the very personal journey of a character navigating society and paralyzing post-traumatic stress in the year 2089.

For Philip K. Dick fans, there’s a line in the story that gives a nod to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which was adapted into the movie Blade Runner). See if you can spot it!

I hope you find the story engaging and thought-provoking. I am immensely grateful for and honored by your readership.

Now, without further ado…

Ware

In the year 2085, the SelfChip was invented.

On the 80-acre Austin, Texas campus of the mega-tech conglomerate Uni-Reach Computers Inc, a middle-aged, mid-level hardware engineer named Sarah Sarduk created the power to integrate human consciousness with Artificial Intelligence. Uni-Reach claimed the chip was built with a secure personal AI that would not relay a user’s private information or thoughts to any data cloud or information system. With the promise of complete human control augmented by AI assistance, humans lined up to have the SelfChip installed—a quick procedure that grafted a 2x4 inch metal-plated square to the skin on their left temple, connecting to the temporal lobe. They could choose the color and texture, even had an option of different metals if allergies or finances came into influence, and the chip had a multitude of upgrades and accessories, including a wireless set of contact lenses that allowed the user to see the world through layers of interface with their new AI.

Virtual reality became a staple of entertainment, feeding visual data directly into their optics, and people were able to watch and interact with various forms of media at any time, using their thoughts as controls.

Registration for a facial recognition directory began. For people wearing the SelfChip C-Deep-R Lenses, the directory divulged basic information about the people they looked at throughout their day, and flagged a warning on those who were registered criminals. This registry went from being an opt-in to an opt-out requirement for lawful citizens. But—much like the people of the first quarter of the 21st century, who stared down into their smartphones while walking the streets—increased access to visual interface technology left the present population moving through their world more zombie-like than ever before, people hardly looking at or noticing each other when passing. And with the 2089 Auto-Hello upgrade, it was more common for two AIs to greet each other than their human counterparts.

The 75-year-old CEO of Uni-Reach, Ocher Laine, came up with the idea for Auto-Hello from a dream he had when he was just a teenager: two people looking down at their smartphones almost collided on the street, but didn’t even notice, while their AI smartphones apologized to each other, introduced themselves, and made small talk while their owners just continued to stare comatose down into their screens.

As a result of the upgrade, almost all socializing moved to a different plane of reality.

Some advocated to make the SelfChip mandatory by law, saying it was another major step toward streamlining society. Some protested adamantly against it, citing moral and religious objections, saying it made people more computer than human.

The Uni-Reach advertisement for the SelfChip shot as if from a syringe into every eye using its products: The SelfChip: Be more of your self, yourself.

#

John Foreman woke to the auto-shutters opening, light cutting through his apartment like blades running together. He had taken a yellow pill the night before to fall asleep. He took a green one now to wake up. He swallowed from the glass of water he kept on the floor next to his bed. He had a bedside table, but often he swung his arms in his sleep, so he kept the water out of the reach of his nightmares.

John took pills for all kinds of things. He took them to help him use the bathroom, and took them to help him not use the bathroom. He took them to focus and to relax. For pain and for the guilt that easing the pain caused and for the brain-fuzzing side effects of those pills. His pill box was full of contradictions. And his blood swam with them.

But he’d still be damned before getting the new Uni-Reach BioChem Dispenser—a thick strip of rayon and fiberglass along the lower rib cage, containing up to twenty different concentrated chemicals and vitamins and an electronic control receptor. The strip could deposit a dose of any of the supplements directly into the host’s bloodstream at any time. These doses could be controlled manually or, with a new upgrade, could be linked to the SelfChip and be distributed according to its AI’s readings of the user’s mood and biometrics, regulating their physical and mental state without the human consciousness ever attending. The upgrade was called HappyState.

John would be damned before he got the SelfChip either.

He scratched along the top of his boxers as he stood, walked over to the one-way glass looking out at the pale morning drifting down on the northern San Francisco street from the stratus cover above. Cars hummed through the air by his 10th-story apartment, a significantly greater number than those that drove the asphalt street below. Whether tires-on-ground or airborne in any of the four tiers of aerial traffic lanes, the vehicles were all controlled by Artificial Intelligence.

After studies in the 2040’s proved that AI driving was far safer than human driving—recorded fatalities caused by human error far exceeding those caused by technological malfunctions—a law passed through Congress that mandated AI controlled vehicles anywhere except on specially designated sporting and recreational tracks. New cars were constructed without the capacity for human steering, and older cars were refitted to have their steering mechanisms removed. Nascar grew in popularity.

John watched the flying vehicles as they passed, the people within them sleeping or staring blankly into their virtual worlds.

The wake-up pill slowly kicked in. The day ahead grew slightly less onerous.

He walked to the primary bathroom, scrubbed his teeth, took a shower while watching the 30-second timer wind down beneath the shower head. Since the crushing drought of 2056, every shower was installed with an automatic timer allowing only 30 seconds of water use each day. The other faucets in the apartment were equipped with similar time constraints. Advancements in desalination technology helped ease the drought in the 2060’s, but the process of purifying saltwater for everyday use was still disproportionately expensive and taxing on energy resources, and had its limits.

John dried off and dressed—a forest green collared short-sleeve shirt and jeans, his old but still clean pair of Wembanyama’s on his feet.

He grabbed a bar of oatmeal cintrate from his pantry, spent less than three seconds descending the building’s new Expressavator, and then stepped out on the street, breathing the thick city air, cars buzzing by and above him, the ones in the 4th and topmost tier like tiny black insects against the slice of overcast sky. The buildings, including the one he just left, stretched beyond that top tier like towering grids of glossed panels, the glass beautiful but dark, seemingly devoid of life or activity, not even reflecting the zipping layers of traffic between them or the clouds sailing above.

Empty, perfect architecture.

The street itself was marked with a dull resilience. Older, lower-cost cars rolling slowly to their turns. Grime and gum-spotted sidewalks with loose trash swirling in the hovering exhaust and bordered by the scuffed faux-gold perimeters of building entrances. Trash cans overflowed, dropped fast food wrappers and styrofoam into the wind channeled by the shape and motion and shade of the city block.

John crunched a mouthful of cintrate. He swallowed. It was not a pleasant experience eating oatmeal cintrate, which was made from a genetically modified strain of oats created to be highly concentrated in its nutritional density. Difficult to masticate, but it was cheap, and provided the nutrients of an entire meal.

He placed the last of the bar in his mouth, and began walking.

Despite the gunmetal sheet of clouds, the day’s heat brimmed over 90 degrees, and the gentle wind felt good rippling through his clothes.

A bald man with dark eyebrows approached moving in the opposite direction, rambling a slew of frustrated words, his eyes glaring hard in front of him. His sweatshirt was stained, his jeans dirty and torn at the knees, his face thin, deeply concave below the cheekbones, almost emaciated. John had to step right to avoid their shoulders colliding as they passed.

While he walked, John’s mind veered back to the nightmare from the previous night. Recurring. The one he had more nights than not.

A child. Who looked like John. Dark hair that billowed madly outward around his head because he was underwater. His cheeks bubbled. His eyes were pinched shut. Then open. Open because the boy was panicked. He was trying to find his way up. Sunlight shot an electric blue through the water. A vibrant blue. The way the sky used to look on a summer day. Light shimmered in the water’s natural patterns along the wall and floor of the pool, like crisscrossing strings of wavering crystal.

The boy was suffocating.

He looked like John. He looked panicked. He looked like John if John was still a boy and if John was panicked and drowning.

The boy tried desperately to swim, to pull himself through the water, his small hands reaching out in front of him.

Then a large hand plunged into the pool. Just a few feet away from the boy’s hands.

The boy saw it. Pulled at the water toward it. His eyes ballooned.

The hand reached lower. It wasn’t human. The hand was robotic. Five fingers. A silvery skin.

But the boy lost strength. His breath gone. His vision blotching. His kicking legs burned. His arms burned. His lungs burned. He reached out. The hand reached lower. Lower now. The forearm visible under the surface. The elbow next.

The elbow was damaged.

Wires exposed. Their casing split. Frayed ends.

And electricity coursed through the water.

And John woke up.

Sometimes he would wake up screaming. But he had pills for that now.

John turned left onto a cross street. The building entrances turned into storefronts—liquor stores, smoke shops, fast food joints, advanced funds transfer businesses, gun stores. Four blocks later the storefronts grew tidier—grocery marts, clothing boutiques, restaurants, a long-closed bookstore between a tiny cafe and a coffee mega-chain franchise.

John stepped into the big chain coffee shop, Wundorfel Coffee. Pristine white tables were arranged in neat rows between the windows and a white service counter. Booths, upholstered a dark green with a trim of that same immaculate white, lined the front windows.

John’s ex-wife, Prana, waved from the right corner booth. John walked to her.

“I ordered something to eat,” she said as he sat across from her. “Egg white breakfast sandwich. I got hungry. I can order you something if you want.”

“No, thanks, Pran,” he said.

“You sure? All I have to do is think it.” She tapped the aquamarine SelfChip on her left temple.

He looked at the chip, back to her face. Long dark brown hair with eyes to match. A smile so white it almost matched the tables. Skin smooth and vibrant. She was beautiful.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just had some cintrate. I’m good.”

“You can’t survive on cintrate alone, John. You have to have some flavor in your life. Come on. My treat.”

“No, I appreciate it though.”

“Okay. Suit yourself. So how’s work?”

“Nonexistent. I got laid off last week. Everything at the plant is automated now. Even the supervision. God help us.”

“Shit, John, I’m sorry. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a good amount of savings. I’ll be fine.”

“Plus, you live in that cheap shit-bag neighborhood.”

John shook his head, looked out the shop window. “Wasn’t shit-bag when we lived there.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how it works. You know that old saying, those are the times.”

John gave a tired, disdainful laugh. “Yeah.”

“So when are you gonna get with them, John? The times? I mean, you don’t even have a SelfChip yet. They can run pretty cheap now. Got school kids running around with them and everything.”

“Yeah. They price them cheap to get their hooks in you. Get you through the door, then they have you. Can sell you directly from your own head. Set up shop there. I’m surprised they don’t give them away for free.”

“They practically do if you trade in your old device. You still have that old… what was it?”

“The Intrelicell.”

“That’s right.” She stifled a laugh.

“I’m not getting the SelfChip, Pran. I’m not getting any of that stuff.”

“John, you’re in denial. You’re going to have to accept things and adapt sooner or later. Just to continue to operate in society. To buy things. To work.”

“Yeah, we’ll see. That reminds me, I have the check for you.” He reached into his right pocket and slid a paper note across the table.

“Oh, John, you don’t have to… you can take a few months if you need—”

“I’m fine. I told you. Don’t worry about me.”

She picked up the check and fanned it lightly in the air with a smile. “You and your old-school checks. I don’t know why you don’t just transfer the funds electronically. You know I can deposit this just by looking at it, right?”

“Easy for you, then,” John said. “I’m glad.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway, I just don’t want some robot brain mixing with mine. I got enough crossed wires up there already.”

“It’s not like that. You really… you really can’t imagine what it’s like. Not until you actually—“

“Right. Yeah, it’s just not for me.”

She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“So how is she?”

Prana smiled at the mention of their daughter. “She’s good. Looking forward to seeing you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see her Saturday. Can’t wait.”

“She told me you showed her those old video games that you used to—oh wait,” her eyes grew distant, “I’m getting a call. I have to take this.”

“Sure.”

As she talked to what seemed like the air in front of her face, a short table-shaped robot rolled up to their booth. Her sandwich and cup of coffee sat on its head. The head’s surface split into wide flat levers that extended the food and drink to the booth’s table, deposited them gently in front of Prana, and retracted.

John watched as the machine rolled back to the service counter.

“You know what,” he whispered to Prana, “I have to run anyway. I’ll see you this—“

Prana held up a finger, mouthed wait.

He waited. She ended the call a few seconds later.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “So, I wanted to talk to you… the anniversary is next week.”

“I know. The nightmares always get worse around this time.” John looked out the window again. An antsy energy crawled up his legs.

“Well, I’m going to take Prim to visit the grave on the day, if you want to go with us.”

“No. I—I can’t.”

Her eyes read his face. “When was the last time you were there?”

His right heel bounced against the tiled floor. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

She stared at him for a few stretching seconds.

“Okay,” she said. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“Thanks for the offer,” he said.

“Sure, John.”

He said goodbye to her, then left the Wundorfel and walked quickly back toward his apartment, trying not to slip back into thoughts of the nightmare.

As the morning advanced, it carried more people onto the street. The closer John drew to his neighborhood, the more he had to balance his spiraling psyche with an awareness of his environment, dealers and addicts and thieves of all levels roaming and loitering and working their cons along the sidewalk.

“Hey, buddy, you need some shit?” a pale man in a gray hoodie asked. A tattoo of flames swathed his left calf beneath weathered jean shorts and a metal chain looping from his belt.

John shook his head, gave a politely declining wave.

His nightmare now played like a looping reel in his mind, superimposed on the world. He could see both the street and the boy in the pool. Sweat disproportionate to the weather greased his face and forearms. His heart jackhammered in his chest.

A man stumbling half-asleep slammed shoulders with him, and John patted down his own pockets to make sure he hadn’t lost anything.

The street had become like a block party of illegal activity. Smoke wafted from mouths and rolled tobacco and marijuana and glass pipes, joining the ever-present exhaust and hanging unnatural humidity.

Ever since the economic collapse of 2081, the poverty level had soared far past previous records. Education had been strangled by capitalism and the elimination of all financial assistance, making college almost unaffordable. In turn, crime rates exploded to unprecedented heights. And while there was more surveillance everywhere—in every alley and backlot in every city—there was not a sufficient police force to handle the new wave of criminal enterprise. This led to the overlooking of minor crimes, which often wouldn’t be pursued even when seen by a police officer in person.

In John’s neighborhood, a police car would coast through his street just once each day, always at the same time. John never saw it stop.

John ducked into an alley, his body shaking into a full blown panic attack.

He predicted its arrival because he had had them before.

He bent low, trying to breathe, his rear against the concrete side of a building.

And the whole scene came back to him.

A child’s birthday party in a backyard. A swimming pool. John was supposed to be there. But he had picked up an extra shift at the plant. Needed the money. So he had dropped off his son instead. Told him he’d be back to pick him up.

The birthday kid’s parents had just bought a new home service robot—an AI helper with the shape and dexterity of a human.

The parents got a kick out of telling John to wave goodbye to it.

“It’ll wave back!” they said. “It’ll wave back!”

After John left, an AI controlled car crashed through the backyard fence. This was after it had malfunctioned and hit an old data tower. The fence careened wildly into the party, creating havoc and knocking one boy into the backyard’s pool.

The data tower fell sideways into the yard and struck the robot’s right arm, right before it tried to rescue the boy in the pool.

John’s son.

John was supposed to have been there. To have been in that backyard.

It should have been John who had tried to save his son.

In the alley, John clutched his knees.

I just need to get home, he thought, and I can take a pill and stream a movie on my Celevision glasses and get my mind off this.

When John looked up from his knees, he stared into the razored steel profile of a switchblade.

Beyond the knife were eyes, quick and red, flickering, glancing up and down the length of the alley. An unkempt beard, sun-weathered skin, a faded orange baseball cap tight over a shoulder-length fall of hair crusted into cables.

A horrid smell came out with the man’s words.

“Give it up,” he said. “Everything you got.”

John’s eyes stopped on the black SelfChip over the man’s left temple, then dropped to his ragged Breaking Bad T-shirt and baggy orange shorts, his peeling Adidas tennis shoes. He looked back up to his face.

“You think I have anything worth stealing? You’re the one with the fancy gadgets. Look.” John pointed to his own head. “You even see a SelfChip on me?”

The man looked, shook his head in confusion.

“No,” John said. “I don’t have shit.”

The nightmare had left John. The panic attack was gone. He was exhausted, but surprisingly calm.

“Empty your pockets.” The man gestured with the knife. The blade shook. He was skittish. Like an animal that didn’t know whether to bite or run.

“Okay. Okay. Just stay calm.” John thought about the old silver dollar his son had given him for a birthday. John always carried it in his left jean pocket.

The mugger shifted to switch the shaking knife from his right hand to his left. His hands shook so hard he fumbled it.

The switchblade dropped to the alley floor.

Without thought, John kicked its handle. The knife clattered deeper into the alley, against one of the building walls, disappeared in a layer of loose trash.

As John turned to run, the man gave a guttural, feral cry and jumped on his back.

An awareness passed through John that the mugger had an AI advantage.

The bodyweight knocked John down to his hands and knees.

He looked up and saw that the mouth of the alley was ten feet away as the mugger’s arm lowered around his neck—the cubital fossa settling over his throat—and squeezed.

The pressure sent John’s body rigid in a sudden convulsive flex.

He fell to his chest.

His hands leapt up to peel away the forearm.

The mugger’s weight stayed on his back

All the important veins and arteries John’s brain tried to decipher from memories of high school biology screamed urgent warnings as everything dimmed.

The strangling arm pulled harder.

John swung an elbow backwards, up into the left rib cage of his assailant. The man grunted. John swung his other elbow into the right ribs. Again, an audible reaction. He elbowed the man again, sharper, and again. The mugger wheezed, but kept pulling.

Colors swirled in John’s vision, melded with each other. Became images. Feelings.

And all the loves of his life kissed him all at once through perfect memory. Since his first at 18. On sunny and rainy and cloudy and thundering days. All of them, regardless of weather, thundering. Prana the last and most of all.

And then he saw his son. Held him when he was born. Fed him mashed food while making airplane sounds. Watched Looney Tunes with him on a Saturday morning. His daughter. Holding her head as she floated weightlessly in a pool.

Blackness kicked into John’s vision.

He was dying. Suffocating.

Drowning.

He saw the long silver arm, reaching down to him through pool water.

He was vaguely aware that his limbs were still moving, threw one more elbow into the mugger’s right ribs.

That’s it, he thought. That’s all I have.

And he waited for his thoughts to end.

The man’s hold eased. John’s hands, weak, could barely pull at it.

The hold released completely, and John could feel the mugger convulsing against him.

John’s vision returned.

He rolled. The mugger fell off him.

The man spasmed violently on the alley floor.

John watched with large eyes in shock as the man shuddered and became abruptly still, exhaled, and died.

Did I break a rib, puncture one of his lungs? John thought.

He hesitated, then reached out and pulled up the man’s shirt.

Along the bottom of the man’s right ribs was a Uni-Reach BioChem Dispenser. The fiberglass around the rayon was cracked, the skin around the fiberglass purple, blood vessels dark and visible beneath.

John had broken the mugger’s dispenser, causing it to malfunction and deposit all of its doses at once into the bloodstream.

John lowered the shirt, shuffled a few away on his backside.

He looked down both directions of the alley, then up.

There were two surveillance cameras mounted along the alley’s walls. Both aimed at him, their electronic retinas flexing.

In his mind, he saw the silver hand, the blue water.

He staggered to his feet, and turned the corner back out onto the street, toward his apartment.