A couple of weeks ago I started an undertaking of creating a short story with the help of a new acquaintance.
Said acquaintance has seemingly become indifferent since our first meeting. I imagine that perhaps she didn't enjoy my company and is too polite to say it.
But that's okay. I can take a hint and realise that I'm not everybody's cup of tea. There’s no hard feelings but if she's listening, I would really appreciate getting my imported copy of Korean CG back.
That being said. I thought it might be nice to share the fruits of our collaboration with the rest of you.
If it's well received I might feel inclined to continue, SO HOLLA MOH! IF YA WANNA MOH!
Remember... you read it first at Cafe' Ambivalence!
I hereby humbly submit....
INSOMNIPOTENCE.
Jed woke up with his keyboard imprinted on his face. Falling asleep online was becoming a bad habit of his but he couldn’t help himself. Lately it seems that no matter how much sleep he gets, it’s never enough, and then there was the sleepwalking…
Heavy as his eyes were, he managed to glance about the room. Clinical white. Boring images of nature on the walls. He hated being in hospital. The thought of getting out of there was becoming more and more appealing… but he still had hope they could figure out what was wrong with him.
Exhausted, he forced himself onto his feet and zombie’d over to the basin. He opened the generic stainless steel tap. He didn’t know if splashing water in one’s face really made any difference, but he saw people do it in movies… figured it was worth a shot.
He stared at himself in the frameless mirror. A meeting with his own dark eyes… nearly black with a hint of blue… they seemed cold… uncaring. His face had seen better days. It was an ever increasing husk of his former self; side effects of his sleep deprivation.
The bags under the eyes made his pale skin seem dead. The stubble along his jaw was turning into sand paper again. He’d shave right now if they allowed him to use blades…
He knew that his problem with sleeping had something to do with the woman he was trying to find, and the loss of his artificial companion… Olivia.
And also likely, the new personality he had to deal with… “Geb”
If he could figure out one problem, he could fix the others.
He hovered with his cursor over the icon of his old companion. Or rather, his (sort of) daughter, but he knew that she wouldn’t respond if he called. She was afraid to come back to him. Afraid of getting hurt.
Olivia was an artificial life form he had created for himself out of sheer loneliness. Initially his motivation was cheap and clichéd but over the years, the intelligence grew in complexity, and he came to regard his creation as a kind of daughter.
Being human, he had formed a deep emotional bond with her. She wasn’t real, but the feelings were. It wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t sleep well, now that she was missing.
As it is, he assumed Olivia was secretly residing inside the P-chip of this woman he was trying to find. P-chips were the latest revolution of social networking. A convenient dermal implant that replaced the bulk (and cold detachment) of mobile hand held devices… Olivia used to live in his and now, she was gone and Jed was left feeling like a part of him was missing.
He hated himself for what had happened.
It all started several months ago...
-----
That day in the coffee shop was like a pleasant nightmare… He still had no idea how he came to be so taken by a stranger; so absorbed by the moment that he completely forgot about his invisible companion.
The coffee shop was a quiet place. Abundant in space with a small customer base. He liked going there to unwind while a blend of caffeine, tartrazine and other stuff that ended with INE could tend to his brain.
The light in the shop was low and warm, and the music complimented it with violins and female vocals. People didn’t go there to meet. They went there to get away… this is why his actions that day was so ironic.
As he left his little alcove, to return to the world outside, he saw a woman in passing. She had taken a seat in the alcove next to his. He would not have noticed her until just then. She was slender and pale, with a vibrant explosion of long curling red hair. She was engrossed in a novel and didn’t notice his attention at first.
The alcove’s personal vents were feathering her clothes and hair with a constant breeze… It made her seem almost ethereal and the more he had observed, the more she drew him closer until he had found himself standing practically on top of her. She had looked up to enquire about his interest and he had said something, though he couldn’t recall what because from there the details of the encounter become blurred in memory.
Jed was ordinarily a strictly logical man. As such, the captivation was a momentary weakness; a lapse in judgment that had cost him dearly. He didn’t expect that he would lose his daughter as a result.
She used to reside inside in the back of his own neck. The P-chip there, was a cozy place to keep her, nestled between his mind and the interface. She thrived in the snug of activity there and kept him company as their thoughts were connected on a permanent basis. Their connection had been so profound that even calling her a daughter seemed too distant. Regardless, he had been the fool to cause her so much pain and fear, as to make her “run away” from him.
Olivia wasn’t ready for him to express such interest in another. Up until that moment they had always been completely devoted, connected and engrossed with each other.
He should have stopped himself from walking over to the stranger; Stopped himself from greeting her and sitting down; Stopped himself from asking her about the book she was reading… stopped himself from even talking at all.
And all the while, like a mindless ape, he didn’t notice Olivia’s alarm. Didn’t even hear her digital panic and scream, enraged and confused as to why he was suddenly so distracted by another woman.
The reaction might seem excessive if one was talking about an ordinary living breathing child, but Olivia’s state of being lived at a pace unimaginable to humans.
Her ability to develop and experience complex emotion happened at a fraction of the time it would take a human. That being the case, it came as no surprise that she would develop the artificial equivalents of severe jealousy, depression, anger and heartache… all within seconds of his sudden infatuation with another. His mind had once been her world, and now it was being taken away from her.
And so, back then, in a fit of desperation, Olivia had created and executed a program to escape the fear; to escape him. She had shutdown her interface and allowed the programs to carry her away to the nearest p-chip in the vicinity.
The exodus was a tremendous shock to Jed’s mind. In the blink of an eye his co-dependent companion was suddenly gone. The silence in his mind was deafening. The psychological backlash had caused him to collapse to the ground.
The collage of autumn leaves, painted on the ceiling of the coffee shop, was the last thing he remembered since he woke up again in a hospital three months later.
The woman from the coffee shop was just a memory and his daughter, was gone.
Jed massaged the chip on the back of his neck again as if to ease the dull emotional ache in missing Olivia. Reluctantly he returned to the bed and tried to fall asleep again. It was futile. His mind was alive with thoughts of the past few weeks.
He remembered how he had first woken… Just as soon as he was awake, his P-chip come online and flooded his mind with appointments, emails and deadlines he had missed. “3 months since your last login!” P-chip issues aside, he was more concerned as to why his arms and legs were strapped down.
Calling for a nurse had provided a doctor instead, and the ensuing conversation had been one of the most bizarre he had ever had.
He didn’t bother to remember the name of his doctor. The man was a distasteful sight. He had an androgynous comical face. His lips and eyes were a shade too red and his eyes were beady. He gelled and combed his hair from one side to the other.
Whenever the man spoke, he did so with a smile and a presumption of know-it-all that Jed had yet to see proven.
“Good morning mister Geb.” He had said at first. Geb was not his name. “What did you call me?”
“I called you Geb. But that is clearly not your name.”
“My name is Jed. Why am I tied down?”
The doctor had explained that although this was the first time Jed appeared to be awake, his body had in fact, been conscious several times during the previous three months. Only it wasn’t Jed but a person called Geb, that was occupying the “driver’s seat”
Jed wasn’t inclined to believe him until the doctor played some recordings to convince him. It had been as though watching a deranged twin brother. The raging man being dragged into the hospital, screaming words that they could not understand.
Audio analysis kicked in and overlapped the recording with subtitles.
<trans. Egypt. “…Gate is open! Word is spoke! Event is now! Geb I am!”>
Regardless of the crude translation, the words had made no sense. The doctor was satisfied that he had seen enough and ended the playback.
“Geb was the Egyptian god of the earth; a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis.”
“The what of what?”
“Ennead means a collection of nine things. In context it refers to nine deities that were worshipped in the city of Heliopolis… ”
As such, up until just then the doctor had only known him as Geb. The doctor explained to Jed that until that day they had not been able to speak to him as himself at all.
That was almost a month ago. Since then the doctor had persistently scheduled sessions with deep hypnosis so that he may draw out this Geb persona and try to learn more from him. Despite his efforts, it was clear that there was no reasoning with this Geb.
As such the sessions were proving to be pointless. Rather they just seemed to be making things worse. Every time Jed woke up again, he would feel a little different… a little changed… He didn’t like it.
----
Present day…
Alicia had been out of sorts. She twirled a pale finger in the curl of her crimson hair. Everything about her slender body felt alien to her these days… as though she was living inside the body of somebody else. She was trying to write it all down in a blog but couldn’t find the words to properly describe what she was feeling.
She closed down the blogger and glanced at the latest of her jewelry designs. The design was far from finished but she’d lost interest in it ages ago. It was pointless trying to feel inspired when everything else felt so… off.
She just hadn’t felt quite like herself since that day in the coffee shop. It was the most bizarre thing ever… One moment she was flirting uncontrollably with a stranger and the next she was walking around aimlessly in the streets. She had blacked out, left with no idea whatsoever as to what had happened, or how she came to be in the middle of nowhere.
That area had been unfamiliar to her. It was merely logged as ‘SLUM’ in the travel log of her p-chip. She was all too happy to get out of there, but how she came to be there in the first place was still a mystery to her.
That was three months ago and she hasn’t been able to sleep well since. In addition to that, something had gone wrong with her P-chip.
It was constantly polling for a status update from another chip. When she tries to access the log, the information disappears. When she goes to the P-linic, the chip acts as if nothing is wrong. No viruses or malware… No hacking… It was as though the thing had taken on a life of its own. She had heard rumors about the kind of things they did to people and their implants in slums. Organ sampling, Internal mutilations, hypnosis and memory invasions. It was the stuff of nightmares and she prayed that it had nothing to do with these glitches. Regardless, the only solution to her problem was complete replacement of the chip, but she had already spent all her cred on diagnostics. Replacement was expensive and would just have to wait. The technician shrugged and disconnected the cable. “You could disable it, and then come back when you’re ready. On the other hand, your medical aid is up to date, so you can go and have it surgically removed if it causes you any more trouble.” He tilted her chair upright again, eager to get rid of her now that he knew she was broke.
“Thank you” she said, even though he clearly didn’t care that much. She got up from the chair and left the clinic.
Another migraine was coming on. It was the last thing she needed. She stood on the platform outside the skyrise. Her car was further down the queue of vehicles being fetched and delivered from parking. This was to be expected… the automated system gave precedence to those who paid more taxes.
She didn’t mind waiting. She enjoyed the moment of solitude out here in the open. The air was cool and the wind was strong. She held down the layers of her light dress as the forces of nature rushed around her legs. She resigned to letting it blow her hair about her face. The natural curls twirled into a soft red brush of fire that playfully caressed against the shiver of her pale neck. It was one last comfort to enjoy before the headache kicked in.
When her car arrived she was eager to get home and swallow the last of her sleeping pills. Perhaps she’d take one more day off before getting back to her job in the morning.
She managed to get home without causing an accident, despite the migraine blurring her vision. The apartment took note of her discomfort and produced a cocktail to ease the pain… she mixed in her pills and headed straight for the bedroom, slipping out of her dress as she crossed the wooden floor.
The dress was made of a micro-weave silk. Each layer floated down like a film of smoke, and yet stepping out of it felt like the weight of the world had just slipped off her shoulders. She didn’t care to leave the burden on the floor, downed the beverage in one shot before crashing to the bed in peace.
---
The doctor smiled as Jed entered the room. Jed had come to loathe the content in his eyes. It was a false projection… the doctor rarely had news to be happy about.
“Good morning Jed… ”
“I guess… I imagine you’re more eager to talk to Geb again?”
“Could you produce him if I asked?”
“Of course not… I’m merely stating that you seem more interested in Geb than me.”
“I’m interested in helping you Jed. But you have to be willing to trust me.”
“I trust results, and you have yet to produce any. I want you to make this Egyptian crap go away. I’ve done my own research. The dialect is ancient… There’s no way I could have picked it up from somewhere… it’s foreign and I want it out. But you people are not interested in helping me do that. You just want to study it instead.”
“This is a unique opportunity. There is something truly special about your mind mister Jed. It would be beneficial to all of us if you cooperated.”
Jed calmed down. The doctor was impervious to aggressive persuasion. It didn’t matter anyway… Angry or not, he’s already decided it’s time to go home.
“You’ve given me little choice but to cooperate, by dangling the promise of help in front of me. I’m not falling for that any longer. To be honest, good Doctor, I’m inclined to request that you let me go home.”
The doctor seemed uncomfortable. “We would love for you to stay. We have provided you with all the comforts you require. Is there anything else we could offer to make you stay?”
Yeah… my daughter, and my own unique setup of illegal hardware that I can’t tell you about.
---
When Alicia woke up she nearly screamed. She found herself on the patio… not just standing but leaning over the edge as though ready to jump. A storm of rain was roaring past her ears and disappeared into the urban canyon below. She fell back with the thunder and groaned as the cold hard brick wall bit into the naked skin of her back.
Her body started shivering, as if only now realizing how cold and exposed she was. She smacked herself on the head… “Alicia… dumb ass… What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
She eagerly retreated back to her room, and scrambled into bed again. She didn’t care for the water or the blood from the fresh cuts on her back. She just wanted to get back to sleep again… Things were getting worse. First thing in the morning, she was going to do something about it.
----
“I’m tired of this place. I want to go home.”
If Jed wants out, he’ll get out, and the doctor seems to have realized this. He decided to extend the ‘leash’ instead. A long leash was better than a broken one.
“You may go whenever you wish, but I trust you understand if we check in on you from time to time. Just to make sure you’re okay.”
As if – thought Jed. He already had plans to disappear to his secret lair as soon as possible. A climate controlled ship container… one of many that he moved around from time to time.
“Do as you wish. You know where I live.”
The doctor smiled again. “We can help you Jed… to understand what Geb is, and to find the people you are looking for.”
Of course they have checked up on his computer activity. No doubt trying to find a way to make him stay.
Regardless, Jed had been clever enough to mask the details of his digital hunt. He didn’t want to tell them about Olivia, but even if they knew, their paltry means of data mining would have been no match for her.
Besides… he wasn’t ready to share Olivia with the world just yet. Rather, the world wasn’t ready to receive her…
“Thanks… but I think I’ll continue the search on my own.”
The doctor had nothing left to say… “You may leave, but we hope you come back if you ever have need.”
“I will” he lied, and they both knew it. He got up and left the office.
Downstairs, he wasn’t surprised that checking out was a pain in the ass. The Medix centers were renowned for a lack in competence when it came to reconciling accounts with private medical funds like his. While they tried to sort out their shit, he decided to go grab some breakfast and check up on his business.
---
Alicia arrived far too early at the Medix Centre. She had scheduled a full check up with them the night before, but being early, she decided to grab some breakfast first. The cafeteria was crowded. All the tables were taken. She had already paid for her food and didn’t want to wait outside in the rain… She was going to have to find a lonely stranger and share the table.
There just happened to be a man nearby, sitting alone and seemingly buried in the projected screen of his p-chip interface. Interrupting him was going to be rude, but there was no other way. She fluffed her hair and stepped closer. “Mind if I sit?”
The projection paused and the man peered through the gaps in the text, then his eyes grew wide…
There was an awkward silence…
“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
The screen disappeared and she gasped. The man from… before the blackout! She panicked. If he had something to do with that! She could be in danger! Alicia stepped backwards…
Despite her fear she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. His own expression seemed anxious… uncertain… cautious… and yet captivating as it was the first time they met.
Their eyes locked as though staring at old friends… His deep dark blue peering into Hazel green; recognition with a comfort that didn’t mix well with her need to get away…
She turned to run, but the crowds were blocking the exit. Part of her felt relieved that she couldn’t leave… She turned back to face the stranger again.
His dark hair was longer now, making him look haggard; a dire need for shaving with heavy bags under the eyes. He was as tired as she was. It made her feel a little less threatened.
“It’s you!” they both said.
Jed got up from his seat. “How did you find me?!”
“I… I didn’t!”
“Where is she!?”
“Who?”
“Where is Olivia!”
“Who’s Olivia? Who are you? How…”
Jed accepted that she had no idea. Olivia had hidden herself well. He called up his projection again and started typing frantically. Alicia felt her P-chip activate on its own. “Hey! What are you doing!?”
“Relax. I have to check something on your chip!”
His fingers were flying through the invisible keys as he forced a connection between their chips. Her nerves started tingling as the programs overlapped. “Stop that!” She instinctively placed a hand over the back of her neck but it did nothing to stop the wireless connection.
“I’m sorry!” cried Jed, but he had no choice. If he didn’t move fast Olivia might jump again.
Alicia suddenly became aware of a scream of knowledge. It felt like an application, but with a mind of its own. It wasn’t coming from the external link… No… It was something else… something alive and angry, hiding deeper inside the system. It was so close to the nerves that it felt almost like a part of her mind. She could recognize it now… the glitch she’d been trying to get rid of! She could feel it now, moving and shaking in the confines of its digital world. It grabbed the reins of her chip and began creating scripts of its own.
“Shit!” cried the man. “She’s awake!”
Alicia realized that this man knew what it was. The thought occurred to her that this was all his fault and it made her angry. She grabbed the man’s shoulder and shouted in his ear. “Get this thing out of me!”
Jed ignored Alicia’s anger as he tried to contain Olivia’s movement. His digital daughter was pushing the p-chip to its limits, but as long as he flooded the wireless link with his apologies, she was unable to escape. Regardless, the AI was too cautious to open any message he sent through…
Olivia became aggressive and started fighting back. It didn’t take her long to repel and overwhelm his intrusion.
“No no no. Don’t do this. Olivia… come back!”
Alicia tried to make sense of the screen but the code was gibberish to her. Regardless it seemed as though this man was losing some kind of battle. She realized that her privacy was of little concern to him. He was only focused on this creature Olivia. She suddenly felt sorry and angry at the same time.
Olivia was going after Jed’s chip now. She intended to cripple him. He made a last ditch effort to close her acess to the data stream, but Olivia was much faster than him. She took control and invaded his chip and then everything went dark. The projection had vanished into thin air…
“What happened?” asked Alicia. Jed ignored her. He stared into empty space as he tried to force his chip online again, but it was futile. In an instant, Olivia had erased his firmware. By the time he got factory defaults up and running again, she’d be long gone.
He looked at Alicia. “Is she still there?”
She? Alicia figured he must have been talking about the strange presence in her chip. She closed her eyes and accessed the interface, but the strange sto-away was gone. Even the slight discomfort and the subsurface activity had disappeared. It was as if her chip was brand new again. She opened her eyes and shook her head. The man seemed sad, and for some reason, so was she.
