Amazon
Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: CreateSpace/ShadowArt
Type: Fiction
Pages: 296
cyberpunk turned inside out; a hacker trapped inside the body of someone else, both fighting for control
Imagine a place where improving your mind and body through augmentation is the key to success. this is where Stanley Gabrels is from; a journalist hard wired to the very data stream he posts articles to. A society obsessed only with cutting edge technology, with every bit of information, culture and art at their fingertips, broadcast directly into their brain via Adam, an advanced artificial intelligence designed to oversee its users and streamline life itself. Those who can't afford such improvements live beneath the fury, in forgotten streets that siphon what they can from above to survive. the day after a wanted criminal is killed in those streets, Gabrels begins to experience strange dreams, alarming changes in behavior. As his mind deteriorates, Gabrels begins to realize someone else is inside his mind with him, fighting for control. Can he regain himself from the man inside who is slowly tearing his life apart? Who is responsible for this in a city where your every move is monitored?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-3BIbPvBg
Excerpt
ONE
The screen of the computer reflected white lights against open eyes. Sirens were in full scream from the outside. Distant shades of crimson and ocean coated dilated pupils. Glass shattered loud enough to elicit movement from the man barely awake. The hotel room was a small, dark cube; littered with enough trash and wires to resemble the inside of a failed machine. His body was an apt comparison. A cocktail of drugs weaved through a bloodstream squeezed of oxygen. Gunshots were faded, but loud enough to raise the tempo of his heartbeat. The windows near him shattered. Hands moved across the table and swept away half eaten food for the device. Liquid had pooled out from his eyes and mouth, dripping slowly. They were coming for him.
A metal surface came into contact with an anxious hand. His fingers scrambled for the activator on the top of the device. Sounds of storms pushed their way through weak walls. A clicking noise began to emanate from the metal sphere near the center of the table. The man slowly got to his feet and reached in his pockets. A gun was left in the corner on the kitchen counter. Tripping over spare parts, he grabbed the pistol and left.
The hallway went in two directions, both neon lit. He made a decision. Blue lines followed each turn of his head. Movements were exaggerated. The air was heavy, it forced him to struggle. Behind him, wood splintered underneath a steel battering ram. They did not take time to shout his name, or to announce his arrest. The goal was blood. Within the darkness of the room, the sphere ignited littered paper and old wood. Equipment burned within seconds, along with several cops. Boots melted, powder blue uniforms seared with a sound that was buried by their own screams.
A window cracked open led to the fire escape. The stairs were rusted brown and made too much noise as he descended. Garbage piled up near a dumpster looked like a safe landing. There were still five levels. In minutes, cruisers would find their way around to the alley below. The gun almost slipped from his hand with each jump to the next scaffold. He decided to try it and poured himself over the railing. His body smashed into the pile, no feelings of pain. He thanked the drugs, shaking off what could have been a broken rib. The hand holding his gun felt an extra spur of bone pressing underneath the skin. At the end of the road past the intersection was the entrance to an old aqueduct. Lights ripped away comfortable dark. They moved faster than usual tonight. He hopped over the fence, tearing holes in his jeans on barbed wire decades old.
The hotel was further away now, covered in all sirens and lights. Swift footsteps marked the night with percussive beats. He still knew how to move despite the handicap of chemicals in his system. Step after step through emptied alleys. That was all he knew, really; systems and how to break them down. All a hacker really did in his mind was destroy an existing wall to help build a better one. Step by step, the beats increased in speed. Systems he knew, and also chemicals. He loved those. Just like a body, in that when one is pushed to its maximum potential, it will soon falter. The process of breaking down can take years. Even as the functions of a machine continue without flaw, better ones will be formed and pushed out to the audience. Knowledge of the turns and twists leads to manipulation by curious minds. The entrance to the aqueduct was an open tunnel down a slope of beaten concrete. Cool air from flowing water coated him with a certain comfort. Lights behind him grew bright. The voices telling him to stop were more vicious.
Once a system is figured out by said minds, it can be stretched into something else. It becomes a weapon in an arsenal. People were ignorant to the real movement behind their own technology. Countless names became a currency at a young age. His legs pumped new blood, less enamored with the drugs. Hand over hand, he climbed to an overhead slum, tucked away from the main roads. Platforms held makeshift houses for those unable to live in townhouses and compacted apartments high above the storm that followed him. Cops would not interrogate the homeless. No need to ask questions. They knew exactly who he was, and where he was going. Kids began to follow him across the platform when bullets found their way through the metal. Screaming interrupted the tempo as some of the children found themselves targets in the blind fire. Little bodies hit the platform hard, but he smiled. No need for sorrow. Life was temporary as it was.
Beneath the slum was a garden of dead grass. Faded flowers struggled along in private corners. Looking down, he saw through chain link fence to see dirty toys and old tools. There must have been a switch. Uniforms of blue finally bashed their way into the slum from the streets below. He stopped and counted the seconds while stomping his foot along the poles of the fence. Soon, the pressure point triggered and the fence disconnected from the platform. He hit the ground hard enough to elicit a laugh. Cops shined flashlights down into the garden before descending. His hood ripped open, shredded even more on brambles and weeds. He hoped for an opening out to the road. A hole, small even for a child, was there. His body was thin enough to slide through. The main road was more than 30 feet away. Freedom was, too.
Once that new wall is built, the hacker is tasked with starting over that same process; studying the target, adaptation to its pattern, discovery of any anomalies, exploitation of said advantages. Once the new weapon is added to the arsenal, the prize claimed in the meantime is open to the world of commerce. The supply and demand of private information was always a business of risk. It was the only reason for the bullets behind him. He could see the aqueduct entrance dip down behind the street. The legs of this machine were tired. His fingers traced the bone sticking out from the others, wondering when he would find time to get it looked a…
The sound of his body smashing into metal and glass was sickening. His limp body was thrown off into the distance. The black car did not take a moment to slow down. Unseen, the driver knocked a bigger hole into the windshield before disappearing into black. Sirens returned in broken echoes. Blood and blue sea washed over his eyes. Both legs felt different. Something must have broken in each of them. Steps were made carefully. He could put his weight down. It was enough to try running again. Weapons were pointed. Those same voices were now hoarse. They promised death if he took the chance to run for water. The buildings all around him were filled shadows hidden behind glass as yellow poured out into the street from each square. Unknown faces looked into him.
His lips curled into a smile. There were just enough chemicals in the system to keep him from fear. Life was temporary, wasn’t it? One hand moved from the bone in his side to the pistol in his pocket. The screams became louder. It was a surprise to him that they did not fire right away. Maybe if he took it out and started shooting it? Once the gun came out, his face became stone. The clip was missing. It had been left in the hotel room. Every other weapon in a one block radius emptied enough bullets to rip him apart. It was not fast enough to keep his face from changing back to a smile.
He hit the ground hard. His legs peeled back as if the bones were removed from the skin. The back of his head smashed into the pavement. It created a haze that distracted him from overwhelming pain. His eyes stayed open, staring into the night sky. Medical teams arrived within a minute. Two men burst through the back door of the transport unit, items in hand to grab the body in the middle of the street. A hand grabs each of them at the arm. A few feet away sat a black car, a hole in the windshield. Two new men stood in black suits behind them. Their holsters were exposed from the folds of their tailored jackets. Each held a large gun that poured out with each step from the shadows.
The world went black for a second. The medic stood frozen. His eyes were stone. Darkness and light repeated over and over as if someone were toying with a light switch. The picture returned and disappeared again just as quickly. Existence was suspended. The film had fallen off the reel. Everything stopped for a few awkward seconds. The colors of the image came and went with the whirring sounds of a broken projector. Somewhere in that same dark, there was a voice that spoke calmly.
“It felt real, didn’t it? With a resolution so clear, it’s as if these moments were happening right in front of you.”
There was someone else in here. The others in the room were on edge. They could hear the voice speaking all around them. The sound was warm.
“But I know that some of you still have doubts about the capabilities of the program.”
His robotic tone vibrated their eardrums. Something changed in his inflections. The words became closer, his volume lowered. It was meant to recreate the feeling of someone whispering. Tension was building. Each of them could almost feel a small burst of air. Invisible breath created waves of electricity, reflected by the hair on the back of their necks. They all wanted to know; who was this speaking?
“Let’s continue, then…”
The picture moved in rewind, from the hacker’s death, to the chase past the hotel and through the slum. Small short films repeated the series of events from behind the cops themselves like old memories. Lines resembling white noise cut through the pixels of color. Some said that it resembled tracking from old VHS tapes. They all moved their fingers and toes restlessly. There was a feeling of warmth, and weightlessness. The others in the room were frozen, no way to tell how many, or what size the room itself had been. No lights except for the screen that consumed our eyes in a flood of information.
The unknown host called out to phantom engineers to stop the feed.
“Let’s have some fun…Try channel seventeen.”
A new voice echoed through their ears.
“Police chased the man through a series of alleys until a hit and run knocked his body high into the air.”
She was a newscaster. Each word was spoken with poise. She over-enunciated every word with no sign of emotion. Soon, her words faded into the sea of sound as the host continued.
“Her voice is as clear and as warm as my own. She sounds as if she is speaking directly into your own ears. Thirteen.”
The cameras cut to different angles of the alleys.
“What’s most beautiful about this observation is that it is true. Eighteen.”
A ripple of white noise took them to a new perspective. New voices broke their silence with each change in viewpoint. Each reporter continued the report given to the public regarding the incident.
“The bones in your ear are stimulated by small electrical shocks, vibrating your eardrums to create the sensation that your brain recognizes as someone speaking directly into your ears. This way, the audience feels completely at home. The reporters are reading to you in the comfort of your own home; a quiet room, unaffected by the outside.”
Helicopter lights flashed over brown concrete revealing pools of blood. Different lenses moved back and forth between shocked bystanders. The red ran down from the platform and into the dead garden.
“Once surrounded, the gunman, attempted to fire his weapon upon the officers, but was thankfully gunned down before any more innocents could be claimed.”
The voices of different reporters began to loop and combine into a mess of sounds. It became a pool of static that continued even as the host called out to lower the volume. All heads in the audience moved in unison. To them, this could not be real. They wanted to see more, see what other news stories could be opened up and pulled apart completely. Some of them wanted to unplug and go back home to their empty beds. But the host did not cease, instead calling out for the lights to return. Soon, the audience could see their surroundings. There was no soundstage, or theater screen. Each of them had been sitting in the chairs of a waiting room. The room was an empty, dead white. Without warning, a man with clear skin in a neatly tailored suit appeared in their field of vision. He existed only through their eyes. A simulation. This was the initial demonstration that greeted a newDawn user. This was demonstration number two million, three hundred thousand, ninety four.
“Now, you can see me. It may seem jarring at first, but try not to be alarmed. Remember that I am not in your head, but rather, I am merely a piece of the information flowing through it.”
The host took a bow amidst ever changing skin.
“My name is Adam, and I am here to introduce you to the future.”
The audience was captivated. They always were.
“It matters not what I look like, for you have created what is here before you. Residual imagery based on centuries of personality and preference data fills this empty space occupied by my voice. To everyone viewing me, my features will be unique to your own subconscious specifications. The colors I wear, the skin covering my shell, are every shade that has ever been.”
The host was right. Each took a moment to fumble with their interface. There was an option to change to the perspectives of the other users. After 30 seconds, the option disappeared. Their reactions were always forms of awe and disbelief. Some had waited to see if Artificial Intelligence would ever take a moment to be lazy, to only show two or three color schemes. It would have been enough, considering the strength of the current software. But every time, every perspective was different, unique to the very person viewing the shell.
“What if I told you that your entire life was being built up to a specific moment in time?”
By and large, this was the best part, according to general opinion of first time users.
“Imagine growing into an adult never being able to control your own life, shape your own destiny. The world around you moved on its own, and you were a spectator to history.”
Adam disappeared into lines of code, slowly forming an eternal ocean of text that spread over their eyes.
“Imagine being left behind, as bigotry and negativity pierce every image and sound produced at large. This was the world before the fall.”
The ocean of text began to form lines and gain colors, bringing forth images of the past.
There was footage of fires, natural disasters taking place in real time. It was interesting to see what he showed to each audience. Depending on the people connected, he moved in sync with their own tastes. The few times that apathy registered with some of the viewers, the slideshow changed to garner more visceral reactions. There were still frames of expired humans but those too began to move. Some were piled into large mounds. Bodies were raped, engulfed in flames that soon consumed entire cities. Soldiers were mutilated with slow precision. These were products of the old wars. It was hard to watch at times. Most often, they would close their eyes and let those cruel realities be relived with new eyes. Those who did not react to said images were reported to the authorities. Adam was constantly evolving. It knew how to influence you, make you feel what needed to be felt. It could make you understand.
“Can you recall the hatred and ignorance of the last century? History books may paint better pictures than the actual truth; that society reveled in its improving technology.”
Games and cell phones appeared between the old footage of trash being dropped, crushed and discarded by old machines into any place not lived in. These were artifacts, just like the film that produced the images themselves.
“Society found a way to use up as much energy as possible, every resource available. They found a space for every piece of its own garbage. Soon, you ate and drank off your own poisons until it nearly made you extinct. You were too afraid to invest in new ways of life. It took losing everything to realize that you were nothing.”
A logo began to emerge in countless pixels that formed behind Adam, breaking the stream of data pouring into those new minds. The pixels became letters, forming newDawn.
“Decades later, in this year of 2045, you are here as part of an advanced, reformed society. Your bodies have now been augmented to transcend those physical and mental limitations. All made possible by the smallest surgical implant behind your ear…”
A tiny piece of metal with three wires phased through the letters.
“Origin; the source of the information and the conduit between the data stream and your own body. These wires are integrated with nanomachines that found their way to the key areas of your body to find a home and connect you to the rest of the world. You are better than human and now, you are a newDawn user. A fully integrated organism with a neural connection to the constantly growing information stored within and endlessly evolving functions made possible through what was once known as cyberspace.”
Every newDawn user was given the Blank Page to start with when signing in. Users of newDawn stood covered in white light until a connection was made with the neural network. Adam took their hands and walked them right to the edge, before pushing them gently over the precipice. Within days, they would be encapsulated in comfort and convenience.
“The countless others connecting to the same space as you; this is the network at large.”
Once a user becomes integrated, the simulation goes dark and ends. Adam split into countless pieces to provide guidance to each of the new uninitiated. Some users still had dreams of the first simulation. They each ended the same way, lying down to rest with a fair warning. The software took time to monitor your sleep habits, including vital signs and dream patterns in order to help reduce stress and maximize rapid eye movement.
Commercials play in their heads while they slept. There were advertisements for food when the groceries ran out, specials for cheap drinks when their stress levels were high. Adam was adept at knowing their preferences but kept a distance that maintained diplomacy. It took time for people chosen for augmentation to be accustomed to another intelligence inside their mind but the convenience of newDawn helped them to understand its purpose. Adam was designed to learn a user’s personality and guide them to choices that prolonged their lifespan.
“Welcome to the New World.”
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