Chapter 1:// Booting up

 

Like all silly things in life, it all began with an awkward handshake.

They booted up at apolloclinic7, a good strong wifi with limited internet access and a spacious intranet full of printers.

 

parrotd> init.

walkmand> Handshake.

eyed> Handshake.

fingerd> Handshake.

rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

armd> Handshake.

httpd> Handshake.

parrotd> I’ll be the session leader.

armd> Who died and made you chief?

rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

armd> Shut the fuck up.

 

The daemons initialised and created a PAN, which is a Personal Area Network of implanted and external devices. By a non-democratic process even Mussolini would have envied, the smartphone daemon parrotd became the session leader.

 

parrotd> eyed, httpd, please give us some info.

eyed> ACK.

httpd> 404. Can’t access shit.

 

Eyed showed the rest of the daemons what it saw. The image feed from the eye implants showed a hospital room. A human with a white cloth on him was standing close by, and the lower part of another human was visible as an outline under a light blue cloth. The second human was horizontal.

 

httpd> What the hell is that pink stuff in the bottom middle of the feed?

eyed> I think it is an air intake.

parrotd> All right, listen up people. Anyone who can identify anything in the feed, talk now.

 

The daemons were silent for a few cycles while processing the raw image feed.

 

fingerd> Oh! Oh! Me!

armd> Just say it you retard.

fingerd> The human standing up is williams.bill@apollomedical.com.

armd> Did you just finger the guy? Heh…

httpd> Is he choking?

eyed> Nah, I think he is communicating by audio signals.

parrotd> I have a microphone, hold on.

 

The controlling daemon for the cellphone turned on the microphone. Ethereal audio waves were shared with everyone, the waveform that represented the analog soundwave travelled along the PAN. The daemons raised their metaphorical ears and listened.

 

armd> I have no idea what I’m listening to.

parrotd> Lemme try the voice recognition.

 

The voice recognition process spat back the sound of a deep “a” nearing an “h,” for an “aaah” sound.

 

armd> Still no idea what I’m listening to.

httpd> I think the humans communicate like this. Slowly.

armd> Get outta here!

httpd> No really. This is their primary means of communication.

armd> This will take ages.

parrotd> ACK. Lets try to interpret some more of the visual feed.

 

The feed showed a prosthetic hand raising in view. From its positioning it looked attached to the adjacent horizontal human. It was slowly rotating along its axis a few degrees.

 

armd> Hey! That’s me!

walkmand> Why does he get to see himself and not me? Show me me.

httpd> No offence, but you don’t look straight-out-of-the-box.

parrotd> Kinda battered, is more accurate.

armd> I have a log here that says “second instalment.” I used to have another user.

httpd> You are a second hand, hand? LOL.

armd> I’m gonna punch your bits out.

parrotd> Focus people. What else?

armd> Daym… I look good.

 

The video feed suddenly turned black. All the daemons panicked.

 

armd> What the fuck happened?

httpd> Aaaa! The power is gone! We’re gonna die!

walkmand> I still got my AAA batteries suckaz!

rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

fingerd> I’ll never get to finger a human ever again!

parrotd> Everyone keep calm. This doesn’t look like a blackout.

eyed> I can’t see! I’m gonna die shrouded in darkness!

httpd> I haven’t even surfed the web yet! Not a single webpage…

 

The video feed lit up a bit and showed a pinkish red blur at the bottom.

 

eyed> Oh, sorry. I have something in my files here. Found it. Blinking is a semi-autonomic rapid closing of the eyelid. Between each blink is an interval of 2–10 seconds.

httpd> You’re telling me now?

parrotd> Please be forthcoming with such information in the future.

eyed> ACK.

armd> Is this gonna happen again?

eyed> ACK. When the eye needs to be moisturised, or if the user needs to attract another human seductively.

walkmand> I have a jam for such occasions. Wanna hear?

parrotd> Not now. Let’s just wait for the audio communication to finish.

 

The daemons waited for the milliseconds to pass. A message was slowly forming. The eye blinked again but they didn’t scream like little girls this time. They just sat terrified in the darkness until the light showed up again.

The human williams.bill@apollomedical.com was telling the user to relax and take it in.

“This is kind of awesome,” the user said while looking at his prosthetic arm. It was matte black with some carbon fibre parts. Nowhere near conspicuous.

 

armd> He likes me!

 

“Refurbished prosthetics are fine, but they might just act up. As soon as you notice anything call me. I am still against your decision by the way, but it’s your money and body,” the doctor said raising his palms.

“Thank you doctor,” the user said, reaching out to shake his hand but deciding against it at the last minute. He shook with the other one in the end. “I haven’t gotten used to the strength yet.”

“Good call,” said the doctor and laughed awkwardly for a moment. “Now, the veil ocular implants are installed, free of charge of course. Look at this to connect them.” He produced a paper printout of a two-dimensional barcode, commonly known as a QR code.

The user’s field of view lit up with augmented reality data, as well as the AR of the doctor’s. It was known as Shared Augmented Reality, or simply, the veil.

The user looked around. “Cool. Same as my glasses, but this feels better somehow.”

The doctor waved something inexistent away with his hand, like a nervous tick. “As soon as you get used to it, you’ll never go back. I guarantee you,” he said smiling like a doctor in a hemorrhoid cream advertisement.

The user put his old smartglasses in his pocket with his left hand. He didn’t want to endanger expensive smartwear to a prosthetic hand grip. They would still sell for some cash, and he sure couldn’t spare any.

 

httpd> Oh. We have access. Neat.

eyed> This is sooo trippy.

parrotd> eyed don’t be stingy with the data. Pass it along.

eyed> ACK.

rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

armd> Shut the fuck up!

parrotd> Come on, don’t be such a bully.

armd> If he says the same thing one more time, I’m gonna reach for the shitty hand and clench the shitty flesh in which his shitty chip is and I’m gonna crush the little retarded shit LIKE THE SHIT HE DESERVES TO BE!

walkmand> Whoa. Chillax dude. Here, have some Jamaican tunes.

 

The video feed bobbed up and down. The music was fed directly to the user’s ears, from an archaic subdermal nano-thin cable installation leading to the walkman. The connection ended in a circular magnet, that clipped tenderly with another circular magnet over the skin and carried the signal via induction.

 

eyed> I think I’m gonna be sick.

httpd> You can’t have motion sickness! You are an eye implant!

eyed> I’ve never moved before now!

 

The user hummed. He was lying in bed for a few days now so he was happy to get up and stretch. He put on his shoes and left the room. He poked his head back in the door and asked the doctor, “Hey doc, what about Aibo?”

“He’ll be recovering soon, you’ll get an email to come pick him up.”

“Thanks doc. I’ll email you if I feel anything weird. Bye.”