No Geek Rapture for Me_I'm Old School

by Jonelle Renald

  As interesting as it all sounded, as optimistic as everyone was, Mia ended the third day of the conference convinced that she would never, ever, participate in any of the many transhumanist plans for the future. As exciting and forward looking as the ideas might sound, she felt the transhumanist plans were a bad idea for humanity as a whole and were being rushed into production. There were too many unanswered questions. This was such a huge, unprecedented step, and no one here seemed to be considering caution a virtue. Mia wondered, “How can it be that nobody is thinking analytically? Isn’t that what computers do? What is the rush? If it’s such a great idea, why not take the time needed to get it right? Why not let people see what it would be like, and then give them time to decide if they want to hyper-evolve? If upgrading is a good idea, why all the talk about de-humanizing the people who don’t upgrade, stepping on them like bugs? Wouldn’t everyone want to choose it, if it really was a good idea?”

  After dinner at an outdoor table at a harborside fish and seafood restaurant with deliciously genuine (non-green) key lime pie for dessert, Mia collapsed into bed back in her hotel room. So much to think about! She drifted off to sleep thinking about the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow searching for a missing brain, failed courage, and an absent heart, wondering how they would fit into the world of iCon’s future. Would the Wizard of the Geek Rapture listen to their requests for some unique and individualized virtue that they alone would possess? And what about Dorothy?

  13 | Hunt

  Brain fogged, the next morning, eyes opening to the sight of a framed painting on a wallpapered wall that she didn’t recognize, Mia woke up very late. For just a moment, she was panicked because she didn’t know the answer to the question, “Where am I?”

  After the moment of stark terror passed, awareness of her situation dawned on her. She was in her hotel room in Miami Beach, lying on her back, covers discarded, her feet on the pillow, her head at the foot of the bed. The painting she saw on waking was at the head of the bed. That was the source of her confusion — she had never actually seen the room from this perspective before. Everything felt so odd. She never slept on her back, never thrashed around restlessly, never dumped the covers on the floor while she slept. But somehow, in spite of all that, she found herself turned around upside down. It made no sense and was very disorienting. What had happened to her? She didn’t remember having strange dreams which would account for rotating in her sleep, and she didn’t think she had gotten up in the middle of the night for any reason, couldn’t recall getting back into bed feet-ways up. What was wrong with her? Why was it so late? Was she getting sick? She did have a headache. The digital clock on the night stand next to the bed said 10:28. She never slept in this late, not even during vacation. Double-checking the time on her cell phone, she saw it really and truly was half past ten.

  Even though her mind was demanding a reason for why she felt so lost and out of phase, the only answer that seemed logical was that nothing had happened, nothing was wrong. But that didn’t explain why she felt so weird and out of place. Being turned around could be explained by some confusion in the dark in a strange room, which could then lead to waking up upside down. However, all her senses disagreed with this logical assessment. And she didn’t remember getting up last night. So what was she to think? Her mind was insisting, “Nothing is wrong,” at the same time her spirit was insisting, “Something is very wrong!” Everything felt too strange, too odd. No matter what logic said, she felt extremely uneasy, as if her space had been violated, even if there was no evidence to support that conclusion.

  She got out of bed to hunt for her purse. Still on top of the dresser where she had left it, a dime fell off when she opened it up to check inside. She picked up the dime and stared at it for a long moment, then put it down and shrugged. Cell phone, billfold, credit cards, money all there, everything still in its proper place. So no thief in the night. And the door was still locked with the battering-ram-proof lock still flipped over. No sign that anything strange had happened. So why did she feel so weird? Trying to dismiss the unease from her mind, she told herself, “It’s nothing but a night in a strange place. Nothing at all. You just overslept.” But it did no good. She still felt like something had happened. She just couldn’t remember what.

  Worst of all, she had a piercing headache that wouldn’t go away. “Did I eat something bad for me yesterday?” Encountering hidden soy in restaurant food was always a danger when dining out. She shook her head. Well, whatever the reason, she was going to be very late for the conference, so she did her best to banish the bad feelings (without much success) and get started with her day.

  She had already missed the opening talk in the ballroom for Day Four, so the first thing on her revised agenda was the late morning breakout session she had picked out, a talk about upgrading daily life, mining more data, and extending technocracy’s control over society through the Internet of Things (IoT), soon to be followed by the Internet of Everything (IoE). By 2020 (or sooner), cars, furnaces and AC, computers, phones, TVs, furniture, refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, robotic vacuums, blenders, pill bottles, and even your clothing and sneakers were due for an upgrade. Every THING you own would come with an RFID chip (they might already have one installed) that would connect to the coming 5G satellite-based WiFi network blanketing even the most remote locations 24/7. Every thing on the planet would be monitored, tracked, and inventoried, data gathered and stored on how often THINGS were used, where they went, what was said nearby. The side effect would be that every human being would also become a part of the IoT, monitored, tracked, and inventoried like all the rest of the THINGS. Everything, every person supervised by an artificial intelligence enabled by a faceless technocrat. Eventually, this would turn the entire world into an expensive pay-as-you-go hotel mini-bar. If you open your frig and drink a glass of milk, you’ll be charged for that usage. If you drive twenty miles, you’ll be charged a premium price for twenty miles of road use. Every time you turn on a light or the faucet or your computer, you would be charged for usage, and your usage will be deducted from your allotment of resources. And it will not be permitted for anyone to exceed their allotment.

  Once IoE is fully launched, you must comply with the AI’s instructions, which would be communicating with every part of your home. Any time you ignore these IoE demands, the AI would communicate with all your THINGS, telling them to stop providing service, leaving you marooned in a cold, dark house. Continued refusal to comply would lead to an escalation, your front door making you homeless by locking you out of your own home, evicted by animate inanimate objects. And if you still refuse to submit and become a trouble-maker, the AI behind the IoT/IoE might decide to eliminate its problem by taking control of all the systems in your car, disabling brakes at the same time you’d find yourself headed toward a concrete wall going 100 mph. Or perhaps it would cause the motor in your refrigerator to start a fire by overheating or exploding in the middle of the night (when it knows you are in your deepest sleep), turning off your smoke detectors at the same time. The resulting fire would appear to be an accident, making it the perfect arson and possibly murder, the real assassin never suspected.

  Another component of IoT/IoE that Mia learned about was the technology of graphene substrates, a new technology made of a material that is one carbon cell thick, the strongest material ever tested. Around the year 2030, this one-atom thick graphene substrate with embedded circuitry will become an undetectable part of every THING with two-way communication capabilities so the IoT/IoE can let you know what it wants you to do. This substrate would also support circuitry that could function inside the human body. If you had this implanted in your body, there truly would be no way to escape surveillance, nowhere to hide even a rebellious thought. In addition to broadcasting your location 24/7, your body would betray even your unspoken thoughts. The expert leading the breakout session said that research has shown that “subvocal words” (words you t
hink but don’t speak) send signals to all the areas involved in speaking. And the vocal cords, throat, jaw, tongue, lips respond as if something is being said even when no air is passing through so no sound made. However, these silent responses can be interpreted by SVR machines (SVR = subvocal recognition) and translated back into words. SVR communication devices are being developed for situations where audible speech is impossible — for astronauts, underwater Navy Seals, fighter pilots, and anyone (soldiers or construction workers) in a loud environment. When she heard this, Mia said to herself, “Hello, Big Brother!”

  At her second session after lunch, Chase Amunson made an appearance, arriving late to a panel discussion on the logistics for mind uploading, The Brain-Machine Interface: How to Begin? He sat next to her, his large frame pushing Mia onto the next stackable chair, which fortunately was empty. Two people behind him got up and moved after he shoved his chair backward to make room for his extra long legs. The speaker focused on SWS (Sentient World Simulation), feeding self-aware supercomputers with input about humans reactions to this or that situation in order to create algorithms which then could predict future behavior. Once the Q&A session following the session in the ballroom was over, Chase leaned over and said to Mia, “Well, what do you think? Do you see a Geek Rapture in your future?”

  Knowing the Geek Rapture was at the center of iCon’s business plans, Mia hesitated, then chose her words carefully. “This conference makes it all sound like a great leap forward, the transhumanist plan for the future. Theoretically. But I am not sure I see the benefit in the rush to adopt this for everyone in the general public so quickly, to start moving billions of people to a digitally connected life in the next two decades. There is so much that is untested, so much that could go wrong. To risk the life of even one person on unproven technology seems problematic to me. At this time, I certainly wouldn’t sign up for it, not at this stage of development.”

  “Well, I certainly appreciate your frank feedback, Mia. Going forward, we’ll have to work on improving our message vis-à-vis personal safety.”

  Mia thought, “But not actually improve safety protocols or ask for more time for testing? Not good!” Out loud she asked, “What about you? Do you see a Geek Rapture in your future?”

  “Most certainly! I would relish the challenge of tackling this new frontier. It would be a place totally free from the restrictions of convention and the traditional limitations of physicality. I could really sink my teeth into all of it.”

  Glancing over at his wavy auburn hair, black eyes, tanned complexion, and perfect white teeth, Mia realized his black eyes were shining too intensely. In addition, she was experiencing a disturbing and persistent image of those teeth growing larger and more pointed, stained with blood and hair after a successful hunt. And then she could see an image of Chase licking clean twelve gory fingers, now with long, curved claws. Suddenly she was frightened by the gleam in his eyes, and didn’t like being seated so close to him, even on a padded chair in a hotel conference room filled with other people. She wished there was a way she could move farther away without causing offense. She asked him, “You mean you wouldn’t even preserve your human appearance once you were living in a digital environment?”

  “Of course not!” Chase’s voice boomed so loudly that several turned around to see who was talking. “Maintaining a human paradigm would be as parochial as preferring the country of your birth over being a citizen of the entire globe. So many possibilities, so many experiences to explore! Choosing my appearance for the day would be exactly like the choice I make now when I select what clothing I will wear for the day. But be that as it may. Please excuse me, Mia. I have other matters to attend to, and must leave now. Enjoy your next session.” He patted her shoulder as he stood up.

  She watched as he left the hotel ballroom, towering over people scuttling out of his way to give him a wide berth, as if they were pigeons scattering to avoid a barking dog. She rubbed her temples. Her headache had still not gone away, and it stayed with her the remainder of the day.

  Late that afternoon, the expo and vendor show next to the hotel’s ballroom was open to conference attendees again. Row upon row of twenty-five foot square booths were set up for hawking wares and services, where the people who were going remake the future by remaking human evolution boldly displayed their company logos, slogans, and promotional materials. “Get on board with the Geek Rapture ASAP, or lose your privileged human status here!”

  As she explored the Expo, Mia’s headache started ramping up, with additional stabs of agony occurring randomly. Earlier in the day, the headache had made it challenging to listen to experts lecture about the Geek Rapture and the H+’s evolutionary leap forward, or as Mia thought it should be called, Skynet and the Apocalypse Coming for Regular Humans. While she wandered from booth to booth, she began to feel an additional burden on her peace of mind. There was the gathering of an ever-darkening cloud over her head, a growing feeling of dread and peril, as if a hungry predator was on the prowl and she was the prey. She didn’t see anyone following her, but she couldn’t shake the impression that she was being stalked. After a short time, she realized she was walking faster and faster, her body on its own insisting that it needed to flee the unseen but perceived threat. The feeling of menace was so real she didn’t slow down even after she became aware of her faster pace. In fact, she started speeding even faster through the crowds of expo browsers, picking out the path of least resistance by using her intuition and foresight to select places where there would be gaps opening up a moment later between groups of people, dashing through as they manifested. Even someone following directly behind her would be unable to move as quickly because the gaps in the crowd closed behind her as quickly as they had opened.

  Up ahead, she saw Dr. Jerry Mercer (former Edgestow College professor and now fellow iCon team member) hosting a vendor booth promoting iCon’s system for capturing memories as video output, so she made a beeline for it. As soon as she arrived, she felt safer, as if she was protected somehow. While she was still greeting Jerry, talking and laughing, Mia turned her head to see Chase appear out of the crowd, scowling. Had he been following her, unable to keep up in the crowd? He glared at Mia, then turned and walked away without saying a word. Mia frowned. Was it his pursuit that she had sensed? But then Jerry asked her a question, and as they talked, Mia completely forgot about the oppressive feeling. Later, she told herself the feeling of being stalked was probably just the result of a headache plus the clamor in the crowded expo hall.

  Heading back up to her hotel room to change before the entertainment the conference was providing for the evening, Mia was squeezed into the back of an elevator by a crowd of noisy iCon team members. It didn’t take long to figure out that the loud group of mostly guys was talking about Chase Amunson.

  — “Prodigious — that’s the only word for him. A prodigious giant of a red-headed beast.”

  — “I was there that time he drank a bunch of Russians under the table, shot after shot of vodka.”

  Here, a few in the group chanted, “Wohd-kah!” several times.

  — “I saw him eat an entire 60 ounce steak in one sitting.”

  — “Oh, that’s nothing! Did you see him the time he showed this guy from IT —”

  The arrival of Mia’s floor and her exit interrupted the saga of the extraordinary exploits of the prodigious giant and his amazing feats of wonder.

  The entertainment provided for the conference attendees that evening was a hypnotist. Seated at a table near the stage filled with some of the other iCon attendees, Mia wished she wasn’t stuck between Marsha and Andie, teammates from the Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Department. This was Mia’s first contact with her department all week, the first break in the relief that she had enjoyed while being on her own. As the hypnotist started his routine with half a dozen volunteers up on stage, he encouraged people in the audience to also allow
themselves to be hypnotized, even if they hadn’t been selected to be part of the show. Mia had no intention of allowing herself to fall under his spell. In fact, she proudly imagined she couldn’t be hypnotized under any circumstance, confident that she would be too uncooperative and mentally strong-minded for it to work. But at the exact moment where the hypnotist was saying, “Follow the movement of my hand, close your eyes and focus on my voice, and relax —, relax —, relax —,” Andie gave Mia’s forearm (resting on the table) a strong jab with her elbow, perfectly timed to stop her from going under and falling into a trance, if she had been so inclined to allow herself to be hypnotized.

  Even though the performance was going on, Mia couldn’t stop herself from saying loudly, “Hey! That hurt! What the frack did you do that for?”

  Andie put her hand up to her mouth and whispered, “Oh, so sorry! Pardon me.”

  Mia frowned. That jab hadn’t been an accident. But what would be the reason Andie would deliberately try to keep her from becoming hypnotized? Why would she care what Mia did, either way? So strange, too weird. Meanwhile on stage, all the hypnotized volunteers were ducking and screaming, trying to avoid the six foot pink cockatoo that only they could see as it dive bombed their heads.

  The BMI Rising Technology Congress ended at noon the next day (Friday). After the conference wrap-up session in the hotel ballroom (where the temperature was a chilly 65ºF to keep everyone awake), the Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Department hosted a lunch at an elegant Italian restaurant in Miami Beach for select iCon people attending the conference. The food was wonderful (she had steak pizzaiola with linguine), but Mia was stuck again next to the Kewl Kidz from her department who spent the entire meal talking about what people got stinking drunk each night of the conference, who peed on what furniture while wasted, who at the conference wore the coolest shoes, what celebrity famous for being famous had ditched rehab in spite of their DUI sentence. And once again her soul was covered with ashes by the dearth of joy in their company. She endured it by telling herself she was going to leave the minute the last bite of the tiramisu was finished and everyone put their silverware down. But CEO Damien Cezary and Amy Minturn, the assistant he shared with Chase, joined them to share in the celebration, and after dessert, he raised his glass to make a toast. “To iCon. And transhumanism!” Glasses clinked all around the table. “Hear, hear!” Mia hesitated, but then joined in clinking glasses, and pretended to drink. It didn’t seem to be the appropriate occasion to make a gesture that would signify her rejection of the whole idea of transhumanism.