Headspace

by Damien Boyes

  “I’ll be right down,” I reply in my thirteen-year-old voice.

  I could stay here. Stay here forever. A lifetime of Sunday dinners with Mom and Dad. I could stop worrying about who had me restored or who’s trying to kill who.

  I would be safe. And loved.

  Forever.

  Oh, how I want to stay here.

  “Stop,” I say and my voice ages fifty years. “Enough.”

  The guide sweeps her arm again and everything resets. Blue sky, simple green meadow. I want to cry at the loss, but the tour continues.

  Thank God she didn’t show me Connie.

  “Customization and control of your Headspace is done at the console,” she raises her palm and a spot of light opens in the air in front of me, pulls itself into a cylinder then stretches around me into a translucent panel, suspended waist-high. “Now that you’ve conjured your console, it can be accessed at any time, zoned in our out, by verbalizing the command ’console.’ Now, you try.”

  The console collapses back to a line, then to a dot and blinks away with a tiny flash.

  “Console?” I say, my voice cracking in the middle of the word. Mom’s voice still lingers in my ears. I want to go back. Give her a hug, just once more.

  The panel reappears and the voice continues. “Good. You can use the console as you would any physical input, or configure it for verbal or mental command. Further instruction is available from the console itself.” Again it compresses and disappears.

  “Behind you are your aspects,” she says, and points to three new bodies that have joined the version of me in my living room. One is young, wearing dark jeans and a striped T, hair long and unwashed. The next me is older, grim, in a striped, blue, high-breasted jacket, heavy pants, a German MP35 slung over his shoulder and a Mauser in a shoulder holster. The third is more like me than I am now, but wearing some kind of Asian clothing, not quite a Kimono but close, with flat wooden shoes.

  These are his. Created by the last guy in my head. I put the cuff on while I was still logged into my account. Finsbury Gage, not Gage Gibson.

  I’ve had this tour before.

  “As you visit new realities in the mesh, you will often be required to create an aspect custom to that virt. These are found here as well. You can re-enter your skyn or an aspect by climbing into it and pressing your face to the world.”

  She points to the image of my prone skyn, its feet a metre off the floor and only a third of the size it should be. “How am I supposed to shrink myself down and lay in mid-air?” I ask the woman, not sure if she’ll respond.

  “When you re-join the outline of your selected aspect, you will be supported by it.”

  I cover the short distance to the ghostly form and it grows exponentially as I approach, like my strides are getting longer the more I take, until it’s life-sized once again. I look over my shoulder, as if expecting some kind of encouragement, but the guide doesn’t so much as blink. It just stands there, waiting. I imagine she’d wait forever, pleasantly smiling as my skyn slowly died of starvation, my heart stopped pumping the blood powering my Cortex and finally the back-up fuel cell churned though its reserve and everything crumbled to code around her.

  I reach up and place my arm into position, merging it with the ghostly-version. It sticks. No matter how hard I pull it won’t come free. Using it as leverage, I climb up and lay down into myself.

  “Good,” the guide says. “Now try moving.” I lift my arm and I see my arm rise off the couch through the display. I kick my legs and out in the real world my legs kick too.

  “Huh,” I grunt. “Now how do I get back out?”

  “Think yourself out.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Imagine yourself standing back on the floor.”

  I do. The skyn’s limbs grow intangible and I slide out of their embrace and land back on my feet.

  “Finally,” she says, gesturing to the doorway she emerged from, “this is your oriel. From here, you can access anywhere in the Virt Mesh.”

  She waves her arm again, but this time instead of the world changing around me, the world on the other side of the doorway does. It resolves to a view of the Eiffel Tower through the fountains in the Trocadero Gardens. The sky is clear, the sun just overhead. Springtime in Paris.

  If I were to walk through the door, I’d be standing on the steps of the Palais de Chaillot. Connie and I had visited there on our first anniversary, before I started with the Service. I have a vid of her from nearly that exact spot. But in the vid, there isn’t a feathered dirigible moored to the top of the tower behind her, nor are there people in leather combat/fetish gear lashed together and playing some kind of game with wide batons and an immense floating ball. Or people outfitted in exaggerated versions of club clothes from the 1970’s, with cuffs and lapels so elongated they look like weather socks. Or the cartoon tiger people in overcoats and fedoras. Or the bandage-wrapped guy perched immobile on the mastodon-looking thing. Or what looks like a sentient Rube Goldberg contraption flipping and skeetering and wracking by on the Ave de Nations Unies.

  On top of all that, there are hundreds of ordinary people just going about their everyday business. Locals and tourists alike, dressed for a typical April day in France, oblivious to the absurdities in their midst. Living props pulled in from cameras in the real world, used to round off the digital playground with a touch of reality. “This is the Hereafter, the digital reflection of the material world, and the largest virt in the mesh.”

  Everyone’s heard the link reports, the fuming-at-the-mouth docs about perceived horrors, the look-what-your-kids-are doing exposés, but I’d never paid the Hereafter much attention. It was just another piece of escapist technology that people didn’t understand or were afraid of. I had no particular interest in it.

  I’d played games when I was younger, sure, but my life and job were both moored in the real world. Back then, I thought the Hereafter was just another fancy open-world video game with reality as a backdrop.

  But from what I’ve already seen—I don’t even know how long I’ve been in here, it could be minutes or hours—has convinced me that whatever is beyond the doorway could be just as real as the place Connie and I had stood arm-in-arm, the spray from the fountains cool on our faces.

  The body I’ve left on the couch already feels distant. I see how someone could disappear in here forever.

  Out in the world my body shudders on the bed.

  “This ends the tour,” the woman says. “Is there anything else I can show you?”

  “That was plenty,” I say

  “Enjoy your Headspace, Finsbury,” she says, and as she does, the pixels comprising her body dissipate into a glittering cloud and blow away.

  I want to walk through the doorway and see what Paris is like today, but that’ll have to wait.

  First, I need to pay a visit to the guy who tried to wring my head off my neck.

  StatUS-ID

  [a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]

  SysDate

  [20:32:31. Tuesday, April 16, 2058]

  “What a glorious adventure,” Elder exclaims, and claps me on the back. I’ve just spent twenty minutes telling the group about tripping through the Hereafter and he’s beaming at me like a proud father on Graduation Day. “I thought I was going to have my hands full with you, Finsbury, but it would appear as though you arrived here all on your own. Such wonderful progress. So great.”

  Shelt and Dub seem pleased for me too. They asked questions all the way through, interjecting when they had similar reactions or had visited the same places. The others weren’t so excited. Miranda considered her cuticles for most of it and Tala watched Miranda consider her cuticles. Doralai snuck tiny sidelong glances at me during certain points as I spoke, but didn’t say anything. Carl glared at me like I’m a race traitor, which maybe I am.

  “That does it for another session, travellers. Until next time, keep seeking your perfect self. It is within each of you,” Elder
says, and then with a flourish of his hand toward the snack table adds, “Refreshment awaits.”

  I want to ask Elder about the underground neural modification culture, and the Dwell shyft specifically, without seeming like I’m asking about the underground neural modification culture. I am a cop after all. A rithm cop. The most obvious narc in history.

  I wait as Carl pushes back his chair with a loud squawk of plastic on rubber, hauls himself up and sulks out, then Miranda gathers her belongings, arranges herself under a light shawl, offers a general ’goodnight’ to the air and follows Carl. Tala waits back a moment and follows Miranda. Dora, still seated, gingerly checks her tab.

  I walk over to where the others have already gathered around the snack table. Elder and Shelt are sipping coffee from paper sleeves. Dub is crouched, hands extended, massive delts bunched like watermelons, well into acting out an anecdote about shattering an opponent’s tibia with a leg sweep during Saturday’s qualification bout for the New Gladiators—which explains his limp and lopsidedly swollen face.

  “Finsbury,” Elder says, setting his coffee down and opening his arms to me. I hope he isn’t looking for a hug. I stop just out of reach and he steps into me, grasps my shoulders, looks directly into my eyes. “So. Great.”

  “Thanks,” I say, duck past and pull myself a sleeve of coffee. Elder comes up behind me.

  “You’ve done so well. Can I make a suggestion for your next endeavour?” he asks. “If I’m not being too forward.”

  I take a swallow of coffee, turn around. “Why not?”

  He reaches into his silver vest, pulls out a shyft with his thumb and forefinger, holds it up. Trails of blue dots and orange streamers intertwine over a glowing purple background across its surface.

  This might be easier than I thought.

  “Ohh, a Dream,” Shelt says, peeking over Elder’s shoulder.

  “What’s a Dream?” I ask.

  “Duh,” Shelt moans, bounds past Dub to pluck the shyft from Elder’s fingers and dances away, shaking it and holding it close to watch the dots and streamers react, flips it to Dub who’s joined us as well, then launches into a breathless rant. “Your Cortex don’t let you dream, you noticed that? You go black-out to black-out. They tell us Reszo dreams are too much to handle, too disturbing, so they took ‘em away. Shut ‘em off. That right there’ll rip the blinders free, reveal unforeseen helixes of memory, loosen knots in the ribbons of your subconscious. You’ll wake up wrung dry, but like you’ve ejected a neutron core of emotional baggage. Its creators are on Standards’ shit list, cease and desisted, full-on blackballed by Second Skyn. These are impossible to find.” He turns on Elder, “Where’d you get it?”

  “I have my sources,” Elder says, trying to conceal his pride.

  “It’s legal?” I ask.

  “I would never counsel or encourage anyone to use an unauthorized neural modifier,” Elder answers hurriedly, but then shifts his tone. “Even though ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the neuromods designated ’illegal’ are perfectly safe when sourced from a reputable dealer and consumed in a controlled situation. The notion that a shyft could conceal malicious code or otherwise damage a rithm is an urban myth, like razorblades in Hallowe’en candy.”

  I could counter with a charred skyn and empty bank account as proof to his urban myth, but let him continue.

  He holds up his fist, pops two fingers. “There are two reasons and two reasons only why certain neural modifications are banned: fear and greed.

  “Fear,” he says, lowers his middle finger, keeps the index rigid. “Those who enact the laws are old and scared and desperately clinging to what they have, terrified of being left behind. They want to keep the restored in line with the ’official’ view on human capability. If you can’t do it when you were born, they argue, then you shouldn’t be allowed to once you’ve transcended your birth. I couldn’t ride a bicycle when I was born, should I never be allowed to? Ludicrous.” He raises his middle finger once again. “And greed. These same lawmakers are in collusion with those that have a vested interest in maintaining a copyright chokehold and distribution monopoly, not only on their ‘neural modifiers,’ but on our very existence. Your existence.” He points at me, pounds his fist to his chest. “My existence. The existence of everyone in this room. They want to control what we do with our minds and monetize what they deem acceptable use. Sell us upgrades at regular intervals and rent our thoughts back to us.

  “Until these things change—until we change them—we will be slaves, slaves to their bottom line, slaves to our very existence.”

  He’s clearly had this discussion before. It sounds like a manifesto.

  “So, it’s legal?” I ask.

  Elder smiles, a wide slit in his hard-boiled egg of a face. “Yes, yes. Of course. Absolutely, insofar as it isn’t explicitly illegal…yet. Dreaming isn’t a violation of any Standards I’m aware of.”

  Dub hands it to me and I flip it over, check out the maker’s mark on the lid: looping concentric ripples in a pond of liquid silver. “So slotting this isn’t any more dangerous than any other shyft I could find on the street?”

  “You may have come across things in an official capacity that I’m ignorant of,” Elder says, though I’m sure he doesn’t believe it, “but I know of very few instances where neuromods caused permanent rithm damage. And those I do know of were the result of untested neural code or a deliberate attack. There isn’t a Rithmist worthy of the name who would risk releasing sub-optimal code.”

  “Plenty of people think all Rithmists are criminals,” I say and raise the paper cup to my lips.

  He chuckles. “Rithmists are artists. Those who have answered a calling to explore and expand the psychorithm’s very nature. They play the strings of human evolution. They carve new channels for human experience. It is only within the bounds of society’s regressive laws that they are considered ‘criminals.’ He stops, looks through me for a second. “It was a Rithmist who cracked the corporate hold over the Cortex. Did you know that? Your mind is yours because of a Rithmist. The psychorithm itself was for years unknowable. Neural code translated into machine code by other machines.” He raps his knuckles against his smooth skull. “Most of what goes on in our heads is still a mystery—but not for long. Rithmists have been charting the psychorithm, strand by strand. So far they have eighteen percent of it ninety-eight percent deciphered. Eighteen percent of what makes us human.” He leans into me. “Have you heard of Eka?”

  I shrug. “What’s that?”

  Elder’s tone changes, softens to something approaching awe. “Eka is a person. A great person. No one has been as instrumental in opening the doors of humanity. He was the first. He existed before there was a name to describe what he is. He unravelled Second Skyn’s neuromod encryption. He broke down the Cortex firewalls. He freed our thoughts to be our own. He’s a legend. A leader.

  “A prophet.

  “And he’s still releasing brilliant new consciousness-expanding mods, pushing us further into ourselves, opening us up for others in the community to dissect as they seek to understand the fundamental nature of our very humanity, and apply that understanding back to each and every one of us.”

  “We just confiscated a few hundred thousand caps from one of these ‘artists—’” I say. Elder nods, purses his lips, maybe unconsciously. More likely letting me know he already knows. “You know about that?”

  “There was some linktivity,” he concedes. “Rumours.”

  “What kind?”

  Dub and Shelt are engrossed, their coffees forgotten in their hands.

  “Idle chatter. Nothing I’m sure your own sources haven’t also heard.” He knows more than he’s letting on. I want to keep pressing, he must know Rithmists himself, maybe about Xiao as well, but I need to keep a distance between here and work. Church and State, after all.

  “Do you think we robbed the world of an art shipment?” I ask. “Are we trampling on humanity’s pea shoots?”

  “I think
you’re doing your job, enforcing the laws as written. My complaint lies with those laws, not you. Shyfts are like any other technology—if used without harmful intent, they aren’t harmful.”

  I consider the shyft in my hand. The Dwell back at home, what I’ve decided I’m going to do with it when I get there. Even if my rithm comes out the other side intact, it’s still breaking the law.

  But how can I not? If it will get me closer to finding Connie’s killer, how can I not?

  I know it’s illegal. I know it’s dangerous. I don’t care.

  I’ll do whatever it takes.

  Doesn’t mean I’m excited about it.

  “You’re sure this won’t mess me up?” I ask, looking at the Dream, thinking about the Dwell.

  Elder smiles broadly. “The only danger is to the Finsbury you’ve already ceased to be. Let him go and let yourself be who you’re becoming.”

  Even my computer brain can’t parse what he’s saying. “Is that a riddle?”

  “Finsbury,” Elder mock whispers, “after what you described to us tonight, I have witnessed a fantastic change in you, in just the time between two meetings. It takes people months to get to where you are. Some never get there—look at poor Carl. I don’t imagine he’ll ever fully embrace who he is. He’s clinging too fiercely to an outmoded idea of himself. I wouldn’t give this to you if you weren’t ready for it.” He doesn’t know that I only ventured into my head because I had to. Because it was my only option left. Although that doesn’t explain why I spent a day and a half in there. Maybe he’s on to something.

  “Then thank you for this,” I say and pocket the shyft.

  “I’ll be expecting a full report,” Elder says, and puts an arm around my shoulder. “And should you need any guidance, or desire someone with you when you Dream, or simply want to talk about what you see, I’m here for you. You know how to reach me.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, gently twisting out of his embrace, back toward the circle of chairs. “I have an early morning. I’ll see you on Friday.”