Shift

by Robert Lenz, Jacob Hunter

  Shift

  Robert Lenz

  Jacob Hunter

  Copyright Page

  Shift copyright 2016, Robert Lenz and Jacob Hunter

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  The wonderful covert art was designed by Blazing Covers.

  Synopsis

  Persistence. The network that stripped anonymity from its users. Always on, always watching, always recording. Complete access to anyone, at any time, at any location. Your identity distilled to a key created from your genetic makeup.

  Shift. The drug that modified one's genetic makeup. A tiny piece, an entire strand, entirely up to the user. To Shift one's self was simply a needle away. One poke and it would all change.

  The price of that injection, however, is to give up your identity, give up your former life. One individual will discover just how costly that price is, to battle the oppression of a true surveillance state.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Authors’ note

  About the authors

  Connect

  Chapter 1

  "Grzlklhb."

  "Beg pardon?" the nurse asked rhetorically.

  "Nothing, just a bit surprised is all," I replied, rubbing the back of my neck, now freshly sore. She had just retracted a massive needle out of my data port, recently installed, and it really felt like hell having your head penetrated with a six-inch shard of titanium-alloy.

  "There's some aspirin in a cup on the tray next to you. Make sure you take them before you leave. Our interaction is now complete. Goodbye." She turned on her alloy heels, her white nurse's garb somehow outshining the luminous white paint coating the walls. She reached for the door and then, with a metallic click emanating from the depths of her brain, she stopped and looked back. With a voice on the upper edge of what would be an otherwise sensual whisper had it not come from such as her, she breathed, "It was a pleasure operating on you." With that, she stepped out and gently shut the door.

  I gulped down the aspirin. There’s no sense in dealing with pain these days. An old solution to an even older problem.

  Stepping out of the recovery bed had always confused me, as they often strapped down my legs but ignored my arms. Then again, when the staff is mostly medbots and docbots, what harm could I really cause? Even the weakest nurse had enough tensile strength within its metallic arms to completely rip me apart.

  Oh well. I pressed the button for the release, each of which had begun glowing a pale green as the bot had left the room. They snicked into a hidden recess within the table and I was free to go on my way.

  Today was going to be different...very different. Routine operations are common these days. They make tweaks with the bionics in people’s bodies as new problems arise. You know, alloys breaking down, loose connections, and the all too common nano-parasite. Little buggers.

  With all the advances in bionics, however, they never think about some of the simple security flaws. Like the potential to change the operation procedure of the medbot.

  Heh. It really will be different. In me, anyway.

  And, it seemed, it would be. After leaving the hospital, I headed directly home, keeping my eyes downcast the entire time. The world did not concern me, all I wanted to do was get back and try out my new toy. I wanted to sit in my very comfortable chair and relax with a glass of bourbon to get my nerves under control. Then I would take my new jack for a spin to make sure that it worked as advertised.

  I wanted to fly.

  It wasn't the thought of connecting my soft, squishy brain to a worldwide network of other users that worried me. I felt that I could handle the onslaught of information that would pour into my head, which may or may not explode like an overripe melon after the unapproved operation. Besides, I had plenty of other access points on my body. This one wasn’t connected to a simple monitoring chip though. This one required a … deeper connection.

  No, it was the thought of taking that sinister looking needle and jamming it into the side of my head, slightly above and behind my left ear. Knowing that something long and sharp would enter through a cavity that had been carefully drilled into my head scared the ever-loving shit out of me. I knew that the first time is the worst and that I would eventually grow fond of the sensation, but for now, I felt dread.

  The bourbon would help. The docbot actually suggested something with an edge to calm my nerves...he had tried to drop a few painkillers into my shaking hand, but I shrugged him off. Alcohol was good enough for me. Always had been. Always will be.

  Soon enough, I had reached my front porch. I took a deep breath and held it while I unlocked the door locks, and made my way inside. I was immediately greeted by my catbot. She was an old model, from back when they really knew what they were doing, stoutly built without much finesse. She quickly jumped down from her perch on the windowsill and ran straight to me, crashing into my legs. The metallic PURRRRR was loud and echoed in the empty home as the catbot continued its greeting.

  Its eyes peered up at me, mystic and tantalizing. No doubt she had gotten into trouble while I was away. I scanned the room noticing a few shredded articles of clothing in the hallway, and rewarded her with the token half-smile and a slight shake of my head. It was always nice to come home, even if my home was practically empty.

  I'll admit that I was giddy. The thought of testing out my new 'improvement' had excited me beyond reason. My shoes thudded loudly on the aluminum floor as I headed into the master bedroom. My catbot ran ahead of me but would stop every few steps to look back and make sure I was following. She always liked to lead even though she never knew where we were going. They must have added a bit of dog into this one.

  I paused at that sentiment: leading but never knowing our actual destination. How true, how true.

  My bedroom was plain. Aluminum on the floors and walls with a terminal and a comfy chair. Leather, I'm told. A cord ran from the terminal and dangled lazily over its back. Smooth and sexy in its ominous curves, beckoning. Now? It seemed to ask. Now do we start the war? Is it finally time for us to get into some serious shit?

  No, not yet anyway. Catbot let out a few compressed sound waves that were supposed to represent meows. They reminded me of the old practical joke whoopee cushions, albeit with some extra pitch. I supposed I needed to feed her. I only had one data cable for the home that, oddly enough, fit both of our neural connections, and it would only take an hour or so to plug it in and fill her up. I always wondered what happened to her during the recharge though. She always seemed to...check out. More so than most catbots I’d seen, anyway.

  I sighed, pa
tted the floor near the room's port, and the catbot meowed happily as she approached, order received and understood. As it sat, I could hear the servos firing inside her hindquarters. Some people paid to have their bots look and sound exactly like their brethren of old, without a single tinny bark or rusty joint squealing. I didn't have that kind of money; also, I liked her as she was. I knew she wasn't a replacement for a real cat. Really, what was the point of romanticizing the past? Oddly enough, I’d heard whisperings of some people replicating humans in this manner, lost family members, for instance. The thought made me shudder.

  Plus, there were benefits to having a robotic pet. Oh yes, they could do things real pets could not...for one they were required to obey completely, no questions asked. Soon, I’d make use of that, but up until now I’d been exceedingly boring. Three laws be damned.

  Catbot angled its neck slightly forward, exposing the slot underneath her faux-fur. I slid the needle of the jack in, and her eyes lost all focus. Her meowing slid off in intensity, eventually dissipating into nothingness. It would be an hour before she had reached full charge. That made me wonder....what happened inside that quasi-brain while the juice was flowing? Dreams? Nightmares? Nothing?

  I decided to take this time to tune out myself. Querying the house computer, I selected some smooth jazz to waft in and around the living room. Settling into my “leather” chair, I relaxed with the musical stylings of Cab Calloway and that glass of bourbon I’d promised myself, and waited.

  Chapter 2

  There really isn't much of an indication of time passing other than your typical clock. The world outside is always the same: overcast with a chance of dreariness. I sat in the warm greyness of the afternoon enjoying my bourbon. The music switched tracks a few times, though I quickly lost count of how many times it did.

  Sighing, I wafted in and out of daydreams. The bourbon had warmed my throat, then my belly, and then my brain. It was a good, fuzzy feeling. It didn’t keep me from waxing romantic though. Liquor always had a tendency of making me introspective.

  I sighed again, quite loudly this time. Nobody was there to hear it. Catbot was still checked out on the floor, charging.

  It had been twenty years. Twenty long years since the incident. And that’s all it was really, an incident. Nobody to blame but just a shitstorm that happened to fall in all the right places at exactly the right time. Democracy fell. Communism fell. Fascism fell. All because of a glitch. A power surge to the right data center at the right time, and the world fell apart.

  Nobody knew what was going on. The news reports glorified the violence in the streets. Depicted scenes of weeping mothers huddling over dead children. Of fathers rushing off to war to right the wrongs. Of sons rushing out to avenge their fallen fathers.

  It turned out that it was just a power surge. An improperly shielded power supply went kaboom, and with that, half of our net worth vanished into thin air. Somehow, all of the redundancies and backups built into the system failed.

  We blamed the Communists. The Communists blamed us. The Cold War reignited. The planes flew. And the bombs fell. And that, as they say, is that. All of the previously strengthened, reinforced dominoes fell one by one due to nothing but a single puff of air.

  I sighed again theatrically, and once more, nobody cared. Life had at least settled into some semblance of a routine. Now, you worked your ten-hour shift, and you did it well. Otherwise you were reclaimed. No need for useless or broken parts in the vast machinery of today. Now that was a messy process. I’m glad I never got into that business.

  People disappear, it happens. We all really know why though. They didn’t wander off in search of a better life. Didn’t head westward to the glittering oceans to seek fame and fortune.

  They were culled from the herd, so to speak. They failed. They were reclaimed by society, their parts more valuable than their whole.

  But where they’d failed, I would succeed. I had no intention of being culled. I would prove that I’m better than them, better than all of them. And once back in the machine, functioning like a good little cog...well...I planned to blow that shit up. Rather, to dismantle it from within.

  I smirked as I sipped the last of the bourbon. It sounded like catbot was starting to stir; she was almost charged up. Good timing. But it seems cats always have good timing.

  *Click*

  *Click click click*

  *Click*

  Catbot meowed appreciatively, feeling its energy cells at full charge. It leapt up onto the coffee table, performed a lithe and very un-catlike pirouette, and gave a satisfied purr. A small, prerecorded voice emanated from a tiny speaker buried in the wall's control panel, whispering "Catbot charge complete. Please remove cable. Catbot charge complete. Please remove cable." It was a small voice, almost pleading. I complied, not wanting to listen to that voice any longer. Really, it drove me nuts...I always pictured a small man with male-pattern baldness, constantly wringing his hands and mopping his brow. A worried thing constantly on the edge of apoplexy. I’d always thought that I should change the default house voice to female. At least that one was promised to be sultry, sexy even.

  I sat up and took its head into my hand, securing it as I felt for the release mechanism under its fur. The cable popped with a snicking noise. I reached for my glass of bourbon and drained it, no longer caring about simply enjoying its smooth flavor. I stared at the jack for a moment, realizing exactly what I intended to do. Seeing it go into catbot did not bother me, but the thought of taking a four inch spike and jamming it into my head suddenly brought everything crashing into focus. I really was going to impale my brain with this thing. I sat and let the alcohol warm my belly and fuzz my thoughts for another few moments, and then muttered “fuck it.” Bending my neck forward and tilting my head, I felt with trembling fingers for the metallic opening implanted on the side of my head, and inserted the jack into my brain, feeling every inch of that cold steel groping for the contacts of my new neurochip.

  The connection is nearly instantaneous. Immediately my vision was replaced from my simple room to a black void, teeming with streams of information ranging from 0’s and 1’s to images to sound bites. The amount of data seems endless. My imagined jaw dropped at the sheer volume. To my left a binary wave zipped past me, rose, then descended. Above me pictures of a recent homicide floated by. I winced at the graphic images and noted the suspect, incidentally a neighbor of mine. A rainbow of strange characters came straight at me, and passed through as if I were a ghost. Possibly something encrypted. Yes sir, the network was in full swing.

  The concept of a physical network that people could get their hands around had really taken off about ten years ago, after the dust from the bombs had finally settled. Pre-Incident people had simply gotten bored with using peripherals to navigate something they longed to physically grasp. There had been a small startup company, SALDA, who’s CEO and founder had been obsessed with the artist Salvador Dali. He’d proposed an innovative way to realize a network. It had turned out to be very affordable and very effective. So effective that people lost all touch with reality with this technology. We're talking people passing out from exhaustion and some even dying because they forgot to eat and drink. The modern-day opium den. Absolutely brilliant if you ask me. Very Darwinian. Weed out the weak.

  The technology slowed things down tremendously as far as speed of navigation and retrieval were concerned. But, people soon released software to help mitigate that. Virtual helpers were ready at your disposal. Needed a reference? Call up refbot and simply ask! Need a location? Call up locationbot! Need something pornographic to look at? There was no limit to what teemed within the black void! The darknet had most definitely evolved along with the rest of the network, in most cases even pushed the envelope even further. SALDA called their network Persistence, named after Dali’s famous painting.

  SALDA's technology literally obliterated the competition. Over time, all other network service providers faded away against the SALD
A juggernaut. You used SALDA’s network Persistence or you simply never jacked in. Very, very few people refused this technology. If you weren't a regular Persistence user, you were a nobody. Useless. A prime target for reclamation. A pariah.

  Persistence did however a major flaw to it. Because of the fear of execution, hackers disappeared. People used the network nicely and never maliciously, lest they be removed from Persistence and permanently from the world. It issued every user a special, unique key that allowed them access to the network. Likewise, the network could access them whenever they were connected.

  The flaw in this logic is quite obvious: get a hold of someone's key, and you have a hold on them. Amazingly simple, on paper. Impossible in practice. Each key, if it were written out in a normal font on an endless stream of paper, would wrap the globe. Twice. At least. That is an astronomical number of letters for a security key. In theory, unbreakable.

  Persistence used a seed to build its keys. As the network can't hold all the keys in memory, it simply needs to generate a key when it needs to. It uses a seed and the DNA of a registered user to build the key. I’d written a little program that would burrow into that key and extract the seed. A somewhat difficult task, as I’d needed to break into a few neatly hidden Persistence programs, and I was damn proud of it. Once executed, I'd be able to generate anybody's key, just like the network. I’d be able to assume their identity. Well, in theory anyway. The power I’d have….