Lost Time: Part 1 [Second Skyn]
Page 16
That’d make me a hypocrite. A murderer.
Just like Dad said: a monster.
And what’s worse, based on everything I’ve learned so far, the facts fit the theory.
My rep’s trashed and I’m under investigation for a chain of crimes that’ll have me stocked for decades. Even if I’m acquitted, my life is effectively over.
I’d want a new ID with a clean rep, which explains Gibson. I’d want to keep it under the Service’s radar, which would have happened if not for Dub attacking me. Explains the lawyer and the off-the books restoration clinic. Explains how Saabir got the passphrases and other information needed to authorize a restoration. Stuff only I’d know. So what if the restoration was initiated after I died? I could have planned for that too. A deadman’s switch to spring when I didn’t reset the fail-safes one morning.
All that’s plausible, it all fits. But I still can’t believe it. No way I’d plan to run off with someone I barely knew. I’d never do that to Connie.
Which means something else is going on.
“I don’t remember anything from the past year. Not you. Not me,” I say, neutrally. “I woke up yesterday in this body. My last memory is a car accident.”
“That whole time, you weren’t syncing?”
I shrug. “Probably for the best. Sounds like I turned into an asshole.”
She narrows her eyes like she’s fixing to hit me, instead she bends, hefts her bag, pushes past me to the couch, plunks herself down and says, “So does that mean you’re not leaving with me?”
I close the door, follow her to the living room. “Leaving with you? I don’t know you.”
She squares her jaw, leans forward. “This was your plan. You die, get restored and we leave all this behind. You told me to lay low until you got back, keep off the grid, stay smart. I did. I ate street meat and kept my hood up for six months.” Her fists are closed, skin tight over her knuckles. “Now you’re back and you tell me you don’t know shit about it? All that time you weren’t syncing? Great fucking news. What am I supposed to do now?” By the time she’s done, her chest is heaving, looks primed to blow.
I settle on the chair beside the couch, try to lower the tension while keeping my distance.
“Slow down. Why were we running? The investigation?”
“Investigation?” She laughs. There’s a tint of desperation to it. “That’s the least of your worries. You really don’t know? Didn’t leave yourself a note?”
I shake my head.
She takes a breath, looks me in the eyes and says, “You and me, we’ve got way more trouble than Standards. Someone's after us. Someone wants to steal our minds.”
End: Book One
Continued in...
Lost Time: Part Two Headspace. Available now at Amazon.
Lost Time: Part Three Shyft. Available now at Amazon.
Lost Time: Part Four Social Faith. Coming Jan 30, 2016.
Lost Time: Part Five Sync. Coming Mar 26, 2016.
Want Lost Time: Part Two [Headspace] for free? Join my mailing list at damienboyes.com and I'll send a link to the next book.
Thanks for reading.
Glossary
AMP. (Artificial Mind Pattern) Advanced neural code approximations running on cortical processors. They are classified as superintelligences but their use is governed and their operating code secured. Only licensed government agencies and select corporations are allowed to employ AMPs. The Ministry of Human Standards is responsible for monitoring and tracking down illicit use whenever it’s discovered.
BioSkyn. An artificial, lab-grown body. Components printed a layer of cells at a time and then assembled and implanted with an optical processing Cortex.
Biosynth. Someone who uses geneblocks to assemble unique, life forms—bacteria capable of operating to order to create atomically precise circuitry, manufacture drugs, enhance the immune system or replace biological functions. Plants that grow directly into furniture. Or wholly fabricated animals for domestic or military uses.
Bit-head. Xero. Sudo. Derogatory slang for a restored personality.
Bright. An extropian, far leftist, digital human philosophy. Brights believe in a creator of the Universe—or ’the system’—and that humanity is one of a billion billion probable physical manifestations of rules that began to play out at the moment of creation. God didn’t create us, but it allowed the conditions for us to exist, like a scientist fine-tuning an experiment, and humanity its results.
Continuance of Personality Act. The set of legal guarantees allowing for the transfer of a consciousness from organic to digital.
Cortex. Second Skyn’s in-house neural prosthetic. Now common slang for any neural prosthetic.
Cortical Field. The composite image of a scanned consciousness. Since consciousness is stored holographically, the stronger the field, the stronger the fidelity to the original personality.
Cypher. A rithm without an official restoration record from the Ministry of Human Standards.
Digital Life Extension. Extending a human consciousness past brain death as a psychorithm. The personality is captured, translated to a psychorithm and the resulting rithm loaded onto a prosthetic mind implanted in a bioSkyn. The Continuance of Personality Act provides digital humans with all the legal rights of a fully organic human, while Human Standards laws limit the extent to which digital humanity can augment its existence. DLE is fraught with political and social turbulence.
Dwell. A simple shyft that allows the user to speed up or slow down stored memory playback.
Fate. The rapidly growing corporation bringing immortality to the masses and hiring out low-cost knowledge work, all while reducing governmental expenditures around the globe.
Fleshmith. Someone who uses modified Geneblocks and scaflabs to produce designer bodies and organs.
Genitect. Someone who architects and encodes custom geneblocks, the genetic code building blocks used to form the genomes of synthetic lifeforms.
Headspace. A digital human’s customizable home running onboard their prosthetic brain.
The Hereafter. The brand-name of a virtual reflection of the real world, where digital humans can visit the living. It is the largest, and most populous, digital virt.
Human Standards. The legal baselines limiting human life extension, physical augmentation and neural enhancement.
IMP. (Intelligent Mediating Personality) Originally designed to assist with daily communication, the IMP’s capabilities quickly expanded to become a full-fledged digital assistant that learns over time. Upgradable with personality sprites.
The Link. The world-wide stream of conversations, sensor data, cameras, feeds, virts, games, and everything else that arose from the internet.
Lost Time. The minutes or hours of memory between personality back-ups lost due to a pattern decoherence or Cortex damage.
Lowboys. A gang of low-rep petty criminals. Kids, mostly.
Ministry of Human Standards. The government agency tasked with enforcing Human Standard laws.
Neurohertz. (NHz or N) 1N is the average speed of human neural processing. Human Standards limit the function of prosthetic brains to 1.15N.
Past-Standard. The only Human Standard criminal offence. Past-Standard encompasses everything related to genetic augmentation and manipulation of a mind or body past established human norms. Past-Standard Offences and Psychorithm Infractions often intersect, causing friction between investigating agencies.
Prodeo/Prodian. What digital-only personalities against the restrictive Human Standard laws call themselves: Homo Prodeo. From the latin "prodeo": to go forward, and "pro Deo": ’before’ and ’the supreme being.’
Psychorithm. The Conscious Algorithm. The human brain’s self-sustaining, recursive algorithmic neural code translated into digital.
Psychorithm Crime Unit. The Toronto Police Services unit responsible for investigating crimes by and against the local Reszo population.
Psyphon. To extract a rithm from its Cortex by force.
Recovered. A psychorithm is recovered from a dying or unhealthy brain and imprinted onto a cortical field.
ReJuv. The genetic reset performed once a year through the intravenous injection of a gene-regulating cocktail.
Rep. The cumulative social reputation earned by a personality on the link. Also known as Social Faith.
Restored. Layering a recovered cortical field onto a prosthetic brain. Also a common identifier for a digital human.
Reszo. Slang for a restored personality.
Revv. A shyft that allows the user to bypass human-standard neural governors and run their rithm higher into the NHz range. The effects are limited only by the hardware.
Rithmist. Someone who hacks the psychorithm. From manipulating autonomous and emotional responses all the way to enhancing or creating new cognitive abilities.
Second Skyn. The global leader in digital life extension. In defiance of global courts, Second Skyn opened its first facility in a small South-East Asian country that had more pressing concerns than enforcing soon-to-be-outdated UN cloning laws. Once Personality Rights legislation was enacted, Second Skyn formally opened in Toronto, Stockholm, Seoul and Dubai, then expanded around the world as demand grew.
Skyn. Slang for bioSkyn.
Scafe. An illegally copied or hastily created skyn.
SecNet. The interconnected web of cameras, sensors, and databases that comprise the backbone of the North American Union’s security and surveillance infrastructure.
Shyft. General consumer term for a neural state overlay. One-time-use code snippets legally sold to temporarily simulate drunkenness, enhance pleasure, dampen fear, or one of a thousand other emotional flavours. Much more powerful illegal versions also exist.
StatUS. Formerly a governmental organization, StatUS was spun off as a private company and is now responsible for providing and maintaining identification for all Union citizens and visitors.
About the Author
Damien grew up on Terminator and Raymond Chandler and Green Lantern. On Deus Ex and PWEI. Blade Runner is his chicken soup when he's sick. He rereads Neuromancer every few years, and still loves the image of payphones ringing one by one as Case walks by, anachronistic or not.
He's s UX designer by day, a dad and husband by night, and a writer in the moments between.
Email him at damien@damienboyes.com or visit his website at damienboyes.com and sign up to his mailing list for deleted scenes, free stories, and more.
Thanks To
Mom and Dad, for stoking my love for stories.
Everyone at Critters who helped shape the first draft, and especially Ted Cox for all his great suggestions.
Laura Kingsley for helping me with ‘what’s he thinking or feeling here,’ and Natasha Snow for the countless rounds of cover designs.
My friends and family for their ongoing encouragement.
And to Jacob, Josh and Maryellen, for the love, support, and constant distraction.
Editing by Laura Kingsley.
Cover by Natasha Snow.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. Obviously.
Copyright © 2015 by Damien Boyes.
All rights reserved. With the exception of excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
First Edition.
Table of Contents
Late Afternoon. October 8, 2057.
SysDate [10:23:03. Wednesday, April 10, 2058]
SysDate [15:03:34. Wednesday, January 15, 2059]
SysDate [11:14:05. Wednesday, April 10, 2058]
SysDate [17:01:26. Wednesday, January 15, 2059]
SysDate [12:32:36. Wednesday, April 10, 2058]
SysDate [17:24:26. Wednesday, January 15, 2059]
SysDate [18:22:16. Wednesday, April 10, 2058]
SysDate [17:57:12. Wednesday, January 15, 2059]
SysDate [19:36:51. Wednesday, April 10, 2058]
SysDate [21:14:49. Wednesday, January 15, 2059]
SysDate [06:19:21. Friday, April 12, 2058]
SysDate [06:01:23. Thursday, January 16, 2059]
SysDate [08:25:36. Friday, April 12, 2058]
SysDate [16:33:31. Thursday, January 16, 2059]
SysDate [12:31:48. Friday, April 12, 2058]
SysDate [16:33:31. Thursday, January 16, 2059]
SysDate [17:51:41. Friday, April 12, 2058]
SysDate [19:49:11. Thursday, January 16, 2059]
Glossary
About the Author
Thanks To