The Portal in the Forest

by Matt Dymerski

  ***

  I remember the day the first one came out. People were lined up around the block to be the first to get it. It was just like any phone or tablet craze, except bigger. Who wouldn't want to erase the monotony of work from life?

  I was never one for the latest trends. I decided to wait, and maybe save up some money for it.

  You could tell the coworkers that were using it. They had slight half-smiles on their faces as they labeled, folded, typed, swept, and mopped. Any simple menial task became a time for lazy daydreaming as the iWorker took over basic motor functions. All you had to do was program it for the task by performing it yourself a couple times, and then, you could tune out, listen to a book on tape, or even sleep while your limbs worked.

  It was a bit off-putting in a way I couldn't quite explain. Coworkers using the iWorker were zoned out or asleep, and the work floor got awful quiet awful fast. It was my job to direct the flow of boxes from our shipping warehouse, but I couldn't keep up with my unaware coworkers who worked on and on without getting tired, without smoke breaks, and without pauses for conversation or mental focus.

  My gym, too, got weirdly quiet. People programmed their iWorkers for workouts, even they weren't supposed to, and happily got in the best shape of their lives without even being mentally present for the effort. Of course, a spate of people up and died who'd set theirs too ambitiously, but… it was their own fault, or so the television said. The next iWorker would hook a little deeper and automatically sense when the body was being pushed too far.

  I'd just save up for that one, I decided. I didn't want to die on the job because some idiot device didn't know not to carry boxes for eighteen hours straight without rest.

  The third generation came out before I even got halfway to my savings goal. This one integrated wirelessly with our relatively new driverless cars, and so you could fit your car into your routines. There were people automating the whole drive to work and their entire shift while they slept, so they could wake up and have the evening and entire night to actually live.

  Now that tempted me. I could have sold some stuff to join in on the trend. I wanted to sleep through work and have sixteen hours a day to hang out! Sounded damn pleasing, it did.

  It was so pleasing, in fact, that it really started going global. They made 'em cheaper, and smaller, and less invasive to your neck and nerves. I would have gotten one then, but I hurt my back at work, and the medical bill wiped me out and put me in so much debt I still couldn't afford it. Worse, I'd damaged my spine, so there was a chance I'd never be able to use one, at least not any of the current models.

  It was about then that the shifts started getting longer. Sixteen hours a day was quite a lot to hang out and party and relax, so people started signing on for longer shifts. More money, more leisure, right?

  When I came back from medical leave, I lasted maybe two hours before my boss came around with that kind of shit-sorry look. I knew immediately. Everyone else in the warehouse was iWorking, moving around all silently with half-smiles on their faces, and they were all working sixteen-hour shifts. Here I was with a hurt back, moving slowly, working inefficiently, and I wanted the same pay as these diligent types?

  I told him he could screw right off, even though I regretted my rudeness instantly. Still, I was out of a job, and I would soon have nowhere to go.

  I spent the next few months at a shelter, along with many other injured types in my situation. The divide between those who could iWork and those who couldn't was huge - we were useless for modern jobs anymore. Those daydreaming types could work almost all day long without a word of complaint, and for lower and lower wages. What did you need money for when you were working almost all day long? What did you care what you got paid when you weren't even mentally present for the work? You just woke up for a few hours each night once you got home, watched a few TV shows, then clicked out again.

  Repeat.

  I'd been homeless for maybe a year when we heard the news: they'd invented an iWorker that anybody could use, regardless of injury. A lot of us saw that as salvation come to town.

  By then, I hated the whole concept. Passion, that was me. Passion. I was the one standing on the corner shouting at sleepwalkers about their idiocies and inadequacies and iniquities.

  Nobody heard.

  Well, their ears heard, but there was nobody at the wheel.

  Funny thing, though, this new model. It worked through the eyes. It was just light. You'd walk by one of these nodes on the street, or in a hallway, or at home, and it would program you the way you wanted. Visually stimulated neurons or some such science bullshit.

  Well there's the thing. All the previous models needed to be recharged eventually. They were devices, just like a phone or a tablet, and they couldn't just go forever. These could. Suddenly, you've got these religious types advocating going on autonomous mode full-time - that's what they called it, then, because a bunch of other brands had come out by then, not just iWorker.

  It was virtuous, they claimed, to work twenty-four hours a day. If you weren't present for the work, you avoided suffering, and if you were working, you were contributing. It's free contribution, you see? Perfect virtue. A world without suffering, but with endless productivity.

  One by one, our little homeless community dwindled. I'd run into Jeff, or Sarah, or Jorge, or Yuya, and they'd suddenly turned into clean-cut model workers. They didn't recognize me. Of course not. They were asleep.

  At some point, watching these light-programmers getting installed all over, it occurred to me: the companies that produced these things were all full of labor using the devices. Everyone at these goddamn hypno-crafters was asleep, walking around in bodies that were endlessly toiling away putting up more light-programmers, marketing light-programmers, building better light-programmers… it was a thing in itself. The thing would just keep going and going, and maybe it had been that way since the start, and we'd all just bought into it like fools.

  Street by street, this city got quiet. I imagine they're all like that. Nobody talking, nobody interacting, nobody living - they're all just working. You got to work twenty-four hours a day to survive on a dollar an hour… and you can't work twenty-four hours a day without being on the Autonomous Mode.

  I learned to avoid the lights. I don't want that shit in my brain. I steal whatever I need, because nobody cares. Nobody's watching. There are no police anymore, because there's no crime anymore. Other than me, that is. The whole world's running around with more hustle and bustle than ever before, but the whole world's asleep and deader than I've ever seen.

  Two years. Three? It didn’t snow last winter… global warming? I can't be sure what day it is anymore. They don't run on clocks and such anymore. All their Autonomous shit is wireless now. They sit near computers that don't even have monitors and just type on keyboards without even seeing.

  Another year after that… wandering around in a zombie city… I must have lost it for a bit.

  I saw one die.

  He came out of it just toward the end. All he could do was scream. He just screamed, and screamed, and screamed, at the top of his lungs…

  But it was what he was screaming that terrified me so: thank you.

  He was screaming thank you.

  I saw another one die. Soul-chilling shit. They're all in there, still, and they can't stop anymore. I don't even know when that happened, exactly.

  But the system, see, it'd gotten self… perpetuating, that's the word. The cycle I'd recognized had been true, and growing stronger. And it didn't like people like me lurking around its edges, stealing things, stabbing people, and mucking up efficiency.

  They grabbed me maybe a week after the second stabbing. Forced me into one of those bright red programmer lights on the street. By then it wasn't a choice anymore, and it could just straight tell you what to do in the name of efficiency.

  I've been wandering the streets ever since. I've got a job I do twenty-four hours a day now. I do what I'm good at; what I did
before. I'm just me, I'm just homeless, and I find other loose minds like my own and NO!

  It didn't work. Not entirely. The old spinal injury kept me half-immune, and they don't know I know. I'm a horrible liar half the time, and a free mind the other half. Never listen to anything I say. My thoughts aren't my own. I sense it out there, a gigantic mind behind the control, with a plan beyond insidious and evil, and I can use its eloquent words sometimes. But that's not true, and the sad thing is, it's just humans who did this to ourselves. Efficiency, efficiency…

  I wandered the streets for five years like that, so alone, so alone… so alone… I met someone who seemed free on the street today, and I was free for just a little bit, and I shouted -