Ten thousand artificial lights warring for our attention consume these city streets leading pedestrians astray like some mythical labyrinth of legend. It’s impossible to even see the ground beneath my feet as I wade through the luminous advertisements swimming around my legs, each new light devouring the one before it. An ecosystem of boundless greed and hunger.
A barely audible whisper tickles at my ears, almost sounding as if someone were calling my name, but I don’t give it the time. I blink away the flickering lights to my right which make my spine tingle with discomfort, this particular ad is designed to imitate the movements of a stalking predator, forcing my heart to pound a little harder even knowing the trick behind it. Every year there’s some twisted new technique used to snare us, something new for us to adapt to.
It’s easy to get lost in the glow, doors are frequently covered by the illusions or entire roads are made to disappear, and it’s not surprising when someone goes missing taken by the glow as if stolen by fairies.
The silhouette of another pedestrian approaches from opposite me and I move out of their way only to freeze in place at the sight of the person. It takes all of my effort not to sneer at the holographic reflection of my own face, altered by countless new synns, a particularly beautiful silver and black spine-trap centre place of the synn-set. She smirks at me with my own lips before passing me by, the bright ads behind her, all owned by SynnTech, are intentionally designed as a moving backdrop just to make the ghostly reflection more convincing.
Shaking away the discomfort, I push on.
The advertisements here are always changing, always moving, and the moment you think that you understand this place there is something new to capture you. Yet the worst of it isn’t even the glow itself, but the light that we let into ourselves. Ocular synns are one of the few common implants that youths are allowed to install, and unfortunately, there is a little-known ‘feature’ in the metal.
I fight against the pull of the metal lenses as they focus my eyes on a SynnTech ad across the street from me. The pressure is subtle enough that most people won’t even notice unless they already know, but each ocular will ‘encourage’ the user to focus on their company’s ads and products.
There is a reason that it’s little talked about. It isn’t something you should ever explain aloud if you want to succeed in life. We’re constantly being watched, everything we do in life is a test, and our entire future is on the line. The ability to keep such matters quiet is rather well appreciated in the corporate world, as I understand it.
The strangers that pass me by in the street never meet my eyes, focused on something ahead of them to try and keep from getting lost themselves. It’s not until the tight press of the station that we have to begin acknowledging one another, rubbing shoulders as we press to get aboard the railcar before it leaves.
The glow is thick here as well, but at least there is enough room that I don’t need to put up with the stench of the passengers beside me. A couple of others are wearing uniforms some just like my own, but I have no real inclination to speak with them even if they are technically my peers. I know each of them by name, and none of them are worth my time beyond what simple interactions are needed to keep trouble away from my door.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t keep it from approaching me of its own will. Actaeon—a pretentiously unique name which explains his preferred nickname ‘Tian’—locks in on me standing at my side while fumbling for an excuse to start the conversation.
Taller than me by a hand’s width and ordinary in most regards, his most notable qualities are his unusual honesty and self-destructive sincerity. Where most know to keep quiet or follow along, he has a tendency to speak the truth which affords him nothing but endless trouble that he never learns from.
And today, he carries the particular stench of desperation that makes me regret I never took up a hobby in Houdini-styled escape acts. Surely if he could break out of a sinking coffin, I could learn to escape a moving railcar, no?
“Yo, Artemis, you study up for today’s test?” he asks, standing close enough that I can make out the clogged pores on his nose. “It’s going to be pretty bad, isn’t it?”
Maybe it would’ve been best to lean against the wall and hide in the glow of the railcar walls, but it’s too late now. I don’t reply right away, I don’t need him getting the wrong impression and thinking that we’re friends, but it’s probably already too late for that.
This interaction is going to be recorded from a dozen angles and potentially analysed by future employers, especially if my heart rate spikes at all or other stress indicators are noted in the files. This needs to be a show and I need to be a proper actress.
“I am well prepared for it, yes,” I reply with the obvious, looking past the glow that fills the windows as we rise above the buildings around us.
The tallest city spires are the few markers on the horizon that do not contribute to the glow, clear to make out even from this far away. The constructs are elegant, and while they all seem simple at first glance there are layers of complexity that become apparent the longer you gaze upon them. Only a simple symbol glows on the side of each one of them, different for each. There is something almost holy to these buildings, churches to house the gods and their priests, keeping them above the rabble below.
The SynnTech building is the tallest of all, piercing the heavens themselves; a knife cutting open the sky. The space elevator at the core of the spire is the most valuable structure in this city, and even now there’s cargo moving up and down the length of it loaded onto spacecraft for the colonies.
Our future awaits out there, lost amid the lights.
“I’m not so confident in myself,” Tian forces a smile, reminding me of his existence as I inch away from him. “I had some issues with getting my new logic core installed, couldn’t manage much studying when it was on the fritz, you know?”
“Right,” I nod slowly, taking in the sight of him again.
Sweat is forming on his brow, and he keeps licking his lips like he’s about to say something before stopping short.
“What they’re saying about me isn’t true. They’re just making it all up,” he mumbles, biting his lip. “I wanted to ask a favour, but before anything, I wanted to clear that up. What they’re saying about me isn’t true.”
Dangerous drama that I’d rather not even comment on.
He’s been the centre of a number of malicious rumours throughout the various social hubs our class frequents on the widenet. While I maintain a careful persona online to appeal to recruiters without stirring unwanted drama among our peers, he uses the chance to socialise. It’s been depressing watching him try to form actual human connections with people when everyone else is busy doing their best to destroy each other.
An innocent lamb walking through a slaughterhouse, without even understanding what he’s looking at.
There are unspoken rules for these places.
That which can be twisted into a flaw, is a flaw.
That which can be misrepresented as evil, is evil.
Yet…
A log of his sins is easy enough to find, and the truth behind them only takes a few moments more to figure out. The topic is a favourite in modern culture wars.
Gestalt blending.
A rising new ‘sexuality’ that has a pair of lovers directly linking their logic cores and running a specialised program to blend their digitised minds into a singular ‘gestalt consciousness’—a term borrowed and bastardised—before breaking it in two. You never know how much of yourself you’ll lose, or even if what you get will be fully functional. The fact that it doesn’t directly affect their biological mind is likely the only reason they don’t all end up as lobotomites.
Yet, it’s popular in the current culture and his comments on it…
“I don’t really know if it’s safe”
“Aren’t they too young to be making a decision like that before they can even install their first synn?”
“Are there any studies on the side effects?”
…aren’t a glowing endorsement that everyone expects.
‘Technophobic dogwhistles’ is the phrase being used to twist his words into something evil. Suggesting that he’s actually one of the few crazies out there still trying to fight against synns.
Everyone knows that he’s not, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he can be made to look like one.
One of the girls in our uniform looks our way, I can practically see the venom dripping from her fangs as she smiles.
“Poor Art, do you see that, he’s trying to recruit her,” Eve stage whispers to ensure that we all hear. “Do you think he’s going to bomb the school? He so looks the type.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can totally see him ranting about ‘democracy’ and ‘free speech’ while crying over his little basement nuke.”
Eve laughs along with her friend, their cackling itching at my neck as I look for an escape that isn’t appearing.
“He’d be like ‘heil the republic!’ and start going on about the evil robots running the world!”
“Exactly! With one of those stupid old flags, like that the one with the stripes! You know the one!”
I start to breathe easier as they turn and make their way to the next car still writing their insane little story about Tian; who is standing frozen beside me.
He’s not going to survive this world, and he’ll drag his friends down with him.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t still be useful. Even a sinking ship has parts worth scrapping if you’re smart about it.
“So, ah, any chance you’d send me a copy of your notes?” Tian asks, shame crossing his expression as he swallows all that’s left of his pride.
He’s not simply asking for notes, not this close to the test. He’s smart enough not to say it directly but what he wants, and needs, is a data packet that’ll feed him the answers; something any competent student would have already built in advance.
It provides an interesting opportunity.
“I’m not sure about that…” I twist my expression to look thoughtful while staring up into my feed. I can’t be too keen on this, especially after what just happened. If I’m seen as too close to him it could lead to others targeting me, and though I could survive it, I don’t need the added workload right now.
“I can’t offer much, but you’re one of the smartest kids in our class,” he continues, visibly sagging as his gaze falls to his shuffling feet. He’s just short of begging me for help, and if I drag this out he just might. “I… If it wasn’t for my bad install, I’d be fine. I’ll help you out sometime in the future, I promise. Please.”
I leave him hanging for a moment more before releasing a carefully measured sigh to seem appropriately reluctant.
“You owe me,” I press my lips and offer him a resigned glare before making a direct link with him, bypassing the nearnet security features. The data packet takes only a few seconds to prepare and send across. It contains all the results of my studies that I’ve filed away for this test, with how I’ve packaged it, the data will rise to the surface of his logic core the moment he reads a relevant question.
The distant look in his eyes proves that he’s integrated it immediately without even running a proper security scan.
I measure my every breath and heartbeat, running a program to identify any stress indicators while carefully adjusting my behaviour to disguise them.
Tian is too busy integrating my notes to even bother thanking me, let alone try to forge a proper business relationship as would be smart. The poor boy doesn’t know how the world works, and by the time he learns, it’ll be too late for him. There was never any saving him anyway; I’m not doing anything wrong.
The glow fades down to something more manageable as we arrive at school where students are busying about their morning, chatting casually and playing games on their logic cores. I waste no time in finding my place in the controlled chaos that flows through the corridors, dodging the more belligerent students. Nowhere else are you likely to find so much real flesh and so little metal.
Children can’t install metal until they reach the age of eighteen. The only two exceptions are ocular synns to enhance our vision, and the logic core, which enhances our mental processes while granting us access to the various networks spread throughout human civilisation, the widenet stretching between continents and worlds, and the millions of more secure nearnet connections for individual households, shops, railcars, classrooms and such.
The occasional older student has a real synn plugged in, usually something flashy to show off to the younger kids. Not everyone is meant to succeed in this world. Maybe they’ll get lucky and find employment moving cargo or running security, assuming they can survive against the competition. There are always plenty of desperate survivors from the understreets willing to do just about anything for a chance to escape their hell, and they’d readily steal a place up here from any one of these kids.
“Like, why do we even have to come here?” Eve asks, sitting on her desk across from me. She’s not even hiding her anxiety at the coming test, but the rest of her clique doesn’t call her out on it. “All we’re ‘learning’ is on the datanet anyway, so like, why even bother with any of this? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Another silly thing to ask aloud, even if I’m not certain of the answer myself.
As far as I can figure it, this institution is another testing grounds to see how well we socialise and to monitor our behaviour. There’s also a good chance that there is some intention to manipulate our developing personalities through controlled interactions, but if that is the case then I haven’t discovered the methodology for it yet.
Another side theory I have is that this place introduces an element of chaos into our development, I do know that the experiments into corporate-raised clutches of clones ended as a failure due to a lack of creative thinking in the end products. They were closer to being machines than people, and most machines come cheaper.
“Look, the Republicans here!” Eve shouts as Tian walks into the room, trying to ignore her.
“What’s he going to do, ask for a class vote?”
“Hey, Mr. Republican, don’t shoot me I don’t have any oil!”
“You should go short-circuit and join your precious presidents, I’m sure they’d hate you too.”
Tian faces them, twitching as he clutches his fists by his side ready to make another big mistake. He can’t help but self-destruct, can he?
“All I said, is that maybe they were just trying their best, not necessarily evil. It’s not like everything is perfect now, either, is it?”
“See, that’s exactly what all technophobes say just before they get up to some shit. It’s all ‘maybe things aren’t perfect’, so let’s bomb the city, and spread viruses through the school network. You’re all crazy, and I don’t know why the school hasn’t kicked you out yet.”
“That’s enough,” the teacher steps into the room, breaking them up with a glance. “Take your seats.”
They reluctantly obey, glaring at each other with far too much passion for my liking.
“We’ll be beginning today’s testing immediately, you will not have the chance to leave until the testing period is over. Is there anyone that needs to leave for the bathroom before we begin?”
No one is stupid enough to say yes.
“Then you will be receiving the test packet shortly.”
I thoroughly scan the data packet I receive with a variety of security programs before unravelling it and scanning through the test. It’s everything that I anticipated it to be, and there’s no danger of getting anything wrong, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to exceed instead.
Every moment is a chance to prove myself, and I can’t afford to let the competition get ahead of me for even a moment.
Stifling the tiny hint of guilt inside of me, I link into Tian’s logic core. His weak security does nothing to stop the virus I attached to his ‘cheat’ program. It was some rather expensive code considering how few merits I have to spend but I’ve had it sitting for over a year now waiting for an opportunity like this. He’s not going to find it even if he scans for it, business like this requires a professional touch if I want to impress.
Using the virus to jack into his systems, I open a channel into the widenet and reach out to a spider that I’ve listed as a potential contact. They ping me back immediately.
“Sending job specs, 30 silver merits to crack the nearnet and acquire the test data. I’m working through a proxy and I need the link burned the minute I receive the data.”
There’s a slight pause, then a reply.
“Artemis, Artemis, Artemis.” My skin crawls as the alien mind whispers my name straight through my logic core, bypassing all security. “Clever and cruel in equal shades of black, what shiny bits of silver could compare to your freely given soul; the one you mistakenly think to lack?”
“30 silver merits, are you in?” Everyone knows that spiders are strange and dangerous in equal measure, but why is this one pretending to know me? Is it trying to unnerve me?
“Not satisfied simply burning a friend but frying his brainpan, too. All to prove that you can? The test itself a meaningless façade, a layer you’ve already solved, where the true test you value is instead… me? So much you are willing to sacrifice just to reveal to the world that you aren’t afraid of spiders.
“Which of us is meant to be insane?”
“30 merits, offer is closing in one minute,” I barely contain the building frustration before I can grit my teeth.
I’ve made a mistake.
This was supposed to be a fresh spider, one with flesh still anchored in the real, and with at least a little sanity left in it, but that’s not the case. This one is from the deep limbo, a web of fragmented and scattered frameworks littered with broken code and viruses; a world of abandoned ruins claimed only by countless spiders and their insane creations.
I’ve stumbled onto a monster.
“How droll, how utterly boring. I could make your friend’s head pop like a balloon if you asked. A good escape from this dreary class, yes? Or! I could puppet his fleshy arms and legs and make him dance a jig. Fun entertainment, no? But then that’s not your purpose.
“No, you want to prove yourself…
“Why for free you could come to my home and prove how much of a brave child you really are. The employers in SynnTech would be very impressed with you, I’m sure.
“I can help you if you let me.
“You want friends, no?”
I don’t know if it’s the 1st circle synns or the deep limbo itself that breaks them, but Dad warned me there’s no such thing as a sane spider. The more sane they seem, the more wary you have to be of them.
“Keep it to the specs I sent you, I’ve already made my preparations,” I keep my reply firm, bouncing the entire conversation through Tian’s systems so that when his logic core is burned there will be nothing left tracing this back to me.
A sad *ping* is all I receive in reply as the spider gets to work.
Nervous shuffling spreads from one student to the next, the cold air sharp with disinfectant as if waiting for blood to be spilt. We are all fighting for our futures, and those who lose will be quietly removed when this is all over.
Among those who don’t understand this world, many will still fumble their way into employment. They exist to be used and exploited by those of us who understand the competition and wish to survive it. Today’s test separates the former from the latter.
Where anyone—even Tian—could succeed in fields such as math and science, where honest pursuit of truth is highly valued for roles in R&D teams, such a trait is a critical weakness in management roles, and today’s history test is for the latter.
There is no truth in history, only stories built on politics and faith. The heroes and the villains, the saints and the sinners, are all reflections of one’s personal faith and political affiliations. For instance, as I am from a SynnTech family, I must be loyal to the company’s brand of history.
The corporation began its existence before the collapse of the old era when the world was still run by petty dictators and corrupt politicians, each too busy playing with nuclear toys, they grew neglectful of their respective empires.
Developing technologies to replace the most holy of creations, the human body, SynnTech very early on found itself in conflict with the irrational religions of the old era. It was terrorist action from those religious zealots that submerged civilisation into violent turmoil, and the weak leaders could not stifle the fires before civilisation itself burned.
SynnTech, among other surviving corporations, assisted in reforming and arming police forces and judicial systems to bring an end to these troubled times. Elements of those old government institutions continue on into the modern era, arbitrating competing corporate conflicts and subduing dangerous cults and terrorist organisations.
Or so my corporation tells it.
Even I don’t know how much of the story is a lie.
Incoming data pings my logic core as I receive the results from the spider’s investigations. A few seconds later, through a storm of inane ramblings, I catch sight of Tian shuddering in his seat ahead of me.
His logic core will be burning hot until the data chips containing my virus and connection history physically shatter inside of his skull. For someone on the wrong end of a digital lobotomy, he takes it surprisingly well.
Not that it matters.
No one will hire him after this.
Scanning through the surprisingly small marking file, I overlay it atop my own answer sheet and quickly run through a series of analyses. My language needs to be softer and mimicking the teacher’s style will lead to some sub-conscious bias in my favour.
An interesting angle on one question that I nearly overlooked deals with the understreets, and in particular, the reason these modern slums continue to persist.
In my distraction, I’ve put together data and graphs to illustrate how the city’s working population is more productive when there is a lower caste beneath them, threatening their status. Noting the security of retaining a spare labour force in case of an unexpected population decline, alongside providing a natural source of genetic mutation which will occasionally produce a valuable trait or two for corporate extraction.
Certainly, it shows my understanding of corporate interests in the slums, but it fails to address the actual historical events that shaped the expansive underground slums.
I spend my remaining time polishing the work, while a cleaning program runs through my system, removing all the accessible evidence of today’s events. My thoroughness should evidence my skills in subterfuge to the people in management who can dig deeper than most.
“Testing is over, you’re free to start your break,” The teacher announces, not quite as bored as she was a moment ago. “Actaeon if you could stay, please. There’s something we need to discuss.”
Either Tian is holding himself together bravely, or the damage to his mind is so significant that he can’t properly respond. Whispers spread faster than anything, and already I can hear the beginnings of rumours building up around the poor boy.
They’ll tear apart what is left of him. Dogs trained to hunt, and kill won’t hesitate when a vulnerable stag exposes its throat.
Swallowing down the guilt and shame, I leave them to it.
I’m here to develop new and valuable life skills and I’m not going to waste a single opportunity, no matter the cost. I’m not going to let myself be crushed by this world, even if that means kicking others down into hell behind me.