Dark City - Large Apartment Complex

I wake to frailty and a psycho yelling die in my general vicinity.

“We need to figure out how people keep finding us.”

The police haven’t found us.

“That just raises more questions.”

I pour myself a bowl of salty goo and garnish it with spicy peanut butter crunch. It’s pretty fucking good. The psycho rants and raves past the apartment a few times. A little dinner entertainment.

It’s surprising the psycho keeps finding me and the police can’t. Compare their resources. The cops have investigators, eyedrones, and spyware. The psycho has a one word vocabulary and a tendency to stab doors. One organization seems more pursuit capable. And yet here we are.

Not sure how I feel about it. It’s easier to evade the psycho, but safer to get caught by the police. Better to surrender than fight a knife with a spoon. Unless surrendering gets me locked up with a bunch of stabby psychos.

Dang.

For now, I'd like to avoid everyone. To do that, I need to figure out how the psycho keeps finding me.

“How would you find someone?”

I don’t know. But let’s do it tomorrow. Today you’re going to a doctor.

“Can’t we do both?”

Probably not. You’re only awake two hours a day.

“Fine. How do we find a doctor?”

A web search shows sixtyfour auto-hospitals in the city.

“How many have human doctors on staff?”

I don’t know. It doesn’t say. Probably none. Why?

“We need a human doctor. A decision-bot doc will require my Citizen ID. We’ll just end up in jail.”

We don’t know that. But yes - it is a risk. Can’t we fool decision-bots?

“I don’t think pretending I’m a trashbag will lead to quality care.”

When you say it, I see the problem. We need more information. Unfortunately, the web has very little on auto-hospitals. Or Citizen ID’s. Honestly, everything from the last 100 years looks like it was autoloaded by d-bots. Maybe we should find a human doctor…

Or any human. I gaze out the window. Empty streets and thousands of flying drones. In the Bright City those drones would be spies and weapons. I figure most of these are shipping crunch.

Is everyone asleep? Leaving d-bots to truck along as best they can? That would explain a lot. But is that possible? Can a city run on auto-pilot for 100 years? Volt can’t go ten minutes without fucking up. Then again, neither can I. Maybe human oversight is overrated.

Okay, I found a pixel tracker. We can message a doctor, and when he opens it, the tracker will send us his approximate location.

I freeze. Look at Volt. Psycho fills the silence with a dopplering rage warble.

“Sorry. What?”

A pixel tracker. When you open a picture on the internet, the image isn’t downloaded. It’s just a link. You can send an invisible picture - a transparent one pixel image - and no one needs to know. When they “open” the “image”, their phone asks for the pic. That request contains the phone's location. Or the location of the nearest router or cell tower. Which is usually within a hundred feet of the target. Gets you pretty close.

Psycho howls in our general vicinity.

“Volt. Have you been opening any messages?”

My threat detector monitors all information related to you.

The city’s doomed. “We need to check the settings on your threat detector.”

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Sure, but tomorrow. We’re busy today. Also, no doctors are checking their hundred year old emails.

“You have my messages! They will have my Citizen ID!”

Oh! Brilliant! According to your Reddit account, your ID is MuffinMuncher420. Let’s go to the hospital!

Jesus Christ. Goddammit.

I waste an hour trying to dox myself with ancient reddit history, but it’s futile. There’s nothing identifying. Just moldy shitposts from a woman I don’t remember and barely understand. Our past selves are worthless.

Volt gets increasingly agitated as I fail to find myself. She’s ready to roll the dice on an auto-hospital. My health report may be grimmer than she lets on.

“Let’s go to a vet clinic.”

Why? You’re not a pet.

“Vet’s are better than doctors. More versatile. Also, pet’s don’t have Citizen ID’s.” Probably.

Okay. Sounds good.

I gently shoo some bugbots off out stolen courier drone. “Let’s get you into a new body.”

No! Tomorrow! You’re gonna pass out in like 45 minutes! We gotta go!

Fine. We pack our loot. Slip Volt into my pocket and plod into the night. I assure Volt that we’re strategically stealthy, but I can’t be arsed. Too tired and almost dead. Psycho doesn’t notice anyway. Another cunning escape.

My apathy extends to driving our stolen truck. It’s objectively a bad decision - the police could be watching. But at my age, long walks are also risky. The cops are probably asleep. If their d-bots hassle me I’ll disappear in a trashbag.

We get to the clinic without any drama. The veterinary d-bot is a bed, a multipurpose arm, and a hologram of a dude in a lab coat. Functional and reassuring. I like him. Also, he starts my examination without asking for ID or payment, so that’s good.

He squints at me for a minute. “I don’t treat humans.”

The Dark City d-bots are pretty smart but seem weak at visual identification. “I’m a talking chimp.”

Doc-bot nods. “Cool. Very popular these days. Do you have an ant report?”

After a brief file transfer, the Doc shakes his head. “Well, I see why you love her. Look at this DNA. She’s a classic. But she’s seen better days. On a molecular level, she’s toast. It’s more humane to build a new one. Cheaper too. I’ll fire up the cloner.”

Volt is aghast, but Doc makes some solid points. I’m very tired. “It may be time to let go. Just give me a shot of Super Strong and we’ll skedaddle.”

“No!” Volt snaps. “I love her! Fix her!”

Doc and I share a look. This is awkward. He lays on some bedside manner. “Look, it’s not just her many diseases, these DNA mutations are way past critical mass. Apes naturally get 50 DNA mutations a year, and no mammal can function properly after 3000 or so. That’s when old age hits hard and everything goes at once. That’s what we’re seeing here, except it started a few decades ago.

“Immortalis can heal DNA, by snipping out sections of damaged dominant genes and replacing them with their undamaged recessive partner. But that process is lengthy and physically demanding. In her condition, she’d only die faster.”

I nod reassuringly. “Yep, it’s my time. Just give the Super Strong, and we’ll bounce.”

“Yeah, I’m not giving you Super Strong. It would end you in agony. Also, Super Strong chimps are a terrible idea. You’re bitey little bastards.”

Dammit. Betrayed by my lies. While I contemplate a future without superpowers, Volt tries another tack. “What about other treatments? Could we build her up enough to survive Immortalis?”

Doc chuffs. “I don’t know. Most of her energy is spent feeding tumors. Theoretically, if we slow the cancer, she’d have some resources for other healing. But even Immune B could push her over the edge.”

Doc visibly concentrates. We wait.

“We could smash the tumors mechanically. Blast them with soundwaves. That will free up some energy to fix her general frailty. Freshen up her bone marrow, so she can grow better blood. Some skeleflex wouldn’t hurt either. She’s one good jump from having no knee cartilage.

“With the cancer slowed and the ability to survive a slip and fall, she could live through the week. If she does, a quarter dose of Regen A would revive some muscle tone. If she survives that… I don’t know? Another ant report? See where she’s at?”

He shakes his head slowly. “Lots of ifs here. Many probable points of failure. But it’s the only way I see forward. Even if it works, she won’t be ready for Immortalis for at least a year. It’ll be a photo-finish between drugs and entropy.”

I raise my hand. “Question. Can I have some No Bleed?”

“No. That’s a synthetic blood substitute. We’d have to replace 15% of your blood for it to work. You need all your blood to fix the rest of your body.”

“Cool, but I don’t wanna bleed.”

“Are you bleeding right now?”

“No.”

“Then fuck off.”

Now that we’re saving me, the bedside manner appears to be turned off.

I lay down and get blasted with targeted ultrasound for the next hour. It’s not exactly painful, but I don’t like it.

“Your body will pass the crushed tumors. You had a fuckload, so expect some weird pee. I won’t say it’s normal - normally you’d be dead - but it’s what’s going to happen.”

“Alright. Why can’t I get any super powers?”

“Most of the super-enhancing drugs are designer endosymbionts. They grow new organelles in each cell of your body. You need to be in amazing shape to survive the process. You also need a vet dumb enough to give a chimp superpowers.”

The future is terrible. Also annoying.

We slip out on the bill and Volt drives us to a new building. It’s a bad idea to let her drive, but I’m wiped, and there’s no one else on the road. We crash in the first empty apartment we find. Utterly beat.

Will the psycho find us? I won’t check any messages.

“I dunno. But I got a plan.”

Really?

“Yeah, we’re gonna wake a cop.”