Over the last few decades, there have been a dozen attempts to reignite work from home reform movements. The technology exists, they argue. The infrastructure is there. Studies have proven that the workers are more efficient on average. Yes, there are some people who take advantage of the lack of supervision, but even that becomes less and less of an issue as businesses start figuring out better--that is, more invasive--ways of tracking their employees. Profits go up in virtually every sector that can operate remotely every time a new epidemic sweeps through.
And yet offices still exist, and corpo C and D-Class employees spend six to seven days a week in them, often for up to fourteen hours a day, not including their hour-long commutes to and from whatever corpo-owned burb they’re living in. A cynical person might take it as proof that there is actually one thing the S and A class value more than money: Control.
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March 22, 2064
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. For the first time, I had control over who was looking back at me. I’d wanted to see Steve, so there he was. The other voices were there, but… quieter, like they knew my attention wasn’t focused on them and there was no point in trying to speak over each other.
“Hello, Cherish,” he said with a smile. His face was hovering where mine should have been in the mirror. There was no way I was going to get used to that. “Are we doing some more experiments?”
“Yes!” I said. “I’ve got all weekend and only a tiny bit of homework to do. We’re going to do all the experiments.”
“Brilliant. You’ll be summoning me then?”
“Right now,” I said.
“Wait, before you do that, let’s test to see if you can do it without the mirror. You can still hear my voice everywhere, right?”
I considered it for a moment, then nodded. It was possible, I supposed. The mirror... Well, I wasn’t sure if it would make it easier or not, but it felt like the reflection was important. Was this one of those gut-feelings or instincts or whatever that empowered had about their powers?
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll try it downstairs. Give me a minute,” I said before I left the bathroom.
This was... exciting. It was like waiting for a friend to show up, something that I hadn’t felt in... ever?
“Just remember what I said. Most powers are activated by will. You can do this.”
I went to the living room and tried to focus on summoning Steve without being able to see him directly. My eyes scrunched closed in concentration, I built up a mental picture of Steve. It came easier this time.
When I looked up, Steve was standing in front of me. He was dressed the exact same as yesterday, right down to the tie, and he’d rearmed himself with his big cannon thing. He glanced around the living room, taking in the beige walls and big TV at a glance. “Well done,” he said.
“And you got your illegal military-grade weapon back too,” I said. “It didn’t stick around after you left last night.”
“No? Good to know, I suppose.” He regarded it with a frown. “I feel like I might be able to… ah, there we go.” The cannon faded away, only to reappear in its customary spot a second later. “Yes, I thought so. I can do the same thing with my own equipment that you can do with me. How fascinating.”
That was bound to be handy. Steve wouldn’t make it three blocks before the autoturrets detected him walking around with such a huge weapon. Violating Burb Ordinance would get him slapped with a fine at the least, and I’d seen the turrets unload on a couple loudly arguing in their front yard across the street from us once. Hundreds of foam-tipped rubber bullets had sprayed out of the nearest autoturret to unerringly strike them both.
If Steve walked outside toting that massive cannon, he’d have even odds of getting shot immediately with non-lethal bullets or of burb security showing up in minutes to arrest him. Maybe both. Not having a weapon visible was a much better option, especially if he could just resummon it immediately if he did end up needing it.
“What do we test first?” I asked.
“How about how many voices you can summon at once? Are you limited to one at a time? Can you summon ten people? What effect will summoning multiple people at once have on everyone else? Is there a time limit to how long a summon can remain, and if so, will it be shortened with multiple summons active at once?
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“That’s a lot of testing,” I said. Maybe I wouldn’t get it done all in one weekend after all. “Where should we start?”
“Hmm. Perhaps you should try summoning as many of us as you can? Let’s see what your upper limit is.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted ten people in my living room all at once. Mom not noticing Steve was one thing. Her failing to notice a whole party... that was stretching things. Still, I had to test things a little. I’d already thought about trying to summon at least one different voice today, but I was hesitant. If every agent was as unique as Steve, I wanted to meet all of them the right way, to get to know each one before I summoned another. Steve was a person, not a tool.
It was only right to treat each voice as a real person, too.
“I think I want to summon each voice individually,” I said after a long pause. Steve was surprisingly nice about waiting for my replies.
There were a few voices that I wasn’t sure I wanted to summon at all. I didn’t exactly get the impression that some of them were good people, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much control I’d have over a new summon. Other than unsummoning them, I couldn’t think of a good way to stop a new person from flying off into a rage and destroying things.
Steve felt nice, tame... kind of a nerdy older cousin or something. Maybe a big brother? I was an only child, of course, I had no idea what that was like.
“Very well, what would you like to do then?”
“Maybe you could… I guess go for a walk? See how far away from me you can get before you disappear? Or if it happens after a certain amount of time. I’ll summon a new voice and get to know that person while you’re out.”
“Hmmm. Very well, but I must warn you that testing multiple variables at the same time can lead to muddied results. It becomes harder to determine the actual cause of whatever effect you’re witnessing.”
“We’ll redo the tests later with just you so we can compare,” I promised.
“An excellent idea. Perhaps I shall do some research on the internet while I’m out. I would like to see exactly how far my memories diverge from what’s publicly available about the real Steve Tunner.”
“Oh, er… that might be a problem,” I said. I hadn’t even considered it, but his DAC wasn’t registered on my mother’s 12G plan. Once he got outside the range of the local wifi, he’d have no internet access, which also meant no GPS access. “Let me forward you a map of the local burbs. You won’t be able to access the internet or use GPS once you leave. Oh! We can test and see if your DAC retains information between summons this way.”
“I certainly hope so,” he said. “It would be quite difficult to work on new projects if I can’t save my notes between summoning sessions. How about I work on some equipment for you while I’m out and about, and I’ll send you a copy of my notes before you dismiss me, assuming we don’t run into an arbitrary distance or time limit? If we do, it’ll be some wasted effort, but nothing I can’t recreate, and we’ll know we’ve identified a problem in need of a good solution.”
Steve let himself out and started walking. He stood out a little bit in his sleeveless labcoat, but I’d seen stranger fashions. Perhaps not in the middle of a burbyrinth, but still. He’d be fine, and I had my own experiment to run. It was time to meet a new summon.
I returned to the bathroom mirror and took a minute to psych myself back up before looking into it. To my surprise, the face staring back at me was my own. For the first time in months, I could clearly see my own reflection. The shadows were still gathered behind me, but their voices were unusually quiet. Were they waiting to see which one I’d summon? Suddenly I felt like I was on the spot, with everyone looking at me to see what I’d do next.
Icy talons of panic tried to hook themselves into my brain, but I pushed back against them. This wasn’t me doing a project presentation in front of a class. These weren’t students staring at me while they whispered to each other and passed around the deep fake pictures of me that someone had made. These weren’t dozens of people with their eyes on me, judging me, while I cried at my father’s funeral.
I was fine. I could do this. I just needed to pick a voice. It didn’t matter which one. Any would do. Just hurry up and pick one. They were all waiting for me to make a decision. I was being rude, making them wait.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “I can’t… I can’t do this. I need to…”
I didn’t know what I needed. The voices started growing louder in my head and the shadowy figures were crowding around me now. The more I tried to ignore them, the worse it got. It was overwhelming, too much for me to process. I had to narrow down my focus. Block them out. Focus on my breathing, like Steve had said. In. And out. Back in. Out.
And then there was a person in the mirror, a woman with tanned skin, just starting to wrinkle with age despite a head full of white hair pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. She regarded me steadily, and said, “Look at me, child. Ignore the rest of them. Just look at me. Break this problem down into small pieces. One problem at a time.”
“I’ll try,” I said faintly.
“You only wanted to meet one new person, right? There will be no consequences if you decide you do not like the person you picked. You owe us nothing.”
I took another breath, still shaky. “Would you like me to summon you?” I asked.
“I think that may be for the best, for the time being,” she told me.
“Okay. I’ll try.”
I took a deep breath, scrunched my eyes closed, and thought about the woman in the mirror, about how I wanted her to be standing here next to me. There was a brief flash of light, and I felt arms around me.
“Everything is alright,” she said in a soft voice. “Come, let’s make ourselves comfortable and we can be properly introduced.”