by Nick Salomon
There’s that little voice again. That annoying little reminder in the back of my mind that I should be doing something productive with my life. That horrifying feeling that one day I’ll be experiencing my last few seconds in this world and all I’ll remember will be my long TorChan shitposting sessions. I recline back on my computer chair and put my feet up on the desk then take a sip from the bottle. This time it’s a weird Japanese pale ale. Nothing but moon runes on the label. Sure, there’s a little translated nutritional facts label but other than that, the factory label could state it was made from dog shit for all I know. Even if that was the case, it would be great tasting dog shit.
I take a short break from shitposting. No doubt I’ll find another thread to troll. My eyes focus on the pile of unused flash drives on a shelf. They’re all in this little cereal bowl I put there to throw loose change in. At some point I started filling it up with flash drives too. And on top of the little pile, that super-secure military grade drive that Lucy gave me catches my attention. So small but filled with binaries that could get me sent to jail. Then again, most darkweb ramas are recorded with similar software. There are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of ramas out there. No law enforcement agency would have the resources to track them all down. Even if they did, I’d be able to encode a rama so it’s untraceable.
So mindbogglingly bored I am that I stand up, walk the few steps between my nerd throne and the shelf to grab the flash drive. I sit back down and fire up a secure sandbox then plug the thing to my workstation. Not only did she reverse engineer proprietary software and recompiled new binaries from scratch, she even wrote some documentation on how to install properly.
I look around my apartment. It’s a disgusting pigsty as usual. No one ever visits so why should I slave over keeping it shiny? It’s a disgusting mess but it’s my mess. And amongst the mess, I keep some discarded dreamcatcher parts. Some I lifted from Dreamax, others I bought online. The little voice in my head yelling to stop wasting my life got me to enroll in a learning annex class for entrepreneurs looking to open their own rama-related business some years ago. It became a hobby to learn how to take them apart and see how they work but I never actually caught any ramas out of my own head.
There are enough parts to get a rough prototype going, except for one last crucial component too expensive for a hobbyist. The neural scanner. A set of interconnected sensors that scan a dreamer’s memory centers in the brain so the target memory can be found and copied to encoder equipment. They’re tiny but made out of very specialized parts. A used unit can be had for about $100k. Regardless, even with the missing component I can still install Lucy’s custom firmware and boot the thing up. The end result is a device that resembles a bicycle helmet and feels heavier than it looks. As the thing boots up, connected to my computer, I can see diagnostics text scrolling rapidly on my screen. Then an error stops the whole process.
Catastrophic Error: Neural Scanner Missing
Maybe I should be training for some new hot skill that would land me a job faster. I wonder why I’m still wasting my time with this thing. I unplug it from the computer and put it aside. My dopamine addiction calls for me and so I open my secure web browser and make for TorChan.
*
The next day I take a walk to the catch shop, mineral water in hand. I look around the once busy room now empty, save for the new man in charge who sees me and approaches to say hi.
“Ted, how you doing?”
“Living the dream, Ben. Living the dream,” I reply.
With Scott gone, the man in charge is a dude named Ben. Nothing against him but he was Scott’s intern last year. Scott went to engineering school and spent years in the field. The guy knows everything there is to know about any professional equipment used in the studio diorama business. Too bad an MBA upstairs decided it would be cheaper to have an intern take over his job. Of course, anything breaks that Ben can’t handle and he calls a contractor who charges triple of what Scott was making to fly onsite the next day and fix it. Just another genius MBA decision, validated by a stamped piece of paper from a pricey diploma mill.
“Damn, you don’t have any dreamers for intake today?” I ask, looking around the deserted shop.
“Not until Thursday, my dude,” he replies. What an odd expression ‘my dude’ is. As if the youngsters don’t understand the homoerotic implications. Or maybe they do and it’s used ironically just like every god damn thing with their generation.
“Huh,” I mumble. There are 4 intake chairs and each one has a neural scanner inside its headrest.
“I hear ToBogan is still in LA,” he adds, as he walks back to one of the chairs workstation. “But I think his latest rama is already in post.”
“Really? What is it about this time?”
“He went mapping some undiscovered bends of the Naracoorte Caves. I’ve dreamed some raw clips, since I’m also helping with post.”
“Man of many talents,” I say with a smile. Ben seems pleased and returns the gesture. Poor guy. Probably overworked in two departments, underpaid but still sticking around by the promise of a place in the booming studio rama industry. Old Hollywood practices with nowhere near the same money or perks.
The former intern continues doing whatever it is he’s doing and I look up to the ceiling. There are 4 security cameras, each covering one another’s blind spots. Makes sense, the catch shop houses a few million dollars’ worth of equipment.
“What brings you down here anyway?” Ben asks from his workstation.
“Someone reported weak WiFi signal,” I reply as I scan the ceiling. “Just looking for a wireless access point with a blinking amber light.”
“Well, at least you’re busy.”
“Why? You’re not?”
“Nah,” says Ben. He stands up and leans against the edge of the catch chair, arms crossed. “Not much to do. The next catch is not for a couple weeks when Steph comes back with the Wimbledon experience in her head.”
Stephanie? The name doesn’t ring a bell. Probably one of the dozens of anonymous dreamers we employ when the focus of the rama is the experience and not the celebrity dreamer.
“No kidding,” I say, looking down. “Maybe the leadership will sell the extra chairs. Do you even use them all at the same time?”
“That’s an idea. We don’t. In fact, this is the only one in use, at least until the budget increases and we get some projects greenlit.”
Ben taps his hand on the chair he’s leaning on. The third one from the left. The first one is not even powered on. No one would notice if a certain key part was removed from it.
“Hey, let’s do lunch later,” I say. “I want to hear everything you know about catching ramas.”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “You’re kidding right? You probably know more than me, I’ve only been here 2 weeks.”
“Then it’ll be an exchange of ideas,” I say and turn around to get back to my desk. “Ping me at whatever time it is you usually eat.”
“Yeah, will do.”
Back at my desk, I look up the surveillance server. The Security guys are too lazy to maintain the thing so they usually just dump on me the task of calling the company that installed it whenever anything breaks. It used to piss me off to no end but now it might come in handy. These guys are supposed to be in charge of loss prevention but they don’t seem to give a shit. They make it just too easy to social engineer my way in. I type the root password to the surveillance system and list the available cameras. Luckily, they’re categorized by department so it takes a minute to bring up a view of the catch shop. Four cameras and only one covers the entrance and the leftmost catch chair.
I minimize the surveillance system window and go back to work the tickets. Someone doesn’t know how to setup an email signature. Another lost soul disabled his laptop touchpad and doesn’t know how to make it work again. These people grew up with smartphones and were babysat by tablets and they’re still incapable of doing a web search that would tak
e seconds. Job security for me I guess.
The morning drags on but eventually I get a chat message from Ben.
From: Ben Alcivar
Food when?
Ah, yes. Modern dumbed down text message English.
From Me:
You’re going now?
From: Ben Alcivar
Yah hungry
From Me:
Sorry dude, got swamped with work. Can’t make it today.
Maybe some other time.
From: Ben Alcivar
It cool bruh ttyl
I bring back the surveillance system and I see Ben walk out of the shop. From another, unrelated computer, I start a network flood attack. Little by little, the network interface of the target camera gets overwhelmed with garbage traffic and the video feed suffers. Frames are skipped, video resolution grinds below SD. It doesn’t take long for the poor thing to give out and the surveillance server marks the camera as ‘needing maintenance.’ A small pop-up in the corner of the window tells me the surveillance system vendor has been notified. I lock my computer and stand up.
When I get there, the catch shop is still empty. Not even a janitor around. As I walk in and make for the leftmost catch chair, I realize I’ve been humming the Mission Impossible theme. These chairs are made prioritizing dreamer comfort. It’s like a sofa-padded dentist chair. The headrest looks like any other. I unzip it from the bottom and lift the leather and padding and there it is, in all it’s $100,000 glory, the neural scanner. I giggle like a schoolgirl when I pull it out and the daisy-chained sensors encased in protective plastic spheres remind me of anal beads. It’s small enough that it fits in one of my cargo shorts pockets. The spy theme playing in my head intensifies.
I walk back to my desk but first make a quick detour to the lunch room to get a mineral water, which will be my alibi in case anyone in Security with half a brain sees me going in the direction of the catch shop in the other cameras. Not too slow but not too fast either. Nonetheless I still hyperventilate a little. Fuck, I’m so out of shape. I sit down at my workstation and lightly pad my pocket just to confirm the sophisticated piece of equipment is still there. The computer is just the way I left it. I login and stop the network attack then do a secure wipe of the software I used for it. In the surveillance panel, I see the video feed slowly returning. The phone rings. I see Ed Kelly in the caller ID. Manager of Facilities Security and Loss Prevention is his title.
“Hey Ed, what’s up?”
“Not much, Ted, the usual,” he replies. He sounds tired. Probably worked the night shift and now my superspy antics are keeping him from going home. “Hey, I see you logged in to the surveillance system. Did anything break?”
“Yeah, but nothing related to your stuff,” I say with that high-pitched effeminate tone of voice that instantly lowers his defenses. I’ve never had any non-work-related conversations with the guy but I can tell he’s a walking concoction of steroids and testosterone. Very muscular. A regular to the gym. Most likely looks down on fatties like me as if we’re shameful wastes of masculinity. All I have to do is pretend his muscle mass intimidates me so he’d never think of me as a threat. “I’m very sorry but one of our servers’ network interface malfunctioned and was sending garbage data to one of your cameras but I found it and…”
“Yeah yeah, whatever technical stuff you did, is it fixed?” Ed interrupts to double down his assertion of alpha-ness over me, a lowly omega in the micro society of Dreamax.
“Yeah, it’s all good now. I was just checking the camera didn’t get damaged by the…” I try to come up with a bullshit technical-sounding term that will go over his head and luckily will forget when he writes his incident report. “… TCP SYN flux flooding the ethernet channel...”
“Okay, whatever. Be a good pal and call the vendor to tell them there is no need to stop by, will you?”
“Sure thing, Ed. Anything I can do to help.”
“Sounds good. I won’t even write a report since you fixed it right away.”
“Thanks, Ed. I’m happy to help,” I say but Ed hangs up before I finish the sentence. It boggles the mind these guys who are supposed to safeguard the assets of a multi-million dollar company are not trained to smell social engineering.
I smile and the last few notes of the Mission Impossible theme go through my mind as I tap the anal beads in my pocket.
The Business Partner
“What do you want?” is the first thing Lucy asks when the apartment door opens and her head pops out.
“I can’t visit every now and then?” I reply innocently.
“Whatever,” she says, turning around and leaving the door open for me to step in. “Text me or something first, I could have had a guy in here.”
Yeah, sure. “My bad, I will next time.”
I walk in Lucy’s apartment and the warmth of her rendering computers hits me. There’s a slight BO in the air and I realize she’s just embarrassed she couldn’t take a shower before I showed up unexpectedly. I take off my backpack and put it on the sofa then sit next to it. Lucy is already sitting down at her nerd throne to continue whatever she was working on.
“So how you’ve been?” I ask.
She mumbles something then takes a sip of diet cola.
“Well, I have a surprise for you.”
Lucy immediately stops what she’s doing and turns her nerd throne to face me, curiosity aroused. Oh yeah Lucy still loves surprises. There’s even a hint of a smile in that face half-buried in messy short black hair.
“What is it?”
Without answering, I reach for my backpack, slowly unzip it then pull out an object she stares at confused.
“A bicycle helmet?” she asks disappointed. “I don’t own a bike.”
Smiling, I stand up and approach to put it in her hands. “Take a closer look.”
She looks at me cautiously like I just handed her a bomb then examines the thing. On close inspection, she seems to realize it’s not a bike helmet, then she finds the cabling, battery and other electronic components I somehow managed to cram into the compact design.
“You built it!” she exclaims with a wide grin. It’s nice to see her genuinely smile every now and then.
“Yep.”
“Did my drivers work?” she asks then puts it on as if to test if it’s comfortable to wear.
“It boots up but I haven’t tried catching anything.”
“Huh,” Lucy mumbles, taking off the contraption.
“I took some liberties with the design,” I explain. Lucy puts the protype dreamcatcher on her lap and listens attentively. “I figured if we’re going to produce ramas, the dreamcatcher would need to be portable enough to bring to people I could persuade to sell me some raw catches. The catch process would also have to be much faster and cause less discomfort for the dreamer. I guess if I can make the catch as fast, painless and convenient as possible, I’d be able to get away with paying less.”
“You have the whole business model figured out, don’t you?” Lucy asks… sarcastically?
“Well yeah. The problem is, in order to make a dreamcatcher work faster and painlessly, the scan and copy process has to be more aggressive while at the same time messing with the brain’s pain centers to mitigate the assault. I don’t know if anyone has tried that approach, or if it’s safe.”
Lucy returns her attention to the dreamcatcher and nods slightly. I can almost hear the gears turning inside her head. Back when we first met, she was a rama post-production engineer at Dreamax. It was in a random lunchtime conversation that we figured neither one of us wanted to be wage slaves for too long. The job was only a way to learn a skill that could be used outside to run our own business. Now that I think about it, that’s probably what became the basis for our relationship. But for all our ambition and technical knowledge, we could never crack the code of what made someone like Chad Mars so insanely popular while thousands of other indie dreamers had small fanbases but never quite broke out of their niche to appeal to the
masses.
When the open source code that’d drive diorama technology first emerged online, no one cared about it. It was just not a lot of fun to picture oneself alone in a room, with a headset on and fully disconnected from the world to dream the ramas of random people. No, people still wanted to go watch movies with friends. Entertainment was a social affair. It wasn’t until Chad Mars opened a RamaHub account, with his already large following of creepy dudes dreaming his wet dream ramas of trips to countries with a questionable age of consent that the slaves at large paid attention to the technology. Suddenly sex tourism became socially acceptable. In a world where most people are living check to check, his mainstream dioramas of expensive vacations and exotic places attracted millions of slaves desperate to escape their miserable lives. And so, an already rich man who had it all became even richer.
“So now what?” Lucy asks, probably as excited as me at the possibility of making our business dreams come true. “We find someone who would agree to risk their lives to test it?”
“We could find a partner. A third person in the team,” I explain my weak idea. “Someone to dream while we work the technology and business side of things.”
“Oh, I know,” she says. “We put up an ad on Craigslist. Diorama startup with no capital seeks partner willing to get their brain fried in exchange for the possibility of a few dollars in residuals.” Oh, she’s being sarcastic. “Borderline suicidal people preferred.”
“Okay, okay I get it,” I say with a smirk. “It’s a shitty idea but I don’t hear any from you.”
No rebuttal. Lucy puts the dreamcatcher on her desk and reclines on her nerd throne, head tilted back. For a few minutes we both sit there in awkward silence, apparently trying our best to solve the problem of finding someone who’d let us a) fry their brain and b) dream dioramas for our profit.