by Novo Dé
After accessing the black market, deep inside the trenches of the neo-network, through all the secret browsers, a person’s identity first becomes a series of ever-changing numerical values, as a first of many steps to concealment. Once hidden, simply request what you’re looking for and a relay will further encrypt your origin as you travel deeper through the server, repeating the process as needed, until your digital imaging is a copy of a copy of a copy. You fade into black, and you quickly become exactly what you’re looking for – Anonymous.
After you set up the deal, most sellers hack into an already licensed drone, from something like the online shopping conglomerate siren.com, to deliver the product, while others use a variety of similar systems.
Now the law has tried on multiple occasions to infiltrate the system, but they rarely apprehend a seller. It seems that the people behind the gambit are always one step ahead of the investigations, continually adapting and reshaping the system to avoid any operation shutdown.
No one was allowed to stop the movement they used to say.
“I’ll never forget the first time I tried it. It was like…falling in love. Nothing else mattered. Except the moment. It was a moment of, of, unknown pleasures.
Simple but complicated. Exciting but scary. Innocent but full of sin. It really was like falling in love. Not the fucking love we know from the movies. The real emotion. The one that, we’ve never really understood, but are undoubtedly drawn to. And that’s…Anonymous.”
“Do you think you could try and describe the experience, of what it was like to be under the effects of the drug?”
“It’s. It’s…” I’m not sure how to start.
“Again take your time Mr. Nielson.”
“First. The senses. They, they become something else, heightened, beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Most drugs heighten, what one, maybe two senses? Isolated usually to the tactile. That tingling sensation. That general ‘feel good.’ But Anonymous, it changed everything.
My vision, sharpened. I could hear classical movements in the wind. I could smell the sea, hundreds of miles away. I could taste the chemicals in the air, and differentiate between Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, and Carbon Dioxide, all the way to Iodine, and traces of Carbon Monoxide and Ammonia. I not only could taste the chemicals, but the subatomic particles as well, and feel them, understand them.
There was no longer a past. No future. Only causality. I felt like, what the dragon must feel like.”
And Cohen begins typing in his tablet again.
“What else was there?”
“The colors. I would find myself in rainbows. Endless, rainbows. I could see beyond those limits as well. And change them at will it seemed. Infrared. UV. It was all at my fingertips.
And then there was the apparent neurological changes. Saying that it just ‘felt good’ would be an incredible understatement. It was transcendental. It was an ocean. It was ecstasy. Every moment, a paradise. Every action, an enlightenment.”
I pause, close my eyes, tip my head, and smile. My memory retraces all those lingering effects. My god could I go for one right now.
“Cohen, it was the first time I felt like my eyes were truly open. Now when I first started using, I had a long talk with myself, like everyone does in their own way. ‘Just here and there,’ I used to say. ‘Control it,’ I used to say. But that’s the thing about addiction. It doesn’t happen over night; it slowly, slowly sneaks up on you. And then before ya know it, it has you.” I pause for a moment and then continue. “Y’know at first, I actually did a pretty good job of controlling the habit. Later I did a great fucking job of convincing myself. Only took it when I felt like I needed it. When I needed to be in the story. Help me write y’know?”
“And did it?” Cohen says.
“Not in the beginning. But I needed more time. More moments. More experiences. All that shit. I still needed something to write about. Plus there was still the writer’s block.”
“And you don’t think all of that was just, umm, self-medication? You trying to cope with your depressive state, your new status with your new job, your feelings on your marriage? See where I’m going with this Tybalt?”
“I mean, fuck, maybe. I definitely didn’t feel that way then. Sure, it could’ve been all that. But I’m tellin’ ya doc, I felt like, I know, at that time, I needed to do it.”
“And what about your wife? She never noticed a change in you?”
“Like I said, I controlled the habit. I mean, c’mon, I imagine someone in your position has seen their fair share of functional alcoholics or somethin’ like that right?”
“Well sure,” Cohen says with a series of nods.
“Well there ya go; it was the same thing. I kept up appearances. kept it hidden.”
“But surely your—”
“She was a little preoccupied with her fuckin’ NCL at the time doc,” I snap.
“Understood,” Cohen says nodding, typing in a couple of more notes in his tablet, bringing the conversation to a halt.
There’s a silence between us now – a long silence – it’s usually never like this. It’s awkward, the same kind of awkwardness everyone has experienced in their lifetime at one time or another.
But, I’m the one that decides to break it, knowing exactly where to go next in the conversation. Using my index finger, I make a small tap at my temple and then motion to Cohen and say…
“Well at least we can agree on one thing. You refuse to convert too huh?”
Cohen smiles back and says, “I don’t know about all that. I just. Call me old-fashioned I guess.”
“Talk about a fuckin’ drug. NCLs. People just. People just aren’t the same anymore with those things. Those are the real drug addicts. They just don’t see it yet. Fuck, most people don’t see half of their addictions. Food. Technology. Television. There’s a lot of drugs out there.”
“I actually agree with you there Tybalt, but let’s not venture too off topic – how did you evade the Digital Representation Imaging?”
“Anonymous houses. Or sometimes I’d use at home, in complete isolation. Even deactivate CHARLIE for the night.”
“That’s a good segue - what’s your relationship with your CHARLIE unit?”
“It’s umm…” I trail off. I decide to change subjects, evading the question.
“Before I forget, y’know it wasn’t before too long that I finally got a flicker in my mind. An idea. For the story. I thought, ‘why don’t I just write about this.’ No name culture. The anonymous lifestyle. No one had done that before. I thought, I thought I could actually, literally put myself in the story too and just write about my adventures: gettin’ the drug, usin.’ A real Thompson moment. Even make myself the lead, the protagonist.”
Cohen’s gaze becomes sharp for the first time all session.
Now that’s more like it.
“Needless-to-say, I quickly vetoed that idea. Talk about another fucking cliché. A writer writing about a writer. It’s been done countless times. What would one more even have to say? That just led to more using. I was just, just continually conflicted with trying to find this story. And no closer to actually writing anything. By that time, I was using, what I wanted to believe, was a controlled amount of ‘No-Name,’ but let’s just say, looking back, it was a lot. The increased intake did bring about…”
Cohen squints his eyes and slowly elevates his head. More non-verbal language. Microgestures, telling me to continue.
“Side-effects.”
“What kind of side-effects?” Cohen says, leading again.
“Like, hallucinations. But again, nothing like I’ve experienced before. I mean, growing up, I tried LSD. And later, some of the medicinal strands. I hallucinated then, and those felt, somewhat real, but I could always take myself outside myself, and say ‘this is definitely the effects of the drug talkin’.’
Objectively, I knew it was an illusion. But Anonymous. Those hallucinations, now those felt real. Really real. Scary real. And somet
imes those worlds would blur.”
I think back about the worst, about the one, about the kid, and I shudder.
“I don’t really remember when it started. All I remember is that, when I started using more, the ‘fantasies’ started flooding in.”
“The ‘fantasies’ about…Juliet?”
“Yeah.”
“You always been so cryptic about those, but understandably so. Something like that…I can’t imagine how hard that must be to open up about. I actually didn’t have any kind of grasp on these ‘fantasies’ as you call them until the last one.
And now with more knowledge of your substance abuse, more of what you’ve already told me is beginning to make sense. At least in regards to the ‘why.’ Now it’s information like this that can help me help you Tybalt. I can use this information in our treatment options. I know it’s still going to take time, but the more we explore, means the more we can resolve. So when was the last time you had one?”
“Last night actually.”
“And?”
“I strangled her to death with my bare hands.”
I look at my hands after saying this. No calluses found. No scars. No alterations of any kind actually. Simply smooth, pristine. The hands of someone that has avoided manual labor all their life.
“It’s weird. But I know, deep down, I would never harm her. I have, never harmed her. Never laid a finger on her. But the fantasies. They just, they make me feel. Full of. I dunno. Light.”
“Light?”
“Yeah, it fills me with this sense of…of…it’s hard to explain. The fantasies are always so dark too. Each one, just, so fucked up.” My eyes begin to water. My teeth clench. “But there’s a fulfillment there I can’t explain.”
“That was one of the first of the side-effects, at least the ones I can remember.”
“There’s more?”
“Oh yeah.”
Surprisingly, Cohen focuses on the fantasy:
“Why do you think you have them?”
“I don’t know. I just know how I feel. Which is strange because it’s so simple there, while other times, it’s just, it’s just—”
“Now that you’ve been clean for a while now, have you noticed any kind of change, maybe in frequency, with these, umm, episodes you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are clean, aren’t you Mr. Nielson? You haven’t been using right?”
“Fuck no. I dunno if I was just lucky, or it was my lawyer, or both, but the fact that I got that ruling, is just, just – there’s no words – I mean before that verdict, I was, I was convinced I was going to prison. Scared me straight. And now that I’m on probation, I have to keep playin’ it safe. I can’t imagine what—”
“You of course understand why I have to ask. The nanomachines, they make it impossible for us to test.”
“Yeah I get it doc. But let’s get off that. Now goin’ back to the side-effects – well the damage is done there. I still…see things.”
“Do you feel like it was worth it then?”
“I’m not sure what you…”
“Like, did you find the answers you were looking for? Did you find yourself, as you like to put it?”
“At the peak of my using, I ah, sometimes felt like I understood everything. Everything just became clear. There were no more questions. Except of course the…the…But, like every drug, those feelings quickly changed when I started to come down. Suddenly, it went from feeling like I knew everything, to feeling like I didn’t know anything at all.
Another dualistic nature.
And it went on like that, back n’ forth, back n’ forth, which of course, fueled my desire to use more, and more. In the end though I felt like I found, well, ah, something; it’s not absolute, but I think I found the closest thing to an answer that I could…”
“Which is?”
“I found. I realized I’m not special. None of us are. But it’s the things like Anonymous that do an incredible job of convincing us that we are; it’s the drugs in our lives that convince us otherwise – they create a fantasy – and we believe it. And after enough time, the fantasy becomes our reality, becomes all we know, becomes our worl…”
November 3rd, 2051
My eyes burst open to the screams. My eyelids, stuck, elevated, exposing the whitest of whites. I immediately bring myself to a seated position.
It’s Juliet.
I can feel her, tossing, turning, and now intermittently screaming, a scream that is distinctly sharp, a scream that pierces at my very soul.
Juliet is having a nightmare again. A night terror. It’s the PTSD2. She’s had them ever since she got back from the war.
“Jules, Jules, honey,” I say as I gently shake her, hoping to arouse her from that world. Eventually, her body becomes still, her eyelids flutter, and she becomes warm and with me again, awake.
“Was I having another…”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, sorry bout…”
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Need anything?”
“I don’t think so. Sorry, I really, I didn’t think I’d get another…so soon…I really, I—”
“It’s alright, it’s…why don’t you just, why don’t you just try n’ go back to sleep ok?”
“Ok. Thanks. I…” and she rolls over, back to her side, trailing off before I hear the end of that haunting three-worded phrase.
It’s impossible for me to go back to sleep after waking from one of her episodes. I reach toward the nightstand for my phone. 3:14 A.M. Fuck me – The witching hour. How ironic?
Juliet returns to sleep almost immediately. It’s like this every time. While she snores, I’m fuckin’ stuck, stuck in this state where I’m not quite asleep but not quite awake either. Insomniacs know this all too well. So now, all I’m left with is time to stare at the ceiling and let my mind wander.
I always try to go back to sleep regardless of the inevitable. So it’s my turn to toss and turn, but there’s no nightmares over here. Just another prison, mostly of checking the time over and over again.
When I check, what feels like an hour, is mere minutes. When I refrain, I’m endlessly caught questioning what my mind is doing when my eyes are closed: Am I awake with just an endless stream of consciousness, one idea after another, or am I asleep, but aware of the dream, simply living in the lucid? I’ll never know. But one thing’s for sure – this is not a restful cycle. And I really wanted a good night’s sleep.
Finally, CHARLIE frees me.
“Juliet, it’s time to get up,” he says with a peaceful tone, almost parental, like mom or dad used to do when you were little. At the conclusion of the sentence, he pauses for a while, and then repeats a similar sentiment, this time with the lights of our room slowly fading on, gentle music fading in, and the smell of coffee beginning to fill the room.
CHARLIE will continue in this fashion until he notices her eyes have stayed open for a certain duration of time.
That’s part of his programming.
He can even get it down to the second, detecting circadian rhythms and when the mind is free of REM3, having distinct certainty that the individual is fully awake.
But no one thinks about that shit. He’s just a digital snooze button for most people in the morning.
Once Juliet is awake, truly awake that is, prompted by a certain silence in the room, she usually just lays there in bed for a while, eyes open, thinking. What about, I’m not sure.
Eventually, she’ll sit up on the side of the bed, and again just pause, her body still. Once she transfers to standing, this begins her morning routine, her morning ritual. It’s the same everyday: shower, clothes, hair, make-up, food, coffee, a ‘check-in’ with me, and then out the door. Ritual.
Juliet is a therapist of sorts that helps people transition from the war back to normal, everyday life. She got the gig after serving two tours of her own and receiving the debriefing herself. She simply thou
ght she could give back; find some purpose in it.
But it’s Ironic – she’s helping people with the one thing she still needs help with. Of course, she never talks with me about it. She definitely doesn’t seek help in me. She has her own NCL-self-help groups now. And her own therapist. That’s not to say she hasn’t gotten better, she has, but the nightmares, the nightmares are still there.
My accompanying ritual, these days, is just to get up when she gets up. Unlike her however, I don’t really have anything to do. Don’t have a job to get to. Just want to feel like I have some purpose in my day is all.
And unlike my wife, I always take my time. I more or less do everything she does, but it’s never quite the same, never in the same order. The only actual ritual I do on most mornings is go for a walk, usually just around the neighborhood. It's the only real thing I can do anymore.
There’s a business district close, so sometimes I find myself venturing into the unknown, if the mood strikes. And today, is one of those days.
Definitely could use a longer walk than most. Clear my head.
“CHARLIE, y’there?”
“Of course sir.”
“I’m goin’ out. Could you—”
“Of course sir. Enjoy your walk.”
For most of our exchanges, he already knows what I’m going to ask and how to answer, before I even ask the question. That’s part of his programming. And the DRI data feed. He learns, and he learns well.
Leaving the house, I hear an array of clicks and clacks as CHARLIE enables the security features of the house. That’s what I was going to ask him to do. I don’t even know why I bother anymore.
Walking out from my house, the first thing I always hear is the skies – it’s them – the overwhelming buzz of commercial drones. Looking past the trees now, all I do is sigh. How did it get like this? The sky now just riddled with these flying robotics. Each in a line of a different variety, one after another, making perfect plaid patterns in the heavens. Each one, mostly black in color, with an endless stream of colorful accents, depending on the product they’re carrying.