Altered States: A Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Anthology

by Roy C. Booth

  As far as you know, you’re hosting all of the dead. And maybe that’s the end.

  END

  GREGORY J. WOLOS lives in upstate New York on the bank of the Mohawk River. His short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Post Road, A-Minor Magazine, JMWW, Yemassee, The Baltimore Review, The Madison Review, The Los Angeles Review, PANK, A cappella Zoo, Jersey Devil Press, and many other journals and anthologies. His stories have earned two Pushcart Prize nominations, and his latest collection was named a finalist for the 2012 Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. He lives and writes in upstate New York on the northern bank of the Mohawk River. For lists of his various publications and commendations, visit www.gregorywolos.com.

  LIVING IN THE SINGULARITY

  Tom Borthwick

  Originally published in Bewildering Stories, issue #550, November 2013.

  “Integration” is the buzz word these days. It's on the news stations. In the papers. On the ads in the subway. Even the guys at work are dropping one by one, it seems, because, hey, Integration. I haven't been in for about a week, not that there’s much to do there what with the decrease in demand, but when I get back, I'm sure some more of them will be gone. My maintenance partner, Dave, went two weeks ago. Told me I should think about going, too. “Go with the rest of the flies,” I told him. Felt bad about it after. Didn’t want to leave my friend on such a sour note. But there it was. Nothing to be done now. He’s gone on to the other side.

  This whole thing started a few years back. Solacium Corp. came out of nowhere saying it invented the Singularity—the next step in human evolution. Some kind of supercomputer where everybody uploads their consciousness and lives forever in happiness. Kind of like a Heaven on Earth. Or cyberspace, maybe. A lot of religious types called it the Tower of Babel and said everything we’d built would come crashing down.

  Things haven’t so much crashed down as disappeared. The streets get emptier every day in my neck of the woods. Across the proverbial tracks in The City, as it's called, things seem to be doing fine. That's where Dave and I work. Well, that's where I work. I do lawn care for Solacium employees. The City isn't technically a city, it's their HQ. All the employees live there with everything they could ever want and more. Art imported from all the world museums, the best wines, the finest homes. Hell, everybody lives in his own personal mansion. I'm one of the privileged few that knows it, being I work over there. Had to sign confidentiality agreements. A few guys broke them and got disappeared. That was enough for the rest of us to keep quiet. But it was also enough for everybody outside The City to get the word that the Solacium people that jack you into the Singularity have it pretty damn good. They get their glamorous lives while the rest of us barely get by in the real world or jack into the fake, blissful one.

  So on my side of the tracks, there's nothing. No point in going to bars anymore. Nobody to drink with. Nobody nowhere. Everybody got sucked in. It’s an easy sell. All you need is Integration and anything that could possibly trouble you...poof! Gone.

  Don't like your job? Won't matter. Unhappy? Pills not doing it anymore? Integration wipes away the sorrow like Jesus on a Sunday morning. Didn't make any sense to me. Poverty and hunger and war, all those things you read about in the history books didn't bother anybody these days. They were around when I was a kid, but I didn't remember any of it. My parents always used to say I should appreciate these new times. Everybody got housing, food, and a job. It's all right, I guess.

  Thinking about it all is a bit of a drag for me. Besides, thinking makes me hungry. I'm going to stay hungry, though. The wife hasn't been making dinner lately. Last week, she bought the hype like the rest of the flies. I hate to think of her that way, my Mary. I miss her.

  Hunger doesn’t matter after Integration.

  I don't want to do it. Anything these teeth-so-white-they-glow-in-the-dark salesmen are putting down isn’t worth picking up one bit, that's what I always say. But if I don't want to do it, why am I staring at the phone, my finger on the dial? Why has it been like this every day for the past three or four days? Last night, I even let somebody pick up before I tossed the phone away from me.

  Maybe it's the commercials doing something subliminal. The government outlawed that kind of thing years back, but who knows what these companies will do to make a dime. God knows they don't care a whit about laws.

  Who am I kidding? Mary's been gone a week now and it's been hell. She fought me like a banshee before she disappeared. She made some good points, too, I'll give her that. Kept saying things like, “We’ll be happy and together for all time.” Still sounds good to me, looking back. Just doesn’t feel right. Another thing she kept saying was we’d get out of this hell-hole we lived in. I never thought of this place like that, but I know she wanted more for us. Maybe this would be more?

  She sure had me stumped here and there. I didn’t really know what to say other than that it didn’t feel right, mingling with all those others. I told her she might as well be cheating on me. That was the end of the argument. Stormed out and didn't come back. Twenty years of marriage out the window. And for what? Sure, I have the letter. She was kind enough to send me a little something, trying to make things right, maybe. Maybe she understood where I was coming from, a little. But that's not an answer, not to me. I know where to get my answers, but I am not going there, no matter how often I pick up that phone.

  Tim, honey, the letter starts. I have the damn thing memorized by now, but I like reading it. That loopy scrawl of Mary's is the last thing I have of hers. I know there are other things, pictures and the like, but it's the last thing I got from her so it means a lot. The scent of her on the bed sheets faded after three or four days. Boy, was that rough. That’s when I started dialing. I know you didn't want this for me or for us. But think of it! That was what she'd always say when we argued: “Think of it!” And I'd say, “Honey, it's hard to think of something we know nothing about.” And then she'd talk about the things she saw in the ads: no more suffering, no more pain, no more worries. See, we had some money trouble. Sure, we wouldn't have starved or been kicked out on the street, but we weren't getting ahead. In the Singularity, there isn’t any money trouble. But what else isn’t there? She didn't have an answer. The glitzy ad men on TV didn't, either. I hope I'll see you on the other side, dear. Love, Mary. And that's it. Short and sweet, just like my Mary.

  I was tuning out the TV, staring at the dull brown tenement walls Mary hated so much, but then one of the umpteen daily commercials for Integration caught my eye. That same old, tired commercial that somehow got everybody hooked blares in my ears and illuminates the room. A slick-looking guy in his fifties–trying hard to look thirty—sits on a heavily carved and enameled wooden desk, like the ones in the lawyer commercials. One leg is a little higher than the other and his hands are folded on it. The navy blue suit with pin stripes screams money. The shoes alone probably cost more than half the appliances in my place.

  “Hi,” he says, flashing those bright, white teeth—I bet if the light switch got flipped, they’d glow in the dark. “My name is Roy Tatum and,” he pauses to laugh, “I know you know me by now.”

  His fake tan gets my blood boiling. He stands and the camera pans back, revealing bookshelves stacked with books the guy probably never read, along with all the other amenities you'd expect in a soft and warm-looking office. Whatever their ad men told them, I bet. Or maybe they got data from the brains of people in the Singularity. Jesus. What can they do with all those people in there?

  “I don't need to tell you about Solacium Corp. and the wonders of the Singularity. You know already. The question is, why haven't you dropped by for Integration? Now, I know what you're thinking. 'Roy,' you ask, 'why haven't you been Integrated?' I'm glad to tell you. The answer is simple: Ever hear that phrase, the cook eats last? I know how wonderful Integration is, because I invented it. And somebody needs to be the steward on the outside, making sure that the Singularity works perfectly for all. I know what you're
thinking now, too, and you're right. It's a big sacrifice. A sacrifice I'm willing to make for you. Don't thank me, just call the number on your screen and set up your appointment today.”

  And goddammit, the phone's in my hand again. I toss the thing to the other end of the couch. This guy's mansion is bigger than two or three of the other ones combined. He's got automatons tending that, though. No lowlife like me is allowed to get close.

  The cook eats last, I think to myself. Mary always used to say that. I’d get home from work, and she’d serve me first even though she was the one doing the slaving over the stove.

  She knew I'd follow her. There won’t be cooking for sure, but I wonder if there's scent in the Singularity. I'll have to ask.

  No. No, I won't.

  I can't get down there anyway, even if I wanted to. Mary signed over the car to Solacium to pay for her Integration. Part of why I haven't been at work in a week is because I've been missing my damn wife, but the practical part of the matter is that I have no way of getting there.

  What would I do when I got back, anyway? Dave’s already gone. Now even more will be gone. Less work to do as more people Integrate. The only reason they haven’t laid people off yet is because people are leaving on their own. But how long will that last? It’s probably a matter of time until they can me. What’s there for me in this life? Just scraping by, alone, wondering how my wife is but never able to find out? That's not a life.

  Screw it.

  I grab the phone and dial. It rings. And I let it.

  “Solacium Corp, this is Sheldon. Hi, Tim, how can I help you find peace today?”

  “Yeah. I'm interested. What do I need to do?”

  “Well, sir, all you need is an appointment. When are you free?”

  “Whenever. The thing is, I have no car. The wife turned it over when she went in.”

  “Mary is her name, I see. That's no problem, we can send a car around in ten minutes. That okay?”

  “Wow, that quick?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you need more time?”

  “No, I guess I don't.”

  “Do you need anything else?”

  “Yeah...I have a question.”

  “Of course, what is it?”

  …

  “Are you there, sir?”

  “Is my wife happy?”

  “Of course she is, sir. But I'm sure she'll be happier with you there.”

  “But don’t we all meld into one or something like that? How can she be happy if she’s just mushed into the millions of people you got in there?”

  “It’s not quite like that, sir.”

  “What’s it like, then, huh?” I start getting pissed. None of this makes sense. Not the commercials. Not the mailers, the fliers, the ads, none of it. “How the hell is Mary herself when she’s in a goddamn computer?”

  “There’s no need to yell,” Sheldon says. “You’re asking a perfectly reasonable question.”

  “Then give me an answer. Nobody seems to have one. What’s it like? How can you even know?”

  “I haven’t experienced Integration myself, obviously, but the best way to describe it is that your consciousness is uploaded to a computer—”

  “I know that already–give me the technical answer. You guys advertise like we’re all damn children!”

  “I’m sorry, Tim, please calm down and I’ll—”

  I hang up. What guarantee would there be that I could really be with my wife? I wouldn’t be able to hold her. See her. Wrap myself up in her scent. What the hell would I do? These people selling this shit can’t even say.

  I curl up on the couch and let thoughts of my Mary fill my head. I have to work tomorrow. Most of those lawns don't mow themselves. Going to take a driverless taxi. Not enough cabbies to go around. Maybe I will dream of her again tonight. Hopefully I will.

  Maybe the Singularity is like dreaming?

  Work is exactly what I expect, minus me being laid off. Barely anybody is there. They don’t partner me with anybody else and I sure as hell miss having Dave to talk to. A few more of the lawns have become self-tending with those automated bots they have, so after a few hours, I am done. I just sit here the whole time, staring at an unmoving lawn mower and a pile of tools, waiting for the bosses to come by and round up the equipment. Dave and I used to bullshit day in, day out, about how much we wished could just sit on our asses like some office suit, not breaking our backs for the bosses. Strange how things change. I want something to do. But there is nothing.

  And there’s nothing now, too, on the ride home in one of those new kinds of driverless cars all the taxi companies use. The transition is stark. The manicured lawns of the residential districts of The City give way to streets all looking like something out of an Old West ghost town, except the tumbleweeds have been replaced by newspapers, plastic wrappers, and all manner of garbage. The wasteland between where the workers live and the Solacium people is populated by various kinds of security, from checkpoints to bots to gun-wielding humans. I have my clearances, so I have nothing to worry about, but every so often somebody tries to sneak into the actual Heaven on Earth. Looking back, I can see the monolithic Integration Centers on the edge of the horizon, looming over The City like giant, stern statues from an era long gone. But they aren't that at all. They store the bodies of people who jacked in permanently. Mary is in there.

  The radio buzzes on as we enter the deserted streets of all the left-behinds. “This is Roy Tatum.” Of course it is, I think.

  “Radio off,” I say. But nothing happens. I didn’t really know if that’s a feature in these new cars, but it was worth a try.

  “Remember those days when you were young and first learned about Heaven? Your parents and your teachers and your preachers probably all said the same thing: It’s a place where everybody dwells in eternal happiness for all time. That’s how I like to think of the Singularity and that’s what we had in mind when we designed it. Over the years, technology has eliminated all those storied terrors from our history books: war, famine, plague. What are they? Gone. It only makes sense that technology takes us to the next step of our evolution. I’m only glad I could be a part of bringing that to all of you. Ladies and gentlemen who are listening, pick up the phone.”

  An errant piece of garbage hits the windshield, but without a human driver to be distracted, it catches only my attention. Roy has a great pitch. I can see why so many people buy into it. What else is there for us in this life but to move on to the next one? Work, eat, sleep, maybe procreate, die. Maybe he’s right.

  Once, these streets had life. People going for runs, walking dogs, pushing strollers. I haven't seen a baby in years, it feels like. Mary never brought up having a kid and I was okay with it. Times were tough and we didn't have enough to care for a little guy, anyway. We were working toward it, or at least I was. But then everything changed.

  Almost home. All the ads for Solacium and Integration and the Singularity plastered to the tall buildings lining the streets, pasted to the windows of chained-up store fronts, on posters over top the brick of dead buildings—they all seem like a waste now. Almost everybody who was going to buy in bought in. Only a few stragglers like me are left. Each ad that zips by has buzzwords like “Immortality” and “Eternal Happiness” and “Evolution” and “Heaven” on and on. Everything every person ever wanted in the whole of history. Every monument we build to ourselves and every story we tell is about keeping alive beyond our deaths. Now we don’t have to worry.

  Opening the door to the apartment leaves me confronted with the same emptiness. Normally, I’d come home to the smell of my wife’s cooking. God, do I miss it. I know it’s only a week. But a week anybody can handle if they know it’ll only be a week. This is a lifetime.

  I find myself slowly wandering room to room. The apartment is small. Bedroom, bathroom, living room that blends into the kitchen. The place is a tease: there's a window that goes floor to ceiling and looks like it opens to a balcony, but when you open it, there are wrought ir
on bars from the last century that go waist-high. Not much to see outside anyway, just the bricks and windows of the building across the alley. Not much to see in the house either, even before Mary left. The pictures mounted on the bedroom wall are something. They always seem like paintings to me, rather than photographs. They're art, capturing a moment and a feeling lost to time. There's Mary and me when we were young and first married, smiling right in front of the fake balcony with the brick of the next building in the background. Except that she had boxes bursting with marigolds hanging on the iron rungs. Funny. I can't think of when those marigolds came down. They aren’t here now, that's for sure.

  I haven’t slept in the bedroom since Mary’s scent left the sheets. That and the extra space in the bed and the pictures all did it to me. The pictures are bad. No matter where I am in the room, there are pictures to confront me and make me think. Thinking's usually not so bad, but it can be if it's all there is. But that's not even the worst. There's that pressure change in the bed when somebody's not there and you're expecting her to be. The mattress doesn't sink the right way and the body just doesn’t know how to handle it and adjust to the change.

  It's back to the couch, where I'll probably sleep again. I'm not even hungry enough to scrounge something out of the fridge.

  I put on the TV, but it's time for some commercials and guess which one is on?

  Goddammit. What am I going to do? Sit on the couch until I pass out, hope I dream of a wife I’ll never see again, go to work tomorrow, and come home to the same thing every day?

  I pick up the phone.

  I'm across a desk from Sheldon, a stale pencil-pusher in a stale, white-washed office building filling out form after form.

  “What's this one for?” I ask. Nothing like the big-wig in the commercial. Just a stiff with a pocket protector that went out of style before I was born. The damn things are fashion statements these days. Doesn’t make him any less of a stiff.