The Lightcap

by Dan Marshall

  Sera opened her mouth to reply just as the elevator beeped. Their eyes were drawn toward the down arrow that appeared in the frame surrounding the door, previously invisible dots lit like orange stars in a silver metal sky. Adam felt immediate frustration that no one had yet figured out a way to make elevators arrive faster, and he made a mental note to look into a possible solution, even to see if someone else had already tackled the problem. No point in reinventing the wheel, he thought. Perhaps embarrassment, rather than necessity, could spark invention.

  Adam shuffled a few small steps back as the door opened in an attempt to make it obvious that he wanted her to go first. Sera obliged, and he followed. The light for the next floor down lit up at her thought, the light for the ground floor at his. After the doors closed, she turned to face him and said, “I wasn’t trying to upset you, I just think it’s best if we don’t mix business and pleasure.” Adam understood, not because of what she said, but because he was sure her eyes had moved to the left and right, along with the slightest nod of her head.

  The elevator doors opened and Sera was gone. LaMont’s office was on that level, and that was most likely where her new office was too. It struck Adam as odd that he didn’t even know where his immediate supervisor’s office was, that she’d always chosen unusual meeting places rather than show him anything of herself. He took this as another sign of her obvious reserve, and wondered whether nature or nurture gave her such a cautious personality. The elevator doors closed with a clunk and Adam’s stomach rose into his throat as he was whisked toward the ground.

  He probably would have appeared collected to an outside observer, but internally he was preoccupied by several different lines of thought, such as the Lightcap, Velim, LaMont, and the people on his team who trusted him to make correct decisions. He was troubled by the comment Sera made about the Lightcap leading its wearer to look toward authority figures when faced with obstacles or challenges. He supposed this was a good idea in theory, a way to make sure workers weren’t sitting there listless and unproductive when they encountered a problem. In practice, he worried that a device originally pitched as something to keep work and home stresses segregated seemed to have additional capabilities and effects that hadn’t originally been disclosed. Adam wondered most of all why, when wearing the Lightcap, he had seemed listless and slow, almost unaware of who he himself was. He couldn’t put his finger on it. It was almost as if he’d had no will of his own.

  As these thoughts tumbled around his head, he exited through the heavy door separating Adaptech from the world at large without even noticing someone fall into step behind him, pacing about three meters back. Adam’s feet barely touched the stairs, his shoes issuing a rapid staccato as he bounced from street level to subway platform. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked. His unconscious mind perceived a sudden rush of movement behind him. He was about to whip around to face this unknown potential threat when a hand closed against his upper arm and a laughing voice said, “Calm down, Chuck!”

  It was a voice Adam recognized as belonging to Jared Tinge, one of the two people on his team Adam had not personally picked. He was a competent enough coder, and Adam had worked with him before in the Security Software division. Everyone knew the reason Jared had his position was because his father served on the Adaptech Board of Directors. Adam thought of Jared as a “brogrammer”, as he seemed just as likely to spend a night taking shots as he would debugging code and said “bro” far too often when talking to men who weren’t his brothers. Usually Jared mushed the word into “bruh”.

  “Damn it, Jared, you scared the shit out of me,” gasped Adam, his hand unconsciously drawn to cover his chest, his heart racing. “And don’t call me Chuck. Or Charles. It’s Adam.” He was already angry his team knew his full name. It was because of people like Jared that he didn’t like people knowing too much about him. Certain people would always find openings to attack, or at least to use against his will.

  “Sorry, bruh,” Jared said, his lips drawn into a smug, dopey smile. Adam did his best not to outwardly wince. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Was just making sure you were all right. You seemed a bit out of it after our reentry earlier.”

  “I’m fine,” Adam said curtly. “And what do you mean by ‘reentry’?” Adam was doing his best not to sound annoyed. He was pretty sure he was failing.

  “Just checkin’, boss,” Jared replied. “I call it ‘reentry’ because I felt like a spaceman coming back from orbit. Still feel a little light-headed. Spacey. You feel back to normal?”

  Adam thought about possible long answers to such a simple question. Any sense of normalcy Adam possessed had vanished over the past several days, with talk of memories zapped out of existence and dreams of a world inhabited by Greek Titans and an odd old man. “Yes,” Adam replied. “I’m fine. I suggest you focus on staying rested for our project, rather than spending too much time focusing on the details of . . . the device,” he whispered the last two words, hesitant to say “Lightcap” in public, even as the bustling passengers moved in and out of the subway alcove, oblivious to the Jared and Adam.

  “Good to know,” Jared said. He gave a mock salute and continued: “I’m going to go home and watch election results. See you tomorrow, bruh!” He then bounded back up the stairs, seemingly eager to escape the subterranean subway station’s moving throng and bad smells.

  Adam tried to decide whether Jared was annoying, odd, or both as he walked into the subway car. Muscle memory and repetition took over as his thoughts turned back to all that had recently changed in his life. New position, new project, new technology. It was an exciting yet unsettling time. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about it all, but he was glad to be going home for the day.

  The subway door closed with a clunk reminiscent of the elevator door’s. The sound brought his focus back to reality, where he was immediately struck with the sensation of being watched. Had Jared come back? One surprise like that was enough for the afternoon. Turning in a wide circle, Adam saw that no one seemed to be paying him any attention. Nerves, he thought, then closed his eyes, taking a minute to order his thoughts. He sent a dome command to his home control unit, instructing it to raise the temperature in his apartment by four degrees before he got home. What he needed was a good, long sleep. Adam’s lanky right arm stretched against the hand rail as the subway car started its slow roll away from the station. He opened his eyes and focused through the glass door, onto the platform beyond. He saw the face of the disheveled man from his dream—only for a moment—before the man was gone.

  He blinked several times, unable to believe his eyes. The subway plunged into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Adam slipped his fingers through rubber, as he pried the doors apart. They seemed to open painfully slowly to Adam, who desperately wanted out. He sprinted ten blocks back to the last stop with long strides, dress shoes striking against concrete, syncopated by the rhythmic thwack of his messenger bag against his back. There was no sign of the man. Adam struggled to catch his breath, hands on his knees, then drew odd stares as he tried to fill his lungs with air while spinning around to examine each face in the crowd.

  After giving up in bewildered frustration, Adam started to walk toward home, wondering if he had imagined it all. He had been under a great deal of stress lately, and it had been his first day with the Lightcap. These were the only explanations he could fathom. It was either that or he was losing his mind. Probably both, came the thought, unbidden.

  Adam’s adrenaline was still pumping from his earlier sprint, so he decided not to go home. It was election night, both in the remaining States and the Corp Regions. Large crowds usually gathered at bars, playing drinking games and placing bets on how Public and Executive positions would be awarded. The election system had been modified to apply the Metra Corp Charter of Incorporation onto the Democratic framework its citizens expected, a holdover from their time as separate States under the banner of a Federal government. In t
hose days it had been one person, one vote, Adam knew from school. “A terribly unfair system,” his teacher had said with a shudder. “Just think of how unlikely it would be for actual merit to be rewarded.”

  Under the New Metra Charter, however, each citizen of the Region was given one voting share per year after eligibility, with the option to purchase more shares at the current trading rate. In principle, good work was rewarded with more say in government. In practice, poor people sold their vote on their first day of eligibility, which was still the eighteenth birthday, as was tradition. The last time Adam had checked, a single share sold for two hundred credits, enough for three to four weeks of frugal meals. The rich hoarded their shares and bought many more, and had come to account for nearly forty percent of the votes cast in the Metra Region. Fortunately, the system was impossible to rig due to strong biometric security. Actual votes were still necessary to win, and anyone with enough credits could buy shares.

  Alliances formed among the diminished middle class, the people who worked and lived paycheck to paycheck, along with other voting blocs such as the racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and the poor who retained and consolidated their voting shares. For decades before the collapse of the States, people had been urged to vote with their ballots and their pocketbooks. Now they really did vote with their money, and those with the most money got the most votes. Adam had never been political, though he still voted. Most did, since it was easy, and if they didn’t vote they’d sell to someone who would. Adam didn’t see the point of getting involved in things that were ultimately out of his control, especially because of the unnecessary drama of it all.

  Election night had turned into an occasion to celebrate or to drown sorrows. Regardless of the outcome, there was an excuse to party, to drink, and to curse the other side, that terrible separate half of society who were too stupid to see things the “right” way. It seemed odd to Adam that most elections were evenly split. Forty percent of the votes were usually for the most pro-business candidate, who somehow convinced another ten percent or so of the voting public to go along with him or her, either through a barrage of false ads or by paying the media for positive coverage. There were many theories from many sources.

  Adam headed to Hanley’s, a place he’d seen featured on several ad zep screens that showed whatever spectacles were on the video nodes each night. Why watch the big game, execution, or election in the privacy of home when one could go to Hanley’s, spend four hundred credits, and not remember any of it? It struck Adam that alcohol could be considered the original Lightcap, but with dangerous side effects.

  A mixture of pungent smoke, warm beer, and the nasal-clearing licorice scent of absinthe greeted Adam down the street, before he saw the place or heard the murmurs of crowded conversation within. He passed a man whose back was pressed against a wall, a small glass pipe filled with smoldering white fibers pressed against his lips. He exhaled sharply through lips pressed tightly together, which made him resemble a steaming teapot. The man’s eyelids drooped, his eyeballs rolling back into his head until there was nothing but white, and a dull smile spread on his face as his serotonin and dopamine levels skyrocketed. He sagged against the wall in a stupor.

  Adam walked by and watched this man from the corner of his eye. Junkies were notorious for being amateur pickpockets. Adam recognized the smell of the junkie’s drug of choice: Cloud. The substance had become more popular as its price dropped. First synthesized thirteen years before, Cloud looked like cotton with a slight grey tint. Cloud users could be identified by the distinct odor the drug left on their hands, a smell of burnt chemicals mixed with cinnamon. The drug produced in its users a sensation of free fall, adrenaline and euphoria combining in a head rush lasting an hour or more, depending on dose. For some, taking Cloud was a social activity like drinking, but there were many who couldn’t control the urge to use the drug frequently.

  One thing Adam found interesting about Cloud was that reports indicated it seemed to affect the function of the domes, to the point that the small print in the Mind Drive v5 instruction manual specifically warned against the use of Cloud while operating the device. As far as Adam knew, this marked the first time a user manual for an input device warned against using a specific drug. Many brilliant minds were working on understanding the physiological mechanisms that hindered dome functionality among heavy Cloud users, but the prevailing theory was the drug had the side effect of weakening connections between neurons in the brain, making it harder for domes to get readings.

  He doesn’t really seem to care about not being able to use a dome. They probably still put buttons on things because of people like him, thought Adam. He couldn’t help but feel people such as this junkie were holding back society by creating undue drags on social services. They just needed a bit more self-control. Then again, most used vaporizers for Cloud, exhaling nothing more than a small puff of odorless smoke. The junkie must not be able to afford one, as cheap as they were. Adam felt a brief pang of sadness at this thought.

  A bouncer stood at the door of Hanley’s, face forward, arms crossed against his bulging chest. The bouncer gave Adam a perfunctory once-over, then tilted his head back, providing a silent signal that Adam could enter. The wooden door with its lone rounded window swung open and stopped against the wall with a hollow thunk, the din of the patrons inside seeming to double in volume as he stepped across the threshold. From left to right he scanned the room, a large open space with screens mounted on nearly every available vertical surface, casting light made of flashes of color. This place was made for consumption and excess. Despite feeling very out of place, he couldn’t deny there was an almost palpable energy in the glowing room.

  Groups of people stood in the packed bar so they could see as many screens as possible. Adam found a table in the corner affording him a view of the vast room, and he attempted to send a drink order from his dome. He immediately heard a minor tritone, along with a soft voice stating, “No command unit found for this establishment.” It had been a long time since Adam had been to a bar that wasn’t Mind Drive compatible. It had also been a long time since he’d been to a bar.

  As he was trying to remember the etiquette for ordering a drink, a tiny woman materialized, seemingly from nowhere. She was so small Adam had thought at first she was a child, but as she moved closer he realized she was a small woman. The waitress stopped chewing her gum long enough to ask for his order. “Scotch. Old aged. Rocks,” he replied. Adam may have felt out of his element in a place such as Hanley’s, but he could still order a drink with confidence. He’d practiced this when he was younger, thinking he could impress a waitress who was the focus of his youthful infatuation. She had not been very impressed; truth be told, she had not seemed to care at all. He still liked scotch though.

  The diminutive current waitress disappeared into the crowd and returned several minutes later, carrying a large glass of brown liquid that washed around two dueling spherical ice cubes. “Twenty credits,” she said as she chomped, her mouth decimating her gum. He gave her thirty, feeling both generous and thankful she had appeared when he needed her and retrieved his drink so quickly. Adam picked up his glass, slowly swirled the scotch in it and looked around the bar. Most faces were turned with rapt attention to the bar’s screens, which showed animated maps of the Region, each precinct lighted with blue or red depending on which candidate—the one who was pro-business or the one who was very pro-business—was leading or had won.

  In some cases only a few ballots had been counted, which led to them reporting absolutely nothing, saying things like, “Too close to call,” and, “This is just a projection, only two percent of the polls have closed.” Someone had evidently decided these statements sounded better than, “We have nothing to report.” The news could never stop, even if there were no stories to cover, because it would cause a drop in ratings. Actually, the news stopping would itself be news. Anything was more interesting than dead air.

  Adam watched each screen briefl
y, more interested in how people responded to the news than the news itself. Groups of patrons cheered or wailed, then he noticed a group that had occasionally done the opposite. Words were traded, and in some cases the thick-necked bouncers stepped forward with menacing faces, unspoken warnings of their potential intervention. Already an excuse to party, politics had become an excuse to brawl. “If you can’t beat your opponents in the tally, beat them in the streets,” was the motto of many. The bouncers were there to keep beatings from occurring, for the sake of the bar’s insurance policy, not any sense of obligation to customers.

  Adam couldn’t help but chuckle. He took a pessimistic approach to politics. He’d always voted for the candidate who seemed most likely to lose a few minutes of sleep if he or she were to accidentally run over a small, defenseless animal. There wasn’t always a candidate who met that criteria, however, so sometimes Adam would have to pick the one who seemed the least interested in using an elected term to pad a bank account. One election, Adam couldn’t even figure that out. He ended up going to a voting center that year, forgoing his usual method of mesh vote. He stepped into the booth, closed his eyes, and picked one at random. He had considered not even voting for the briefest of moments, until he remembered his mother and father would have been very disappointed, had they been alive to see it.

  After Adam’s first vote, his father took him out for dinner and a drink, hugged Adam, and said, “Voting is a way to have a small amount on impact of larger things in the world.”