Idempotency

by Joshua Wright

  “It’s a massive-scale government trial. What, exactly, they’re trialing . . . well, we’re not sure yet. We have some theories. We know it’s being conducted by the North American Union, organized by a subsidiary of NRS. But the whole thing is obviously NRS driven. They are profiting by this somehow. The governments are probably on board because it rids them of the slums.” Simeon flung his dirty-blond ponytail in a subtly subconscious manner, and then waved his hands in the air. His large torso and thick arms were still apparent even though he was wearing a baggy, flannel button-down shirt, over jeans.

  Two rocking chairs digitally rasterized in front of the two men. Simeon gestured toward them. “Have a seat.”

  Dylan sat down and the chair creaked. As he began to rock, small, soft waves emanated from the liquid-blue ground upon which they sat.

  Simeon continued, “We think they’re using the people for labor. And we know that they are using your company’s tech in some way, probably brainwashing. This group will be taken to a compound near the Jalisco border, west of Guadalupe. It’s an enormous complex, with a security perimeter that is impenetrable—there’s no equal. It’s over five thousand acres, entirely surrounded by fifty-feet-high stasis fencing, constantly watched via virts and drones. And we believe at least two more of these facilities are being constructed in other countries.”

  “But, why? Who needs manual labor anymore?”

  “Good question. It may be about more than labor. We just don’t know yet.”

  Dylan furrowed his brow, looking more serious than usual. “How can I help?”

  “Good! Our hesitant hawk has turned eager beaver.” Simeon laughed. “You sure are singing a different tune from the last time we met.”

  “Well, I’ve done some digging of my own, and after today . . . let’s just say I’m curious. I thought I was going to hear about an interview?”

  “You are. We’ve had some delays, but it’s being set up now. You should get a call in the next few days. And you better not screw up anything with your current employer—if they find out about this little stunt, you’ll be useless to us.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve taken precautions,” Dylan responded with confidence, though he worried internally that he had been too cavalier.

  “Have you? How much do you know about Kristina’s little friend?” Dylan looked visibly surprised. Simeon continued, not skipping a beat, “No matter. He’s fine, but he’s in your CEO’s back pocket. And your CEO is pandering right now to NRS’s CEO, Ed Coglin, in the hopes of selling SolipstiCorp for the highest price possible.”

  Dylan nodded and asked, “What am I supposed to do, assuming I even get the job?”

  “You’ll get the job. You are uniquely qualified, and we have someone on the inside within recruiting. Once you’re hired it’s simple: We’ll need you to gain access to the various compounds where these people are being taken. It shouldn’t be difficult. Assuming our assumptions are correct, that they are using SolipstiCorp tech, we think they will want you there, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

  “I don’t know, Simeon. This doesn’t add up. Our tech isn’t even in mass production yet. It was my own experience that stalled our progress. Why would they be using our tech now, if it might backfire on them?”

  Simeon’s eyes were focused past Dylan’s, on something far away. At this question, he met Dylan’s gaze and his full attention returned. “First off, as for mass production, well, you are just flat wrong there. SolipstiCorp isn’t producing, but NRS is. They’ve licensed the tech and are already working with SolipstiCorp on mass production now. Realistically, it’s just a matter of time before SolipstiCorp becomes an NRS subsidiary.”

  Dylan blinked.

  “And second, NRS didn’t give a shit about SolipstiCorp’s little virtual vacation project. What piqued their interest was the ability to alter someone’s brain: their memories, their thoughts, who they are. NRS is chiefly interested in precisely what happened to you . . .”

  Anger flushed Dylan’s face. “Jesus. They can’t knowingly do that to people . . .”

  “They did it to your great-uncle, and to you.”

  “I hope to God you are wrong, and that this was just a simple software bug.”

  “Even if that’s true, someone wants the bug to become a feature,” Simeon shot back.

  “Okay, but who’s to say they could even control the experience?”

  “Dylan, your experience nearly failed idempotency. My best people surmise that if it happened to you again, you would likely be scrambled permanently,” Simeon answered in a professorial tone.

  Dylan chuckled. “Idempotent. I use that in my sales pitch. The point of Idempotency.” He quoted himself with a flair in his voice and a funny look on his face.

  “You know, mathematically it literally means ‘the quality of having the same power.’ In computer science it means that a function will have the same output whether it is run once or multiple times. NRS wants to program people’s minds. Especially yours.”

  “These are people, not bytes.” Dylan shook his head, and Simeon raised his eyebrows and shrugged in tacit agreement. “Why, though? What output do they want to achieve for these people?”

  “These are all good questions, Boxster. And that’s why we need you on the inside, to get in there and collect as much information as possible and feed it back to us. Who knows, maybe we’re way off base. I doubt it. But get us inside and we’ll go from there. Okay?” Simeon rose and his chair blipped out of existence. Without waiting for an agreement, he added, “We’ve been online too long, I’m shutting down this darkVirt. I’m glad we met again, and I look forward to working further with you.” He held out a friendly hand.

  Dylan grabbed Simeon’s hand and popped out of his chair, which digitized out of existence as well. “Okay then, what’s my next step?”

  “You’ll get your interview in the next few weeks. We’re all watching you. Don’t contact me unless it’s an emergency. If you do feel as though it’s absolutely necessary to talk to us—if you feel you’ve been compromised—send a meaningless message to a friend through a corpNet and include the word potent in it. We’ll take that as an emergency and act accordingly. Understand?”

  “Yeah, sure, fine. Potent.” Dylan nodded.

  “Fantastic,” Simeon said. “I gotta run. See you in realWorld, Boxster.” He winked, then blinked out of sight.

  Dylan was dizzy from information overload. Suddenly, a wave of blackness raced toward him from all directions and quickly enveloped him.

  “Dylan!”

  He opened his eyes to find Kristina hovering over him. Her oversized pink T-shirt was hanging dangerously low. Dylan groggily found his way to consciousness.

  “What the hell happened? We couldn’t see anything! Once you entered a panel, they began encrypting the output of the feed somehow. It doesn’t even make sense how they could do that!”

  Dylan was still rubbing his eyes when he caught a glimpse of Lester staring at him anxiously. He made a decision to encrypt his verbal responses somewhat.

  “It was uneventful. I was in this existential . . . water sort of place. It’s hard to explain. There were some options to choose from, but none of them seemed to work. I went inside one, but nothing really happened. And then it . . . just went away. Poof.”

  Kristina looked at him doubtfully and said, “You were in the darkVirt almost an hour and nothing happened?”

  “Well . . . I did manage to get a rocking chair to appear once,” Dylan replied sheepishly. He noted a definite lack of disappointment from Lester, which rubbed him the wrong way. Dylan was glad he had held back, though he felt bad misleading Kristina. As Lester looked away, Dylan shot her a knowing wink.

  “I’m sorry, guys. I guess it was a bit of a letdown.”

  Dylan hung around for another hour to help with the cleanup process, though he wasn’t of much use. After a socially awkward good-bye with Kristina, in which she offered a handshake simultaneous to him going for a hug, Dyla
n and Lester walked out of Kristina’s apartment together.

  As they rode the magLift down seventy floors, Lester asked, “Say, Dylan, what did you really see in that darkVirt?”

  Dylan chuckled convincingly. “I told you, man. It was uneventful.”

  “Hmm,” Lester mumbled, then added, “Well, at least we now have a standard operating procedure for how to go about connecting to a darkVirt now, should we ever need to try this again.” The corner of Lester’s mouth raised speciously as he stood still, looking directly ahead. He then turned his gaze directly on Dylan, and his voice shifted a semitone toward deceit. “It’s always good to have an SOP in case of an emergency—isn’t that right, Dylan?”

  Several seconds later, the door zipped open with a sibilant sound.

  “Have a good night, Lester.” Without returning his gaze, Dylan walked toward his transport. After a minute he glanced over his shoulder and watched as Lester’s transport drove off. Once out of sight, Dylan turned around and headed back to Kristina’s apartment. He walked up to the front door and spoke his name; he was still on her short list, and the door clicked to let him in. After a quick ride up the magLift, he paused in front of her door to collect his thoughts, but before he could even knock, the door opened.

  “I knew you saw something,” she said as she motioned for him to come in. She had just opened a bottle of white wine and returned to the kitchen to pour herself a glass. She had also managed to change into her pajamas: a tight T-shirt and baggy cotton plaid pants.

  “Lester knows something. He made reference to SOP as we rode down the lift,” Dylan said. He walked over to the couch and sat down in the seat he had sat in so many times before.

  A fleeting feeling shook him. It was as if time had reversed six months, and they had just returned from a date. Next they would sit and laugh on the couch as they drank some wine, before finding their way into Kristina’s bed, tossing body parts in all directions. Kristina played the part as she returned from the kitchen with a glass for each of them. She was wearing a guilty smile.

  “I . . . might have accidentally slipped up and told Les about SOP.”

  “You did what? Wait—it’s ‘Les’ now? Is that your pet name for him? Les? Really?”

  She punched him in the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, I have one for you, too: it’s ‘Asshole.’”

  “Funny.” He frowned.

  “Oh, Dywan, did I hurt your feewings?” she teased.

  He pretended to ignore her by changing the subject. “I’m going to be taking a job with NRS and moving to Seattle. The interview will happen in the next few weeks.”

  They talked for thirty minutes, with Dylan recounting everything he could recall from his SOP darkVirt experience. Three glasses of wine later, Dylan was feeling light-headed and decided he should have stolen some chow mein when he had had the chance.

  “So, are you going to take it?” Kristina asked, downtrodden.

  “Take what?” Dylan replied.

  “The job, duh.”

  “Oh.” He pursed his lips. “What choice do I have?”

  “Not take it? You know, there are other jobs out there. We could both quit, Dylan. We could find other jobs, and be normal people. And maybe, things could be like they used to be.” She blinked hard and long.

  “Kristi . . . something’s going on here, and I have to help these people.”

  “If you think something truly illegal is going on, why don’t you take it to the police?”

  “You realize the police contract a majority of their work out to the private sector now?”

  She rolled her eyes. “God, you’re starting to sound like a techno-conspiracist.”

  “It’s not a conspiracy; it’s fact,” he replied. “I’ve been doing a lot of research. Look, I don’t know what kind of difference I can make, but Simeon is right. The world is off balance. I have to do something. If nothing else, to get back at the people who hurt my great-uncle and now myself.”

  “I just wish we could go back to . . .” Kristina began to get choked up. “Damn! I’ve cried too much about this already. ”

  “So have I. I do love you, Kristi. I do. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No.”

  He leaned in and tried to kiss her. She pushed him away. They sat silently and then she jumped on top of him. They kissed too fast and too sloppy, and it was perfect.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Frank, over here!”

  As Frank sauntered over to Dylan he allowed his eyes to blatantly rest for a moment or two upon the derrieres of several unsuspecting female patrons at the bar in the complex that SolipstiCorp shared with several other companies. The bar’s minimalist internals matched the vogue interior decorations of similarly swanky outfits: neon LED lighting; subtle, glowing dynamic walls; small stools set in a planned chaos around the expansive room; and a ticker tape of up-to-the-second extreme-dimensional information circulating the border of nearly every surface (the bar, the bar stools, the tables, the walls, and even the urinals).

  “Jesus, Frank. You eye-raped at least three girls and two guys on your way over here.”

  “They wanted it, you dog.”

  “Right.” Dylan pivoted the conversation quickly. “Hey man, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Obviously.”

  Frank motioned with a finger toward the bartender, then looked down at Dylan’s glass and asked, “What are you drinkin’? You want more? Yeah, of course you do.” Another hitch of his head, and two drinks were on their way.

  “Look, Frank, I love SolipstiCorp, but lately I’ve been thinking about—”

  “Hey, you take your AHO pill yet?” Frank interrupted, referring to the plethora of anti-hangover pills on the market. Frank was still standing, fidgeting with his sleek faux-leather suit jacket.

  Dylan couldn’t help laughing, then replied, “Yes, Frank, I know how to drink.”

  Frank sat down with a large plop onto the ergonomically ass-shaped, smart-cushioned stool. He closed his eyes and smiled as he slowly sank down three inches. “Oh man, I love that feeling.”

  “Jesus, Frank, can you pay attention to me for thirty seconds, please?” asked Dylan, slightly perturbed but somewhat entertained.

  Frank looked hurt. “Dyls, I’m insulted. For you, forty seconds. Go.”

  Dylan shook his head and began anew. “Frank, I’m considering leaving SolipstiCorp.” Dylan paused to let the weight of his words sink in.

  Raising his eyebrows, Frank asked, “And, so?”

  “So?” replied Dylan incredulously.

  “So? What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Umm, I want you to talk me out of it? Maybe tell me how valuable I am to the corporation, to yourself?”

  “Look, Dyls, I love you, and if it’s a raise your after, I’ll fight for you. But anyone is expendable. Next man up. Fact is, I’m guessing that if you’re thinking of leaving SolipstiCorp it probably has less to do with money and more to do with something else.”

  “Huh . . . that’s . . . actually somewhat accurate.”

  Dylan rubbed his hand through his wavy brown hair and stared momentarily at the bar. Frank surprised Dylan with bouts of lucid logic often enough that Dylan had almost begun to expect it. In fact, he had started to wonder whether Frank’s frenetic personality was an act, or at least used deliberately to further Frank’s good fortune.

  “Let me guess, girl troubles?”

  This was correct, in a roundabout way, so Dylan seized on this opportunity of misdirection to provide a plausible reason for his exit from SolipstiCorp. “You got me,” he replied, shrugging.

  “Well, fuck. So you and Kristina can’t make it work?”

  “It’s . . . well, it’s complicated.”

  “It always is, my friend.”

  A tall, slim bartender with perfect blond hair came over carrying two similarly strange concoctions. Both glowed with an unnatural vibrancy. Frank’s eyes lit up.

  “Shit—sorry, man,” Frank repl
ied before taking a large gulp. “You always liked redheads more anyhow, right?”

  “Yeah. Funny thing, she was talking about dyeing her hair red just before we broke up.”

  “For you?”

  Dylan nodded as he took a gulp of his large green glowing drink.

  “Wow, Dyls. What happened to you guys anyhow? Kristina’s a keeper. Smart as hell, too smart for me. She’s cute. What the hell happened there?”

  In the weeks after his virtTrip, Dylan and Kristina had spent nearly every night together. Feelings he had been repressing came welling back to the surface. “Oh, I don’t know. Well, yeah, I do,” he lied. “Work is my first priority, and she couldn’t deal with that.”

  “Ha! Right,” Frank scoffed. He was now calm and focused. “And what would she say was the problem?”

  “Hmm . . .” Dylan stared at the bar surface again. Under the viscous entrails of his beer’s sweat, text swirled past at a breakneck speed, reporting on the day’s events: rising stock reports, updates on the recent terrorist bombings in Philadelphia, sweltering weather blanketing the globe, and a thoughtful update on Great-Great-Great-Grandma Ethel’s eighty-nine-year-old cat (the oldest on record). Ignoring the rest of the news, Dylan replied, “I guess she would probably say that I wasn’t invested enough, or that I wasn’t entirely there all the time. Or something like that.”

  “And were you?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, but things change, you know? My, well—damn, Frank, I’ll just say it like it is—after my deathTrip I couldn’t look at her the same. I just saw that other woman, and I still do sometimes . . .” His voice trailed off. His recent nights with Kristina hadn’t been easy. He’d hidden feelings of jealousy and anger from Kristina. It worked in the short term, but it would be a problem later . . . if later ever came.

  “Man, it’s no wonder you want to leave SolipstiCorp—that deathTrip of yours fucked you better than a robot whore. Dylan, you didn’t feel that way. Dalton felt that way. Right? I’m sure your psycheDoc wouldn’t be too excited to hear yourself talking about Dalton in the first person—right? I mean, we are on monitored corpSoil here.”