by Olga Werby
“Horrible,” I said. If I could have, I would have shivered then. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t.
“Yeah. He was already broken but being rootless did real damage to him. So after months of having Ghost ghosting us, we did some checking, ran some analytics on him first, of course. We don’t go touching ghouls in The Far Cinct just for kicks.”
“Of course not.” I knew that much now, too.
“But as I said, Ghost was different from other ghosts. He wasn’t a program or malware. He was incomplete, but not toxic. So, we finally confronted him, brought him here, and started to run some hacks to figure him out.”
“So, you discovered his nature by accident—”
“No, we worked it out,” Doc said, bristling at my description. “It was an accidental meeting, but we worked hard after that. We found some scrambled data files—Roman’s memories. There wasn’t enough to make a true human being, but there was so much more there than in an artificial cyber entity. So, we tried to fix what we could. We repaired some connections and gave him a structure from the latest, state of the art neural network brain designs.”
“What?” I didn’t get all that. “Is Ghost a human or an artificial intelligence?”
“Ghost didn’t have enough of Roman left in him,” Doc explained. “He died in rather unfortunate circumstances.” Obviously. “So only an echo of his former self still existed. But that was enough for us to give him a life in cyberspace. Ghost isn’t really Roman. He’s something new. But part of Roman is in there. And we gave him all of the information we could find on him in the historical archives, trying to recreate some of the autobiographical memories.”
“I see.” I didn’t really. I was trying to understand Doc’s explanation and how it applied to me. Was this an option available to me? I didn’t want to die at sixteen. I’d take something over nothing. “So, are you saying you can make me into a ghost like Roman?” I asked.
“He’s dead, Jude,” Doc said.
Good point.
“But we can try to arrange for something if you do die. If you’d like.”
Kids are never worried about telling the truth. They just let you have it—death? No problem. It’s an abstract thing to them. Their brains haven’t even reached the maturity level to tell the nuances of human existence or nonexistence. It’s all just black and white to them, like a cyber ghost. My brain is not fully developed yet either. Back in my psychology class, we learned that the pre-frontal cortex comes online, so to speak, at about twenty-five years of age. I’m sixteen. Roman was fifteen when he died. His brain wasn’t fully online either.
I wanted to find him, look into his cyber eyes. I managed to rotate my head—my lizard girl head—to try and spy Roman in Doc’s little cyber hideout. Was Ghost even in the room? He had been the last time I was here.
“Ghost? Roman? Can you talk to me?” I called. Doc didn’t help. Didn’t even say if Ghost was here with us. Jerk.
I saw something approaching. Roman? It took some time to come closer. It moved like a cat. I tried to focus on him but couldn’t.
“Are you Roman?” I asked.
Something stared at me from just out of my field of view for a very long time. I knew Ghost could talk—I’d heard him. So, I kept trying to catch his eyes. Doc didn’t interrupt.
“Just a memory puzzle,” Ghost said finally.
I knew that already! That’s what Doc just explained. I was angry. I was running out of time! I might be dead soon! I felt panic flood my senses.
“Jude, Jude? It’s okay,” Doc said. He was holding my avatar’s green hand. I couldn’t feel him doing it. It wasn’t like a normal connection to cyberspace. It wasn’t like when I was a real functioning human linking in. I had to look at my hand and acknowledge that it was being held. It was strange. Unnatural.
“…the flu. We’re trying to save you,” Doc kept talking. I had a hard time following what he was saying. It was too confusing. “My mom did this to you. It was a chance. But as far as I know, there is no antidote to death. Not yet. Your dad and mine are trying to keep you alive. Keep your body alive. I’d like to give you more. The molecule does something. I believe it allows this permanent connection to cyberspace. Ghost—Roman is proof of that. I think it’ll work for you, too. I can map you onto a newer model of a cybernetic brain. I can do it. I worked really hard all last week. I know I can do it.” It was no longer we, it was all I, I, I.
“Is it permanent?” I asked. “If Dad manages to save me back there in the real world, will I be stuck in here? Is it a choice I have to make?”
“Yes,” Doc said quietly.
I am too young to die! I cried and screamed. I didn’t remember exiting the program, but the next thing I noticed I was back in my glass coffin.
11. Options
I considered my options. I could lie here forever, or for as long as it took our fathers to figure out how to pull me out of this. While I was trapped, I didn’t have any freedom of communication—I was locked in. It’s the scariest thing in the world. I couldn’t initiate anything. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t ask for help, I couldn’t…I couldn’t…I can’t…I felt…I feel like I’m hyperventilating, but I don’t even really know if I am. If you had asked me before what was the scariest thing about locked-in syndrome, I would have said it was having an itch and being unable to scratch. Can you imagine? Your nose tickles and there is nothing you can do to make it go away! You have to live with the perpetual irritation! It sounds so mundane but just think about it. Think about having a mosquito bite that you can’t scratch, then imagine it going on forever. For infinity…teenagers are allowed to have a bit of drama in their presentation…until the heat death of the universe. That’s what I thought it would be like. But it’s not. I can’t really feel my body. It’s like I’m an ethereal ghost. Just thoughts, nothing else. And no one else. It’s the “no one else” that is really terrifying. I believe humans are made to be social, and, when we can’t engage in contact with others, we wither and die. I’m afraid of losing myself in my own thoughts. I already feel like I’m drifting, unbound but for those messages Doc managed to get to me. I will him to send me another one.
Without external stimuli, there is no time. Thoughts don’t have a time dimension. You can have a million thoughts in a moment, then none for endless moments after that. Time is meaningless here, in my head.
I consider my options. I can lie here forever—wait! Hadn’t I already followed this train of thought? It feels familiar somehow, like a well-traveled road. Damn this.
I consider my options. Dad might be able to save me. Then everything will be like it was before. I would be his little princess again. Well, Ms. Evil would have to go. Didn’t she give me the poisoned apple? Or was it a poisoned needle prick? Hadn’t she made me this way? Did she make Roman this way too? Did they know each other back then? This feels like a new thought. Good. I hate that I might be stuck in a recursive thought loop.
But what if Ms. Evil interferes with my treatment? Can she do that? Can she keep me prisoner in here? Because if she has that power, I need to get out. I need to take option B—become a cyber ghost like Roman. Doc did say he could do a better job this time.
I wish I knew my chances. What was my chance of getting better without Ms. Evil’s interference? Or my chance of getting trapped in a coma until I die? That would be bad. Don’t want that. What was my chance of still being me after being reconstructed into a digital-only entity? I think I’d still be me. I have a very strong personality.
I wonder how many other Ghost-like beings are in cyberspace, wandering around The Far Cinct? It can’t be just Roman, can it? He died almost two decades ago. There had been plenty of time to have others die under similar circumstances. Doc’s dad had been working on his secret project for years. Well, it was a secret to me. Or was it secret because it was difficult to understand? I didn’t really pay attention to the things my dad or Doc’s dad did—kids don’t care very much about grownups’ problems or their jobs.
Dad didn’t talk to me about what he did. Or did he and I just didn’t pay attention? I don’t remember now. I was such an airhead. Well, I’m just sixteen.
I consider my options. What would a permanent life in cyberspace be like? Would I still go to school? They couldn’t make me, could they? Are there laws for things like that? Wait, do people even know that there are real people in cyberspace? I’d never heard of it. But Doc said that Roman’s cyber-molecule, or whatever, made the transfer easier. Or was that possible? Did he say possible? Or had I just made this up? I’m not sure.
I consider my options—wait! No, no. No!
12. Second Dream
I wake up walking on a street in The Far Cinct. I recognize that I’m there even though I’d never been on this particular street before. Like walking in Paris or New York City, you’d always know. It’s early morning or evening—the light around me is that particular shade of pink and the shadows are long. There are lights in the windows. There is no real reason to have diurnal variations in cyberspace; it just makes visitors feel better when The Far Cinct time aligns with the real world’s schedule. But really, out in cyberspace, it’s just the same hour over and over again. The variations are just for human convenience. I like variety, so I enjoy the twilight.
He falls in with me without my noticing, and we walk together for quite some time. When I finally realize he is there, I’m too embarrassed to acknowledge him. He doesn’t talk. He walks slightly behind me on all fours, sucking up the pink light, a shadow all unto himself.
“Jude?” he calls, after he is sure that I’m sure that he is there.
“Ghost?”
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I consider his question. “Compared to what?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “To the real you?”
I don’t reply right away. I take stock. I can feel my legs and arms—this is better than my last visit to cyberspace. I was too disconnected then. Now I feel more like I did when I used the CT connector at home. My human perceptions seem to line up with my cyber experiences.
I try to reach out to my human body like I could before, but that part doesn’t feel right. I can’t move. That me is disconnected, unfeeling, lost. This me is better.
Ghost doesn’t push me for an answer. He just walks next to me. It feels nice. Supportive.
“Did Doc arrange this again?” I ask without answering his question.
“Doc figured out how to hook you up.”
“Good. It’s scary to be unmoored like that,” I say. “I need to talk to people.”
“I’m no longer people,” he says.
“You’ll do.”
“Thanks.”
“Where’s Doc?” I immediately feel guilty for asking. I’ve just told Ghost he was good enough.
“Doc is keeping your dad and stepmother occupied.”
“So, I can visit here?”
“We all wanted to see if this would work.”
“Thank you, Ghost.” I mean it. I am so thrilled to walk on a street, even a virtual one. I felt like I was losing my mind back there, in the glass coffin. I still feel a bit out of it. Things take time to click together to form coherent ideas. I ask, “It worked the first time, didn’t it?”
“What?” Ghost is no conversationalist himself, although there is no way to know if he have always been this way. My guess is that Roman was never a talker, even back when he was a human boy.
“The first time you brought me here,” I clarify. “I spoke with you and Doc. You asked if I wanted to become like you, remember?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. Even with his expressionless cat face, I can tell he thinks there’s something wrong.
“We never took you here before.” Then he adds, “You came on your own that first time, when you brought Doc. But we never brought you here before. It took some time to set this up.”
Now I look at him like he is crazy. “You asked me to make choice. I could choose to be like you and give up my life as a human or I could try and wait it out while my dad and Doc’s dad find a way to get me out of my coma.”
“I see,” he says. We continue walking. The street narrows. The buildings on either side of us start to lean in, turning the street into a strange kind of tunnel. It is unnerving. I feel like Alice in Wonderland after eating one of the magic cakes except I’m still the same size. The world around me seems to deflate.
“What’s happening?” I ask. I find that I’m not really concerned at all, just curious.
“We are strolling into the Perception Manipulators’ hood,” Ghost says. “It gets stranger.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Where would you like to go?” he asks.
“I think I would like to find someplace we can talk,” I say. “I have questions. I’ve been thinking about my options, and I just don’t have enough information to make an informed decision.”
Ghost wraps his long black tail around my wrist and twists me in a new direction. My eels love his tail and swarm toward it. Well, at least I know where they stand. My hair snakes flutter in the evening breeze; they ignore the love affair between Ghost’s tail and the eels. Be that way. Everyone is a critic.
Ghost and I slip past a little store selling acoustic musical instruments. Somehow, I don’t believe any of those pianos and trombones actually play music. Another turn and I’m pulled into a dark studio. A soft melody plays somewhere but I can’t tell the direction.
“Would you like something to drink or eat?” Ghost asks.
“I can do that?” I figured that the one thing I absolutely had to give up, becoming a purely digital being, was food. “How does that work?”
“It’s no different from seeing or listening,” Ghost explains while we sit down at a low table at the back next to the bar. “Didn’t you notice you could smell things around here?”
I haven’t noticed but now that I try, I get a whiff of something strange. Not bad, just unusual. I vaguely remember I have an app for that—Aroma-Hue or something. It pairs smells and colors. But how would a red color smell? How would it taste? Like a red-hot pepper, or a red delicious apple, or a ripe tomato, or red licorice?
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The hackers in here work on cross-sensual experiences.” He gives me a quick look, just like a cat. “Not in a sexual way, but as in senses.”
“I got that,” I reassure him, but I get the full range of possibilities. I do have an imagination and I’m not a child, after all.
“So, what will you have? A rainbow spritz? A shadow call? A cat’s meow?” he asks.
“They all sound like they should be served at a kid’s birthday party. What do you drink?”
“It’s been a while,” he says. “After I became…”
He loses himself there and I have to help. “A ghost?”
“I was lost for long, long time, Jude. I had no idea of what I was or where I was. I hid in the cracks of The Far Cinct’s underbelly. It wasn’t pretty.”
“I’m sorry, Ghost. I didn’t mean—”
“No, no. I am not seeking pity.” His cat features are more difficult to read than a human face, but I’m getting better at deciphering them. Ghost is uncomfortable with me, but he is trying.
“Please go on,” I say. I’m trying too.
“When I died, I didn’t know right away,” he begins after wrapping himself in his super long tail. “How would I know? I just found myself wandering around the city. I didn’t even remember that I could disconnect, you know? And I was scared of people. I noticed that everyone shied away from ghosts, so I took on that appearance. It bought me time. I learned where to hide and where to go if I got bored. I was even hired a few times for small security hacking jobs. But it wasn’t until I noticed Doc that I started to remember things. Vague things. Doc thinks it’s because he looks like his dad, but I don’t remember his dad.”
“You don’t remember Tom Blake?”
“No.”
“
He was your best friend, wasn’t he?”
“So Doc tells me. But I don’t remember him, not really, not in the way you mean.”
“Do you remember working as a cyber-moleculist? Or your project?” I push. But Ghost just shakes his head. He looks sad, uncomfortable. And I feel bad for asking. “I’m sorry,” I say sheepishly.
“Don’t be. I remember some things, but not everything. But at least I exist.”
Now that’s exactly what I want to hear—at least I exist. “I want to exist too,” I say and discover that my cyber eyes can cry. Nifty.
“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “Doc sent me to tell you that we can hook you up while your dad and Tom are working on getting you better.”
“You mean I don’t have to die first?”
“Why would you want to?”
“I thought…” I think back to the conversation. I’m pretty sure Doc said I had to choose. Real life or life in cyberspace—two mutually exclusive options. But maybe I’m just not processing the information right. I’m unconscious, after all. “So, are you telling me there is a way of hooking me up into this avatar while I’m in a coma?” I ask.
“That’s what Doc and his friends want to do,” Ghost says. “I’ll help. And I’ll keep you company in here, if you like, when Doc and all can’t be around. I will keep you safe. I promised Doc.” He seems very sincere. He is like a kid, but he is Doc’s dad’s age… or he would have been if he lived out in the real world. Time is a strange beast in cyberspace.
“Time!” I remember. “Are we good? Can Doc keep Ms. Evil away from me for this long?”
“He said he’d send a signal,” Ghost tells me. “But it’s only been a few seconds. I think we’re good.”
“Only a few seconds.” I consider the dark, dust-gray cat across from me. “You lived all alone out here for decades. How did you do it?”
“I was lost for most of it, remember?”
“Still…”
“I’m grateful for the life I have. And I am very grateful for Doc, and Pixie, and Sleazy, and Slick. I no longer feel so empty. And I would love to be your friend, too.” He is so bashful the way he says it, it’s funny. A bashful cat. I break down laughing, and he laughs with me. I’ll be okay.