Crash Flux 1: Welcome To The Machine (3 page)

Adon said, “Relax man.  How long have you been working without filters?  You keep working without AR, you are going to get fried.”

Raydin sighed.  Augmented reality was the step between full VR immersion and the real world, where computer images were overlaid over normal sight.  He ran the program, and text scrolled across the upper left corner of his vision.  “Augmented Reality mode activated.  Population Density: 1 person/m2.  Compensating…”  The distances between him and the people around him swelled and expanded, the road grew wider, the buildings grew taller and farther away.  Hundreds of figures disappeared from the crowd, the simulation selectively removing them to create the illusion of more space.  

Raydin heard something, and switched the filter off for a moment.  A group of men with shaved heads, all wearing the same colored t-shirts, were beating a man in a dark alleyway.  A red text relay read, “Admin Warning: turning off AR censorship filter is not recommended.”  Raydin switched it back on, and the people in the alleyway disappeared.  The program reported the incident to the Bulldog Private Security Corporation, the private firm that policed Datcora.  They would show up fifteen minutes later, take a statement, and promptly forget about the incident, as if it never happened.

The text relay continued, “Environmental simulation reactivated, loading...” he looked up as the ceiling was transformed, a wave of color turning the grey chitin into blue sky, with a bright yellow orb that was supposed to be the sun materializing directly above him, though he felt no heat on his skin, no glare as he looked into the light.  Waves of green, manicured lawns and trees surrounded the office buildings, appearing out of nowhere.  In another alley, he felt a presence, and switched off the AR censor.  He saw a man having sex with a teenage girl behind a stack of crates, watched as she clung to the plastic chit in her hand.  Irule put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t look Raydin…”  The scene disappeared from his vision as he restored the AR filter.

The text continued, “Psychological programming commencing.”  The bumps and shoves from those surrounding him were dulled, as a constant stream of polite, “excuse me, pardon me, excuse me…” faded into the background, and thousands upon thousands of two-dimensional screens appeared in mid-air, all broadcasting the same things, three channels repeated endlessly, over and over.

Irule smiled, pointing, “Raydin, your broadcast is about to begin.”

One by one, the screens were all replaced by the image of a starry sky, as the colors and tones for the Conditioned Response triggers activated in sequence.  The screens all winked out, disappeared, turning into twinkling stars as thousands of people sat down in unison.  The buildings disappeared, and the sky became an endless sea of stars, the entire cosmos stretching out before them in all directions.  A few of the people whimpered, years of living indoors triggering their agoraphobia.  Raydin and his friends sat down, so as not to appear suspicious.

A large silver streak flew above them, as it grew closer, it became a silver serpent, with two glowing blue eyes.  Metallic plates formed ridges, forming a gleaming, shining, mechanical dragon, thin and wiry, with a massive wingspan that seemed to engulf the cosmos.  The entire universe seemed to hurl forwards towards the sky as the view zoomed towards its claws.  It opened its palms slowly, revealing inside it a blue orb, with white swirling clouds, and it began to speak.

“Long ago, man lived in harmony with the Earth.  We respected nature, and it, in turn, provided for us everything we needed… food, clothing, shelter.  But man forgot his place in nature as its caretaker, and aspired instead to dominate the Earth.”  The orb grew green, then brown, the clouds became darker and darker, until it resembled the world outside Datcora.  “The Great War came, and the Earth was devastated.  Men scattered to the winds, struggling to survive in the wasteland.  Two Hundred years ago, a group of beings called the Keta set out to design a city, a city that could exist in a land where all the natural resources had been stripped clean, a land with no metal, no lumber, no clean water, no arable land to grow crops.”

The view above them shifted once again, to the fledgling arcology.  “Datcora.” said the dragon.  “Survivors across the continent fled to our nation-city in a desperate gambit to survive the desolate wastes.  They brought with them something they had not had in many years.  A thin, fragile hope.”

“But the Keta had other plans.  They sought to build a perfect city, a city without war, without violence, without pain or suffering.  A world… without freedom.  Abandoning the earth that gave us life, the Keta created an artificial reality, a simulation so advanced that it would allow hundreds of millions of people to experience this utopia simultaneously, but something went wrong.”

“The human spirit would not be confined to an artificial prison.  Soon, men began to seek out the earth, to desire to once again set their feet upon the ground and breath the open air.  The Keta created a complex system of codes, conditioning mechanisms, psychological tricks designed to do one thing, to control the human mind, to deny man his impulses, his intuition, his emotion… his soul.”

“We reacted, desperately trying to escape the city.  The Keta’s vision could not allow for the people of Datcora to leave.  The resulting violence of the exodus revolution led to harsher conditioning, which led to greater violence, an endless cycle that continues to this day.  The emergence of the castes followed in its wake, those privileged few who were selected to serve the Keta living on the surface of Datcora, given the freedom to design their own reality, a fantasy land in which anything was possible.  The Keta played on mankind’s darkest desires, and created an upper echelon, called the Second Estate, to assist in their control.  The Second Estate created the Humantix Corporation to rule over the surface of the Arcology.  The Keta promised them whatever they desired, no matter how vulgar, twisted, or horrific, and in return, they made the Keta disappear.  

Within a generation the Keta were no longer real.  They were a myth, a legend.  A demented fantasy of delirious malcontents, a paranoid delusion shared only by those who were incapable of adapting to the glorious utopia of Datcora.  The Keta created their agents, men selected from birth to serve as ghosts in the machine, called the z-men.  They are all around us, watching us, taking away those closest to us for crimes as petty as listening to subversive music, to spend the rest of their lives in total isolation, alone inside a tank with no sensory input, no human contact, nothing but their own thoughts and feelings.  You can not consciously see or hear them, yet you know they are there.

The image of a silver dragon reappeared above them.  Its synthesized voice rained down upon them, “For years I have been telling you about the second estate, controlled response programming, and the zero men.  Now, I have proof.”  Scrolling down the screen in text too small to perceive with the human eye, at speeds too fast to read, the figure broadcasted the C.R. code that Raydin had appropriated from the Bulldog corporate mainframe for this sector.  “With these codes you can access your own C.R. programming, which you have been subjected to since infancy, through the various media owned by Humantix’ subsidiary corporation, Holografix incorporated.  One set of tones in correct sequence will trigger most of your basic functions.  The memory loss after being triggered is normal, part of the conditioning.  Many who run the cracks of Datcora will have recorded these broadcasts, and are already working on distributing them.  Don’t rely on them to verify what I say is true, use an observer, someone you trust.  Plugging your ears and closing your eyes isn’t enough.  The neural uplinks can censor your audio input and prevent the triggers from functioning, so have your observer turn off their audio function on their neural uplinks as they trigger you.  I have given you the key, it is up to you to set yourselves free.”

The broadcast ended, followed by the media blackout that always followed Raydin’s broadcasts.  The people stood up, dazed, confused.  Some of them immediately forgot, going about their normal routines.  Others looked around, afraid, but the memory lingering in their minds.

They made their way through the maze of skywalks onto the magtubes, crowding their way onto the transport pods.  The service district crept up on them, and Raydin downloaded a good music byte, cranking it up.  He still felt sick, but the music helped a little.  Adon helped him out of the pod, and Irule cleared the way as they struggled through the crowds.

Tired and sore, Adon sighed with relief as he approached the service grid.  The orange lights of the grid dancing off the low, four meter ceilings, the soft glow broken occasional as a glitter-ball spotlighting customers as they walked past.  Past the fence and inside the sales warehouse, they were bombarded by dozens of retailers reselling mass-produced, government contracted, “luxury goods.”

Raydin relaxed and let Irule carry him, while Adon opened the fence securing his tiny storage space.  The flybot accosted him, offering adult vid clips at discounted rates.  Adon swatted at it.

“Go bug a customer.”

The small booth behind the shop’s fence was closed, with an out to lunch sign hung over it.  Adon set Raydin against the fence in front of the store while he waved his universal communications device over the lock, and it clacked open.  The seven foot display was just for show, the hologram was insubstantial and immaterial, not visible from the sides.  The rest were mounted to the ceiling, the speakers above them were turned up so loud the images rippled every time the drum bounced and bass dropped. 

Adon turned down the volume, and spun the chair around so Raydin could sit in it.  Irule slid onto the desk and lit a blackjack, twisting off the cap, and sucking it.  The stick was gone in puff of smoke, while Irule coughed.  Adon sprayed the room with an aerosol, “Damn it Irule, not in here, we have fire sprinklers.”

Irule scowled.  “I’m exhausted.”  She took off her leather top and tossed it in Raydin’s lap.  She rummaged through Adon’s things, her sports bra leaving little to the imagination. “I need to borrow your shirt.”

They heard a lot of grunting and snoring coming from the back room.  They heard Burk fall over in the next room.  “Ohy!  Who put all these boxes here-“, there came a crash followed by the sounds of a large pile of boxes falling.

Adon peered into the doorway.  Burk smiled, and Adon laughed a little.  He offered his hand to Burk, helping him up.  He looked down at the flybots scattered over the floor and dropped him back onto his knees.  “I swear, Burk, if you broke one of these things, I am going to make you pay for it.  Do you have any idea how much these cost?” 

Burk said, “Thanks for nothing.”

Burk started cleaning them up, then did a double take.  Adon gawked as Irule appeared in the doorjamb, wearing a tight black t-shirt, her arms stretched up above her head.  She said, “You look like hell, Burk.”

Raydin shut off his graphics shades for a moment.  Burk was wearing the same workman’s vest he always wore, along with a pair of jeans.  “Nice ‘ta see you, Burk.”

Adon said, “Enough with the hospitality, move your ass out of the way so Raydin can get some down time.”  

Raydin turned his graphics shades back on.  One of the subliminal triggers kicked in, an image of a monkey with a banana giving him the finger.  He stood bolt upright, and exclaimed, “Cool Beans!” Raydin muttered, “Oh, shit…” as he lost his balance and fell. His head hit the floor and Raydin rubbed his forehead.   He yelled, “Damn it!  Why does every infoburst you buy under the table have to have a tagline subliminal built in?”

Burk said, “What the hell was that all about?”

Adon said, “We’re using the same techniques they used to brainwash Raydin.  Positive and negative reinforcement, Pavlovian triggers, infobursting, you name it.”

Irule walked across the room and began rooting through the fridge.  “I think he means the tag, Ace.”

Adon pretended not to notice.  “I was getting to that.  Every hacker has their own signature style.  When people start making their own copies of stuff, sometimes they start adding stuff that isn’t supposed to be there.  The C.R. program we’re using to deprogram Raydin was stolen from a laboratory that tested it on apes before it was released.  The hackers who stole it must have added in some material of their own as a practical joke.”

Irule said, “Burk, you have any more of that contraband?”

Burk said, “Yeah, beers in the bottom of the fridge.”  Adon craned his neck as she bent over to pick one up.  Adon spoke to Burk quietly, “So that’s why you keep it on the bottom shelf…”

Irule said, “What was that?”

Adon said, “Could you get us one too?”

Burk continued, “Wait a minute.  So you’re telling me, some hacker wanna-be stole a program they used on a monkey, then used it to deprogram Raydin?”

Adon said, “Pretty much.”

“So how can you tell what modifications the hackers made to the program?  They could have made him do anything, like jump off a building or convince him he is a dog.”

“There are limits to what you can do with C.R.  You can’t make someone kill themselves, and if someone told him he was a dog he would snap out of it eventually.  They probably didn’t mean any harm, and we can’t afford to blacklist everyone who makes a silly tagline.”

Burk sat down, popped open his beer and said, “Good to see you again, Ray.  Those pit-bull really slammed you with the three day sever order.”

Raydin climbed back up into the chair and said, “They had nothing.”

Irule kicked Burk in the shin.  “You stole my chair, sleaze.”  He got up and she sat down.  She said, “Should have seen him when we picked him up.”

Burk said, “Must be worse for a wirehead like you.  You’re plugged in every tick of every tock.”  

Adon said, “He needs a shower.  Irule, take him to the bathroom to get cleaned up.  We have to finish adjusting the plan.”

Irule said, “Wait a minute…”  Burk interrupted her, throwing a pair of boxers at her face.  She caught them, giving Burk a cold stare.  Adon said, “Get him dressed.”