The recent implant on Doug's right arm itched where the skin was fusing with the metal, nerves with wires. It was an upgrade to his current system. It took all of three paychecks to afford and itching the skin around the circular connection ports all down his wrist could effect his body into rejecting the implants.
Some damned expensive itch, Doug thought. He rewrapped his arm in gauze. He ran a finger lightly over the line of five bumps. He opened his right hand slowly. Fingers still sore, Doug thought. He stood, grabbed his coat, and left for The Drifter five blocks away.
The open sign wavered on the stone wall. The Drifter was the scummiest bar in the north side of the city. Like other hacker hot spots the scummy aspect of the bar was a ploy to keep everyone that didn't already know of the bar's existence out. Everything was clean. Exceptionally clean. It just looked dirty.
Doug opened the door and descended into what some would call the fifth ring of hell. He held up three fingers to the bartender who nodded. Hipsters of all kinds sipped drinks and chatted amongst each other. A dark haired woman looked up. Fara Voniview Her youthful eyes glistened for a moment in the light above her table. She looked back down. Doug approached her.
"You're late. Again," she said.
"Yeah. Got work done to my arm today. Hurts like hell," Doug said.
"What did you get? USB input ports?" she said.
"Shit. Any terminals use USB anymore? Fuck. I got the new Z49 hand input installed."
"Let me see it already."
"It still hurts. Can't touch the skin. It itches till it burns sometimes." Doug sat beside Fara. He shook his coat off and slowly unwrapped his arm. The plugs glistened.
"You didn't want the wireless one?"
"Eh, extra three hundred for it. Plus you can't always connect if you need to."
(This refers to a point earlier in the story where I was thinking about having someone close to Doug die or get maimed from a wireless devise he was using at the time. And it turns out later that people can track you down if you don't turn off the signal.)
"Right," Fara said. She downed the rest of her drink and signaled for another. "Try it out yet?"
"Hell no. I can't even touch it let alone activate it. Shit. This is illegal to have." Doug wrapped the gauze back around his arm.
"Do you listen to everything the Docs say? Hey look at what just walked through the door."
Doug looked towards the door. A nearly seven-foot and almost half as wide man stood scanning the bar, his chest was heaving.
"You think he's on fluids?" Doug asked.
"Fluids? No. Don't know if his brain is all there though."
"Why's that?"
"Look at him. He's obviously is looking for someone and hasn't stopped for long enough to catch his breath. And, here is the kicker, he hasn't ordered a drink."
The bartender sat two drinks down on Doug and Fara's table. One had a yellowish tint and the other a bluish.
"Thanks. Both on my account," Fara said.
"No problem." The bartender walked back behind the bar and inputed several numbers before clearing the screen.
"He's coming over here." Doug slunk into his coat.
The big man pulled out a chair and studied both Doug and Fara's faces. His left iris was red and it spun three-quarters of a clockwise turn. "Douglas Fairborne."
"Him?" Fara asked.
"Me? What do you want me for?" Doug asked.
That's it so far. I am trying to incorporate more technology terms. Things that we used everyday into the story instead of words that might fit better. Computer terms. Also, I am creating the main character Doug in respect for my Uncle Doug. The character has a few computer inputs to connect directly into terminals. My uncle has to have brain surgery this coming Thursday to remove a hand-shaped growth that is effecting his brain.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the above removed post. I noticed a major typo.
ReplyDeleteAnyway,
I think this is an interesting idea. Sorry to hear about your uncle.
I am trying to understand the politics that you a bringing up in the story. From the excerpt you posted I am gathering that you are confronting the political tensions between humanity and modern technology. Sort of, a comment on humanities advancement into an un-human environment. IF this is the case than I would suggest you push this story-line as far as you can possibly push it without becoming absurd. This, in my opinion, would place you in an unique position to discover new things about yourself/ make new discoveries about humans interaction with technology.
Best of luck on your writings. You are a very effective fiction writer.
Q,
ReplyDeleteOk. I think I'm always going to end up posting on your stories, because you're touching on stuff that I think is really relevant. People are actually doing this stuff -- figuring out ways to send neural messages like touch or sight, over the internet, and into the body of another person. The kind of power -- or level of intimacy-- that would give somebody would probably be illegal for a good reason. It could also potentially completely change the ideas behind point of view -- suddenly you CAN have a character that is able to see into another's head, or characters that share everything. OR -- even weirder, you could have characters that switched neural outputs, so that one person feels entirely what the other character does, and visa versa. But maybe I'm getting a little carried away.
If you're trying to be a little more into hardware, check out http://www.merentha.org/tas.asp -- its a run down of this book called This Alien Shore by C.S Friedman. The writing is a little meh, but the concept is AMAZING:
a) interstellar web-space
b) a web hookup in your brain that you activate with a small headband device -- anywhere, any time access. Kind of terrifying.
c) realistic space travel
d) class struggle
If you've got the time, check it out.
I think this concept is really cool as well. I haven't really read Kyles (mainly because his posts are too long), but I'm interested in seeing how these fit together. It sort of reminds me of Wolverine, when he had that iron and everything injected into his bones, and then sort of iron man when he was running off that thing in his heart. I think this is toned down enough though so it's scarier because it's more realistic. I want to see what happens between people who have these devices implanted in them, to what lengths they go to get information, and what bad things happen to them in the process. I think it'd be cool to see really good things happen and then really bad things - maybe it gives him powers to understand women better, but also destroys part of his brain that deals with depth perception or something. I think the technology subject is really important to hit on this day in age so, agreeing with Tim, I would push this as far as you could without making it TOO out there. What is he hacking? What does he want?
ReplyDeleteAlso exploring the detriments of literally having too much power, in this case, information could be interesting. You know those commercials where people are babbling different search-word phrases? I read a short story a few years ago about just that; people who were so jacked into the internet that information sickness/overload was a very real disease. People talking in tongues and stuff. Anyway, I think it's a cool concept in the cyberpunk realm of sci-fi writing. I think there's a lot of room for different ways to explore power here, from the interface of technology and humanity (i think particularly here there's a cool area to explore...if this implant starts to take HIM over) to the conflicts between politic power and information distribution among the populace and anything that comes with other humans strictly rebelling against any kinds of implantation whatsoever.
ReplyDelete