New Mode

.CHAPTER(TWO) - Part 1/2

PollPlace.com – National Survey: Majority of US Consumer's Blame Automation for Their Economic Woes

...found that 6 out of 10 Americans identified 'technology and automation' as their largest concern with the economy and the rate of unemployment. Nearly 9 out of 10 ranked it within their top five overall concerns facing the country. These figures are down slightly since sweeping reforms to minimum wages and mandated human labor hour laws were signed into action late last year, however responses suggest consumers have not yet felt the effects of the changes to legislation, and that unions and labor advocate groups are not doing enough for their...

.CHAPTER(TWO)

Ian and Ciprian emerged into the heady cocktail of aromas that was uniquely C-Port, the malignant growth on the underside of the already metastasized tumor that was D.C.'s floodplains. Dark brown puddles of the Potomac lapped at the husks of towers long gone dark. The wet cement wore the stench like a perfume. Steamed dumplings, urine, compost and heavy fuel smoke blended together. The smell gave Ian simultaneous sensations of nausea and the comfort of home.

He and Ciprian moved through the crowds with a swiftness afforded only by years of practice, passing food stalls and smoke filled gambling dens and adclouds in jumbled bits of English and Mandarin, their ambient glows webbing together to blot out the sky. Pupiless eyes stared out at Ian through the frosted glass windows of jack cafes. Faces like static, bodies crumpled over in their recliners like discarded plastic bags, minds exploring dimensions unseen, at least until their paid hour ran out and they could scrape enough together in the offline world for another hour of 'getting back home,' as they called it.

Ciprian followed him as Ian turned into a doorframe tucked several feet back from the street. "It started already," Ciprian said.

Ian shrugged and swiped the TAC unit fused to the underside of his left wrist against the door's small panel of reflective black alloy. A beep through his audio relay confirmed the payment. Ciprian repeated the gesture and followed.

They took seats at the back of the theater. Overhead, holographic blocks of azure and ruby light were pulsing into and out of existence a million times a second, cycling through thousands of arrangements before it was possible to become aware of the previous thousand. The half dozen attendees' upturned faces shone with a slick reflectiveness, features cast in hard plastic, empty stares like those flesh dolls wiped clean of their drivers.

Ciprian leaned in towards Ian, his eyes somehow as brown and alert as ever. "Funny isn't it?"

Ian clawed his matted auburn hair back from his forehead and wiped the accumulated sweat on the armrest. His body felt as if it had been welded to his chair's vinyl contours. "What is?"

"All this." Ciprian nodded upwards at the shuffling blocks of light.

Defragging they called it, Ian had once been told by an oldtimer chiphead the word had been an ancient terms for rearranging data on long obsolete mechanical storage drives. Advancements in neural augmentation had injected the word with new life- bombardments of just the right wavelengths and frequencies to induce an effect similar to a low-grade psychotropic drug, distorting the brain's short-term storage of sensory input. Lowtechs, with their consumer grade augmentation, and hollowheads, rejecting all forms of implant augmentations, didn't know what they were missing.

"It's patterns," Ian said. His own voice sounded as if it was coming from somewhere far away. "Patterns with certain meanings to the brain."

"That's what's funny."

"Funny how?" Ian had been enjoying a peculiar awareness of the section of his head which he imagined to contain his frontal lobes. Something told him Ciprian was about to jeopardize his buzz.

"There's no real meaning to any of it," Ciprian said. He was hard to mistake for an optimist, not without several illegal compounds rattling through him, and usually that was fine with Ian. They'd been through enough to excuse Ciprian's occasional spell of endless complaints. Still, there were times Ian missed the Ciprian he'd once known. Before Johanna.

In those days they had been amongst The Mode's elite, working with the group to bring down a Virginia Senator with presidential aspirations on corruption charges. Yet while scripting a new payload injection system with one of the hacktivists' top members, Ciprian had inadvertently discovered a leak which enabled them to piece together each other's offline identities. Ian knew Ciprian would never have had any interest in exposing The Mode's leadership, but it was like learning you and your neighbor had each just been armed with a full atomic arsenal. If any dispute were to arise, the only survivor would be whoever struck first. So The Mode did.

His alias blacklisted, Ciprian was reduced overnight from netninja to an unknown cyberjunkie, years of hard earned reputation within the community undone with a few keystrokes. Ian's own alias barely survived the reputational damage, all The Mode had known was that his alias had collaborated with Ciprian's on a few past projects. Ian had no doubt that if The Mode had known the whole truth about his friendship with Ciprian he would have received the same swift judgement.

Not that Ian cared much, neither he nor Ciprian had much appetite left for working with anyone like The Mode anyway. Not after what had happened to Johanna. There was too much at risk working like that. Far more than they had realized...

"Our brains are pattern matchers right?" Ciprian said. The lights continued fizzing and popping above them. "Simple algorithms. Predator, danger. Prey, food. Pattern detection, but not meaning. If I see a predator and ignore my brain's impulse to run and get eaten, nothing changes. It doesn't mean anything."

"For fuck's sake," Ian groaned. It had been Johanna's disappearance that had ultimately left Ciprian like this. Ian knew that at some level Ciprian could not help it. But he also knew the buzz he had been cultivating was being placed in serious danger. Already the thrumming lights seemed dimmer, more distant. "You're fucking up my rush."

"It's just an illusion." When Ciprian got this way his negativity was a contagion bred for mass extinction. A cure or vaccine was impossible, the best you could hope for was a sustained remission.

"Then you're fucking up my illusion." Ian tore his eyes from the lights. "If you're just going to complain why do you even like coming here?"

Ciprian grinned, his lips warping like strips of superheated copper. "Because my brain doesn't know the difference!"