››Cnapce: It is probably better if you don't call me anything. Easier anyway.
››Malessa77: Easier? Oh god, no. Please don't. This is all we have. ››LthreethreeT: He isn't going to care, Mal. They don't know how. Corporate bullies.
Bully? I fuckin' don't think so. It's just a job, chickie. You and your digi-lez friend are breaking the rules. Time to pay up.
››Cnapce: User ID Malessa77. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation
››Malessa77: No! She didn't hack me! I GAVE her the code! ››LthreethreeT: It wasn't her fault, it was my idea. Leave her alone, you fuckn wage-slave!
››Cnapce: of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement
››Malessa77: This isn't fair. I can't live without her! I'm quarantined! This is the only place we have together! Don't take it away! Don't take HER away!
››LthreethreeT: It's okay, baby. I'll find another SID. This corporate
douche can't keep us apart.
››Cnapce: your account has been
››Malessa77: I luv u, Linda. Whatever happens to me, remember this place. Our dream house. Remember me! I lo››Cnapce: terminated.
Her avatar's perky little B-cups pixel out, and I almost feel bad for her. I hope they don't ban her complete. You know, full disconnect. A suspension. Yeah, that's what her and her friend will get. I'm sure of it. Oh yeah, her friend.
Wow.
I didn't know Pluslife avvies could cry.
Streaks of digital pain and synthesised anguish colour-tint LthreethreeT's rose19 cheeks, and if there was a player-mod for eye beams or aggro-static weapons…my avatar would have just been pwned by the look she is giving me. I actually have that worried tingle in my gut, like the feeling right after cheating on a lover. This is the shite part of my job.
››LthreethreeT: You rotting corporati bastard. You just killed the only thing I loved. I can't afford the med-pass to see her IRL. This is all we have. Had. Past tense. Fuck you.
››Cnapce: Chill. You guys broke the rules. I'm just doing my job. ››LthreethreeT: So I guess you have to do your job on me, too. ››Cnapce: Yeah. I'm sorry.
Sorry? Why the hell did I just txt that? THEY are the rules-breakers. THEY fucked up. Why should I be sorry? Oh well. It's syntax now. It'll fall off the cache when she is gone.
››LthreethreeT: Sorry? You will be. Keep your eyes on the Sydcast news for the next couple of days. My name is Linda Barrows, look for it in the obits. I can't live without her. I'd rather die than go on
knowing she is wasting away in a med-centre alone and suffering
without me.
››Cnapce: No you won't. You won't kil
››LthreethreeT: We both know you don't care. You are a soulless corporate slave marching to the tune that key turning in your back is grinding away. Just fucking get on with it.
She's right. She is just pixels and memory bytes to me. I can't let her slide. This is MY livelihood, after all. I gotta watch out for Player One, you know?
››Cnapce: User ID LthreethreeT. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code.
Her avatar's last emote, standing there naked like she forgot to buy clothes-code, looks at me with sadness scrawled on her face. She is holding a jpeg in her hands. It shows two women, arm in arm. One looks like an athlete, maybe a footie player. The other looks like all the warning ads I have seen about the last big outbreak. She holds it out like a mirror at me, filling my monitor with the image. I have to do this. It's just another job. Heh, @nother job.
››Cnapce: As per said agreement, your account has been terminated.
She closes her eyes the moment before the pixel storm sweeps her away. The jpeg goes along with her. So does the room. The furniture. The drapes. The art. The walls. The entire hab scrambles out and becomes an empty lot with an Ebay page already forming for its auction.
Full disconnect.
Oh well. Job's done. I'm paid. That's what it is all about, right? Keeping your head above water and making your way through RL. Yeah. And all that shit about offing herself? Really? No way. It's just a game. Nobody really dies because of the shit that happens in Pluslife. No way. Digital lives, not real ones.
Wait a sec. My lister just chirped out at me. I must have scored a bonus gig. Exactly what I need to get that melodrama-mama out of my head. I mean, who dies over something like that? Life is never that bad.
››Lister 08.10/
›››User ID: 10 (delinquent account) ›››Location: Cape Town
Great. Another bum not paying his bills.
››Cnapce/port ››Dest/Cape Town//453.10
Time to take out the trash.
Land of the Blind // Charlie Human
Agent HK – Ideological Security Unit
The corporate function of truth is to tell the various parts of the mechanism what to do. Of course it doesn't actually have to be truth, not in the absolute sense. It just has to fit in with the rest of the system. After this last kill, I understand that more so than ever.
My handler Shaw had been a commander in the apartheid security police. He wanted to show me how serious they were so he stopped me turning left for a week. Easy as implanting a neuromuscular programme that told my body that left turns were a no-go. "That's a level one programme" he said. "You're primed for level four." I tried to deviate a couple more times but eventually I just did what he said.
Drew
The factory bleeds iron and vomits sparks. I am luckier than some. Luckier than the endless supply of desperate people from the Rural who transport the ore and drop weekly from respiratory diseases.
I feel it coming on but there is only an hour left before the end of
the day. All the signs are there; the flickering vision, the exhilaration, the hissing of a stove-top kettle and the smell of burning. Taking a break would bring down shit from my supervisor. I carry on working even as the exhilaration builds and the world bleaches out.
I look around, blinking stupidly. Everything is saturated with light. One of the Rurals is pulling my arm and pointing at a spill on the factory floor. What the fuck is he trying to say? I can't tell. Is it oil? But it's too bright. A contorted shape lies next to the spill. I struggle to make sense of it… Joseph.
"Ja, it's like I tell everyone, this is a hard business and people get hurt," my manager says. Somehow I'm in his small office on the factory floor. "I know you have medical condition."
I cross my arms over my chest and huddle in the hard plastic chair. Joseph had been cleaning one of the machines, hunched over it scraping out the metal silt. When I whited out, I fell onto the control panel.
"Listen, I understand you're upset, but you can't blame yourself," my manager says. "Christ, these guys from the Rural can barely read and write, let alone operate machinery properly."
"It was my fault," I say.
"Who the fuck cares, the Riffa is dead," he says. I wince at the slur. My parents were staunch anti-classists, and bigotry directed at Rurals always makes me uneasy. "His family will get paid out and everyone will be happy." He sighs, then hesitates, as if deciding whether to say something. "Andrew, I'm recommending a doctor, a corporate." I look at him, not understanding. I wasn't a Corporate Citizen; I didn't get corporate medical aid. "You're doing valuable work here, and XMET looks after its own," he says.
My phone buzzes with a temporary access card to Waterfront City. He puts a hand on my shoulder, like a fat pink spider.
"Listen, take a break, and spend some time with Kara." Despite everything, I'm surprised he knows my wife's name.
My voice is shaking as I tell her what happened. I hear her little nieces laughing in the background. Playing mommy has taken on an edge lately. Kara says she just wants to give her sister a break, but to me it looks more like practice Or an invitation. Or an ultimatum.