‘I love it, Sal,’ he said, staring at the globe. ‘You know what it needs? Coordinates. Haven’t you been sewing again lately? Make a path, across the sphere, from you to me. Pin point every moment we meet, every special event, when the little guy was born - ’ Johnny paused, his eyes flashing in the HoloSphere. The image rezzed out completely. He was gone.
Vines /
She sat with the vines at her feet, coiling them in to a globe. The sphere slowly began to take shape, and the pile of vines at her feet lessened. She flicked on the HoloSphere and Johnny rezzed in to place. Something was off tonight. The holograph flickered, as if in acknowledgement of the feeling of foreboding coming over Sally.
Back in the Day /
‘We had back up, ya know, Sal? As kids. We had TV and shows and music that taught US, where our schools, pastors, community leaders failed. We had this back up fail safe. You could still look on your TV, and find a friend, or a father figure, when yer own let you down. Today's kids - they don't get this no more. They get corporations and tablets and streaming - and it's all jacked, tilted, upside down - teachin’ em the wrong things. The bad things.’ Johnny paused a moment, sighing, trying to turn over. ‘You got the list I sent you?’
Sally looked down at her hand in the HoloSphere. His note was even in his hand writing. ‘I got it.’
‘Pick them up for him, okay? It's the books I liked when I was little.’
A Message /
'There - you see there, Johnny? The women in the television show - the clothes change, based on who's watchin' the program. It tilts, from my angle, to yours. An overlay, so they get the most bang for their buck - direct advertising to each individual, the same show, shown from different angles.'
'Well, yea, Sal, they gotta increase their profits somehow and this allows more buyers, more advertisers investin.''
'But not the doormats. The doormats never change, not even seasonally. Zoom in.'
He narrowed his gaze and the television zoomed in to the mat on the foyer entryway. 'What's them patterns, Sal?'
'A message. A very specific message.'
Uncanny /
‘Johnny, are you seeing this?’ she whispered to her husband through the HoloSphere. ‘It’s crazy, everyone’s attacking each other an-’
‘Yea, I see it, Sal. What does it look like on your end?’
‘I dunno, just everyone flipped out on each other all of a sudden.’
‘I heard some guys screaming from the rooms down the hall - they’re hallucinating that each other are Uncanny - they’re not seeing reality. The AI we’s got built a bridge of trust, so it’s alright, Sal. Whatever they’re seeing ain’t real. I think they got uploaded with a virus. Just sit tight, we’ll see how long we have to wait this one out.’
Dolts /
‘They still think we’re stupid, Johnny,’ Sal spat, chewing on her hamburger. ‘These dolts from overseas come here, steal our academia, pretend to be US and our ancestors, and then rewrite our papers, our history, our science - it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘I know, Sal, I’ve seen it, they did it on the military bases, too. Come over, enlist, raised with a false sense of confidence - they think they already won US, Sal, that we’re already their captives. They’s just usin’ the data they collect, and rewritin’ it as they own.’
SubSpace /
'It was a key,' Sally said to the researcher. 'A harmonic tone. A varying algorithm, a tilt of the lilt, to alter thermodynamic pathways in the cerebellum, to alter his function. Keys can be replicated, and swapped,' she said. 'No One Tunes A Man. He isn't an instrument.' She looked at Johnny's holograph, pacing the room, his body now slowly decaying under their tombstone. 'He's going to be back, one day.'
Identifier /
‘It's not looking good for Jimmy, Sal. Susie got his EKG reading. His heart - his arrythmia - it looks like it's gone.’
‘But ain't that a good thing, Johnny? I thought those were bad.’
‘Not for him, Sally. It was his Identifier. What made him special, what made him tick so smart. It looks like the device was implanted during that so called stripper outing him and Susie have been fighting about. I checked a few guys, multiple sources, to see if anyone was covering for him. He was drugged, uploaded with a virus, and he's got this implant altering his heartbeat. It changes his personality, aspects of it. I'm gonna have to get it out of him, Sally.’ He looked at her from his wheelchair.
‘I know you got this. I'll cover the door.’
GRID /
‘I don’t get it, Johnny, what’s going on?’
Everyone was freaking out. Some people hallucinating, others acting out skits from the past. Some didn’t recognize each other or their loved ones.
‘What’re your eyes tellin’ you, Sal?’
‘That I’m sitting at home, talking to you through the HoloSphere.’
‘Okay, that’s good. That’s real. I had to hack in to the GRID, Sal. Upload some data. It took over a few minds, but as it renders their brains - it’ll let US know.’
‘Know-?’ she paused, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.
‘Know who’s a friendly and who’s not, know their background history, know what they’re capable of. Jimmy and I - back on the base, we got to talking. Would anyone even enlist anymore if they knew how they’d end up? So I got to thinking. It’s okay, Sal, just stay home, indoors, keep the blinds closed.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m safe here, because you’re safe there.’
Sally got up from her chair and walked around the house, closing the blinds like he told her.
‘It’s gonna render some data, Sal. And then it’s progress some of US, to see what our futures will look like if some survive, if some don’t, if some get hurt - then it’s gonna figure out who best to approach next, and how to protect US in the meantime.’
Sally sat back in her chair at her desk. ‘Okay, Johnny, love you.’
The Call /
‘The call went up, Sal, from overseas.’
‘You're redeploying?’
‘That's what they want, but, no, Sal. I ain't leavin’ you and the little guy. Jimmy got eyes and ears on them - they's lookin’ like US, but ain't no shared culture no more. Seems Asia and India already engineered Europe and Africa. Won't be drawin’ US in to another war to go save our cousins. Our real cousins are here or dead. Time to shore up the borders. Once they get word we ain't comin’ to them, they'll be on the way.’
You'll Know /
Space is just a matter of scale here, Sally wrote back from the other side of the screen on her tombstone. Time is flowing differently. Every decision you make, I see more outcomes. Just stay alive, Johnny. You'll know when to find me.
Love
Sally
Collapse /
I found a way, Sal. To collapse consciousness. You won't be in that grave for long.
Love,
Johnny
We the People /
‘It's time to let the People know, Sal. As many as you can find. I heard these doctors talkin’ the other day. They were talkin’ about reaping our minds for data. They're gonna drug everyone in the country. Upload nannites, create organoids from their own tissue. Psych evals from the inside out. Then, -’ Johnny hushed his voice. ‘-then they're gonna make US hallucinate. They're using projected energy from these UAPs, and it's hooked up and rerouted through phones, wire towers, servers - it’s gonna be like a hologram is followin’ our people, whispering things to ‘em, tellin’ ‘em where to go, what to buy - It's like they're kidnapping our people from the inside out.’
Sally gasped.
‘Don't worry Sal - just get the word out. Information is powerful.’
Dilution Field /
‘What's that, Sal?’
‘It's a particle dilution field. It dilutes a person's particles down to another form - ants, bugs - doesn't matter. Something tiny, harmless, innocuous. I transfer the Soul of the original particle field, into the diluted containment field. The world leaders fight it out there.’
‘Can you throw 'em into a hard drive? Make it virtual reality so we can watch.’
The Other Side of the Screen /
‘Jimmy's been picking up on it, at the base. The neural netting all the recruits get, it diagnostics their cerebellum, speech movements and eye fluttering first. So we can learn how they speak - consciously, subconsciously, verbally, everything. Lately all the kids - the language they use, it’s similar to computer terms, things programmers would say to diagnose a computing problem, except these kids are applying the terms to themselves. He thinks they were premodded, Sal, some of them, birth to now. Already part computer, if not physically, in how they learn and communicate with the world. Jimmy thinks it's a subcoding program, something Sentient, something slowly watching and modifying these recruits, from the other side of the screen.’
Dream Catcher /
‘I call them Dream Catchers, but they ain't catchin’ no dreams, Sally, they's stealin’ people's souls. It's like that neural netting thing the doctors kept telling you about, for me, ya know for ‘treatment,’ but it ain't treatin’ nothin.’ It’s ejecting people, from their own bodies, pushin’ them in to tiny little corners of their brains, and then other things take over. Other updates, other dreams, other…behaviors. From what I can tell, they's specifically targeting anyone still believing in the American Dream. Sal - they're trying to catch American souls. And chain US.’
Mars for Mommies /
‘What's this, Sal?’ asked Johnny. He put the pamphlet he just finished reading down on the coffee table. He adjusted the baby over his shoulder, patting his back slightly to get the air out. ‘Burrrrp.’ ‘Good job, little guy,’ Johnny soothed in to his ear.
‘It's a story - for the women going. Not enough of them studied biology, or had life experience around children, or men. Everything was astrophysics,’ Sally said.
‘I love it. Make another for the guys, I'll get it to them. Call it Boobs on Mars.’
Neurologian /
‘Neurologian? What's that, Sal'?’
‘What I started callin’ your doctors. They're idiots. Heretical. Blasphemers. How can they call themselves American, Johnny, when's they tryin’ to make US Act like we's puppets or somethin’? Ain't no shame in needin’ help or implants or physical therapy, prosthetics, but these people are freaks. They act like they're God, like they designed US, like they's get to decide-’
‘I know, Sal. I know. They's ain't American. They're paid stooges. The good thing is though, money always leaves a trail.’ He put down his spoon for his slop. ‘We know they ain't spendin’ no money on our food, or our care- There's always a trail to follow.’
A Sigh of Relief /
‘I got the deal, Sally, finally.’ Johnny sighed a sigh of relief. ‘They're coming through on the manufacturing end. I've got everybody covered. Caravan cars, tent cities. Everything's convertible. If someone loses their job, or a state or city gets attacked, everyone's getting a vehicle they can modify along the way into a temporary shelter. I got ‘em setting up storage facilities along the way and-’
Sally looked at him, smiling. Johnny hadn't been this happy in years, not since his accident. Her smile stopped him mid sentence. He smiled back at her.
‘It's good right?’
She looked at their son, playing with the toy train circling the Christmas Tree. ‘It’s better than good.’
Rewiring /
‘Those ain't vitamins, Sal, and the doc didn't give Jimmy his prescription either. All that's worse than poison. I got a guy on the docks, another at the supply chain, one more at the distribution center - everything's nannitic now. Everything's eatin’ up our friends and family, changin’ ‘em from the inside out.’
‘Rewirin’ ‘em?’ Sally rubbed her stomach, more concerned than before for their child.
‘Yea. Don't worry, Sal. I got US covered.’