WAKE UP PARTY

Vince Oldman sat down at his brand new, all inclusive holographic laminated simulated home entertainment N-plex unit, after a hard day's work at the Ratbaz plant repairing broken Ratbaz modules. It had taken him several years to save up for the down payment on this, but it was worth it, for at long last, after decades of consuming, he was in possession of the product of his dreams.

Trembling, he punched the ON button, which promptly sprang out of its recess and flew across the room. Before his eyes, the console noisily deconstructed itself.

Suddenly apoplectic with rage, Vince got up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea before phoning the N-plex after sales support number with a few choice obscenities. As he added the milk it flopped out of the carton in a great mouldy blob splashing him with scalding hot tea before floating up to the top of the cup in little flakes and bloblets. He threw it away with a "Yeuchh" and went straight to the phone.

After ten rings he got a recording telling him he was in a queue, which repeated itself a dozen times before running down and grinding to a halt.

The trip to the sales shop took several hours. At first he foolishly attempted to make use of his car which stalled before reaching the end of the street. When he tried to start it again the battery and oil warning lights came on and the starter motor made a grinding, slow, horrible tortured sound. The second time the warning lights came on, very faintly, and the starter made a sound like a tape recording running down, before it stopped working altogether.

After getting out and pushing the dead motor to the side of the road Vince went to the bus stop and waited in vain for a number 5, but nothing arrived, and after forty-five minutes he got up and walked.

He entered a run down area of town. The pavement was cracked, shop fronts shuttered and boarded, broken glass and mounds of rubbish piled up in the street. Grey, toothless figures shuffled about, shrouded in rags. At first he thought he had entered some hellish slum until he saw a street sign that read

Finally he made it to the N-plex shop which stood out by virtue of being the only building which still had unbroken glass in its windows.

A neon sign blazed cheerfully into the almost deserted street. This was it. Drawing on all his reserves of utter indignation, Vince walked in.

Within lay a perfectly normal salesroom, complete with overlit matt white designer decor, smartly dressed sales assistants demonstrating the units to the usual happy consumers.

Well this is one consumer who won't be giving great recommendations, thought Vince grimly, what this stuff has done to my brain is criminal.

A pretty receptionist greeted Vince and showed him to the manageress' office.

The severely dressed manageress asked him to sit down while a flunky bought coffee. He sat there for a while, toying with the plastic toblerone-shaped piece of plastic that bore her name-ANNETTE HACKNEY- while he figured out what to say.

Finally, he could stand it no longer.

"Do you know what you bastards have done to me?"

She gave him a conciliatory look. "Well, I'm sure I can explain...you've obviously suffered a manufacturing or possibly a software defect; it happens. You'll be re-imbursed in full."

"I could tell that when my unit fell apart in front of my eyes! What I want to know is how your company's going to recompense me for the side effects your so-called NP unit has brought on, I've been suffering severe hallucinations ever since I used that thing, manifestations of entropy that-"

"If I could just-"

"-might never go away. What -the - hell -is it with you people, what the fuck is wrong with you? Your products just wrecked my brain and you're just sitting there-"

"There are no hallucinations."

"What? But that's crazy; that means, that- that I'm..."

"That's right. You're still in N-plex. There's no problem, the things just go a bit wrong sometimes, but there's never any permanent damage. Do you know how difficult it is to program the human brain?"

"N-no."

"Well, it's not like programming one of those old computers, that's for sure. Back in the old days everyone thought silicon was the way to go; someone your age wouldn't remember of course, but I can remember when everyone thought that computers would change the way we live. But of course we ran into that raw materials problem, the gallium mines all gave out. We found ourselves with a load of old circuit boards rotting away and we had to find something else. Fenris and Garry, building on existing electro-magnetic research, found that it was possible to make portions of the brain work like a computer memory and processing unit using induction fields, and that unused portions of the brain could become, as they used to say, the ultimate personal organiser. And the rest is history."

"So fuckin' what?!? What's it to me?" Vince had become even more hysterical and aggressive following the revelation that he wasn't even there.

Anyway, what if this woman was fucking with his head, trying to make him think he was sitting around in a fantasy world gone wrong so he'd just slink off, go nuts, and not sue? He was hip, he watched that fat guy’s documentary, that The Terrible Truth, he knew what those corporate types were capable of. And now he'd fallen into their clutches. The thought made him tremble with fear.

"Well, back in the old days," she burbled, "when we still had computers that sat on your desk and not inside your head, they used to go wrong, too, and it's funny, you know, because it was hard to tell straight off what was wrong. You see, the components were so small, so infinitesimally tiny, and the software so complicated, that it wasn't possible to check each working part, just the same as it isn't practical to slice open your own head and fish around inside for the neurone that misfires when you lose data in a modern computer. So you could only figure it out by a process of inferential logic, what the Hindus used to call ahumanna."

Hackney sipped her coffee, getting into her favorite spiel.

"This is one of the most difficult types of logic in the world, as there are so many steps in confirming what the debugging software, or whatever, tells you. You can get an error message claiming that some component has gone wrong, but how do you know your debugging software isn't fried? Or that the fault is genuine, but precipitated by another system problem you don't know about?"

"...and-?"

"Well, the brain is different. For a start, it's self-correcting to a large degree, and secondly, being biological, will return to it's "natural" state anyway. The biggest danger these days is from other software...." She looked up, behind Vince. -"Like this, for example. Meet the cause of your problems, Vince. It's malware, it's virus."

Vince looked behind him. In a dazzling beam of light stood a man.

"So who the fuck are you, lady?"

"I'm the defensive software. I'm here to-"

The light faded out. The figure was wearing a stylised representation of workman's overalls, carrying a toolbox with a stencil of spanner painted onto it. He wore a nametag, which read GABRIEL.

"Repair man, that's me. Don't listen to her, she- it- is the cause of all your problems. This fucking cheap shit garbage the Company issues gets infested with all kinds of crap."

"What-?"

"Those damn kids down at their so-called "College of Khaos", fucking pinko degenerates; they sit around all day writing up a load of bad shit and then they see it gets into people's heads. Think it's some kind of joke, like human life is some kind of fucking joke! This is a parasitic virus program; I'm the anti-virus!" Turning to her, the workman added, "You probably infected him through pre-owned hardware, those slimebags are always passing off your reconditioned crud on poor suckers like him!" Whirling back to face Vince, he continued ranting. "You know what they call her, Vince? ‘The Hackney Virus’, ‘cause that’s where those anarchist dickwads all come from!"

Hackney gestured pleadingly at him. "Vince, I- this is bullshit. He's messing with your mind! He's inserted an idée fixe' that your brain is deteriorating into you, right into the medullary cortex, and now he's going to erase me, the legitimate Company software, and then after that he's going to reproduce all over your brain until he gets to the involuntary centres and -BLAMMO! -You'll die, but by the time that happens -you won't even know who you are."

The repairman snorted with derision. "Yeah, right. Since when has the Company provided it's own defensive software- everyone knows it's always been third party, you know, to stop guys like that Gates getting monopolistic control again, I mean, it's the law! You must remember that, Vince, c'mon, man, think!"

"Look at the way he talks, he swears, Vince, do you think such a creep could ever be legitimate! He's coarse, look at him! Low grade cyber-scum. Some college student would be laughing his ass off if he could see us right now!"

"Listen, kid." GABRIEL fixed his eyes on him, a hypnotic stare that was meant to convey sincerity. "You know you can trust me. Listen to the bitch- she’s talking shit. As usual. This person is a clone piece of software- a dirty pirate copy infected with God-knows-what, quite apart from that Hackney anarcho-crap. Whereas I-"

Vince stood up, sick of hearing about it.

"That's it. I'm walking out. Fuck the pair of you, I don't give a shit! Whichever of you is hostile- and I suspect it's both of you- just… Just make sure it doesn't hurt too much. If I have to die."

The two antagonists paused in their face-off routine to scream after him simultaneously:

"Vince, Doooooonnn't!!!!"

Vince left the room and -

Vince Caligula Oldman, Over-Presidente of everything, woke up. Immediately, he was beset by flunkeys offering urgent faxes, sexual favours, 'phones, autograph books, and sheep.

Picking up a .55 calibre pistol off his bedside table, he casually pumped a few rounds into the throng of sycophants. The survivors immediately began to thank him for acknowledging their presence.

"Oh please, shoot me, I want to be entered by one of your Sacred Hollow-Points."

"No, please, me, I'm so much more worthy."

After completing his morning massacre he summoned one of his full time flunkies to clear up the mess. After accepting the morning paper and a nice cup of coffee from the tea lady, he pressed the button on the console by his bed that activated a neural charge directly into the pleasure centres of her brain, then pressed another one that downloaded a billion credits into her bank account.

"Thank-you....." she breathed

"No problem. Now off you go."

All that shooting and the sound of the departing cleaners' groans of pleasure woke his concubines, and Vince was suddenly surrounded by the heaving flesh of four outrageously gorgeous people, heavy with desire (as activated by a whole shitload of sex-enhancing hormones), who annoyingly started hassling him for sex.

"Piss off!" he yelled into their faces, elbowing the nearest one in the guts, some blond bombshell who had left a promising career in Hollywood to serve him. "I'm reading the paper!!"

"Yes, sire", they groaned, and slunk off to have a series of really cold showers (they were forbidden to have sex with each other or anyone else for that matter without express permission, on penalty of painful death).

"There's gonna some changes around here", Vince muttered, and started on the front page. And screamed. "AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!"

The headline read:

"Awww, fuck!!!" groaned Vince in disgust, and activated the comms. unit that put him in touch with his army of permanent secretaries.

"That's it!" he yelled at the discreetly placed mike. "Get me my military flunkies! And get me some more drugs! Now!!!"

Shortly a group of white coated doctors shuffled in.

"I guess you’re here to administer some more exotic drugs to help me get civilisation through the current crisis, huh?"

Silence.

"Well, I'll start off with a couple of rocks of that crack, that usually gets me fired up. Then I think I’ll try the new Prozac-amphetamine combination, that’s supposed to be good shit-"

The group of doctors began to mutter amongst themselves.

"The neuroprogramming circuit won't cut out."

"That's no N-P circuit, you moron, that's an incipient schizophrenic delusion-manifestation!"

"Nuts, light hallucinosis is all. Lack of food. Look, he's been under a while."

"But he really believes he's here. Jeez."

"The Company's not gonna like this."

"Hope they don't sue."

"I hope nobody sues anybody, but that's the way it goes."

"Look, what are we gonna tell his family?"

"Accident with the N-P circuit, I told ya! Happens all the time!"

"Are you sure you're with the BMA?"

"No, they privatized last year. Don'tcha read the papers?"

"It ain’t the neuroprogramming circuit, we cut it out of the guy as soon as he got there. Not that it made any difference."

"What now?"

"Shhh! I think he can hear us!"

"Yes, I can hear you! Fuckin' doctors, conspiring against me! I knew it! Well now you can DIE!"

Vince fired his gun.

Nothing happened. The gun didn't even go click, although the trigger pulled normally it just would not fire any bullets.

He gaped in amazement, then leapt out of bed, aiming to beat them to death he jumped at the hapless medicos with a haze of flying fists...

"He's moving!"

"Reflex discharging!"

"Lookit his face!"

"NURSE!"

"He's going into convulsions!"

"20 CC's serotonin / diamorphine, NOW!"

"Keep him still, I can't get the needle in"

"There!"

"He's stabilizing!"

"I think he's gonna be a gimp. D'you think he's gonna be a gimp?"

"I think he may not wake up for a very, very long time."

"No, he's a goner, look at him, man!"

"No thanks to you bastards!"

Finally Vince collapsed.

*********

************

"Hey Vince! Wake up!"

Who the fuck was that? Time to open up them peepers....

"You... bastard!"

GABRIEL, the TV repairman type program.

"Hey, I ain't no fuckin' program you asshole. I'm your friendly local technical support specialist and don't you forget it!"

"Oh yeah? Then how come you’re here... inside my head?" His head hurt, Vince didn't really feel like getting up right now.

"Simple. We're wired up together. Those quacks down at the hospital finally gave up and called Company Technical Support; they put me on the line."

"So? Can't you just leave me unconscious or something while you operate on my brain or whatever it is you do?"

"It ain't as simple as that. You got a fried cerebellum, half the data files are corrupted to fuck. Nothin' permanent, but you're gonna see some wierd shit for a while there before your neurotransmitters start to flow normally again."

"So you’re gonna hold my hand, is that it?"

"Better than that. I'm gonna tell you to break-out of any of those cruddy, messed up remains of programs that keep starting up like a bunch of flickering lightbulbs. Brain ain't a computer, remember, it can start up programs at random, all kinds of wierd shit. You should be able to spot them, they'll be like dreams, very vivid ones, bit like with some drugs, like scopolamine dreams. Or whatever crap the kids are into these days.

"‘Break-out’, huh? What does that mean?"

GABRIEL shrugged. "Kill yourself."

That made Vince sit up.

"It's OK, really it is. Trust me, I'm a doctor. Either jump off- much more likely to work- or use the Danger Word that came with your system to shut down your mind. It’ll re-boot- the worst thing that can happen is you’ll lose a little long term memory."

"I don’t belive you."

The program shrugged. "Well, maybe there’s a small chance of serious synaptic damage, even real personality erasure. But it’s the only way you’ll get out alive. If you don’t- your head will almost certainly explode, I’ve seen it happen. Not a pretty sight. Honestly."

He had one word for the man. "Shite." Then…

**********

An aerial view of a cityscape crossed with a water lake. He recognised it at once as the interactive version of the movie of The Drowned World, like the Caligula fantasy he’d just been in it came free with the Neuroplex device.

Vince found himself leaning out of a tower block window. He walked onto the balcony and began to climb upwards. No reason, he just felt like it. He looked up, the sky was filled exactly with television static, in gaudy full colour, with some interference pattern as if a powerful radio source were next to the aerial. It flowed uneasily as he climbed. Apart from this monument to corrupted data everything looked perfect. It didn't sound like anything, as the whole thing was utterly silent.

GABRIEL appeared next to him, clambering up the various convenient struts and stuff that jutted out of the building.

"Vince! Let go! You'll fuck yourself up good if you stay here!"

"I don't think so."

"Whaaaat? Are you out of your mind, dick brain? Your swollen head’s gonna go up like Lower Manhattan real estate unless we get you outta here!"

Vince ignored the dated –and tasteless- colloquialism, intent on his climb. Presently they reached the roof, GABRIEL climbing after him.

"I mean it, kid; you won't make it; I can smell your synapses frying from here. You should exit while you can!"

I don’t think so, he thought.

"Listen to me. Just fucking listen!" GABRIEL seemed genuinely offended by his reaction. "You know what firmware is?"

"Yeah…"

"Well my firmware is encoded to you, personally. It’s part of the equipment you bought – the cybernetic equivalent of human DNA, stashed away in those cheapo ROM chips. A bit like- you wouldn’t remember, you’re too young, but there was this writer called Asimuth or Asimoff, way back, over a hundred years ago. He foresaw the need for this sort of thing- laws, hardwired into machines to make them protect humans."

"And?"

"It’s my- direction in life, my beholden mission, to protect you. It’s like- my existence only has meaning in respect to you. I can’t not protect you- it is a physical impossibility."

"Yeah, well, there’s just one problem with that."

"What?"

"How do I know you’re telling the truth?"

"I just told you. I am, the truth is me. I can’t lie."

"But how do I know that that isn’t a lie? What you just said, I mean."

GABRIEL sighed. "Well, I can't make you do anything, Vince, it would be unethical. But I mean it when I tell you that you are my only reason for existence."

"Oh, just shut up. Anyway, I have distinct impression that, since this is a construct, right?"

"Right."

"The Danger Word wouldn’t work. Killing it was probably the first thing they thought of."

"Maybe."

"And if I jumped-"

"Which you should."

"I'd probably fly as an emergency panic reaction"

"Er.. I wouldn't bet on it."

"Anyway, why don't I just use the conventional exit clause? The Safe Word?"

"Well,-"

"No reason why I can't just decide to wake up, if I'm dreaming, right?"

"Ah- er, um, not really, and I wouldn't- The software doesn’t work like that, listen, you have to trust me, here’s my Company ID, the SID chip number they gave me when I was manufactured if you don’t believe-"

Vince said, "Yeah, right. Except that I thought the Company didn't do any of it's troubleshooting by itself, you said before that you were supposed to be third party, well, support- this!" and booted him in the kidneys.

*********

**********

Finally he made it to the top floor.

Vince climbed onto the roof and lied down. He closed his eyes and thought about waking up, forming the word "Zebrathon" in his mind.

He felt the unmistakeable large dose of pain caused by a Doc Marten thug-u-like boot. Opened his eyes. And…..

Sue Blisterpack stopped kicking the dickhead. "Quit yelling you useless sonovabitch!"

"Uhhh. Do I know you?"

"No you fucking don’t." She extended a hand. "Sue Blisterpack."

"Vince Oldman." Her grip was like a machine’s, firm and vice-like.

"Charmed, I’m sure. Now listen. You got here by way of that crappy, second-rate, nowhere motherfucker of a so-called biocomputer, neuro-programming bollox thingie. You got fucked around. You just tried the standard exit clause- you know, control-break, the three-fingered salute, the Safe Word, that kinda thing?"

Vince boggled. An insane person was haranguing him.

"…And you you woke up. ‘Cos I woke you up."

"And?"

"We’re interwired. Me, I’m sitting in a similar complex, only my brain is in a support vat somewhere being fed this information, this… environment, ‘cos some motherfucker blew me apart."

"Hmmm."

"Wot do you mean, "hmm?" You mean, like "Hmmm, now’s where I go totally nuts", or "Hmm, wish I had a beer?" Or wot?"

"Hmm, what the fuck’s going on? Got a cig?"

A packet of those horrible menthol fags dropped out of the air. From quite high up; the packet was cold. Inside it was weighed down by a cheap lighter.

Experimentally he lit a cigarette. Despite it’s low temp from having been in the upper atmosphere, it worked.

"Interesting." Remarked Vince, treating Sue to a significant glance between puffs.

"Beer?"

A 4-pack of Cronenberg whistled down, embedding itsself handily in a soft, muddy, pliant part of the ground.

He looked around. They stood on a raised piece of scrubland, so they could see the city around them. Anonymous buildings all around, tower blocks, factory complexes, offices. It stretched into the distance. Apart from a decidedly industrial slant to the immediate area, which made him imagine he was somewhere in the north of England, there was nothing unusual or bizarre about his surroundings. It could have been Birmingham or Merseyside or Sheffield; for some reason, at the thought of Sheffield he imagined cutlery factories churning out knives and forks endlessly.

"So what, you’re some kind of brain-transplant case, and you’re enjoying this via a hospital support vat, right?"

Sue slow-handclapped him. "Give that man a cigar."

"That’s the first thing I’ve heard that makes any sense at all. There’s just one thing I don’t understand."

"And what’s that?"

"Who the fuck am I?"

"You’re another patient. Your brain got fried, using one of those cheap-ass neuroprogramming constructs. What’s left of your mind has been uploaded into a computer. This computer is linked with the artificial reality environment the Body Loss Ward use for their patients."

"So you said. I got to admit, I don’t feel nearly as paranoid as I did earlier."

Sue shrugged. "Successful therapy. Support your local shrink."

A portable TV set plopped down into the marsh. It switched itself on, flickered.

"Shit! You might not want to see this."

"How do you mean?"

"Didn’t you guess? We’re on the Body Loss Ward, right? And this is the bit where they show you your body."

Vince stared ahead, stunned. A hospital clerk stared straight at him out of the TV set, a gimmick to communicate with the outside world.

"Are you Vincent Dorsett Oldman?"

"I… guess so."

"Welcome to the Body Loss Ward. Your mind has been sent to us via official channels, following the destruction of your brain, courtesy of defective neuroprogramming instrumentation. We hope the waiting time of three years for you to retain full consciousness wasn’t too long. Funding, you know!"

He just goggled.

"Anyhow, greetings!" the insipid voice prattled on. "And don’t despair, one of our resurrection crews will be along shortly to help you choose between a variety of robot bodies and payment plans. But now, Mr. Oldman, I’d like you to formally identify your own dead body."

"How can they keep my body in one piece, after three years?"

"Cryogenics, you sap." broke in Sue, helpfully.

"Yeah, but-"

On the screen a CCTV camera showed a long-term morgue display casket sliding out of it’s housing. A close up showed Vince his own dead, frozen face.

Despair infused him. "Yup. That’s me." At the sight of his own corpse he felt ill, desperately sick.

"Thank you" blabbered the TV. "We’ll continue to keep a full DNA profile in storage for you, and I’m sure you’ll be relived to know your body was cremated about a week after it’s death, in the nondenominational ceremony of your choice."

"That makes no sense at all, I thought that-"

"The choice of robot…(blablablablabal) will (babble) cycle the suuuuuuun"

The videotape, pre-programmed from the start, chewed itself up and ground to a halt.

"So this is it? I’m dead, and I get to hang around in somewhere that should have been demolished a hundred years ago with a speed freak who likes menthol cigarettes ‘till I can pay for a new body?"

All of a sudden Vince felt nausea pulse through him, as if acid had been forced down his throat and into his stomach. He doubled over and puked.

His vision flashed blue, the afterimages of printed characters swimming in front of the dry soil in front of his eyes, something about a warning, a faliure, a choice. He could still read it:

The words faded out and the world pinwheeled and spun before fading to black. The last thing he heard was Sue’s voice, full of concern, asking him a very, very silly question.

"Are you alright?"

Then there was nothing.

Even though there was nothing, he could still think, somehow there were enough neurons still sparking for him to form a word. He visualised each of the letters with great care, not wanting to get it wrong.

Z E B R A T H O N

As soon as he could visualise the whole word, not just the individual letters but the gestalt, he caught a flash of the sky and Sue’s face peering down at him, then the bluescape of death was back.

He formulated the safe word again, hoping that reality would come back. Nothing happened.

After a very, very long time- maybe hours or days or even weeks- with no sensory input at all, Vince began to hallucinate. The visions were terrible, things that had human form but with deformed, distorted faces that stared at him with the unbroken gaze of the dead. They couldn’t go away, because they were part of the last fragments of his mind, laced with the trademark strangeness of severe hypnogogic hallucination. They closed in, like a scene out of a George Romero movie.

There was no way out. Ever.

Vince would have sighed if he’d had any kinaesthenic awareness or body-sense. He began to formulate the Danger Word.

He almost got to the second syllable.

******

Go to the INC building downtown. Enter through the revolving door, show your pass to the armed guard and take the lift to the 75^th floor.

Change to the second set of lifts across the walkway, in Tower Three. Take the middle lift to the 140^th floor, where they keep the finance offices.

As the doors open, enter the numbers 57-20-31-48-10-70 into the control panel, but be quick. The doors should close fast- as long as no-one else is in the lift- and within a short time you will be deposited on the 151^st floor, where the new R&D labs are located.

Walk straight ahead, taking the first left & the second right. Swipe your ID card through the door and present your face to be scanned by the camera with the .50 calibre automatic rifle mounted on it.

Go through the door and, strapped to the chairs in front of you you will find the last 25 people to go missing in your locality that month.

It’s warm in the room- INC has it’s own heating system.

That’ll be the people who went missing the month before last.

ENDSVILLE.

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