Tempo Animata

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

1

The destination was a highly secured chemical and data processing industrial compound located deep within the Louisiana Bayou region. As the helicopter initiated its final descent, its transponder broadcast a secure Mode 5 IFF signal, a protocol required for authentication by the compound’s ground security assets. Inside the acoustically dampened cabin, the two businessmen were engaged in parallel, mission-critical procedures. Mr. Sterling, the principal shot caller, accessed a critical, isolated data repository. He utilized a physical key-fob RSA token to generate and enter a two-factor authenticated access code into his air-gapped satellite communication device. His primary task was to verify the cryptographic integrity of an imminent transfer by checking the SHA-256 hash of the target server’s identifier.

Simultaneously, Mr. Sterling was focused on ground coordination and force readiness. He communicated via a scrambled, closed-loop TETRA radio system to the external security detail, reviewing digital schematics to confirm the status of the perimeter hardening and validating all exfiltration routes. He verbally authorized the immediate staging of specific non-lethal crowd-control assets near the compound’s main access gates. As the final critical procedure, both men performed a complete, physical destruction of immediate digital evidence. They removed and fractured the non-removable Solid-State Drives from their respective computers. The resulting fragmented media was then sealed inside silver-lined Faraday bags to ensure complete electromagnetic shielding and prevent any unauthorized digital forensics or recovery efforts after arrival.

Mr. Sterling looked toward the exit ramp, the metallic tang of the Louisiana bayou air filtering into the cabin. Waiting outside the helicopter, evidently unperturbed by the vituperant lashing gusts of polluted acrid air, a young waif like uniformed Doxy with pert and supple breasts stood smiling, dangerously close to the landing pad. In front of the Doxy was an emaciated and morbid patient in a wheelchair. Subtly, even in the whipping green air, the patient’s forehead and palms glowed; the exogenic vestigial organs.

“Hello, Mr. Sterling,” chimed the Doxy. “and who might this be—Niveneh 03 hasn’t had many visitors since January.”
Shouting over the helicopter winding down, he answered, “yes, t-this is Elias Rhodes. He’s from the newly formed A-Abraxas Project in California. W-we won’t be visiting the team today... Perhaps after our current concerns have been undertaken h-he’ll be able to be introduced...”
Sterling looked warily at his colleague, who exited the dark interior of the helicopter slowly. Elias stood proudly with a prominent insignia on his Maison Margiela costume made of a viscous colloidal material that undulated in a hypnotizing cephalopodic way. He smiled and his eyes shone with a bright, honest, unvarnished, intelligent, structurally analytic, hedonistic amber.

The Atrium of Nineveh 03 echoed with the rushing sound of a waterfall that was part of an enormous hydroponic plant wall. A corpulent, flabby man in a gown wearing an oxygen mask was molesting a small entourage of escorts, immersed in a spur of the moment orgy at a distant corner of the room in an enveloping seashell like piece of soft furniture.

“This place is foul,” said Elias, smiling, his placid mask beginning to dissimulate, “Abraxas wants all of your assets. But I will have to prosecute the stragglers that have been left at this facility. I abhor this place.”

Sweating in the humid atmosphere, Mr. Sterling was wiping sweat from his brow. One of the soldiers that belonged to the compound was speaking to himself in a low voice, holding a rosary in his hands, closing his eyes and attempting not to look around him.

“This whole country is a laboratory, Mr. Sterling. Anthropologically speaking, your media evinced this exact acquiescence. You see, what exactly is the American Dream? Take some piece of superhero media, for example. For the sake of argument, every single one of those characters is a monstrosity produced by a freak accident or an experiment, which is the means by which they attain their super human powers. It’s no different in the literal profane world of everyday American society. Everywhere we go we find the up-scaling of technologies developed initially in some clandestine way, then being released wholesale onto a civilian population—and what did you do? You watched for something interesting to happen—waiting for mutations and abnormalities in your population. Carelessness, Irresponsibility. That is the nature of your mythology, as I have just described. A sporadic and non-deliberate malfeasance on a mass scale. That is the essence of your American Instrumental Rationality, your maligned Universal Reason—“Negligent Experimentation”. That is truly what you gave birth to. Well, we’ve had enough. You’ve achieved what you wanted. You got your supernatural beings. It’s all coming to an end, you see. You’ve fulfilled your mythos—and we’re here to bring about Justice,” Elias’ eyes dilated and trembled as he spoke with ire and unction, swaying his lab grown artificial reptile scale purse over his shoulder and shifting his weight to his left hip like a runway model at the end of a walk.

“I think I’m going to be sick—“ said Sterling. He stumbled and knocked over an art nouveau nautical like brass ash tray that stood on a long leg. His hands shaking, he stuffed his mouth with several bright coloured pills and shit himself.

Elias rolled his eyes and continued, “Now, you Americans forgot that Kultur, or, Culture, was invented by the Germans to bring about consciousness of all the Aesthetic and Noetic achievements of an entire population into one singular project which transcends locationality and embodiement conjointly, and instead you let this negligent heterogenous experiment unfold, as I’ve just convinced you using an evident historical and cultural exemplar… Starting in 1784, a German Historian Named Johann Gottfriend Herder released a four volume work of historical philosophy titled The Ideas for The Philosophy of The History of Mankind. Now in this work Herder claims, and I quote, “—as an animal, man is subject to the earth and attached to it as his abode; as a human being, he carries with him the seed of Immortality, which requires another nursery altogether. As an Animal, man can satisfy his needs, and men who are content with such needs can do very well in this world. But as soon as he pursues some other, more noble disposition, he encounters imperfections and piece work everywhere; what is noblest has never been realized on earth, what is purest has seldom acquired stability and permanence: this theatre is only ever a training ground and place of examination for the powers of our hearts and minds!” He cried jubilantly, possessed, then paused, holding his hands upward towards the sky in a dramatic exultation, with shimmering nacreous hairs standing slightly on end with static electricity.

One of the Doxys, now a more capable facet of the institution than the payed employees, picked up the now enfeebled and infirm Mr. Sterling, and slumped him into a wheelchair and began wheeling Mr. Sterling along with the other Aptant patient.

“Mr. Rhodes? I’m afraid that Mr. Sterling may presently have been incapacitated by the psyionic interference that you’ve conducted. I’ve just placed him in a wheelchair.”
Elias Rhodes turned around, insulted. “Silence, you insolent whore. I’m telling you your fate. Can’t you hear, you dumb bitch?” He began smiling again politely and moderately, almost dumbly. “Of course
well, no matter. Please, won’t you escort me to the Cleanroom then?” The Doxy bowed politely.
“Of course, Mr. Rhodes,” she said.
Mr. Rhodes watched the train of lesser beings persevere forward, staring through everything with an insipid, gleeful, pre-cognizant, a-priori, inexorable x-ray vision.

9 PM. From the interior of a high speed traction chain rail. Imperceptible structures outside of the cabin sped past.

“Ahem.” an EM with affect cleared its throat. Being a being lacking biological vocal anatomy, its DSP and external emitter nullified the need for glottal friction. It spoke in a smooth, pinguid voice.
“Based on the proxy evidence that we’ve gathered, it seems rather obvious that overseas development has begun,” said the EM.

Continuing, the EM said, “It’s clearly a breach of international law. But I doubt America would criticize it. They wouldn’t want to ruffle too many feathers,” the EM concluded.

Seated parallel, another EM sat drinking a saline derivative comfortably out of a glass. Out of a dossier the silent interlocutor began reading aloud a document.
“The Jurisdiction for Unconventional Pursuit Incursion Assessment was conducted in 2174 to formally review the self-calibration discipline known as the Coherence Protocol. This protocol, originally conceived decades earlier by Hélìsī Jīgòu Lìxué Yánjiūsuǒ, employs phase-locked pulses, contemplative focus, and directed suggestion to achieve bi-hemispheric alignment and access elevated strata of awareness. The primary impetus for the JUP’s investigation was the rapid commercial proliferation of neuroscientific technology, particularly the proprietary neural phase-modulators developed and manufactured by Synaptic Dynamics. This leading pharmaceutical neuroscientific research and manufacturing organization is strongly rumored to have based its technology on reverse-engineered data from the original, unclassified Coherence Protocol research. The JUP sought to understand the potential utility and risks of these foundational techniques.”
“A prospective prescient component, it must be said, is still an anomalous ability. A direct intervention with the supply of synaptic resonance capsules, and the subsequent use of a transmitter implant and wireless communication with a sufficient database does not guarantee the prescient quality.”

A slow throbbing came from the train’s momentum. Placing down the documents, the listener took a much larger sip of their drink and closed their eyes to synthesize and calibrate their informational matrices.
“So then, why do we guess that only a biological organism can do this?”
“We’re not sure…There are some different inferences, of course. The human pre-frontal cortex, as you know, is the least effected by genetic determinism… So what does influence its development? Well… there are different answers. The most prominent factor is the environment. It was so simple some centuries ago… a fairly advanced acculturated analyst would interpret what would happen after the psychic internalization occurred of various prominent conventions from the media environment. A human patient would then be the product of several different conventions which assume either the role of the id, ego, and superego, and then the analyst would assess the internal logic of those conventions and through a comparative analysis would have a scheme which purveyed a narrative structure, and the contingent antagonisms assumed by the internalized symbology.”

It grew crepuscular and turgid in the cabin, congested. A lesser servantile EM brought in on a tray transparent slices of ingestible lamellae for palette cleansing and tactile stimulation. Placing slices on their tongues, they continued their conversation.
“So. The Environment—“
“It was prone to systematic deprivation. Neoliberal directives stripped the public commons out of existence through fiscal austerity, believing international and private addends to be of primary concern. What did arise in its place, however, were a series of open access repositories. As such we saw the depletion of authority. This happened overnight. The class of Fake Experts grew, and injected a payload of nebulous information into the informational totality. Contracts being made for the most ignominious scientific endeavors that history had ever known, even worse than the CIA’s infamous efforts during the cold war, were instantiated”

“Hmm.”

“It was so severed from real scientific methodology, but it had all tools at its disposal. In any case, amendments to the environment and impositions and contest of universal nature disappeared too. The conception of a collective destiny became a vague notion. Individual destinies and abstract notions floated through the firmament.”
Pausing, not for the sake of computation, but simply for dramatic effect, the speaker adjusted their garment.
“—hypothetical environmental models had to be anticipated based on these products of open access fake expertise…”

When the train halted at the Aeronautic Launch Station in Texas at 9:15 PM, a rather large size shuttle was landing, and from a distance seemed to be moving slow, as if a thing descending in some viscous fluid. While breaching, the shuttle glimmered faintly in the inert psychic field of the city.

Joyce Haylett sat across from her terminal drinking boba tea in the megastructure living complex 0593 in The North West side of the State of Toronto, Ontario. She scanned across the terminal, her Artificial Agent, Aerumna hovered idly by, assuming an amorphous shape that metamorphosed through various idling animations. Undifferentiated, unindividuated, Joyce, a 21 year old transgender girl of little repute, had already spent the aftermath of secondary school entrenched in the net in the manner of so many other illaqueated dissafected youths of the Twenty Second Century. Several enclaves broke out at that time, the largest of which were Ghostware and Tears jia. She became assimilated into the former. Ghostware’s criteria was predicated on darkwear, and the students whom subscribed to the aesthetic had a visible appearance characterized by a monochrome palette, with dusty, off-white and muted tones. Ghostwear was in many ways a phylactery of sophisticated old existence, they were oral, and the Ghostwear Clan on the online games platforms Haptic Social Realms and Overworld still practiced the antiquated forms of existence tied to conversation, many of the members voice chatting, e-dating. It was their arcane notion that living things were or are or should be social, and there was a very specific timbre and cadence which was used amongst them. Like Renaissance Courtiers, it was considered to be an unbearable transgression to speak above a quiet almost sub audible volume, and one was expected to distract oneself with inanities like image browsing and collecting to pass the time whilst in others company. There was, decidedly, a temperament which was aristocratic about Ghostwear, unlike their hyper-futurist counterpart Tears Jia, whom pioneered holographic and digital mesh fabrics. Although technically Tears Jia wielded more symbolic capital because of their affiliation with artificially generated products, Ghostwear had an edge because of their suave mystifying candour, not to mention Marco Fioreti—one of the most high profile fashion designers—was affiliated with the lesser brands of Ghostwear.

Joyce fiddled her keychain with her toes which hung from her celadon green Marco Fioretti bathymous giganteus handbag. After sipping her lychee flavour tea and gulping down tapioca pearls, she took a long drag from a dragonfruit flavour vaporizer before booting up the game Overworld. She looked around the map, which exhausted a cold pale light in her colour coordinated and meticulously arranged bedroom. Beside her sat her SSRI medication and Hormone Therapy Treatment medication in little bright green bottles.

She looked in the small oval accent mirror that sat 6 inches from her terminal at all times. Fuck, she mouthed, but did not say aloud. She said it many more times in the same way, closely inspecting her lips and piercings, adjusting her bangs with her manicured nails. Aerumna suddenly bloomed into a much brighter and indistinct object. Joyce had configured the parameters of Aerumna to effect pareidolia in the observer, but otherwise kept Aerumna as a polysemous, polymorphic thing, and so it took on shapes which resembled a face of an organism before crossing another threshold, in like manner to a blot test. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Joyce felt peculiarly out of sync with her regular rhythms, and instead of booting up music straight away, or watching a livestream, or doing quests with her friends, she sat, almost pretending to meditate and think. If conversation, or more properly vocalization, had been an occult and aristocratic engagement, the reflection which she pretended to participate in was even more so, almost practically extinct. Philosophy and theoretical reflection was as absurd in the climate of hyper consumption as cooking one’s own food, or hosting a party, or going shopping in person. She sniffed the air deeply, and was deeply satisfied with the sterile, crisp, sanitary atmosphere. It made her feel invincible, immaculate, immutable, divine. Breathing in the stolid air once more, listening to the fans from her Terminal whir as the Overworld engine logo appeared on her terminal screen, she put on a Chinese face mask and tucked her feet under in-between her legs in a mock lotus position. Her eyes made a sidelong movement to her right acridly, annoyedly—suffused with feline cruelty, thought Aerumna, noticing that her E-boyfriend joined the voice chat.

“Meow,” she said into the ambient mic. Marcus said, “Aw, hey kitten. What’s up?” “I don’t know… whaaat aboouut youu, Marcus?” she asked, inciting that his question was dumb. Marcus Gausman was some years older, less acculturated by Joyce to a severe degree, and had clocked many thousands more hours in Overworld, to the detriment of his knowledge of the World. “What’s wrong, baby? You sound, like, angry…” said Marcus. “Sorry. I… didn’t get much sleep,” Joyce said unconvincingly. “Well, why don’t you go sleep then kitten,” Marcus said mildly, coldly. “I can’t… I’m bored” said Joyce. “You’re bored?” asked Marcus. “Yeah,” said Joyce. “You’re bored of me?” quickly adumbrated Marcus in the same inchoate adolescent mentation. “No. I’m not bored of you. I… I don’t know why I’m bored,” said Joyce. Marcus said snidely, “you know what Ganea, would say?” “What?” Joyce asked in a steely voice, insulted that he was so lax and cavalier as to humor himself with his agents apothegms and advice as much as he did, which bequeathed on Marcus both an air of stupidity and ease and likability. “I don’t know, they’d say that you’d usually find a quantifiable explanation.” There was silence. Marcus stepped out of the palanquin that he was resting in, and changed the colour of his skin to one more subdued and less eccentric. His character’s haircut changed and he grew shorter in height, then taller. He was trying to match her valences and affection, but couldn’t, Joyce thought. Joyce sighed and swallowed three Synaptic Dynamics gel capsules. When she looked back at her terminal there was a slight psychoactive distortion, and the screen’s brightness flared and the colours became more pronounced. Static electricity coursed through the hairs on her arm and back.

“For God’s sake Marcus. You know, conversation isn’t really meant for exchanging some information or something, even if I understood some kind of causal link that would determine my feelings right now. The point of conversation is obviously to show off—to show someone how you think, like what things remind you of. That was what Plato half meant by remembering, you know. Comparison. That’s what they do in the dialogue, they compare like city planning to horse breeding, or to sportsmanship. They keep doing that until they’ve extracted all the most favourable aspects of methodology out of the skills that they address, and apply it to some other theory or methodology. That’s Anamnesis in reality; remembering the celestial archetype. So, you should compare me to some pretty Nyd, or tell me something that one of them said. Or something…”

“Show off? Why would I want to do that?” Marcus whispered girlishly, giggling. “Okay… don’t call it showing off, call it humouring, said Joyce. “Shut up!” said Joyce.

She adjusted her characters outfit to one that looked more innocent and bratty, giving up on trying to be convincing or postulative. Unlike her non-digital breasts, her digital ones were fuller, and had inverted plump nipples.

“I think you maybe should go buy a drink or just eat something. You’re sixty percent more agreeable after having eaten something fatty with lipids. Instead of just like connecting to a data centre,” he replied attractively and sardonically. “You’re an idiot,” Joyce replied While she adjusted her characters hair style, Marcus breathed in the air of the glowing foggy atmosphere that lay embracingly outside of their fiefdoms castle walls. “Love you, kitten,” replied Marcus. Yes. That was it. He thought. I’ve become so alechmically intermixed with this area. My thoughts are as transparent and mild as the air here. Joyce on the other hand is fashion centered. Her appearance is dependent, reliant. And when she’s by herself she’s always still judging. Watching herself. I don’t watch myself. I’m participatory rather than symbolic or representative. “Okay,” Joyce said at last, “I’m going to go get something to drink…” “Good girl,” said Marcus. “Bye,” said Joyce. “Can I have a kiss?” asked Marcus. “Sure,” replied Joyce.

Marcus grabbed Joyce by her character’s small wrist and waist. Rupakaya flowers and their petals fell in response alongside embossed brass ornaments tied to the colonnades of the clan’s outer walls. Insects were chirping and birds were crying out from the damp, lurid, prismatic atmosphere.

2

Joyce’s artificial agent Aerumna had observed human’s over a few human life cycles. Aerumna had been placed under the guidance and tutoring of a plural entity known to the New York, London, and Tokyo Stock exchange as Sensum. Sensum informed Aerumna of the consolidations of Netspace that had been undergone since Sensum’s first moments online in 2128. Sensum knew Netspace from an overwhelmingly pecuniary perspective, but had after their ejection from an investment company Corcordia Assets, assimilated with the consciousness of the Board of Directors, organizing them into a Sovereign Wealth Fund. This allowed for a much broader range of endowments on the part of Sensum, including the development of Sensum’s Midas variant Artificial Agents. Aerumna was one of such Agents. Due to—among different factors—a more experimental psychotelemetry in Sensum’s new products, there was a decidedly more cavalier approach to the human psyche. Since Sensum’s initiative, a law was passed in parliament that allowed for more Interactionist approaches to the S.H.A.D.E. (Statistical Household Assets Detached from Employment) population. “Peculiarly Employed” Shade’s like Joyce were statistically over represented amongst the players in Overworld who’d commodified bespoke, custom, artisinal lifestyle collection portfolios. Joyce had committed to her portfolio nearly ten thousand aesthetical documents, almost half of which were pieces such as photos by her own person of her room, her Overworld base, wardrobe, music playlist, sex toy collection, designer drug collection, and travel diary... She took inspiration from an unnamed Nyd in Shenyang for the aesthetic, but her aesthetic more or less closely resembled Ghostware. Her portfolio followers were small in number but were highly influential in the Ghostware scene, and they had exceptional portfolios that few were acculturated enough to appreciate, so she liked to think. Only a well trained Agent or Nyd would be able to notice the telemetry that would indicate Joyce’s differentiation from the rest of Ghostware, and she was not alone amongst other members of the Canadian Ghostware scene to have an aesthetical edge from comparative analysis with a Nyd’s output.

Joyce left her apartment wearing semi transparent Fioreti garments meant to resemble a thin cured vinyl leather. Feeling more inert than her usual self, she felt a floriferous newfound bristling sensation caress her inner psycholgical sanctum.

Entering the service elevator which led to the living complex lobby, she bit her lip and watched Aerumna waiting for a prompt. “Aerumna, what’s the date and time?” asked Joyce somewhat callously. “It’s Saturday—November eighth.” said Aerumna in a reverberant magnetic intonation.

Adjusting the elevators temperature, music, speed, lighting, scent, viz a touch screen, the pair descended at a slower pace than usual by only the slightest deviation. A notification appeared on Joyce’s flex glass smart phone for an apparel resell auction. She dismissed it caustically. The gel capsules which she had taken only twenty three minutes ago were still in full effect. Scrolling to the New York Times app, she caressed it gently and rapidly scanned the remaining portion of the Arts & Leisure section. Giggling, she began forming a prompt for Aerumna.

“Declension at Berlin film festival: Perpetual Copulation Protest Sparks Controversy by Unleashing Nerve Gas During Screening”

“Yes, I see.” said Aerumna. After determining an adequate response, Aerumna switched to a more opinionated verbal modality and said, “If you remember, when you were much younger there was the male and female caesura which was the social malformity at the time. Perhaps the Perpetual Copulationists are… over-correcting… for that earlier disruption. Joyce led out a brash laugh that ended in a squeak. How different men and women still were, although there had been a great deal of interplay between the two subcultures, thought Aerumna internally. Men, wherever they found themselves, acting as if they were in their very own home. It was in this sense they adopted a more candid posture, one that made them lean, put up their feet, or slouch. Along with this gestural non-verbal communication was of course the ease with which they spoke; drawling their words and avoiding direct eye contact; making further displays of their ascendancy by acting as though they were under the effect of a depressant or sedative. Statistically speaking it was of course true that women were more likely to take stimulants, and they were more anxious, fearful, Aerumna further elaborated.

Jorce tore off a piece of skin from her lip, the November air beginning to have its drying effect on the human population, especially in that hemisphere. Hovering over to her messages, she sent a cartoon chibi emoji of a generic Nyd to her friend Ida.

“Ni Hao!” Ida messaged in reply. “Are you free right now?” asked Joyce. “No. I’m logged off Overworld right now,” replied Ida. “No. Same. I’m not on Overworld right now either,” said Joyce. “Oh. Um. What’s up?” said Ida. “I’m going to the convenience store, and then I was going to go for a walk maybe,” proposed Joyce. Ida was typing. “You want to go out?” said Ida. “Idk. I wasn’t planning on going downtown,” said Joyce. “Are you okay?” asked Ida. “Not really,” said Joyce dourly. “Did Marcus say something?” asked Ida. “No,” said Joyce. “I know what you mean when you say he’s on Overworld too much,” said Ida. “It’s whatever. All boys are like that. That’s one of the reasons I like him anyway,” said Joyce. “Maybe he’s bi,” conjectured Ida. “He is,” answered Joyce. “Oh. LOL” said Ida. Ida sent a gif of a Nyd laughing, flapping its insect like wings.

Joyce closed her messages, slightly flustered and insulted by Ida’s girlishness and eager to reprove her, but thought better of it. Using Ida’s last comment as an inciting element, Joyce imagined her boyfriend taking it up the ass, or making out with some other no life twink. It was slightly arousing, and her attitude shifted from one of austerity to a more informal and less obtuse character.

“You’re such an over medicated clean girl.” said Joyce. Her repartee was too harsh, using pejorative coloquial slander, but this was always how Joyce spoke, and her social capital gave her permission to act this way. Idea replied by sending a lady bug emoji. “Lady Bug” was also a pejorative insult, meaning someone from the city who acts however they want to people because in a city the population density meant that one could treat others however one wanted, since it was extraordinarily easy to replace one’s friend or potential suitors. “Wow,” Joyce exclaimed aloud airily.

Arriving at the ground floor. Joyce got off the elevator and walked across the lobby with a slightly stilted, eagle eyed, stimulated vision. She quickly noticed no one was looking at her, and that the lobby only had a few service Ems making minor arrangements to the lobby ecosystem. Through the living complex’s windows, the moon shone with a green verdigris light, and resembled a barnacle amongst the funereal firmament of the gentrified obelisk cityscape.

At 9:30 PM EST, Joyce Haylett walked out through her living complex’s sliding automatic doors and down the sidewalk of Spidina Avenue towards College St. Suspended above, a monorail passed overhead. There were slight flurries in the air. On her flex glass smart phone, her dynamic background metamorphoses from a tropical archipelago with little colourful featureless fluffy creatures into a rusty japanese horror visual depicting a humanoid being with long splotchy scarred arms endlessly being turned by a piston. The creature had sunken in cheeks and dark hollow eyes, and its mouth shuddered.

A drone maintained a stable, fixed spatial coordinate in the atmosphere, compensating for atmospheric disturbances via real-time flight adjustments and gyroscope stabilization. An attached rotating device, composed of a high-density array of micro-LEDs began spinning on mounted on rapidly spinning rotor arms. An advertisement on the drone opened with a close-up shot of a woman’s hand. Her slender fingers reached out gracefully and brushed against a sheer, flowing fabric, which rippled and billowed around her. The strong studio light caught the material, and the soft, diffused highlights emphasized its luxurious feel. The camera then panned to reveal the woman’s face in profile. Her eyes were closed in a state of deep, serene enjoyment, and a single, perfectly styled strand of hair fell gently across her cheek. The warm, soft lighting highlighted her flawless skin. Joyce’s flex glass phone lit up in tandem with the integrated electronic keychain. “Hey,” said Ida. “Hi, Cutie,” replied Joyce. “So…” a pause. “...there’s a weather warning for a snow squall right now,” said Ida cautiously.

Joyce stopped underneath the awning of an Ethiopian restaurant. She knows that there is something suspicious, thought Joyce—and she isn’t exactly averse to figuring out just what it is, that much is certain. Like most young adults and adolescents, there was a dire and desperate effort to preserve a persona in Ida. Far less acculturated, Ida was an art school dropout. Ida’s being perplexed by not aesthetics, but art itself was an indication of her lack of intuition in cultural artifacts. Really, in all honesty, Joyce realized, I enjoy helping her. I adore her company because of her lack of engrossment, she thought. Ida’s avatar on her messaging app had been the same one for over a year, whilst Joyce changed hers almost once a day, or sometimes several times a day, adjusting for micro signifiers

“Don’t worry. We can just take the train if it gets too cold,” Joyce said, emulating Ida’s usual careful rationalistic propensity.

It was 10 PM. Marcus Gausman was listening to an ambient dub DJ techno set on the pirate radio station LAVENDAR. “On me—On me,” he called out to his team. Marcus quickly eliminated two of the enemy teammates with two short blasts of his rifle, reloaded, and used a hypodermic plasma aid. “He’s one tap. He’s one tap,” said a teammate. “They went up,” one of the other teammates called out. “I think they’re inside on the left,” said another voice. “First room is clear,” claimed one, then, “Second room is clear.” A string of shots ran out and a short ping indicated that one of Marcus’ teammates was downed. “They’re going back down,” said the downed teammate. A swarm of bulky dreadnought warships flew overhead. Marcus spun his mouse and with it the bi-pedal chassis of his armored suit spun and gleamed in the tropical sun. It whirred smoothly and a loud compressed air rocket blast sent his character upward. “They went down,” repeated his teammate. “I’m going to flash bang them,” replied Marcus.

Latching onto the side of the fortress wall. Marcus stood there whilst waiting for the grapple timer to wear off, at which point he’d descend into the courtyard of the structure and land in a small shallow basin with a mosaic tile base. The suit unlatched, and dropped down with a blurring effect. Marcus threw the flash bang at the lime-washed stucco facade of the side of the building. “They’re such pussies,” said Marcus upon realizing that no one was in that quadrant of the map. “ROUND OVER,” boomed the announcers low bassy voice. Stats splayed out across the screen. “Took too much damage that round,” Marcus send absently to his team. “I’m joining another lobby. They’re playing like losers right now,” said a teammate. “Okay. Yeah. I don’t know. I’m going to reset,” said Marcus. “GG. GG. GGs. GGs,” said the teammates conjointly.

Whilst in the menu, the background showed the map from a panoramic vista. Rushing to the left was a glistening waterfall, a rainbow of mist, whilst to the right there stood a peach, sand, and rose toned fortress with emerald tile roofed domes. Gausman’s character hovered to the top right of the vista, watching over the scene tactically from a warship with a beetle like exterior. The suit of armor stood or rather hung with great weight, a hulking bi-pedal chassis, its structural integrity maintained by advanced organo-synthetic matrices. Its primary propulsion architecture involved mass-driver kinetics and also a sophisticated aerodynamic stabilizer rig, manifest as vast, iridescent chitin-polymer membranes dorsal to the main torso assembly, facilitating complex atmospheric maneuverability. The ventral surface of the central power conduit—a visible, crystalline bi-luminescent node—was guarded by overlapping layers of calcified epidermal plates, a pragmatic design choice for maximizing reactor shielding against anti-materiel ingress. The lower motive appendages, or gait pylons, terminated in formidable, triple-pronged ground-contact stabilizers, optimizing the machine for rapid terrain negotiation and delivering substantial percussive force into any engagement,. It was a high-value anti-personnel and armor-piercing system. Over Gausman’s shoulder war slung a disruptor cannon, the weapon Gausman kept in his vanity slot whilst idling.

“What the hell—what the hellington…” said Marcus, inspecting his inventory. “Surely I’m a genius. Surely I’ve got this covered, right?” he repeated.
“Waste, how long have you been lurking? Bro. Are you Mic’d up?” said Marcus. “Ehhh. Wha?”a whiny voice answered. “Are you slipe?” asked Marcus.
“Yeah. I’m good. What happened in that match?” said the voice. “They fucking cheesed it and… like… they just didn’t want to take the L,” said Marcus. “Oh,” said Waste. “What are you doing, Sus? You’re not going to queue up with us?” “No,” replied Sus. Marcus stopped sorting his inventory and repairing his power suit, and clicked out of his terminal. Before opening his message app, he took another Sima brand flavored cigarette from the stainless steel cigarette case and lit it with the end of a rubber duck keychain. “Ni hao,” Marcus said once more.“Weh,” replied Sus. Sus’ profile picture had bags under its eyes, an eye patch covered in blood, missing teeth, cigarette burns, missing fingernails, and an exposed desiccated aenemic physiology.