Insistence of Vision (4 page)

Story Notes

I like exploring complicated characters who are aware of the shaky moral tightrope they’re trying to cross. At the same time, I also believe we will use technology in the future to alter our approaches to age-old problems. Imprisonment for crimes began fairly recently. For most of human history, felonies were not punished by long terms in prison. Societies simply couldn’t afford it. Either your clan bought off your guilt-debt – or for a vast range of crimes, a felon was simply executed. Prison terms for non-capital crimes were a step forward, offering some chance for rehabilitation, but our descendants will likely consider it barbaric. Nothing comes without a cost.

Are there alternatives? Beneath an intimately tragic personal story, “Insistence of Vision” explores one plausible – if creepy – possibility. Its advantages and attractive aspects only make it creepier. Our children will face interesting decisions.

This tale first appeared in the special 2013 Science Fiction issue of MIT’s
Technology Review.

Next comes a lighter tale, though still about technology changing things we take for granted. And how one thing changes more reluctantly than anything else –

– our obstinate human nature.

Transition Generation

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“I don’t know how much more of this day I can take. I swear, I’m
this
close to throwing myself out that window!”

Carmody yanked his thumb toward the opening, twenty-three stories above a noisy downtown intersection. Flecks of rubber insulation still clung in places, from when old Joe Levy first pried it open, during the market crash of ‘65. Fifteen years later, the heavy glass pane still beckoned, now gaping open about a hands-breadth, letting in a faintly traffic-sweetened breeze. A favorite spot for jumpers, the window seemed to beckon, offering a harried, unhappy man like Carmody the tempting, easy way out.

They should have sealed it, ages ago.

Though really, would that make a difference?

“Tell somebody who cares,” snarked Bessie Smith, who managed the Food & Agriculture accounts via a wire jacked into her right temple. She allocated investments in giant vats of sun-fed meat from Kansas to Luna, grunting and gesturing while a throng of little robots swarmed across her head, probe-palpating her chin, cheeks and brow, crafting her third new face of the day. Carmody still found the sight indecently discomforting. A person’s face ought to be good for months. And the transforming process really should be private.

“Yeah, well
you
don’t have to handle the transportation witches,” he retorted. “They’ve stuck me with a doomed portfolio that… aw hell!”

Symbols crowded into Carmody’s perceptual periphery, real-time charts reporting yet another drop in Airline futures. His morning put-and-call orders had wagered that the industry’s long slide was about to stop, but
there they go again!
Sinking faster than a plummeting plane. At this rate, he could forget about a performance bonus for the sixth week in a row. Gaia would sigh and cancel her latest art purchase, then wistfully mention some past boyfriend.

And she could be right, fellah. Maybe your wife and kid would be better off…

As if summoned by his glowering thought, Gaia’s image sprang into being before his tired gaze. Her dazzling virtual aivatar shoved aside dozens of graphs and investment profiles that, in turn, overlay the mundane suite of homely office cubicles where Carmody worked. At least, he assumed that the ersatz goddess manifesting in augmented reality was Gaia; her face looked similar to the woman who sat across from him at breakfast this morning, bleary-eyed from all-night meetings with fellow agitators on twelve continents, fighting to extend the Higher Animal Citizenship Laws one more level, this time below that of seals and prairie dogs.

So what next? Voting privileges for crows and cows and canids? How was that going to work, again?

Now apparently back in fine fettle, Gaia shone at him with active hair follicles framing her head like sea-weed, while rippling from blonde to brunette and rainbow shades between. A blast of enhanced charisma-from-a-bottle made Carmody curse and shut off the smell-o-vision feature of his immersive goggles.

She knows I hate that.

His wife made a pointed gesture with one, upraised finger. Gaia’s aivatar waved the finger like a wand, casting forth a series of reminder blips:

STOP AT AUTODOC TO ADJUST YOUR IMPLANTS.

FIX THAT DAMN MALFUNCTIONING MOOD FILTER!

ELDER-CARE SAYS PICK UP YOUR DAD, OR WE’LL PAY STORAGE OVERCHARGES.

GET EGGS

Carmody winced, hating whoever invented avatar-mail, endowing the voluptuously realistic duplicates with artificial intelligence. Of course, he
could
spend time mastering the latest tricks… like assigning an aivatar of his own to reply automatically, fending off work interruptions....

Maybe I can hire a service to set it up for me,
he thought, trying to will her image to a far-back corner of the percept
. Mr. Patel will have my hide if I don’t file my report on transportation trends. I still think they indicate a turnaround in air freight that –

Resisting his efforts to dismiss her, Gaia’s aivatar clung to one of his maglev-zep performance charts, continuing to wand a series of chiding reminders while his impatient, leave-me-alone wind pushed her backward. That chart collapsed and surrounding data got caught up in the meme-storm as she blew backward in a blur of data-splattered robes.

All of a sudden, Carmody’s percept reached some kind of overload. One corner contorted as graphs and prospectus appraisals started whirling around each other, crumpling into a funnel-cyclone, like dirty water circling a drain, sucking away his entire week’s labor – and his wife’s protesting analogue – vacuuming them all toward some unknown infosphere singularity.

“Cancel!” Carmody shouted. “Restore backup five minutes ago!”

He kept grunting and issuing frantic commands but nothing worked. Reaching and grabbing after the maelstrom, he did something wrong, some mis-cued gesture, triggering a cyber lash-back! Searing bolts of
lightning
seemed to lance between his eyes.

Shouting in pain, Carmody tore off the immersion goggles, clutching them in both hands. Laying his face onto the cool surface of the desk, he suppressed a sob.

I used to think I was so hip and skilled with specs and goggs. Only now, kids are replacing them with contaict lenses and, even eyeball implants that juggle ten times as much input.

Can I really be so obsolete, so soon?

“Bob?” A real voice, grating in his real ears. “Bob!”

Even worse, it was Kevin’s voice. Standing next to the desk.

Carmody didn’t move.

“Are you okay, Bob? Is there a problem, man?”

Glancing up, eyes still smarting and misty, Carmody shook his head.

“Fine. Just resting a sec,” he put up a brave face of complacent humor, knowing better than to show any weakness to this young jerk, supposedly his assistant, but clearly angling for Carmody’s job. Still, an inner voice moaned.

I can’t take this anymore.

“Well, I’m glad of that,” the younger man said. But a smug expression told Carmody everything. The breakdown of his percept and loss of all that work… he suddenly knew it was Kevin’s doing! Some trick, some hackworthy sabotage that Carmody would never be able to prove.

Does he have to gloat so openly?

Still smirking, Kevin continued.

“I thought I better let you know, Mr. Patel is on his way down. He wants a word with both of us.” Kevin’s look of eager anticipation was so blatant, Carmody had to quash a sudden, troglodytic urge to erase it with his fist.
Kevin might have at least learned some surface tact, if he had gone to university or worked at a regular people job. But no. His generation just absorbs technical skills directly, like suckling from a –

The right metaphor wouldn’t come, no matter how hard he beckoned one. And strangely, that was the last straw for Carmody.

Enough is enough.

“You look terrible,” the younger man added, with faux concern. “Maybe you better visit the loo and clean up, before… Bob? Mr. Carmody? Where are you going? Mr. Patel wants…”

Carmody had one hand on the window pane and the other on its frame. Staring through the gap and down twenty-three stories, he inhaled deeply, feeling resolution build, overcoming the panic, layering upon the panic,
amplifying
his sense of panic into something that abruptly felt more manly.

Determination.

Time to end this.

Carmody felt eyes turn this way as the window swung wide and his left foot planted on the sill, pushing till he stood, teetering along emptiness.

“Bob. What’re you doing?”

Carmody glanced back and smiled at his co-workers, none of whom rose to stop him.

“I’m taking the easy way out.”

And – after inhaling one more deep breath – he jumped.

ᚖ

Carmody’s gut roiled with caveman terror as the first few floors swept by – an unpleasantly inconvenient reaction. But at least his life didn’t pass before him.

He knew he should be composing himself, but as wind stung his eyes and tugged his hair, a distracting shadow encroached from an unexpected direction. Carmody flinched aside in time to see another figure hurtling Earthward. Business suit flapping, clenched fists outstretched as if trying to outrace Carmody to the pavement. He recognized Dickerson of accounting.

Well, that sonovagun always seemed much too-tightly wound.

Oh?
An honest part of himself replied.
And what are you? Taking the coward’s way out.

Carmody told his busy, frantic mind to shut the hell up and to focus on what mattered, with so little time left.
Only does anything at all matter, at this point?

Abruptly, he heard someone else speak. A shout, overcoming the throbbing wind, but conversational, nonetheless.

“Dickerson is such a maroon! I was at the same meeting when Mr. Saung told us all to jump. But you don’t see me showing off like that!”

He glanced left to see a woman dressed in the slick, pinstripe uniform of a company attorney. He’d seen her around. Instead of plunging superhero-style, she had arms spread like Carmody, delaying the unpleasant inevitable. A rightward eyeflick detected no sign of Dickerson, plunging on ahead. So now it was the two of them.

Told you to jump? Boy, that Saung is a hard case. Much worse than Patel. In fact, maybe I should have stayed and fought it out….

Carmody almost replied to the woman – some dark humor about falling
with
her, not
for
her. But no. He saw her frown, devoting herself to a look of concentration. preparing for the fast-looming street.

That’s what I should do.

Grimly, Carmody strapped the goggles back onto his head. Bearing down and gritting his teeth, he mentally recited a personal chant.

I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light…

Nothing. Opening his eyes briefly, he saw that he was halfway to the ground, with much
less
than half the time left before… going splat upon the broad apron that now surrounded every downtown building, protecting pedestrians and vehicles from plummeting jumpers who missed their cues.

Splat. Me? Come on, focus!

I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light…

He tensed specific muscles in his arms, back and thighs – and felt electric tension course along his spine, at last. A crackling that was molten, electric and fey, all at the same time, seemed to fizz from every pore. It hurt like hell! But he kept up the mantra, frowning hard and willing power into his fists. His feet.

I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light…

From his scalp implants to the tips of Carmody’s toes, power erupted, along with pain.

I am a son of light… and I can fly!

Bottoming out just a couple of stories above the splat barrier, he caused second floor windows to shake with the roar of his passage.

Carmody flew….

ᚖ

…and almost collided with half a dozen others, amid a throng zooming above Broadway. Carmody’s percept throbbed with warning shouts and small fines applied against his commuter account. But he managed to maintain concentration, leveling off and settling into an uptown flight path without injuring anyone.

Damn, no wonder they say you should always use a standard launching catapult. Skyscraper-jumping is for idiots! Or, at least, folks who aren’t out of practice like you, fool.

He turned onto Seventh Avenue, banking in a wide swoop that gained altitude as well. It almost felt…
fun,
for just a bit, though the tight maneuver made his stomach tense and churn.

Okay then. What had Gaia reminded him to do? Assuming he was about to be fired from his job and become a house-husband, he might as well at least cover the checklist.

Oh yeah right. Pick up Dad.

Carmody turned back on the goggles’ aroma detectors and followed a scent of liquid nitrogen. He carefully descended to a low-slow lane, barely dodged impact with a skylarking vette, and did a body tuck to land squarely in the catcher’s mitt at Seventh and Fifty–Eighth Street.

With ringing ears and scraped palms, Carmody unrolled and dusted himself off, as body-repair implants swiftly dealt with the usual bruises, though not without harsh twinges.

“Hey, watch out!” came a cry from above. He hurriedly stepped aside to make way for the next flying person, coming in for a semi-crash-landing.

“There’s got to be a better way,” Carmody muttered under his breath. “Sometimes I wish we still had subways.”

Ten minutes later he had signed at the desk for his father. The old man was tucked into a carrier pouch, strapped to Carmody’s chest. Awkward and heavy, but with room left to stuff in that carton of eggs.

If I took the car, I’d have to pay ecobal fees and parking… but I’d also have a spare seat to strap him into. Or the trunk. Oh, well, being unemployed will have compensations.

He took an elevator to the fifth floor catapult room, paid his dime and stood in line till it was his turn. Enviously, he watched some teenagers hustle past the people-launcher to an open air platform, where each one took a running start and then
sprang
into the sky. Well, of course anyone could do that, if you had plenty of free time to practice… and the agility of youth. Why, twenty years ago Carmody had been quite a big deal at his local hoverboard park. And he wondered if anyone still used them anymore, so graceful, silent-smooth. And it didn’t
hurt
when you rode a board! Only when you fell off.

“I am a son of light,”
he murmured, preparing his mind for the coming jolt-and-fling, always disagreeably jaw-jarring. “I am a son of light.”

“You’re MY son,”
groused a voice within the carrier pouch
. “And need I remind you that it’s dark in here?”

Carmody rolled his eyes.

“Hush dad. I gotta concentrate.”