Authors: Aaron Frale
Nanette appeared into an empty gray space with no discernible walls, ceiling, or floors. The substance that permeated the room with millions of machines was gray. Her business suit and shoes were black in stark contrast to the background. She had ruby red lipstick and earrings for a flash of color. The room began to shift and swirl with various gray shaded wisps as if she willed it to do so. The particles of gray began to colorize and formed a sidewalk, rectangular shapes materialized into a grocery store, clothing store, bookstore, and café.
People materialized into the space frozen in time. Jerry and 07760 appeared last. Jerry held the briefcase. She paused and soaked in the information. The motivation was the most important piece. If she understood his motivation, she could piece everything together. She paced around the frozen scene and stared directly into 07760’s eyes. He looked a little too alert. His eyes began to shift to look a little hazy. Pleased with her modification, she turned to her errant protégé. Jerry looked determined, like a character in one of his spy novels. His features began to shift until he became neutral. Then they shifted again to confidence. There had to be confidence in his eyes. Normally, such outrageous displays of emotion were not befitting an agent, but he knew no one was around to watch. She knew him well enough to know he valued emotion.
She often mused about what people were like when they weren’t being watched. The problem with her musings was that no one would ever know as soon as someone was watching. She could set up hidden recording equipment, but the equipment would change the situation. The person would be observed, and things changed by being observed at the quantum level. For all she knew, human decision making was a complex quantum level event deep inside the molecules of the brain. The person may not know about the recording equipment, but their atoms would. The electrons in a person's atoms would be somewhere as opposed to many places. Could behavior be linked to a quantum level event? Could the random firing of a neuron in the brain be linked to a precise arrangement of electrons?
She wondered if people could sense when their electrons were in a probability state as opposed to a specific location. When there was nothing to observe a person, did their personality take an amorphous state? Then once they were being observed, did they conform to the behavior of the particular configuration of electrons? She believed that an unobserved person could live in many possible universes at the same time. Their personality was in an amorphous state making choices, and others observed the choices. So once observed, their choice has permanency on their personal timeline. Jerry chose treason. She had observed that decision thus putting her into this universe. But is there another universe out there where they were working on their next case because she observed a different choice?
Her belief allowed her to choose a state of being somewhere in between free will and fate. While she couldn’t control the universes that came to seek her out, she could decide the path in the given set of circumstances. For example, she might not have chosen her career path if the circumstances in life had been different. People liked to believe she became an agent because she had a tough childhood. Her childhood was typical and average. Her decision to join the agency was because of her interest in history. Humans had a propensity for atrocity, and she could do her part to prevent any more violence from entering the history books. Maybe there was another universe with a person with her same genetic makeup who couldn’t care less about history. Quantum physics said electrons existed in a probability cloud, so why couldn’t universes? She could also be mixing religion into her physics, which would cause some physicists to roll their eyes and tell her not to over think it.
She was about to make another decision that could alter her entire universe. She needed to make a decision about Jerry. He went rogue, but it wasn’t clear as to why. Because of their history, she knew her supervisors were watching her. Despite their history, she was determined to find the reasons for his actions. She was too experienced to act with anything but impartiality.
The grayspace finished tweaks to the scenario. The scenario began while she watched. The people started to move. The street became alive. 07760 waivered and woozed. Jerry walked up to 07760 with purpose and a plan. He set the briefcase down in front of 07760 and said, “This is a very important file. Find a safe location and open it. The information contained in the case will transfer to your brain as soon as you hold onto the file.” Jerry walked away, and 07760 grabbed the case.
The scenario was too clandestine. The transaction couldn’t have happened the way the grayspace displayed. 07760 was way too woozy for all the information Jerry attempted to communicate. Besides, she knew Jerry well. He was much more subtle.
The system reset and the world shifted back to the starting position. The shift took a couple of seconds to process but loading time felt long to her. Technology always seemed to make humans wait. It seemed that when the tech could process more information, humans had to wait for it. Once computers could render a 2-D map with ease, 3-D maps came out and would load slowly. Once 3-D maps loaded with ease, location data was added forcing humans to wait. Now she could recreate entire worlds, but the more elaborate, the longer the load time. She felt that she was always waiting for technology.
Today was no different. She would find the motivation of Jerry, and the first step was figuring out exactly how the scenario happened. Once she unlocked the scenario, she would have clues to 07760’s whereabouts. As she modified the parameters of the program, she saw a young woman with a short skirt, scarf, and glasses holding an old handheld thumbtouch device called a cell phone. Before wireless thought transmission controlled computers, people had to input their commands with clunky thumbtouch devices. The sheer amount of commands her brain was sending the computer every second would take days on a thumb driven database. But the old thumbtouches still had a use. They had an outdated piece of tech called a photograph.
The photograph was her solution. The program began to shift again as parameters were modified. She accounted for photographs in her scenarios and entered them into the program. Photographs were a non-interactive technology that captured a moment in time and space. People used to use them to trade vague sensory impressions of experiences before people could share experiences through direct neural connection. Data keeping was vague back then, and her reconstructions were based on written documents, moving images, and photographs. It was like having an incomplete and limited understanding of the world. Movies only showed what was in the frame. Photographs lacked interaction. Writing about a street corner lacked all the detail of standing on that street corner. With neural transfers, a person could see what was beyond the edges of a photograph or outside the frame of a movie. A neural transfer could upload the feeling that was merely an impression in a photograph.
A photograph was a stagnant image. Street corners had buildings, people, and cars. There were sights, smells, and sounds. There were vibes, sensations, and feelings. The sensory input of one human at any given moment in time was mind blowing. The buildings all had different shapes, colors, and floors. The people wore different clothes, had different facial features, and displayed different attitudes. One human perceiving a street corner involved massive amounts of data. A photograph couldn’t transfer all the information on the sensory experience, only the impression of the experience. Humans found a way to transfer direct experience, vivid in every detail, by linking neurons in two people’s brains. Vacations weren’t told through stories and photographs, but rather they were uploaded to each other’s minds.
Her interconnectedness to every human’s public information was precisely the flaw in her thinking. She was used to having access to all the endless amounts of data streaming into her cerebral cortex at any given moment. She could stand on a street corner and describe every building, what was in every window, and even conjecture who lived in those windows. She could perceive massive amounts of data because her consciousness wasn’t limited. But she didn’t need all of the data. She just needed one important piece of information.
She needed to find 07760. She thought if she could recreate the transfer of the briefcase, she could run scenarios to his possible whereabouts. She was thinking in terms of crunching large amounts of predictive data. She didn’t need to recreate the initial briefcase hand-off because there was a more passive source of data most people of her time period would dismiss as being too vague. She just needed to crunch data on photograph usage. The thumbtouches had one advantage—people didn’t know that they were being used. So a person could end up in another’s photograph unaware they were in it. The recording technology of her day was sophisticated. If a person didn’t want to be in someone’s records, they could mark themselves private. When a person shared an experience of a crowded event, the computer would create facsimiles to replace the private individuals to maintain the illusion of a crowd. But with photographs, there were no facsimiles. Anyone in the photograph would have been there when the picture was taken. People couldn’t be edited out in real time. All she needed to find fugitive 07760’s whereabouts was find a photograph with an unwitting 07760 in the background. She understood Jerry’s obsession with ancient forms of data transfer.
The task of going through the historical records to find photographs of 07760 was monstrous for a human. Computers still had advantages over humans despite the increased power of her brain. Computers could crunch large amounts of repetitive data. Despite the advanced perception and intuitive abilities of humans, the humans made mistakes with long repetitive tasks. Here grayspace would handle the task of searching through the historical archives for photos of 07760 with ease. There must be a photo from the old social networking sites with 07760. Thumbtouch devices were popular back then. She would wait for the computer to find her solution and decided to clear her mind. While the grayspace ground away in the background, the street corner began to shift into Victorian-era England. She would hunt some werewolves in a completely silly fiction. She knew it was inane, but it was better than waiting for the grayspace. She loaded silver bullets into an old style projectile weapon.
Dawn crept into the city. The daylight slipped through the cracks long before the sun was visible. The city began to wake up. People set about their morning tasks. Some were on their way to work while others were getting coffee and other various morning treats. Shopkeepers opened their establishments. The smell of warm baked goods and roasted coffee filled my nose. I wasn’t hungry, but I felt that I should eat. It had been at least eighteen hours since I ate more than fruit if my guess that I had appeared on the street yesterday around noon was accurate.
Lucky for me, I was in a fairly relaxed city, so what I was about to do should be pretty simple. The coffee shop had an outdoor seating area. A seat facing the rest of the patio was perfect for me. I hadn't slept but didn't feel tired. I did use a public restroom to tidy myself up a little but didn’t need much tidying. I looked good for having been up all night. At least I didn’t look homeless. I didn't want the authorities to know about me. I lucked out last night. I was able to avoid getting arrested and the inevitable questions about my lack of IDs and identity.
A lady with a small dog set her bagel sandwich monstrosity on the table. She went back in with her coffee, presumably to get cream and sugar. She left her small dog tied to the table to defend her bagel. Another man left his coffee on another table close by. I checked to see if anyone was looking then swiped the bagel from the dog defender and the coffee from the other table. The dog’s entire body shook while it barked.
The funny thing about barking dogs is that people have a tendency to look at the barking dog, and not at what the dog is barking at. If the middle-aged couple pouring over a tourist map bothered to look at the man walking away and not the dog nearby seizing with yips and yaps, they might have been able to vindicate the dog from being scolded for eating “mommy's yummies.” Instead, my theft went unnoticed, a pretty impressive feat for what felt like my first time intentionally stealing.
A while later, after enjoying my caffeine and my breakfast, I decided that I needed new clothes. I was sure at this point people had to be looking for me and changing my clothes wouldn’t hide me entirely, but it was a start. The briefcase had a file with my name on it. Some organization had to create the file from the case. Therefore, somebody knew who I was. The question was, did I want to know them? I found the nearest clothing store appropriate for my age. I guessed late twenties, early thirties.
After tearing the tags off in the fitting room and stashing my old clothes, I stuffed my wallet of blank cards, the key, and the mints into my pocket. Even though the wallet was pretty worthless, I kept it anyway. Any clue to my former identity would help. I guessed the blank cards were intended for a fake ID machine. I theorized that they would be fed into a device, and the fake ID would print on the blank card. I needed these rather than any old blank card because these must contain a microchip embedded into the plastic. While printing could be faked easily, microchips could not without a sophisticated process.
All the clues led me to believe I must be a secret agent: the strange well-dressed man, the file, a key, and blank cards. I am here to do something. Maybe the file in the briefcase was not about the real me, but maybe it was information on the fake me. Perhaps my mind was wiped, and I would use the information in the briefcase to form my new identity. The key was probably to some storage unit that had my mission objectives, perhaps even an ID printing machine. But something must have gone wrong. I was probably brought to the drop point prematurely. I did feel drugged yesterday.
I stepped out of the fitting room. A clerk smiled and complimented me on my choices and offered some accessory suggestions. For such a relaxed city, the clerk seemed a little too attentive to the customers. I had not seen a cop since the bookstore. The clerk in front of me probably has never been in a fight in his life. I decided to test the city and see if it was truly relaxed. I was also pretty sure I knew the surrounding streets well enough to disappear. I ignored the clerk and walked out of the store.
At first, the clerk was surprised and then moved into anger. He called after me. He was a skinny hipster-looking dude. The man wore a scarf. How was I supposed to know that he knew martial arts? I didn't even have time to raise my legs in defense when he kicked them from underneath me. I thought I would respond with some super secret martial arts moves, but instead, my face connected to the pavement. I heard a crack and my head spun. He grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. I was dizzy and felt a little like vomiting. The feeling cleared very quickly. It was like my body was supercharged. It’s a shame my skills weren’t.
He dragged me into the back, and my pocket stuff was displayed on the break room table as the clerk searched me for other stolen goods. I wished those cards in the wallet had been real. If I had one of their fancy credit cards for elite members, I could have gotten a free water bottle with my purchase. The other employees watched because the incident was probably the most excitement they had all week, probably all year. His manager charged into the room and chewed the clerk out, “You could have seriously injured that man. You are lucky he doesn't sue...”
“I'm fine,” I said, anxious to leave.
“But he shoplifted the...” the clerk interjected.
“There are proper channels to deal with shoplifters.” The manager glanced over to me. “Not that I was implying...”
“I pretty much intended to steal it,” I said bluntly.
The manager didn’t know how to react. The clerk smirked, vindicated by my backup. If I showed the manager how nervous I was about him calling the police, he probably would call them. If he did call the cops, I guess I could run. There was an emergency exit within my line of sight. If the police came, maybe I could double back and scope out the place. I could see who might be looking for me who wasn't part of the local police.
“Take the clothes. Free of charge,” the manager said to me. The clerk huffed in anger.
“Thanks,” I awkwardly replied.
“You are lucky he doesn’t sue us,” the manager repeated to the clerk.
Not what I was expecting, but I should probably move on. It's best not to call too much attention to myself. I stuffed my pocket items back into my new pants. The manager handed me a bag with the clothes I’d left in the dressing room. I turned to leave the room when the manager stopped me.
“I have just one question,” the manager said as he looked at me.
“What?” I said.
“If you had money to pay for the clothes, why did you steal them?” the manager asked earnestly.
“I…” I didn’t have an answer for him.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I saw an Elite Platinum Plus card in your wallet. You could have bought pretty much anything in the store and gotten a free water bottle.”
I pulled out my wallet, and an Elite Platinum Plus was in the slot where one of the blank white ones used to occupy. I pulled out the card, and it looked like a valid payment method. My brain was having trouble justifying what happened, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “You passed! Carry on.”
The manager gave me a funny look.
The clerk piped in, “You’re from corporate?”
Another employee chimed in, “I heard corporate sends secret shoppers but secret shoplifters?”
“Just make sure you file a thorough report.” I winked at the manager and left. I may not have ninja-like attack skills, but at least I’m pretty smooth.
Out on the street, I ducked into an alley. I pulled out my wallet, and the cards were blank again. They were just white pieces of plastic that didn’t mean anything. Something strange was happening. I spied a coffee shop across the street. All the adrenaline from this morning got to me. I carried a sandwich and juice up to the register. While the barista rang up the total, I noticed a gold card application. I wondered if the card would be a gold card. I pulled out my wallet and gave her a gold card with the coffee shop’s logo where the platinum one had been.
“Will you take this?” I asked.
“A gold card? Of course.” She swiped the card and handed it back to me.