Generation optimisation – by EL Weber
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Camille shivers, exposed. A sterile overhead light buzzes and sends spots into her left eye. Faces peer down to examine her, but it’s the older man with hard eyes and a grim mouth she knows she should focus on. The trouble is she can’t quite place him. Murmurs simmer around her as he leans in. Her heart rate jumps, hands scrabble, splay out and touch something coarse and synthetic. It’s carpet, worn thin from years of overuse; she’s on the floor, in her classroom. She’s blacked out again. Fainted, shutdown, collapsed, experienced an unexpected power loss – whatever you want to call it. The point is: the microscopic cable connecting her enhanced eye to her optic nerve is reliable only in its frequent malfunction. As is the (supposedly regenerative) power cell taking up space in her ear canal. The damn surgery was supposed to enhance her comprehension, speed up her processing, give her more energy – not debilitate her.
The older man stands over her. His name swims across her synapses. John Ramsay, Dean of Upper Schooling. He glares at her, says nothing. She clenches her teeth and raises a hand to her head. It’s pounding. Everything sounds far away, the classroom eyeing her through a fishbowl.
Someone pulls her upright. (Not Ramsay.) They say something sympathetic in a soft tone. It’s Martha Heath, who shares an automated grey room divider with Camille. She pats her on the back and eases her into a plastic chair just this side of too small. The kids ogle.
Ramsay is talking now, voice curt and sharp. Martha takes a step back. Ramsay puts a cold hand around Camille’s arm, lifts her up. Still disoriented, she lets him march her out of the classroom, saying to Martha as he goes, ‘Double class today, Mrs Heath. Send the divider back and bring them together’. Martha’s class, Camille knows, is three lessons ahead of her own.
The pain in her head recedes, though Ramsay’s grip is none-too-light as he steers her across the polished concrete floors of their institution. Bright coloured lights flash around them, guiding students toward their next class, the counsellor, the library. A siren blares signalling truant students. Ramsay takes her into the warmly lit, empty tea-room, a respite from the hubbub of the school halls. He leans against a concrete bench and gestures for her to sit at one of the tables. She does. He looks at her, impassive.
Like her, Ramsay has coughed up for an enhanced eye. His operates with the same three triangulated lenses at the edge of the iris connected by circuit tracers, the pupil one large lens almost indistinguishable from the real thing. He’s chosen ice-blue. (Hers is not quite the right shade of green, and missing the little brown fleck she loves in her good eye.) But as far as Camille can tell, Ramsay’s actually works. His hair doesn’t stick out at odd ends, she knows he exercises because he’s always bragging about his 10k sunrise run, and he once invited all the upper school staff to his ‘total steal, the sellers had no clue what this place was worth’ four-bedroom-two-bathroom home overlooking the river with a yard big enough for a dog.
He begins dissecting her, pulling her apart from the inside out with polite words. ‘We’ve got to find a solution, Cammy,’ he says. He’s got his pronouns confused. ‘This is the seventh incident this month.’ Her vision shutters and she’s suddenly relieved she’s sitting. Her clicks are still dangerously low. ‘Cammy?’ She hates it when he calls her this. Nicknames are intimate gifts she only grants to people she likes.
He narrows his eyes at her. ‘Can you confidently say you’re bringing your best self to work? Didn’t we all undergo the Nova Mel procedure for our students?’ Ramsay’s words press down. She wants to leave – but where would she go? The rot is everywhere.
He shifts away from the bench, and a cold sweat slicks down her back. ‘We’re going to have to take serious steps here.’ He’s going to make her. Legally, he can’t force her, but if she doesn’t do it, they’ll suspend her.
Camille looses a shaky breath. She doesn’t want him anywhere near her when she agrees.
‘I’m already down to four hundred clicks outside school time,’ she says in a small, high-pitched voice she loathes. Four hundred could become forty in a matter of minutes. Ramsay is unmoved, silent, waiting for more. ‘I could take it down to two – but John, I really can’t afford any more than that.’ Her words rush out. ‘I’ve explained the faults in my implant, and I’ve tried to get onto Nova Mel but the waiting line is enormous and if the school could just give me a bit more time—’
Ramsay holds up his hands as if in surrender, cuts her off. ‘No one’s forcing you,’ he says, his tone light. ‘We’ve just got to find a workable solution for everyone.’ His words hang in the air.
But there is no other solution. The choice has been made for her.
‘I can add more clicks here.’
*
When Camille arrives home at six, she is nauseous from reliving her conversation with Ramsay on her standing-room-only shuttle-ride. She taps her index finger against her thumb incessantly, leaves her sandals, her bag and school-issued tablet by the door, and checks her telecam. The only message is from her mum, who always waits until the evening to make contact. She swipes it away, smudges the day’s make-up when she rubs at her eyes, and moves into the tiny kitchen she shares with Vashti and Sadie.
Vashti’s silver pots and pans hang from the walls, knives neatly aligned along a magnetised strip, spices holding court over a whole cupboard – she is particular about making things by hand, and often cooks for Sadie. When not at work, Sadie sleeps. She is rarely visible in the apartment. Congo, the company she works for, rents enhancements to its employees. When her implant comes unstuck, Vashti and Camille help her rethread the wire and tendon into her back.
Camille potters around in the kitchen. Victor, the curmudgeonly rescue parrot, squawks at her. She checks the automatic water bowl and feeder. Seems fine. Victor hates everyone and everything apart from two of their other rescues: an ancient blue heeler and a calico cat who refuses to use the litterbox. Camille thinks of them fondly as the old men’s club.
She asks the homesystem to play piano solos three times before it does, then heads into the living room and sits cross-legged on a second-hand couch riddled with bite and claw marks. On the wall across from her hangs a wistful triptych of black and white photographs of Venice. For a moment she entertains giving up teaching to undertake a photography degree instead. But fine art is for people with money. And she doesn’t need any more cameras; she already has one in her head.
The three-legged black cat Vashti brought home from work two months ago, Hedda, comes to sit in her lap. Camille scratches her behind the ears with her left hand. Then she breathes in deeply, exhales. Blinks three times, slowly. A display screen shudders into her right field of vision. The enhancement tracks the movement of her right eye (hell, it’s always doing that, it’s the only thing it’s good at) and she scans through to the settings. Hedda nips at her fingers when she forgets to scratch. She pulls up the digital wellbeing centre, scrolls through to energy use. The current setting blinks at her. It’s already uneven, but at least she keeps something for herself. Her stomach roils as she adjusts her allocation for clicks. No more blackouts at school. Are you sure? The faulty system prompts. No, she thinks. But her career is the reason she got the enhancement. Yes, she selects – just as Vashti pushes open the door and calls a loud hello. Vashti makes a lot of shuffling noise as she enters with groceries. Hedda scrambles from Camille’s lap. Camille is the spare human.
‘You’re home early, Vash,’ Camille observes, leaving the couch to help put the groceries away.
‘Took the day off,’ Vashti mutters, squatting down to scratch Hedda. It’s not fair the cat prefers Vashti, who is a vet nurse, and on a normal day must reek of other animals.
Camille nods slowly as she pulls canned beans out of Vashti’s eco-bags. ‘Can, ah, can you afford that?’
‘Not really. But Mab and Cal needed help – Mab had a fall.’
Camille pauses. ‘Is she ok?’
Vashti nods. Mabel and Calypso are an elderly couple they have all taken to looking out for. They live two stories below. Camille catches herself in jealousy of their devotion sometimes, wonders if she’ll live long enough to meet someone who could love her like that. This she has confessed to Vashti, who looks at her now, thoughtfully.
‘What time did you get home?’ she asks in soft tones. ‘You didn’t cancel that date, did you, Cam?’
‘Not yet,’ Camille says. Truth: she had forgotten. She doesn’t tell Vashti what happened at school. She blinks back tears, feels like a Dependant.
Vashti unpacks more cans. ‘That’s good,’ she says as she finishes refilling their meagre stores. ‘I really do think it’s good you’re putting yourself out there a bit more.’ She turns and comes to give her friend a squeeze on the arm, smiling. Camille is thankful Vashti doesn’t register her own forced smile.
*
Camille shifts in her seat. She can’t believe she dressed up for this guy. He’s already made fun of her food, twice. And he ordered a bottle for the table without asking what she liked. The white wine has left an unpleasant tang at the back of her mouth.
The restaurant is darkly lit. It’s a welcome relief from the bright halls of school, but these automated places unnerve her – no wait staff, no front of house, just cooks toiling away you never see. Food arriving at your table via heated, controlled copper conveyors that run elegantly through the design of the architecture. She feels like she’s taking advantage somehow. Outside, it begins to rain. The first cyclone of the season has arrived. Her date prattles on about investments – Camille’s already forgotten how this conversation started. Surreptitiously, she changes the display of her implant. She needs to check how many clicks she has left. She grits her teeth: eighty-two lost in the space of twenty minutes.
He asks if she would like more wine, and when she declines, his expression darkens. He sits back in his chair and folds his arms. Camille runs a hand along her upper arm. She thinks about her telecam in her purse. Stupid to put it away. Should have kept it on the table. He did.
‘I think I’d better start home soon,’ she says. He says nothing, just flicks his hand in the air. She reaches into her purse, pulls out her telecam. ‘I’m happy to pay…’
She taps it a few times and mumbles something about finding the right application, then sends Vashti one of their pre-formed messages: heading home. She doesn’t like the way this guy’s eyes track her fingers. She navigates to the transferco app and holds her telecam up to his.
He doesn’t return the gesture. ‘I can afford to take a date out,’ he says icily.
She slackens her arm a bit in the air, still holding it out in case he changes his mind. ‘Well, if you’re sure…thanks.’ She gathers up her coat and makes to leave. It’s still raining outside.
As she steps up from the table, he grabs her by the wrist. ‘Wait, I’ll take you home.’
Hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She glances around the restaurant to see whether any of the other diners notice them. They don’t.
‘Oh, that’s ok.’ Camille pulls her hand away. She thinks about saying she’ll take the shuttle, but then he’d probably offer to wait with her. She shivers at the thought. She can’t tell him she’s walking either. ‘I’m actually parked just outside,’ she lies; she hasn’t been able to afford a car since fossil fuels went extinct. She scrambles away before he can offer to walk her, only a slight twinge in her gut about leaving him with the bill. She wonders if she’s overreacting.
She steps outside and into the rain, throws on her coat and hurries around the building. She doesn’t live far, but she doesn’t want this guy following her so she ducks around the back of the building next door and waits five minutes under an awning, then tucks her hair into her coat and walks out with her head down. She tries to stay on the lighted path but keeps close to the buildings on her right to draw less attention. There are a few people about. Ahead of her, a group of college students with watershields up giggle and laugh loudly. They pay her no attention. There is a guy walking alone at the other end of the street. She keeps her eye on him. She walks quickly, down three blocks, turns right. She tries to look around subtly, uses the reflective glass of other buildings to check for anyone behind her. Sees nothing. But she can’t shake the feeling of being followed, so she glances back. A man in a dark coat walks about fifty metres behind her. Cold floods her body. Is it the guy from the restaurant or someone else? She can’t tell. Maybe she’s just being paranoid.
Camille quickens her pace. She takes another right, walks three more blocks and then another left. She hears footsteps behind her on the slick pavement. She breathes hard, checks her clicks. Twenty-two. She might just make it. She takes out her telecam and messages Vahsti again. T-10, she writes. Unlock the door. The streets get darker, less populated. But she’s getting closer to home. To her left, a weather-beaten electronic billboard for Nova Meliorum flickers in and out of life: Transform your mind. Enrol in the procedure today and make your dreams their reality.
She doesn’t dare risk a glance behind her. She keeps the display in her field of vision. Seven clicks left. Five. Two. The same footsteps behind her. When the power goes out, she loses the bad eye first, as well as the hearing in her right ear. She stumbles. A door, a bar, anywhere she could sit with other people. The street is expressionless, the security lights of closed businesses cold and unresponsive. A chill settles into her skin at the empty sound of her heels on the concrete. Her right arm is numb, and she’s limping now. Black spots swirl in what remains of her vision, exhaustion courses through her. Keep. Moving. Her breath comes ragged, and when she stumbles again – her left leg this time – she falls, smacks hard into the pavement. Her head swims.
A hand presses against her thigh. Everything goes dark.
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Image: v2osk - Unsplash
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