Within You Without You
By Andrew Shedden
Authors Note: This is a singular narrative, but I tried to address multiple issues of culture, language, technology and communication within a single narrative. It ended up being nearly 1400 words so I hope that a single narrative is sufficient.
It wasn’t more than a couple of months after the bombs dropped that we started to see real changes. Everyone in the bunker sort of retreated into themselves for a while. Diving deep into their phones. The hardwire to the network and strong broadcast signal connected loved ones in other bunkers across the globe. Failsafe network indeed.
It was those with Neuralink who disappeared into themselves the most. This was the days before multiple-instancing, so when Neuralink was active the person was just a passive meat sleeve. After version 2.7 was pushed through a network push, there were some Neuralink folks who simply stopped talking altogether. It became clear after a few deaths that some of those who connected would neglect to eat, or drink. They would literally sit in a prone position and consume calories and bandwidth until their hardware burnt out completely.
There was a push to have Neuralink banned for a while, but the overwhelming potential for improvement of human potential overwhelmed any dissent. A few senators walked away from this with their pockets fuller than they should have been. They were given early stock information about the Neuralink’s next big breakthrough and stood to make a mint.
Legislation was passed to allow these Neuralink Addicts to pass on the earning potential of their personal processing to corporations. My uncle was put on a life support system in our basement. He was connected to Neuralink every single day for 23.5 hours. Of this, he spent 3.5 hours connected to a network of other brains working to solve the most complex equations ever created. It wasn’t the sum of his own experiences and intelligence that contributed to this endeavour. He acted as additional RAM.
20 hours was his and his alone. From his description, (I never had the opportunity to get my install before the bombs fell) it was everything all at once in every way. An indescribable feeling of interconnectedness. Hardwired directly into his brain was the hive mind of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Completely separate from his physical form he could understand everything about science, physics, mathematics. He knew every obscure bit of trivia about every movie ever made. He could play any instrument; paint beautifully and see my Aunt again, wearing the same yellow dress she had on when the bombs fell. There was no way to distinguish his experiences and impressions as artificial.
I remember growing up and being a little afraid to go down in the basement. Not to find my Uncle connected and docile, but to see him awaken wild eyed and bewildered before the real physical reality would kick in. When he would sit at the edge of his bed, remove the intravenous needle and do the brief series of calisthenics necessary to keep his muscles from completely atrophying. Then he’d use the washroom, reinsert the intravenous needle and reconnect. It wasn’t like a person was in the room with me. He seemed more like a ghost inside of the skin of a man.
I was a grown man before they let us back up to the surface. There was so much work to do, and so few of us to do it that it was actually a pretty good time. The recycling and reclamation process was how I made my money. I’d go from abandoned house to abandoned house grabbing iPads, flatscreen tvs or anything else that I could find. Lithium, neodymium and other metals were in high demand for the rebuilding process. Occasionally there were misunderstandings about personal property. I became pretty good with my hands and quick with a knife. Like everyone else, I stayed close to the bunker. The Geiger counter could spike quickly and there were huge radiation storms that happened from time to time. Post war, radiation was an inevitability. Only a matter of time.
Once the power grid got up and running efficiently again, Neuralink Epsilon was released. I’ll admit, I was one of the first to sign up. I wasn’t interested in going inwards, I’d spent my whole childhood in a damn bunker. Instead I focussed my Epsilon upgrades on external operational functionality. I did two tours fighting in Congo in order to get my mil-spec augmentations. By the time the African Unification War ended, I could run at 75 km/hr and could hit bullseye with a pistol from 200 yards. Sub dermal plating and electrical shielding had made me physically impervious to all but a close range explosion. Rad scrubbing kidneys helped mitigate the damage of radiation (at least in the short term). I could see in the dark, and survive on nothing but water for weeks at a time.
By this point, my Mom had passed away from Ovarian cancer and my Dad was starting to experience dementia. I reached out to my Uncle through the net to determine what he wanted to do with the remainder of his life. Those shut-ins like my uncle who stayed connected to Neuralink most of their lives were living longer than those being exposed to the surface radiation constantly. But even though they were alive they had fundamentally changed.
My uncle asked if we could meet in a virtual café. By this point, his vocal chords had atrophied to the point of being almost totally useless, and his hearing was nearly completely gone. His skin was translucent and his eyes could barely open. I connected my jack to the hard line and felt the familiar whoosh as I logged into the guest spot at the café.
My Uncle’s avatar was in stark contrast to his real physical body. He was about 7 feet tall and wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans. Like a digital Paul Bunyan, his forearms were the size of my thigh. We sat across from each other in the empty café, a facsimile of a pre-war Starbucks.
“Good to see you Uncle! My father will no longer be able to take care of you due to his health. Where do you want me to move your body and equipment?”
My uncle looked through me and at me at the same time. I’m someone who prides himself on taking care of his physical body. I’m fast, I’m strong and I’m lethal. But in the Neuralink café I felt so incredibly weak and vulnerable. His voice was a deep baritone that shook the instance.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve come to a decision. It’s time to cut the cord. I’m going to fully upload myself to the instance.”
This logical choice by my uncle was something I had been expecting. It was a drastic choice nonetheless, and wanted him to know that.
“You know that you lose your status as a human being if you do this, right? All of your rights as a citizen, everything. Plus, that technology is still imperfect. You’ll never evolve as a person, you’ll never be able to grow any further.”
He smiled at me out of the side of his mouth and answered: “I long ago gave up caring about the physical world. I remember a time before the bunker, before the bombs. When I was a child and I didn’t have to worry about radiation or war. When I could spend my days outside exploring the forest or swimming in the river with my friends. The war didn’t change things, it ended them. The humans who went underground into their steel cocoon came out different. Now with my brother nearing his end-of-life, I’m ready to fully take my own next steps.”
I received a notification on my HUD that my credit balance had increased by 50,000. This was an absurd amount of currency, given that I had only $1500 credits to my name before this conversation. My uncle really was planning on going through with it.
“I wish you all the best on your path”
“And you on yours. Goodbye nephew”.
I logged out immediately and began making arrangements for my Uncle’s body to be picked up and disposed of. Most likely ground up and fed to the plants in one of the greenhouses.
I made a call to the Neuralink company and made a down payment on my next modification. I was removing all my implants and mods. It was time to devolve back into something that more approximated a human being.
