Memory Clouds (The Circuit Book 1), page 2
Everyone had to make sacrifices for the greater good.
Jake couldn’t care less about the rest of the world. He cared about his world. He’d always been independent and strong-willed. He didn’t care about politics, or how other people behaved. It didn’t have anything to do with him. All he really wanted from life was to be left to get on with it.
When did he ever get what he wanted?
Jake watched the drone nervously from his first-floor bedroom window. It had landed twenty minutes ago and was acting a little jittery. Nothing for it. Either he faced destiny, or he’d be forced to explain to his parents why a small drone was impatiently firing rockets at their front door.
- Chapter 2 -
Third Generation
Access to the Memory Cloud was normally facilitated by technology implanted inside the body. There were two standard devices. One embedded in a region of the brain called the amygdala, and a second attached to the optic nerve. The duality of these microchips provided a connection to a virtual world of almost unlimited knowledge and a portal to a repository of everything you’d ever experienced.
The surgical procedure to achieve this higher state of consciousness was usually performed during infancy. It was recommended by medical experts that it should be completed no more than three months after the birth of the recipient. Human behavioural scientists insisted it marked the point at which our earliest memories and emotions formed. Anyone receiving the implants later than this date would lose vital data about their early development. All of these claims were backed up by the manufacturer, who just happened to be the Circuit.
Everyone else believed there was a second reason for it.
It didn’t matter how many powerful new age anaesthetic drugs were used during surgery, people knew from experience that the recovery period was long and extremely painful. It took months for the host to adjust to the foreign objects burrowing into their flesh. Metal and wire fought with tissue and bone to see which would reach optimal performance first. Babies found verbalising their distress particularly challenging. Which meant they couldn’t complain. They resorted to screaming their heads off, a behaviour that didn’t deviate from what every mother had experienced for generations.
The physical pain was just the beginning. Eventually it relented but for some the trauma associated with the event lasted much longer. Jake knew this only too well. He’d suffered from the consequence of having two small, wirelessly connected microchips embedded in his organs for years.
He was one of the unlucky ones.
Most users experienced no side effects from the surgery. Jake, on the other hand, endured debilitating headaches that felt like storms had broken out inside his head. They were as common as the passing of the months. When he suffered natural headaches, the real world could be stopped. He’d just send himself to bed, turn off the lights, pop a few painkillers and sit it out. Not with these headaches. The Memory Cloud never stopped. The connection was permanent, and until the cause relented the pain in his head was constant. Occasionally it would intensify over a period of several weeks and months. When it reached a state of permanency only one remedy was successful.
It was always the same.
An upgrade.
He’d lost count of how many he’d had. When it became impossible to think straight, move or remember past memories without screaming in anguish, he knew he’d get the message. An alert would arrive in his cloud feed mandating him to visit his nearest Conversion Room for more invasive surgery, more recovery and normally an even greater level of pain sometime in the future. The more advanced the upgrades became, the more they hurt. The last implant, grafted to his nerves just after his seventeenth birthday, had more power, greater processing speed, more capacity and more functions. His fragile body couldn’t keep pace with the rapid rate of mechanical advancement. Which meant it was only a matter of time before the donor electronics rejected the host and the whole process cycled around again.
But even then, Jake’s headaches and countless upgrades were not the worst part of being connected to the cloud. Another phenomenon haunted him.
Flashbacks.
But they weren’t his.
It had long been rumoured, usually quietly and in secret code, that the Memory Cloud was not as secure as the Circuit pronounced. Anyone who’d received the regulation implants, whatever version they wore, became connected, twenty-four hours a day. Every second was extracted, recorded and, if prompted by the owner, shared with others. What if this interconnectivity was more fluid and the mathematical sluice gates allowed more data through than the Circuit acknowledged? Or maybe the flashbacks had something to do with the East? After all, their network was a different system all together. Theirs was called the Realm, at least that’s how people in the West translated it. The Realm and the Circuit had battled for subscriber supremacy for decades. They’d do whatever it took to disrupt the other. Perhaps the East had infiltrated the Memory Cloud and Jake was suffering as a consequence? Whatever the reasons, Jake was certain he wasn’t just passing his memories into his own cloud, he was receiving them from somewhere else.
He didn’t know why it was, but he knew what it was.
He felt things.
Things he’d not directly experienced for himself. Which meant the feelings weren’t from his memories. Which meant he was trespassing on virtual land that didn’t belong to him. What if it worked both ways? What if others could access his personal experiences? Although he had no control over these flashbacks, he was certain the Circuit wouldn’t believe it was innocent. Their control over their intellectual and ideological property was total. Step out of line and the Circuit stepped in. Often that resulted in a mandatory upgrade of new technology or, in the rarest of cases, confinement at the Source.
The Source wasn’t one specific place.
It was a series of secretive central hubs that occupied large swathes of territory in all countries under the Circuit’s control. The largest one he knew about was on the East Coast not far from where he lived. He’d learnt in Circology class that the Source was closed to citizens and only contained those deemed a threat to the rest of society, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Although this was how the authorities portrayed it, Jake didn’t know anybody who’d been there and returned again. Few people were foolish enough to put themselves in a position where they might find out.
Jake did his best to hide his flashbacks from the army of Memory Hunters that monitored the cloud for abnormalities and bugs. Maybe they already knew? After all, when everything was recorded, almost nothing could be hidden. Maybe that was the real reason he’d been prescribed so many upgrades over the last seventeen years? Maybe they were trying to stop the flashbacks rather than the headaches? But for whose benefit? His or theirs? Today, mercifully, he was pain-free and channelled both the visual and virtual worlds to help him focus on what would happen next.
Outside the window the drone had reacted to an internal sense of annoyance at being left to wait, and its metal shell had turned a light shade of pink. Nothing for it, thought Jake, time to face the music.
He lumbered out of his bedroom to the first-floor landing, having hurriedly thrown on the first T-shirt he could lay his hands on and a pair of ripped shorts. The sound of the escalator, clicking perpetually as each step fell monotonously away from the top before being replaced by the next, was just part of a familiar soundtrack. Jake sucked in a breath of anticipation and looked nostalgically around at his surroundings. This was the only home he’d ever known. The only house he’d ever lived in. Today was the penultimate day he’d wake up here. Down both sides of the landing a series of videographs played out a comforting procession of Montana family outings or notable personal achievements. They changed daily to reflect the mood of the viewer, an instruction direct from their cloud. Today they were sombre and one in particular caught his eye.
A six-year-old Jake was experimenting in the backyard with his brand-new physics bike. They were all the rage back in the early twenty-thirties. It was designed to help teach children to cycle without the fear of falling. Four canisters, either side of each wheel, instinctively adjusted the stability of the bike by discharging jets of high pressurised air that eliminated the chance the child fell off. Looking back now, it seemed a pointless contraption given how bikes were no longer in use outside of history lessons. As he remembered it, and as the videograph confirmed moments later, Jake had disappointed the marketeers of the product by careering head first over the top of the handlebars. Face struck concrete at force, dislodging a front tooth in the process, before his mother dashed to his aid, shrieking with worry. Jake instinctively stuck his finger in his mouth and ran it over that day’s enamel victim. Today it looked and felt much like its white siblings, perfectly replaced on his gums by the wonders of modern dental reconstruction. It wasn’t the only time he’d had work done on his appearance, but it had been the first.
Many of Jake’s physical features had been improved down the years. His wavy, blond hair was only partially original having been enhanced to avoid the genetic weakness of the Montana family’s receding hairlines. His lips, nose and chin had all been sculpted to remove minor inconsistencies or injury. Only the sparkling blue of his irises was authentic but that was only because eye surgery was outlawed in case it disrupted the signal of the chip in the nerve behind it.
Everyone invested in enhancements, at least here in the West. Money was no barrier to improving how you appeared in the visual world. In any one of the dozen walk-in clinics within a mile of his house, most work could be completed within the hour. All you needed to operate such establishments was a Circuit licence and a state-of-the-art cellular mogrification pen. Body surgery was as easy as getting a tattoo. As with everything in life, standards varied. It was immediately obvious when you met someone with the really expensive work. Jake’s wasn’t, but Christie liked it and that was all that bothered him.
Jake stepped on the escalator and both of his worlds slid gently by as he descended. Subscribers to the Memory Cloud saw two distinct worlds at once. On one dimension the physical world passed by as real as it had been for as long as man had noticed it. The fake plastic flower arrangements that poked rigidly over the rubber of the moving bannister; the subtle green ceiling lights that dimmed and brightened in response to the external conditions; the windowless windows that projected a realistic representation of the outside world onto what was basically a section of wall: all of these existed in Jake’s visual world.
On the other dimension you experienced the virtual world of the Memory Cloud. It projected a visual representation of what you saw, thought or felt. These neural interactions were then grafted inconspicuously within or next to what you saw in the physical world. Visual memories from the past could be accessed at leisure and replayed in front of you, no less real than the videographs on the Montana family’s walls. Occasionally an unexpected figure might pass through the scene on the off chance you wanted to buy toothpaste or upgrade your life insurance. The world of the Memory Cloud was your television, computer, museum, library, school, cinema, shopping centre and photo album all in one. It was the internet inside your head, and it took most people a while to adjust to it.
Each generation had had their own unique experience of it. Jake’s dad, Kyle, had been one of the early adopters of the internal implants back in the thirties. Unlike today’s infants his microchips were fitted while he was a young boy, although he never talked about the experience openly. Even though Kyle had been tethered to the cloud for decades he still had occasional bouts of ‘cloud over’ where the real and virtual worlds got confused. On one memorable occasion Jake found him hiding up a tree after he believed he was being chased by a pack of vicious dogs. In fact, he’d unwittingly allowed a dog food advert into his memory feed. It was easily done. The Memory Cloud was so lifelike everyone experienced ‘cloud over’ once in a while.
Jake’s grandfather, Paddy von Straff, had even more trouble adapting to his, but it wasn’t just down to user error. Paddy was born in the last millennium when the Memory Cloud was nothing more than a futuristic wisp of an idea. He was the only one in the family who truly knew the remarkable difference between now and then. Paddy’s access to the cloud was via equipment best described as base-level. It wasn’t even an official implant; the vital components being housed inside a small metal box that was attached to a belt around his waist. It interfaced with his consciousness via two sticky sensors that had to be attached to the sides of his head. From there wires ran down his back to the receiver on his hip. It worked about as well as a faulty hearing aid. Any signal he did receive rapidly disappeared and was immediately followed by a bout of swearing and his demands for life to return to the old days.
Paddy objected to the whole concept of the Memory Cloud. In his view it was a waste of time and a suppression of his human rights. Should any of the Montana family ever express dissatisfaction with their membership, blame always sat squarely with him. He’d signed up for the Circuit in the early days and as a consequence so had every other member of the family. In the Montana household only Paddy had chosen his own future the old-fashioned way. Everyone thereafter had, or would be instructed, to follow the rules laid out in their letters. Kyle and Deborah had been coupled together on their own Ascension Eve in the same way Jake would be today.
At the bottom of the escalator his family had gathered to wish Jake a happy birthday and to dish out the moral support for what might come next. At least most of them had.
“On a scale of one to ten,” goaded Tyra before Jake had taken the final step off the escalator and onto the photo-fluorescent carpet. “How nervous are you? I’d say eleven!”
“Very funny.”
Tyra reinforced her verbal taunt by sending Jake a virtual one that involved a holographic version of herself laughing on a continual loop. He swiped it from his mind, something he’d got used to doing when it came to her.
“Happy Birthday, son,” said his mother. “How are you feeling?”
“Tense.”
“Remember everything will be fine in the end. We’ve all been there, and it worked out great for me and your dad, didn’t it?”
“Crap it did!” bellowed Paddy. “You’ve got very short memories. Maybe you should go back and check them again on that fancy cloud of yours. The two of you have had more ups and downs than a roller coaster.”
“Not now, Dad,” scowled Deborah, growling under her breath.
“It’ll be a disaster, Jake. Mark my words, nothing good will come of it. It was better in the old days when…” Paddy paused while he fumbled underneath his silicon shirt to adjust the small metal box on his hip. “Why am I hearing Radio Seattle? I didn’t ask for that racket. See what I mean, it’s a nightmare…now what have I got? Bloody interference. No, madam, I’m not your Uncle Stanley, you’ve connected to the wrong member. Don’t tell me who I am! No, I’m not him. I don’t care if I do sound like him! Stop calling me, crazy bitch. Get out of my memory feed…”
“Have they arrived yet?” asked Tyra more through curiosity than malice on this occasion.
“No,” replied Jake.
“I wonder what they’ll be like,” added Tyra. “Probably losers like you. That’s how it works. They’re designed by the Circuit to replicate an individual’s characteristics, I learnt that in Circology.”
“Do they!? You’re screwed, then, aren’t you?” replied Jake who sent a couple of his own pernicious memories into her feed.
“Mum, he’s doing it again!”
“Jake, what have I told you about virtual bullying? It’s banned in this house, do you hear me? Until your guides arrive, I still have parental controls and I’m not afraid to use them.”
“She started it!” grumbled Jake.
“And I’m finishing it.”
“Debs, how do I block someone again,” barked Paddy, still arguing with his own virtual world somewhere near the living room door.
“Just think it, Daddy, and it will happen automatically.”
“Oh Christ,” he replied.
“What is it?”
“I think I’ve just blocked Aunt Lou instead,” he said, grinning. “The mind knows what it wants! No…I wasn’t talking to you, madam, whoever you are, hang up your end!”
“Are you ready then, son?” said Kyle with a friendly smile, placing a comforting hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You won’t know what the future holds until you go out there.”
“I know.”
“And I’d rather not replace the front door,” Kyle chuckled. “We all got nervous on Ascension Eve. It’s normal.”
“I think I’m ready,” said Jake. “I’ve been preparing for it my whole life after all. I just wish Christie were here.”
Anxiety welled in his chest and generated a flood of adverts for antidepressant medication and replayed some of his darkest memories as a result. Christie always put him at ease. There was nothing he couldn’t face when she was at his side in full support. How he needed her warm, infectious smile right now.
“Is she coming around?” asked Deborah.
“Later,” replied Jake. “I don’t think she can face the reality either. It’ll be better once we know what’s in the letter.”
“Just remember son,” said his mother. “This doesn’t change who you are. We love you whatever happens. Whatever the letter says you’ll still be the strong-minded, independent, caring, quirky and spontaneous boy you’ve always been.”
“I hope so. It’s just…” He stopped and stared around at the people who’d been there to support him his whole life.
“What?” asked Deborah.
This moment might be one of the last when they were all together. There was so much he should say, yet he was consumed by self-interest and the words escaped him. His parents had done their best, and he’d not always repaid their encouragement the way they’d deserved. He’d been an unruly child, often blaming the behaviour on his regular flashbacks, although it was more often down to teenage hormones. He had a habit of arguing with people over the slightest difference in opinion and his rebellious nature caused his parents to see too many head teachers and hospital wards. The opening of the letter wasn’t just for him, it was for them also. A reward for their hard work and patience. Which meant opening it increased the pressure on him further.
