A Rigged Future

A Rigged Future

There was not much leg space in coach, and the graphic novel I was reading kept getting banged by the seat in front of me. We had leveled off at thirty seven thousand feet for the flight across the Pacific, when I felt an odd snapping sensation. It was like when your ears pop from a pressure change, but somehow, more inside my head. My vision started to double up, but the extra version of the world didn’t seem to match up with the normal one. I shook my head and looked around, but the ghosted images seemed to be all around me. I couldn’t escape them. I reached for the button to call for a stewardess, when the whole world snapped this time.

MChat Group 0x78df34d1 (Pacific-Flyer-Vets#1253) 03:43 PST 8 members

Malcolm: Dude, the guy next to me on this flight is freaking out.

Malcolm: <flat video feed>

Malcolm: He’s thrashing and practically foaming at the mouth. Whoa! He just busted me with his flailing fist.

Roger: That looks cray cray. Hook into his stream man. What’s going on?

Malcolm: I can’t! It’s like he’s totally offline, but he’s right there, I can see his rig is alive.

Peter: Is he in trouble? Give us a points stream.

Malcolm: <point cloud feed>

Peter: That’s messed up man.

Malcolm: Yeah, I’m paging for help. Hey, stop hitting me man! Now he’s screaming...

MChat Group 0xba763499 (Coffe-Dudes#3264) 03:44 PST 13 members

Sarah: Hey, Antonio just went offline. Like completely offline.

William: He was flying back from Tokyo. Lemme check his flight’s status.

Sarah: Something is back online, it’s weird though.

William: Flight ANA Flight 008 is fine. <browser screenshot>. On time and on schedule.

Antonio: kjFhnFkjhklaSlfkDDdf&*((JDFHJGLasdlfgh <white noise> daJhb Ss%kj Fd#sf

Sarah: What the hell is going on?

I awoke to a barrage of light, sound, vibrations and pressure. Nothing was coherent, just an overdose to all the senses at once. I screamed, but I couldn’t penetrate the sounds washing over me. I clenched my eyes closed, but I couldn’t shut out the lights and colors. I thrashed my limbs but I couldn’t feel them from the pressure. I was trapped.

MChat Group 0x78df34d1 (Pacific-Flyer-Vets#1253) 03:45 PST 8 members

Malcolm: No one is coming… I’m posting this feed to the net under ‘Seat14C’. Let’s see, according to the flight manifest, the guy’s name is Antonio Smythe. I’ll tag him in the feed, hash-tag meltdown.

Roger: I see it. People are tuning in.

MChat Group 0xba763499 (Coffe-Dudes#3264) 03:46 PST 13 members

William: Hey, Antonio was just tagged in a live feed. @Sarah check it out <feed link>.

Sarah: I see him. What’s going on? Why is no one helping him?

Ben: Can you reach the guy who posted this? Man, there are thousands of viewers.

Sarah: On it.

Antionio: mzxBv&zs 784gkz!#sdfo$hlis(dFlkhLluiSdfg <white noise>

MChat Private Message Channel

Sarah: Hey, you are hosting that feed from the plane!

Malcolm: Yeah, I’m sitting next to him.

Sarah: That’s my boyfriend. You have to help him.

Malcolm: I don’t know what to do. There’s a guy from the airline here, but he’s got no clue either.

Sarah: I’m on Antonio’s trusted list. I can reboot his rig if you can patch me into him.

Malcolm: Ok, let’s try it. I’ll get the airline guy to hold him down.

Everything, then all at once, nothing. An absence of stimulation. A void where there was a cascade just a moment ago. I woke up again, this time in a different way. My natural senses re-established themselves at normal levels of volume. I could see. I could hear. I was on a goddamn plane. There was a guy wearing weird glasses looking down at my face, and a clump of spit drooling down my chin. I wiped my chin.

“Hey man, are you okay?”, he asked, leaning back a little. “I’ve got your girlfriend online here. Oh.. of course you can’t see her, your rig is down”.

“What? Huh.. I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said. “My rig?”

I reached up to my face and was surprised to feel some kind of glasses. I didn’t wear glasses, I’d had laser eye surgery years ago. Reaching further I felt that the glasses had rigid straps that extended up over the top of my head. I started to try lifting this “rig” off my head, but a hand immediately slapped down on mine and stopped me. The man spoke again, quickly.

“Whoa there, don’t do that. You’re still plugged in, even if it is in emergency shutdown mode. Your rig must have gone crazy. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve never even heard of it. Hey, your girlfriend wants to talk you”.

“Slow down. What is this thing on my head? Get it off me.”

I shook the rig with both hands and was rewarded with a pulling sensation in my scalp and a jolt of pain. It seemed to be attached. The hand pushed down again.

“No, no, you’ll rip out your mesh if you do that. Have you gone mad? Hey, this girl really wants to talk to you, she says her name is Sarah. I’ll put her on speaker,” said the guy, speaking too fast again.

“Antonio, it’s me,” the female voice came from a speaker on the guy’s rig. “I powered your rig down into emergency mode. You were having some kind of seizure. Do you want me to turn it back on?”

The last thing I remembered was being on a different plane. I was flying back to San Francisco from a comic convention in Tokyo where a book that I illustrated had been a minor success. I had even signed a few copies for fans. It had been a nice trip.

The last thing I remembered was not having a crazy device strapped to my skull, not having a girlfriend named Sarah, and not being inside a plane that looked like a set from a bad sci-fi movie.

“I’m going to turn it back on so we can talk”, came the female voice from the speaker again.

I shook my head wildly and waved her away, even though she wasn’t even there.

“No! Do not turn that thing back on. It almost killed me.”

“Antonio, what is going on? You’re acting really weird.”

“I’m acting weird? I’M ACTING WEIRD? This whole place is weird! Do not turn that thing back on.”

MChat Private Message Channel

Malcolm: Hey, I’ve got a doctor online. He’s going to join us.

Sarah: Thank goodness. About time.

DoctorBot: Please pipe the subject’s feed to me.

Malcolm: I can’t, his rig is down and he won’t let us start it up again.

DoctorBot: That is unusual. A visual feed?

Malcolm: <flat video feed>

DoctorBot: Is he agitated?

Sarah: Hell yeah he’s agitated. He didn’t even recognize me.

DoctorBot: I recommend a sedative, then have him and his rig examined when the plane lands. I can authorize the airline attendant to apply it. Do you have trusted access?

Sarah: yes <trusted access signature>. And Malcolm, shut the public feed down.

Malcolm: Yeah, good call.

I saw a man in a uniform approach down the aisle. He spoke as he leaned in towards me.

“Sir, this will make you feel much better,” he said kindly.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Then before I could react, he pressed a tube against my arm, and a warm feeling flooded through my body. I sank into a deep sleep with the rig still on my head.

***

I woke up again, this time in a bed in what looked like a private hospital room, but strange. There were no windows, no TV screens, and no obvious hospital stuff like IV drips or machines-that-go-ping. I felt my face and discovered that I was no longer wearing a thing on my head, but I also discovered some disconcerting metal-feeling studs that seemed to be implanted in my skull.

A man who was obviously a doctor stood by the bed with an attractive woman in her forties. The woman stepped forward, leaned down and hugged me.

“Antonio, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“Err, I’m feeling okay. Who are you?”

The woman and the doctor exchanged worried looks.

“It’s me, Sarah. You don’t know me?” she said almost in tears.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

She looked shocked. I felt bad, but it was the truth.

“Antonio, how can you say that? We’ve been together for nine years!” The tears started for real now. She backed away to compose herself and the doctor stepped forward.

“Mr. Smythe, it appears that you have had some kind of episode. We have run diagnostics on your rig, and a full physical examination of your body, and both seem to be functioning perfectly normally.”

“Everything is absolutely not functioning normally. For a start, where am I?” I demanded.

“You are in a hospital room in San Francisco, and your rig is safely in storage nearby,” said the doctor. “Would you like me to retrieve it for you?”

“Okay, I’m already lost. What the hell is a rig? I know it is that thing that was on my head, but what is it?”

“What is a rig?” the doctor seemed almost as confused as me. “How can you not know that after wearing one for fifteen years? Hm. And you don’t recognize Sarah here. Is it possible you are suffering from memory loss? What is the last thing you remember?”

“My memory is fine. The last thing I remember is I was on a plane returning from J-Con 2017 in Tokyo. Then there was a snap, and all hell broke loose in my head, then you guys drugged me.”

“Did you say 2017?” said Sarah in a quiet voice.

“Yeah, 2017. So?”

“The year is 2037.” said Sarah in an even quieter voice.

***

Rehabilitation has been hard. It took me days to convince them that I wasn’t delusional or faking it. Eventually they ran some kind of high resolution non-invasive brain scan and determined that my brain was “completely untrained” for rig usage.

Since I knew nothing, I was given a crash course in rig mechanics. Apparently, rigs use something called a nanomesh. Everyone has a mesh these days, including me. It wraps around the top outer layer of the neocortex and connects to linkage nodes that extend up through the skull with magnetic connectors for the rig to attach to. The mesh is implanted into the brain all at once, but only turned on in small increments as the person is trained up. The brain learns to talk to the mesh over time, and in parallel, deep learning algorithms running on processors embedded in the rig figure out how to talk back to the brain. The training process is different for everyone, there is no re-using neural interface code, it’s all essentially new algorithms grown from scratch for each individual person. They tell me this is good, because it prevents sharable operating system level exploits - whatever that means.

But, my brain doesn’t know how to interact with the mesh. That’s why I was overwhelmed on the plane. The mesh was broadcasting into my brain, just like it does for these future people all the time, but my brain had no idea how to handle the input. For me it was an overload of multi-sensory-channel noise.

They tell me it takes years to learn how to operate a rig. The training process is supposed to feel something like meditation or flash cards, but for all the senses at once. People do it as children these days. Eventually it’s a full input/output channel from the brain to the rest of the world that can bypass the regular senses or integrate with them. Pretty scary for a guy from twenty years ago. It’s like a mix of virtual reality, a full body suit, headphones, a rollercoaster, smell-o-vision and stuff we hadn’t even thought of yet. I haven’t put the rig back on yet. I think these people think I’m retarded or something.

Oh yeah, eventually I looked into a mirror. They had to go find one for me. They don’t have actual physical mirrors here. Something about them messing with tracking systems, and they are redundant anyway since the rigs can provide virtual real-time full 3D external views from any angle by compositing from the invisible cameras that are everywhere. Anyway, in the mirror, I look so old. It seems that twenty years have actually passed, and I missed it all. My prime adult years, my career, my chance for a family… If it really did happen, I have no memories of it. Sometimes I think I should be sadder. Maybe it just hasn’t sunk in yet, or maybe it’s just hard to miss something that doesn’t feel real.

Sarah has been nice though. She’s stuck with me through all the lessons and training exercises. The doctor says that they’ll try to find me a laptop!

MChat Private Medical Channel

Sarah: It is so frustrating. I can’t share anything with him, and he is so isolated. He doesn’t know anything! I have to explain the simplest things.

Doctor: They may be simple to you, but remember, he has no context. Maybe the laptop will help connect him.

Sarah: I can’t believe those even still exist.

Doctor: Yes, they are rare. A tiny percentage of people reject the nanomesh and are stuck using one instead of a rig.

Sarah: I hope this works. He needs something.

When they said ‘laptop’, it didn’t turn out to be what I thought. It’s more like the rigs that they wear, but with a keyboard and trackpad instead of the mesh. Sarah actually burst out laughing when they brought it in. But, it has helped. Well, it has helped me to function. I can do simple things on my own now, and I have access to whatever the internet has become.

I looked up my old comic books. They seem to have become quite popular in a nostalgic kind of way. Maybe I’ll even start drawing again.

MChat Private Medical Channel

Sarah: He is getting better. It doesn’t seem like the memories are coming back though, he just seems to be adapting. At least I can stay in touch with him all the time now. Well, as long as he is wearing his laptop rig. He keeps taking it off! He’s so strange.

Doctor: Sarah, you have to come to terms with the fact that those memories may never come back.

Sarah: I know. I just want him the way he used to be, but I know he’ll never be the same.

Something weird happened. Weird. Ha! Something weirder happened. They got me a Wacom tablet and stylus to hook up to my laptop thing. Artists still use those here! I was in a deep groove drawing some figures, and I felt a little snap - like I felt on the plane. Not as strong, but the same sensation. I’d never forget that feeling. Then my vision was ghosted with images of the plane interior. Not the sci-fi looking plane I woke up in, but the old plane that I came from. I ripped off the laptop rig because I thought it was malfunctioning, but the visions stayed. It haunted me for about a minute then faded away. I have no idea what it means. I didn’t tell the doctor. I didn’t tell Sarah.

MChat Group 0xba763499 (Coffe-Dudes#3264) 17:36 PST 13 members

Sarah: Hey guys. Antonio wants to say hi.

William: Hey welcome back man. <high-five sticker>

Antonio: Hello. Sorry I’m slow. I’ll probably just lurk for a while.

Ben: No problem, take your time.

That chat group is crazy. I don’t understand any of the references, and it goes by so fast I can’t keep up. Some of the content I can’t even read with my crippled laptop rig. And Sarah says she’s in lots of these at once? I don’t know how she does it.

MChat Private Medical Channel

Sarah: He says he wants to try turning his rig on.

Doctor: I think that is progress. We can archive his old profile and start him with a beginner package. It won’t be like on the plane at all. Gradual and easy.

Sarah: I think its progress too. He seems to be coming back to me after all this time.

There was the doctor, and a nurse, and Sarah there in person when I turned on the rig for the first time. I’m not sure what they expected to happen, but they planned for the worst. But just like they said, it was painless and easy. I think the laptop rig prepared me for this better than I realized. I ran through a calibration and setup phase, then some tutorials. The rig paired with my clothes, the cameras in the room, and the network. In some ways it’s like a fancy iPhone.

The steps to take the rig off and switch back to my laptop are a bit complicated. Sarah helped walk me through it and sat next to me on the bed after the nurse left. She has been so patient. I can see why I fell for her.

But then the thing happened again. I felt the snap, and I almost fell down this time. The plane cabin was so vivid; it was like being in two places at once. Or maybe it was like being in two times at once. It lasted longer this time as well, a couple of minutes. I could even hear the passengers talking and the hum of the plane. I pretended I was just disoriented from the rig, but I don’t think Sarah bought it.

MChat Private Medical Channel

Doctor: His vitals spiked just after I left. Looks like he was dizzy?

Sarah: I don’t know what it was, but I saw it too. Something obviously happened, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Is that a common reaction?

Doctor: It shouldn’t be. <link-to-rejection-symptoms> But, rig rejections symptoms are quite varied. It seems unlikely to be that though, since he has been wearing the rig for years with no side effects.

Sarah: Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.

I practiced with the rig every day. I learned how put it on and remove it safely by myself. The doctor says that maybe because my brain already trained to use the rig once, it’s learning how to interface with it faster now. I’m not sure how to take this. What does it mean for my travel through time? I know none of the future people (I still call them that to myself after all this time) think that happened, but I’m still positive I didn’t just lose my memory.

Did my brain travel through time? Obviously the rest of my body didn’t travel through time because I’m old now. Did my brain revert back to a previous version of itself, like being restored from a backup? But if my brain changed, then how could it ‘remember’ how to train for the rig? If my brain didn’t change, how could my mind have changed? Could my old mind be crammed into my current brain? Are minds and brains different things? I tried to look this up the answer to these questions on the future version of the internet but it only made things worse. I’m pretty confused.

The snaps back to the plane keep happening. Luckily so far they’ve been when no-one else is around. I tend to keep to myself a lot, but I can actually follow what is going on in the chat group sometimes now.

MChat Group 0xba763499 (Coffe-Dudes#3264) 17:36 PST 13 members

Antonio: Ha, I actually got that one. You guys must be slipping.

William: <thumbs-up> We always had faith in you Antonio.

Antonio: A whale walks into a bar.

William: ??

Antonio: The whale says..

William: …

Antonio: Woooooaaahhhhheeeeieieeiieiiiiiiiieeeeee

Antonio: The bartender says...

Antonio: Go home Frank, you’re drunk.

William: Lol. Antonio told a joke.

Sarah: <smiley emoji>

The rig is like nothing I have ever used before. It can recreate multi-channel sensory experiences better than movies and VR and real-life combined. As my mesh is activating I’m discovering I can handle multiple inputs at once. I can listen in different ways, I can follow multiple conversations at once and integrate them while barely paying attention. The chat group now seems almost like an ordinary form of conversation.

And Sarah. She’s been my guide, my teacher, and she’s worked so hard to help me come back. Maybe I can love her back now. Maybe I can love her back ‘again’? When I wake up next to her, I feel like I belong here. When we link our rigs together and share our thoughts, it feels like we are the same person.

I never thought I would say this - even to myself, but maybe I did lose my memory. Maybe I didn’t travel through time. This feels so comfortable now, that it is hard to imagine how it could be any other way.

MChat Private Medical Channel

Doctor: He seems to be doing well.

Sarah: Yes! He’s come so far. He seems happy. Sometimes I can forget about the missing pieces, and we can be the same people we used to be together.

Doctor: Is it time we closed this channel?

Sarah: Yes, thanks for your help.

Doctor: It has been a pleasure.

<End Channel>

At first I thought it was another snap like the others, but it wouldn’t go away. The plane interior mixed in with my vision, and mixed in with the visuals from my rig. I had to sit down, then I had to turn my chair to align myself in the plane. The background droning noise of the plane cabin rose up in my ears, drowning out the real world around me. People started to look at me funny. I tried to call Sarah, but I couldn’t seem to access my rig functions. My vision blurred and the snapping sensation happened again. My rig visual overlays were gone.

I reached up and felt my face. I was naked of glasses. I felt my head frantically and it too was empty. My rig was gone.

The droning sound in my ears got louder. I raised my face from the my hands and my clearing vision revealed the interior of a plane. It was Flight ANA Flight 008. I sat in the same seat with the same graphic novel in my lap. I was back in 2017, in the place where I started so long ago.

My rig was gone. Sarah was gone. The stewardess started to announce the landing procedures over the speaker system. I buried my naked face into my hands and wept.

The End