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Lukewarm 07
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Worry
--------
by chlorine
Everyone was concerned about Cylinder.
It was a simple sub-procedure installed at the Implant, and the
coders called it Worry. It ensured that people worried about their
associates whenever one of them seemed to be deviating from the mean--
whenever someone seemed a little out of sorts--whenever someone operated
outside of acceptable parameters.
It was very alien to them--new and undocumented. Most people that
knew Cylinder had never before had reason to initiate an Emotion sub
before, and likely never would again. But they did not fear it, and they
did not feel distressed in the least. It was natural, said their
programming.
Slowly, as Worry kicked in, all of the people who knew Cylinder well
enough to give a shit began approaching the super-users, (in complete
privacy and confidentiality, of course) and expressed their concern.
"Cylinder is acting up."
"I think there may be something wrong with Cylinder."
"He's been acting strange."
"I'd hate to think his Implant might be corroding--but he has seemed
kind of buggy, lately."
The super-users thanked each of them and assured them that this
problem (which was probably nothing, just a false alarm) would be looked
into and resolved as soon as possible. Briefly put, they had no reason to
worry about Cylinder at all.
Assuaged, they returned to their duties and their lives. Sub-
procedure Relief kicked in. Cylinder would be fine. They were sure of it.
Cylinder awoke (at 08:00:00 exactly, according to his internal
clock) with the sick feeling that his Implant was, indeed, corroding.
First, and worst, he remembered his dreams.
He didn't recognize them as dreams, of course: didn't know what a
dream was in practice or theory. But latent images, cold and foreign,
flickered and faded inside his mind. He was remembering things,
_experiences_, that he could not remember, and certainly could not place
into the time-line that was his life. He had the overwhelming sensation
that he had just _been_ somewhere, but now he had returned, and could
never go back, no matter how hard he tried.
But the vestiges of this spurious memory quickly faltered and
disintegrated, and he gradually calmed down.
He ate breakfast quickly, meanwhile running self-diagnostic checks
in the background. Everything seemed fine. He retreated to his terminal
room and dialed-up to work without incident.
His body fell limp against the wall as his mind interfaced
seamlessly with imperceptible telephone networks and traversed vast
fountains and interstices of raw data.
Work procedures took over; calculations interlaced through his
brain; numbers were crunched; he produced.
But slowly, insidiously, ever slowly, thoughts coalesced in the
background.
This was not programmed.
He began to feel . . . he _felt_ . . . bored.
He disconnected quickly, too quickly: his supervisors would have
questions. _Where did you go? What was wrong?_
He couldn't care, not now. Something _was_ wrong. He was processing
information that he couldn't account for, that he couldn't explain. He
was _feeling_: feeling dissatisfied, feeling frightened, feeling
disoriented. Although he didn't have words for any of these sensations,
just as he had been unable to recognize the dream for what it was.
And now the dream was coming back to him.
Pictures, memories, sleek and unfocused, and Deborah had been there
. . .
He stood up, almost jumped up, and headed for the door leading out
of his habitation cubicle.
This was not programmed.
He rode the elevator down seventeen floors of silence. Everyone in
this habitation complex had the same task, the same employment, the same
wage, the same schedule. Everyone, right now, was logged in and working.
He got off on Deborah's floor anyway.
She came to the door after a full minute. She looked at him,
confused, processing all the variables, trying to discern what her next
function-call would be, and as she looked at him . . .
It was coming back, whatever it was. Cold, hot, hard feeling,
accompanied by a dull pain in his stomach not unlike when he was
processing a virus. He looked in her eyes, and at her face, and she
looked back at him, and all he wanted to do was be near her, to touch
her, and yet he was dreadfully frightened to do just that.
"Cylinder, is there something . . ."
He wasn't supposed to be feeling like this, not at all, and yet . .
. at the same time, it was oddly exhilarating.
" . . . Something the matter?"
Yes. There was something the matter. But he had no words to
explicate. She'd never understand.
"I'm sorry, Deborah," he said, the words feeling dry and barren as
they crawled out of his throat. "I forgot you were working."
And he turned and left, back the way he came. Feeling stupid, inept.
And Deborah thought: _Forgot_?
Deborah re-interfaced, interrupting her work-stream and contacting
her local domain's super-user immediately. Faceless, yet every face at
once, the amorphous representation of black data (the densest kind)
loomed abruptly in her field of vision. The voice, resonant, deep and
dolorous, swam slowly into her aural consciousness.
_Is there something the matter, Deborah?_
"Yes, actually, I'm afraid there is. I'm concerned for Cylinder--his
address is 403.24.14--"
_We know of whom you speak. What is your concern?_
"Just that he has been acting strangely. I wouldn't want to hazard a
guess--perhaps such as possible minor corrosion with his Implant--but
I--"
_His diagnostic-checks don't indicate any problems with his
Implant._
"But isn't it true that when the Implant begins to corrode,
sometimes it reports the diags incorrectly?"
_No. Also, you should know that corrosion is a very rare occurrence
indeed. Usually other--much more insignificant--maladies are the cause of
any abnormal behavior._
"Will he be . . . all right, then?"
Cylinder looked out the window-panel, out into the city. Raspberry
lipstick-hued clouds skimmed somnolently across the darkening horizon.
Diminishing rays of soft orange sunlight reflected off tall photocopy-
like depths of skyscrapers. Structures of immense height; repeating
identical structures extending as far as vision itself; tremendous
structures of iron and glass reproduced as if by mold.
Habitation complexes like the one he stood in right now, stretching
out to infinity.
Innumerable subtle replicas trapped in cubicles of metal and
wallpaper, enslaved by television, bi-weekly paychecks, and the tiny
circuits implanted in their cerebrums.
He was bordering on comprehension, complete, horrid cognizance. And
yet his body betrayed him once more, flooding him with fear, disgust,
disbelief, confusion.
But fear, mostly fear. He jacked back into work before it was too
late.
_He'll be fine. Your associate Cylinder is quite fortunate, in fact.
We've been monitoring him lately, and have already determined the cause
of his problem._
"What . . . what is it?"
_A minor programming bug, where certain hormones are not being
regulated properly. All we have to do now, of course, is remedy the
situation._
"You don't mean . . . you don't mean disposal?"
Why did this thought bother her so? What was . . . what was wrong
with _her_?
_Not at all. It's simply a matter of a reformat. He'll be like new._
They would completely erase his internal data storage. They'd delete
everything that made him _him_--Of _course_ he'd be like new.
"Thank you," she said, and the super-user faded away once again into
the background, melting into the coarse mountains of crude data.
She logged out slowly, deliberately.
Something almost like nausea spread through her stomach. Like maybe
she was processing a virus . . . but not quite.
Cylinder. Reformatted. She felt . . . she _felt_ . . .
But then a circuit in her Implant closed down, quickly, mercifully,
and she was fine once again.
Best to get back to work, she thought sensibly.
Cylinder worked through a sick stomach, trying to concentrate, to
_produce_.
The super-users had asked him a few questions, but they were gone
now, seemingly reassured.
Unrecognizable colors were slowly surfacing at the edges of his
vision. Sharp, vivid colors, encroaching . . .
But then they were gone. And with them, the memory of the raspberry
pink clouds he had seen not thirty seconds ago outside of his own window.
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