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<span class="drunk"><h1>with what eyes</h1></span>
<img @src="setup.MediaPath+'body_battleground.png'">
//featured image: Your body is a battleground, by Barbara Kruger, rendered in ASCII//
<h3>premise</h3>
During a disruptive gubernatorial special election in (the alternate history, futuristic country of) Nusana, a disillusioned researcher (Eliza) consults for a cyborg celebrity (Ada) yearning to assert agency away from their tech billionaire spouse by realizing their dream of effecting real change via political office. While conducting an interview to construct a viable marketing strategy that just might win, Eliza must reexamine her preconceptions and decide the extent of her involvement, while Ada recognizes how her attempts to escape her past have led to her complicity in perpetuating the dystopic systems she hopes to unravel.
[[<<o>> begin|prologue]]
<<set $outfit_eliza to 0>>
<<set $outfit_ada_detail to 0>>
<<set $intuition to 0>>
<<set $observation to 0>>
<<set $memories to []>>
<<set $personas to [0, 3, 6, 9, 12]>>
<<set $happiness to 0>>
//Excerpt from the Testimony of Ada [last name redacted] in the class-action complaint against Novo BioNicTech//
//Nusana Supreme Court, 2048//
They paid for my mother in parts. First the limbs, then the wreckage of her torso, and when it seemed like she would not survive past the week, a lump sum worker’s compensation for the value of her output plotted against the years she worked. Multiplied by 1.03 as a bonus, because she was a working-class single mother from a disadvantaged community, and the company wanted to publicly demonstrate sympathy for the plight of a new orphan no older than thirteen.
Of course, I only knew what happened after I woke up in my new body as an it.
[[<<o>>|anyone else]]You could have been anyone else, perhaps even someone from this case.
The plaintiffs. The defendants. The lawyers. The judges.
The officers standing by the door. The janitors on the other side of the walls. The child standing resolute on the stand.
But who you are is Eliza. And that landmark case happened years ago, before you were born.
[[<<o>>|shall you begin]]You are currently employed by PreVision, a top-tier Nusanan political consultancy specializing in data-driven, grassroots campaigns with innovative marketing tactics that leverage InSight Lens, NeuroNets, and all the latest technologies. They pay you well, albeit with hooded <span class="eye">eyes</span> pondering the day you leave.
After all, you walked away from the Valley and came to the Beach. No one does that, unless they are running from something else. But you have your own reasons for returning to Nusana.
For now, PreVision has sent you here. The gubernatorial election race has just begun, and your client Ada has asked for you, Eliza, by name.
Shall you begin?
[[<<o>>|arrive]]Almost everything about your appearance is neat and plain, as if you could escape the cameras and blend into the nearest concrete wall.
You are dressed in:
* [[a plain black blazer with synthetic gray silk blouse|black box][$outfit_eliza to 0]]
* [[a dark gray pantsuit with black synthetic cotton dress shirt|black box][$outfit_eliza to 1]]
* [[black wool dress with black leggings|black box][$outfit_eliza to 2]]The bot flashes white once it guides you safely to Ada’s conference room. Or more accurately, the main conference room of J&J, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate in which Ada’s husband Mr. Janssen has controlling interest.
The glass walls are tinted dark gray, but they reflect enough light to your Lens to dazzle you with the brilliance of the waiting figure.
[[<<o>>|ada dress]]<span class="blink-short">Ada sits on the long end of the table wearing a blooming red couture gown, lit up with small fairy lights embedded both on the fabric and in the avatar seen through your Lens. They are bedecked in splendor, on their skin and digital avatar both. The pupils of their <span class="eye">eyes</span> are fully hidden by their InSight Lens, currently set to appear as ivory white with gold on the rim.</span>
Dressed in a waterfall of tulle artfully crafted to form arm-sized multifoliate rose petals that flare around their shoulders and arms and cinch at their waist, they loom over you, their headpiece of red-black stained glass butterflies adding extra height. Their digitally-enhanced plait of black hair glimmers with rainbow undertones, tied with an extravagant hair clip that emits neon streaks.
You focus your Lens on learning more about their:
* [[rose petal gown|rose gown][$outfit_ada_detail = 0]]
* [[butterfly headpiece|headpiece][$outfit_ada_detail = 1]]
* [[neon-streaked hair clip|hair clip][$outfit_ada_detail = 2]]
A couture creation of painstaking zigzag stitches on vivid fire-red tulle, the one-of-a-kind suit modeled very recently in the Avanti spring collection and swiftly purchased by the end of the show.
[[<<o>>|first impressions]]A sculptural kaleidoscope of butterflies, composed of stained glass in ombre red to black, wings rimmed with gold thread, which she carries with dignified grace.
[[<<o>>|first impressions]]Red-violet sparks emit from the metal, scattering luminescent orbs in the wings of the butterflies, blurring your view of the digital enhancements and physical reality.
[[<<o>>|first impressions]]They move their head before you can focus for too long.
With the hour you have, you know that you can only perceive and understand so much at once.
When they see you enter, they put their hands on the table and their gaze on your face, a slow second when you imagine they attempt to scour your Lens and the Web for hints on biometrical details of how you are: breathing, heartbeat, energy levels.
The second passes.
Then another.
She will find little. You take out your folder and prepare to introduce yourself, but she nods slowly and holds out her hand, with each nail studded with polished red mosaic. She gestures to the chair on her right. You walk up cautiously, only sitting down after she takes hers.
[[<<o>>|hello eliza]]
“Hello, Eliza. How are you?” She offers you a wide smile calculated for optimal friendliness in the flesh and for the Lens. “Please call me Ada.”
You exchange pleasantries with the standard PreVision boilerplate on political consultancy and client relationships, explaining the importance of honesty in sharing her needs (and yes, potential scandals), and that your discretion is assured and in fact, legally binding.
They laugh softly, a demure hummingbird trill. “Yes, because I have had such luck with legalities. That is part of why I am running for governor of West Nusana.”
[[<<o>>|I choose you]]
You nod silently but offer her the folder all the same. As an additional security measure and a gesture to her high client status, the codes are all printed on paper instead of Flicked to her Lens directly.
She takes it, but keeps her <span class="eye">eyes</span> on you, an <span class="eye">eye</span>brow delicately arching. “I have now gone through this routine of personalizing my campaign strategy with several representatives from your agency.”
“To cut the endless parade, I was not pleased with the first three.”
I would have dismissed you all, if it were my choice. But I went out and selected you specifically because of your prior experience. At least you would be useful in knowing how to manage this.” They point to their <span class="eye">eyes</span>, which flash with the pulsing white of the latest model of InSight Lens.
You incline your head.
“We understand you may have reservations, but we assure you that we deliver high quality results, and can work within the constraints you may need. We are at your service.”
[[<<o>>|why did you come]]
She clasps her hands, every inch a monarch looking at a supplicant. “Are you? Why did you come?”
You tense. You had wondered overnight why they would ask for you by name.
“As a representative of PreVision, we have every intention of facilitating a mutually beneficial arrangement. We have worked closely with J&J and Mr. Janssen on several other occasions.”
[[<<o>>|avoid the question]]“Again avoiding the question. What about you?” She presses on, undeterred, though her ivory-hidden <span class="eye">eyes</span> pulse electric white. “I tried to Stream to your Lens, but you hid yourself. Yes, I checked. I suspected that you might have such expertise, having worked on the InSight R&D team, but I could not know for sure until you came.”
She peers closer. “I suspect you try to separate yourself from your work, and you have the removable mechanical Lens, not the organic ones that fuse to your cornea.”
They did their research well. But you are not obligated to confirm prior employment. “I am not sure I understand you fully. We are discussing you, not me.”
She smiles, as if taking your words as confirmation of her suspicions. “Yes, you would rather reflect and redirect, encouraging me to offer my story instead. After all, I am so very used to sharing my life stories for the public.” A trace of bitterness enters her tone, and her gaudy red flower gown dims slightly.
[[<<o>>|cyborg celebrity]]“You have advertised yourself as a cyborg celebrity. We can start our discussion on audience engagement there, if you would like.” You were not only deflecting. Today, their skin is fully covered except for their face, but with decades of advancements in prosthetics and synthetic biology, prosthetics could be modified to be indistinguishable from a birth body on the molecular level.
When all variants of body modifications were possible in Nusana, you do not understand why they chose to keep their mechanical arm and leg, when they could very well afford new lab-grown ones made of flesh and bone.
[[<<o>>|authentic]]<span class="blink-short">“And I do it extremely well, do I not?” She narrows her <span class="eye">eyes</span>. “The Nusanan Post and various foreign press say that I heralded a new medium of authentic self-expression. I Streamed my whole life for public consumption, ever since I was an orphan at age thirteen to even now, in my fifties.”</span>
She gestures to herself, a body preserved in time to age twenty-two. “If you had access to my Stream and Lens datasets, you could look up every moment down to the millisecond, and Stream my life from my body’s perspective, see through my <span class="eye">eyes</span> and hear with my ears. A history not written in flesh, but code.”
“I see.”
* [[“Will that be a security concern?”|redact][$observation += 1]]
* [[“How have you handled this so far?”|redact][$intuition += 1]]
“We have already redacted the more suggestive material, and archived the rest. Andy -- my stepson -- actually compiled it all into a searchable dashboard. As if I wanted to revisit a past filled with… so much.” She raises her hand, a refreshment bot zooming nearby to offer her water. “Let’s see what you can do.”
You take out your tablet, a thin sliver of shatterproof glass on which you can Project your Lens and use a stylus for easier note-taking. You adopt your customary persona of a diligent, mildly curious but not overly so, pleasant consultant who blends into the environment like another piece of furniture.
“Ada, this is your life story. You are the expert here, this is all about you and your campaign.”
[[<<o>>|let's see]]“Does it matter so much? I have seen your company cover up for senators. Why, just last week, the senior senator from West Nusana Streamed their confession that their staff no longer reads their proposed legislation, instead just using GPT-16 to generate and submit, to the point that a corporate-like watermark appeared on their folders.” They pause, hands curling around the water glass. “You could hash out a good enough persona from my online history.”
You have your own thoughts on the matter, but this is not the place to share. “It is well-established, and affirmed by PreVision’s private research, that in our current era where so much legislation is crafted by pre-existing legislation, that voters most value identifying with their candidates’ authentic story.”
“To begin, please tell me more about your life after you testified before the Nusanan Supreme Court."
[[<<o>>|persona start]]<span class="blink-short">“In 2048, I lost my mother and became an orphan at age 13. I provided testimony for a class-action lawsuit against Novo BioNicTech, and though the government provided a baseline income, I could anticipate that my new body would have its own unique needs until the technology became more widely accessible.”</span>
“However, I did not want to be reliant on mere policy or the one-time rewards of the class-action lawsuit. I needed my own source of safety.”
She speaks dispassionately, as if she were reciting an article, but you write it all down the same.
* [[Record, and verify|first fame][$observation += 1]] this information discreetly with your InSight Lens.
* [[Ask if she can provide additional materials|first fame][$intuition += 1]] from the case to you.
<span class="blink-short">"I had high visibility after my testimony, and I made use of my visibility to:</span>
* [[volunteer|study law][$personas.push(0)]] at other high-profile causes from the grassroots as a spokesperson."
* [[demand public responses|study law][$personas.push(1)]] from prominent business leaders who let this happen."
* [[raise awareness|stream memory 0][$personas.push(2); $memories.push(0)]] of the limitations and affordances of my cyborg body, which could support a new type of Streaming from my body itself."
<span class="blink-short">"I studied law to assist my efforts in understanding the:</span>
* [[political limitations|teaching ethics 1][$personas.push(3); $memories.push(1)]] that not only I, but many people on the periphery must overcome with technological advancement, which is how I met Andy."
* [[capitalist framework|first work][$personas.push(4)]] that allowed corporations to achieve such unprecedented permissions in quantifying human life."
* [[potential of platforms and self-expression|first work][$personas.push(5)]] from the unique perspective of my flesh-machine body and its pains and pleasures."<span class="blink-short">"In one of my first work experiences, I:</span>
* [[assisted an older cyborg|meaning][$personas.push(6)]] who reminded me of my mother, who reminded me that my words were for more than myself."
* [[had a coffee chat with a sympathetic C-suite executive|business meeting 2][$personas.push(7); $memories.push(2)]] who promised to help lead reforms from within. Mr. Janssen."
* [[I interviewed and Streamed|meaning][$personas.push(8)]] my responses to a sympathetic politician, my first exposure to a sincere government official." <span class="blink-short">“What did you find meaningful about the work?”</span>
Ada sips water. “None of the other consultants asked me why. Isn’t that also verifiable, by all my documents?”
“I take an unstructured approach to my interviews. Everything else can be found online.”
They hum. “What is the approach you favor most when meeting others?”
* [[Qualitative assessment based on interviews and intuition|have so far][$intuition += 1]]
* [[Observation and verification from available data|have so far][$observation += 1]]
<span class="blink-short">Out loud, you respond, "It is not my place to say."</span>
They hum again. “I will cut this farce short. I have no interest in following PreVision’s corporate policies. What do you have so far?”
<<if $memories && $memories.length >= 1>>
[[You look at your notes and prepare to present.|present the profile]]
[[You have the bare minimum, but you would prefer to get a little more.|keep going, betrayal]]
<<else>>
... Not enough.
[[You would need to ask more questions, hopefully probe for some stories.|keep going, betrayal]]
<</if>>
<span class="blink-short">“How perfectly… insipid. I feel so fully seen.”</span>She says this with a tight smile.
You agreed. Internally.
You tilt your head.
* [[“Would you prefer if we talked without recording?”|no recording]]
* [[“I will try harder. Shall we keep going?”|keep going, betrayal]]
"I would." Her <span class="eye">eye</span>brows raise slightly, a streak of glare from her <<if $outfit_ada_detail == 0>>brilliant red gown<<elseif $outfit_ada_detail == 1>>mosaic butterfly headdress<<else>>neon hair pin<</if>> flashing directly into your <span class="eye">eyes</span>. You wince.
“Can you pause your Lens? I was under the impression most opted for the organic ones that fuse into your cornea directly.”
“I have the mechanical ones,” you say shortly. “For several reasons.”
“Won’t it make it difficult to notetake?”
“I can write very fast. I find that talking off the record allows for a more genuine grasp of my subject’s interiority.”
[[<<o>>|do you stream]]<span class="blink-short">“Can we continue?”</span>
She pauses. “Sure.”
“One of my first successes in rewriting a flawed system involved — hosting a fundraiser mixer with celebrities, advocates, businesspeople, and politicians, leading to an unprecedented amount of donations and genuine discussion on universal basic healthcare. A new bill was in the works…”
"That I helped manifest with my growing influence. It was one of the first times that I felt I could make a difference, not because of what happened to me, but because of how I chose to react."
"However, in all settings where there are people, there is infighting."
"When I married Mr. Janssen, the people for whom I had worked tirelessly accused me of:
* [[betraying the cause|marriage][$personas.push(9); $memories.push(3)]] and exploiting their pain for fame.”
* [[remaking myself|marriage][$personas.push(10); $memories.push(3)]] to be the perfect gold-digger trophy wife.”
* [[exploiting their stories|marriage][$personas.push(11); $memories.push(3)]], and then myself, for my platform audience gains.”<span class="blink-short">She looks at your paused hand, raising an <span class="eye">eye</span>brow. “I suppose you might as well know. One reason I married Mr. Janssen is how:</span>
* [[it allows me to do pro bono legal work|tinny speech][$personas.push(12); $memories.push(4)]] and advocate with his substantial resources, without worrying about my financial wellbeing."
* [[he promised we would open a foundation together|tinny speech][$personas.push(13); $memories.push(4)]] that would mean no orphans would be in such a precarious position like mine again."
* [[it offers firsthand Streamed insight into the decision-making thought process|tinny speech][$personas.push(14); $memories.push(4)]] of a high-profile individual, and all that I can learn from him."
<span class="blink-short">You snap your head up, startled at the sudden tinniness of her words, the cadence of her speech that reminds you of — generated legislation.</span>
“Can I not just be experienced at persuasion, that the rhythm of the machine pervades not just my body, but my thoughts as well?”
Damn. Despite your training, you had made that observation out loud.
"Once again, What do you have so far?" There is a faint thread of impatience in their words.
* [[You look at your notes and prepare to present what you have.|present the profile, p2]]
* [[You voice that you would prefer to return another day.|enough for today]]“Enough. That is enough for today.” Her smile is still manufactured to perfection, symmetrical red-coated lips framing pristine white lips. But in-between the shine from the polish and the digital overlay of the Lens, you appear to see a small quiver. “What gave it away?”
Very quietly, you lean in and make several observations.
“Yes, my NeuroNet immersion add-on rewrites some of my speech, if I do not exert the energy to control it.” She pauses. “Yes, I have explored my options, but my NeuroNet is too deeply embedded in my body ever since I was an adolescent to risk removal.”
[[<<o>>|liability]]“That will be a liability, especially when handling private matters of state.” You waver, then decide to ask. “From overseas, or Nusana?”
She snorts. “What other culture could conceive of a technology that assumes it can predict my thoughts from a weighted average drawn from the collective? It exudes a mindset of mindless conformity, that the past can not just inform the future, but that all the patterns and responses are already known.”
“My question still stands. Can you control it?”
“Most likely.” Her face is serene, seemingly untroubled. “I can pass well enough. But this challenge could also be an opportunity.”
You have your own reservations, but you can understand a dismissal.
[[<<o>>|dismissed, lack of spark]]She bids you adieu, a practiced press of her fingertips to her lips like a blown kiss, which through the Lens appears like a volley of red roses. “You are not entirely hopeless, though I wished I saw more… spark.
Until next time. Eliza, I have faith that this arrangement will work. We can meet again.”
And then you are on your way, with more questions than answers.
[[Perhaps you want to replay and choose differently...|arrive]]
[[Or, perhaps you would prefer some "afterwords."|afterword]]<span class="blink-short">She scoffs. “Yes, because even then, you can know so much in 1 hour. The sheer conceit to think you can interview me, empathize with my struggles, then leave and recommend a marketing strategy…”</span>
“You wouldn’t know me unless you experienced every moment of my life. Tell me, Eliza, do you even Stream?”
* [[You had Streamed a few in preparation. "Yes."|you stream]]
* [[“Not many. I consider it far too invasive.”|no stream]]
As part of your research, you downloaded capsules of her encoded memories and experienced them firsthand.
You Streamed Ada’s bitter determination when she wore her mother’s red scarf on the stand, the flutters of her stomach on her first coffee chat with Mr. Janssen, that brimmed with such hopeful curiosity that you suspect it was emotionally edited.
[[<<o>>|your sibling streams]]Your work at InSight R&D has shown you the potential for exploiting the vast amounts of captured data, with biometric recordings measured to the millisecond of the subject’s physical and emotional responses.
You shudder recalling the team’s first clinical study.
[[<<o>>|your sibling streams]]
<span class="blink-short">“And yet, you allow your underage sibling to Stream online, uninhibited.” She takes your lack of response as an answer. “Yes, of course I researched you. That’s all I do, these days.”</span>
Your smile remains neutral, but your left hand clenches involuntarily. “They are a different generation. We must adapt with the times.”
“Must we? I seem to have survived with legacy limbs.” They raise their left arm, made of inorganic stainless steel and silicone, though completely covered with the red tulle of their dress. “Decades old, and yet fine-tuned and functional.”
Your curiosity sparks:
* “[[You had the option to avail yourself of organic limbs|one way mirror]] that would grow from your body directly. Why didn’t you?”
* “[[And yet, you always hide your skin.|one way mirror]] Why the dichotomy of visibility and obscurity?”
Ada stands, leaving you unanswered, but you notice their mechanical hand spasm like a blooming metal flower. “The same reason why I will ask something of you, that is perhaps more than you are willing to give right now.”
The glass walls of the conference room blur into one-way mirrors.
[[<<o>>|turn these off]]They stand over you, casting a color-bled red haze on the white tables.
“I told you that I asked for you by name. I investigated your circumstances. Why you left such a coveted job at InSight after your work made them billions. You signed away your patent, but I know that you can finally, finally, turn my Lens and NeuroNet off.” They blink, <span class="eye">eyes</span> flashing red, then standard white.
“I’m not sure I understand you. Could you —”
But she hits the table with her elbow, sound echoing through your ears, before dissipating into the sponge soundproofing. “I have had these ever since I was thirteen. Every new model is just a consumerist perpetuation of a promised innovation — the future, the new tomorrow. And yet, I am always watching, and always being watched.”
[[<<o>>|turn these off, the turntables]]<span class="blink-short">She chuckles humorously. “At least, that is what my NeuroNet implant would tell me. But you would consider yourself far more complex, would you not? So self-effacing, you cannot be discerned.”</span>
She tilts her head, mimicking your original position. “But even a black box can reflect facets of what it contains.
Please, Eliza. Turn these off.” Even through her Stream-ready appearance, you can detect signs of deep-rooted anguish.
You abruptly stand, cursing when your leg tangles with the side of the chair and you have to grab the side of the table for support.
* [[“No. I won’t do it.”|so you can]]
* [[“It is too risky.”|so you can]]
<span class="blink-short">“So you can,” they say undeterred.</span>
You shake your head like a spring twisting between two nails, even as you want to pluck the Lens in your own <span class="eye">eyes</span>. “I am bound by InSight’s non-disclosure agreement. You are asking me to risk a lifetime of lawsuits for your -- for your //hysteria//.”
She smiles thinly, the sparks emitting from her hair growing sharper like pin-prick needles stabbing into your sensitive <span class="eye">eyes</span>. “So you think you can hide from what you made, and wait decades until elected officials get their <span class="eye">eyes</span> away from the Lens, and actually make the effort to see beyond the light pollution clouding their sight.”
You had taken on the burden out of compassion, because:
* [[Your father had poor financial mismanagement from a legacy of trauma.|your tragic backstory]]
* [[Your mother had begun the venture after her recovery from cancer, but the aftereffects continued to weaken her.|your tragic backstory]]
* [[Your brother was running away from more than his family, he was running from himself.|your tragic backstory]]
* [[Your underage sibling had made a desperate attempt to fit in with her peers by Streaming.|your tragic backstory]]<span class="blink-short">“My appeal would not work on anyone else. Your team members are all still there, are they not? I only ask because I know what led you to leave. You blew the whistle on InSight and smuggled out code and internal documents. And when few took notice, you left in protest.</span>
Now you are here, wasting away at this consultancy where you make the same assumptions of knowing what people need and scripting an endless cycle of barely distinguishable products, but without the technology and the salary you need to be free.”
“None of us are free.” You blink, adjusting the Lens in your <span class="eye">eyes</span>. Yours are turned off, but hers… “You are still recording this conversation.”
She wets her lips. “So make it so that I am not.”
* [[You wearily sit back down.|entrapment]]
* [[You thank her for her time and say you will be taking your leave.|dismissed, lack of spark]]
You emit a pained sound. “How fitting that you use my circumstances against me.”
“If you don’t write your own story, someone else will. And they will use it against you if it helps them. And even if you think you can hide yourself, the data points can be pulled from the people around you. You are always being watched.”
She walks to the other side of you, across the table. “Now does it feel to have someone else tell a story about your life, scraped from the Web, without having ever met you?”
You sigh. “You are proposing a deal?”
[[<<o>>|show me what you can do]]“Show me what you can do, and we will finalize terms. I have enough to situate your family comfortably.” Ada laces her fingers together. “And my stepson can erase this section of my Lens recording afterward.”
“You could have asked anyone else in the world…”
“No one else has the motive. Nor the Silicon Valley history and circumstances I need. Besides. You're here, and I’m asking you.” A wry smile, weariness in her limbs and drooping rose gown. “Do you want me to beg? That is what I feared most as a child, but now…” she shudders like a broken bullet train, gurgling to its next stop. “Consider this a deed committed by the desperate. I have very little shame.”
It was easier when you reminded yourself that you were working to support your family. “And it turns out, so do I.”
You remove the Lens from your <span class="eye">eyes</span>. You always refused the organic Lens, as you knew better than to blend work with life. And here you are, being proven right, and having it used against you.
[[<<o>>|hotwire lens]]
You put your Lens into their case and take out an old-timey hard drive to manually upload your program. Afterward, you put on your hotwired Lens and prepare the file transfer.
You feel ethically obligated to warn them. “I have only tested this on myself, with the removable Lens. With your organic fused Lens, and how I have to Flick the files to you, I suspect that the initial severing process will be painful. You must also know that given your dependence on the systems since adolescence, it is likely any pause will be temporary. The long-term side effects will be unknown.”
“And I absolve you of all responsibility for what happens next. To me. Not of your choices, those are always yours.”
“That remains to be seen.” You are still caught in Ada's snare. But with a pulse of red light, you Flick the scripts to Ada’s Lens, and wait for her system to reboot. You keep the emergency number dialed, a second away from pressing.
[[<<o>>|and so the glitch]]
They placidly continue sitting demurely, gaze transfixed onto you.
You keep your own face serene, monitoring the successful execution of the scripts on Ada’s organic Lens.
A minute passes. Their Lens dim.
Then a spurt of blood from their <span class="eye">eyes</span> and mouth.
[[<<o>>|lurch forward]] <span class="blink-short">You lurch forward, pressing a cloth napkin into their hands.</span>
<span class="drunk-short">
They sputter but press the napkin into a pink-soaked veil over their <span class="eye">eyes</span> and mouth. You push the glass of water closer to her hand and wait for them to speak.
You ignore the surge of compassion when this reminds you too much of caretaking for your mother.
Moments pass.</span>
<span class="drunk">
Finally, she takes off the napkin and her <span class="eye">eyes</span> are black, but no longer glimmering with InSight light. They open their mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. They reach for the glass with their cybernetic hand, but the movement is sluggish, slow. She uses her flesh hand and takes a sip of water.
Still, she cannot speak.
[[<<o>>|reset pin]]
</span><span class="blink-short">The water in her hand splashes on the ground like a volley of clear ink, glass cracking on the floor.</span>
<span class="drunk-short">
With shaky fingers, she takes a thin gold rod from her hairpin and stabs a nit-sized indent of steel, embedded into where her jugular would have met the underside of her jawline, if not for the precise lacework of circuitry. The reset point sinks deeper until you imagine it hits her neck bone.</span>
<span class="drunk">
Her body shakes, sending the crimson-black flutter of butterflies on her head into a whirlpool of motion, her InSight special effects flickering, the neon sparks in her hair dissipating into smoke. But by then you are already on the other side of the table pressing more thick linen napkins to her bleeding red mouth and her collarbone.
[[<<o>>|never allowed to be myself]]
</span><span class="blink-short">You take her by the shoulders and lower her into the chair, where she gasps with riotous shudders, digital hair strands suddenly flashing pale blond before fading to black. She takes the napkin on her neck with surprising strength and lowers it into her lap.</span>
<span class="drunk-short">
When they speak, their voice is hoarse, cracked like pavement during heat waves. </span>
<span class="drunk">
“I have never been allowed to be just myself,” they say quietly. “Some days I try to outpace human perception, but I could never control how I was seen. In some places, I am little more than an it. Their <span class="eye">eyes</span> pass over me like I am another machine. This was done to me, and then I chose to make the most of it, but some days I would rather be free from it all. I am tired of fighting. I should not have to be a voice for more than myself, but there is no one else.”</span>
<span class="drunk">
“Would you like to tell me more?” you ask gently.
They hesitate, their breathing short and dragged, seconds falling like sand. A deep shudder and whine like an ill-treated dog howling to the moon.
[[<<o>>|they become it]]
</span>
<span class="blink-short">It looks you squarely in your <span class="eye">eyes</span> and opens its mouth, but only faint clicks can be heard as it moves its tongue in increasingly frenzied shapes, until it bites down on its pristine red-coated lips.</span>
Even through its sealed mouth, a tinny whisper echoes. You hear:
* [["I've never lived life as my true self."|chatgpt]]
* [["I've never been given permission to be authentic."|chatgpt]]
* [["I've always been spoken for, never by myself."|chatgpt]]
* [["I've never had the opportunity to make my own statement."|chatgpt]]
* [["I've never had a voice of my own."|chatgpt]]Ah. You look closer to where flesh meets machine, observe the deep gouges and chafing that she has endured over the decades.
Even then, her mind has been merged with machine, by the nature of brain-computer interfaces, a chip embedded in her spinal cord. But really, you were all networked cyborgs, ever since the concept of the Internet began and wove its whispers into your thoughts and actions, the individual and the collective.
“Your NeuroNet… if it is one of the earlier, invasive models, it will always be rewriting your speech, unless you make efforts to control it. It is likely too embedded in your system to be shutdown. That means, whatever I did was likely only a temporary hiatus. An hour, at best.”
She nods. They pluck a red pen from the centerpiece and with their flesh now leached of its warm undertones, they write, “You are correct.”
[[<<o>>|useful to you]]
You laugh bitterly. “All this, from a culture that promotes the wisdom of the collective. And yet we encourage conformity in ways that obliterate the individual soul.”
With their flesh now leached of its warm undertones, they painstakingly write on the napkin, refusing your attempts to intercede. “I have told you what I can. Do what you must when you construct a sufficient persona of myself. I am running for governor to make a difference. I have no choice now but to put myself in your hands.”
“Because I am useful to you.”
They pause, then scratch another message. “I would have use for you, but surely you would also do this for yourself.”
With wide, imploring <span class="eye">eyes</span>, they look into yours, and even without your Lenses and their constant Streaming temporarily muted, you feel the beginnings of:
<<textbox "$end_emotion" "...what do you feel?...">>
[[<<o>>|clean up]]
You help them clean up, as best you can.
“You didn’t walk away like I did,” you say fiercely, piling the blood-soaked napkins until they form a caricature sculpture of their //<<if $outfit_ada_detail == 0>>rose petal gown<<elseif $outfit_ada_detail == 1>>butterfly headpiece<<elseif $outfit_ada_detail == 2>>neon hair clip<</if>>//, the first detail you noticed about them.
“You stayed and fought, even as it made you hollow like a husk of glass.”
“Somewhere between us, there is a world we can make.”
[[<<o>>|epilogue]]
<span class="blink-short">Ada wins the election in a historic landslide.</span>
The persona you have crafted looms over them, but it does not choke their voice. Rather, it is viscous paint cloaking her glass chrysalis until she can emerge with wings of her own.
Despite your choices, there is no winning. But because of your choices, you are not entirely losing. Yourself? Them? The campaign? All subsumed into the artifice of your own making.
Give the wolves their crystal chips, sliced from the icy avatar of Ada’s projected persona, but they have conveyed that they feel warm for the first time in years. Or so they say, their multicolor <span class="eye">eyes</span> gleaming with the practiced light that reveals nothing but the story they made for themselves, through you.
As much as you would both like to believe otherwise, you are not a worker of miracles, and any change worth calling yours will take extended effort, feet on the ground and not just heads in the clouds. You will never get the full, perfect story, but you can make the most of what you have.
When the Nusanan Post makes the official call, amidst the exclamations and cheering, Ada only looks down and nods, fingers clutching their dress suit of red, white, blue, and gold, the colors of the Nusanan flag, before smiling brilliantly and elegantly congratulating every member of their staff.
You stay back, observing the reactions of her family. Her husband Mr. Janssen is a silent ghost that exudes indifference besides the satisfaction behind his dark-tinted Glasses, her stepson Andy watching the shared Screen and his tablet with his eagle-<span class="eye">eye</span>d vigilance.
Hours later, after the party and speeches, in the dark behind the curtains where you are waiting, she turns to you, with no words besides the Flicked question from their Lens to yours.
//[[Are you ready for what comes next?|afterword]]//The only interesting thing about your clothing is the black box pin on your lapel. A prototype from your lab before you left, it prevents people from using their InSight Lens to track your biometrics or look up your information, instead redirecting them to the PreVision public website.
With the worldwide ubiquity of the Lens — fitted on children in puberty like a rite of passage, linking them to the wider Web — that only leaves you exposed to more controllable forms of information-gathering.
[[<<o>>|baby bot]]“Please tell me more about your experience with Streaming.”
Her <span class="eye">eye</span>brow twitches slightly. “Of course. My Senses would overlap yours, and you would be jolted through time to a past memory of mine, with every resonant physical detail, some traces of my emotions. There are several registered addicts who prefer to Stream my life over living theirs. I have had to block many accounts in my time.”
[[<<o>>|study law]]You pause. “Please tell me more about how you two met.”
“Andy? I volunteered at my college student group teaching introductory ethics and public policy to the nearby high schools. He was one of my students. Even then, he had a sharp mind and an <span class="eye">eye</span> for detail. His final project involved a large-scale network analysis of Nusanan-U.S. media coverage of government policies.”
“During one of the organization’s industry partnership dinners, I glimpsed his father, Mr. Janssen, but we never spoke.”
[[<<o>>|first work]]“If you are open to it, can you tell me more about Mr. Janssen?”
They raise an <span class="eye">eye</span>brow. “Yes, he is a notoriously private individual, even with me. But at the time, I was stunned by the level of access I could have, on account of my fame.”
“An entry-level paralegal, profiling a man already worth millions?” Ada gives a quick, dry laugh. “I hold no illusions that my fame did not play a part in his interest. Despite his privacy, he loves to collect novelties. I suppose I was a fitting trophy.”
[[<<o>>|meaning]]
You provide Ada with a profile as generic as the responses they gave you.
After Ada testified before the Nusanan Supreme Court at age 13, they worked tirelessly <<if $personas[0] == 0>>volunteering as a spokesperson for high-profile grassroots movements<<elseif $personas[0] == 1>>speaking out against unethical business practices<<elseif $personas[0] == 2>>Streaming their day-to-day experiences to raise awareness for cyborg experiences<</if>>.
Inspired by all they had seen and experienced, they decided to study law to better understand <<if $personas[1] == 3>>and support those on the periphery of society, who were most impacted by new waves of technological advancement<<elseif $personas[1] == 4>>how technological advancements encoded capitalist values, and how to disrupt their quantification of human life<<elseif $personas[1] == 5>>how Streaming and the never-before-seen networked cyborg body could fundamentally shift definitions of "human"<</if>>.
One particularly salient experience that shifted their perspective was <<if $personas[2] == 6>>meeting an older cyborg, a human test subject from the same experiment their mother, and their reminder to speak for more than herself<<elseif $personas[2] == 7>>meeting Mr. Janssen, a sympathetic C-suite executive who offered additional avenues to lead reforms from within Silicon Beach itself<<elseif $personas[2] == 8>>meeting a sincere politician, whose sympathy and dedication to their craft inspired them to pursue office<</if>>.
[[<<o>>|insipid]]You provide Ada with a profile as generic as the responses they gave you. You thought it was better to leave the details of their community lashback and marriage as background research.
After Ada testified before the Nusanan Supreme Court at age 13, they worked tirelessly <<if $personas[0] == 0>>volunteering as a spokesperson for high-profile grassroots movements<<elseif $personas[0] == 1>>speaking out against unethical business practices<<elseif $personas[0] == 2>>Streaming their day-to-day experiences to raise awareness for cyborg experiences<</if>>.
Inspired by all they had seen and experienced, they decided to study law to better understand <<if $personas[1] == 3>>and support those on the periphery of society, who were most impacted by new waves of technological advancement<<elseif $personas[1] == 4>>how technological advancements encoded capitalist values, and how to disrupt their quantification of human life<<elseif $personas[1] == 5>>how Streaming and the never-before-seen networked cyborg body could fundamentally shift definitions of "human"<</if>>.
One particularly salient experience that shifted their perspective was <<if $personas[2] == 6>>meeting an older cyborg, a human test subject from the same experiment their mother, and their reminder to speak for more than herself<<elseif $personas[2] == 7>>meeting Mr. Janssen, a sympathetic C-suite executive who offered additional avenues to lead reforms from within Silicon Beach itself<<elseif $personas[2] == 8>>meeting a sincere politician, whose sympathy and dedication to their craft inspired them to pursue office<</if>>.
[[<<o>>|insipid, p2]]<span class="blink-short">“They sound like a picture-perfect character. I feel so visible,” she says with little inflection.</span>
You tilt your head, wondering if it is time to reconsider strategies.
* [[“Let's try something different. Would you prefer to take the lead?”|no recording]]
* [[“Perhaps we can try other questions?”|enough for today]]
"I was cataloging the style of your questions. I have assessed that you are someone who would respond to an appeal rooted in <<if $intuition > $observation>>intuition, built from years of compressed experience<<else>>observation, verified with prior recollection<</if>>.”
<<if $intuition > $observation>>
* [[You had suspected she was measuring you, but it still came as a dull shock.|turn these off, again]]
* <span class="disabled">[[You had programmed your Lens to detect the probes, but it still… felt odd. |turn these off, again]]</span>
<<else>>
* <span class="disabled">[[You had suspected she was measuring you, but it still came as a dull shock.|turn these off, again]]</span>
* [[You had programmed your Lens to detect the probes, but it still… felt odd. |turn these off, again]]
<</if>>//I've never lived life as my true self.//
//I've never been given permission to be authentic.//
//I've always been spoken for, never by myself.//
//I've never had the opportunity to make my own statement.//
//I've never had a voice of my own.//
<span class="blink-short">You reflect back on what they said about their NeuroNet…</span>
<<linkreplace ">>">>[[<<o>> These statements written and then rephrased with ChatGPT, after large-scale scraping of the Web.|mind merge machine]]<</linkreplace>><h3>afterword</h3>
<span class="blink-short"><h4>Thank you for reading! While you are here…</h4></span>
<h4>Context</h4>
I made this world as part of an ongoing creative project where I hope to examine thorny sociotechnical ethical questions, such as our biases in perception even as we construct personas of others, the dangers of large-scale data mining, the need for corporate oversight especially in fields such as healthcare and biotechnology, and our responsibility as people who will navigate the treacherous waters of “CS + Ethics” again, and again, and again in our professional lives.
Social orders are embedded within and reinforced by technology, disproportionately affecting those on the margins of society, and inequalities in access and technology use-cases have only worsened with the increasing wealth disparity. An innovation that we might initially perceive as value-neutral, such as generative language models or brain implants intended to augment human cognition, may contain implicit assumptions about how we view the purpose of language and for the latter, where we locate “human”-ness in who we are and what we create. I extrapolate from these intersections and current tech trends to speculate on how they might affect not only daily life, but government policy, concluding that the only way forward is through awareness and collective action.
Frankly, unless you have substantial wealth, one of the only ways forward to a utopia is collective action. Whether we plunge headfirst into new technologies while inventing the future, or keep our heads afloat and work for the paycheck, we have the responsibility as designers, developers, and citizens to create the world in which we (and our descendants) want to not just live, but thrive. This could take the form of engaging in ethical discussions at the workplace, raising awareness through art and advocacy, and good, old-fashioned voting and talking to your elected officials for as long as we live in a form of democracy.
Besides contacting your U.S. elected officials (https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative, https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm) and giving them passionate, handwritten letters about your thoughts and feelings about how they should vote, I also invite you to peruse the following resources (below in the “appendix”!) that personally have been very helpful for understanding these issues of technological and social change. : )
<h4>Topic deeper dives</h4>
* Cory Doctorow’s essay, “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism” : https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
* Donna Haraway’s essay “A Cyborg Manifesto," an essay about how we are already cyborgs, with discussion here: https://www.wired.com/1997/02/ffharaway/
* GDPR (Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation) vs. CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) https://fpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GDPR_CCPA_Comparison-Guide.pdf
* Gilad Edelman’s Wired article, “Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?” https://www.wired.com/story/why-dont-we-just-ban-targeted-advertising/
* OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as a novel technology that will disrupt constructed language as we currently know it, https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
* Stephanie Kwolek, who researched and discovered Kevlar for DuPont, who owns the patent, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Kwolek
* Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, an early conversational natural language processing program, and the protagonist’s namesake, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168
* The “ENIAC Girls,” the first computer programmers, who were women https://www.army.mil/article/98817/womens_history_month_eniac_first_computer_programmers
<h4>Relevant stories recommended</h4>
* Aliette de Bodard’s short story, “Immersion” https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/debodard_06_12/
* Jennifer Egan’s Twitterfic short story, “Black Box” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box
* Ken Liu’s short story, “Good Hunting” http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/good-hunting-part-1-of-2/
* Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
* NK Jemisin’s short story, “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/
* The Pudding’s GPT-powered article “Nothing Breaks Like AI Heart” https://pudding.cool/2021/03/love-and-ai/
* Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
More about the extended universe of my project here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9c7pTi0RqY
<h4>Thank you again for reading! : )</h4>
//Your father had poor financial mismanagement from a legacy of trauma.//
//Your mother had begun the venture after her recovery from cancer, but the aftereffects continued to weaken her.//
//Your brother was running away from more than his family, he was running from himself.//
//Your underage sibling had made a desperate attempt to fit in with her peers by Streaming.//
<span class="blink-short">Sometimes you make choices, sometimes all your “choices” were true.</span>
[[<<o>>|she sums who you are]]“You don’t have to say it, I already know.”
“Your brother ran for the hills, didn’t he? Off the grid, with no response in years. Your mother in debt from her failed business expenditures, your father blinking the world away in his virtual paradise. While your youngest sibling is growing up in this culture where they are violating themselves on the Streaming technology you helped make.”
You grasp for some kind of understanding, slipping into a tone of pleading. You weigh two appeals, but one is heavier on your tongue.
<<if $intuition > $observation>>
* “[[After what happened to your mother|your appeal]], you would still ask me to risk my own?”
* <span class="disabled">“[[After all that I have done exposing Lens exploitation|your appeal]], you would still ask me to betray my principles?”</span>
<<else>>
* <span class="disabled">“[[After what happened to your mother|your appeal]], you would still ask me to risk my own?”</span>
* “[[After all that I have done exposing Lens exploitation|your appeal]], you would still ask me to betray my principles?”
<</if>>