Another day begins.
I hear birds calling outside as I make my bed, do some pushups, and take a shower. My digital assistant, Alexis, tells me the weather and the news headlines as I eat toast and drink coffee, then reminds me that I have a presentation to make at work today.
Huh. Today’s the day I show off the new technology from R&D. Can’t believe I forgot about it. I thought that would have kept me awake last night, but no. Slept like a baby.
I check myself in the mirror after I clean my teeth.
The implant in my temple is invisible, but it works. A digital method of controlling mood. A cure for neurodivergence, successfully integrated into a human brain. Years ahead of schedule. No more anxiety. No more depression.
Hair looks great, skin is clear. But there’s something off. I try a smile, and it doesn’t quite reach my eyes. I smile again. Perfect.
But did I really mean to smile that second time? I’m not fake like that. Am I?
Weird thought, dude.
But time is ticking, so I grab my keys and throw my wallet and a protein bar into my bag. I take the pistol off the counter and put that in too.
Wait. I don’t have a handgun. Do I? I want to check my bag and prove to myself that I imagined that. Instead, I check my phone and see that I’m running late, so I just walk straight out the door, lock it and jump in my car.
My bag lies on the passenger seat like an accusation as I struggle through the turbid early morning traffic.
There’s a gun in there.
But you don’t have a gun.
I should check.
Just forget about it. Eyes on the road.
My head snaps forward just in time to register the car in front break suddenly.
See? Just drive.
Are these my thoughts? What is going on with me this morning?
I want to pull over, but I keep on driving until I get to the train station.
Engine off, I grab the bag, step out of the car and start walking.
There are too many people here. What if there really is a gun? What’ll that prove? What if someone sees?
My thoughts seem panicked and jittery, but I feel completely calm. What is going on?
The station is bustling with activity. People hurry around me, faces devoid of emotion as they navigate a thousand individual early mornings of rush and bother. Time seems to stretch around me as I pick my way through the crowd.
Down the escalators now. Announcements of delays and arrivals blare over the burbling rumble of the station.
You should put in your earbuds, and listen to some tunes.
I fish them from my pocket and put them in my ears, then grab my phone. But my thumb skims past the music app towards…
It’s like the Call icon, but red. I’ve never seen that before.
I press it.
“Platform three.” A voice buzzes in my ear. It sounds harsh. Computer generated.
I’m already walking. It’s like I’m a prisoner in my body.
The presentation. I don’t need platform three. I need platform one! If I don’t show up, we’ll lose the contract.
Just shut up.
My legs take me down the escalators and onto the wrong train. I can’t do anything. I can’t even speak. My breathing remains smooth and my heart rate is even. The voice in my head is silent. And a tiny, lonely, rational part of my mind is unraveling.
We get off the train on the other side of town and start walking. A command comes through the headphones.
“Wait here. Five minutes.”
The intersection is calm, the occasional car whizzes by and a couple of pedestrians walk briskly towards a large office building. Eventually, a police car pulls out of the car park and drives around the corner.
“Go.”
There’s something familiar about this building. I think I’ve been here before. Then I see the corporate logo of my work above the door.
This is the R&D department. What the hell?
I take out one of my earbuds as I enter.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist is looking at me expectantly.
“Good morning,” I hear myself say. “I’m here to see Dr Phil Lewens. He’s expecting me.” And I hand her my ID.
And the voice in my other ear says, “Thirty-third floor. The lift is ready.”
By this stage, I’m resigned to my fate. Someone else is piloting my body now.
We turn around and march to the elevator. As the doors slide open, the receptionist calls out. “Mr Johnson! Aren’t you supposed to be at the presentation?”
“Fuck,” I hiss, as the doors close. “Why were the cops here?”
Now the anxiety and stress are there, boiling in our blood, driving up our heart rate.
The lift is all stainless steel and mirrors. My sense of dissociation is so strong that it’s shocking to see my reflection. But it’s really me. Reflexively, I bring my hand to my face.
I freeze.
“Kept it together.” It’s the other me, speaking out loud. We breathe deep, and I’m just a passenger once again.
The numbers on the wall ascend as the mix of vertigo and movement ripple in our belly, and then we finally open the bag. The gun is in there, just as I knew it would be –
We take it out.
Its cold, metallic weight fills me with an abstract dread. I’ve never held a gun before.
We check that it’s loaded and work the safety. We’re perfectly calm as we put it back in the bag.
The doors open silently, and we look up at the camera and wink.
“Second lab on the left.” The robotic voice in our ears again.
We grasp the door handle and enter.
“Hello?” The man looks surprised to see us. “You can’t come in here. This floor is off limits!”
We don’t answer. Instead, we take the gun back out of the bag and point it smoothly at the doctor’s head.
“Hey, Phil. It’s me. Alice Pendron.”
“You’re not Alice.” Dr Lewens doesn’t seem afraid, despite the gun. Instead, there’s a look of vague confusion on his face, as though he’s trying to solve a difficult maths problem. He frowns. “Wait, I know you. Alex Johnson, isn’t it? From Product Development?”
Something about my name makes a shiver run through my body. The gun wavers unsteadily for a second. Then my other hand rises of its own volition and taps the small raised scar above my ear.
“Put the chip in yourself, did you?”
“Of course. It was too delicate a surgery for anyone else.”
“Arrogant as ever,” we say. By now, I was getting used to the shallow emotional reactions of my hijacker. So I could register the faint note of anger that had slipped into our voice. “You stole my research, Phil.”
“Nonsense. Your work was purely theoretical. You could never implement the medical and engineering feats required.”
“You recognise me now, bastard?”
“Interesting. There’s no way you could rewrite someone’s personality engrams wholesale. I’ve no idea where you got the tech, but you must be transmitting from nearby.”
Lewens lunges across the work desk towards some kind of specialized keyboard, but I – we – are too fast.
We round the corner in two long steps and smash the gun barrel against Phil’s temple. He falls back into his chair, blood dripping through his pale fingers as he cradles his wounded head.
“Alarms are locked down, Doctor.”
The scientist groans.
“Now, let’s see what we’ve got here.” Our fingers started tapping the keys of his workstation. He was already logged in, so this Alice, or whoever is in control, simply starts dragging files around and sending emails. Every few seconds, we check on Dr Lewens.
“You stole all my work, even the stuff I wasn’t ready to share, and this is the best you could think to do with it?” The contempt was thick in our voice. “Treating banal conditions like mild depression and anxiety disorders? You really have no vision. No idea of the potential!”
Lewens has composed himself somewhat. “I’m sorry.” He shakes his bloody head wearily. “What I did was wrong. But what you’re doing is completely immoral. This poor man is being violated in the most extreme way possible. Can’t you see that, Alice?”
I know it now. This parasite that controls me is some kind of psychopath. Her plan is perfect. She’s going to kill this man and let me take the fall, and there’s nothing I can do.
Desperately, I try to take back control of my body.
For a fleeting moment, her finger trembles above the enter key. Then, with no more effort than it takes to crush a fly, my resistance crumbles.
Click.
Her work finished, Alice turns my body back to face the doctor. “Immoral? My new partners at Metazon don’t think so. They’re backing me in this, one hundred percent.” She checks the gun one last time. “This isn’t just revenge – it puts an end to their competition as well. It’s not immoral, it’s just good business.”
Boom.
I never really understood the kind of mess a pistol could make of someone’s head before this. Dr Lewen’s body falls to the ground. A strange gurgling noise comes from the ruined remains of his skull as blood pumps into a widening pool.
And I’m smiling.
No. Alice is smiling. That sick bitch.
“Just one loose end to clean up now,” she says in my voice, speaking with my lips.
Somewhere, alarms are going off.
The muzzle of the gun is warm as she places it against my temple. Right above the chip Dr. Lewens put in there.
My finger begins to tremble.
I don’t want to die.
A tear rolls down my cheek.
“Put the gun down!” A voice shouts from the doorway.
This time, we can’t pull the trigger.