Letters to the Cyborgs: As Humans Become 51% Machine, or More, Who Will Inherit the Earth?
300
Letters to the Cyborgs: As Humans Become 51% Machine, or More, Who Will Inherit the Earth?
300eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781634240758 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trine Day |
| Publication date: | 06/30/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 300 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
Letters to the Cyborgs
As Humans Become 51% Machine, or More, Who Will Inherit the Earth?
By Judyth Vary Baker
Trine Day LLC
Copyright © 2016 Judyth Vary BakerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63424-075-8
CHAPTER 1
The Perfect Wife
The first robot wedding in history was held June 30, 2015. "Frois, the bulky groom ... married Yukirin, an android made to look like the Japanese pop star Yuki Kashiwagi. ... The wedding was officiated by another robot named Pepper. She usually spends her days helping customers at Softbank's cell phone stores. The ceremony was even sealed with a kiss. Guests ... were treated to a robot-sliced cake and a robot wedding band, RT reports. The robots' big day was put on by the Japanese company Maywa Denki ... according to the International Business Times. It was only a matter of time before 'bots started tying the knot. Tech-savvy brides and grooms already employ them as ring bearers and officiants, the New York Times reported last year."
– Huffington Post, 6/30/15.
When Henry Wallet dodged across the busy street with its screaming car horns and roaring trucks, he found himself transfixed by a brightly-colored sign. He spotted it just as he reached the opposite curb. What was odd was that he'd never noticed it before. It was a garish-looking sign, but Henry couldn't pull his eyes from its brilliant, warped-looking letters. He forgot the rush of the New York crowd around him as he pondered its message. Squinting, he leaned closer to read the small print there.
Divorced? Time to try A Perfect Wife – 30 Days Free Trial. No Money Down! Easy payments, quick credit check. Access us on Civilian Web, PerfectWife.cw.us, or visit between 09:00 am-21:00 pm at 421 5th Ave, NY 10018.
Having a site on the Civilian Web meant the business was government approved, monitored, and legal. Ever since the World Government moved in to make sure the Internet would be truly safe and patriotic, millions of unsavory sites had vanished (along with some that Henry thought were OK, but what did he know?). Now he took a deep breath, as he considered the message. This wasn't a scam. He took a photo of the sign, which was a hologram, and watched it disappear. He was used to being targeted by such signs, but this was the first time he'd had one thrust at him on the street. Well, advertising was everywhere. It was just the way it was. For a small sum, he was at least able to block ads out of his head while he was asleep (or so his AdBot Blocker claimed: maybe he just couldn't remember them, which was the next best thing). Meanwhile, the craving he had to eat at Sunday Snackers Restaurant was an urge he couldn't fight. Why he'd never thought about eating there before, he couldn't explain. One thing for sure: dinner at Sunday Snackers had to come first. Its persuasive ad was simply irresistible.
As Henry slid into a comfortable chair at the restaurant, he noticed that his belly was in the way. He'd been gaining weight ever since he and Helen divorced. Despite the campaign going on against overweight people, despite the fines imposed, despite the fact that he was about to lose his job because he was borderline obese, Henry couldn't help himself. Restaurant and grocery store advertisements constantly barraged him with visions of fast, cheap food, along with their attractive smells and certain subtle excitatory signals that made his brain tell him that he was always hungry.
Henry had gained ten kilos, but it didn't stop him from missing Helen's meals, which were health-conscious, with big doses of organically-grown vegetables. His weight gain began almost as soon as the divorce was final and Henry was legally cleared to receive restaurant advertisements three times a day, instead of once a day, since he didn't like to cook. To combat his depression (Helen had run away with a man who had so many implants that he was supposed to be able to function sexually for another fifty years), Henry's doctor also advised that he must treat his brain's almond-sized hypothalamus with electrotherapy while he slept. That tiny bit of very primitive tissue couldn't be reached by mere logic.
After eating more than he wanted and just as he paid his expensive dinner bill, a suggestion to visit a nearby dessert kiosk popped into his mind. The smell of freshly-fried donuts accompanied the ad. Henry, choosing to control his equally urgent desire to contact PerfectWife until after he got a jelly donut, felt proud of himself for buying just one. Henry also decided to walk back to the block where he first saw the PerfectWife sign, since it was only a kilometer away. "I need the exercise," he said to himself, but the truth was, Henry hoped he'd lose a kilo or so by walking the extra blocks, instead of taking a motorized chair.
The night crowd was thick with shoppers, the signs blinked off and on, as Henry, shaking his head with amusement at himself, exercised his way toward where he'd encountered the sign.
"A perfect wife? Hah!" he said, stopping where the hologram had appeared. Instead, nothing happened. Surprised that it didn't materialize again, and sorry that his shoes were so tight and his belly was so full, he paused to complain about it. He must have been a random target instead of a potential client selected by researching profiles. "I see they've mismatched my preferences again!" he told the empty space. "I hate random, meddling ads!" He was about to lodge a complaint with the Ad Ombudsman, but then he paused. Perhaps it was already 9:00pm, and "PerfectWife" was closed. That would explain why the hologram didn't appear again. He usually kept his watch (embedded in his wrist) visible, but he'd turned it off while holding the donut, which was dripping with raspberry-flavored goo. Seeing that it was only 8:00, he had plenty of time. "I'm coming, PerfectWife!" Henry said aloud. He began walking toward 5th Avenue.
Immediately, visions of beautiful women began to fill his head, nearly overwhelming his senses. Somehow, Henry was able to stay on his feet, but he scarcely knew where he was as one woman after another appeared before his eyes, sizzling with personality and good looks. Long before he neared 5th Avenue, dozens of potential PerfectWives had already paraded themselves through his head and before his eyes, while his brain kept responding automatically to some candidates more than others. Henry was so absorbed in browsing the PerfectWife Catalog that a Track Guide alert went off: he was not paying adequate attention to where he was going. He had stepped out of the walkway boundary three times, which was unlawful. Now he was ordered to seat himself in a Street Chair (the fee was low) for the rest of the journey, but he hardly cared.
The selection process was now down to three candidates: one was called Lucy Lips, who would always provide him with all the news; another was called Mrs. Dines (she was a terrific cook of natural foods), and the third was called Sexx Kitty. To his surprise, at this point, all three women merged into one. Standing before him was a PerfectWife, smiling at him, nestling in his head. Still, he kept comparing her lovely figure to his own Pillsbury Doughboy rotundity. How could she care about him? As he thought about that, Lucy Sexx Dines vanished. "See you soon, honey!" he heard her say, her mouth in a kissing shape being the last thing to disappear. She had vanished little by little, reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.
Checking his watch again (of course it had many other functions), Henry was now suffused with an urge to relax as the Street Chair trundled him along. As he slouched down, half-numb, he was given a once-over by the Chair's built-in Prosperity Assessment Device. Henry learned that he had recently eaten 1.5 kilograms of food – 3,900 calories – with insufficient fiber. His toilet would be sent the message, and later tonight, when he sat on it, the toilet seat would prick him with a tiny injection of a drug that acted as a laxative. That would solve the fiber problem. If there were any blood sugar problems, another tiny prick would fix the insulin levels. Many people had artificial pancreases now, with automatic insulin regulators, but Henry could not qualify for the implant until he gained a few more kilos and developed Type 1 diabetes. He looked forward to the operation, because then he could eat without worrying about his blood sugar. All would be well.
By the time he stopped thinking about food and insulin, Henry found himself deposited at the PerfectWife entrance. It was a tall, impressive office building. The thought came to him to press his hand down on the security buzzer. He received a warning message that all data concerning him would be accessed if he decided to meet Lucy. Was he willing to do that? "What the hell!" he said. "I want to meet Lucy and her other personalities. After all, it's a Free Trial. What can go wrong?" He pressed the security buzzer and felt a wave of electricity pass through him as he was quickly scanned.
Welcome, Henry Wallet, Typical B-Inhibited, Straight Male, in danger of losing a productive position! Your employers realize how valuable you are and have confirmed that they will contribute 42% of the cost of your therapy, should you accept your Perfect Wife after the 30-day free trial.
Forty-two percent! Henry was stunned. He hadn't realized that his company valued him so highly. It had been made known to him that the average support for therapy from his company was only 19%. He was more than twice as valuable to them as the typical employee! For the first time since Helen had walked out on him, Henry began to feel twinges of hope. Maybe life was about to deal him a new hand of cards, with all aces.
As the security door swished open, Henry was told that his entire profile, including (of course) DNA and his life story, had now been downloaded into PerfectWife's system. When a door to an elevator down the hall flashed with the holographic sign, Henry entered that elevator. As he did so, two robotic arms gripped him and its door closed, but even so, Henry was half-flattened by the speed of the elevator, which got him to the twentieth floor in two seconds. As he stepped from the elevator, which opened to reveal gleaming black marble floors and a brightly-lit white corridor, two beautiful women appeared. Each gently took him by an arm and guided Henry toward a half-open door farther down the corridor.
"We're so glad you came, Henry!" the blonde to his right told him, as they entered the room. "Won't you please be seated, Henry?" the brunette said, indicating a red-leather chair. Henry's watch glimmered green: both women were robots. Properly speaking, they were Cyborgs, because they carried so much human flesh in the right places. These days, everybody's watches analyzed the percentage of human flesh versus machine.
The blond served Henry a legal-level relaxation beverage, while the brunette escorted a gray-haired gentleman into the room.
"Mr. Landry," she said, "please meet Mr. Henry Wallet, Therapy Experiment #21."
"Experiment?" Henry said, flushing. "I don't want to be in any experiment." He stood up, intending to go for the door, but Landry said, in a commanding tone, "Sit down, Henry. Let's talk some business. You'll like the financial benefits that will accompany your completion of this experiment. Your company values you as an employee, and has agreed that you can receive, as a bonus for your cooperation and consent, a brand-new pancreas at no cost to you. By the way, your pancreas is shot."
Henry considered. He knew that his pancreas was precancerous and was anxious to get it replaced, so he sat down again. But he wasn't anybody's fool.
"Is this going to be dangerous?" he asked.
"Only for your Perfect Wife. Not for you."
To Henry's puzzled look, Landry placed a thin, freckled hand on the fat man's shoulder. "My friend," he said, "some people didn't want to have anything to do with Cyborgs. There are some in World Government who aren't pleased with our new population control methods using Cyborgs. Instead, they want us to expand our current population control program, which is the involuntary sterilizations of criminals and misfits."
"What do you mean, new population control methods using Cyborgs?" Henry inquired. "And why didn't I hear about this before now? I happen to be involved with population control at BioTest Laboratories."
"I know that," Landry said. "I am also aware that you've had a divorce, and that because you're now overweight, you can be fired."
"Not if I can get a pancreas implant," Henry said. "I know my rights!"
"You were kept out of the loop because you could have been fired with another kilo of weight gain," Landry told him, "But we've saved you, son. Marriages and divorces are rather uncommon these days, you know."
"Helen was old-fashioned about things like that," Henry said. "And I loved her enough to agree to marry."
"But it turned out that you refused to have children, working as you did at BioTest Labs," Landry said gently. "And yet, that had been part of your original pre-nup agreement."
"It was. But who can afford a child, these days? Some young fart came along who promised her not one, but two kids," he said bitterly. "Then, when I got my sperm count checked, I realized I couldn't compete. She had the legal right to divorce me and take penalty money. She almost bankrupted me."
"You were foolish not to get your sperm count checked before you married her," Landry said. "It's a concern that you could be so thoughtless, considering who you work for."
"I didn't worry about it because I started taking extra testosterone," Henry said. "But a side effect was that it made me more aggressive. We started fighting ..." Henry's voice trailed off. "We were fighting over almost everything. That was when all the big problems started."
"What if I told you that PerfectWife may have the solution to all those problems?"
Henry thought about this carefully. He was an intelligent man, though he had been in intellectual limbo for some time. He had stopped playing chess, stopped collecting old books and reading them, stopped expanding his coin collection, stopped debating about the future of the world, as the breach between him and Helen had grown wider.
"There's got to be a catch to this experiment," he finally said. "Because you're not acting like a salesman, giving me a pitch. I get plenty of that. This isn't a real office – I don't see any desks or screens. I got escorted in here by two expensive robots–
"They're Cyborgs," Landry corrected him.
"You must be some kind of CEO for this company."
"That's true. I'm also on the Board for BioTest Labs. I'm one of your bosses."
Landry's steel-gray eyes never blinked. Henry decided it had to be true, but just in case, he–
Before Henry could think the next word, into his head flickered an impressive list of Lee Landry's accomplishments and positions. Landry was using the same high-class program that had once been approved for use by political candidates. Henry recognized the style and the expense of it. Henry himself represented a million voters. He was required to vote in their behalf after The Blitz. That mega-advertising event exposed the world's adult population to a thirty-day barrage of almost endless political advertisements. Individual citizens never voted anymore: they merely participated in daily opinion polls that were sent to their particular representative. Henry was one such representative. At the end of The Blitz, a final opinion poll was collected by each representative. The representative delivered the final poll's winner as a vote. The almost constant flow of political ads, from which Henry was blissfully kept insulated as a representative, had brought masses of voters to the brink of suicide in order to arrive at the winner. Meanwhile, the world's production of goods and services nearly came to a halt the last few days of the Presidential campaign.
The most sophisticated ads were the most expensive and produced the best results. But the old fear that government positions could be purchased outright (as had occurred with the election of the American President in 2036) changed the voting system forever. By 2048, only Representatives for each one million people and the CEOs of the 1000 most important corporations were allowed to vote. Their votes were tallied in rooms where mind-bending ads were prohibited. Naturally, the biggest companies had the most votes.
Things had been just dandy ever since.
"My corporation is treating me too well," Henry finally said, as he looked over contracts to be signed. "And why is my position as Representative so important in these contracts?"
"We want you to try out a particular Perfect Wife," Landry told him. "If it works as intended, we'll have the solution we've been looking for. By the way, you racked up a few gambling debts these past few weeks, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I was depressed. Thought maybe I'd make a lot of money and get myself a pancreas transplant and some masculine enhancements. But, what's this about a 'solution'? And why me?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Letters to the Cyborgs by Judyth Vary Baker. Copyright © 2016 Judyth Vary Baker. Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Cover,Title page,
Copyright page,
Epigraph,
Dedication,
Foreword,
Letters to the Cyborgs,
The Perfect Wife,
The Wearing of the Green,
The Mud Pack,
Airspace,
Little Green Men,
Mouse House,
Re-Runs,
Teenagers,
Save the Tiger,
Hospital Zone,
Cryogenics,
Algorithm,
How Green is the Sea,
The Music of the Spheres,
The Religion Solution,
Time Capsule,
Her Way,
Her Way,
Her Way: more comments about Lee's science fiction story.,
Lee H. Oswald: What He Read and What He Thought,
Acknowledgements,