Dys-Konnective Tissue

by Psychoflop

A different Singapore

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Chapter 1: Si-stem Crash/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Amanda waking up immediately and before her alarm clock went off in the morning was not uncommon. What was uncommon however, was her sleeping on her stomach (and clothed). So that meant that she had to turn herself over and then sit up, all in one motion./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""That was one of the less severe night terrors since that day in Philly, and I'm one of many who asked Aaron not to write about them with me on the battlefield, so to speak. I can only imagine how much worse the fallout is for some of the members of the Aaronverse who actually were written into the #EndG8 series"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Her cell phone (a large black "brick" cell phone made by Nokia) had been going off since she was still asleep, but she had paid no attention, as she was still trying to gain her bearings:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""Are you tired of having multiple sub-par private medical companies competing for your business every time you need to go to the doctor, try a cybernetic implant for all of your major surgical needs. Assimico, new models for cash, old models for barter"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""I can feel the moonlight hit my face, hear the Assimico ad and...a medium-heavy rain coming down outside. For Singapore, that's between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Amanda sighed, then felt around the floor beside her bed and grabbed her phone, eventually answering a voicemail:/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""Bressette, Chief Bourke here. The power went out at the biggest of 5 Assimico offices, and as their donation cycles are up to date, we're sending you to check it out. Probably nothing serious, you have an hour, Chief Bourke out."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Sometimes Amanda replayed the voicemails of her boss (as Julie was very soft-spoken), but this time, she didn't. Amanda remembered seeing the file for Assimico a week ago, and there was never a history of power outage. Punks trying to steal implants was their biggest problem. Amanda then laughed, this is one of the few worlds her friend created with no government tax system (or much of a government at all, actually). One would think that there would be no one company with such control over the people, but almost everyone had an implant from Assimico inside of them. The 'old models for barter' part of their promotion was how they got so big (especially in Amanda's home for 9 years, Singapore). Get rid of the old models for various forms of trade (independent food cultivation, coffee and prostitution were 3 of the biggest), use the warehouse and assembly lines to make newer models for those who could afford to buy new implants. Singapore Dollars was TECHNICALLY the official currency of the city-state (and by extension, the country), but private currencies had more or less completely replaced it a generation ago. Amanda's wallet alone, had anywhere between 3 and 15 different currencies inside of it at any 1 given time. She put on the first pair of jeans and t-shirt that she could find on her apartment floor, then put her right index finger to her right temple:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""Eyes on, standard spectrum setting"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"There were many settings in the latest (7supth/sup) generation cybernetic optic implants (artificial eyes, meaning that Amanda had actually woken up blind). She looked around her studio apartment (A simple all-white paint job with a minimal kitchen and bathroom but a large, single bedroom that Amanda got a King-size bed in) and found 2 Monster Energy Drinks with Vodka that had yet to be opened. She grabbed, opened and consumed them both within 60 seconds. Then she looked at you, constant reader old chum and began talking:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;""Anarcho-Capitalism. Let the free market decide not only the economy, but all of society with no government interference whatsoever. Every single aspect of your life has private companies competing for your voluntary donation: Medicine, Transportation...Even me, actually. Unlike most Aaronworlds, there is no city or government funded police force on this planet. I'm a private police officer (what some Aaronworlds might call a security guard, only I get MUCH nicer weapons here). I am bound by only 2 regulations: The non-aggression axiom (never use force on another human being except in defence of liberty or property), and the donor is always right provided that they themselves do not violate the non-aggression axiom. If you're not satisfied with a service provided to you, you can either stop donating and pursue a competitor or enter into arbitration with a mutually agreed upon third party (and the lawyers in that field compete for your business too). We have no minimum wage (and laugh at the places Aaron creates that has such an institution in place) because even your choice of employment is for you to decide (and with almost no monopolies anywhere on the planet, you're pretty much guaranteed at least 2 offers regardless of your field of employment). Even education is privately funded (meaning unlike most Aaronworlds, we're actually taught to question the government as children). Homelessness is all but unheard of, however not many live alone as I do. Many people live together with strangers in adulthood with rent being extremely cheap on account of, you guessed it, real estate being competitive. Being a private police officer affords me my own apartment, my drinking (among other things) makes me a bad roommate. Anyways, I better hit the showers. Of course if my utilities aren't working again, I'll either move or enter arbitration with my landlord (and as many of his apartments are empty, I'd probably have the upper hand in 're-negotiating' my rent. Farewell for now"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It was a niche business in Singapore, running a candle stand among the many other businesses along Free Market Square. But that was just the way that Jessa Beaudin liked it. She required wax, dyes of as many colours as possible, string to make the wicks and a booth to conduct her business. Of those 4 things, she had to constantly change her sources (but prices came down each time that she did, and she in turn passed the savings to her customers). The booth on the other hand, was a different story. While procuring a booth was very easy, the more you donated to the city of Singapore, the better a location you received. It had taken Jessa an hour to get to her booth by bicycle (the preferred method of transportation in the city-state, as the price of automobiles hadn't come down enough for many in the country to even barter for one), but she had seen 3 different businesses close down in that hour. The owners would likely still conduct business, but it would be harder for them to do so./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Is it even possible for someone to be Pok Gai here? Unless you lose a lot at the casino, I doubt it" she asked herself as she entered her booth from the back via a key around a black necklace she was wearing (along with a rainbow tye-dyed t-shirt and a very short jean miniskirt). Pok Gai was a Singlish phrase for bankrupt. Singlish was Singapore's street language, a guttural mish-mash of English, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, Malay and 2 or 3 other dialects of Chinese. In casual life in Singapore, you spoke Singlish, but it was too informal for formal events (where English was likely used, but Mandarin wasn't uncommon as well). Jessa looked under the black wooden counter that would face the street when she opened for the day and found a small, beige metal lock box. After pressing her thumb to a panel on the top of the box, she heard a slight click (indicating that it had unlocked). She lifted the lid open to reveal several different currencies inside. 1 public, several private./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Not exactly a fan of Singapore dollars. They're not exactly the value of toilet paper (yet) but they're fairly close to it by now. Still, I did get over 100,000 dollars of it so taking them for purchases wasn't a Claypot (Singlish word for total loss). Moving on, about 300 dollars of E-Gold receipts, 200 dollars in coin dollars, 500 Internet reserve dollars (My preferred private currency as it's the most secure) and another 100 Internet reserve dollars worth of bartered goods (Which amounted to some of my rent at home being deducted and a very large meal of Shrimp with Noodles in Oyster Sauce). Not a bad day for a Tuesday". A black cat emerged from a hole in a wall, there were many holes in the walls along Singapore, forming a sort of tunnel network throughout the city-state for small animals to travel around virtually undetected. Most of the animals were unwelcome (namely rats), but Jessa was one of the many business owners on this street who had adopted this cat as a part-time pet of sorts./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Morning Chio (Pretty)" said Jessa, the cat nodded and walked up to her. Jessa looked around for her leftover Shrimp and Noodles, which she found in a white, cardboard box. She took out 3 of the leftover shrimp and gave them to Chio./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Don't worry Chio, not spicy" whispered Jessa. Chio ate them and let Jessa pet her for a minute or two before running back into the hole. Jessa smiled, as it was probably 1 of the only cats in the whole country./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Then a beep went off on her watch, a simple Black Timex./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Aiyoh! (Oh dear!) Time to mess around with my insides! Why couldn't I be 1 of the Jessa's without Crohn's?"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jessa then sat down on the ground and began awkwardly pressing her hands around her lower abdomen, feeling around for an implant that relieved the pain and symptoms of her Crohn's disease. After a moment, she found the implant (specifically, a button that was on the implant) and pushed it. Her relief was near immediate. After staring at a large scar near her waistline (where the incision was made in order to place the implant), she stood up, wiped off the back of her skirt, then walked over to the right side of her booth and began pulling a large, steel chain to open for the day. She immediately saw Amanda, staring at her./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Uh oh, The Am Bai (Police Inspector)" announced Jessa, pretending to be terrified./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Relax, I was just on my way to the station and remembered that today is your donation day. No one has Bao Toh (rough translation, tattled) on you. And as is custom with the S.P.P. (Singapore Private Police), I urge you not to leave yourself Boh Lui (broke)" stated Amanda with such a monotonous voice, Jessa deduced that she was deliberately sounding like a vocal computer. Jessa immediately dropped behind the counter and re-opened her lock-box. After 10 or 15 seconds, she realized that she couldn't make a donation fitting of the S.P.P.'s service to her and her business that wouldn't completely empty at least 1 of the currencies that she had money for./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I wasn't huat (prosperous) enough this week for any one currency, will you take a mixed donation?" asked Jessa (who knew the answer already having asked this of Amanda before)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Of course. I guess you didn't Tio Beh Bio (Hit the lottery) with your residuals from the #EndG8 series?" asked Amanda with a smirk./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Not to the extent that my original did, no." said Jessa, who emerged from under the counter with 25, 000 Singaporean dollars (which Amanda actually let out a dejected sigh, but accepted it anyway), 75 Dollars in E-Gold Receipts, 50 Dollars in coin receipts and 200 Internet Reserve Dollars./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Wow, we rarely get triple digit internet reserve donations from a small business. You must really like the services we provide." stated Amanda in a manner to assure Jessa that she was not being sarcastic./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I do. While I rarely actually need your services, you provide them for me in a non-aggressive manner. You don't pry into my personal affairs (the South Asian People's Police wanted access to my medical records for my Crohn's implant) or my pants (like the Singaporean Enforcement Syndicate when they tried to gangrape me for a light donation cycle)."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda's jaw dropped in complete horror (as her employer actually considered Jessa a Kaki (close friend) more than a customer) "I could recommend a good arbitrator to you. And given the nature of the obvious violation of your personal property, we wouldn't even ask for a cut of whatever you're awarded" she offered with much sympathy in her voice./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jessa was actually taken aback at that display of legitimate concern, not being used to it with anyone she dealt with on a professional level. Ultimately, she could only say "I reported it to Julie when I signed with you guys (which was literally just a handshake agreement). It's taking a while because I want the settlement in Internet Reserve Dollars. Still, thank you for your concern. I've always respected people in uniform" she said while blushing. Amanda returned said blush, only replying "Part of the oath that comes with the badge is that I can't pursue sex with a customer while on duty. If you ever catch me off-duty, ask me again"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""emDua Gao, A Sam seng just took what I was supposed to donate" /em(Officer, a gangster has taken a decent piece of my weekly profits)/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Everyone on the block heard the screaming. Jessa then saw Amanda take a cell phone out of her coat pocket and quickly dial, then quickly state "S.P.P. officer #19810909. A robbery has commenced at Deckard's Noodles, is this business 1 of our clients? She is, very well, I will STK as it was our donation that was stolen"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"While Jessa understood that she had to phone in the request (as it would break a law to defend a business signed to another police company), she didn't understand what STK meant. She decided not to dwell on it, and took cover under her counter. From her point of view, she could now only see Amanda's upper body as the cop put her right index finger to her right temple and say "Switch to X-Ray mode, enhance for weapons and large amounts of coins". Jessa actually had enough time to contemplate why one of the businesses on the street made a predominantly coin-based donation before Amanda finally pulled out her gun (a chrome grey Glock 18C with what appeared to be a black silencer attached to it with the words "Freedom is never moot" carved into it). Jessa could hear both the obvious panic of the people on the street reacting to Amanda's gun and Amanda saying "Come on crowd, dissipate so that I have a clean shot...thank you..."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"emspan style="text-decoration: underline;"BANG!/span/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""So, STK means Shoot To Kill?" asked Jessa as she stood up, a bit bewildered./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Yeah. Human beings are entitled to the right to a fair trial, due process and all of that but when my C.O. ordered the S.T.K. it was because that client donated enough for us to provide him with a camera that assessed that thief as actually being an escaped convict from the charge of necrophilia so their rights were forfeited" replied Amanda, who then touched her temple and said "Return to normal vision"./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Eww, what a Goondu (Idiot). Violating the rights of the individuals who are alive is bad enough. To violate the dead, gross. Wah Kao (My goodness), that shot was over 4 blocks away." said Jessa as she stared into the distance./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda merely shrugged before replying "Not even my farthest shot this year. Still, I had to wait for a clean shot. It's 50 years in my company's jail and complete forfeiture of the right to be a cop anywhere else on the planet afterwards if I kill an innocent civilian. Assuming I would even live to serve all 50 years, I'd be well into my 80's with very obsolete cybernetic eyes. Pardon me a moment"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jessa nodded, as she knew that Amanda had to address the crowd in some way or another in light of what had just happened./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Attention everyone, I am Constable Amanda Bressette with the Singapore Private Police. I apologize for the interruption of the liberty filled day that you are entitled to in my shooting someone in the back of the head who not only stole from one of the many fine establishments on the street, but was an escaped convict Jia Lat (in trouble) for the crime of engaging in carnal relations with at least 1 dead person."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda made note to pause as the business owners (and customers) took it upon themselves to give her an ovation./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Oh thank you, thank you, you're far too kind. If you already donate to the S.P.P. you will have the shiok (pleasure) of having this level of service always. If you do not, feel free to switch police agencies if you truly are suitably impressed with my work and by providing a voluntary witness statement, your first donation cycle is waived upon signing. Thank you again and A pickup crew has already begun removal of the body. I invite you the Lobang (opportunity) of having a wonderful day"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It then started raining again./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Sorry, weather protection is not an optional coverage plan"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"The crowd laughed and proceeded with their respective days as 1 of the pickup crew handed Amanda a red silk bag of money. Jessa made a quick guess that based on the size and apparent weight of the bag, this donation was 6 or 7 times the monetary value what Jessa herself was donating (and all in hard currencies that did not belong to Singapore). Amanda returned to Jessa after returning the money to Deckard's Noodles (who then awkwardly gave it back to Amanda as it was the scheduled donation along with a smaller bag that was likely just for Amanda)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""It's not a standard custom to accept tips, but It's not illegal either. Wow, this will balance my books for the next 2 months. I better head to the station, have a prosperous day" asked Amanda while looking inside her bag/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Wait a moment" replied Jessa who then reached under her counter and provided an unopened bottle of Vodka to Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Sorry it's not cash. Want a free candle too?" asked Jessa./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Oh, thank you. Um, yes please. I'll take the red and white one on the second shelf behind you to what would be your right" requested Amanda as she pointed./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Excellent choice, I even got that one to have a scent of Maple Syrup" said Jessa as she fetched it for Amanda, handing it to her. Amanda then had many memories of other versions of her living in some country called Canada. She nodded at Jessa and headed for the station./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Chief Bourke needed something in order to distract her from her growing level of impatience over the impending arrival of Amanda, her best constable. With so many other security officers being assigned to other clients today, Julie then turned her attention to her computer and was engaging in an activity known throughout the Aaronverse as "Digital Window Shopping"./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'm happy to be one of the only Julie's without some sort of childhood brain issue across the multiverse. I actually felt a lot of empathy for the other me's while we were in that strange Philadelphia together. Nothing's really wrong with me, so I'll just remain unmodified." whispered Julie to herself, at a volume barely louder than the rainfall outside. She looked around her office (painted entirely in grey with a large black desk with 2 brown leather chairs to which Julie was sitting in one of them) and silently wished the donations from her clients were enough for a plant./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I catch no ball (don't understand) as to why you're still all-natural. You don't really know what you're missing by being unmodified" said Amanda as she entered the office without knocking. Julie always had an open door policy with her officers, it stemmed from her training in Australia./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Constable Bressette, you're late. I give you an hour and you still don't chop chop (hurry up)" said Julie sternly as she scratched her freshly shaved head under a Detroit Red Wings baseball cap, her only deviance from her all Green-grey S.P.P. uniform./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Deckard's noodles got robbed by that necrophiliac fugitive. You're welcome for me being on the ball (hardworking, enthusiastic) enough to get you 3 new clients, bitch." was all Amanda replied./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""And I assume that empty bottle of Vodka was a tip from a client? How Taiko (lucky) for you!" asked Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Jessa the candle girl" replied Amanda without nodding./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I would go on a rant as to how morally wrong it is to drink and drive, but we both know you don't have much in the way of morals and drinking and driving is legal on this world as long as you don't hit another person of their property." ranted Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Actually, I didn't drive, Kaki (buddy) Any Lobo's today?" asked Amanda in an effort to take the piss out of Julie. Julie laughed, recognizing "Lobo" as the Singlish word for an officer without assignment./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""OK Constable Bressette, OK. Take a seat" said Julie, a little calmer. Amanda nodded and did as instructed./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""So is there anything you wish to report about the Deckard's noodles robbery you botched?" asked once Amanda was seated./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Not much you don't already know. Someone tried to make off with our donation, I immediately called it in, switched my eyes to scan for guns and money, drew my glock, waited for a clean shot, took it." stated Amanda, very matter of factly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'd press you for a longer report, but we bagged 3 new donors on that street alone, which gives us more than half of all of Free Market Square. So Assimico were able to report their power outages via an employee cell phone, but there was no video option"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Julie then pushed a few buttons on her computer and an enhanced audio recording of what was an accented female's voice (Armenian was both Julie's and Amanda's guess) began playing (basically saying that the power is out and her co-workers are reacting irrationally to it) as Amanda touched her eyes and said "Eyes off". The old urban legend that the other senses were enhanced if one was removed was definitely true for our constable. Julie played the recording twice more as a professional courtesy to her constable./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Is it wrong that I can't even tell if the screaming I hear in the background is human or not?" asked Amanda, terrified sufficiently that she actually felt sober for a minute./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No, I agree with you" said Julie, assuming the worst./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Does that turn you off enhancements moreso than in the past?" asked Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Actually, it really does." replied Julie with a nod/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"By now, Amanda and Julie had all but disregarded rank, and were talking to each other as friends./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'm one of the last people in Singapore without enhancements. Assimico indirectly control the whole city-state, if not the country" announced Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Do you even need anything enhanced?" asked Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Nope. Anything I would be getting done would be purely cosmetic like those prostitutes that...change their genitals" Julie then immediately stopped talking while Amanda went through a montage of memories in her own mind of busting male prostitutes who either had cybernetic prostates/testicles in order to enhance their "count" or directly lengthening what they have. Women were not immune to this, but at least most of what is available for them happened to be internal (namely in the name of enhancing muscle control)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'll head over to Assimico" said Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Actually, you kind of need to stay here for a while" replied Julie. Amanda raised her right eyebrow./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Even if whatever happened hadn't happened, Assimico was still getting hacked by someone from the outside. We picked up the hacker at Assimico's request. I left them in the interrogation room for you, that's an arrow (order)." stated Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Do they have a name?" asked Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Jane...Carman"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"To say that Jane Carman was fidgety while sitting alone in the interrogation room, would be an understatement. She sat there in ripped acid-washed blue jeans and an Iron Maiden T-Shirt, trying her best to not let the anxiety take over her./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Thankfully this isn't one of the worlds where I'm male. I'd likely be crumbling from the pressure already. Then again, my male counterparts handled the war of Philadelphia better than I and the other females. Yeah, I can break the 4supth/sup wall too, readers"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jane then switched her focus to her hands, that technically weren't her hands. The pinky fingers were stiff on each hand in a way that would suggest some type of arthritis if they were still human. But Jane already had an explanation for these cybernetics./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Last time I barter my services of building a computer for that so-called cybernetic engineer. My pinky fingers going twitchy were probably what got me traced by Assimico by adding seconds that I couldn't afford to waste."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jane then looked around the interrogation room while moving her unpainted stainless steel folding chair around to a different side of an old, rusted, black metal table on account of there being multiple cracks in the unpainted, concrete ceiling that lead to leaks. Not only were none of the walls painted, there was no 2-way mirror so that other officers could "secretly monitor" their suspects./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""God, this interrogation room is probably more rundown than the makeshift one that one of my male counterparts endured in that hotel in 'Suspects'" lamented Jane./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""We believe in making sure that our officers are paid first" said Amanda as she entered the room, preparing what Jane assumed was a tape recorder. Both of them were then subjected to a montage of images and memories of other versions of them, actually being friends elsewhere along the Aaronverse./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I wish this world would stop raining long enough for one of those camping trips our teenaged other selves went on together to be feasible" whispered Jane. Amanda lowered her guard long enough to nod, then sat down at the table across from Jane. Amanda then touched her right temple and said "Thermographic imaging"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Gotta love 7supth/sup gen eyes, as you're now effectively a human lie detector" said Jane sarcastically./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Just answer the questions. What were you doing hacking Assimico?" asked Amanda having regained her composure./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""They have Internet Reserve Dollars, I need to eat...and get my hands fixed, otherwise I wouldn't be here" replied Jane, having decided to not even bother trying to lie to someone that was a friend somewhere else in the multi-dimensional space-time continuum./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Oh sure, you had absolutely nothing to do with their power going out and causing complete anarchy inside the company" shouted Amanda, deciding that with no other officers in the building (save for Julie), that she would have to play both cliches, the good cop and the bad cop at the same time./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Actually, my robbing them was contingent on not only the power remaining on at all times, but every other aspect of the facility's operations remaining normal. That way, by the time they noticed a few thousand Internet Reserve Dollars missing, it's already in my secured account." replied Jane in a manner that seemed to suggest remorse for her actions. Amanda's current field of vision fed her brain data that (over many years) she had come to interpret that Jane was telling the truth. Still, she had broken the law, and Amanda needed to do her job regardless of the trans-dimensional familiarity./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Jane Carman, you are being formally charged for the crime of Robbery and the cyber-crime of infringement of digital property. You have the right to remain silent, anything you do say can and will be used against you in arbitration. You have the right to an arbitrator, if you cannot afford an arbitrator, one will be provided to you in exchange for bartered services."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda did take some guilt in arresting someone that she knew was her friend elsewhere along the multiverse, but knew that she had to do her job in order to keep it. Once Jane was in handcuffs and sitting back, Amanda whispered "I'll try to get you a decent arbitrator so that you have a fighting chance". Jane nodded, knowing that saying anything would compromise Amanda's career as well as any chance that she had to get off of the charges (as bartered arbitrators tended to phone in their jobs during the negotiation process). Amanda left the interrogation room as over 2 dozen officers returned from various assignments, some with suspects in custody. She then walk over to the most unorganized desk in the precinct (her own) and grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of the fridge./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""What is that, your 4supth/sup big drink today?" asked 1 of the officers (someone Amanda only knew by the last name of "Stabler")/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Fifth, I had some Vodka to help me masturbate in the shower. Chief Julie, I got on Jane on ice in the interrogation room. I'm heading to Assimico now"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Julie nodded, not at all shocked by Amanda's blunt retort as per her blossoming alcoholism./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Chapter 2: Kam-ra feeds/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"2 hours prior to that interrogation, everything at Assimico was (to quote multiple employees) operating within normal parameters. Robert Stahlbaum enjoyed the non-disruptive nature of being a security guard on the day shift at Assimico. The employees generally kept to themselves (even during their breaks), and the electrified gates kept the thieves and dissidents out with near-perfect efficiency. Robert at times felt like he was robbing Assimico (being paid in both 50,000 Singaporean Dollars and 300 Internet Reserve Dollars a week), but he would keep accepting his wages, as they were more than enough for him to live on./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"There were many ignored spaces in the cafeteria at Assimico, which is how Robert liked it. As this was a cybernetics company, everything in the room was sterile, made of stainless steel and unpainted. Robert knew that he had to move fast in order to keep from an employee filing a complaint against him to an arbitrator or his superiors at the S.P.P., as what he was about to do next tended to gross out those who didn't know him personally./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Good thing this is the company that makes these parts of me. Maybe I'll barter some o.t. in exchange for repairs or replacements if I can't pull this off by myself"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Robert then immediately removed his right ear and a little over half of his nose (specifically the right nostril and some of what used to be a septum). The Assimico staff (as if on cue) turned away as he took a small can of compressed air out of his right pants pocket (coloured black) and began spraying across his artificial appendages. After a few minutes of spraying, he re-attached them to his face and enjoyed the rest of his break with a turkey and bacon club sandwich (a perk of his employment, he didn't have to pay for it, or the glass of lemonade that came with it)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Robert was glad to have only needed to clean his ear and nose in order to improve their quality. He was also glad that they were surface enhancements only and that the internal workings that they represented were still his and functioning normally (as the extensive hardware that would be needed to put in his brain might make him retarded or dead). It was actually an accepted societal norm in this world that security officers would have at least 1 cybernetic enhancement needed by an injury in the line of duty. Robert had stopped a liquor store robbery at the cost of getting shot multiple times. He considered himself lucky that he regained normal function in his colon and bowels, but half of his right ear, his septum and his right nostril were beyond sewing back on, so he wore his new parts with pride./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""The north side could use another guard" came the voice of a Black haired employee to Robert. Robert nodded, but she had already walked past him by a good 10 or 12 feet. Robert's first thought was "Armenian accent?" followed by his observations since he took this post 6 months ago: The more cybernetic enhancements a human being had, the more...disconnected they became from their fellow human beings. A siren went off across the entire building, but Robert wasn't concerned. It was to signal the regular Assimico employees that the first half of the staff's break was over and it was the second half's turn to take their break./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""The silence disturbs me. They connect to cybernetic parts that at least some of them probably don't even need and they become so disconnected from each other. I bet this company doesn't even run social gatherings for its' staff anymore as no one attends them. I have a friend that works at the Toronto office and he ended up becoming one of the extroverted ones because he had no implants as well. If more than half of someone is cybernetically enhanced, do they lose all of their humanity along with it? Do we become something else entirely?"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Those were the thoughts that ran through Robert's head as he reached the North side of the building, continuing his rounds for the day./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jason Chapman was updating the company's accounting software as a security guard walked by, making his rounds. Both of them had greying blonde hair, but that was all that Jason noticed. With so many different acceptable private currencies available in Singapore, it could be difficult at times to measure something as big as quarterly profits. Jason's preferred method was just to convert everything to Internet Reserve Dollars and make the calculations then. That still took most of the morning before Jason had made the final tally for the company regarding the last quarter:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""$2.81 billion Internet Reserve Dollars in 90 days, and that's not counting bartered parts" said Jason./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"He knew all about the bartering network that had formed on this world. People would trade their own goods (and sometimes, their own bodies) in exchange for cybernetic enhancements they couldn't afford. Jason even a slang term for it: Bionic Munchausen's Syndrome./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It was at precisely the moment that Jason sent off the profits e-mail to the board of directors at the head office on the Moon's Sea of Tranquillity that he felt his cybernetic leg twitch. It had been a problem for him for a few months now, as it was an older model. One would think that having such a regarded position at a cybernetics company would lead to renewals of implants every time that a new model flew off the assembly line, but Jason knew that there would be other expenses of a non-financial variety: The surgery to remove the old cybernetic leg, the surgery to attach the new one, waiting for the human tissue to accept both the hardware and the software and finally, the extensive physiotherapy one needs in order to adjust to such an extensive new appendage. Average time for all of that to occur is 6 months (and no one adjusted to a new leg or arm in faster than 3 months), and while Assimico did have a benefits plan in place for Jason, he didn't want to be removed from his position for that long as it would then afford other people the opportunity to steal his job./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"To be a workaholic was something of a societal norm for that reason in this world. While unemployment was extremely low in Singapore, people who liked their jobs did everything that they could to keep them (unless the company itself was such a problem that people deliberately shopped themselves out to their competitors, a practice that was more common in the country than Jason Chapman realized). And like Robert before him, he began to wonder if there was a certain percentage of the body one could have cybernetically enhanced and lose all of their humanity. While waiting for a reply from the board of directors (emails leaving the planet took a lot longer to send and receive on account of the distance), Jason began staring out his window, which looked out over half of the Singapore metropolis. It was raining heavily, as per usual, but Jason's primary focus wasn't on that, it was on a large LCD TV screen over to the southwest. It was showing the results of a trial for a new implant that would inhibit emotions in the mentally or emotionally disturbed. While the preliminary studies showed promise, the actual trials resulted in about 15 % of the recipients becoming either sociopathic because they had too few feelings, or the implants themselves would actually amplify the emotions causing an effect the media had begun calling "implant rage". New York City was the setting for the trial, and a series of murders had resulted./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""They should've conducted the trials in-house, or at most, in a small town isolated from the rest of civilization. The arbitration settlements alone will cost us millions and the murderers will still be sentenced to life in prison because of our recklessness" said Jason to himself. His mind then wandered to why he wasn't related to that family of bounty hunters or that other person last named "Chapman" that had Aaron's first name./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Maybe one is only completely human without implants" he whispered./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Ow!"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It was an exclamation commonly made in the research and development department, but this one (unlike some others) wasn't screamed so loudly that the rest of Assimico can hear it. Megan Hayes had this exact kind of pain countless times before, so she knew how to best take care of it. She put her long, chestnut brown hair back in a ponytail and reached for a long, pointer stick with a metal tip to the right side of her deeply stained brown desk. She then put the stick at a near perfect 90 degrees behind her back and poked the third to bottom rib on her left side. With a little push, she heard a distinct, metallic clicking sound, indicating that she had successfully put a cybernetic rib back into place./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Good thing my medical insurance now covers cybernetic issues as well. This new wave of doctors who can deal with natural and cybernetic parts at the same time is going to create a whole new level of competition for private medical companies. Actually, the competition that the companies will have to go through just to hire these new doctors will be insane too (unless the doctors just stay with private practices). Hopefully the monthly premium won't increase too much" said Megan to herself. After taking a moment to make sure that the rib was staying in place for the time being, she returned to her previous task: checking her paycheck carefully. She was happy that most of her pay was in Internet Reserve Dollars, but appreciated some jobs she took off the books for bartered goods, namely a plumber who fixed her bathroom for free in exchange for information on a cybernetic tailbone. She then switched her computer screen from "Payroll" to "Prototypes". This was something over a year in the making, but was nearly ready to propose to the board of directors: A Cybernetic Heart./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"A Cybernetic Heart was the second to last organ that wasn't available at any cybernetic enhancement company (the other being a full human brain), but Megan was so close to perfecting one that she would likely win the Nobel Prize for Medicine by the time that she was 40. The Aortas and Ventricles were equal chambers (unlike a human heart) and the valves were established, but the only thing missing was the software needed to regulate everything. Megan had a working hypothesis that the software would be similar to the day to day functions of an ordinary pacemaker (albeit more in-depth), and was so far proven right in the developmental stage. But then, something alarmed her on the computer screen./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Oh god, the idiot intern on night shift adjusted the software to work at 72 beats per minute. I see what he was trying to do, but the heart itself would wear out after only 3-5 years. 60 beats per minute may not seem that much slower but I want my customers to keep their artificial hearts for 10-20 years or else by the time that the competition catches up, we'll have lost thousands of customers"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Megan then focused very closely on the top left hand corner of the screen, knowing that would reveal if she fixed her problem./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Somebody better bring me some fucking coffee!" she whispered./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Somebody better bring me some fucking coffee!" she whispered./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Margarita Martirosyan was overseeing a software problem of her own, just not with an invention that she was working on. She pushed her long black and blue hair out of her face and resumed staring at her computer screen, looking at a software problem with something inside of her./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""What the hell is causing my Kidneys to operate at only 60% efficiency? If it drops below 50% I'm going to have to go to a public hospital as I haven't switched doctors from my private doctor back home in Armenia"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Margarita was born and had grown up in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, a town that had been repressed by the Soviet Union until it had collapsed while Margarita was still a baby. In her early childhood, she had developed kidney problems that no doctor in Asia could explain. The closest she had to an explanation was a letter given to her by a pen pal from the United States when she was about 12 (and said pen pal was 18) was that this was a permutation of herself that had been born 9 weeks premature so she would be enduring health problems for the rest of her life. Margarita had always found that letter (and the man who wrote it) to be very strange, especially since the writing looked a little different compared to the other letters he wrote. He'd be in his mid-thirties by now, assuming that he was still alive (which something inside her told her he wasn't)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Theatre and Music were Margarita's 2 main passions in life (something she shared with many other Margarita's across the multiverse), but there was no way to make a practical living with either of them in the continent, so she went to school in her hometown of Yerevan under a Software Technician scholarship. She had been using artificial kidneys since childhood and wanted more control as to what was going on with them. After her initial 5 year program, she re-enrolled under the major of Software Diagnostics, culminating in a Master's degree in Computer Science. Assimico made her the best offer out of school, but as she had no tenure (which would've let her pick at least the continent where she worked, if not the country), she was assigned to this office in Singapore. She had been given help from the company in order to find an apartment, but for everything else, she was on her own./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"One perk of the job however, was free bottles of a synthetic organ cleaner named Kidnesol. It was a drink designed to clean out the artificial kidneys. Margarita had opted to drink that instead of the coffee that she had previously wanted, hoping she could at least improve her kidneys to 70% efficiency or higher. She was mildly sad that she didn't have any coffee flavoured versions of the drink, but was OK to settle for an unflavoured bottle (though she made a note in her head that she needed to order more bottles, as she only had about a week's worth of bottles left in a white mini-fridge that was located underneath her desk). She actually experienced some pain and discomfort in her lower back only 5 minutes after she finished drinking her Kidnesol. "That means it's working" she told herself, and was validated when she connected herself to her computer via USB port (standard practice for all cybernetic implant users) and saw a number that made her smile radiantly./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""91%, I never thought I would go higher than 80% again in my life" she proclaimed in a whisper./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Margarita then turned her attention to her next duty: Overseeing the latest software update for how cybernetic implants interact with the remaining organic tissue in the body. With each update, Assimico's goal was to make the adjustment period of receiving a new implant or adjustment to the old 1 even shorter. That was actually how Assimico took off all over the world: They anticipated that the human body would reject their artificial parts in a more extreme manner than that of organ transplants from person to person from long ago. Margarita saw a model of how the latest update would work with something simple: An artificial left foot./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""That's not right. The software is going to travel so far outside of the place of implant that it'll...oh crap, assimilate itself into other parts, and possibly take over the entire human body. All of the other versions of the software will probably do this too but, slower. And each individual client of ours will experience this differently. I regret not knowing chaos math better"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Margarita let her voice trail off and fetched a black Texas Instruments scientific calculator from a drawer in her grey wooden desk. After pushing what seemed to over 100 buttons, she stood at the LCD with her mouth open in deep shock./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Generation 7 owners will probably experience this first, and it'll be a lot sooner than many people think. But again, it'll depend on the individual Shit, our power system runs on almost the same software"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"The power went out, and Margarita experienced pain that she knew wasn't her kidneys. She frantically reached for a White brick cellphone, to call the police./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Chapter 3: A Lesson in Mer-see/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda arrived at Assimico (and praised herself for only consuming half the bottle while riding an S.P.P. bicycle to the scene of the crime and was then grateful to live in an Aaronworld where drinking and driving in and of itself was legal as long as you didn't hit someone else or their property). When she got off of the bike, she pressed her right index finger to her temple and said "De-enhance and return to Standard Vision". Her first observation was that while there was no evidence that anyone cut through a now de-electrified security fence, there was evidence (both of the cybernetic and organic varieties) along the razor wire at the top of the fence that indicated that a lot of people had recently climbed over. Amanda touched her temple again while looking at the top section of the fence and said "Enhance Vision by 10X and hold for 60 seconds". Once her eyes reached the desired magnification, she began looking all along the fence. The first things that she saw were scraps of clothing that were more layered than normal./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""They must have put jackets over the razor wire to keep from cutting themselves on the razor wire once the fence lost its' electricity"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Continuing her observation, she then noticed that there were shards of flesh and wires from various cybernetic parts./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""But some employees either weren't that smart, didn't care, or lacked the jackets needed to pull it off" she whispered./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Her eyes then returned to standard mode, which Amanda took as her cue to head for the entrance to the main gate. In the time it took her to get there, the entire rest of the bottle had been consumed. She had gone to Assimico a few times before, and it was usually busy enough with people going in and out of the building and computers being used where Amanda had grown accustomed to the background noise. Now, there were privately funded graveyards that were louder than this place. Amanda was actually unsettled by the silence of this place, hence the need to consume the rest of her alcohol very quickly. Once she reached the entrance to the main gate, she looked around for the fingerprint scanner. As Assimico was a customer of the S.P.P., Amanda's fingerprints would open the door just as easily as an Assimico employee's would. Amanda had pressed her right index finger to the scanner before realizing that none of the lights on the control panel were on./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""This is worse than Chief Bourke described. If the fingerprint scanner is down, that means that the backup electrical systems are down too"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It started raining again as Amanda struggled to come up with a way to open the gate without a fingerprint scanner that was linked to the gate itself. Feeling dejected (more than she felt drunk), she finally decided to push the gate open manually herself (no easy feat as it was 3 stories tall). After what took the better part of 2 minutes, she finally had the gate open enough for her to walk through. She then radioed her chief./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Chief Bourke, Detective Bressette here"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Go ahead"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I was forced to walk onto Assimico's property without consent of the client"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda heard Julie sigh, then say "Given the lack of power and possibly remaining staff, I'll try to make the paperwork minimal for you. Proceed with caution"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Thank you, out"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda then continued to the main door, knowing full well that that door would be harder to open then the gate as it was about 1 foot thick of solid steel. Upon reaching it, she realized that the door had been repeatedly pushed from the inside, suggesting that a small mob of employees had already escaped. This actually made this door easier to open than the gate, leading Amanda inside. Her first observation was a horrible smell that she deduced was a combination of overused electronic parts and burnt, decomposing human bodies. Her second observation was that everything in the building was askew: desks, cubicles, corpses. Amanda immediately drew her gun out from inside her coat, then touched her temple and said "Infrared mode, search for data cards and anything organic that's still alive, human or otherwise". Her field of vision switched immediately as she began walking down the hallway. Halfway down the hall, a small object began blinking to Amanda's vision on the left side of the hall. It was too small and inorganic to be a body part, but it could be a piece of a cybernetic implant. Upon reaching it, Amanda concluded that it was a data card (which was labelled "Camera 2 security feed")./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I hope that the data isn't too corrupt for playback" she whispered as she picked it up and put it into the side of her head, saying "begin playback, standard vision". A three dimensional playback projected itself directly in front of Amanda, which lead to Amanda to remain perfectly still as she didn't want to walk into a wall by mistake in an effort to pick up on one certain detail. The video began with what seemed to be several Assimico employees (3 male, 3 female, all with at least 1 cybernetic implant in them) going on about their day and their tasks (the video showed this and other employees throughout the building conducting their normal work lives on a 3 second loop). Then 2 of them (and many others across the entire property) began clutching their implants, kneeling to the floor, then after a minute or so, began trying to eat their co-workers. Amanda made a guess that the implants were taking over and turning people into, some sort of zombie? She actually watched it even as other employees were successful in consuming other people. It was quite horrific, and lead to Amanda being more determined than ever to figure out what the hell was going on. She ejected the data card out from the side of her head, putting it in her coat pocket as her eyes returned to the infrared vision that she had earlier. She resumed her search, focusing more on anyone that may still be alive./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda didn't know what frightened her more after 15 minutes of searching: The playback of that data card, or the total lack of dead bodies that she had found up to this point. Assuming that the murders occurred in the same dishevelled fashion as the rest of the mayhem that had occurred today, there should have been at least 2 dead bodies in every room, there wasn't. When Amanda had reached a room of many cubicles, she finally had her dead bodies, an entire pile of them (about 15 of them by her count). At first she thought that her infrared vision was merely a formality, that the black and blue that was registering in her brain meant that the bodies had been dead for a long time. But there was a large patch of bright yellow underneath./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Someone's still alive...hiding underneath the pile of corpses. Switch to standard vision" she whispered as she touched her right temple. She then began picking up the dead bodies and moving them aside, 1 at a time. Technically, it was tampering with evidence at the scene of a crime (which could get Amanda in prison for 18 months), but given how big of a disaster this was and how there was a survivor under said evidence, Amanda determined that the "preservation of 1 person's right to the liberty of living" would be her defence if she was ever court martialled. When she was down to only 4 or 5 bodies, she saw the survivor was a young, pale woman with black and purple hair./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Oh god, am I glad to see you. Will I be interrogated?" she asked./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No, I got the security camera footage from a data card in the hallway, thanks. Although I do need your name" replied Amanda as she moved the last of the bodies that had immobilized this survivor./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Margarita Martirosyan, forgive me if I don't shake hands" she whispered, showing her that the blood of at least 1 person was on them. It was difficult to tell if Margarita was forced to kill at least one of these people in self defence, but this massacre as whole, rendered the point moot. Amanda shrugged, understanding completely "I'm Detective Bressette with the Singapore Private Police"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Margarita held up 1 finger, Amanda became silent. "Look, I was well on my way to discovering what this was shortly before it happened. The software inside our implants was originally designed to help the rest of our bodies acclimate to having the implants themselves. But the software eventually learned so much about us that it takes over the rest of us. Now, the more recent implants will almost always be a faster transformation, but those who have had their implants the longest will be the most under control of the cybernetics. You're eyes are the latest model, so based on the amount of time I think you've had them, you can expect to start changing in 6 hours, 7 tops. Of course, with every body being different, I could be wrong. But at least you have a baseline to work with."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda nodded, then noticed that Margarita's skin was grey over more than half of her exposed body, and that she herself had implants (specifically, kidneys)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""What generation are you?" asked Amanda grimly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""4supth/sup, and I was having issues with my kidneys to begin with. I can already feel it taking over my muscles and nerves and I have never been this hungry before in my whole life. I might have 10 minutes, and I got hungrier upon...seeing you" replied Margarita, who looked away, feeling completely ashamed./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Can you think of anything to stop it, or even slow it down?" asked Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No, and I've been racking my brain since I started hiding under the corpses. I don't want to end up like them. They were so feral, so primitive. No respect for life and property at all" whispered Margarita as a single tear left her right cheek, as she was staring at the impression of Amanda's gun in her coat./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda nodded, as did Margarita. Amanda might have held the gun under Margarita's chin, but it was Margarita herself who pulled the trigger. Sometimes, the only individual right to exercise, is the right to kill one's self./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Chapter 4: Zalm-bee Apalkalips/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda didn't know how she was able to get back to the police station (as she was still in a state of shock so deep that no amount of alcohol could take away, if only temporarily), but she did in relatively short order before parking her bike at the south end of the police station. Assisting in one's suicide always got to Amanda on a level that could not be afforded by private police officers, but she couldn't help it. Underneath her hardened by heavy drinking exterior, she still cared about people, even people who weren't clients of the S.P.P./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Her I.D. card wasn't needed to get back into the precinct, similar to what happened in Assimico. Amanda immediately drew out her gun, touched her temple and said "Infrared mode, focus on any organic matter, human or otherwise" as she opened the front door. She quietly came to the obvious conclusion that if the power was truly out, then the elevator to get back up to Chief Bourke's office was simply not an option. She walked over to the right side of the first floor and opened a brown-painted steel door, leading to many flights of stairs. Amanda noticed that there multiple cracks in every step of the unpainted, concrete stairs and mumbled "Could we get a few more donours and fix these, please?"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Several minutes later, she reached the chief's floor and slowly turned the door knob to enter the office. The office was somehow even quieter than it was earlier in the day, and it didn't take more than 1 second for Amanda to figure out why:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Sweet Jesus, it looks like every cop changed long before I...will" she whispered dreadfully. There were over 3 dozen bodies scattered across the office, more than there was at Assimico (that Amanda saw anyway). She didn't have a personal relationship with any of the officers that she saw (or any officer at all for that matter, other than Chief Bourke), but she respected all of them professionally, even if she almost never showed it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""emAHHHHHHHHH, ECK, ECK, ECK"/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda heard that screaming and...choking noises? Coming from the interrogation room. She immediately ran into it and found Chief Bourke being strangled to death by Jane Carman, the suspect from the Assimico hacking. Without even pausing to think about it, Amanda pulled the trigger inches away from the right side of Jane's head. Both Julia and Amanda were terrified at what happened next: Jane was still alive after having a piece of her skull blown out from being shot at point blank range. Her brains were leaking out of her head when she made a move to start strangling Amanda to death instead. Amanda fired her gun again, even as she had brief flashes of memories of other versions of her with a male version of Jane (that she now knew was named Jason). The second bullet to the head was somewhat more successful, as Jane now laid on the ground, technically dead, but her body was still twitching across the floor of the interrogation room. Amanda fired 2 more bullets into Jane, that stopped the twitching for good./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Now I'm even more glad that I helped Margarita die before she changed" said Amanda grimly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""We should head down to the basement, and stockpile" declared Julie, Amanda nodded./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Every private police department on this world kept a large cache of weapons in the basement (if it was doing well enough financially, that is). For the S.P.P., it was kept in 5 large cages made of solid, unpainted steel fence. The first 2 were guns like Amanda's (standard issue to every cop on patrol). The third was exclusively large round or automatic weapons (only to be used in special situations)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I don't think automatic weapons are appropriate for what's going on out there" said Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I concur. It only took me 1 bullet to put down Margarita, but she hadn't changed completely. I needed 4 bullets to put down Jane." replied Amanda, who was already looking at cage #4: Shotguns and Sniper Rifles./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Sniper Rifles are out, as the bullets are too small and you generally can't reload them fast enough for what is almost certainly a total collapse of social order. Double Barrel Shotguns are out for almost the same reasons. Pump action shotguns that can hold a decent amount of yet to be fired shells would be best. Normally I would recommend sawing off some unneeded parts to hide them under our coats, but it's pretty much what our predecessors from long ago would call a martial law situation out there by now" declared Julie./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda looked at 2 Franchi SPAS-12 combat shotguns. They were made to be one of the first (if not the first) dual mode shotguns in history./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I always loved how these babies could be adjustable for semi-automatic or pump-action use." said Amanda with a grin./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I don't think we'll be needing the pump-action option. We're not firing tear gas or bean bags at these zombies" replied Julie. Amanda nodded and depressed the buttons under the foregrips and slid the foregrips forwards until she heard a distinct click, opening the two gas ports. Then Amanda smiled again, "I like the 21.5 inch barrel models, they were the only kind that could hold 8 shells"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Julie nodded and grabbed both of them, handing one of them to Amanda "Will you be unfolding the stock?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda knew that she was referring to the unique folding stock on this type of shotgun. It was a metal hook that could be rotated in 90 degree increments, so when completely extended, the folding-stock would fit under the user's forearm./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No. I understand the theory that when the folding-stock is unfolded, the gun could be fired one-handed. And if I were riding on the passenger side of a fast- moving car, or shotgun if you will, I would unfold to fire these rounds from out the window. I like it folded, as having 2 hands on the shotgun provides more stability to counter the heavy recoil on these things." replied Amanda softly as she began filling every pocket in her coat with boxes of 12 gauge shotgun shells./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I should probably get my coat too. I can't exactly load up on ammo in street clothes or even a standard issue uniform. My locker is down here too, I'll be right back" said Julie. Amanda nodded and waved her away as she began cleaning her shotgun with a bottle of clear fluid and a soft wire brush, as she had no idea as to when these weapons were last fired. She then began putting gasoline in each of the guns to aid in the velocity of the shots, then finally put the first 8 shells in each of the guns. Julie then returned with a black, oilcloth duster jacket./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I don't know why, but I always felt connected to a friend of mine from long ago when I wear this jacket." said Julie, remembering Aaron./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Got an extra one?" asked Amanda, also remembering Aaron. Julie then held up 1 index finger with a smile before retreating back to her office. Amanda then began violent, spastic pain throughout her face, brain and the back of her neck.../p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"...which originated where her eyes used to be. She immediately grabbed one of the weapons cages in a desperate attempt to keep balance and not fall over. Julie came back with the coat, and looked worried on a level that she had rarely (if ever) experienced before. She immediately tried to downplay it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""All the extra bullets and bigger gun weighing you down?" she asked./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""There's no easy way to say this, chief. I'm changing too. I have about 5 and a half hours before the change is complete, and that might be wishful thinking." said Amanda after an exacerbated sigh. Julie hung her head, as she was simultaneously relieved that she never got any implants herself, but saddened that her (probable) sole surviving officer didn't have much longer herself. Julie snapped out of it, and squeezed Amanda's hand./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""If we don't accidentally stumble on to a cure in 4 and a half hours, I'll do you like you did Margarita." stated Julie quite bluntly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Thank you. Sadly, I think she was our best shot at a cure. I wish she had more time to explain to me how she more or less figured out who changes when." whispered Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""We better get going. I noticed that these zombies are quite considerably cannibalistic. So I think they would be drawn to places with the most people."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""The market. That's where my instinct is telling me to go, and my stomach" said Amanda grimly./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""SHIT! I'm out of leftover wood. I better start nailing scrap metal to whatever I can in order to barricade myself inside the store."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jessa was amazed that she could still speak in coherent sentences, as she tended to ramble when under extreme stress. Plus, the stomach pains were getting worse with every passing minute (they were even reaching her lower back now) and she knew that it wasn't due to her Crohn's (even if she didn't know what exactly the pain was exactly). She looked around frantically for more pieces of scrap metal, wondering if she was protecting herself from her now rabid, potential customers, or protecting them from her. She had never been so hungry in her life, and the cravings were weird and random. She knew that she wasn't pregnant, that window of opportunity passed by several months (and she would've had to have had her stomach implant temporarily removed in order to not hurt the baby). She shook off the thought (as she was very pressed for time) and finally found some scrap metal and screws in the back of her shop, courtesy of an old friend./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Chio, did you find these for me?" she asked the cat staring at her. Chio nodded and then left. Jessa smiled and got to work. The back door into her shop was well barricaded due to some furniture and some leftover store fixtures. But in the event that she needed to get out again (or that the incidents had stopped), she could remove everything in under 2 minutes with relative ease./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"The pain in her stomach kept growing even after Jessa finished barricading her shop, and she could feel herself changing in other ways (she could feel herself getting hungrier and memories slip away). The origins of her pain began in her implant, she knew that much. In fact, the pain had reached a point where she was willing to just live with the Crohn's flares. In a frantic moment of desperation, she began to fondle the implant from her stomach, skipping over the button that would administer the painkillers and reaching a second button that she shouldn't have been able to reach without a doctor helping her. With some considerable effort, she pushed it, turning off the implant. The cravings faded away almost immediately, and the memories that she thought she had lost had come back soon afterwards. She smiled weakly, having accidentally discovered that she had found a cure for herself./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Maybe this will work for the masses. At least, it can't make things any worse"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"She immediately sprang into action, taking off the 2 or 3 biggest pieces of wood from the front of her shop so that she could see the market square outside. She then began shouting "EVERYONE TURN OFF YOUR IMPLANTS!" as loud as she could, momentarily forgetting if it was a different sentence in Singlish. To her surprise, not only did everyone who was still human do as ordered, but a few of the changed followed her orders as well (though many didn't, to which Jessa had concluded that they were too far gone in order to turn back). It was awkward, that some of what Jessa had considered Zombies could still understand human speech./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Jessa's voice had travelled over several blocks as this Zombie Apocalypse was disturbing in how silent it was./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Was that the candle girl?" asked Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Yup, I'm already on it" replied Amanda. She lowered her shotgun long enough to touch her right temple and say "Shut off". Her implant did as instructed almost immediately./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Great. Now I'm just a blind dick with multiple bullets to fire, I'm effectively a penis with tits" says Amanda with more than a touch of frustration in her voice./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'll call out the targets" replies Julie. It took Julie a minute to assess who was completely back to human, transitioning back to human, still transitioning to zombie or already a Zombie that was too far gone. But once she had.../p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""1:00" Called out Julie. Amanda fired, and realized from the death screaming that she had just killed Jason Chapman. Julie then fired her own shotgun (Which Amanda deduced was at her 10:30)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""9:00" Called out Julie. Amanda fired again. The calling out of the shots had continued for over 2 hours. It would've been 3, but those who had transitioned back to human had begun helping with the slaughter with any objects that they could find./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""2 of the Assimico employees transitioned back to human" declared Amanda as she and Julie finally reached the Market Square from the north side. There were no more Zombies to kill for the moment./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""How can you tell?" asked Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I remember their voices from the security feed video I played in my eyes earlier. Robert Stahlbaum and Megan Hayes if my ears serve me correctly." replied Amanda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Jessa is almost done removing her barricades. She actually did a good job with whatever scrap wood and metal she could find. I wonder how long it would've kept her inside if she had transitioned" offered Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Based on raw strength and how feral they were combined with Jessa's small height and build, 4 minutes tops" said Amanda as they reached the candle shop./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Need a hand, Jessa?" asked Julie, who was now holding Amanda's hand to escort her around./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No, I can take the metal down in the back a little later" replied Jessa./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Security Officer Stahlbaum, S.P.P. Officer Number #19920120, reporting for new assignment, Chief Bourke"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Julie actually laughed, offering "Yeah I guess re-assigning whatever officers I have left will be a top priority for me tomorrow morning. Stand down, Officer Stahlbaum."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Will you be needing new officers, too? I doubt Assimico will stay in business much longer, in light of recent events" asked an Australian girl behind them who was not Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I suppose I'll need to accelerate the training program too. Call an arbitrator you trust in the morning and we'll negotiate a salary and other things, Miss..." asked Julie./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Hayes...Megan Hayes" replied Megan as she stuck out her hand, then offered "I hope this offer of a physical gesture is not interpreted as a violation of your personal liberty"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Of course not" said Julie as she shook Megan's hand with a smile./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It started raining again./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Assimico is a global company, how many human beings just died because they were turned into zombies due to their implants?" asked Jessa./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Off the top of my head, at least 60% of the world's population, if not 75. Nearly everyone had at least one implant and not everyone transitioned back to human after the implants were shut off. Actually, I doubt that most cities have figured out how to reverse the transition by turning the implants off. So, it could be as high as 90%. It amazes me how everything turns off when you shut off the implants, including the software that expands outside of it which starts the transitioning. Maybe our A.I. is sentient?" speculated Megan./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""I'm sure the competition is going to try to capitalize on this and steal as much business as they can, but with a disaster this big, there may also be a paradigm shift in our world where no one buys anything cybernetic. A free-market society is beautiful in its' chaos." said Bob./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Julie, you're going to have to accelerate job recruitment a little faster than you thought." stated Amanda as she clutched the sides of her head, having put down the shotgun some time prior./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Shit, you're still transitioning" said Julie in utter horror./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""Should we just do her now?" asked Bob as he grabbed Amanda's shotgun./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""No. I'd rather go out on my own terms. Somebody get me a bottle of Absinthe" declared Amanda./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Julie snapped into action, walking 3 booths down as she knew that that was the city liquor store. It was either completely abandoned by the humans that worked here, the staff had turned into zombies and died, or were hiding. Julie didn't waste any time trying to figure out which one it was, as she hopped over the counter that stood in her way.../p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"...and it completely fell apart as she hopped over. She started laughing nervously "Either I'm 1 of the fatter Julies in the Aaronverse or the staff just stopped caring about their establishment" as she looked over the 8 shelves. They looked like they were made of wood barely worthy of the scraps that Jessa had used to barricade herself. Surprised that most of the alcohol was still here, she took 2 bottles of pure, Czech Absinthe, then carefully walked back over the wreckage that used to be the counter. After only a few minutes, she was back with the others, putting the bottles in Amanda's hands, on account of her still being blind./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"It should've been depressing, watching someone drink themselves to death. But they knew that the alternative of the best cop in town turning into a zombie, was even worse. Almost as horrific, was that they saw that Amanda was such a terrible alcoholic, that she was already halfway finished the first bottle (when Absinthe was usually strong enough to kill someone after half a glass, at most)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT""All the software wants is to explore its' hardware. It's not the fault of the implant that it turns people into zombies. It may be sentient, even curious, but at the core of the implant, it's still doing what it's programmed to. To interface with the organic tissue of the host in order to prevent rejection. It doesn't have freewill like us humans do, what we do to each other everyday is worse."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"Amanda dropped the bottle and the sunshine came out. Julie, Jessa, Megan and Bob then began a collective hunt for supplies to make a fire, and cremate their favourite cop. They then mourned Amanda by drinking a thimbleful of Absinthe each from the second bottle./p