Degeneration Game
I downloaded a new personality on to the mePod last night. Forebrain
Bluetooth: wirelessly installing a new me as I blearily pissed blood into
the cracked toilet.
There was a body in the bed as I padded back to retrieve my underwear. The
new me didn't much care if it was alive or dead. A stack of meat in a sack
of skin. The previous installation of me whined a name or two as new-me
ruthlessly overwrote its final fields.
I knew I had a bit of an abuse problem, but the new me didn't care so much.
Everything was a bit flat, a bit slow, but that comes with the territory.
I load a lot of personalities, and the old forebrain isn't so fresh
anymore. A new install feels sharp, though. Clean. I was the only clean
thing in the room.
I found that not only did I not care if the body was breathing, but also
that I could not perceive its breathing. Even when it moved. The body
radiated no information. I only realised it was speaking because the big,
spartan room echoed. I could hear the echo of the words, but not the voice.
I liked this.
I gathered up clothes, trying to ignore the persistent shake of my arms and
avoiding the mirror. Headed out into the street.
I still intellectually knew they were people, these things in the street,
but my new personality refused to register them as informational objects.
Piles of meat wrapped in processed weed and hide. Chunks of their motion
didn't register with me -- in walking, they would jerk into new positions
as if under strobe lights, as my head was forced to acknowledge their
movements around me. They had no faces.
The mePod blipped. Other users were broadcasting personality files on
low-power transmissions. File names like Gacy1, lynettefromme,
RushenCanibalGuy. I didn't need them. I finally had the me I always
wanted.
Joyful, I stepped out into a world where, finally, no-one mattered but me.
-- W
Bluetooth: wirelessly installing a new me as I blearily pissed blood into
the cracked toilet.
There was a body in the bed as I padded back to retrieve my underwear. The
new me didn't much care if it was alive or dead. A stack of meat in a sack
of skin. The previous installation of me whined a name or two as new-me
ruthlessly overwrote its final fields.
I knew I had a bit of an abuse problem, but the new me didn't care so much.
Everything was a bit flat, a bit slow, but that comes with the territory.
I load a lot of personalities, and the old forebrain isn't so fresh
anymore. A new install feels sharp, though. Clean. I was the only clean
thing in the room.
I found that not only did I not care if the body was breathing, but also
that I could not perceive its breathing. Even when it moved. The body
radiated no information. I only realised it was speaking because the big,
spartan room echoed. I could hear the echo of the words, but not the voice.
I liked this.
I gathered up clothes, trying to ignore the persistent shake of my arms and
avoiding the mirror. Headed out into the street.
I still intellectually knew they were people, these things in the street,
but my new personality refused to register them as informational objects.
Piles of meat wrapped in processed weed and hide. Chunks of their motion
didn't register with me -- in walking, they would jerk into new positions
as if under strobe lights, as my head was forced to acknowledge their
movements around me. They had no faces.
The mePod blipped. Other users were broadcasting personality files on
low-power transmissions. File names like Gacy1, lynettefromme,
RushenCanibalGuy. I didn't need them. I finally had the me I always
wanted.
Joyful, I stepped out into a world where, finally, no-one mattered but me.
-- W