The Host
It's a strange sensation, carrying an observer in the back of your mind. I was recruited early on, so I grew up with the implants, but I still get that same feeling every time someone jacks in. There's a number of reasons people feel the need to ghost through another's life. Physically handicapped, terminally ill. One of my sisters specializes in the last requests of death row inmates. She tells me stories once in a while. I hear rumors about others. Some of those requests can get pretty wild.
My job is a hell of a lot easier. All I have to do is live my life. My paycheque from the Company means I don't need a day job. So I take a few classes every quarter, go shopping, see movies, hang out with friends. Dating with a ghost behind my eyes can be a little weird. By law I have to tell everyone I interact with that I'm a host. You'd be surprised how many guys get off on that.
It can be kind of tiring. It's not that I can hear the ghosts or that they can direct me in any way. But there’s a pressure that comes when a number of people have jacked in. A weight of sorts. During the holidays, our rush times, I really look forward to my bi-weekly 24 hours of. Especially since that's the only time I can see David.
We met at the Company a little over a year ago when I went in for my semi-annual maintenance. There are always updates on the implants, and lord knows I don't want them shorting out on me. He was one of the technicians. Techs are usually pretty forgettable guys, more interested in the 'ware in my head than anything else. But he was different. Gentle, for a start, which makes all the difference in the world when they're digging into my skull. He made jokes while we waited for the anesthetic to kick in, made sure I got water and time to stretch while we tested the changes. It takes a couple days to get through all the updates, and by the time I was ready to go home we'd agreed to see each other again.
I looked forward to it. He seemed refreshingly normal, actively intelligent. Not aiming to date a hundred other people through me. Which, of course, became the problem. Five minutes into dinner, I knew it wouldn't work. He was nervous, glancing at his watch, looking anywhere but at me. I asked him about it, but he just said he was tired from overtime. After walking me home he barely touched his lips to my forehead, and I didn't hear from him until my day off.
It was the ghosts. The idea that someone (hell, a lot of someones) would be watching him through my eyes. Experiencing our dates through me. It was too much pressure. Too much expectation. I tried to explain to him, it's not like people had to jack in. It's not like there weren't other hosts for them to jump to. I think that actually upset him more, the idea that a ghost might change hosts if they thought he was too boring. So, with apologies, he said he wouldn't be able to see me anymore.
I won't lie, I was disappointed. But there was nothing I could do about it. Once you've become a host, there's no way to go back. Even if there was, I didn't really want to. As much as I complain about it, I like my job. I think I'm making a difference in people's lives. So I went back to my usual guys; corporates from bars, friends of friends, the occasional jacker who'd been in my head and wanted to meet me on the other side. And they were all fine. My pay kept coming in. I kept going to movies. I kept hanging out with friends.
Then, a couple weeks later on my day off, I ran into David. It could've been innocent, though be both new it wasn't. Apparently he'd jacked in a few times over the past couple weeks, got a sense of where I hung out. We had lunch. We went to the park. We took one of those virtual safaris, the ones where you can walk right up to the tigers, 10 years extinct. He came back to my apartment for dinner. Afterwards I told him he had nothing to worry about, about ghosts thinking he was boring. I don't know if he believed me.
Anyway, that became our relationship. He always knew when my days off were. Quite a feat, since not even I knew that. I'd just wake up one morning to that sensation of freedom, and he'd be waiting outside my door. We had wonderful days together. He asked me what it was like to be a host, I asked him what it was like to jack in. We had Christmas dinner on the 20th. We celebrated New Years on the second. I never pressed him to try again while the ghosts were around. He never hinted he might be interested.
It works. Sure I'd like to spend more time with him, but I understand his concerns. Eventually the Company will find another cash cow, and I'll only be hosting once or twice a month. Who knows, maybe one day people will decide to live their own lives, and I won't have to host at all. For now, though. It works.
My job is a hell of a lot easier. All I have to do is live my life. My paycheque from the Company means I don't need a day job. So I take a few classes every quarter, go shopping, see movies, hang out with friends. Dating with a ghost behind my eyes can be a little weird. By law I have to tell everyone I interact with that I'm a host. You'd be surprised how many guys get off on that.
It can be kind of tiring. It's not that I can hear the ghosts or that they can direct me in any way. But there’s a pressure that comes when a number of people have jacked in. A weight of sorts. During the holidays, our rush times, I really look forward to my bi-weekly 24 hours of. Especially since that's the only time I can see David.
We met at the Company a little over a year ago when I went in for my semi-annual maintenance. There are always updates on the implants, and lord knows I don't want them shorting out on me. He was one of the technicians. Techs are usually pretty forgettable guys, more interested in the 'ware in my head than anything else. But he was different. Gentle, for a start, which makes all the difference in the world when they're digging into my skull. He made jokes while we waited for the anesthetic to kick in, made sure I got water and time to stretch while we tested the changes. It takes a couple days to get through all the updates, and by the time I was ready to go home we'd agreed to see each other again.
I looked forward to it. He seemed refreshingly normal, actively intelligent. Not aiming to date a hundred other people through me. Which, of course, became the problem. Five minutes into dinner, I knew it wouldn't work. He was nervous, glancing at his watch, looking anywhere but at me. I asked him about it, but he just said he was tired from overtime. After walking me home he barely touched his lips to my forehead, and I didn't hear from him until my day off.
It was the ghosts. The idea that someone (hell, a lot of someones) would be watching him through my eyes. Experiencing our dates through me. It was too much pressure. Too much expectation. I tried to explain to him, it's not like people had to jack in. It's not like there weren't other hosts for them to jump to. I think that actually upset him more, the idea that a ghost might change hosts if they thought he was too boring. So, with apologies, he said he wouldn't be able to see me anymore.
I won't lie, I was disappointed. But there was nothing I could do about it. Once you've become a host, there's no way to go back. Even if there was, I didn't really want to. As much as I complain about it, I like my job. I think I'm making a difference in people's lives. So I went back to my usual guys; corporates from bars, friends of friends, the occasional jacker who'd been in my head and wanted to meet me on the other side. And they were all fine. My pay kept coming in. I kept going to movies. I kept hanging out with friends.
Then, a couple weeks later on my day off, I ran into David. It could've been innocent, though be both new it wasn't. Apparently he'd jacked in a few times over the past couple weeks, got a sense of where I hung out. We had lunch. We went to the park. We took one of those virtual safaris, the ones where you can walk right up to the tigers, 10 years extinct. He came back to my apartment for dinner. Afterwards I told him he had nothing to worry about, about ghosts thinking he was boring. I don't know if he believed me.
Anyway, that became our relationship. He always knew when my days off were. Quite a feat, since not even I knew that. I'd just wake up one morning to that sensation of freedom, and he'd be waiting outside my door. We had wonderful days together. He asked me what it was like to be a host, I asked him what it was like to jack in. We had Christmas dinner on the 20th. We celebrated New Years on the second. I never pressed him to try again while the ghosts were around. He never hinted he might be interested.
It works. Sure I'd like to spend more time with him, but I understand his concerns. Eventually the Company will find another cash cow, and I'll only be hosting once or twice a month. Who knows, maybe one day people will decide to live their own lives, and I won't have to host at all. For now, though. It works.