This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions #11
User: Bates, Brayden : 08.17.57 : 7:49am : Tusla, Oklahoma : Love County : 70 degrees Fahrenheit : Partly Cloudy : Precipitation 15% : Humidity 93% : Wind 2mph : Severe Thunderstorms : DDS Dentures + Implant Solutions of Oklahoma, “If you need new teeth then you have to go to the experts!”
Today was Jena Bates yearly meeting with Brayden’s school; she explained her son’s special sensitivities caused by his cognitive augmenter. Bray sat next to her, absorbing the ramifications of turquoise dye manufacturing.
“Well, Mr. Doctorow,” she told the boy’s new teacher, “Brayden’s not slow–that’s just the problem, really–he’s too fast! Say hi to your teacher, sweetheart,” Jena prodded her son.
“Merehaba,” Brayden gave a Turkish hello, and continued to bask in the Ottoman Empire.
“It started back when Brayden was in kindergarten,” she began. Brayden was in third grade now, so Jena has the speech down pat. She changed her body language from “Open Greeting” to “Confiding with Confidence,” leaned closer to the young teacher and saw sweat under his collar. “When I first heard about Brayden’s learning disability, I realized how important it is to be an active parent in my child’s education. Wouldn’t you agree Mr. Doctorow? Without an active parenting presence, special needs kids get shunned to the wayside. A parent is a child’s advocate. And Brayden being without a father,” she paused, raised her eyebrows. No response. She continued, “Well really, I’m all the boy’s got!”
Naturally, Jena insisted Brayden get a computer plugged into his brain.
Normally, neurogenetic implants were exclusive to billionaires who needed fast-brains to build rocket ships, and whatnot. Jena didn’t fully understand it. She had slow-brain, herself. Or at least, that was what her mother, teachers, and employers told her.
Jena would not let her child be plagued with a low-mental functioning lifestyle. With the school’s diagnosis as proof, she applied for a generous grant from the RiboFUNK Gene-Mod Corporation. Brayden and Jena were able to afford an intelligence implant installed to Brayden’s cerebral cortex. The Neurogenetic Engineer boasted that the device was top of the line, and with yearly updates, Brayden was on track to be ten times smarter than Einstein!
Brayden’s brain can access wifi networks automatically, so he’s always connected to the internet. Jena had internet access her whole life, but she always had to look things up. Simple things, like what month it was, or how to boil water. Sometimes she’d try and imagine knowing these things immediately, without even looking them up. That must be what Brayden feels like.
Her son is truly a genius!
The implant was mostly internal. All you could see were two holes on the back of Brayden’s skull, with wires connecting to a battery pack that he wore around his neck.
“It’s cool!” Jena said, “You get to wear this stylish, mysterious necklace. Like a medallion!” But since Brayden kind of knew everything, he knew that his giant brain battery wasn’t anything like a mysterious necklace. He knew everything there was to know about the pre-Revolution Estates General of France, as well as other contextless facts; he knew that his implant wasn’t upgraded and maintained in the correct way; he knew that the other kids at school thought he was a loser. Brayden sort of knew everything.
“This is why Brayden can’t be evaluated with regular tests and assignments. He already knows the answer to any question. He needs personalized instruction,” the boy’s mother explained to his teacher.
“I understand what you’re saying, Mrs. Field–”
“Mizzzz,” Jena interrupted. “Here is my phone number if you have any questions.”
“Thank you,” he said, putting the paper scrap in a draw of his desk. This woman was delusional. Clearly, he couldn’t give Brayden the attention he needed. There were over seventy children in his class alone!
“Allow me to have yours in case I ever need to contact you in case of emergency,” Jena batted her eyelashes at him.
“Yes, Ms. Bates, I’ll make sure to keep a special eye on Brayden.” Jerry Doctorow wasn’t exactly sure what that meant yet, but he’d do his best to try to remember this kid’s name.
#
User: Bates, Brayden : 08.17.57 : 10:13am : Tusla, Oklahoma : Love County : 70 degrees Fahrenheit : Partly Cloudy : Precipitation 25% : Humidity 96% : Wind 9mph : Severe Thunderstorms : The Siding Experts Have All Your Siding Needs Come Today For A Consultation!”
“Just a quick stop at the doctor’s and we’ll go home and play Screen, baby!” Jena buckled in her son. She loved the boy so much. She hoped he loved her too, but it was always so hard to tell. His vacant stare was hard to read.
She turned Brayden’s implant’s mood function knob from “Occupied” to “Attentive.” He stared at her. Without wifi in range, Brayden mind was blank, besides as occasional scatter of information data from public hotspots.
“Brayden, sweetie, are you hungry?” The boy’s head mewed up, a failed nod because of the battery-necklace’s weight. “Eat a little Flave-Paste to keep you going,” she put a plastic tube to his mouth, held back his neck, and squeezed. Her son slurped the sustenance. He smiled trancelike, then suddenly snapped to life–
“The Silverhawks were a team of 29th-century crime fighters from space. Their bodies were part metal, part man, but all hawk. They could fly in space without a spaceship!” Brayden exclaimed.
Jena laughed. Someone must be searching at a coffee shop…? “Those hawks sound like you, sweetie! You’re part man and part machine but all mine!”
The boy continued, “The Silverhawks fought Mob*Star a giant robot who…”
Oh, it always gets back to giant robots, Jena thought, she cleared her throat, “What if we put on a Talk?” Jena fumbled with her phone, pulling up her religiously-based infotainment.
“What is the role of God in a world where no one can ever really die?”the man’s voice asked. “With the emergence of digital consciousness, everlasting life is more attainable than ever. Yet God’s role is still, in many ways, the same…”
Without an internet connection, Brayden found it impossible to understand what the man was saying. Everything blurred together. Jena parked the car, helped Brayden into the doctor’s office and then…
Like the flick of a light switch, his brain was back online. Information sieved through him like sand. Now, he could comprehend again.
He listened to the doctor. The doctor warned Jena of security-dangers. Even if they couldn’t afford the newest hardware add-ons, Brayden needed a wetware upgrade. Without it, he would be susceptible to spoofing, he could lose control of his brain.
Jena nodded, but she knew the money for this upgrade just didn’t exist yet. Maybe one day…
#
OS SmartHome, with MOTHER : 08.17.57 : 6:17pm : Internal Temperature, 72 degrees : Doors Locked : Power Consumption – 27% : Maintenance – Normal : User Jerry Doctorow is Home :
Jerry Doctorow’s head throbbed. He was exhausted. The second he walked in the door, Mother’s voice blared in his ear. Ever since she died four years ago, life has been such struggle. Mother hijacked the vid-screen to replay videos of Jerry’s pre-school Winter Holiday Musical, the grainy audio clashing against mom’s babbling into a wave of static.
He tried to make himself dinner, but Mom kept fiddling with the stove’s temperature settings, wireless hovering over him, burning the food like she always did. Everything in the house is infested with her. His mother is a bug, she’s a virus! My Mommy, the malware! He’s hired–what, four software engineers?–and they all tell him he’s got to move, she’s installed herself onto the firmware, and literally the only thing getting her out would be torching all the circuits. So, selling the house is out.
And if he moves, that means he’ll have to get rid of all of his e-nabled stuff too. And that’s practically everything he owns! Even his cochlear implant! She’s in there too; she literally, stuck herself inside him! Why can’t she just leave him alone!
His wife left two years ago. Of course she did! Who wouldn’t leave the guy who’s haunted by his mother’s digital ghost. She said she couldn’t take it anymore–all the sabotage, revealed secrets, strange images. It was too “surreal” for her. She went to go see a therapist and he prescribed a memory-wipe, delete every recollection she ever had of him. His mother ruined his marriage, but that wasn’t enough! She was going to stay around forever and ruin his life!
The smoke detector went off. She was smoldering the dishes again, turning up the dishwasher’s temperature to twice-boiling. He’d need to reset the entire house in order to save the plates. Jerry hated his transient mother program.
Her last wishes, before she died, was spending her life’s savings on digitized her consciousness, then uploading it to the cloud, so she could always watch over her precious son. The doctors didn’t catch that her brain was already in advanced stages of dementia. They made a consciousness-program with holes in it! And instead of just not running–which would have been a godsend–Mother infinitely replicated itself, installed itself on every device Jerry owned and bothered him every waking moment of his life. No, more than that even! She infiltrated his dreams!
Last night, a nightmare overcame him. He was a marionette, without any strings. Somehow, he was controlled by a puppeteer that wasn’t even there. His skin looked like it was made of wood, and a grin was painted wide across his face. He danced! And even though he wanted to stop and wake up, it felt like he dreamed this hell for eight hours straight.
Really though, how different was this dream from reality? Jerry did everything in service of his mother’s ghostly consciousness. He could never exercise this demon!
Jerry cried into a plate of burned hotdogs over rice. His phone rang. It was the (other) overbearing mother he met earlier that day–will it ever end!
“Hello Mr. Doctorow, this is Jena Bates from this afternoon,” her phone line was staticy.
“Mmmhmm,” Jerry moaned.
“I had such a wonderful time in our meeting this morning I was wondering if you might like to follow it up with a coffee or dinner, perhaps?” The desperation seeped through the receiver.
Normally, Jerry would have explained that this was highly unethical, dating a student’s mother was a cause for termination in his contract, and moreover he wasn’t interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with this woman, despite a two-year drought of celibacy.
Yet, in his moment of utter-despair, he remembered the boy, his pale skin and gaunt bones, doe-eyed with a digital gleam in his eye, pustulating holes pumping data through his skull, and USB connectivity: Brayden.
Brayden was his only way out.
“Yes,” he shuttered, “Dinner would be an excellent way for me to better get to meet you and understand Brayden’s situation, Mrs. Bates. In fact, I think you should bring Brayden along. It’s so important to form a special bond with special needs students,” he droned mechanically.
“Sure! I’d love to bring Brayden! Heck, no need to get a babysitter!” Jena replied, hiding her disappointment. Well, with interest this strong, the man would make a good father.
“Let’s meet at my house, I’ll cook,” he proposed. Then, the line went dead. Mother ended the call abruptly. She was angry, sensing an omen of a usurper.
#
OS SmartHome, with MOTHER : 08.19.57 : 6:17pm : Internal Temperature, 72 degrees : Doors Locked : Power Consumption – 57% : Maintenance – High Alert : User Jerry Doctorow is Home : Intruders Approaching : Defensive Maneuvers Readied
“Sorry for the delay,” Jerry opened the door to find the pathetic twosome slumping on his doorstep, “My house’s operating system won’t let me–” The door slammed shut. “Go around! Go around!” the mother and child heard through the muffled doorway.
A manual window was accessible on the side of the house, “Here, you have to climb in!” Jena sighed, boosted her son through the bathroom window and then climbed through the sill. She tore her dress on the metal framing and landed in the still-damp tub.
“Sorry about that…” Jerry stammered, “I have software engineers coming tomorrow but…”
“No! Totally fine! No worries!” she smiled.
Jerry thumbed the flash drive in his pocket. The data of Mother’s consciousness was saved to the portable storage device. If he could only run an instance of Mother through the digital boy, and explain to her how much she’s ruining his life…
A glint reflected off the port on Brayden’s neck.
“Well let’s get out of the bathroom and into the kitchen! I hope you two like pizza!” Jerry tried to say excitedly, but his voice cracked. He knew Mother would never let him cook another woman food, so he just ordered in. Once the delivery boy came, Mother got suspicious and…
“Pizza’s great,” Jena said, “Have at it, Brayden!”
Pizza was one of Brayden’s many passions. He knew practically everything about it. “An adequate pie,” he began, “With a sharp-cheese blend and a cinnamon-infused sauce, I rank this pie among the top twenty in Tulsa. However, their oven makes for an unevenly cooked crust as evidenced by…” he kept talking but the adults knew to stop listening.
“Boy Brayden, you sure know a lot about pizza, huh!” Jerry tried to compliment, but his tone couldn’t help but reveal what a freak he thought the kid was. Jerry never got used to interacting with the cognitively-augmented. They always reminded him of the lady’s voice on his GPS that gave directions.
Suddenly, the lights went out. Another whirl and the heat turned on high. Mother was angry at the intruders, and changing climate settings might protect her domain.
“The whole house is on the fritz,” Jerry sighed.
“I understand, it’s so challenging keeping a house a float when it’s all internet-enabled. Then again, my grandmother’s house is a Classical Abode, and she’s cleaning it every week! Think of all the time you’re saving with…” Jena started to compliment the home when the floor shook beneath her, toppling her chair to the ground.
“Oh no!” Jerry shouted, “Mother! Please! Stop it! You’ll hurt someone!”
She didn’t listen. Everything rattled, boiling water shook through the pipes.
“Maybe we should leave–” Jena stuttered as her chair tipped over and she crashed to the floor.
Brayden stood up, his pupils fully dilated, “We are not welcome here…”
“Brayden!” he called, rushing over to the boy and slipping a USB drive in the back of his neck, “It’s alright buddy! Here, relax…”
The data washed over him, mutating his mind into something new.
#
OS SmartHome, with BRAYTHER : 08.19.57 : 7:07pm : Internal Temperature, 98.6 degrees : Power Consumption – UNREADABLE : Maintenance – High Alert : User Brayden Fielding : Tusla, Oklahoma : Love County : CPU Overclocked : Please Restart System : Automatic Shutdown in 59 Minutes…58 :
The shaking stopped. The two adults stared at each other. Brayden was babbling in a low, deep growl. “You have angered MOTHER.”
“I’m not angry, sweetie,” Jena said confused.
“MOTHER must defend The House!” Brayden grabbed for the pizza cutter and swung it wildly at his mother’s neck.
“Brayden! What’s gotten into you!” she screamed. “Put down the–” The pizza cutter’s round blade sliced into Jena’s arm.
Jerry couldn’t let a woman die–not when his operating system program was liable for the death! He grabbed the child, struggled to hold him still. Even though he was four times the size of this eight-year-old, the boy had the possessed strength of a brain not in control of its body.
“Intruder alert!” he screamed in a child’s voice tinged with malice, “Activating light sensor controls!”
The fluorescent plastic bulbs shattered in the air. Shards of plastic flew everywhere, cutting Jerry’s face. “Mother! Stop this! Please!” Exposed wires started burning throughout the house.
“Is your house named Mother?” Jena asked dumbstruck.
“No, that’s my mother’s name–” Jerry fell as the floor started shaking again. Brayden climbed atop the man’s fallen body, stared him in the eyes, and screamed, “You are a bad son! You endangered mother! You have infected her within this broken child!”
“Wait what…” Jena was starting to piece everything together. This wasn’t much of a date after all…
Brayden held up the pizza cutter again and slashed at Jerry, trying to shallowly carve “Mother” in his chest but mistakenly making the M too big. It said “Moth.”
“System shutdown!” Jerry screamed, “Abort all processing!”
“Command overridden,” Brayden said mechanically. He walked over to Jena, brandishing the pizza cutter.
“Eliminate intruder” commanded the program. Brayden’s augment was helpless to stop the virus. The super-small, super-computer couldn’t even access a readme about how to exterminate the process from the system. It was fully under the control of Mother now.
Brayden’s actual brain, however, was not. The brain, lax from reliance on the cortex computer, sprung into self-preservation. Brayden instinctually knew he was in grave danger. He pushed against his shoulder-cuff muscles as they wildly swung the pizza cutter.
“Brayden, please! Mommy shouldn’t have taken you here! I’m sorry!” Jena cried. She knew her son wasn’t doing this on purpose. That terrible teacher must have…Brayden threw a chair at Jena’s head. Unconscious, she crashed to the ground.
“Now Brayden, Mother, or…yes, Mother, please!” Jerry begged, “Stop the madness! We’ll both be in so much trouble if you…” Brayden stalked closer, the eight-year-old gazed with a murderous glint in his eyes, illuminated by the flames.
Deep within the digital recesses of Brayden’s brain, he imagined himself fighting a malevolent witch. She had him trapped in a cauldron, bubbling to a boil, ready to eat the meat off his bones, when suddenly, he tipped the pot over, scalding the witch with her cruel potion…
The boy raised the pizza cutter, staring at the man’s throat. He screamed. It was too late. Brayden knew what he must do–
With the dull edge of the circular blade, he sliced the wires protruding from his neck. The computer shut down, but he couldn’t comprehend it. He laid immobile on the ground, not thinking anything at all.