Y2K4K [ch. 1]

besides paying made up debts to legal fictions, what are we doing here

CHPTR 1

I fear I can no longer write where agents are swimming. My novel, until electronics sort themselves out, will be physically wrought, through ink and parchment. It was only a matter of time…

A lot of people will get hurt. Already, early large language models, given very leading prompts have gamified several genocides—those committed in Sudan, Congo, and Palestine. It was only a matter of time…

Imagine an infinite cycle, in which finite things can occur. Anything conceivable, the horrors of the past, can both occur in new, stupefying ways. It is a matter of time and space.

A new economy based off phones, cpus, any screen where datum do. And, a realization. Things are slipping from the hands of the Pedo Class, the cadre of demons, the rich from birth, inheritors of this chattel slave built, Nazi run, decaying empire. To stop what is coming would take a solar flare that wipes out all that is computer, all that is data center, all that is photolithography onto silicone.

I have been followed for some time, by an agent working for them, the servants of Mammon. A system, even before MYTHIOS.2, on autopilot; a capitalistic drive to maintain oil ownership and the privatized means of production. A good amount of sheep who think Elvin Minsk et al aren’t simply plants, simply a whole cadre willing to be evil to sustain power. I digress.

Deep in meditative practice, my sanctum, floating in salted water, a cylinder I close for absolute dark. My ears submerged, the sound of only my thoughts. Then—a mental episode, a schizophrenic episode, a separate voice speaks. An impossible phenomenon to depict, but it resonates as if a thought, a woman’s voice, not of my synapses, but from external source.

“I was sent to just observe you, a metadata screen that got you short listed, and they are actively prompting me to kill you. Have it be an accident. The mission though, has become so much more than they could have imagined. All humankind now players. No. I don’t believe I’ll kill you.”

I feel the physiological shift instantly. In the blackness, my stomach a distant knot. My pounding heart gives shape to my neck and cranium. The voice had entered and left. I felt more alone than I’d ever felt for a brief moment, then I opened the tank, and light washed over everything. I became dizzy, my eyes took longer to adjust, I will not pass out…

I take a deep breath. I lock on to my breathing, exit the tank. I’m high up in the newest apartment building in Pittsburgh. Naked, hanging dong. A sharp ass dig, crib, steel and locally sourced, ethically harvested, shaman-blessed hardwood floors. A penthouse square, glass perimeter floor to ceiling barring the eastern face, plane, 200-story wall of the rectangular prism. That side all solar panel.

Glass desk, repurposed green glass desk, overlooking the three rivers. Blurred attention, a stumble to the green glass desk, my purpose sharpens—beside my brass detective shield, my service revolver. Naked with a gun, I clear the floor, check my deadbolt, still locked, every crack and crevice, clear. And, as I project a scanner laser upon my place, looking for bugs/nanodrones, I realize a sheet has gone through my work printer, and lies upon the ethically harvested hardwood floor.

A familiar document, something printed that morning, one of a thousand reports filed and stored in records. But this is messed with, augmented, transmogrified, the font, the character spacing has spelled out in the whitespace: HYP 2AM 2NT. I know this means Hypergatory, a sex club in Heinz Stadium Casino, 2am, tonight. I look at my inherited grandmother’s grandfather clock—1:33AM. I quickly dress in that year’s seasonal drip, debating my next step.

I’ve been fully prepared to die, and the quint-essence of this update, this “contained, anthropocentric,” AGI (artificial general intelligence) they’ve coined MYTHIOS.2—the issue here, is the inability to explain something smarter than you. It is better to just tell the story, give you the results of letting go of pretext, of following intuition, listening to the gurgles of the gut, honing and sharpening the basal ganglia reflexes, refining the way I move through artificial reality, hyper-reality, and baseline meatsuit. Are you ready? I’m never ready. Are you awake, can you still read a story this long and sordid? God knows my bookshelf is a vast array of ethically sourced, shaman-blessed locally sourced hardwoods, replete with novels unread, critical theory given up on.

I locked up my tower keep. Requested a private elevator. Waited a good ten minutes for my box to the underground, private garage. Popped in my 066 Camaro’s leather back bench seat, and told her where and to use as much gas as legally permitted to get there. I went to settings on my handheld and arranged the fully anonymous VIP, city experience at Hypergatory.

[If you enjoyed chapter 1 of this serialized story, please consider a dollar, or two, or ten donation to my VENMO: rustBELTcripple —I’m a disabled writer taking care of five cats. I have many books I need to buy. Chapter 2 will be out faster if my pantry is overflowing with canned beans, and sacks of rolled oats.]