2. ShadowCoded
ShadowCoded
Playlist: Darkside (Besomorph Mix) - Neoni, Besomorph
Kael
“LINK, what’s the weather?” I lower my wrist, using that same hand to grab my black hoodie, something to conceal my identity in a city that never sleeps, always watching.
I didn’t just build a digital assistant for myself, I created LINK, a virtual AI for the largest corporation in the world.
A ghost in the machine that now assists every citizen with every aspect of their neon-drenched life. Including me.
HELLO DR. RYUDON
EXPECT LIGHT SHOWERS AROUND EIGHT P.M.
CHANCE OF ACIDIC RAIN: TEN PERCENT
A LIGHT JACKET SHOULD SUFFICE
ENJOY YOUR EVENING
It’s my own doing, I snicker to myself. Control equals safety, Kael. My soul tugs at the logic threads in my brain. “LINK—make a note to add the temperature to your code in the morning.”
AS YOU WISH DR. RYUDON
Chaos. It nearly ended us after StarFell. It tore through cities, breaking the best minds, separating families, and killing those who were different. I refuse to let that kind of fear and hatred swallow the world again. Not on my watch.
So, I build artificial cages. Complex systems that keep the dangerous contained, the rebellious boxed in, and the unpredictable safe. Well, that’s what Vikktor Vosse, CEO of VikkCorp, tells me.
I was raised on the principles from The Art of War: Order is the only thing standing between civilization and collapse. Control must be obtained through clear leadership, consistent discipline, and strategy.
A strong leader creates a situation where victory is inevitable before battle even begins.
And that’s what I tell myself. And some days...I even believe it.
Because if my programs keep the chaos of real life out, then the chaos inside me stays locked down too, hidden in the shadows. My work protects the world, but it also keeps me imprisoned in my own cage. A righteous one albeit.
Or at least, that’s the other lie I cling to so I can sleep at night.
AI advancement has come a long way since I took over the lab at VikkCorp. I’ve built systems so precise, it can predict crimes before they happen, algorithms clean enough to scrub disobedience from the city’s underworld.
Safety. Order. Compliance. All the things this rotting metropolis claims to worship but could never achieve without an architect.
I glance up through the haze at the city rules scrolling across the screen atop an adjacent building.
Citizenship = Employment. No job, no status. The Corporation wants you!
The corporations don’t carry dead weight. Pretty much everyone works for a corporation now. And if you don’t...well, good luck.
The holographic light switches the lanes of traffic seamlessly. LINK’s voice urges me to cross carefully as a “valued citizen.” Infrastructure. Traffic flow, power grids, drone routes: It’s all my code, pulsing through every data grid in the city.
Sleek, black law enforcement vans scream by me, neon flashing on their darkened windows. Cybersecurity, surveillance, monitoring. My designs, my calculations, all my hand.
They’ve probably been sent out to collect the disobedient. Citizen safety and monitoring was one of the first programs I rolled out. I watch the rebellious, so they don’t short circuit the world again.
A group of street kids block my path. They’re huddled up against the brick wall of an alley, each one locked into a private heaven via the DreamNet bands clamped to their wrists.
You can tell who’s winning in GameNet, the VR gaming server, by the way their fingers twitch in the air, pushing invisible controls, while their faces light up with excitement.
Their laughter fills the misty street. Advertising and leisure.
Their desires, their distractions, their vices, I curate those too, especially through DreamNet and GameNet.
You’re welcome, kids, and you’re welcome, too, VikkCorp. Now where’s my employee of the year badge?
I built the perfect digital utopia. LINK and I keep it running even as the gears grind my own soul down to nothingness.
I startle, blinded by a bright neon glow. A rush of heat hits my face, the engine of an air taxi, as it blasts by carrying the elites toward whatever glass fortress keeps them insulated from the minions below. They love their distance. It lets them pretend their hands are clean.
Says the guy who bought a penthouse with the money from selling his soul.
I ignore everything as I walk, currently trapped in a locked room in my mind, another idea in my brain clawing to escape.
Overseeing DreamNet’s neural dream architecture, sharing the maintenance of GameNet’s entertainment structure and controlling all the AI interface systems, the same systems used to track and control the gifted generation, consumes my time daily.
My inner peace is once again assaulted as a whirring and buzzing closes in on me, a corporate drone flying right above my head, patrolling for any signs of disorder. It snaps me out of my swirling thoughts like I’m emerging from deep water.
I head down the back alley behind my apartment building and slip onto the main street.
In the daytime, natural light struggles, pathetically, to break through the perpetual glow of neon signs and holographic ads pulsing in perfect harmony with passers-by.
It never wins. Some day, if we keep polluting our environment, the darkness will take over, and we’ll be left with one never-ending night.
At this time of evening, Oneiro is bathed in artificial glow.
The harsh neon rays reflecting off the wet pavement mirror the skyline, oil-slicked, and shimmering.
I sidestep a puddle without breaking stride.
My shoes cost more than most citizens make in a month; no sense letting the city ruin them too.
“Welcome to Oneiro City! Enjoy your time in the HoloDistrict.” The voice triggers as I duck around a floating greeter-bot perched under the flashing archway.
Fuck me. The Corporation must’ve been proud of that one. Pretty sure some exec. discovered Greek mythology on a coffee break and thought renaming the city after Oneiros, the spirit of dreams, would be “symbolic.”
And it is if you enjoy cruel jokes...
A city full of people who can’t dream, can’t sleep, can barely breathe under corporate surveillance, named after a myth that represents the very thing they stole from us. Sometimes I think VikkCorp keeps a marketing department dedicated entirely to darkly poetic bullshit.
The holo-girl projected on the nearest building shimmies as I pass, winking at me, her chrome-painted skin pixelating at the edges.
Her voice is silky, and she’s barely dressed.
I admire the spectacular design of her body created to lure the lonely, the desperate, and the weak.
Somewhere beneath it, they probably hacked my code.
Damn.
How long has it been since I’ve been with a woman? A real one, not a synthetic PleazureHolo—a pre-programmed virtual plaything. The thought gnaws at me from the inside. I shove it down.
Relationships are a distraction, unpredictable, messy...demanding more than I have to give. My work is too dangerous, too consuming for something as fragile as affection. Too much risk of someone slipping through my armor. Too high of a probability they’d be used against me.
Sacrifice for the greater good. That’s what I’ve always told myself. Even if the lie tastes bitter now.
I stare a bit longer than I should at the holo-girl’s body, a safe imitation of intimacy. She notices and locks onto my signature.
Shit.
She leans forward, revealing perfectly symmetrical and ridiculously large breasts. “Hey, handsome, would you like...”
“No.” I don’t break stride. I don’t look at her. I should have known better. The program flickers, recalculates, and tries again.
“We have a fully customizable experien—”
“I said no.” My voice is stern. “If I needed a simulation to keep me warm, I’d build myself a better one.”
Warmth and affection. They’re not words I use anymore. It’s been since childhood that anything close to warmth touched my life. No one to hold, no one to hold me.
Ah...more darkly poetic bullshit. Perhaps I should apply for a marketing job instead.
But what about love? Do I want it, need it? I shake my head at the word. That’s especially not for me. That’s a myth for people who have the luxury of believing in things that don’t exist, like gods or monsters. A biochemically fabricated feeling dressed up in romance ebooks and mushy songs.
This world has taught me that vulnerability is just the quickest route to annihilation. Master Kenji hardened me by carving discipline into my bones. Vikktor sharpened me by molding me into a tool.
An uninvited thought enters as I walk through the haze: Why, when I close my eyes, do I feel the faintest need for touch? Why do I sometimes crave the warmth of someone lying next to me?
My mind is misfiring. It has to be, because if it’s not, then I’m finally beginning to want something real. If I were one of my programs, I’d think I was throwing a “Runtime Error.”
Better to walk alone through this neon graveyard than be responsible for someone else’s ruin.