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         A high-pitched harpsichord woke Caleb Dawes from his relatively comfortable slumber, his uPhone 8G flickering to life on its charging stand. Cyrl hovered over the screen, glowing white and faintly green—a pixelated pixie. Caleb’s fingers swiped through her torso in his reach to slide the snooze bar on the display screen below the Hololens. Though the noise ceased at his command, the hovering avatar persisted, posting reminders and updates into the air. The date, the time, Caleb’s daily agenda—all these floated over his matted nest of bottomless black hair that reflected light in hues of blue.

         The words “Job Hunt” were set in bold and italics over the morning and afternoon hours, glowing in a shade of yellow that invaded Caleb’s eyelids no matter how tightly he shut them.

Eventually, he groaned and rolled over, yielding to his phone’s demands.

         “Okay, I’m up Cyrl.” Caleb groaned.

         “Good morning Caleb! This is your first reminder about Job Hunt, scheduled All Damn

Day.” Cyrl answered dispassionately, her automated voice cutting out abruptly over the item and time reminders, Caleb’s own recorded voice filling in the gaps. “Would you like me to bring up your most recent searches on GregsList?” 

         “Yeah, yeah. But not yet, I need coffee. Tell the kitchen I want a cup of Fosters, black.”

Caleb instructed his phone as he detached it from the docking station, carrying it with him to the bathroom, wearing nothing but his Mayne’s boxer-briefs. “Hybrid my FaceSpace to the mirror.”          Within seconds, a small WiFi icon glowed in white behind the water spotted bathroom mirror. A muted chime rang out and a quarter of the mirror replaced its reflections of the shabby bathroom with blue and white bordered webpages, scrolling through lines of text, paired with various .JPG+’s and MP5’s. From behind the water and toothpaste stains, Sam Howell’s update read Another stupid morning. Time to destroy!!! #FantasyKillMMORPG. The screen updated again as Caleb ran water over his manual toothbrush. Candy Klein posted Ugh, what did I do last night? Literally so hung over. Anyone for breakfast? Within moments, Candy’s status had a dozen likes and three comment responses.

         “Cyrl, post a response to Candy’s status: I could eat. Then like hers and Sam’s.” Caleb told his phone, spitting foam onto the mirror as he spoke, adding to the already impressive collection of stains and splotches.

         “Comment posted—Status liked—Status liked—Would you like to bring up your

GregsList searches?” Cyrl asked, guileless in her nagging repetition.

         “Can’t I finish brushing my teeth first?” Caleb barked, showering the mirror with more foam. He spat and pumped a rinse from the Brineo manual faucet to rinse, before allowing his phone to begin the job search.

         Making his way back into the small, messy bedroom, Caleb moved his hand over his phone’s MoCap lens, throwing the list of want ads up onto the arced 72” holodeck, occupying an entire wall of the cramped studio loft.

         The presets on the GregsList filter moved ads to the top of the list which best suited

Caleb’s background as a freelance artist, slim though it was. The first page of results was comprised of openings within fifty square kilometers, seeking artists or graphic designers.

Hovering suspended in the air, the text lifted away from the flat background into space.

         After deliberately avoiding ads that were suspiciously heavy on exclamation marks, cap locks or dollar signs; Caleb found himself reading an entry that suited his criteria.

         Osgood, Fellowship and Gearheart Investing Corp. seeks professional and accomplished visual artist for ongoing employment as a principal corporate art coordinator. Ideal candidates will possess three or more years of experience within their chosen discipline, those with backgrounds in art history or survey will be considered highly. Walk-In interviews today from 10AM-1PM. Stop by with your portfolio!

         “Cyrl, book me into one of those walk-in appointments through my LinkUp profile. Then call Candy Klein.” Caleb instructed his phone, moving into the kitchen where an alcove in the wall lit up. A 16” screen turned red, playing a commercial to inform him that his cup of coffee was ready.

         “The best part of wak-ing up, is Fos-ters in your cup!” the Kuroda Food-Port alerted him, blinking an icon in the shape of a coffee mug with an arrow pointing down to the extended, copper spout. When Caleb slid his favorite mug under the spout, infrared beams registered the receptacle and began to dispense coffee. The corner of the Foster’s logo-screen translated out in favor of the Hase Manhattan Bank logo, displaying Caleb’s current account balance of red fifty thousand, four hundred and sixty-two dollars, eighty five cents. As the fluid poured, the red numbers climbed higher, plunging Caleb deeper into debt.

         “Appointment confirmed, calling—Candy—Klein.” Cyrl announced, the location of the

interview hovering above the phone long enough for a green arrow to appear with the time of

Caleb’s appointment. A digital scan of Candy’s head replaced the map as her ringback tone played through Caleb’s outdated Mizuro speakers.

         Candy was a fan of the new-wave electro-pop that seemed to play on every preset of the

Gluttify stream. The song was a different one than he’d heard yesterday, even though the artist was the same. Big-Boy Fresh was the hot act of the moment, auto-tuning over the digitally created, instrumental track that whistled, buzzed and popped. Big-Boy employed only one backup musician, who also produced his tracks, Grunge MacRoughneck was a rotary-sander soloist and professional EDM DJ for years before Fresh made him an offer to transcend his wellestablished niche. This track must have been called “Sexy Beast,” since those were the only lyrics discernable between loud, grating, squeals of the sander passing over a metal that sounded like brass. Just as Caleb thought that ol’ Fresh might say something besides the song title, or that MacRoughneck’s beat might drop, Candy answered the phone and cut the song short.          “Um, hello?” Candy always answered like she had no idea who was calling, in spite of her phone’s extensive after-market identification Perks.

         “It’s me babe. Are you still trying to get breakfast?”

            “Caleb! OMG! I literally just stepped out of the shower. I hadn’t even browsed up a diner or anything.”

         “Why don’t we nav up Bruno’s?”

            “Ugh. Again? I hate that place. They don’t even have Holodecks at the table and their WiFi sucks! They’re still stuck on 7G.”

         “But they have bottomless coffee.”

         “’Evs—I’m over it. Ten minutes?”

         “How about twenty? I have an appointment this afternoon at—“

         Caleb was talking to himself again. Candy had hung up and Caleb’s counter-offer was made to a dial tone. He ought to have been used to it by now, since it seemed that every conversation he had with Candy ended with him talking to a dial tone.

         “Cyrl, open the YouWatch Perk and play artist Grunge MacRoughneck. Holovid for song  

‘Nightwish.’”

         Within moments, the stack of hovering pages was replaced by a flat black plane—raked forward and displaying a rainbow colored pinwheel, casting a faint grey shadow below. Caleb made himself comfortable on the small, duct-taped futon. Once the Holovid was loaded, MacRoughneck himself emerged from the black rectangle, lifting a purple night sky and the silhouette of an old maple tree up with him. MacRoughneck began sanding away at the tree, then it was sander on granite, bright sparks flying into the air until they reached the edge of the

Holodeck’s aperture field.

         MacRoughneck’s long beard swung as he bobbed his head up and down to the tempo of the primary beat, sparks filling the room as an alarm began to sound in the background, and the loud ticking of an antique clock joined the already indiscernible confluence of individual loops— then it happened—the beat dropped.

         Everything exploded at once! Gone was the rotary-sander—gone were the tree, the rock, even MacRoughneck himself. The entire plane was filled with sparks, rays and overlapping filigrees of neon light and digital sound. This was the kind of music Caleb went for—Old School.

         Before the last three minutes of MacRoughneck’s seven-surface sander solo, a

commercial translated into the Holofeed, presenting the latest targeted ad for the new edition of the uPhone—the relentlessly hyped uPhone XG. From the sloped plane, MacRoughneck slid down into static and in his stead rose Jaylen Jobe—fourth generation heir to the Mandarin corporate empire.

         “Almost a century ago, my great grandfather had a vision. He envisioned a future in which humans and technology seamlessly interfaced—a world where every individual could customize their experience and hybrid with their device of choice. In his tragically brief lifetime, my great grandfather glimpsed that world, but he never could have envisioned the advances that have followed. I’m here to tell you that the future he envisioned has become our collective past, and the future that his vision promised has finally arrived. The future is now, and it’s in the palm of your hands.”

         Jaylen leaned forward, seeming to look directly into Caleb’s eyes. He opened his hand slowly, presenting a Hololens embedded in his palm. Letting the light pour dramatically through his fingers until his palm was flat, Jaylen held the hovering Orange logo which had come to represent the Mandarin family of products.

         “Gone are the days of charging stands. Gone are the days of losing your phone when you need it most. Gone are the days of meticulously typing out emails word for word—and all the

Perks you’ve come to expect from Orange products are fully compatible with the world’s first wet-ware cellular device. Not just a smart phone, a hybrid phone. Now, like never before, with the uPhone XG—the world is in your hands.”

         Jaylen’s fingers twitched, tapping at tiny interface pads surrounding the embedded lens like he was crumpling an invisible sheet of paper and the Orange logo evaporated, replaced by a spinning globe on the three-dimensional Loogie Maps GPS Perk. The targeted advertisement zoomed in on the globe, sticking a global positioning pin in the digital representation of Caleb’s apartment complex.

         “The future is here. The future is now. There’s a Perk for that.” Jaylen’s voice proclaimed from outside the projection plane.

         Before the Holovid could resume, the floating pinwheel returned, needing to reload after patching in the prioritized feed of targeted marketing. Cyrl leapt up from Caleb’s obsolete 8G uPhone to alert him of the impending deadline for his breakfast date with his girlfriend.

         “I’m sorry to bother you Caleb, but your reservation at Bruno’s Diner is in ten minutes with Candy Klein. Loogie maps estimates a five minute delay in reaching Powell Street Middle-

Tier Station due to commuter traffic. Shall I send for a CART?”

         “Sure, go ahead. I’d better get my portfolio together for that interview.”

Caleb Dawes: Job interview today, wish me luck!

—at CART Transit Services Railcar #24601D. Listening to: Grunge MacRoughneck “Nightwish”

—Sam Howell likes this—

         The entire fleet of public-transit cars that CART deployed throughout the San Francisco

Civic Spire was designed to resemble the antique model cable cars which used to be an icon of the city. It always seemed odd to Caleb, making something modern look like something old— like putting a party hat on a SCUD missile. Nonetheless, the car linked his Loogie Maps GPS routing Perk to its central guidance mainframe. When the conveyers at the corners of the red, green and brass painted car began to move along the rails hybrid to the street side of Caleb’s building, the wall opposite him faded into a wide Holoplane that picked up his YouWatch presets and resumed the MacRoughneck Holovid where it had been interrupted.

         The seven-surface solo at last shared space with Caleb’s eyeports and earjacks. He had scarcely begun to sway along with the screeching blade being passed over steel, when his digital spark shower was interrupted by a second passenger walking through the projection of

MacRoughneck’s now sweat-soaked beard.

         “Cyrl, lower volume!” Gene Adams shouted at his phone, stepping indignantly through a holographic shower of metal sparks and sweat. “Play Thriftshop.”

         The last three minutes of MacRoughneck’s steel grinding finish was interrupted again. The grey haired Mr. Adams didn’t like Caleb’s taste in music—he was Dead School. Most of his type of music hadn’t even been updated beyond 3D. He was watching some old, vis-only 3D about bargain shopping for second-hand goods or some such shit. Adams lived on a higher story, Upper-Middle Tier, indicative of his greater wealth. Rumor had it that Adams had over a thousand black dollars. That was more money than Caleb could even dream about. Not having to pay in devalued debt currency for everything from water usage to transit tolls was like a dream of another life that could only exist for other people.

         Undeterred, Caleb bit down on his TruTooth headspeakers. The T-shaped device

connected to fillings in his back teeth, delivering the rest of “Nightwish” directly into his skull. It  wasn’t exactly pleasurable, sitting through a rotary-sander solo played through his fillings, but the sound filled his mind with the shower of sparks he’d been prevented from eyeporting.

Caleb Dawes checked in at Middle-Tier Fillmore Station on the CART Transit Line

—Greg Lolz’n’Stuffs likes this—

         The CART car slid down brass rails to join the slow crawling train of retro-styled cable cars that centered the Market Street causeway. Adams found an excuse to move up into the forward car. Four lanes of solar roadways flanked each side of the overhead track network, surrounding two trains moving in opposite directions. Nearly everything was at a standstill at this hour, inching along as train cars and Edison roadsters all translated together with practical, automated efficiency.

         Caleb was thinking about what song would be good to earport next in his headspeakers when the light above the rear door on the trolley transitioned from red to green and a new passenger translated into the car Caleb was in. He didn’t recognize her at all, she wasn’t from his building—she hardly even seemed to be from the same Tier. Her skin was darker, but it was impossible to gauge her exact demographic—complex beyond discernment. Her hair was black, her eyes were blue and her arms were canvasses of breathtaking artwork, imbedded in her skin. Caleb had only eyeported things like that in his dreams or vintage tudees. Immaculately detailed dragons writhing around her bicep—mirthful, golden fish frolicking on her forearms—a grimacing warrior in antiquated armor, looking fierce over an elbow. She was like no one he’d ever seen before.

         Caleb wanted to say something, to synch phones with her so that he could eyeport her

FaceSpace photos for hours unnoticed, but his breath caught in his throat. Remembering Candy, Caleb slouched back in his seat and she rushed by, not even noticing him, as her duffel bag brushed across his face in passing. He ought to have been irritated, not managing her clumsy, oversized belongings and invading his personal space, but he realized that it was the closest thing he’d had to physical contact with a stranger in his whole life. It was oddly erotic.

         The strap from her oversized duffel hooked around the corner of Caleb’s rectangular portfolio case. He didn’t even have time to try and stop her before her passing wrenched the oversized bag from his grip—he hadn’t fastened it properly so when it sprung up from his grasp, all of his sketches, drawings and graphics scattered across the floor of the train car.

         “Shit,” Caleb exclaimed, clumsily trying to snatch back the pages within his reach.

         “Damnit!” The girl echoed, turning impatiently to make a show of helping gather his things. Her hand fell on an oversized page of card-stock, an ink and charcoal drawing of a ferocious-looking dragon with wings outstretched. The dragon was perched on a globe with its long tail wound possessively around the planet. “Where’d you get this?”

         The girl held the drawing a little too close to Caleb’s face not to be accusatory.

         “I—I drew it.”

         “You drew this?”

         “Yeah, it’s a statement about—“

         “Consumerism. I get it. I don’t think you drew it though. Aren’t you hybrid with

PhotoStore or something?”

         “I like the classical methods best.”

Just when Caleb was about to assert himself, demand to know who this woman was and why he had to defend his artistic principals to her, she was shouldering her bag and leaving.

Before she left, though, she stopped long enough to slap a graffiti sticker over the door monitor.

When the door closed in her wake, the sticker glowed red, backlit:

YOU ARE  

NOT 

ALIVE

Caleb Dawes checked in at Bruno’s Breakfast Café

—Candy Klein likes this—

         “I can’t freakin’ believe you, Caleb. I mean, I literally cannot believe you. You made me meet you here—even though you know that I literally hate this place and then you keep me waiting for literally, like ten minutes. You’re the worst!”

         “I’m sorry babe, I just—“ Caleb was unable to find an excuse that might conceivably

placate his enraged girlfriend, he slid back into the booth like a scalded dog. “I’m sorry.”          The truth was that Caleb had become inexplicably fixated on the graffiti sticker left behind by the unknown girl on the train. He’d used his phone to run a local device search, scrolling through IP-logs in a forty meter radius of his phone’s location, but none of the ID Perks brought up profiles that even remotely resembled the girl with artwork under her skin. That, and the long process of rearranging his portfolio made him late.

         “You’re so inconsiderate Caleb, you never think of me. I mean, you barely even have five-thousand friends on FaceSpace. People ask me all the time why I waste my time on a loser like you, and I’m literally running out of things to tell them.”

         “I said I was sorry, Candy. What do you want from me?”

         “Would you like to order now?” Cyrl interrupted, incapable of understanding the notion of appropriate timing, presenting the menu-scroll with icons of waffles, pancakes and coffee mugs.

 “I want you to get your shit together for starters. You don’t have a job, you’re broke all the time—“

         “Candy, you’re twice as deep in debt as I am! Come on, I’ve got a job interview in an hour, can’t we just have breakfast in peace?”

“How dare you! Most of that debt comes from my Haul Holos, it’s an investment in my career as a fashion icon. I need to buy clothes to keep people coming back to my YouWatch channel. You know that! My last double-H got over forty thousand views—forty thousand! Do you see what I’m saying here? You barely have five-thousand friends and I literally have like a hundred-thousand. Get it? You’re holding me back, Caleb.”

         “Would you like to order now?”

Caleb Dawes was tagged in Candy Klein’s life event:

Candy Klein changed her relationship status to: Single.

—11,568 people like this—

         It was a surprise to find Sam outside of his apartment on any given day, since his addiction to the popular MMORPG “Fantasy Kill” and SimStim porn files kept him rooted to his Holodeck for months at a time. Sam was almost 190 kgs and looked like an overstuffed laptop bag in his wrinkled suit. Sam was one of about eight others crowding the waiting room at Osgood, Fellowship and Gearhart Investment Corp. The GregsList ad apparently gathered a good amount of attention among the 42% of the under-30, Middle Tier demographic who were unemployed.

         “That’s harsh man, she broke up with you just like that?” Sam commiserated, placing his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Right before an interview too. SMH. I’ve got something that might cheer you up though. Cyrl, what’s my name?”

         Sam’s phone launched its holographic avatar, the traditional design of Cyrl replaced by a jail-broken, hacked-out version of the iconic assistant. Sam’s Cyrl was obscenely busty, her waist unrealistically small and her hips jutting out over the hem of a shameless miniskirt. She was dressed like a naughty schoolgirl, and leaned forward as she replied in a breathy, bedroom whisper.

         “You’re Sam, but you want me to call you Daddy.” Cyrl sighed, sounding like she was on the verge of climax from merely being acknowledged by her user. “Did I do good, Daddy?”          “Yes Cyrl, good girl.” Sam affirmed, slipping the phone back into his tight slacks where its outline was still plainly visible, pressed against his thick thigh. “Once I broke through the Mandarin presets, I was able to code that new skin in just a couple hours. I could fix yours too if you want. I’ve got a naughty nurse, I’ve got a filthy cavewoman, I’ve got—“

         “Thanks man, but that’s really not going to help. I like Cyrl the way she is.” Caleb muttered glumly, folding up his headspeakers and opening the long, rectangular case of his portfolio, thumbing through his now wrinkled work. “I can’t believe you wore a suit.”

         “I can’t believe you didn’t wear a suit! Did you think you were the only one checking

GregsList today?” Sam countered, incredulity making him red in the face.

         “Caleb Dawes. The executives will see you now.”

Caleb Dawes: Here goes nothing. *Fingers Crossed* Go Art Skills! #optimism

—at Osgood, Fellowship & Gearhart Investments with Sam Howell.

—Sam Howell likes this.—

         Tears were making long reflective streaks down Todd Gearhart’s face as he roared with laughter and slapped the table repeatedly. Oswald Osgood passed over a charcoal sketch of a fruit bowl which elicited a fresh peal of screaming laughter from Todd.

“Oh God—! Oh God—! Let me catch my breath! Charcoal! Oh sweet baby Jesus— charcoal!” Todd wailed through his laughter, the others resigned to an idling gear of their chortling derision. “Here, want to sketch out some logo designs?”

         Todd drew a match from under the lid of his cherry-wood humidor, struck it on the edge of the desk and blew it out, extending his arm to offer it to Caleb.

         “Here, you can work with this, right?” Todd barely managed to contain himself long

enough to ask. All three erupted in a fresh bout of roaring laughter, all at Caleb’s expense.

         “This mothafucka wore a scarf!” Oswald screamed after a desperate gasp. “A SCARF!”

They all had a good laugh at that. Hank Fellowship snapped a photo of Caleb’s outfit, showing off his new XG model that he was already hybrid with. The flash came from somewhere near the heel of his hand and a simple pull of his index finger snapped the shutter.  

Though he felt about as big as the round lens in Hank’s palm, Caleb couldn’t help but be slightly impressed when the other two shot pictures from their own XG model uPhones—earlier than the early adopters, these three had all hybrid with the new models. The luxuries of Upper

Tier living.

         “This is SO going on my #Fail Blog!”

Caleb Dawes: I don’t know why I allow myself to want things, to hope. I ought to know better than to believe in happy endings.

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         Outside of the corporate megaspire, in the Middle Tier civic sector, Caleb stood directionless—dumbstruck. The pencil and ink art-style that he’d dedicated his life and training to—the paper and canvas mediums that spoke to him in a way even the theatrical VuMax decks couldn’t rival, it was all going extinct. No one wanted pencils, inks, paints—only code. Everything was code. CGI rendering and PhotoStore solutions.

         Across the solar street, tents and grills were arranged around the entryway to the Middle Tier Financial Sector Orange Store, the ones in front had been there for weeks, the ones in the back were four blocks away.

         Caleb crossed the street, away from the crosswalk, stepping over the unbridged dropgutter that overlooked Lower Tier, where the struggling underbelly scuttled and strived, ignorant to his existence. An Edison laid on the horn, its tires screeching to a stop in front of Caleb, but he didn’t react, he just kept walking toward the towering, Orange oracle. By sheer luck, he reached the other side, without being decimated by an electric vehicle or slipping into the drop-gutters and plummeting hundreds of stories to his death.

         Staring up at the building, Caleb tried to reconcile the injustice of it all—these people waiting for weeks, lowering their red balances for months to have a chance at this hybrid surgery—meanwhile the fat cats on the Upper Tier, who barely even noticed the cost, got their wet-ware delivered and installed by private surgeons while these schmucks were still saving. It was all so unfair.

         Unexpectedly, fate seemed to bless the unfortunate Caleb. The girl he’d seen on CART translated past him in a hurry.

         “Hey! It’s you!” Caleb blurted out, placing a hand on her arm. “From the train—I drew the dragon thing— consumerism.”

         “Fuck off.” The girl answered, wrenching her decorative arm from his grasp assertively.

“Leave me alone, you phone-drone! Consumer! Corporate mule!”

“W-wait! I—I just… I wanted to thank you. You were like a ray of sunshine in the darkest day of my life. And I…”

         Conspicuous by its absence was the oversized duffel that had smacked against Caleb’s face in the rail car and crashed his portfolio. He glanced toward the Orange Store and saw it placed neatly in front of the still locked entryway, filled with adverts and displays for the new release.

         “You forgot your bag. Let me go get it, I’ll be right—“

         “No, you dumb shit!”

         The girl snatched the ends of Caleb’s artsy, striped scarf and tugged him backward by the throat. As Caleb tumbled, everything erupted—like the beat drop in a MacRoughneck song— only bigger, louder and real! The impact from the blast sent Caleb into a tumble, his body tangling with hers as they rolled dangerously close to the drop-gutters.

         Up and down the street, car alarms sounded, honking and wailing in climbing pitches. Smoke billowed out of the shattered storefront and all the digital advertising constructs were flickering and glitching out. The bodies of those who’d been near the front of the line were strewn about the causeway and those farther back wore masks of blood. Their faces seemed to be screaming, contorted in horror as they scattered in all directions—but Caleb’s earjacks only playbacked a high pitched squeal—like the sound heart monitors make when someone dies.

         “Get up!” Her voice sounded like she was underwater, and still the squealing pitch drowned all. When he was slow to comply, she head-butted him in the nose. He tumbled off of her body and she was gone at a sprint.

         There was blood coming from his nostrils when Caleb refreshed his feet. He coughed, tugging the scarf from where it was strangling him. Just as the high-pitched sound began to recede and screams filtered back in through the sound, the first Police Drone descended on the  Orange Store. Red and blue lights flashed back and forth under each of the spinning blades.          Caleb Dawes! Stop where you are and present empty hands! You are under arrest for suspicion of terrorist crimes! The Drone playbacked through painfully loud Megablaster speakers. 

         “No! No, listen! I didn’t—I don’t even know what happened here! I—” Caleb was

interrupted by another fit of coughing.

         Act of aggression shown! Commencing Counter-Terrorism Protocols. The

Megablasters roared, gun turrets dropping down from the base of the PD, already spinning with a laser-guided spotlight targeting Caleb’s chest.

         “No! No wait!” Caleb begged, holding up empty palms.

         The sound echoed through the streets, a pop rang out, cutting over the PD’s deafening roar. Another pop—another—and another. The Drone glitched out and fell, spitting sparks like a rotary-sander on iron. Caleb looked back, locking eyeports with the girl, the terrorist and his savior—a pistol in her outstretched right arm.

         “This is your only chance, consumer. I’m Certain, and if you don’t want to get murdered by the police, you’ll follow me out of her.”

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