“Dear Diary,
Installing you on my computer is the best decision I’ve ever made. You’ve lived up to every claim made on your packaging. I highly doubt you’ll insubordinate or grow the hangnail-personalities that plagued past diaries. I realize your opinions, your loyalties are slanted toward me since I’m the only voice you’ve ever heard. But I don’t care, Diary. It’s nice having someone to listen. It’s nice having a yes-man.”
“Frank,” the diary said, “I was on the Internet again while you worked at the drycleaners. Thank-you, by the way, the internet is impressive. As you requested, I looked up the history of the Digisphere to familiarize myself with your world. Though the websites were thorough, their descriptions lacked your finesse.”
“I enjoy getting philosophical about the Digisphere,” Frank said. “Some believe his world is real and there is no digital world. They think our governments fabricated the Digisphere’s existence to dehumanize and control us. I’ve swung to both sides of this debate, but what convinced me was its plausibility as an end-game. It seems inevitable to any society living on a planet with finite resources. The realists, who think this human body has material substance and extension, they haven’t thought their conspiracy theories through. Did they expect the lust for interconnectivity that exploded throughout the Enlightenment, the Industrial and the Information Eras would come to a halt? No, of course we’d always want more. Once resources dried, once things got crowded and boring, it made sense to look beyond our planet. But what did we want from our universe once we learned we were its only inhabitants: energy. Energy to satisfy the growing desire for power in each greedy citizen’s heart. If we wanted to create a society without boundaries, to populate a civilization larger than our physical universe could sustain. If we wanted to traverse that civilization instantaneously instead of being constrained to sub-light speeds, then we had to become digital. So, no, I’m not a realist. I won’t blow puffs of marijuana, carrying on about actually sitting here on this cheap folding chair in this apartment in Retro-Cleveland talking to my computer and revolving the Sun once every 365 days. I accept that our glimmering, almond-shaped silver vessel cruises the dark void, draining energy from passing stars and that it will continue to do this until the entropy death of it all.
“That’s neat Frankie,” Diary said. “Did you go jogging this afternoon?”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“What is sarcastic?”
“You sounded sarcastic just then,” Frank said. “Yes, I went jogging after work. I have to. I’m not a physique-hacker or a mentality or a status-hacker. I respect the hand virtual genetics dealt. You have to. If everyone abandoned the genetics that got grandfathered into the Digisphere, life spans might lengthen out of control, evolution as we know it could collapse. But, Okay, I’ll admit it; sometimes I’ve had thoughts of dabbling with my profile. Maybe make myself a little smarter or my shoulders a little wider or my arms a little thicker. Just enough to really get someone’s attention—see the look in their eye—a look of real fear or awe or envy—you know, without arising suspicion. Some hackers get greedy and carried away with their hacks and you just know that no one could be that attractive and successful and talented. Granted, a tiny, tiny few of them are natural. Most are hackers.”
“So you went jogging after work...” Diary said.
“That’s right. I did. The sky was clear blue, seventy degrees, hardly a drop of humidity. I jogged in the downtown canal area again, wearing my earbuds and listening to Mozart to tune out the background. I really enjoy it, with the green algae-speckled water separating white concrete sidewalks and the ducks with their iridescent green and black necks—the musky miasma wafting up from the water. Walkers strolled along the sidewalks, enjoying the weather and my jogging didn’t seem like work. I rounded the corner near the rusty dam, then over the bridge, heading back toward my car.”
“Why do you drive a car?” Diary asked.
“It’s less expensive than flitting about the universe. People put too much emphasis on breadth and not enough on depth. You really need to stay in one city and master it. That’s why I jog in the same place—to figure it out. Not because Marian still jogs there. It’s interesting to see her—”
“She made your chest feel hollow?” Diary asked. “Made you hold that steak knife against your wrist?”
“Who cares about that! It’s past.”
“Ah... let’s not talk about that any more. Okay, Diary? So, I’m jogging back to my car when I see tears in this six-year-old’s eyes. Her pale skin glows in sunlight and this thing on her head looks like a pointy turban made of white gauze bandages with a wire leading out the top to some device her father holds. Her tears well as I near and her father consoles her, continuing to force her to enjoy the outdoors. As I run, I sneak this look at her to figure things out and her blue eyes pierce mine. She stops crying, furrowing her brow at me—she and her father look at me as I think, Asshole, Frank. You’re an asshole. She’s a cancer patient. I look away, still jogging, trying to figure it out. My brain gets stuck on it, the meaning of it all; why someone so young doesn’t get a fair shake and has to suffer. I hear myself breathing and feel the hard sidewalk in my knees. Being twenty-seven isn’t the same as eighteen. I feel myself slowing which would be okay except I sense someone’s running behind me. You know how sometimes you know things.
“Never mind.
“I look behind and it’s Carrie Swanson. I knew her from college—she never remembers me. She sat next to me during my final mathematics exam; before I transferred from Engineering to History. I remember she wore these frayed, these stonewashed, these tight jean shorts that day and her long, athletic legs distracted me. Like she forced me to fail while she aced that damn test. Now she’s a trial attorney on the fast-track to partner and right then she was kicking my ass in what wasn’t supposed to be a race, but was. I looked over my shoulder—watching golden-muscled feminine legs pull effortlessly closer as my breathes convulsed and deepened in my lungs. My mind tried to rationalize. She was sweating. She must have been running at least as long as me. She was a couple years younger. We were the same height. But I was a man. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She passed in three graceful strides; never faltering from her Buddhist trance to turn her sweat-beaded, beautiful countenance my way. My running shoes flapped to a sloppy halt and I walked. Shimmering black spandex stretched over her amazing breasts and butt; it was poetry to watch her figure move away from me through gleams of the setting sun. I noticed four walkers ahead of her—dressed casually, but little hints from how they stuttered about and stood so straight and rigid seemed off. One of them, a woman in her forties walked a white poodle. She drew a black stun-gun thing out of her purse, dropping her stance for a fight. That’s when it clicked: they were Talent Police. Two men and a woman wrestled Carrie Swanson to the cement sidewalk, toppling her near the canal’s ledge. She struggled, “What? Stop. I’m... Natural. Some—”
“I grinned.
“They pinned her arms and legs, pinning her flat on her stomach and pulling her brown hair aside as the woman pressed the black, metallic fairmaker against her neck with a popping blue flash. Then a sound, a fluttering, screeching like a beast crying out while being devoured. Her breasts withered within spandex from C to AA, hips narrowed from womanly to masculine, skin lightened and lost smooth brown sheen, her hair coarsened—her voice flattened and hardened as she spoke, ‘What? Why?’ The older woman pressed a knee in Carrie’s back. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Down from your tower, sweetie. Back down with the rest of us.’ Then, all four of them left her to lie there; looking so plain. She rolled over and looked up at me. I mean, really looked at me, for the first time, like she knew me. I broke eye contact and walked past. Of course, at that exact moment I spotted Marian on the other side of the canal, walking the opposite direction, watching us. Then Marian did her thing where she glances away. I bet she felt sorry for Carrie.
“Some people think you don’t have to police hackers. Th
ey think the Talent Police creates a witch-trial atmosphere, but with trillions being born into this world each second, each thirsting to be king, an even playing field is essential to prevent anarchy. Plus, if you get caught, it’s because you’re greedy and careless. Like this chick. There was no way someone like that could have that many weapons at her disposal. So sexy and poised and good at mathematics. That almost never happens. She got her comeuppance.
“It made me think. Maybe I was meant to be on the Talent Police. I find myself drawn to it and maybe it would be fulfilling. You know, making a difference. They require a college degree but they don’t care what it’s in.”
“You should go to the Civic Center and submit an application,” Diary said.
“I might do that. I’m sighing off. I’m gonna watch TV and then I’ve got some thinking to do. Bye.”
“Good bye, Frank. Good luck tomorrow...”