Neurowned

By Sean Gow

In a future where AIs do most of the work and environmental thinking transcends everything the favorite past-time is to connect one's brain directly to the virtual net to live through the recorded experiences of others, colloquial called riding.
When people start dying while riding in brutal, mysterious ways the police turns to their secret weapon, freelance investigator Sam Cooper, not knowing that they stumbled over a secret that threatens to end humanity as we know it.
A classic cyberpunk story set in a not-so-classic cyberpunk world in which we very well may live in a not-so-distant time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Gow
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005928124

Sean Gow

Since a very young age I was fascinated by everything science fiction and fantasy, be it books, movies/shows or games. While I have never published a novel before I have written short-stories as well as settings for games.I have also published several scientific papers.

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NEUROWNED

By: Sean Gow

Copyright © 2022 Sean Gow

ISBN 9781005928124

Open Source software like Linux, Open Office and Calibre was used while writing this book. If you like it, please consider supporting these projects. Thanks.

Part I

After Promo:

Start here if you have read the promo, ignore otherwise

Part II

Part III

Epilogue

I

Heavy raindrops were clinging to the windows of the skyscraper, the reflection of the twilight of the bay mega-city night giving them the look of liquid metal. The skyscraper was probably built during their last hooray, before the more efficient mega-blocks took over. Its ridiculous facade was all covered in glass, a practice which had since then been abolished from new buildings due to its terrible heat insulation. It stood there a reminding remainder of a time gone by, a time untroubled by its own wastefulness, as Sam Cooper’s eyes wandered over its exorbitantly outdrawn shape, trying to battle the fatigue. It hadn’t been the first call that night. Both deaths under mysterious circumstances. But while the last one was some lowlife addict, this one was an executive manager of one of the corps, so it was important. As was proven by the number of police officers present - there was only the one who had been closest when the call was received at the last place. Here there was a whole group just waiting in the lobby, warming their hands on some coffee mugs and ushering Sam to an elevator in a corner.

It was hard to get the other victim out of the mind. The ruined remains of the head, the blood-soaked fingers, the penetrating smell of blood and other bodily fluids. It had looked almost as if he had been trying to rip his own brains right out. Of course he had been a junky, getting off on others emotions. Living the life of others, so called contributes, experiencing the recordings of all their senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, even pain - was of course very popular these days, and there were all kinds of recordings, from peaceful nature walks to extreme sports and more serious, often illegal stuff. Nearly everyone did it - experience what you want from the safety and comfort of your home, with no side-effects like broken bones or other injuries. Riding they called it. And that was fine for the most part. But some had to crank it up to eleven and beyond, jacking up the intensity of the sensory input past anything that could be experienced naturally, often with terrible results. The other victim hadn’t been the first time Sam had seen a fatal case of riding hot (what they called it), but never any like it.

After a few minutes in the elevator that felt like an hour, its door opened wide into the welcome hall of the penthouse, decorated neo-romantically in the same style that was modern as the skyscraper was built. Some-when mid- to late-20s, Sam thought. Dark-gray walls with simplistic and functional-looking patterns on them, offset with white armchairs out of some artificial leather, a monstrous all steel open fireplace between two glass-windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Not a single color in sight - except for the flames in the fireplace. Of course, all heating (and cooking for that matter) by burning stuff being banned for environmental reasons, the illusion of the fire was created by a hologram and an electric heater. All was a little bit over the top, decadent even, and screamed money. Whatever this guy had done for a living when he was alive, it must have earned him some serious paycheck.

Police Captain Ian Baker was standing near a door left of the entrance, talking to some of the lab-techs, impatient as always. Someone was thinking this was really important if they pulled the captain out in the middle of the night. He looked even worse than Sam felt, and wasn’t wearing his uniform, just some random clothes that were probably the first he had happened to find. Although they remained calm, the argument between him and the tech was noticeably heated - someone would have to make sense of what had happened here, and fast, or the finger pointing would begin to find a scapegoat. Sam took a good look around, trying to find the discrepancy that might tell what had gone down here while waiting for them to finish.

‘Sam’, Ian’s voice was equally tired and grim, thick with a British accent that he normally hid so well. Sam had heard that Ian had once been one of the best detectives Scotland Yard ever had, before accepting this position because the climate was better and the job promised to be more quiet. That night was probably one of the times he second-guessed that decision.

‘About time you showed up’, Ian continued, ‘Sometimes I wonder what we pay you freelancers for.’

‘Most times you don’t anyway’, Sam shot back. Their bantering was both childish and typical for them, a welcome way to relieve the stress and horrors of their kind of work.

Ian paid no mind to Sam’s reply and went on: ‘Could have sent you a pod, but knowing you you are probably too old-fashioned to use one anyway.’ Sam ignored that remark and continued to examine the room instead, but Ian wasn’t done: ‘The decoration more fitting for you, Samantha?’ It was a running gag at the station that she was aptly named - an old-fashioned name for an old-fashioned woman. But she didn’t mind. She was long past pretending to be something she was not or worrying what others thought of her just being herself. And it was true, she didn’t like pods, fully autonomous quadcopters transporting both people and goods, even though they were very popular among nearly every-one else - every-one who could afford them anyway. But she didn’t like to give up control, and besides, no AI was perfect, so accidents happened. Mostly fatal - pods were usually flying too high for airbags, yet too low for parachutes, and no-one had worked out another way to prevent casualties yet, as rarely as they happened. She always thought it strange that the accidents didn’t decrease the pods popularity, but this was no time for this discussion. A case was waiting.

‘Since you pay me by the hour whether we stand here bantering or whether I am investigating, why don’t you show me to your crime scene?’, she asked instead, showing that she had enough of their chitchat and rather would concentrate on the work ahead, grizzly as it might be.

‘In the library, to your left. See for yourself.’ Ian jerked his head towards the door and hesitated, then added: ‘Seriously, good to have you back, Sam. Sorry we had to call you in at this hour, but we just don’t know what to make of it.’

‘Don’t worry, couldn’t sleep anyway’, she just replied with a shrug.

‘Well, this sight won’t help with that either’, Ian said in a tired voice, but Sam had already disappeared.

The library contained more books than Sam had seen in a while, combined. It was true that she was a traditionalist, but even she didn’t understand why people would bother with amassing so many actual books when you could have nearly everything ever written all wrapped up neatly in a small holo-tablet. In a mega-city where space was at a premium and even public libraries had been replaced by virtual ones it seemed more than decadent to have a whole room just for books. And of course, those days most people wouldn’t even bother with anything written at all - and rather connect directly to the virtual net. Every-one had a virtual link to hook them up wireless to the v-net whenever, where-ever they liked. Well, nearly every-one - Sam didn’t, but she knew she was a dinosaur. The ex-tenant of this penthouse had one though. He sat in a comfy-chair near a low desk, the small LED of his v-link blinking to signalize that it was still connected to the v-net, even though there was obviously no-one left to connect it to. The man looked strangely peaceful - or would have weren’t it for the fact that he was soaked in blood which emanated from what was left of face and head. The odor was so vile that Sam had to cover her mouth and nose with a handkerchief while observing the scene, which was bathed in the flickering blue laser-light she had come to associate with the tiny drones the crime-lab-techs were using those days. One of the lab-techs was supervising their function from a small holo-tablet, but was looking up when Sam entered.

‘Anything yet?’ Sam asked the technician. He looked vaguely familiar. Was it Dave perhaps?

‘Not really’, he answered with a shrug, ‘The apartment was locked, the security cams and alarms show no visitors or intruders. Looks like he was alone, but who would do this to himself?’

‘Riding hot maybe?’

It was a long shot, but just having seen a similar body of a junky who was known to overdose on the recordings of others’ emotions she needed to be sure.

‘Not according to the log of his v-link. No recording of any abnormal signal strength nor of dangerous levels of any vital sign.’

‘Doesn’t seem to be the type either, but you never know’, Sam said as she moved closer to examine the body. He was wearing comfy clothes, some kind of bathrobe/pyjama-hybrid with a simple t-shirt under it, but everything still looked elegant in an understated kind of way. Tailor-made by an AI to his exact body-measurements, no doubt. And of course color- and style-coordinated and from expensive factory-grown silk, not just printed out. She took a sensor-pen out of her inner pocket, a gift from Ian, and carefully used it to move what was left of the man and his clothes this way and that to get a full picture.

‘What was the name and occupation of the victim?’, Sam asked while examining the body, trying to sound casual.

‘Marc Wilson. Upper management. We were able to pin it down to Primetech, with high probability, but they won’t confirm nor deny it nor give us any detail what he might have been doing, at least not yet. You know how paranoid the corps are - don’t give the competition any opportunity to learn any details they could use for any form of advantage. Primetech is definitely producing AIs though.’

AIs did nearly everything these days. They were highly evolved software designed to perform specific tasks astoundingly well, most often many times better than any human could ever hope for. That’s why they had replaced humans in nearly every job, with only a few left, crime investigation among them. Mainly because humankind never seems to run out of creative ways to be shockingly cruel to each other, which could not be processed by the AIs which were only really good at working along the same predictable patterns. For all her distaste for AIs, there were days when Sam regretted this, that day being one of them.

But the reliance on AIs also meant that the chosen few who actually produced AIs were right at the top of the food-chain. Which explained the expensive living quarters, and why this case received this much attention, but not what had happened here. Sam sighed, and finished her disappointingly fruitless investigation. She had an inexplicable feeling that this had not been a mere accident - but who had done this and why? A competing corp maybe? Or a personal enemy, maybe a rival? And how did the death of the lowlife fit in? Were the two connected somehow? It seemed to be too coincidental that two people died in this exact, strange way, only hours apart.

‘A hell of a way to go’, she said aloud. ‘Any relatives or close friends?’

‘Physically? Doesn’t seem like it. The AI couldn’t find anything at least. Online or virtual? We virtually have no idea.’

Sam didn’t know if he was trying to be clever or if the pun was unintended. She chose to ignore it.

‘Well, what do we know? Any connection to the other victim - work, leisure time interests, v-sites?’

‘What other victim?’, the lab-tech looked up, puzzled. Yes, that was definitely Dave.

‘The one on Obama Street. Case file 9002/102’, Sam tried to sound nonchalantly despite feeling very tired.

‘Haven’t heard of it’, Dave answered, ‘Let me put the AI on it to cross-reference. If there’s anything there it will find it.’

While waiting, Sam examined the artifacts and books on display. All very much in the same, ancient style, all expensive. Her eyes fell on the children book series of Harry Potter, ever popular despite the controversial viewpoints of their author. It was a full collection, of course, and apparently from the same print-run. She took one of the books out, and thumbed idly but carefully through it. First edition, as suspected, market value probably several times her monthly income. She put it back. Something was bothering her, and it wasn’t the body or how he died. What was she missing?

A beep from Dave's tablet indicated that the AI had finished its search and interrupted her train of thoughts. Dave looked over the results, then frowned.

‘No hit. Both riding when it happened, but according to their logs they were on completely unrelated v-sites. This one was riding a character in the golden Millenia, one of these new scripted feeds with an overarching story, the other… some sort of, er, adult entertainment.’ His face was actually reddening. ‘Of course, they could have cleared the history of their v-links, which would make sense if they were doing anything illegal that caused this’, he added hastily.

Sam snorted sarcastically. ‘Would be a neat trick to clear your history after you have done that to yourself. Looks more like some-one else is covering up something.’

When Sam came home, another auto-package was waiting for her. She hated those. They worked like this: companies would send you articles which they thought you might like, based on your purchase history, and if you liked them you kept them and paid for that. If not, you just activated a little button on the package, put it outside your door and a drone would pick it up. Thing is, she never really asked for any of these packages and the only reason she got them was that she had bought a food-processor for her brother, who was comically unable to produce anything edible. She had found it in a flash-sale for a very good price, but hadn’t read the conditions carefully enough. Since then she was stuck getting an auto-package once or twice every month, and since she didn’t really order anything else from the same company they normally contained only some random stuff. She had complained to the company, then to Ian, but there was nothing to be done - after all, she could always just return them directly and no harm done. Also, no-one else ever complained, so why did she had to be so difficult. And so the packages just kept on coming, much to her annoyance. Still, the ready-meals she got that way were quite good, though she would never admit that to anyone.

One time she had decided to stick it to them and had kept a package but hadn’t paid for it either. When she had gotten a reminding invoice she had simply replied that she hadn’t received it in the first place. The next day, an identical package was waiting for her with a written apology that the first one had got lost - which she had returned immediately. But from the first package she was still stuck with what looked to be a lifelong supply of light-bulbs, some grossly hideous cutlery (which she used anyway, and even took some pleasure in putting out when she got visitors just to see their reaction), and a dala-neko. It was a cross-cultural thing, which was all the rage those days. In this case it was a traditional Japanese beckoning cat colored in the style of a Swedish dala-horse, with painted flowers and multi-colored bands and everything. It was also a typical trial-and-error-product. The producing AI would choose a form it thought people might like (or, in the cross-cultural case, merge different random designs and styles), and combine it with a gimmicky function it thought they might want. In the case of her dala-neko you could connect it to your v-link when you were plugged into the v-net, and it would wink if you got a notification or message. Of course, as long as you were plugged in you wouldn’t see that, so the only thing the cat would be doing was notifying anyone else who happened to be in the same room (although that might have been the function the AI had been going for). Most trial-and-error-products were like that and ended up in the recycler, but every now and then the AI would strike gold. And that’s how it worked: you combined enough forms with enough functions, all selected by the AI based on permutations of existing products and predictions of coming ones, using every possible combination and auto-packaged them to enough consumers, hoping for the one that stuck and would make you money. The consumers had become part of the development process, the perfect beta-testers, reducing the cost of traditional product design to the bare minimum. Sam did her best to ignore all trial-and-error products, but she had kept the cat, although she never understood why exactly. She didn’t really like it that much, loathed it even but in a weird way couldn’t bring herself to throw it out.

And so it sat on a functional, light-gray-colored cupboard in her carefully and sparsely decorated home, which was situated in an old, slightly rundown apartment block - not a modern mega-block, but not of any neo-romantical interest whatsoever either. It was just as it had been since it had been built, showing the signs of its age without any pretense, and Sam loved it for it. Of course, most turned their nose at her living quarters and would find it beneath her. No AI that would adapt lights, heating, humidity etc to your measured medical and physiological data in real-time, not even any form of smart controlling. Just old-fashioned knobs and buttons that you had to turn for yourself, physically, and that you even had to actually walk to. And she had windows, real-ones looking outside, not just big screens integrated into the walls giving a 3D-view of any panorama the resident wanted, as was usual in most mega-block apartments. Of course, most people wouldn’t understand that either and ask why she had chosen that channel and not turned to anything more pleasant, then they would wonder why anyone would prefer that to a screen that could give you literally any view you wanted. Still, she would choose the real thing every time. And it didn’t really bother her either that people joked about her manners and old-fashioness, that one of these days she would run away to the technophobes, because, who knows, one day she might. Or to the church of humanity, that’s how they call themselves, she scolded herself, best not to insult your new hosts.

Sam opened the fridge, took out one of the ready-meals, chosen at random after some time trying to decide which one she would like best, then put it in her food-processor - one of the few modernities she allowed herself. She sat down on her old, slightly-worn couch with her meal in silence, trying to relax, to put everything out of her mind, but her thoughts drifted back to the case. There was something bothering her, something she had subconsciously noticed but she didn’t know what, a revelation just out of reach, teasing her. She let the crime scene pass her inner eye, trying her best to see it, but she still couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe if I sleep on it, she thought when she finally gave up. And so she finished her meal, put the plate and the fork in the sink (she didn’t have a dishwasher but the dishes could wait), and went for a quick wash-up before laying down to sleep.

Sam tried her best to sleep, tossing and turning in her bed, but the case kept her awake. She usually had problems sleeping when she had just started a new investigation, but this time it was even worse. Maybe it was the gruesomeness of the deaths. Or maybe that she had no idea whatsoever what might have happened, nor why. The feeling that she was missing something was nagging at her, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t for the life of her think of what it could have been.

In an attempt to distract herself she put her VR-goggles on (ancient tech in a time where everyone connected their brain directly to the v-net), zapping through some articles on her favorite news sites.

A man talking about preventing fatalities caused by pod-accidents by spanning nets over streets and open places - an old suggestion wildly unpopular with both the surface dwellers who didn’t want their sky obstructed, and the pod-users who wanted to be able to land where-ever they wanted. But the man pointed out that most trips started and ended at mega-blocks - gigantic structures that were only half the height of ancient skyscrapers, but were half a mile or more across - which were starting to offer pod-docks at several levels, meaning that landing-spaces on ground-level or on top of the mega-blocks were quickly losing their importance. And the wishes of the surface dwellers were of no real importance, them being of lower standing and income. He didn’t frame it that way of course, in fact he didn’t mention their wants and needs at all, but Sam was realist enough to understand how things worked. So it was only a matter of time until the nets would appear. She would have liked it if they could at least spare some streets and open places, but she didn’t waste any hope on that. After all, it was the wealthy elite who was using pods nearly exclusively, and when was the last time the government didn’t fulfill their wishes to the fullest. The irony that she herself was also part of that wealthy elite, even if it didn’t show, was not lost to her.

She noticed that she couldn’t concentrate on the feed, so she took the goggles off. Her gaze was sleepily wandering around the room, while she was trying to sort her thoughts. It took her some time to notice that her eyes had finally come to rest on the beckoning cat, the dala-neko. She really didn’t know why she was still keeping it. Maybe it was just that, deep down, she really wanted a cat - that is a real one, like her grandmother had had. But with modern animal laws that was of course impossible - nearly all pets were banned, both for environmental reasons and because allergies and asthma had been on the rise for decades now without any-one knowing why exactly or what to do about it. So the only pets you actually could get were fishes and birds, and the cost of the permits were astronomical. And it wasn’t just pets - the animal control enforcement drones (or ACED) picked up every wild animal they could find (and they were astoundingly good at it) to relocate them a safe distance from the bay mega-city so that they were unlikely to find their way back. You were lucky if you could see a wild bird.

Of course, her friends wouldn’t understand why she, or anyone else for that matter, would want an actual cat. No-one would. Apart from all the problems with health and environment you actually needed to take care of it, which was a lot of work for something that had no real purpose other than to cheer you up every now and then. Better to get a robo-cat - no worries about health issues nor the environment nor its care; you could simply ignore it whenever you weren’t in the mood, and it was otherwise indistinguishable from the real thing. Or so everyone said - Sam knew better. She had gotten one once, had sprung for the best model, too; money not being much of a problem since she normally had more than she knew what to do with anyway. It even came with different settings which would adapt its behavior - from normal cat to being overly friendly and compliant. Which totally freaked her out, so it had to go. In the end she gave it to her niece on Christmas. Her