62 lines
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62 lines
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<title>ZK | RJ Brewster --- 2112</title>
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<h1>Zk | RJ Brewster --- 2112</h1>
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<p><span class="tag">writing</span> <span class="tag">novel</span> <span class="tag">chapter</span> <span class="tag">fiction</span> <span class="tag">scifi</span> <span class="tag">post-self</span> <span class="tag">qoheleth</span></p>
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<p>RJ slid eir hands from the pads and leaned back from the headrest, letting out a full-fledged yawn. The sound and motion startled Priscilla across the room. Ey levered emself up out of eir seat and trudged over toward the still-purring cat, stroking over her ears when she bunted her head up against eir hand</p>
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<p>Eir mind foundered in a slurry of work, of Cicero's disappearance, of school with Sasha, of honing versus forging.</p>
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<p>"I'm wiped, Prisca," ey informed the cat.</p>
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<p>Priscilla purred louder.</p>
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<p>Smiling, ey peeled eir shirt off over eir head and slipped out of eir jeans. Tomorrow's rehearsal would mean full dress for everyone and makeup for the actors. Ey'd have to make sure eir suit was clean. Should ey iron it? Maybe ey should iron it. Later. For now, as it neared two, ey focused on making sure the door was locked and the lights were out before stumbling over to bed.</p>
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<p>Ey flipped the screen down on eir rig to signal for it to go to sleep and wandered over to eir bed. There seemed to be no shaking Sasha and all of her talk of high school, gone these last eight years now, out of eir head. Even as ey climbed into eir narrow bed and burrowed beneath the covers against the chill of the night, ey was replaying memories from school. Scenes from the US. A worn out film, dim and scattershot.</p>
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<p>Honing and forging, honing and forging.</p>
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<p>Ey and Sasha had tried dating early on. After a few weeks of it not going anywhere, they had both admitted that they had felt pressured into having a relationship, rather than actually wanting one. Good boys and girls fell in love with other good boys and girls, right? Pretended they didn't have sex. Went out to the movies.</p>
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<p>The relationship petered out, rather than ending in some climactic fashion. They had continued the trend of going to movies, and later to live performances. They had never lost touch, at least.</p>
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<p>Sasha had gone on to have a string of other relationships, some earnest and some not, some more intense than others --- a string that remained unbroken, if tonight's conversation was any clue --- but RJ had stopped there.</p>
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<p>The intensity social pressure to date throughout high school was equaled only by RJ's total apathy toward the whole scene. Apathy or, often, antipathy. Ey'd felt the occasional twinge of romantic attraction, perhaps, but the expectation of sex that went along with the process so put em off that ey had instead buried emself in work.</p>
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<p>Ey did well in some courses and not in others, but in the subjects that ey enjoyed, ey dumped all of eir effort. Huge gusts of energy that drove em forward.</p>
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<p>Ey had started early on in working the school's older sound board in the theater Ey ran plays. Ey ran concerts. Ey ran assemblies and lectures and conferences, quickly earning the trust of the other tech crew and the staff and faculty. And then ey gained leadership. Prestige.</p>
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<p>The various computer classes had captivated em as well, and for eir sixteenth birthday, eir parents had surprised em with the implants needed for full interfacing with a rig. Or, well, "surprised": eir father was an engineer and eir mother a fairly forward-thinking person, and they had promised em the procedure before university.</p>
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<p>Honing and forging, honing and forging.</p>
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<p>It was a straightforward procedure in an outpatient office, self-guided implants largely installing themselves. The worst had been the itching. It was bearable on eir hands and along eir spine, where the implants and exocortex breached the surface of eir skin, because at least ey could scratch, though ey had been cautioned not to. The NFC pads in eir forehead and the interferites embedded deeper --- far, far deeper --- led to an itch that no scratching would ever reach.</p>
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<p>From there, sound and the interface had taken up all of eir energy, leaving little time to worry about any social stigma that went along with an aversion to romance. Ey was simply the nerdy sound kid who knew more about computers than the teachers.</p>
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<p>It hadn't always been fun, of course, but by the ey quickly learned that the more ey put into the task, the more ey got out of it.</p>
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<p>That ey had found furry in high school seemed almost a natural progression. Working and improving at the art of interfacing in a way that felt natural to em came just as natural to others on the 'net. Ey moved effortlessly through the Crown Pub and a few other choice spaces, slowly crafting the primary persona that ey used when interacting with others, the fennec fox known as AwDae.</p>
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<p>It was then that ey and Sasha had really started connecting, for it was her that introduced em to the community. They started hanging out more, talking more, building a network of friends together. Where dating hadn't worked out for them, friendship grew in depth and breadth.</p>
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<p>Honing and forging, honing and forging.</p>
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<p>The forging of the virtual theater environment had culminated in a scholarship at a big name university out on the east coast. Immersive interactive theater technology. Forging into honing.</p>
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<p>It meant leaving Sasha and a few other close friends behind along with eir family, but it also meant that ey would be at the forefront of a new tech. Something used in production. Films and live work, too.</p>
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<p>The field had been so new that eir own studies at the university helped fuel the change in theater tech work. Eir dissertation, what was meant to be eir capstone project, was published and spread. Theaters around the world were using immersive tech.</p>
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<p>Ey had continued to work at the university for a while. It was one of the few places around with both a theater and the hardware to back it up. Ey had considered continuing eir studies, but the draw of the theater was too heady, too alluring. Academia spelled a life of forging, work one of honing. Why deny one's base nature?</p>
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<p>Honing and forging, honing and forging.</p>
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<p>The call from London came less than a year after ey graduated. Would ey like to help start a tech-savvy theater group in town? The pay would be slow to start, but the troupe had a loose collection of apartments on the East End. Ey would have full run of the sound department. When could ey start?</p>
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<p>Eir parents had needed convincing. They were pleased, to be sure, but they London, so far away! Still in the western bloc, but so far.</p>
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<p>Ey made eir promises that ey'd come and visit every year, and packed eir bags.</p>
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<p>Burying emself deeper into the covers and the mattress, leaving enough room for Priscilla to join em later, RJ's thoughts alighted on Cicero, on the lost.</p>
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<p>Losing Cicero had been a shock. A disappearance, at first, and then it went on. Debarre hollering one night after getting in touch with Cice's family. Lost, lost, he was lost.</p>
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<p>Getting lost was rare. Vanishingly so, even, with perhaps two dozen cases. Still, among those who were counted among the lost, all were heavy interfacers. It was a risk, everyone had assumed, just as was travel. Call it occupational hazard. Something could always happen. Something could always go wrong.</p>
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<p>To lose someone so close, though, hit hard.</p>
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<p>It was a reminder of just how much ey relied on the integration tech, not only for work, but for a large part of eir social life. Ey enjoyed the company of the troupe just fine. Troupe pub trips were a weekly affair, but eir heart lay among eir friends on the 'net. Eir friends being on the 'net meant more interfacing, and more interfacing meant more risk.</p>
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<p>Eir tech was truly immersive, after all. It was a dissolution of the body. Disembodied in the truest sense.</p>
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<p>It was becoming the room. It was a new sensory experience. No limbs, no torso, no face or eyes or ears. Or maybe all ears: ey became the room, feeling the way sound echoed or didn't, knowing the limits of the speakers in a deeply physical way. Mics peppering the walls a new sensory input. The wires nerves. The speakers muscles to flex. Instincts, reactions, and actions responding to whole systems of stimuli.</p>
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<p>Perhaps that was why ey felt so at risk. They all were, of course, but to dissolve one's concept of a body at work, and then come home to warp the very same concept into that of a fox --- no, a finely wrought amalgam of fox and self --- felt perilously close to being lost, sometimes.</p>
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<p>Honing and forging, honing and forging. Risk and reward.</p>
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<p>Ey slept.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2020-04-11</p>
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