Taking It With

She pressed her thumb to the screen and smiled wanly for the prompted photo, a decision she instantly regretted. If there was ever a photo not to smile for, this was it. Unfortunately, there was no option to Undo or take it back; her phone trilled and displayed: "Your application has been submitted, and we will be in touch with you shortly. Thank you for your interest in supporting the efforts of the Lucilux Group in our mission to improve the future for us all."

She sighed and pocketed her phone, staring blankly at the restroom stall door. As usual, the only thing that gave her the strength to stand from the unused toilet and head back in to work was the mental image of Grayson grinning over a pile of building bots or a pixel-scribbled drawing of some hero or other. If it wasn’t for him, she didn’t know where she’d be -- but it certainly wouldn’t be dumping still-full plates of food into the trash while slapping away the questing hands of poverty-curious silver-spooners three drinks over the line, for better or worse.

Barely five minutes after leaving the washroom she felt her phone buzz, and, after making sure no one was keeping track of her, she slipped into the walk-in freezer and opened her mail.

They had accepted her application! She skimmed over the message with all of its congratulations and thank-yous and please-read-and-acknowledge-the-attached-terms, looking for the thing that mattered most: “As established, all current debts will be paid in full to your creditors’ satisfaction according to the terms of this contract.” She held the phone to her chest and released a breath that had been waiting for years to be set free.

Looking back at her phone, she opened the first attachment, intending to glance it over before ducking back out of the freezer.

Thank you again for your contribution to Thaudal Endeavors (a Lucilux Group subsidiary). We hope that our arrangement will ease the concerns you rightfully have about leaving your loved ones in a distressing financial situation, and we commend you for making such a complex and difficult decision.

While the establishment of the West Convention has prevented mankind from truly experiencing the benefits of autonomous artificial intelligence, we are still legally permitted to make use of the underlying machine learning algorithms and basic approaches to solving classification and regression problems through deep human-machine interface

Yawn. She paged down a bit.

ENTRAINMENT

The length of the entrainment period will primarily be determined by how prepared you are, comprising at minimum one short phase and at maximum several phases lasting up to two calendar months. Expenses incurred by Thaudal Investments on your behalf during the entrainment period will be added to your debt.

The following text will be dictated to you immediately upon the initiation of Thaudal Biological Systems’ entrainment period. Please do your best to commit this to memory:

When you hear these words, you should acknowledge that the post-mortal entrainment period has begun. In order to properly imprint Thaudal Development’s mining algorithms onto your mental processes, you must entrain your conscious attention to fully accept and integrate the structure of the programming. To fail in entrainment before the period expires is to render this contract null and void, and your debt will pass to your closest relatives along with any expenses incurred by Thaudal Investments on your behalf.

The clunking of the walk-in door’s latch mechanism startled her, and she hastily reached to grab a box of frozen myco patties to excuse her presence in the freezer. The rest of the contract would have to wait until later. She turned to see Wren enter, a surprised look on their face at seeing her in the small metal room.

“Can’t have those fiends waiting too long for another round of their gold-encrusted faux salmon cakes with lemongrass-fentanyl au jus, can we?” she said as she exchanged places with the other server, who shook their head and grunted in solidarity. She took the box of patties back into the kitchen and placed it in the dormant fry cook's storage slot, already dreaming of the end of her shift five long hours in the future.

Later, exhausted and rocking to the bus’s passage over neglected roadways, she slumped between the wall’s flickering advertisement for Everymeal Smoothies (“Where we’re going, we don’t need teeth!”) and an agitated woman who mumbled cryptically and smelled of burning plastic.

Her phone buzzed in a familiar and welcome syncopated rhythm: the home security system announcing Grayson’s safe arrival from his friends’ apartment. She tingled, eager to watch the recording of him walking in the door. Removing the phone from her pocket, she swiped the notification left, easily justifying the instant debit as a small price for the comfort she knew he’d feel on seeing her toonified image wave in acknowledgement on the house’s wall screen.

Now past the lock screen, her phone displayed the text of the Lucilux contract.

Adequate preparation through accredited simulation courses will hasten the entrainment period by acquainting you with some of the unusual sensations, thoughts, and emotions that may arise. By learning how to anticipate their effects and truly understand their significance, you will be better suited to clear your conscious mind of reactive thoughts and accept the entrainment.

The first phase incorporates up to two calibrated full-spectrum light bursts, each of which contains the entirety of the mining algorithm encoded in a format designed to be most compatible with the waking mind. Integration of this data object will result in completion of the entrainment period and will begin the mining period during which you will earn against your debt.

If you fail to accept either data object, you will be presented with a number of diverse sensory stimulation packages, the intent of which is to prepare your neural network for the assigned task. This is the manual version of the encoding process and requires your constant commitment and discipline to complete. Your facility at this process and the degree to which your aptitude matches your assignment will influence the multiplier used to determine the rate of debt repayment.

Ugh. Enough. She switched apps and tapped the Play triangle, watching the clip on repeat from every available angle, suggested and otherwise. Replaying the vision of her son as he stepped through the front door and turned to thank Darrin’s parents was salve enough to her soul that she barely registered her approaching stop in time to tap her phone to the nearest bus control cord. As the aged vehicle shuddered to a halt, she pushed past her now-unconscious seatmate and through the hissing exit door.

With Grayson tucked into bed and (most of) her things prepared for the following day, she pulled the refrigerator door open and removed one of the beers within. As she closed the door, her phone dinged in recognition of the can’s retail value being debited from her account. Not for the first time, she groused about how they really get you both coming and going, don’t they? This reminded her of her debt (not that it was ever truly far from her mind), and, feeling generous after her time with her beloved boy, she resumed reading the contract, looking down the document to find something else of interest.

Due to the requirements and underlying nature of the technology, which is built to leverage the pattern-matching of non-conscious mental structures as well as the discerning faculty of the conscious mind, you will be awake and aware in some form during the entirety of the debt expiation period. We would like to reassure you that we will continue to exert every effort to maximize your comfort during what may frankly be a tedious and confusing time.

At first, you may experience loss of breath as governance of your autonomic and somatic nervous systems is transferred from your brain to Thaudal Medical. This is due to a suppression of sensory feedback intended to provide comfort to you as motor control and similar cognitive functions are co-opted by the mining algorithm. In conjunction, now-unnecessary organs and appendages will be removed for processing, easing the demands on your resources and helping minimize the nutrition and operating expenses added to your debt.

She made a grimace of distaste, following that with a swallow of beer. As she leaned back against the refrigerator, she heard a muted sound from the other room. She moved across the sparsely-furnished living / dining combo into the bedroom where Grayson slept on his half of the pad. The blue wash of his boat-themed night-light gently undulated across his face, so peaceful and angelic.

Was she in the right to opt into Thaudal Education’s admittedly expensive Foster First option? What choice did she have? She was on the worst of terms with her brother-in-law and hated to imagine Grayson growing up anywhere near the Church of the Holyphonic Message, and she sure as shit wasn’t about to leave him under the care of Darrin’s mother Camille, whose idea of honest work was selling her daily epi gland surplus to desperate uninsurables. No, she was doing the best she could. She would not pass this debt down like the rotten family heirloom it had become.

She kissed the air in his direction and quietly withdrew back into the kitchen where her beer and phone awaited.

FINANCIAL CONCERNS

In the rare circumstance that insolvency leads Thaudal Financial to bankruptcy or otherwise necessitates transmission of digital assets to another incorporated entity, Thaudal Industries will do everything in its power to steward the transition to a new entity that understands the grave responsibility inherent in such ownership and will maintain the collection of entrained individuals with the utmost care and respect.

Due to the risk from the volatility of any single instrument, Thaudal Financial diversifies its guaranteed proxy investments across a broad range of cryptocurrencies and virtualized commodities in order to minimize damage from potential fluctuations; however, owing to the unpredictable nature of shifting exchange rates, Thaudal Management cannot commit to any specific timeline for the ultimate fulfillment of debt obligation nor any specific date that represents conclusion of the debt expiation period.

God, this all sounded like Christopher and how he tried to talk his way out of responsibility for pouring more and more good money after bad. Soon enough, even he obviously didn’t believe what he was saying. She had to admit that he really did try his best to deal with the cards dealt by her father’s lifetime of bad luck and the ravenous creditors that latched onto her after his passing; unfortunately, for Chris it all amounted to a bottle of pills and a speeding car with darkened headlights, and for her, a funeral expense to throw on the pile of unpaid bills, a fatherless child, and the beginning of the darkest years of her life.

She stepped out the back door into the bracing night air, welcoming the change from the humid clench of the tiny sublet and the looming memories. For once, the narrow alley of a bot-run was quiet, the garbage units still a few hours away from running their route and the majority of her neighbors still toiling in service of the great ruling rich somewhere deeper in the city.

“Good evening,” a rough voice rustled from next door’s shadow-filled stoop. She could hear breath being drawn, followed by a majestic unspooling of thick white vapor into the air. The sharp scent of menthol enveloped her.

To the wizened man responsible, she said, “Hey, Jimmy. Mind if I hit that?”

He pulled the slim cylinder from his lips and eyed her while handing it over.

“I thought you didn’t smoke. Cuts years off your life, remember?”

The vape’s terminal glowing diode phased from cyan to white then back as it verified her payment account and flavor profile. She inhaled deep, then, exhaling, spoke through a voluminous, cinnamon-spiced cloud:

“Who’s counting?”