The public will always find its own use for technology, and usually in secret. Nowhere in the Mirrors manual did it warn against remaining connected whilst asleep. Nowhere in the manual did it even mention that such a thing could be done. And nowhere did it mention the effect this could have on the human psyche: the ability to get up in the morning, simply to access the correct document, and then to view, or rather review, your dreams of the night just gone. Could the company have seen how this would lead to a possible madness, a knowing of one's self that was too deep, too far-ranging?
Where's your head today? Why, it's playing with the burning giraffes, dancing with a turquoise lobster on the top of a grand piano, thank you, Mr Penguin.
Many were affected by this dream-knowledge, and many did not make the journey back from the twisted, inner world.
I can now reveal that it was my grandmother, Elisa Gretchen, who developed and introduced the disable dream switch to version 4.2 of the Mirrors system. Approximately 6 per cent of the world's population activated this facility, before the dangers of it were realized. Could Chromosoft, could my grandmother, really have so easily forgotten the feedback loop in the user/device interface? Her journal mentions little of the moment of invention, and even less of the subsequent events, except to note the 'burning sense of shame that welled up within me, a shame that persisted even after the corporation had taken control of all responsibility'. Her last recorded entry reads simply: 'I can do no more.'
Chromosoft Mirrors was taken off the market by government order, and all existing devices were recalled, and trashed. By then it was too late for the 6 per cent who had already succumbed to the censoring loop. Those darkened, veiled unfortunates, who would never dream again.
I need hardly add that my grandmother was one of those unfortunates.
CLOUDWALKERS
'No. Only take a minute. And get that mask on.'
'I was only renewing the flavour.'
'That's an order.' I had the spoiler gun out, checking the load and the flush on it. Some of the flots were still unholed enough to notice the noise, and their eyes were bleary and game-fried as they watched me handle the weapon.
'Muldoon, what's wrong with you these days?' Gumball had his scattermask
back down, his voice muffled by it. 'You want to lose a big score?'
'Get the van started, Gum. I'll be there.'
Finally I swung the spoiler over to the screen, took aim, fired. The game-screen seemed to melt for a second, turning pixelshima, and then came back online with a hard reboot. The prawns were dead adverts, and the game was back in play. The flotboy jerked into action, fingers jabbing automatic at the duck-and-dive buttons, too damned slow. Screen death. 'Shit! How did that happen?' His freshly thawed spectators laughed some, till they all noticed me standing there, mask down and the needle in my fist.
'Oh shit!' said the player. 'What did I get? Say, my friends, let's go catch some seafood.'
I went to jab them, but Gumball stepped in, caught my arm. 'We'll catch the flot in Beenie's later, give him the spoiler shot there. Come on now. We got a nasty. Big prizes!'
I came out of it then, this voodoo mood I was in. I felt like I'd come unfrozen myself, and that made me shudder. Got me thinking about Parker again. I pulled up my mask to get some air. It was safe, now the advert was dead. Most of the flots had gathered around the action, and some jets in there as well, slumming it. Flotsams were those that society had thrown aside; jetsams had left of their own free will. And all of them had eyes for the spoiler gun hanging from my belt. I could see them clocking up imaginary scores, dreaming their brains away with thoughts of getting their sweaties on such a piece. One of them in particular, the cheeky young jetgirl that had been telling me my job earlier, she had this look of complete 'shop' on her face, the illegal kind. Gumball had seen the look as well. 'So join the commcops, knucklebrain,' he spat at the kid, 'you want some good leisure.'
A minute later we were back on mission, riding the jeep through the shopping lanes, towards the up-chute. Gumball, jaws hard at it still, had switched to manual drive. I swear I never saw a man put so much into chewing gum, it was like an art with him, and never a word was said without it coming round the sides of a sticky lump of Gob Spectrum. He claimed it made his head slick, and he sure drove like it; crash-wired and genetic, with the siren singing hosanna and the usual darktime shoppers screaming wild to get out of our flight path. Meanwhile, I pulled the new job-stats out of the dash.
Incident: rogue campaign Location; Dollberg's, Unit 1572, Level 10Product: unknown Transmission Source: unknown
Range: unknown Public Reaction: 15 frozen, 9 at risk
Code:APXC
We were in the up-chute now, floating up past levels six and seven. Apex was copslang for the APXC coding: Approach with Extreme Caution. And there were too many unknowns in the printout, and all I could think about was