Server Extant

'Believe in yourself and your dreams can come true.’

-Hitler

In a large, air-conditioned warehouse, a grid of human bees murmured in their cubicle hive.

Click- beep! Said the phone. A new call was put through.

‘Hello, sir,’ began Gillian, one of the inhabitants, ’have you ever considered the improvement in your life that could come with a credit card company that ‘gets’ you? The Betterlife Satisfaction Card is.. well, sir I don’t know how we got your number. Numbers are put through to me my center.. I would very much like to never call you again, sir, but that’s not up to either of us.’

Click!

Gillian sighed. All around her, from a hundred identical compartments, a susurrus of hushed voices could be heard, the calling, clicking and beeping, bled into a carpet of soft, aural shag. Tele-marketing was one of the jobs AIs couldn’t do. They couldn’t pick up human emotional cues adroitly enough to sell unnecessary shit to members of the shareholder class. It was a real problem.

Click- beep! Gillian’s computer connected her to a new number.

‘Hello, madam,’ began Gillian, ’have you ever considered the improvement in your life that.. well, ‘cunt’ is a very uncharitable characterization- Yes, I probably will get cancer at some point. Thank you madam, have a great day.’

Click- beep!

’Hello, sir, have you ever considered the improvement in your life that could come with a credit card company that ‘gets’ you?’ Gillian began again. ‘Oh.. you’re going to kill yourself? Well.. don’t. I wouldn’t advise it. Why? Um, you’re asking the wrong person, but, okay, here’s an idea, if you’re going to do it anyway, why not buy a credit card first? Or several? Then you can max them out, have one big blast, before- Hello?’

Click!

Gillian thumped her desk. ’Fuck!’

‘Wha?’ said her workmate, Gale, from the next cubical.

‘I nearly had a sale there!’

‘Sucks, baby!’ called Gale. She was black and called other women ‘baby’.

Gillian sighed again. Fifteen more numbers, and fifteen more sighs, and she could have a ten minute toilet break. She stared up, at the white of the lighting grid above, an inhuman geometry, and took a deep breath.

Click-beep! Her computer put her through again.

’Hello, madam, have you ever considered- no? Well then, fuck you, whore!’ Gillian disconnected.

Click-beep!

’Sir, have you- fuck!’ Faggot!

Click-beep!

’Hello sir, have you ever considered the improvement in your life that could come with a credit card company that ‘gets’ you? You have? Well, The Betterlife Satisfaction Card is the solution that always works, in temporarily improving your financial condition- what? Yeah you can ask me something. Oh. Well, nothing special. Just jeans and a halter top.. blond.. define ‘big’, d. Double D or higher? Well, they’re definitely up there. As a matter of fact, my girlfriends at school were always jealous of me, they said my tits were far too large, given my athletic build.. Oh I couldn’t do that, sir, I’m at my place of employment!’

Gillian took a quick glance above her cubical wall, to see if her supervisor was lurking, then went back to her call.

‘Yes,’ she conceded, dropping her voice, ’I suppose it is very hot in here. Our cruel Chinese master does not spend money on air conditioning.. Yes, he’s a yellow devil, sir. Well..I’m alone in this cubicle, I don’t think anyone would notice. I suppose I could take off my bra.. Ooh, yes that is better.. Yes, I could.. I think I’d like to, with you, sir. I don’t know why I feel this way but you have a very sexy voice, has anybody ever told you that? Yes.. well, I suppose it depends on whether you are in the market for a credit card or not. If you swipe left on your slab, it will auto-sign you in to a two-year contract. It’s that simple! Maybe then I can activate my webcam, as you have requested.’

A confirmation message popped up on Gillian’s screen. ‘Yes!’ she said, and disconnected.

Click-beep! The computer put her though to a new number.

‘Sir, would you like to buy some meth amphetamine?’ asked Gillian. ’We are a company that sells hard drugs. Yes, it’s legal if you do it over the phone. It’s a loophole. I didn’t know either! A thousand dollars worth? A day? Well, let’s just punch up your credit rating, see if you’re good for it, ha ha!’

* * *

‘Good news!’ said Gillian, as she came in the front door of the little conapt apartment she shared with her boyfriend.

‘What?’ replied Kyle, a young man of about twenty five or so, who was sitting on the couch.

‘I got my department’s sales tally up thirty five hundred percent in a single day.’

‘That’s great baby!’

‘But then I got fired.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided I’m sick of working.’ Gillian went into the bedroom, but kept talking. Her voice floated back, from the rear of the apartment. ‘I think I’ll just inherit my parents money’ she said.

‘Uh-huh’ said Kyle.

Gillian returned. She’d ditched her work blouse and pulled on one of her faded shirts from her high school hockey team. Sans bra, Kyle noticed. For some reason, that old, too-tight shirt of hers always turned him on. He hoped it wasn’t for the obvious reason.

‘Sit by the pool?’ said Gillian, ‘Definitely. Develop a little touch of upper-middle-class alcoholism? Maybe. But no more job.’

’You’re not planning on killing your parents, are you?’asked Kyle.

‘No.’

‘But if you were, you’d tell me, right? Because I’m not a hundred percent sure I’d go along.’

‘No, because I don’t have to kill them, smart-ass. Their trust will pay me a hundred million dollars for the first baby, then fifty million for each one after that. I plan to have seven.’

‘Your parents are paying you for grandkids?’

‘I guess bribing chicks is the only thing that makes them have babies, these days,’ said Gillian, ‘which is sad, when you think about it.’

‘Thinking about stuff does make you sad’ agreed Kyle, vaguely.

‘Are you wasted?’ asked Gillian.

‘No! I had one joint, like.. hours ago.’

‘Well, do you want to do it?’

’Do what?

‘Have a baby.’

’What?

‘Have a baby.’

‘What?’

‘Have a baby,’ said Gillian, starting to sound annoyed.

‘Oh!’

Kyle considered. A hundred million dollars didn’t go as far as it used to but it was still okay money.

‘It’ll be great’ said Gillian. ‘I’ll have some kids, you’ll get a plumber’s license, we’ll have money to buy a house, sort of. It all works out.’

‘Wait, I’m still getting a job?’ asked Kyle, ‘Even though you’re getting babypay?’

’Of course! If I had you around the house all day I’d murder you. You want to be murdered, Kyle?’

‘No?’

‘A job’ll be good for you. You need structure.’

‘I do like structure..’ said Kyle.

‘We can start right now, if you want.’ Gillian pulled her shirt over her head, revealing the twin prides of the Chesapeake High Hockey team.

‘Alright’ said Kyle. ‘Oh hey! Let’s do it in front of the cam, like we talked about.’

‘We didn’t talk about it. You suggested it and I said no.’

‘Come on!’

‘No! Unless we wear ski masks or something.’

‘Are you shy? Don’t be baby, you’re hot.’

‘I don’t want a video of me getting plowed on the internet!’

‘Is it because you put on a couple of pounds?’

‘Fuck you, Kyle! You got a dad bod and you’re not even a dad.’

‘That’s my point! I’m not hung up. Come on, you said this could be fun for me.’

‘No I didn’t.’

‘Fine, you want a ski mask? I got a ski mask.’ Kyle got off the couch, walked out of the living room and disappeared.

‘Where did you get a ski mask?’ shouted Gillian, pulling down her jeans.

‘Skiing’ floated the reply from the bedroom. That made sense.

Kyle re-entered and handed her a sock-head balaclava, black, gap-eyed and vacuous, a woollen minstrel. ‘There’ he said, tossing it to her, ‘you can be the sexy terrorist.’

‘Kyle-’

‘Come on! Put it on and take of your underwear.’ Kyle went to the TV stand and propped his laptop cam, framing the couch and his reluctant female.

‘On the condition that you go down on me first’ said Gillian, pulling on the mask and sitting on the coach. ‘Properly!’

‘Um..’ said Kyle, ‘I mean, great!’ he amended hastily, catching her look, ‘Deal!’

He opened a window to a site called ‘Pervis’, typed in his logon and password and added them to a public feed. A little red light activated in the webcam’s eye as Gillian adjusted her balaclava. With little preamble, Kyle knelt before her, pulling her panties off and discarding them. Gillian was now nude, save for her mask. He pulled apart her knees and went to work. On the interface screen, Gillian saw a miniature Kyle bow before her wide-legged figure, like an overly-familiar supplicant before a straw-haired Saxon queen. After the words ’People watching now:’, in small letters below the window, was the number six. Six people, utter strangers, were already watching her get rubbed up by her boyfriend’s tongue, while wearing a ski-mask. Her legs looked good, she thought. Runner’s legs. The black graphic of the balaclava, blocking everything but her mouth and eyes, made her seem, somehow, more elementally nude than she’d have been without it. She felt a strange sense of power, of sexual unaccountability.

Gillian bit her lip. The pleasure was now jumping up her body like an electric eel, gently wiggling along her spine. She saw herself arch involuntarily, her breasts high, the ribs lightly pressed out on her lean chest. She noticed that the viewer count had risen to thirty five. Who are they? They could be anyone. Slut thought Gillian, in the pleasurably unpoliced freedom of her own mind. With her eyes upon it, the little woman-figure in the window twisted itself languorously upon the kneeling man’s face, one hand behind his head, the alternate leg lifted over his shoulder to rest on the small of his back.

On the carpet beside him, Kyle’s slab chirped once.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ demanded Gillian, as Kyle broke off, instinctively, to reach for it.

The slab was about seven inches by three, its surface was obsidian black. Its surface, on all sides, was touch screen, rounded only slightly at the edges, as a concession to human comfort. It had long ago replaced the iphone, the australopithecus of smartphone kind, and dispatched all other pretenders. It’s seamless surface presented no button, jack or portal, no cam or microphone mesh was visible. No password was needed. The slab would read its owner’s fingerprints as it was picked up, and come alive. To charge it, one placed it on a charging plate. If uncalled it sat, dark but watchful, always listening, always on, waiting to be called, for it well knew its master’s voice. Would you like to sync with this device? It would ask, if a pair of earbuds were dropped upon its surface, drawing a glowing ring about the objects. A verbal assent and music would flow through them. The slab was the servant of mankind, black mirror, portal to the bodiless world. ‘I wonder what good old Donny McManners is up to these days?’ one might say, idly, about a high school friend unseen in twenty years, and the slab would hear and go hunting, parsing through data bases and social media, cross-referencing the information with what it knew of its owner, his childhood, education and history, and unless Good Old Donny M was living in a shack, off the grid, he would be found, his own devices identified and a digital handshake prepared, in case the next command was, ’slab, find ‘Donald McManners’. It was technology in its purest form, indistinguishable from magic. Nobody knew what the slab was up to, deep in its black little heart. It probably tracked everything its owner did and everyone its owner knew. Every movement, purchase, conversation, every sexual encounter and online indiscretion. It was tireless, anticipating all eventualities. It kept an eye on expenditures and even caloric intake, arranged purchases and payments, absorbing and storing every piece of data pertaining to its owner, whether asked to or not, communing through the air, finding local devices and engaging them in secret conversations. It knew its master’s sense of humor, religion, taste in porn, it knew more about its owner’s finances than his accountant, more about his liabilities than his lawyer. But no one cared anymore. When everyone was surveilled, the individual was indistinguishable from the herd. Everybody had a slab.

‘What?’ said Kyle. ‘I just need to check-’

‘I swear, if you stop, in the middle of sex, to check your fucking messages, you are going to die. You are going to die and go to the hell of no-sex-ever-again.’ said Gillian.

‘Alright, okay!’ said Kyle.

He had time to notice the caller name, though, MORGHAIN. The fuck is she calling me? God, he was so high right now. Kyle swiped off the call and dropped the slab back onto his crumpled jeans. He resumed his task. Gillian began to moan and lean into him.

On the Pervis window, the viewer count was three hundred and fifteen, climbing steadily.