Prologue 3, Educational Dreams
Alexander is dreaming again, dreaming of numbers and concepts, and of the knowledge and techniques that will be his life and career. Somewhere deep within his psyche, in the partially cybernetic mental map—the mind palace—that he was taught to create in his youth, he knows that this experience is not a natural dream; he knows that there have been very few times in his life where he has had a truly natural sleep or an unguided dream.
Unlike some people, he does not regret the lack of natural sleep, nor does he worry about what could be done to him by unscrupulous corporations. He understands that pursuing guided educational dreams is the necessary cost for success; worrying about potential outcomes and missed opportunities is insignificant in comparison.
Alexander above all else wants to succeed; he wants to become one of the world's foremost geneticists. He wants to create cheap and permanent cures for the likes of dementia so that others don’t have to suffer like his family has.
He doesn’t want any more families to have to make the choice between expensive treatments or food. At the back of his partially sleeping mind, passed the sleep lessons, in the place that is still fully his, Alexander remembers the bitter arguments that those choices create. So, during his sleep, as he has done for years, Alexander dreams of biology, of genetics, of gene treatments and of augments, all in the hope that he will succeed.
Alexander’s long experience enables him to sense the moment just before the last of the night’s lessons concludes, so he braces himself for the day ahead.
Beep Beep Beep
Alexander allows himself to blink as the dreams fade, their lessons done for now. He will dream them again, as he always does.
As is the case for every morning since he started living alone, the first thing he notices is the lack of heat. Outdoors, beyond the walls of the tower, there will already be a blistering heat, and even in his wider apartment it will be pleasantly warm. However, in his scholarship-funded full-dive pod, the temperature is perfect, and he has not perspired at all throughout the night.
As he wakes, Alexander can’t help but marvel at how sophisticated his full-dive pod is; it is, he knows, the most obvious of the benefits that being a scholarship student at Harvard brings.
In the past, back when he was still in secondary education, a night in his old full-dive pod would have left him uncomfortable in several ways, and he would have had to use it intermittently lest he damage his body and mind.
But with this newer model, he feels no warmth at the back of his neck, for the high-tech bed he has been lying on has improved cooling. No aching in his brain from a lack of proper sleep.
He does not feel even a slight tingle in his body, which would usually indicate that the overnight muscle stimulation systems designed to keep a full-diver physically fit are working. The combination of the pod being a superior newer model compared to his older one and his nearly complete gene treatments leaves him feeling nothing but well rested.
He blinks again and briefly looks around; as usual, he sees what he has always seen when he wakes. The mattress and covering surround Alexander on all sides, restricting his movements in the softest and safest prison imaginable.
He looks up at the see through plastic bubble that keeps the previously sterile air of the pod in total isolation, an almost invisible rubber seal cutting the bubble right down the middle.
Beyond that, he sees his currently dark but small apartment, not yet activated for the morning's activities.
Alexander turns his attention toward his cyberdeck and, through it, his connection to the full-dive pod's interface.
Occupant Status:
Nominal
Lesson Plan Status:
Complete
Current Time:
0700
A virtual wireframe of his body hovers above him, projected into his mind's eye. As has become his habit, he looks over the augmented reality readouts; the status of the night's lessons draws his attention briefly.
“It should have taken another sleep session to finish.” Alexander proudly notes to himself, “I’m nearly half a year ahead of the university lesson plan.” He breathes out in relief; he had been worried that he was rushing things, but the neural plasticity treatments he has been taking were working even better than expected. A good thing, considering he would be heading to the gene clinic today for the last set of treatments.
He briefly checks his physical status but sees nothing amiss; the fat he had accumulated over the years of physical inactivity has been completely worked away by his new pod's night exercise routines. Satisfied that everything is well, he orders the pod to open.
With an almost silent whine, the pod begins to move. Alexander concedes a small wince as the pod physically disconnects itself from his cyberdeck, a slight but temporary pain in his nerves as his consciousness shrinks from the size of a single bed to a more regular human size, the augmented reality around him shifting to account for the vastly decreased processing power of his lone cyberdeck.
He watches as the mattress walls recede, flattening against the surface that he has been lying on. The light cover retracts itself into the pod, where Alexander knows it will be thoroughly cleaned over the next hour.
The usual hiss of air resounds through the pod as it releases the environmental seals, the plastic covering folds away, and Alexander tastes the cool, formerly sterile air as it mixes with that of his slightly warmer and far less sterile apartment.
Alexander finds himself stretching as he stands up, still not entirely used to the sleeping position enforced by the full-dive pod walls. Simultaneously, he mentally reaches out to his apartment's network, re-establishing his connection.
With his connection re-established, the network informs him of the status of his apartment, and he briefly notes that his pod has an incoming update that he will need to deal with. He mentally glances at the virtual representation of his windows and orders the window blinds to open, allowing the not entirely natural light of the outdoors to filter in.
He looks out of the window, seeing the now familiar skyline of Birmingham city. Even though the sun had started to rise hours ago, he can still barely see its rays peeking through the city landscape.
Despite residing on the fiftieth floor of his building, skyscrapers and megatowers still dominate his view. Worse in his opinion is that each of them is lit up, not by the sun but by a nearly unlimited number of neon advertisements that practically litter the streets.
He wearily shakes his head, aware that virtual advertisements would bombard him if he were at street level.
“And it can only be made worse by allowing the tower network to advertise on the damned windows… I really don’t get people sometimes.” he notes in confusion.
With his connection to the apartment network still at the forefront of his mind, he orders the kitchenette to begin preparing his breakfast and takes three rapid steps towards the small washing closet, ordering the door to open moments before he reaches it.
The door to the washing closet opens; simultaneously, the lights snap on and the fans within start to whirl. As soon as he steps passed the room's threshold, he orders the door to close and immediately starts to remove his still new cyber-suit.
As he looks over his cyber-suit, he cannot help but reflect on how many roles the form fitting outfit fills. Much like his older suit, it regulates his body heat, although his older suit was far inferior in even that regard.
Of course, that is where the similarities end; his older suit was designed solely to prevent his cyberware from overheating while he dived into the virtual world, and with the practically ancient model he had inherited, there was barely any consideration to comfort.
This newer suit, though, was truly a marvel.
The outer layer is a sandwich of fabrics and gels, giving the suit a bizarre amount of resistance: tears, stabs, heat, electricity, and even bullets. Alexander knows that most of them are practically marketing gimmicks; after all, he has no intention of being shot or stabbed.
He really could have bought a perfectly functional and yet cheaper suit without any of them, but he had decided that if he was going to be spending thousands of credits on a suit, he may as well go for the premium.
“And seeing as it’s the Harvard suit line, I got a discount.” he said to himself with a wry smile, fully aware that it was a means of getting back some of his scholarship grant money.
Countless hair-thin wires extend from his outermost extremities to his neck, hidden beneath those outer layers. The system supplies power not only to the pads that enable electronic exercise for the wearer during full-diving but also to all the sensors that monitor the wearer’s long-term health and stability.
Alexander had even read about cyber-suits that have integrated circuitry, capable of significantly boosting the speed and power of a wearer's cybernetics.
And beneath it all is the wonderfully comfortable synth-silk that he has been enjoying these last months. According to what he had read about it, modern synthetic silk, like what he was wearing, was more comfortable than what silkworms could naturally create.
“Which is why the super-rich had silkworms enhanced.” Alexander scoffed before adding doubtfully, “Or so they claimed.”
All of this is why he is not remotely surprised that these modern cyber-suits have become ever-present throughout society. If someone can afford to buy a cyber suit, they will do so, just like with cyberware and augments. Comfortable, practical and form-fitting enough that they can be worn as underclothes, it’s practically guaranteed that someone is wearing a model of a cyber-suit.
“Well, except for the bio-purist crazies.” he concedes.
Alexander finishes removing the suit and places it in the sonic cleaner. The primary reason he has not gotten a cyber-enhancement model, aside from cost, is that cleaning requirements are far more stringent. A regular sonic cleaner would damage the delicate circuitry that enables the superior cybernetic integration; this way he can come back in thirty minutes to an undamaged and yet clean suit.
“Having one of those suits means either going without for a full day or having multiple suits. Neither is acceptable.” Alexander mutters, trying to comfort himself.
As he orders the sonic cleaner to activate, he reaches towards the overhead cupboard and removes his cyberdeck's water protector, along with his remaining toiletries. Realistically this step is unnecessary, as the cyberdeck is rated waterproof, but Alexander has spent far too long credit-pinching to risk damaging any of his cyberware, especially considering his current deck is rather old at this point.
“Of course, I could have rented a cheaper apartment that had a sonic shower instead of a water one.” Alexander remarks to himself with a wry smirk. “But after a lifetime of sonic showers, I can do with some luxuries.”
Alexander attaches the water protector to his cyberdeck, feeling it seal tight against his skin, and enters his much too expensive shower cubicle.
He mentally orders the shower door to seal shut and has a quick glance at the numerous shower nozzles, as well as the primary shower above him. Alexander moves under the shower and orders it to activate.
Immediately, high-pressure water begins to attack him from all sides. At first, the water is at his current body temperature, but it quickly ramps up to where he prefers. Above him, the built-in fans of the showers start working harder to ensure that the steam does not escape the cubicle.
As he washed himself, Alexander monitored his apartment's network. “Still no messages from Mother.” he notes to himself in disappointment.
As a doctor she had been working herself to the bone for years, and throughout it all, she had worked irregular hours, so bogged down in work that she didn’t have the spare concentration to use her cyberdeck for a message or call.
His mother was the primary reason Alexander had got into biology in the first place; it was her medical contacts that had allowed even the limited treatments for his grandmother.
“But it was all too little and too late.” Alexander reflects sadly.
Briefly, he remembers the quiet moments where his mother was at home with him, trying to guide him through his education, but it is those quiet moments that highlighted just how overworked his mother truly was.
Alexander had no intention of ever working in a hospital.
Determined to distract himself from his disappointment, Alexander begins to look at the update for his full-dive pod.
[Security Update, Patch v12.62.00]
“A security update?” Alexander muttered to himself, “Who got caught out this time?”
Alexander skimmed over the patch notes, secure in the knowledge that he’d be combing through every line of code before he allowed it to touch his pod.
“Let’s see… closed vulnerability. The last emergency patches were properly worked on. Heh, they removed the legacy eight times' time compression. Was someone foolish enough to use that setting? They must have literally boiled their brain.”
Shortly after he had finished his preliminary read of the patch notes, the shower began to end. The pressure and heat slowly dropped and eventually stopped; immediately the drying setting started, and Alexander was bombarded by air from all directions.
As the mild ringing in his ears stopped, Alexander did one final check that he was dry and ordered the door to open. He carefully removed the cyberdeck protector and placed it back into the cupboard along with his now used toiletries.
Before re-entering the main apartment, he checks the network to assure himself that his windows were set to be opaque—he had only flashed the neighbouring apartment once and intended never to do so again. With that last confirmation of his privacy, he stepped back into his room, just as the kitchenette delivered his breakfast to the table.
He reached up to the door, grabbing at his dressing gown and promptly donning it before wandering over to the kitchenette table. Alexander took a moment to appreciate how compact this setup truly was.
So long as he kept his shelves properly organised and registered with the kitchenette’s subnetwork, the entire cooking process was automated. The same magnets that let the hob cook could also move shelves to and from the cupboards and fridge/freezer.
He knows that several built-in robotic manipulators handle fine manipulation.
"Honestly," he chuckles to himself, “compared to back home this automated kitchenette might as well be magic.” He finishes, watching as his breakfast floats from the hob to the table, the capability of the magnetic fields built into the kitchenette on full display.
Alexander sits at the table and starts to eat his full English breakfast, his mind already back to the pod's update and preparing the necessary tools to debug every line of code within it.