Fiction: Ted Hayden

 

altUr

Ted Hayden

 

“Tell me how you socialize with your friends.”

First, I make bait. Grab Jif out the fridge, crush half a Fentanyl, mix it up. Smear the peanut butter on the trap’s trigger, then put it in the middle of the yard. If it’s quiet out, a squirrel will get caught quick.

Pigeons are fun because they fly, but they’re hard to hack. Cats are impossible to trap. So I do squirrels.

The best one I ever got had half a tail and a missing eye. The guy must have scrapped with raccoons in alleys and possums under porches. I liked his scars, how his crooked front foot limped. Of course, all that hard living made him tough to control. Even though I X-Acto’d him as careful as I could, slipped the microchip right between his skull and spine, screwed the camera tight between his ears, and played him carefully, always held the controller with both hands, never looked away from the TV, I only had him for a week before he hit cement.

It happened when I spotted my man Clyde’s pigeon in a tree. I knew it was his because it wore a blue Dodgers scarf knotted around its neck. I tried to get my squirrel to climb to the bird, but his sawed-off tail and busted leg made him hard to balance. He got halfway up, then slipped and hit the sidewalk face-first.

“When was the last time you saw Clyde?”

You mean the guy himself, not the pigeon he flies?

It was when we got bolted. After our brawl at Hola Donut.

The police locked up the whole crew. Me, Clyde, Rob, and Mickey. Threw us in a cell for three days. We thought it was cool that at least they kept us together, but that’s because we didn’t know that their recorders were going the whole time. When they hauled us to court, the prosecutor played his tapes. He said they proved that our brawl established a pattern of gang-related activity.

So not only did they get the conviction for misdemeanor battery, but the judge slammed us with a gang injunction, too. Next thing we knew, the guards were taking us to get bolted.

Rob went on the table first. They took off his cuffs, put him down, tightened leather straps over his forehead and around his ankles. Then pop, he flinched, they unstrapped him, and he stood back up. The whole thing took maybe half a minute.

I went next. Same deal, except when I got up, Rob was gone. I watched them strap Clyde in, saw him there on that table, then as soon as I heard the machine’s pop, that was it. He disappeared. After Mickey got bolted, it looked like the only people in the room were the prison guards.

They laughed when I bumped into a hazy space on my way to the door. I don’t know who was there, he felt big, so Clyde maybe? But it looked funny to the guards, me and another guy, both of us with our eyes wide open, walking straight into each other. I guess it was kind of funny, right? Looney Tunes, Mr. Magoo, silly.

But it’s also hard to get used to. For me, I mean. Knowing everyone can see my friends, but to my eyes, they’re gone. Like dead almost.

“And that’s why you want your altUr.”

Yeah, but more than that, too. That’s why I want the personalized package, not just the robot version. Because grandma’s altUr … What’s the name for it again?

“For her, you bought the AI Data Collection Tier.”

That tier doesn’t work right. Back in the day, when I was a kid hanging with Clyde and the rest of them, she wasn’t anything like the lady who’s on her altUr.

“How so?”

Grandma hated Clyde so much I wasn’t even allowed to have him in the house. He came over after school one time, while she was still at work. We were eleven, twelve. It was back when we rode skateboards everywhere. He brought his board inside, kicked it around the kitchen while I sat on the counter eating Chex Mix.

Grandma came home when I was filling up a glass of water. I didn’t hear her until she stomped her extra wide orthotics right behind me, grabbed my shirt collar, and pulled back so hard I dropped my cup. It shattered everywhere. Of course Clyde ran out before she even said anything. And of course she blamed me for breaking the glass.

I’m saying she was mean. Right?

But the altUr you made for her, she’s dancing to music that high school kids listen to, music that the grandma I know would’ve slapped me for playing. I look at her updates and she posts jokes with words I couldn’t say anywhere near her, not when I was a kid, not ever. Shit, the pictures the altUr makes of her? She wears dresses so small I can’t look at them without seeing more of my grandma than a grandson ever should.

“The AI Data Collection Tier automatically gathers information from her social media accounts, and according to what I see here … hers were inactive for the last half-century of her life.”

Yeah, by the time I came around she didn’t fuck with computers at all. Even her phone. She only used it to NSA me. Had it hooked up to all my gear until I got old enough to block her parental supervision apps.

The grandma I knew was a grandma through and through. So when I downloaded her altUr onto my phone, I wanted it to show me what she might be doing today. Tweets about going to church with friends. Instagram posts of her walking up the driveway, carrying so many groceries you’d think she’d be suffocating under all those plastic bags. To see that with the afternoon’s weather in the sky, next to the neighbor’s house that wasn’t even built when she died, that would be nice.

But that’s not what her altUr gave me, though. Instead I see some ancient-ass seventeen-year-old and how she’d be posting cryptic shit about high school boys. How she’d be taking selfies where she looks like a puppy in a push-up bra. I didn’t know that girl and that’s cool, I didn’t have to know her.

You’re still going to hook me up, right? Because I can’t pay for this. I’m broke.

“Yes. Your proposition excited our marketing department.”

Yeah?

“They believe that your experience is very similar to the experience of our current target market, the bereaved. With the recent expansion of the Gang Injunction Act, the data gathered from this interview could be very valuable in helping us open up a valuable and growing new demographic of injunctees.”

And my tier will be better than grandma’s?

“The Personal Deluxe Tier analyzes a much wider swath of data.”

That’s why you need this talk.

“Exactly. Personal Deluxe meticulously recreates your unique individual self. Hearing about your day-to-day life helps us build a powerfully authentic online social profile. We’ll give you a top-shelf altUr and you’ll help our marketing department plan their injunctee expansion strategy.”

What more do you need to know?

“Tell me about your morning.”

I heard music in the street and woke up. Way later than grandma would have ever let me sleep in. Stuck two fingers through the blinds and saw Clyde’s Charger across the way, front door open, windows rolled down, blasting Power 106. I’ve drunk about a thousand Modelos, smoked ten thousand spliffs in that driveway. The habit’s hard to break. I rolled over, took a Swisher out the dresser, got out of bed, crossed the street. Back before the injunction, I would have chilled on Clyde’s hood while I smoked, but because he can’t see me now, I figure he might pull the car further in and run me right over. So I leaned against the back door, where I thought it’d be safer, and lit up. 106 had classics on. YG playing and I still knew every word. Old school shit.

Clyde used to sit behind the wheel, seat down, one foot out on the pavement. The car was in the same position, so I figured that’s probably what was up. I saw a kinda fuzzy, kinda blanked out spot on the lawn. A puff of smoke floated over it. Mickey or Rob must have been there.

A neighbor I used to date walked by. I waved hello and she rolled her eyes, ignored me and said hi to whoever was chilling on the grass.

The weather was right. Winter sun hanging low. No clouds. No birds. Blue.

Even when me and my boys could talk, it’s not like we ever said anything so deep. We shot the shit, you know? Spoke a lot of nothing. And now we say nothing for real.

Clyde turned the radio up loud and it was still too quiet.

“After that?”

Went back inside, grabbed the control for a new squirrel I hooked up, ran him around the neighborhood until I found a cat wearing Rob’s blue leash. It was a nasty calico, half an ear missing. Looked like Rob wrestled the thing out of a dumpster.

“What did you do when your animals found each other?”

Not much. Hang.

“What’s the appeal?”

I don’t know. It’s cool to walk around. We went to the Hola Donut parking lot. Watched Clyde’s pigeon dive-bomb people getting out their cars. They dropped wallets, shadow boxed the sky, tripped over curbs. It was funny enough.

Everybody stayed out until the streetlights turned on. Clyde’s Pigeon flew up over the store. Rob’s Calico sprinted back home. I stayed out by myself for a while, but what’s the point? I’m just a squirrel, halfway cuter than a street rat, avoiding car wheels and kids who think they can catch me. I guess that’s kind of what’s good about the thing. With those avatars, we can see each other. Rob can be on his couch, looking at his screen, seeing me through his cat’s eyes.

“Still, he doesn’t really see you. You see his cat. He sees your squirrel.”

Yeah. We’re behind those animals, though. And that’s pretty close. Or at least as close as it’s ever going to get.

It’s like you say in the ads, “Move on without letting go.” I couldn’t say goodbye to grandma, even though she was on my ass when she was alive. I can’t say goodbye to Clyde and them, even though they’re as good as ghosts. If I know that they’re looking in that altUr and seeing who I would have been, then maybe I’ll get strength from that.

I’ve never been on my own before, you know? And I don’t think I can do it if we’re not together somehow.

You’re not going to share this interview, are you? Tell the government?

“No. It’s private.”

Because when we get together with our animal avatars, it’s not exactly … legal. Shit, I don’t even think the altUr will be legal. With the injunction, we’re not supposed to be around each other. No way, no how.

“We’ve talked to our lawyers. You’re right that the animals violate your injunction, because you could theoretically find ways to communicate using those squirrels and pigeons. Your altUr, however, will be a simulated version of yourself. It’s shaped by your personality but totally disconnected from your control. It might be very much like you, but it’s not you.”

Cool. That’s better than what I’ve been.

 

Ted HaydenTed Hayden’s stories have appeared in publications including “Nature” and “Angry Old Man Magazine.” Read more at tedhaydenstories.com.