I had lived in an extended motel on the sixteenth floor, and rode to the bottom to catch a ride on a thorium car. As my escort drove me off, I saw a young woman, dressed as Mary Poppins, living in the bottom most floor by the air lot. She carried an LCD broom stick, and a pair of smart glasses, and seemed to always frown. Rumored had it she worked the night shift, and her clients had a fetish for nineteenth century care givers. Inside the car, I raised up the shield separating me from the driver.
Then turned on my android, and began listening to his conversation with his employer. In all my years taking odd jobs, this was by far the strangest of intelligence assignments. Resolving to never work for the government, I sold out my services to the highest paying slum lord. "What are the specs on the current wifi" said the driver, chatting inside of his glasses. The monotone voice told him that the nearest wifi was at a local fast food restaurant, ran by a mom and pops. Honestly, I didn't know there was still such establishments, as chain restaurants have long been in vogue since the eighties, and becoming steadily the main source of food in urban districts, with expansive trickle down in the suburbs.
We decided to stop, and the driver phoned the local landlord to tell them what was going on. Police quickly came and went, and then evicted the couple. It was already illegal to not be licensed by chain restaurants, it was only a matter of time. But still, I had always wanted to grab a burrito there.
So I spend the next week at home.
I've never been much for concerts, being largely sensitive to noise. The only exception is dub step, listening alone in my bedroom. Some artists enjoy the public appreciation, while others seek self-expression in the darkness of night. Alone, I spend most of my time inside of my thoughts. It was my birthday yesterday, and to this day they leave me with feelings of dread. Sleeping on the floor, dreaming of sand on the shore. Dreaming of elf girls one may adore. It easy to worship a god that floods out your rival people's of faith, but when spends time with the faithless, one of the same sect, it is difficult to imagine a worse punishment than forcing them to switch bodies for a day, living the rest of their life inside of my own particular hormones.
I spend nights, listening to nothing but dial tones in audacity, a free and open source noise generation and audio editing software, that had been around since two thousand and eight, though the memory gets somewhat blurry, as what I remember are school events, and not so much the particulars of living at home. If my words were translated to dial tones, I wonder what songs would be written, dreaming of vampires and guillotined murderesses, the body cooling off in a faint coldness. It's difficult to write a new adult story, when one became complete at sixteen and two eight's. One spends most of their time reclining, doing nothing but rhythmic masturbation to different kinds of mutilation and cosmetic automation.
Only on Diaspora do people wish me a happy birthday, but only at times when I'm most thirsty for the time away from the web. At such times I sleep, dreaming of things that could happen, but simply have not. And yet if one believed in a double life of night and day, then one could wish for Charlotte Corday on their birthday. With French fellatio as their celebratory gift. There are places to share ones stories, but if it contains lust for the flesh, then perhaps only at erotica conventions. Yet one cannot go, for want of bread.
Cardboard VR was like watching other people's dreams pressing the fast forward button. A movie one cannot rewind to watch again. One can play space battles, though I prefer the isolation of the maze, where one is free to let their mind wander into their own abyss.
If your reading this eighty years from now, consider this an epitaph of a hacktivist, Chattanooga style. Sleeping on the floor, I write a final note.
Biometric Meta-data, data about biological and biographical information. It transcends the individuals ability to change their digital and physical fingerprints. Collected from multiple samples, various reports about ones name, background, and other identifying characteristics are collected when one is least suspecting. Locked into a drop box database, guarded by the deepest of government funded projects, such information is changed at a moments notice. In old spy movies, people would change the color of their eyebrows and hair so as to look like a different person on first glance.
Over time, the information can become extremely identifying. For example, even if one changed all their physical characteristics, the fact that you have the same old fear of clowns of spiders can seem very unusual, given a certain ratio of phobias in specific demographic areas of the American Union. One must have as much of an ability to act out certain roles and parts beyond the scope of gathering info tech. Often such individuals with dress up like political activists in different Libertarian circles, pretending to have the same interests. And do the some protesters having questionable motives themselves, infiltrators can get by without a trace. I never hold onto any given means of employment for very long, largely out of necessity, but often my parents when they were around interpreted it as having changing interests.
I wanted to be a skateboarder growing up into the sixth grade, but after the seventh I had developed more of an interest in JRPG games. Yet not I find that one intimate interest also withering away now that I know the effort that goes into making such applications. Now I collect photographs of shoe prints, samples of hair, and other biological information, selling it to highest bidder in the twelve story hotel.
After we kidnapped the couple running the illegal restaurant, I was given a vacation reward, and spent more time on my own, wondering what I will do on the days when I'm not on call.
I rode the elevator down to the first floor, sporting my cardboard VR headset, listening to conversation in my spare time, while playing Space Battler games. I didn't think I'd ever work for an intelligence service, but as they say, money corrupts. It's an old cliche, but holds just as true these days as ever. But I'm beginning to wonder if this is the job for me.
Or if I'm better of doing something...
Else..