Wish Fulfillment

1. Going Under

Throughout his life Brick Derringer had always felt like he’d missed the first ten minutes of the movie and everyone else had gotten there on time.

He felt like the off-suit card that spoils a Royal Flush.

He felt like a crumb in the peanut butter.

He couldn’t say why he felt this way specifically. Maybe it was something slightly off with the world. Or maybe it really was just him. His scrambled brains. No, the crazy was something else. Certainly he never fit in for long anywhere he’d staked a claim. But he suspected it was more than mental illness. Much more. He suspected it was everything and everyone else just refused to admit it.

Crumbs. They’d missed the opening scene too.

Looking around, nobody seemed happy. Everyone was playing a part. Going through the motions. And he did it as well. But it seemed like it didn’t really bother anyone else quite like it did Brick.

Everyone else just tolerated it. But how does anyone tolerate this mind blasting existence? This cold uncaring planet in the middle of blackness with the wolves always at the door?

It’s like how you know something is going to happen even before it does. Tragedy is always that way. Like that day coming home from school.

In stories the weather always tells you when the shit is about to hit the fan. The sky grows dark and thunder cracks and suddenly you have to start worrying which character is going to die.

Real life is never like that. Unless you get swept away in a flood or something. But those are statistics. That stuff never happens to real people. No, normally it’s a sunny day and the birds are singing and you get an alert on your phone that some little girl in the next town over just got abducted. Or it’s your turn and you run over a pothole on a curve and blow out your new fucking tire.

Or worse.

It’s always something. Life is a series of horrifying events with brief moments of peace and pleasure sprinkled between.

But hey. You only get this one ride, so enjoy it while it lasts.

“Mr. Derringer?”

A cute little Asian girl stood in the doorway of the waiting room looking at her clipboard. As Brick rose from the comfortably cushioned chair, he noticed the woman’s slim figure barely caused a wrinkle in her blue scrubs. He followed the young lady down the hall, catching a whiff of a flowery perfume as she moved quickly enough to scent the breeze in her wake.

He thought of how much money she must make and how it was probably double any hourly wage he’d ever garnered.

Towering over her as he passed the figureless girl, Brick imagined running his hands all over her body. Imagined the rough starched cloth under his abrasive fingers and her supple young skin beneath. So what if she wasn’t built? Like he would say no after all these years. He dreamed of some alternate universe where he would have the balls to go through with the predatory impulse.

“Yeah, I’m even crazier there,” he mused silently.

Upon entering the frigid procedure room, the sharp scent of ozone stung Brick’s nose. Like a bump. He felt a swift jab of regret, knowing those days were over now.

So this was it. He was really gonna do it. No backing out now. Not that he had a choice. Whether the rumors were true or not, starvation was no better. No use even pretending, he thought, as he changed into the hospital gown and lay on the operating table.

“This is supposed to be painless, right?”

The room was bustling with white coats now and not one seemed to be particularly interested in allaying his fears.

Finally, a technician paused on her way past and squeezed his arm reassuringly, then hustled onward. Several more started attaching electrodes to his shaved head and one bastard gleefully shoved a long metal probe into his nasal cavity and left it there.

“Well, don’t worry about me. I didn’t need this nonsense anyway. My mind is like a steel trapeze. I’ll take Aeternis’ money just same, though. Fire up Old Sparky… Do.. your… wuuuursshhuh.”

Brick fell silent with eyes wide open.

“God, I hate the chatty ones. I wish they’d just take their medicine and leave us be.”

“I heard him ranting at intake. This actually wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

The techs made a show of calibrating their individual machines, but none of them really understood how this new artificial intelligence driven technology “fixed” mental illness. They just knew how to install the data jacks and “press play”.

The truth is, nobody knew. These AI tools are not programmed like computers. They’re just given vast amounts of data and somehow they just figure it out. A sort of intelligence, a consciousness emerges. And by this time, all code is written by AI, to the point that all these fantastic machines were created by AI themselves.

So, no human knows how it works, anyway.

All Brick knew was after this one procedure he would be homeless no more. Rags to riches! Aeternis would provide him with a cush job for which he would emerge pre-trained and ready to go. A fat salary and a paid apartment at the Homestead. For life! Or if he didn’t like it, his contract would be up for renewal after five years.

Marcus was crazy not to take this deal. Maybe when he got set up, Brick could invite him over to the new place.