Beth Dylan looked around the vehicle as it sped along the freeway, seeking any possible leak in the warm bubble she traveled in. Her vehicle wasn’t so luxurious as to include a full bed or any kind of grooming station, but it gave her enough room to recline and daydream on commutes.
She tried unfocusing her eyes, hoping to catch another snowflake in the corner of her vision. However, it seemed the autocar was entirely enclosed.
Perhaps I imagined it, she thought. Just a little fuzzy in the vision; a protein on the cornea.
Without another thought, she relaxed again. She let the sounds of the news broadcast ebb in from her cerebral computer and float around in her gray matter without putting any effort into translating them. Her eyes pointed up through the translucent roof of the vehicle, gazing out at the clouds in the sky as she zipped by underneath them.
The commute to work shouldn’t take this long, depending on where she was needed in the city, but she preferred to go out this far for the scenery. It gave her a good sense of calm before she started going over a crime scene or interviewing a witness.
“The Picard attack is, unfortunately, not the only of its kind this week,” the news program went on. The words formed and finally registered in Beth’s brain, so she started listening again.
“That’s right,” the anchor started. “On Monday, a group of anti-I.I. extremists managed to break into an installed intelligence storage facility in New Mexico, deleting one-hundred-four I.I.s. The Human Foundation, a hate group led by Dixon Marx, is said to have used a malicious virus to delete the victims. The virus was designed to seek out every instance of an installed intelligence during the deletion process, in order to prevent any backups from surviving. Families and friends are still reeling over this terrible loss of human life.”
“But that’s enough melancholy for the morning,” the anchor said in a suddenly upbeat tone. “We’re going to take a short break here, but don’t get up because we have some important messages from our sponsors.”
The image of the news studio and the sound of the man dissipated like an unfocused thought. Slowly, the image of a human form — walking against a stark white background — came into Beth’s mind.
None of the person’s features could be discerned, but Beth could tell it was a woman. She didn’t seem to have any hair, but that could just be a trick of the lighting.
“Freedom in a real world,” a man’s voice said.
The woman kept walking until, gradually, light washed over her front. She was dressed in an elegant red gown, one that glittered like the embers of a fire. Her face was immaculate, perfectly symmetrical and without blemish or flaw. The only thing off about her was a faint seam in her black skin, one that glowed neon blue. The seam followed her jawline and appeared to connect with her eyes.
As perfect as she was, she wasn’t real. At least, she wasn’t organic.
“Sleek, beautiful, and strong,” the announcer said.
The woman made a pose before slipping into a smooth, rhythmic dance. The camera started to encircle her, taking Beth’s vision with it.
“The all-new StellarTek bodyshell.” As the words were spoken, the company’s logo appeared. “Ask your technician about ‘Perfection’ today.”
Wow, Beth thought. Those bodyshells are starting to look almost like the real thing.
Bodyshell technology had come a long way in the last thirty years, she acknowledged. It wasn’t long ago that installed intelligences were confined to computer hard drives, destined to spend years just floating in the vast nothingness of digital subspace. Someone, however, had seen the cruelty in that kind of existence and sought to free the I.I.s. Thus the bodyshell was invented.
Looking back, it seemed like such an obvious advancement to most people. Giving I.I.s a robotic body that they could occupy was rather simple. No advanced artificial intelligence needed to be coded — no behavior written. They were just empty mechanical shells, like a suit an installed intelligence can slip on in order to step out into the world.
At first, they were quite rudimentary. They lacked faces or intricate motor functions. They had no toes, and their fingers were simply a pincer. Even their voices came out rather monotone and artificial, clearly from some speaker built into the bodyshell’s head unit rather than from a throat or a mouth. Now, however, they were becoming less and less distinguishable from ordinary humans. If it weren’t for the neon seams or the off-temperature flesh of these newest models, there’d be no way to tell the difference without surgery.
Beth’s C.C. asked her if she wanted to skip the next few adds, which she did. The news program returned as if it had been waiting just for her.
“Thank you for joining us,” the presenter said. “Sadly, we seem to be a little short on good news today. Our next story is about the ever-growing Fog epidemic that has been shaking communities all over the globe for the last couple of years.”
Beth sat up a little when the story started. She adjusted her seat so she could stare out the front of the autocar.
“For those of you out of the know, ‘Fog’ is the street name for a new narcotic that supposedly integrates with the user’s neural implant in order to create an intense sense of euphoria, as well as vivid hallucinations. Initially deemed harmless by the Global Board of Health, the drug has since claimed over thirteen thousand lives in the form of O.D. deaths. This week, Seattle and surrounding areas saw its worse bout of Fog-related deaths with one hundred-twelve confirmed O.D.s.
“Aside from its lethal potency, Fog is credited with a new wave of neurological disorders wreaking havoc on today’s youth. The way the narcotic interacts with the user’s neural implant — or
