Cyberpunk

a genuine grip. To become a fully realized, fully authentic human being. He had this private vision, a true philosophy almost: Albert “Owl” Huddleston, as a truly decent person. Honest, helpful, forthright, moral. A modern philosopher. A friend to mankind. It was that gesamtkunstwerk thing. No loose ends at all. No ragged bleeding bits. The Total Work of Design.
    Completely *put together,* Al thought, carefully flushing his face down the toilet. A stranger in his own life, maybe, sure, granted, but so what, so were most people. Even a lame antimaterialist like Henry Thoreau knew that much. A tad dyslexic, didn’t read all that much, stutters a little when he forgets his neuroceuticals, listens to books on tape about Italian design theory, maybe a tad obsessive-compulsive about the $700 broom, and the ultra-high-tech mop with the chemical taggant system that Displays Household Germs in Real Time (C) (R) (TM) . . . But so what.
    So what. So what is the real story here? Is Al a totally together guy, on top and in charge, cleverly shaping his own destiny through a wise choice of tools, concepts, and approaches? Or is Al a soulless figment of a hyperactive market, pieced together like a shattered mirror from a million little impacts of brute consumerism? Is Al his own man entire, or is Al a piece of flotsam in the churning surf of techno-revolution? Probably both and neither. With the gratifying knowledge that it’s All Completely Temporary Anyway (R). Technological Innovation Is An Activity, Not An Achievement (SM). Living On The Edge Is Never Comfortable (C).
    What if the story wasn’t about design after all? What if it wasn’t about your physical engagement with the manufactured world, your civilized niche in historical development, your mastery of consumer trends, your studied elevation of your own good taste, and your hands-on struggle with a universe of distributed, pervasive, and ubiquitous smart objects that are choreographed in invisible, dynamic, interactive systems. All based, with fiendish computer-assisted human cleverness, in lightness, dematerialization, brutally rapid product cycles, steady iterative improvement, renewability, and fantastic access and abundance. What if all of that was at best a passing thing. A by-blow. A techie spin-off. A phase. What if the story was all about this, instead: What if you tried your level best to be a real-life, fully true human being, and it just plain couldn’t work? It wasn’t even possible. Period.
    Zelda stirred and opened her glamorous eyes. “Is everything clean?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Is it all put away?”
    “Yep.”
    “Did you have another nightmare?”
    “Uh. No. Sure. Kinda. Don’t call them ‘nightmares,’ okay? I just thought I’d . . . you know . . . boot up and check out the neighborhood.”
    Zelda sat up in bed, tugging at the printed satin sheet. “There are no more solutions,” Zelda said. “You know that, don’t you? There are no happy endings. Because there are no endings. There are only ways to cope.”

THE BLOG AT THE END OF THE WORLD

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    By Paul Tremblay

About Becca Gilman:
    I am twenty-something, living somewhere in Brooklyn, and am angry and scared like everyone else I know. Sometimes this blog helps me, sometimes it doesn’t. I have degrees in bio and chem, but don’t use them. That’s all you really need to know. All right?
still here
    Becca Gilman • June 17 th , 20__
    Barely. I tried calling Mom two days ago but there was no answer and she hasn’t called me back. I’m still not over G RANT’S passing; my personal tipping point and I hate myself for referring to Grant that way, but it’s true. I haven’t left my apartment in over a week. The local market I use for grocery delivery stopped answering their phone yesterday. I’ve only seen three cabs today. They’re old and dinged up, from some independent cab company I don’t recognize, and they just drive around City Line, circling, like they’re stuck in some loop, like the drivers don’t know what else to do. At night I count how many windows I can see with the lights on. The city was darker last night than it was last week, or the week before. The city is falling apart. It’s slow and subtle, but you can see it if you look hard enough. Watch. Everything is slowing down. A wind-up toy running down and with no one to wind it up. Everything is dying but not quite dead yet, so people just go about their days as if nothing is wrong and nothing bad can happen