<DIVISION BY ZERO> by Ryan Miller Borris Li slowly dragged his feet across the white tiled floor of the massive hallway entrance to the world's largest implant programming station. A shiny chrome buffer pulled him along a predetermined course leaving an equally shiny trial behind him. As he walked back and forth through the haze of cleaning/disinfectant chemicals the entire floor began to soon shine just as much as the walls that he had finished buffing only minutes before. Borris soon finished the floor, pushed the buffer around the corner, and whistled for the cleaning chemicals to follow. Slowly the light blue haze came drifting along and began to relentlessly destroy any bacteria or dirt it might find in the air or on the glass that lined the ceiling fifty feet above Li's head. They didn't do as good a job as the buffer he was pushing, of course, but quality had to be replaced with speed. Besides, what did he care if the oily-haired programmers got a cold or were forced to sneeze in public because of their allergies.
After all, he hadn't chosen this job; an Analyst program had matched it to him after he committed a level 28 crime. He still remembered with perfect clarity. The enforcement officer had pulled out in front of him running the stop sign because of an "emergency." It had been simple human nature for him to react with rage toward the driver, regardless if it was an officer. Why should he be punished because of his human nature? It was just plain bad luck he was being monitored at the same time. Despite human nature however, the next day enforcement officers came and relieved him of his job as a programmer. For the rest of that week his mind was probed and he had served his time in containment, he was freed, but put into a more "humble" working position. Now, he was whistling around clouds of chemicals as a "Sanitary Technician" around the building he once worked in. The pay was the same, as all jobs were, but that wasn't the point. His rights of a programmer had been taken away and now he was forced to always think happy and productive thoughts. As a programmer, he could retreat into the Net at work and be free of this governmental tyranny, but no longer. He had no way to access the terminal and circuitry in his temporal lobe without an alarm alerting the government. If he tried, that, of course, would be seen as a sign of unhappiness with reality. In today's society unhappiness would lead to weeks of psychiatric therapy, more containment, and, maybe, even a new implant would follow. What else could he do?
A high pitch whir sounding from the buffer yanked him out of his thoughts and back into reality. He had been buffering the same spot for several minutes and the cloud had gotten ahead of him. The buffer wouldn't stand for this and neither would he. He wasn't going to let a bunch of programmed chemicals work faster than he was. Wait, what did he care? That must be the implant working again. He fought the urge to work harder and threw the buffer across the room leaving a streak of polished black and white marble. It crashed into the wall and let out a small puff of black smoke, which was quickly taken care of by the blue-green cloud of chemicals. He couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't right that he could be discriminated against like this. He had to leave and go forward with his prearranged plans of rebellion. He whistled, in a lower tone than before, as a command to the haze for it to continue with the next section of the building so his absence wouldn't be noticed right away.
The insult of being downgraded from working with the latest equipment and programming the newest technology to yelling at clouds of disinfectant was too much. He needed to be on the Net again. There, he could do whatever he wanted. Best of all, he could be free. He could think all of the counterproductive thoughts he wanted and the government couldn't touch him. Of course, the downside was that he wouldn't truly be human. Instead, his mind would be transferred permanently onto the net. But, he would rather become permanently linked than constantly monitored and always controlled. He had been planning for this for years, but had yet to locate the area in which the group of rebels, known as the Re-wire's, haven was located on the Net. Until he was absorbed into the Net, his body still required food and water. This meant a second person would need to pull him out. If he couldn't find the location quickly enough, he would be forced to turn himself over to monitors to be rescued (And that would most certainly lead to a worse situation than he was in now).
Having completely convinced himself about his decision to join the rebellion against authority, he stepped outside into the cool, perfect, pollution-free air. He began the twenty minute walk home, since he was forbidden to drive, ignoring the voice of his boss shouting directly into his head demanding to know where he was going. Borris waited to pull the plug on his monitoring implant until he was home in order to give himself extra time before the government became aware of his absence. He knew the yelling boss was too stupid to report him right away anyway. He bore the insistent shouting and instead concentrated on the perfect, too perfect, world that had been created. The tyranny definitely had its good sides, but what good was it to breathe perfectly clean air and walk on full green grass if the next day you have a bad day and along with it, an impure thought such as the grass is just to clean. Your mind was then ripped from your head and reprogrammed. As it had been done to him.
Upon his arrival at his home located in the perfect suburban neighborhood, he unlocked the door with a simple retina scan and stepped inside. The house was dark. He planned to keep it that way to prevent anyone noticing what time he had arrived. He slid the door closed and snapped a cold steel bar over the lock. He had ordered this handy little device from the Radio Shack catalog after the traffic incident in case it ever came to this. It would prevent anyone, including himself, from opening the door (Though they could use corrosives to eat through it they figured out what he was planning on doing). He shaded all the windows and lowered the diamond-plated shutters. No one could know he was here until his task was completed. He was now isolated from the physical world, possible forever. He had planned well. He stepped into the hallway closet and opened the door leading to the basement in what resembled a scene from an old Scooby Doo episode. Slowly, he felt his way down the wooded staircase, still in the dark. Reaching the bottom he slammed his fist into a nearby button and with a thundering click it depressed and the basement door sealed closed, turning back into the plain closet wall. Without moving he reached out and flipped on the light switch. The room was flooded with out of date incandescent lighting (It had been the only kind he could install himself).
The room was of decent size, containing everything he needed to survive and nothing more. This included a small supply of food and water, as well as the obvious computer with a direct link to the Net. After all, he had built this only a temporary shelter until he could contact the Re-wires. Nervously he walked over to the chair next to the computer terminal and sat down. The quiet humming pulse of the computer power supply and the light buzz of the overhead lights were the only sound in the room. Slowly, he began to breathe normally as the feeling passed over him.
He had roughly a day and a half before the government scanners would think to check his house and locate the basement entrance. That was all the time he had to find something that many people searched for their whole lives and never found. He did have one small advantage though. During his time as a programmer he had been able to access, piece by piece, information on reprogramming the interface the implant in his head. With this knowledge, he should be able to increase the accuracy of the thought pickups and therefore, be able to search faster. He had also programmed a search algorithm to help him achieve his freedom. Somewhere out there the Re-wires were hiding, waiting for other "worthy" people to find them and join them in their quest. If he could contact them, they would download his mind permanently onto the Net and he would be free of the tyrannous government's control, or, so it went in theory.
He lifted the cover to his implant and slid the port cable into his head and was instantly onto the Net. Immediately, he put up a block routine to disguise himself from sniffers designed to detect illegals accessing the digitized world. Next, he loaded his algorithm and set it to work. With the search underway, he opened up the code of his implant and began his attempt to speed up his access rate. While keeping track of the search progress, which was coming along moderately fast, he scanned through the millions of lines of code the government used to control his thoughts, feels, and emotions through the implant.
Hours went by and his search found nothing, but he had managed to increase the speed of his port by over 35%. He also accomplished getting rid of the tingling feeling on the back of his head that was supposed to remind him he was in the Net. After all, if he was going to be here for the rest of his life, he definitely didn't want to live with a constant reminder it wasn't truly real. Even though the Net was supposed to fully replicate the sights, smells, sounds and touch of real life, it did a terrible job in all respects. Or, perhaps, that was another ploy to keep people from spending to much time on the Net, learning to use its potential? After all, the mysteries of the brain had been unraveled decades ago, and the inputs did go directly into the brain. It should be able to simulate real life with absolute precision. Amazing. He was already realizing all kinds of things without the government blocking his thoughts.
An alert sounded. It was the algorithm telling him it had found something. Quickly he pulled up the results and shifted the code for his implant into the background. All that it the message displayed was a simple statement.
-we are here-
He had found them! Or, perhaps they had found him. It didn't matter. He responded with a thought of urgency and desperation.
-I need your help. They are looking for me.-
No need to be wordy he decided. He was certain they knew more about his situation than him. In waiting for a response, which was actually only a matter of nanoseconds, he glanced at the code in the background, he had left it running, and was still unconsciously tampering with the implants functions. He "reached out" to stop it, but another message appeared, getting in his way.
-we are coming, be patient. you are ready.-
He was in. His mind filled with emotions of joy that he had never been allowed to feel under the implant's suppression as he realized he was about to join with the Re-wires and gain his freedom. In that same instant, an error appeared unnoticed behind the message. The code for his implant was still changing, controlled by his subconscious mind as a result of the increased pickups. Rapidly, he felt a burning sensation grow stronger and stronger on the back of his neck. Before he had time to react, his senses went cold. The feeling was terrible; he couldn't move or feel. Then his field of vision began to collapse and with a fleeting glimpse, he read what the fading error message stated.
-DIVISON BY ZERO> PROCESS TERMINATED...-
With that thought, he realized he had just killed his own brain while in reach of his lifelong goal. He never had been lucky.