Augmented Literature
‘Need me some Alice, girl. Need it bad.’
The man is twitching as he speaks, rummaging through his pockets. Kyra watches as he empties out bits of paper, old tissues, pieces of string. His sunken eyes light up when he finds a crumpled five-pound note, and he slides it across the desk with a triumphant smile.
Kyra looks at his hollow cheeks, wondering when he last ate. ‘Again, Jay? You sure?’
He scowls at her, holding out his wrist. ‘Just get me the Alice.’
She scans his subcutaneous chip, pausing as her screen refreshes and his record fills the monitor. In his picture he has colour in his face, life in his eyes.
Fifty visits in the last two months. Fifty. And all she’s seen him consume is RaizR, downing a full can before each sitting.
Kyra sighs and steps out from behind the desk, Jay following her as she walks down the corridor towards AugLit. The security guards on either side of the door nod at her and eye Jay with disdain. He walks to the front desk and greets Edward and Luke, the two technicians. Luke ignores him and Edward smiles.
Kyra swipes her wrist on the bookcase sensor, the protective screen sliding back with a hiss as she reaches up for the Alice. She turns to look for Jay. She thinks she sees his hand make contact with Edward’s under the desk, but in a blink the moment is gone.
Jay waits dutifully behind the line, one foot tap-tap-tapping as Kyra swipes into isobooth four. She places the Alice in its stand, punches a security code into the wall panel and gestures for Jay to take his seat. He’s been there so many times there’s no need for her to position the headset for him. He gives her a thumbs-up and she leaves the room so Edward can begin calibration.
The elements of each isobooth have always seemed incongruous to Kyra. The chairs look like they’ve been stolen from a gentlemen’s club – leather with metal studs – and the rooms themselves remind her of a children’s hospital. Three walls and the ceiling are covered with illustrations from the books. The wall with the door in it is glass and faces the observation desk, where Edward and Luke sit monitoring the electrical signals on their screens.
*
Kyra was sixteen when she started working Saturdays at the library. She moved onto longer weeks before her first year of university, and it was then that she really began to notice the changes. Funding cuts had resulted in the closure of many libraries, and it was only after the Aldridge Corporation stepped in and bailed them out that they reopened. Kyra was one of three original staff members who had kept their jobs, and the meeting they attended with Aldridge’s rep, Callum, had not been pleasant.
‘You can’t turn a library into a bloody arcade,’ snapped Liz, Kyra’s supervisor. ‘That’s not what it’s for! If people want to play video games they can do it at home.’
‘I understand your concern.’ Callum adopted a pacifying tone. ‘We’re not talking about VR technology here. You’re reading a physical book, but you can enhance that experience by choosing the level of neural stimulation you want.’
‘It feels like a normal book,’ said Kyra, as she flicked through the Alice in Wonderland prototype. It reminded her of the copy her father had read to her when she was small: a red hardback cover with gold lettering above a Tenniel print of Alice and the White Rabbit. She passed the book to Liz, who barely looked at it before handing it to Stephen, the library’s manager.
‘That’s because it is a normal book,’ said Callum. ‘Readers wear a headset with an integrated eye tracker and a neural stimulation module. I think you should all try it before you decide you hate the idea.’
‘Liz,’ said Stephen. ‘You know we have no choice about this. We have to supplement the library’s income, and we have to encourage people to come back in. We can’t wait for them to remember the value of books each time a new piece of technology comes along. You saw what happened with e-books—the traffic here dropped and when people decided they still wanted physical books it was too bloody late. Now we’re competing with VR we have to do something new.’
‘But what about the noise? If people are feeling physical sensations when they’re reading these…books…then they’re going to react.’
‘If I may.’ Callum was pointing at the screen on which his presentation was paused. He flicked to a slide showing a plan of the proposed space: a light, bright room, divided into a series of glass-fronted booths.
‘These rooms are all fully soundproofed. The glass fronting is there so that we can make sure the readers are safe at all times. See this desk here? We’ll have people monitoring the electrical signals feeding back from each reader so we can ensure they’re not overwhelmed. It’s important for us to calibrate the input signals. We can’t have a child, for example, receiving the same level of stimulation as an adult.’ He smiled a warm, reassuring smile.
Liz held up her hands and turned to Stephen. ‘Fine. I know it isn’t up to me, and I know you can find someone else to replace me. Please accept my resignation.’
‘Liz, please.’ Callum turned to face her, his expression conveying both sadness and sympathy. ‘I gather you’ve been here for twenty years. Is that right?’ Liz nodded. ‘Stephen speaks very highly of you and it would be a great loss to the team if you went. Can I convince you to at least give it a chance? Stay for a month once we roll it out. If you’re still not keen, I’ll understand if you want to leave.’
Liz had gone before the month was up. The constant stream of visitors to AugLit had changed the atmosphere of the library, and she had taken exception to their excited chatter as they waited for their turns. A soundproof waiting room hastily added to the department solved the noise issue, but Kyra agreed that the library had become a different place. She, however, did not feel the same sense of betrayal that Liz did. She intended to leave after she graduated and, compared to some of the jobs her friends had, library work was easy money.
The one good thing about the takeover was the arrival of staff who were a similar age to Kyra. AugLit technicians were all neuroscience PhD students from her university, and she and Luke had bonded immediately over their shared love of comics and eighties action films. He was the only student who’d lasted more than a couple of months.
*
Jay doesn’t need to wait long for Edward to finish calibrating his headset, and soon Kyra sees the familiar relaxation of his body as he begins to read. He’s probably falling down the rabbit hole by now, she thinks.
Alice had become the most popular title in the AugLit section. Kyra supposed that this was because of the sheer range of sensations that had been programmed into it. Readers could fall, grow, shrink, even experience smoking something questionable. That particular sensation had, of course, been removed from the children’s version of the book.
Kyra walks over to the desk to speak to Luke, who’s currently half-watching a monitor displaying the neural activity of a kid reading Where the Wild Things Are. Before she has the chance to say anything there’s a high-pitched beep from Edward’s display and Luke’s attention shifts. Edward taps the screen until the beeping stops and goes back to playing with his phone.
‘What was that?’ Luke is leaning over Edward’s desk.
‘Nothing. Just a calibration glitch.’
Luke isn’t convinced. He hops down from his chair and stands directly behind Edward’s screen. ‘Can you maximise the display please, Ed?’
‘I told you I fixed it.’
‘I said maximise it.’
Kyra has never heard Luke raise his voice.
Edward hesitates too long. Luke leans over and taps the screen, maximising the neural display. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he examines the readings, then turns to Edward with an accusatory look.
‘Jesus Ed…how could you miss this?’
Edward still says nothing. Kyra moves behind the desk so she can see what they’re looking at. A red warning light is flashing on the screen but no sound is coming out. There are jagged peaks at regular intervals on the neural display, and even she knows that isn’t normal.
‘Pull him out,’ demands Luke.
‘He’s okay, he’s just a little elevated.’ Edward’s tone betrays his lack of confidence in the statement.
‘Pull him out now.’
Edward is about to argue again, when a guttural scream comes from Jay’s isobooth. It’s loud enough to penetrate the soundproof glass and bring the security guards running. Luke reaches over Edward and presses a button to rotate Jay’s chair 180 degrees. Jay goes rigid and drops the Alice, his face scrunched up in pain. He’s whining and clutching at the headset, trying to prise it off with fingers that won’t bend. Kyra runs over and lets herself into the room, yanks the plug out of the headset. Jay’s body relaxes and he slides down the chair, twitching. His eyes are closed and a thin trickle of saliva is making its way down his neck.
‘Jay?’ Kyra shakes him gently by the shoulder. Luke arrives behind her with one of the security guards. They heave Jay out of the chair and lay him on the floor.
‘Kyra.’ Luke puts a hand on her shoulder and she’s brought back to reality. She looks up at him, eyes wide. When he knows he’s got her full attention he carries on speaking. ‘I’ve killed the power to the other isobooths. There’s only one kid in booth four and his mum is in the waiting room. Could you please take him to her? Tell her we’ve had a power issue and give her a refund.’
Kyra nods and walks dreamlike to booth four. Later she won’t remember what the kid or his mum looked like. The image of Jay’s terrified face is etched into her retinas. And that sound, that base animal cry that shouldn’t come out of a person, keeps returning to her.
The following day, Edward has gone and Kyra is questioned extensively by people who look like police but claim to work for the Aldridge Corporation. When they ask her whether she saw anything suspicious she remembers Jay’s hand meeting Edward’s, and she tells them about this. AugLit is closed for a month while they examine logs and test equipment.
The story in the papers describes a tragic accident in which a man with a pre-existing medical condition suffered from an overload, after paying a crooked technician to disable the safety protocols. The article urges readers to disclose all medical conditions prior to plugging in. Callum appears on morning TV, speaking in the same calming tone he had used on Liz. Blah blah blah tragedy. Blah blah thoughts are with his family. Blah more rigorous checks on users.
Kyra thinks the accident will stop people plugging in, but there’s a queue outside when AugLit reopens in time for half-term week. She sighs and begins to scan them in, directing them to the new pre-screening facility. In addition to signing a consent form and a declaration that they’re fit to participate, they now have to undergo basic medical checks before each plugin.
It doesn’t take long for people to forget what happened. Jay was, after all, merely an AugLit junkie maxed up to the eyeballs on RaizR. No one cares.
Aldridge seems more successful than ever, and makes the papers again with an announcement about addiction clinics.
Aldridge Corporation’s CEO, Elliot Aldridge, says that addiction has been at the forefront of his thoughts since his brother died of a heroin overdose in the 1990s. “Very few treatment centres consider the neurological and genetic causes of addiction. Our centres are the first to develop a full program of treatment for addicts, from behavioural therapy right through to targeted neural stimulation. Our Augmented Literature research partly inspired these centres—if we could activate brain regions responsible for specific emotions and sensations, surely we could deactivate regions associated with addiction.” Mr Aldridge told us that the next step is to trial gene therapy in individuals predisposed to addiction. “We have some way to go on that front,” he said, “but we’re already making progress in animal trials.”
The article doesn’t surprise Kyra. She sighs and puts the paper down, looking up at the rows of excited children waiting for their turns in the AugLit booths.
When the last of the visitors has finally left she goes to see Luke. He looks exhausted. Since Jay’s accident he’s had three junior technicians to supervise, one technician now for every two booths.
‘I hate school holidays,’ he says. Kyra perches on his desk while he tidies each workstation. ‘And I hate being the only adult here.’ He holds up an empty sweet wrapper, extracted from one of the tech guys’ desks.
Kyra laughs. ‘You’re finishing soon though, right?’
‘Nope. Some guys from head office are coming in to test the equipment again and run some cleanup programmes. Got to show them where everything is before I go.’
‘Eugh. That sucks. See you tomorrow then?’
‘Yep. See you then.’
When Kyra takes the first visitor over to AugLit the next morning, Luke isn’t there.
‘Called in sick,’ says Adam, one of the new technicians. Kyra thanks him and turns to leave.
‘Hang on,’ he says suddenly. ‘He asked me to give you this. Said he’s been meaning to lend it to you.’ He hands her a graphic novel that she’s already read. She briefly considers handing it back, then spots a post-it note stuck to the front cover: Thought you’d like this one, the artwork in the centre spread is amazing.
She goes back to her desk and flicks through the book, stopping on a page whose corner has been turned down. An image of a dreadlocked barbarian decapitating someone, a trail of black blood following the path of the severed head. Why would he want me to look at this? She examines the picture more closely and spots something written in one of the few white spaces on the page. MAGGIE’S CAFÉ, 6PM.
Maggie’s is already full when she arrives, the go-to place for students wanting cheap burgers and calorie-laden milkshakes. Luke waves at her from a corner booth and Kyra pushes her way through the queue.
‘I ordered you a cheeseburger.’
‘Thanks. How are you feeling? Adam said you were ill.’
‘I need to tell you something.’ He’s fiddling with the straw in his milkshake, one of his knees jigging up and down under the table.
‘Are you okay?’ He is clearly not okay. He looks clammy.
‘Aldridge are creating addicts.’
‘What?’
‘Augmented Literature. They aren’t just transmitting data, they’re harvesting it.’ Once he starts talking he can’t stop. He had overheard the engineers laughing about Jay the previous night, watched them remove hardware he didn’t know existed. ‘They made Jay an addict so they could see what would happen to him. Edward was taking money for it, but they’d already told him to increase the threshold each time. He just did it too fast. Fuck knows how many other people they’re doing it to. And now they’re using that data to make even more money.’ He cradles his head in his hands.
Kyra’s thoughts are racing. A knot has formed in her stomach and it seems to her, in that moment, that she and Luke are the only people in the room. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m meeting a journalist friend tomorrow. She’s been looking at Aldridge’s parent company ever since they bought out RaizR last year. I wanted to tell you too in case…well…they’ll make up stuff about me when it comes out. If it comes out.’
He looks so wretched that Kyra doesn’t know what to say. She squeezes his hand across the table.
*
Kyra still finds peace among the shadows of books, in the smells of old paper, plastic covers and musty carpets. There is something magical about this place at night, so much promise in each room.
She sits on a beanbag in the children’s section looking at the glass monstrosity of a wall, laser-etched with the Aldridge Corporation logo, at the far end of the corridor. Nowhere else in the library are staff expected to swipe in to operate doors, or be monitored by multiple cameras as they conduct routine tasks. She hopes that the glass is thick enough to protect the books outside of it.
The blog Kyra started when Luke was sectioned had caused a stir amongst library purists. Luke’s revelation about Alridge’s deliberate creation of AugLit addicts had been widely discredited and he suffered a breakdown after he was ostracised by the academic community. Kyra had visited him, but he was on so many drugs that he could barely string a sentence together.
Kyra’s fury at the treatment of her friend had resulted in her weekly anti-Aldridge blog and its thousands of subscribers, an army of anonymous revolutionaries. She knew that a lone gesture would cause only mild irritation to Elliot Aldridge, but multiple gestures might make people pay attention.
She disables the sprinklers and the alarms (thank you TechNerd from Minneapolis), lays charges where she has been informed that they will cause most damage (thank you HappyBomberman from Sandhurst), and she grabs the Alice (stroke of genius PsychGrad4392 from Adelaide). She walks outside to the car park and takes a deep breath before detonating the explosives.
Kyra fancies she can hear the bombs going off in one hundred other cities around the world. She pictures them like the culmination of a firework display, blasts amalgamating into one glorious strobing rainbow.
She calls the police and sits cross-legged on the cold tarmac, clutching the Alice.
When they arrest her she will not speak, but they will search her and find a note tucked inside the front cover of the book. It will be identical to the notes found in the covers of other Alices, clutched by other revolutionaries, and it will say this:
Aldridge Corporation made me an addict.
Alice told me to stop them. Please help me.
Category: Writing