DON’T DOWNLOAD THE DOG — A Sci fi short story about friendship and death
BY CHRISTOPH BRUECK
They had met in a park, which was nice and did not feel as crowded and exhausting as the streets. Thomas usually did not travel nowadays, preferring to cast into a drone whenever his presence was needed. Today he had made an exception. Not many people have friends of thirty years at the age of thirty-five. He had only one. Jonathan, called Jonny, was in San Francisco. Nothing to be done about it. Jonny could not travel, so Thomas had to move.
When they met, Jonny was sitting on a bench in the middle of a large green field. A very strange place for a bench, Thomas thought, but the idea was quickly pushed aside when he saw Jonny up close. His friend had lost probably half his weight. Thomas realized he had used a filter when they had recently talked over the feed. That was what had given him his original appearance, though it was not at all what he looked like anymore. He was pale, thin, exhausted, and when he stood up, he moved like a seventy-year-old. He was only two days older than Thomas. It broke his heart, but he had prepared not to show, under any circumstances, his feelings. No pity. No tears. Nothing. Just good old friends meeting up. Jonny got up and gave him a hug. It felt like he was hugging a skeleton, as he was only skin and bones by now.
Then Jonny turned to the bench and it suddenly began to liquify and implode into a grey mass not bigger than a fist. It was surreal how it changed its shape without making a sound.
“Whoa!” Thomas shouted out. Jonny had probably been preparing this for weeks, but he delivered the surprise totally.
“Cool, hm?” Jonny grinned, and one could see how proud he was of . . . whatever technological miracle he had there.
“What the hell is that?” Thomas asked and looked at the grey matter. It lay on the ground looking like something that belonged in the trashcan.
“A morph, newest in consumer tech. This blob can become anything you want,” he smiled proudly at his new toy.
“Seriously? Anything?”
“I mean, anything solid. Chairs, tables, beds, wheels, clubs, all included in the basic set-up. The security update is pretty cool. Sword and shield, not a problem.”
“Is that legal?”
“Well, the sword isn’t exactly. Not here in the US, but I downloaded it in a deep mesh in SF.”
“Wow. This is pretty cool.”
“Gets better. You want me to do the full sales talk?”
Thomas looked at him and had to laugh. “Sure.”
He put his data glasses on and a moment later the chair vanished and returned to being a blob. A moment later he saw changes in the shape. Subtle at first, then more obvious. Legs, fur, eyes emerging from the shapeless thing. He stayed silent and watched, fascinated. Five minutes later a small dog stood in front of him and extended his tongue. Thomas shook his head. “How . . .”
“The material can imitate a hundred thousand different surfaces.”
“But the software?”
“The morph can connect to mesh networks and drain them for computing power. Basically, it can do anything your glasses can. It can even turn into glasses,” he grinned.
“How smart is it?” Thomas took a stone and threw it. The dog looked after it and then turned to me. Finally, it seemed to get it and turned to run and get the stone.
“Same as with any synthetic dog. They download directly from the library, basically using the same trained algos any robo-dog would use.”
“You believe that?”
“Why not?”
“Those algos have been trained for decades. They’re not exactly cheap. I guess what you get there will be a cheap rehash.”
“Well, no way to tell. Just downloaded it yesterday.”
Thomas grinned. “Awesome anyway, really cool. I gotta get one of those.”
“Order one, the ads say you get 30% off.”
Thomas put on his glasses and looked around. The ad algo never let you down. They had obviously already registered their conversation. He had spent more than a minute with a product he did not own, and it had instantly analyzed voice patterns and body signals to know he was enthusiastic about it.
MORPH. Shape is a question, we got the answer.
The ad was blinking right on Thomas’s view-screen. 30% off, it said. He tapped on the prize equalizer, which quickly told him he could get an even lower price at the local PETH. That was his consumer electronic wizard two streets away. 299 USD or 245 USC. He picked the coin variant, as his salary was paid in digital cash anyway, and had it delivered to his address in Detroit.
“You think they could program my dog to look like Lucy?” Thomas asked.
“You miss the old lady, do you? A shame she died. Last real dog I knew. Everyone’s using these robotic ones that don’t shit everywhere nowadays.”
“Yeah, I miss her. She was special.”
“There already make customized applications for the morph. I’m sure someone can get you your dog back. Have you ever made a profile of her?”
“No, man. But if it looked like her, that’s all that matters.”
Then there was silence. That was probably not a good topic to bring up.
“Have you . . . Made a profile? Of yourself, I mean?”
“Yeah, my parents wanted one,” he replied, “Want access?”
“No. No man. I feel like I got enough ghosts in my world already.”
“Yeah, bet you do.” Jonny put his hands in his pockets and Thomas saw that he was making small steps, as if he was fighting a bit for his balance.
“Wanna sit down?” He asked his friend. Jonny nodded and smiled.
****
“How are things with Mara?” Jonny asked. He put his data glasses down, looking around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. Thomas had never put his on. The great advantage of augmented reality for him had always been that all the advertising through physical displays had vanished. The coffeeshop in the midst of the park was fully automated. He typed his request into the screen integrated into the table. Jonny looked at the menu for a moment.
“We broke up. Or, we’re in the middle of breaking up. It is on and off. Hard to say what we are right now, but not okay. Well, it is okay. You know what I mean? The virtual stuff just didn’t work for me. I wanna talk to my girlfriend and not her digital picture. Plus, it was really hard to coordinate with the time zone change,” Thomas shrugged.
“Yeah, I was afraid that would happen when she moved to Tokyo.” Jonny sighed, “real shame, I kinda liked her.”
“You always liked my girls.” Thomas grinned and Jonny laughed, but his laughter turned into a coughing.
“Yeah, that is true. You are a man of taste,” he said as he forced a smile on his face.
“How about Hiruki?” Thomas asked.
“Haruki,” he corrected me. “I let her go. Really not a good time to have attachments, and I think she’s better off without me.”
Understandable, but Thomas had seen her look at him. She had been madly in love with him. It had probably broken her heart. “Yeah, probably.”
“So we’re both single? If I had nothing to do tonight I‘d say we could go hunting!” he laughed. As if they ever had gone hunting. Thomas loved the idealized version of themselves as daring guys living on the edge. Jonny always painted with words. Truth was, they had both missed a lot because they had been too shy, and at least one of them regretted that now.
“It would be glorious, I am sure. How long do you have?” Thomas asked.
“About another hour, then the nanoids will be processed and filtered out, so I’ll need to be back in my bed,” Jonny nodded. “It’s great you came, though.”
“Ah, it was time I saw SF again anyway. Seeing you was a bonus. Maybe next year we pick a flight to Kauai or something? I . . . We always wanted to go there,” Thomas had no idea where this came from. Denial. His therapist had told him to expect this. Then again, what did a damned app know about losing a friend?
“Oh yeah, I’d love that,” Jonny replied. He turned back to the menu and decided for a simple glass of double-filtered cold water.
****
A week later Thomas was back in his office. Well, he was back at home and logged into his virtual office. He was busy. A number of breaches in their drone network had been happening. Spreading from Ghana into Eastern Asian, they still had not figured out how their drones were breached. The automatic update mechanism erased all traces and he was tasked with actually finding an infected drone. A needle search in a large, global haystack.
It kept him occupied, his thoughts focused.
Wednesday afternoon he received a message:
His morph was said to be delivered in a week, so he didn’t actually have that option. It seemed that smart materials could not be printed, so he had to wait a lot longer than usual. Still, he answered with an
Text-messages were a bit old school for Jonny and he was not sure if that should concern him. Probably limited access to computing resources. He kept thinking about this for fifteen minutes and asked himself what might be the explanation for it, before realizing he was simply concerned. He returned to work.
At night he finally gave up. He had missed another two drone hacks in Hong Kong and realized that solving the problem would take longer than he thought.
He brushed his teeth, drank some water as his health display said he was slightly dehydrated, and put on his glasses to watch his personalized newsfeed for a few more minutes. He found it hard to concentrate on trade embargoes against the Republic of Scotland or the re-emerging water shortage in Central Europe. Instead, he turned back to his messages, looked for Jonny, and replied to the last message.
The question was answered by a message from SYSTEM.
A minute later a message arrived from MYsoul, the premium provider of personality constructs.
Thomas stared at the message for a minute and then chose NO.
He did not download the dog.
One had to respect the last wishes of a friend.
