“Early Adopter”
By Zack Be
Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Jan/Feb 2024
Lately I’ve been losing track of which voice belongs to me and which voice belongs to the implant.
<Does it matter?>
That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
<Confusion is a common side effect of Preferent sync…>
Groaning, I blink rapidly three times to snooze the voice—my voice?—and reach my arm over to see if the boy I met last night is really gone. I said he could stay but they never do.
“You don’t have to actually act like you’re my daddy,” he said on the way out, sarcastic delivery half-hearted in the haze of the wee weary hours.
I’m not sure why I ask them to stick around anymore. Is it just an empty gesture, or do I have hope? And if so, hope for what? I guess I have no idea what I would do if one of them actually took me up on it. Would there be protein bars and awkward conversation before we went our respective ways in the morning, never to text again? It seemed clear early on last night that this guy wasn’t interested in more than just the one quick liaison – together alone, or is it alone together? I guess he figured the other side of my California King would be just as cold as a walk home.
<Unlikely—current temperature outside is 37 degrees Fahrenheit>
Not that kind of cold.
<Updating…>
I blink over to my calendar and the grid comes up behind my eyes, although I know the visual is just a “suggestion” from the implant and not a real projection. Apparently it’s a workday in December and there are no details on how I’ll drag myself through.
<Instance logged: “Professional Dissatisfaction.” Schedule job search reminder for Saturday, 11 A.M.?>
“What? No,” I say to no one. I thought the most uncomfortable part of investing in the first commercial run of Preferent implants would be the big needle of conductive smart-fluid they stick into your spine. Hanging upside down in Preferent’s corporate clinic kiosk, for gravity’s sake, I could actually feel the room-temperature liquid machines crawling up my spinal cord and wrapping my brain, like some kind of reverse sci-fi fondue dip. Turned out I was wrong—getting the damn thing to sync with my preferences is the biggest headache of all. But the manual claims it’ll know me like I know the back of my hand soon enough. We’ll be one and the same, which the reviewer in Scientific American described as a “curious sensation.” I’m not sure what that meant.
Walking up to the bathroom mirror I catch a glimpse of incidental chin stubble as I wipe crystals of goo from my eyes. The stubble actually looks kinda sharp, adds shape and texture; really brings the room together and distracts from the nose. I don’t hate it, but…
<Reminder: 34 “Image Concerns” logged last week, 15 nose-related themes included “toucan beak”>
I massage my nostrils, wishing I could just scrunch the whole thing up like a used tissue. What am I going to do with you?
<Searching…>
<Attached: A consensus from various men’s health magazines, “[Our therapists] say facial reconstruction is a perfectly valid form of self-love”>
So that’s it? Go plastic over a nose I’m tired of seeing?
<Please consult a Preferent-credentialed neurosurgeon before any major surgeries>
I slap my face and yawn.
“Ahh, maybe.”
<Instance logged: “Image Concern”>
Damn toucan beak.
***
I’m giving a lecture at the college in 20 minutes—big lawyer, fancy suit—and I’m wondering if I should show off my new tech. Some of the Preferent implant parlor tricks are pretty rad, like pretending to mind-read the students. In reality it’s just a bit of hands-free facial-recognition followed by some quick image searching on the web to find details on their socials.
“Leaked dick pics are an ordinary hazard of the 21st century, so worry less about those,” I could say. “But kids: at least wear a mask if you’re going have an Antifa phase, you know? If you’ve got those little nuggets in your past—like we all do—be prepared to get doxxed today at broadband speeds. There’s no amount of lawyering that’ll get that taken down; google the Streisand effect.”
<Current boredom scaled at 7/10>
Is that right?
<Sex drive 7/10, open dating app?>
Yeah I’ll swipe.
I blink through the guys within a 5 mile radius and wonder guiltily if any of these faces will pop up in class today. Lotta’ boys and a few men, all of them showing off the abs and glutes they’ve carefully sculpted with e-stim so they can parade around like Victorian-era dandies with false claves. I’m sure some of them go to the gym, but half the fun of swiping is reveling in my cynicism while I feed my hopeless big data addiction.
<Instance Logged>
Time for another experiment. The implant manual suggests that I can keep the swiping to one side of my brain while attempting to compose an unrelated work email via Preferent’s much-touted “double-tasking” feature on the other. It’s a disorienting split to manage once I trigger the feature. It feels like forcing your eyes to either side of your head to read two books at once, your brain shrunken down to antelope-size in the process.
On one side of my brain, Marques catches my eye in the app. Nice abs, sure, but with a big dog and, mercifully, no quotes from any ancient season of Housewives in his bio that I’m supposed to understand. Oh, and he’s a satellite technician—a smarty pants.
Somehow I’m already feeling like a lusty deposition.
Deposition?
<Delete crossover word?>
A yellow frame blinks around “deposition” in the email I almost forgot I was writing on the other side of my brain. Is this a bug or just an antelope-brained user error? There’s another flicker as the dating app fights to get my attention back.
<Matched with Marques>
Was there ever any doubt?
I keep swiping anyways, hedging my bets. There’s no telling who’s going to actually materialize in the end and who’s going to flake. Some just like to talk, some are objectifying your pics as they fantasize about leaving their monogamous relationships, some are looking for a unicorn and pushing poly on you in an insufferable kind of way, and still others are just unabashed match collectors, drowning in the gamification of their biological drives.
<Current anxiety clocked at 6/10>
Six out of ten what?
<It’s a scaling measure—increases in heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, adrenaline…>
Ok, ok – I can be both cynical and nervously excited, my therapists says so.
<It’s a dialectic>
Exactly.
Marques and I send a few platitudes and winks back and forth before we decide to meet tonight. I wasn’t sure I was going to go out again after last night, but at least part of me knows I’d feel self-defeating if I said no. Marquesis hot, you see, and one day I won’t be. The race is on.
Ten minutes later I’m telling the class they should all quit law now and take up coding. The AIs will be the ones arguing torts in no time, leaving us to dawdle the days away.
***
Ever since class ended I haven’t gotten any work done.
<Few have>
Outside my office the practice is a bit of a ghost town—it gets like that in late December, especially when the partners stop showing up on the regular because of the holidays. This has become a drink-in-the-office kind of afternoon, the kind where I try to come up with challenges for myself to help carry me through until 5 PM. My old standby used to be throwing pencils into the ceiling while sneaking shots of whiskey, a game I loved until the practice decided to update our whole look from legal classic to modern industrial. Now we’re all exposed concrete, metal, and glass, leaving the pencils nowhere to go.
<Feels like a factory>
I’m shopping for underwear a few minutes later, blinking through computer generated male-model deep-fakes who seem to have the neon lycra waistbands of their jock straps spray-painted onto the smooth skin of their angular hips. Rule of thumb these days is to always order one size up and consult your therapist about any emergent body dysmorphia.
<Set appointment?>
It can wait.
<Alert—another Preferent user is nearby. They are available to connect. Network?>
Someone else in the building already got one? And here I thought I moved fast.
<Preferent is a popoular new form of…>
What’s the point of networking, again?
<Preferent offers a new way of connecting with other users on the network—chat and share experiences with just a thought>
What do I have to do? What will it feel like?
<Just relax>
Ok, I’ll experiment.
<Networking request accepted—Connecting!>
First there’s nothing, and then there’s a moment of intense vertigo, like my swivel chair is going to spin right off the top of the Earth. For half a moment I’m in another office, on another floor, trying to decide what to feed my kids for dinner and worrying about my in-laws. These are not my thoughts, and yet for a moment, they are.
Almost immediately I know I shouldn’t be here, and she knows it too. We both thought this might have been a fun experiment, but we’ve suddenly realized it’s too personal to trigger on a whim. We don’t know one another, but we both know how the other feels, and somehow the feeling is one and the same.
We have to get out.
And then I’m being pushed out of the connection, flushed like a palmed snot rag the other user has been jamming into their face to stop a nosebleed. Nosebleed? Is my nose bleeding? Is her nose bleeding?
<Action cancelled>
I lean over and dry heave into my trashcan.
<Call urgent care?>
“I’m not sick,” I shout into the trashcan. “Goddamn, they did not say it was going to be that rough.”
<Sync malfunction—driver update needed; download now?>
“Hell yes ‘download now,’” I say. “Why didn’t you download before?”
No answer.
“I think this probably counts as some kind of bug report, no?”
<Instance logged>
I blink rapidly three times and slump against my desk, gingerly tapping my nose with the back of my hand to see if there is any blood. There is; just a smidge.
“Are you alright?” someone’s paralegal asks from the doorway.
“Can you get me some water?”
“Sure thing, Matteo,” he says. “Should I call…?”
“No, no,” I say, waiving him off. “No calls. Just water.”
I’m sure there was something about this on a consent form I skimmed, after all.
<There was>
***
It’s loud in here.
<The hippest distillery in the city>
Or so I’m told.
<Ordering on the rocks will show Marques simplicity and strength, but an orange twist might convey a fun side>
I have a fun side?
<Of course, everyone does>
I order my drink and wait patiently for my date. My fingers keep finding their way into my pockets, pushing down the tissues I have stacked there in case of another nosebleed.
<There was a warning in the manual>
It’s ok, really.
<Updating…>
Marques arrives late and apologizes. Something came up at the lab, but it’s ok now. His professionalism is kind of a turn on.
<And honesty is appreciated>
We try the house specialty rye together and he wants to talk about the Europa launch. I love this topic and he does seem legitimately smart, so at least I’m not being catfished on the brains front—that’s a positive. Maybe we’ll see how honest those ab pics were later on.
“So you’re a lawyer? What kind?” he asks.
<Don’t say corporate—records indicate Marques has posted anti-corporate and anti-capitalist memes within the last six months>
“Business advising,” I say instead.
“Oh, so a big money lawyer,” Marques says, seeing right through me.
<Tell the one good joke>
“Everyone thinks that just because I work in the financial sector I make a ton of money,” I say, pausing for effect. “And they’re right.”
Marques laughs and winks.
<Winks are good>
Or weird?
<Winks can be weird>
Maybe it’s weird.
We order another, but nothing he says helps me know how I’m doing on this date.
<This is optimal performance based on personal standards, all things considered>
All things considered?
<He hasn’t asked another personal question>
So is he not interested?
<Only one way to know—keep talking>
And that’s exactly what Marques does. He keeps talking, but it’s all about space junk and rockets and I’m left waiting for him to ask me what I’m looking for, or how I’m feeling. He’s not really looking at me or my face; instead, his eyes are darting around the room. Is it my beak?
<Instance logged>
Maybe I’m not like my pictures? Does he even look like his pictures?
<Facial Recognition indicates this is the same Marques from the app>
He does look good.
<Marques height measurement: below set preferences>
Although he is a bit short for me.
<Tracking target’s affect curve: well below current set preferences>
He doesn’t smile much, does he?
<Conversation balance: 80% target, 20% host>
It is a lot about him, isn’t it?
“So what’s it like being a lawyer?” Marques eventually asks, finally tired of himself, apparently forgetting we already covered this.
I nod and sip, just as the bar is getting loud.
<Sexual arousal scaled at 5/10>
But I’d be stupid to let this opportunity go right? I mean, look at him. People are awkward on dates. But I am feeling it, right?
<Sexual arousal scaled at 5/10>
A half hour later he’s asking if I want to get out of here. I finish my drink and check my watch. A lot of hours left in the night if I go home alone. I shouldn’t go home alone, that’s avoidant.
<Sexual arousal scaled at 6/10>
Suddenly we’re traipsing through snow on concrete, sharing an Uber, heading over to my place nearby, and keeping the conversation on its customary life-support.
<Set reminder: clean sheets tomorrow>
***
“I’m on PrEP, by the way,” Marques says as the elevator doors close on my apartment building. I’m suddenly rushing to blink away the socials I had reflexively opened with half my brain.
“Kind of a presumptive bit of information to offer, Marques,” I say. I want to play coy but who has the energy? We’re here already, aren’t we?
<Isn’t that enough?>
Marque sidles up next to me.
“Just playing safe. I’m not the one inviting strange men up to my place late at night,” he says.
“It’s 10:30,” I reply, rolling my eyes while my body pushes back against his, playing along despite myself.
<It’s 10:25 PM>
He’s all hands when we get into my apartment and I’m worried about the mess inside.
<There’s a wrapper on the coffee table>
“Drink?” I ask, directing Maques toward the couch.
“Whatever you need,” he says. I take a swig straight from the bottle and bring him a half-filled glass. He sets it on the table without taking a sip.
“Nice place,” he says.
“Lawyer money,” I reply.
<Good callback>
“Can I have the grand tour?” he asks.
“Sure, although I don’t know about ‘grand.’”
<Save the bedroom for last>
We go from living room to kitchen to nook to den, and back through the foyer toward the bedroom. Conversation about the tiling buys some time, although there isn’t much suspense around what’s about to happen.
“Spacious,” Marques says.
<Anxiety scaled at 6/10>
He instigates a kiss in the doorway to my bedroom, which I guess means he’s decided the mess isn’t a deal breaker.
<Reminder: There’s a wrapper on the coffee table>
Tripping over the laundry and books, we make quick work of our clothes and end up on top of the comforter, vying for dominance.
<He’s got more muscle mass>
But I know the terrain.
And maybe I know it too well, like a script. Like an episode of TV I’ve seen a hundred times before being streamed into existence yet again. I know he’s attractive and that anyone would just be so damn lucky to be here right now, but being so damn lucky doesn’t stop me from becoming a spectator in my own bedroom. I’m an audience member watching myself go through the motions and begging I don’t embarrass myself.
And of course this is exactly when the machinery stops working, breaking down and going soft because it’s just so damn hard to focus. I don’t know why this always has to happen.
<Attached: From Men’s Health, “5 Ways to Combat Performance Anxiety”>
Is this going to be one of those nights?
“Is everything ok?” Marques asks. “Do you want me to do something different?”
“No, it’s ok, just give me a minute.”
I close my eyes and think—try to focus on the feeling, focus on the pleasure, positively affirm I’m having a great time!
<Isn’t this what was wanted?>
The therapists have all said I need to get out of my head, back into the “primal flow.” And yet here I am thinking about my therapist instead of Marques, thinking about telling him I embarrassed myself once again in front of my one night stand. Or hell, that I am embarrassed for having another one night stand.
I just need to get through this and it’ll be OK.
<Maybe some additional stimulation?>
Anything to get me through this.
<Searching…>
And then I’m double-tasking. Half my antelope brain turns to the video platform, streaming in fast and furious, and I’m experiencing the videos faster than I could ever watch them on a screen. Step-daddy bears, twinks in wrist restraints, amateur watersport exhibitions, and on and on, the carnal cavalcade a merry-go-round of trigger-finger search term twitches. Somewhere, distantly, I have a hand on Marques’s chest and I feel fingers in my hair, and I’m starting to feel the blood rush as the tidal wave closes in around me.
“Matteo.”
“Yes,” I reply. “Yes.”
“Dude stop,” he says, more firmly, his words collapsing as two paws clasp around my antelope head, cramming the two halves back together like wet Play-Doh. “Bro, you’re bleeding on me, stop.”
<Ending search>
I snap back to attention and see the blood dropping onto his neck.
“Oh shit,” I say. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry.”
I grab the bridge of my nose and fall back into the sheets, suddenly noticing the feeling of rapidly cooling blood masking my chin. He jumps off the bed and runs to the bathroom and I stare at the ceiling.
<He’s grossed out>
Is this guy about to kick my ass?
<Dial 911?>
No!
<Waiting>
When Marques comes back he has tissues in hand.
“No worries,” he says unconvincingly, wiping himself off. “What the hell was that about?”
I grasp the wad of tissues he offers and push them into my face.
<Searching: best method for stopping a nosebleed…>
“Nothing, nothing,” I say.
“Didn’t seem like nothing.”
<From the manual: Details on introducing friends and acquaintances to Preferent available>
He’s not really either of those, is he?
“Matteo,” he says. “What’s up?”
“It’s… it’s my implant,” I say, and then immediately regret it.
“Implant?”
“Preferent.”
Marques sits down on the bed and then starts to laugh.
“Are you for real?” he asks. “You already got one too?”
“Yes,” I say. “You’ve got one?”
“I sure do,” he replies. “I’m a techie, I told you.”
“I don’t see you on the network.”
“I have my discoverability turned off because I’m, you know, here with you.”
“Oh.”
“It shouldn’t be giving you random nosebleeds, bud.”
“This was my second one today.”
“Might want to hit up the kiosk,” he says. “Get that checked out.”
“Sure.”
“Unless… no, it can’t be.”
“What?”
“Were you using it just now?”
“Well,” I say, “I mean, yes, but…”
“Were you double-tasking on me?”
“No, I…”
“Don’t lie to me, Matteo, it’s not attractive,” he continues, tapping his head. “I hear a lot of people get nosebleeds when they double task. Especially in, well, ‘high pressure situations.’”
<Anxiety scaled at 8/10>
“And double tasking in bed? Like right in the middle of all that we were just doing? I can’t imagine what was so important.”
“I wasn’t… I was nervous.”
“Obviously,” he says, and raises a hand to my ear. “So what were you doing up there instead of paying attention to me? Breathing exercises? Taxes? Lawyer stuff?”
“I can’t tell you,” I say.
“You can’t tell? Like client privilege?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh,” he giggles, dragging out the word. “I just put the pieces together. Performance anxiety, trouble getting the motor running, and double-tasking… were you watching porn?”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. He figured that out pretty quickly.
<He does have that big brain>
“Personally I think porn is kind of an epidemic,” he says. “I try not to touch the stuff too often but you could have at least invited me to suffer with you if that’s the kind of fun you were trying to have.”
“I didn’t even really know I was doing it,” I say. “It just happened.”
“Well that’s not gonna stand up in court, babe,” Marques says. “Ignorance ain’t a defense.”
“I’m so sorry.”
<Hollow>
“Listen, Matteo, I’ve tried it already,” he says. “To hell with it, you want full honesty? It was one of the first things I tried. Double tasking with the porn, I mean.”
I scoot to make more room for him on the bed.
“You did?” I ask.
“One of the first things people do when they get any new toy is figure out how they can fuck it, right?” he asks.
I put my hands over my face.
“I’m sorry, this is… I’m embarrassed,” I say.
“Well yeah, this is pretty embarrassing. Anybody else probably woulda walked out by now.”
“I won’t blame you if you do,” I say. “I’m an asshole.”
“Maybe so,” Marques replies. “But you’re an asshole with a Preferent.”
“So?”
“Well we’re already here, already naked,” Marques says, brushing his hand over my chest. “And we’ve just had the chance to be painfully authentic with one another. Why not just make the most of it? Plus I think you kinda owe me one.”
“I’m really sorry, again.”
“Stop apologizing and listen,” he says. “Let’s network.”
“Now? Why?”
“I’ve heard good things,” he says, “you know, about synced-up sex. You got the latest drivers?”
<Installation completed 7:45 PM>
“Yes but last time I did it messed me up. That was the first nosebleed.”
“We’ll carry each other through,” he says, tapping fingers behind his ear. “Whoever you did it with probably hadn’t networked before. I have.”
I look at the ceiling and back at Marques, in the eyes this time.
“Are you game or waiting for me to show myself out?”
“Ok,” I say.
<Sexual arousal scaled at 6/10>
“You’ll be alright, you’ll get used to it. Just lay back and relax. Accept the request.”
<Alert – another Preferent user is nearby. Network?>
Yes.
“Relax,” Marques says.
There’s vertigo, but it’s softer this time, maybe because my back is on the bed, maybe because I was expecting it. His hands are on me again, stabilizing me, and I know he is saying something but for some reason all I can feel is this sensation, like cottonmouth, and within that dry numbness my own tongue is saying the words I’m not able to hear.
I reach out to caress him back and find my hands running along my own waist, at once so numb and yet so familiar that each touch I give feels like a half-remembered memory burned into the skin. Turning for a kiss, I find myself face-to-face with myself, staring into eyes so unfamiliar they must be my own. I am Marques, looking at Matteo, and I am Matteo, looking at Marques, and we are both witnessing the other witnessing the other witnessing the other in an infinite reflection.
“How is this possible?” he asks me, or no… I ask him.
“Do you really care?” we say to ourselves.
“No.”
“Then just fuck me.”
We kiss, and it feels like my tongue is turning inside out, a mouth kissing itself in perfect precision. Legions of fingernails glide over oceans of skin, their crimson chemtrails rippling in a singular ancient rhythm. There is nothing wrong and there is nothing that can be done wrong, as every touch is perfectly placed. Each next caress is a searching improvisation that can’t possibly know what it knows about satisfying this body, and yet it does, because it has always known this body. It has always been this one body, even if this singular body does not truly exist.
This bliss of knowing what can’t be known about ourself is so accessible it almost feels cheap, a cheat code rendering the ecstasy in endless sustain. There was someone else here before, someone other than me, but now the field has narrowed, and I find myself on top of myself, treating myself to the bliss and no one else. So close that an emptiness has formed, and there is nothing beyond, only blackness.
We are one, yet as one, alone.
***
Marques is leaving.
<At this hour?>
“It’s 3 AM,” I say. “It’s cold. You can stay.”
But he’s already pulling his pants on, fumbling with the buckle.
“Where’s my shirt?” he says. “Just need my shirt.”
“Should I walk you out?” I ask, not moving from my spot on the bed.
<Anxiety rated at 5/10>
“Nah, don’t get up,” he says, and then turns to me. “Hey, look, that was a fun time.”
“I honestly don’t know what that was,” I say. “It felt very personal, I know that. Do you want to debrief? We were, like, in each other’s heads. It felt like that was…”
“That was the orgasm of the future,” he responds, tightening his boots.
“Right,” I say. “But also… I’m asking: are you in a hurry or can we talk?”
“I’ve got work tomorrow,” he says. “I just want to wake up in my own place, you know?”
I guess not.
<Make a nice gesture>
“Do you need a water or a snack or…”
“That was a fun time,” Marques repeats in the doorway to the bedroom. “Maybe we can do it again sometime, you know, when you’re feeling better.”
<No symptoms detected>
“I’m not sick.”
“It’s not like all that, Matteo,” he says.
“Well then what is it?”
<Anxiety rated at 7/10>
“I’m not saying this with any agenda,” he responds. “There was just… all that stuff about feeling alone. I mean, you were thinking it. I wasn’t bringing that loneliness into the network, dude. I think you might be depressed, maybe? That’s all I’m saying.”
“Well thanks for letting me know, I guess,” I say, crossing my arms. “I already know about it, so thanks.”
“Yeah well, I’m just saying, if that’s the case then you really should tell people you’re depressed before you network with them.”
“What?”
“Like, ethics,” he says. “Like, you said you were clean, drug and disease free but…”
“I am, though.”
“But we were in each other’s heads, Matteo,” he says. “And you weren’t ‘clean’ up there. You weren’t depression free ,and I feel like you’re sending me home with some, honestly.”
“Is that really how that works? That can’t be? I mean shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Court of law, dude,” he says. “But it’s ok. Maybe we’ll text.”
And then he’s gone.
<Make therapist appointment?>
***
<Good morning>
Thing is, I never fell asleep. Instead I just rolled around the empty bed. How was I supposed to know there was a whole etiquette around networking?
<Marques could have said something>
Exactly, he’s supposed to be a techie, right?
<Maybe he did>
Did he?
<Playback convo?>
Oh, definitely not. I don’t need any more evidence that I’m an asshole.
<Marques was just a one-time thing>
I guess so.
<One time things are easy>
Easy, sure.
<And there’s always tomorrow>
Well that’s sentimental.
<Swipe?>
Maybe later.
<Reminder set>
And maybe tomorrow do something about this
<toucan beak>
***