Caravellum

CRITICAL FAILURE DETECTED. ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL.

The alert flashes, a chemical rush returning me to a hazy half-consciousness.

FIRST RESPONDERS: NOTIFIED

EMERGENCY CONTACT: NOT REGISTERED

The display occupies the centre of my augmented vision. An outline of my body flashes on the periphery, torso and leg awash in the deepest scarlet red. I blink the image away, the effort alone erupting into thundering shocks of pain. The world’s vibrancy – its colour, sound, and scent – fade in and out of focus like a dream half-remembered. A warbling trill – SINGING HONEYEATER – echoes from beyond the pale-blue fence, an accompaniment to the urgent ticking of my motorbike as it protests its sudden burial beneath the loam of this flowerbed. A dangerous warmth spreads in my chest, lulling me to rest. The pain abates as I spy a flower proudly facing the sun; its mix of green and reddish hues fuses with the sun-kissed sky and decals of hovering cloudformer drones. I’ve seen this flower before, perhaps in our garden before Tasha left, in that happier time. I think it’s called a kangaroo’s – KANGAROO PAW – paw, and the one next to it with that almost auburn foliage looks like a – YOUR NatureID BASIC SUBSCRIPTION USES HAVE RUN OUT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW A SHORT ADVERTISEMENT TO REFRESH YOUR ALLOWANCE? 

The question is carved into an unmoving opaque slate over the now-hidden flower. I cough in a feeble attempt to clear blood from my lungs. My mind thrashes in a sea of static. I cannot turn my head; I presume my neck is broken. The timer beneath the YES button expires and the pop-up morphs into a larger window. A woman, generated from my album to be an approximation of my mother, sits in front of an idyllic garden. She speaks, in her soft voice that I had longed to hear say my name again.

“Good morning valued customer.” my mother’s voice begins. “The future is now. It’s time to upgrade.” A progress bar listlessly crawls across my vision. It occurs to me that I will die. “-has been hard at work developing the next-generation of artificial intelligence.” I wonder if Tasha would come to my funeral. I wonder if she would bring the girls, or leave them with Him. “For upgrading Gen.II AI Vision users-” I wonder if He’s a better father than I was; it’s not worth wondering if He’s a better husband. “Resolving glitches causing loss of vision and-” I struggle to keep breathing, a bubbling gurgle emerging from my throat. Terror grips me as I realise I am choking. “Visit your nearest augmentation supplier-” I let out a vain prayer, though the silent strained gasp cannot escape my lips, that my bike might explode to kill me. I can feel the flattened flowers beneath my head, the soft earth that becomes my deathbed. I struggle for any leak of air into these broken lungs. It does not come.

“-and remember that life gets better, when you upgrade.”