A Christmas Glitch

The twins were dead. Our hero knew it, and you may imagine that a little something in him unclenched when he saw the news on his screen. Now, at last, he was truly free of them, and the knowledge was like a sigh. Were he a balloon animal, one segment of his torso (or his neck, or one intestinal-esque limb) would have gently unscrewed itself. His heart and lungs lost a little creak that he didn't even know he'd been carrying.

Dead.

Perhaps his balloon-animal-like intestines un-tweak, and his anus the same, with every year that passes. There are seven of them. You may count them, if you like, and when the last has ticked away, our story truly begins, or at least, moves along another pace.

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Let's take a closer look at our protagonist. He looks like a balloon mated forcefully with a slab of out-of-date ham, and the resulting love-child had been given rather too much Botox. His eyes are like mirrors, and his smile matches. He has a pasty look to him, as if he will melt in the abysmal drizzle if his minders don't step lively and hurry him into the back of the car quick enough. As if he's carved from a small mountain of spun sugar, only slightly more substantial and a whole lot less sweet.

And yet, under that veal-like skin, there lies a shrewdness, sharp as flint. Oh! But he's a wealth-bloated manipulator! Nudging, twisting, side-stepping, slithering and ultimately taking. He broke laws that hadn't even been made yet; laws that had to be made because of him. There is something to be admired there, perhaps. Ingenuity? Someone's, anyway. Audacity, surely. That, at least, is all his own.

The rain had turned to mist, fine as static, as Zuckerberg scanned the street for the familiar black SUV. The air shimmered with the LED snowflakes that hung in the air and fizzed gently against his skin. All the wonders of technology, he mused, and we cannot make snow cold.

He passed one of the many delivery partners that cycled around the city and its surrounding areas. The young man was bent double under the load strapped to his back, and steering his bicycle one-handedly. The cyclist's scowl was shared equally between the street ahead, and the cracked, glowing screen grasped in his other gloved hand. The mouth-watering smell of warm pizza trailed in his wake.

Before the tomato-and-fresh-dough-scented worker was out of sight, an automated street vendor offered chestnuts. "Free, sir," it said. "Scan the QR code and enter your-" Zuckerberg moved past with a determined step, eyes fixed ahead. Even from here, he could see the damp placards wilting outside the Community Centre.

Let our kids be kids! they proclaimed

Wait Till Eight! said others, referring, as Zuck well knew, to the plea that children should not be permitted a device, nor access to Media, until the eighth grade.

SMART PHONES = DUMB KIDS!

Beyond this small crowd, was another, larger one.

NO AI!

stAmp It out!

WE DONT CONSENT

Put The Planet First!

Zuckerberg paused. A boy stepped forward, holding out a flyer. Zuck did not stoop to look at it. Their eyes met, though, and the boy’s were outlined in a tired blue smudge, like a bruise. When had he last slept?

"Will you sign our petition, sir?" the boy said. He was young enough not to recognise the man he was speaking to.

"Why?" Zuck was irritable.

"For a better world, of course," said the boy, doubtless parrotting his dear mother, who we can identify in the cluster of moderately outraged citizens by the direction of her concerned gaze.

"My world is just fine," Zuck informed him.

The Suits, as Zuck thought of them, materialised at his elbow. They were never far away. They stepped forward, like monochromatic sheepdogs, herding him towards - yes, there it was, look - the SUV parked a short distance away. Its door opened as he approached. He ducked and slid inside. The car purred smoothly away from the patchy, chanting crowds, and bore him home.

The gate to the compound loomed in a comforting way. None but you, it seemed to say, will pass here.

A statue sat atop each gatepost. These matching obelisks bore only the faintest resemblance to human faces. They unnerved most people, perhaps because they looked like they'd been carved by someone who had never actually seen a human face, but had only heard them described. Poorly.

Between the flickering snow and the deepening twilight, these monstrosities appeared to nod in smug agreement. None shall pass but you.

There were the usual security checks, and then the gate slid open with hardly a whir, and closed behind the car just the same. Zuck did a double take. For a moment - just a moment, mark you - they had looked like real faces after all. Not just any faces, either. Two identical ones that he knew as well as his own, and had thought - hoped - never to see again.

He turned, craning to get a better look, but now they looked as they ever did. Then the car turned the next corner, and he could no longer see. He shook his head to clear the unsettling sight from his memory, and settled back into his seat.

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A mere mortal might have gawked in wonder at his pristine home, where chrome and sleek lines melded with retro splashes of incandescent wealth. It was like stepping into an Instagram feed. Every item looked brand new, and expensive, and curated with pedantic care.

An enormous Christmas tree dominated the main living area. It looked like it had been professionally decorated, and it was surrounded by a cluster of gifts that looked too colour co-ordinated and conveniently shaped to be anything other than empty boxes. A metaphor, you might say.

Miranda greeted him with a seasonal chime, and he waved her away with one hand, not bothering to speak. She dissolved in moments, until the last pixels winked blue and vanished.

It might have been the eerie snow, or the protests, or the melancholy of his wife and child being at his in-laws and leaving him alone in this enormous property. The human staff were all gone home to their own families, except perhaps the Suits. He was not sure where they were, or what they did when they weren't following him around. In any case, something made Zuck shut down the automated staff for the night. They had a knack for making him feel lonelier, and despite what he might insist publicly, they got on his nerves.

There was coffee in the pot, bitter but still warm. Decaffeinated, most likely. Zuck poured himself a cup, and seated himself by the fire, some short distance from the ludicrous tree. He looked like a puzzle piece had been slotted into place, but from a different puzzle. But then, he always looked like that.

Before he quite reached the dregs of his cup, there was another jangling chime, equal parts merry and false. Zuck waved a hand again, irritable, to dismiss whatever notification they were alerting him to. It did no good. The binging and bonging persisted. He frowned. Hadn't he just now switched this nonsense off? Taking his 'phone from his pocket, he jabbed at the screen, which stayed ominously black. He looked up again.

It looked like Miranda had done at the moment he had dismissed her, but in reverse. One - or was it two? - glowing blue pixels winked in the air, and bloomed to take the shape of a person. A familiar person. A dead person.

Or was it two?

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Thanks for reading!

This is day #193 of writing daily.

This is a retelling of quite a famous story, but with a modern, techy twist. It's also an entirely fictionalised account inspired by a person. And it's already well over 1k words, so I'll drop another instalment tomorrow. Ish.

If you are curious why I've not been around much lately: