Glitch

“Whoa, you disconnected hard for a second there,” a concerned voice said, as he felt himself being lowered into a soft armchair. “Easy bud, you still with us?”

The distorted voice sounded much closer this time. Sharper. A few seconds later, his vision cleared up and he could see a hand waving in front of his face.

“I’m all good man,” he said. “Just haven’t had a chance to fully recharge this week. I’ll probably turn in early before we head out tomorrow though.”

His friend looked doubtful for a moment, before shaking his head. “You know… are you sure you want to go? If you glitch, they’re not gonna let that--”

“Ezra, stop,” he bit out more harshly than he intended. He hated being treated as if he were fragile. “I said I’m good.”

When Ezra didn’t look convinced, he sighed.

“Look man, I’ll charge up alright? Run the update to be sure.”

It was a lie. Another false statement that slipped easily from his lips, much like the thousands of other lies he’s been telling. He couldn’t run that update. But he couldn’t tell his friend that either.

After Ezra finally left, he headed to the night chamber. And like he always did when an update was sent out, he rigged the bed and plugged it into an old thermal mannequin they used to experiment on. The system wouldn’t know the difference. All that mattered is having a warm body to run the update on.

The transfusion genetics was meant to eliminate illness, control overpopulation, and stabilize the world governments. A bio-geneticist found a way to inject digital strands of DNA in a manner that fused with the human consciousness.

After 4 generations, the majority of the earth’s population ran off digital energy, recharging in their sleep, much like the ancient human phones from before the transfusion age. It was considered a sort of utopia. Software updates would work symbiotically with the body’s natural organs, eliminating viruses and cancers before they would settle in.

The world elite? The ones who could afford the latest and greatest tech? They received the exclusive updates. The ones that leveled up their genetics and would benefit their kids and their kids’ kids.

They always said that “beta” updates were not fully tested and “unsafe” to roll out to the mass population. But everyone knew it was a way to keep the social structure intact. Whereas most people, like him and Ezra, needed to recharge regularly… the wealthy could afford lightning rest.

They charged as they expended energy, by design of their genetics. After decades of exclusive, cutting edge updates, they were like Gods among the commoners. Not having to recharge and unplug meant more time. More time to do everything. Build more wealth. And less taxes to pay on energy consumption.

The system was broken, designed to keep the elite turbo. That was why tomorrow was important. Tomorrow was the baseline. A series of events that measured every physical, emotional, mental meter in your biological makeup.

In theory, anyone could complete the event. In reality, it was just another sport for the elite. The average person wasn’t advanced enough to pass through the obstacles. And if they did? There weren’t enough updates to go around.

Only the first 100 finishers received updates. And not these generic ones that were sent out in mass, meant to reduce autonomy and rebellious personality traits. Real updates. Ones that could increase your lifespan, your energy store, your strength, your intelligence. Ones that gave you an edge. A real chance.

And if anyone needed an edge, it was him.

--

He woke up in a jolt. It wasn’t smooth. It hadn’t been since he started glitching out three weeks ago. He was malfunctioning.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. It was 4 hours past sunrise. The event started at high-sun. He probably had roughly 2 hours to hack this.

He knew what he had to do. But the last time he did it, he disconnected for nearly two days. It was a miscalculation with the code--he got his body weight wrong. If he messed this up, it would be game over. There wouldn’t be another event for another 3 months. And he didn’t have that long.

He placed his head into his hands and sighed heavily. His heart pounded with anxiety and anticipation, before he took a deep breath and willed his bio-intelligence to turn down his cortisol levels. He could feel it working when a wave of calm washed over him.

Good. Now he could get to work. He pulled out a syringe and plugged it into his kitchen interface. He took a vial of adrenaline and poured it in as a base, waiting for the sequence to show up on his monitor.

He ran a stored procedure that he saved from the last time, before adding a couple additional lines of code. He needed high functioning, low survival instincts, and most importantly, auto-troubleshoot processes.

If he calculated it correctly, this should be able to patch him up in case he glitched. Unless anyone paid really close attention, they wouldn’t be able to see the patch. Hopefully by then, he would already have the latest update and it wouldn’t matter.

It was a complex program, but luckily, he was off-grid and siphoning power from the dark web. And the syringe would render without authorization from the government.

45 minutes later and he had his shot ready to go. He tucked it into his jacket pocket and headed towards the race track.

--

At exactly high-sun, hoards of marathoners lined up at the start of the track. This was a four event sequence, but the first obstacle alone would knock out half the participants.

Car jumping.

After rewiring the bio-makeup nearly a century ago, some adrenaline junkie invented a new sport. It was considered a luxury event, and most individuals never got the chance to try it, except in events like this.

People would jump in front of a moving car, allowing their bodies to get hit and shock them into a high that simulated a death experience. This is where the elite had the advantage. Their high tech genetics would instantaneously turn off their nerve endings, pain receptors, and heal any physical injuries. Pain is, after all, a construct of the mind.

The rest? Especially the first timers? They would find themselves in excruciating pain, unable to discern reality from programming until a medic came and updated their software to remove the discomfort, but also eliminate them from the event.

After that, the rest of the events were a breeze. A fully underground swim, to test the mind’s limits and lung capacity. It simulated drowning. A fire walk. And lastly, a bullet to the heart, self inflicted. These were all designed to test the limits of the human mind. Despite years of evolution, people were still susceptible to survival instincts.

They were afraid of death. And that is what separated the elite from the average. They had decades more updates to rewire these inferiorities.

He would be fine. He headed towards the back, pretended to tie his shoe, and quickly injected himself with his concoction. Before anyone could notice, he placed the syringe under his shoe and crushed it before the bell went off. A flurry of shoes flew, and no one would have noticed a thing.

Unknown to him, a pair of curious eyes stared at the exact spot where his foot left the crushed glass.

--

When he got home, he was grinning uncontrollably. It worked. He couldn’t wait to get into his night chamber and reverse engineer the update. Right on time too.

This would resolve a lot of his malfunctions, and hopefully recalibrate him so he could stop living this secret, underground life. He was eager to live normally again. His excitement died as soon as he stepped into his night chamber.

Someone was sitting on his bed, a scanner in one hand, a locket in the other. His heart dropped.

“Ezra!” He exclaimed in shock, before anger set in. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

His friend looked at him with cold eyes.

“Don’t try to lie to me anymore. I scanned your code. I had to man.”

He felt his blood run cold, before he said in a deathly calm voice. “You scanned my code? I could have you unplugged for that.”

Ezra smirked.

“You’re not going to do that.”

“What makes you so sure?” Scanning someone’s code was illegal. A death sentence.

Ezra clicked open the heart shaped locket and both men stared as the video loop played. He stared, wondering how his day had gone from successful to messy in a matter of hours.

“You’re a twin,” Ezra whispered harshly, finally showing emotion. “You told me the work accident was what caused you to glitch. What else have you been lying about?”

“Look man, you don’t understand,” he said in exhaustion, suddenly drained.

“Oh, I understand. You lied to me. You endangered me. You had me thinking it was a software bug, but now I find out you’ve been hiding a fucking savage this entire time?”

“DON’T USE THAT WORD,” he bellowed. But it was true. Population control ensured that births were predetermined.

The savages were non-hybrid humans with original DNA. They’d never been injected and still lived feral outside of the city. His mother had let a savage impregnate her, not knowing her fertility would be impacted.

He’d been secretly splitting his updates for years. Until they stopped working. The last monthly update caused him to glitch--it didn’t recognize his software. So he had to stop running them. But now he had bigger problems.

He stared at Ezra, conflicted. Finally, he sighed.

“Do what you gotta do, Ez.”

Ezra stared at him hard. He looked tired and burnt out, sad even. But he knew that his bio-intelligence was overwriting the human emotions, pushing him to report the crime.

After a moment, Ezra said quietly.

“I’m sorry, Elon IV... You gave me no choice.”