Off the Book

It ended like every other stupid idea. Badly, and alone.

I’m researching digital confession ethics, he said. A tech ethicist. He gestured at floating data I couldn’t see then pulled out a physical notebook. Actual paper, fountain pen. He held it up like he was showing me scripture.

That right? I cleared space on my desk for his notes, like that would help me understand it better.

How about you? You work in the dead zones, he said. Thoughtfully. Do you still feel the need to confess?

Everyone confesses now, I said. Continuously. The implants auto-report. Your algorithms auto-correct

Need doesn’t matter when it’s mandatory.

I tried marketing myself honestly once: Off-grid PI with damaged implant who can’t auto-report; perfect for cases you don’t want logged.

Not quite a client magnet. Nobody trusts someone who can’t be tracked.

He had a three-year grant to study analog confession rituals, he said. Surveillance theology. How machines had replaced the divine witness.

Where at, I made the mistake of asking.

It was good I had another case that day. Plus his implants would glitch out. Eventually.

The confession booth is deep in the dead zone, he said. I need someone who can get me there. Someone whose implants won't fail.

And once we're there?

I need to observe authentic analog confession behavior. Someone who still practices the ritual.

You mean me?

I mean you.

Couldn’t take the noise, my partner used to explain. Sensory overload, said the neurologist. Neural implant rejection, cognitive integration failure. Highly unusual for an adult installation, he said.

He was sorry to say the insurance wouldn’t cover repairs. He was sorry the city had no support programs for voluntary disconnection.

But he’d be thrilled to hire me for work that needed to stay off the books, he said to my damaged temples.

Oh yeah? I gave him the interested nod. That’s really something, I said. It’s called staying employed. I wouldn’t last a week without it.

Fascinating space, he said, glancing around my office. Very liminal. He was from the Compliance Institute downtown. Full surveillance, optimal connectivity. He loved dead zones. He’d never been in one this isolated. Not for research, anyway.

I tried to imagine someone paying me to study things instead of fix them.

My other client came in. Her implants were glitching with interference. I walked her through the manual override, showed her how to breathe through the disconnection panic. It’s just quiet, I said. You’ll get used to it. She nodded, steadier.

When she left, the ethicist said, They need you.

I genuinely liked being needed, but you’d have to be broken to make a career out of other people’s desperation.

Thanks, I said.

What do you do when you’re not working?

Smoke alone. Masturbate to memories of other people’s AR feeds. Try to fall asleep before the phantom notifications start. My broken implants still think they’re receiving messages.

Check the perimeter, I said aloud. Also true. Also meditative. When the phantom network pings start late at night, walking my dead zone takes up just enough attention to keep me from spiraling into regret about what I destroyed.

I’m not running from anything specific, to be clear. No pleasure in checking blind spots, cataloging camera angles, testing sight lines. I just want my corner of the dead zone secure. Quiet vigilance.

Sometimes I pause at the border where the surveillance starts, just to remind the algorithms I’m still here.

Going to the confession booth together wasn’t that weird. Some researchers need access to border sites. Some want observation of liminal spaces. Field work. Standard escort service.

Isolated people crave human proximity. It wasn’t that.

The booth was deep in my territory, past the last surveillance outpost. Deep enough to feel safe. Deep enough to hurt.

My implants started phantom pinging as we approached. He didn’t notice. His worked fine.

This is perfect, he said, scanning the space. Now show me. How you would actually use it.

You want me to—

Demonstrate. Yes. He needed authentic behavioral data.

The booth's wood was old and smooth under my knees. Worn by decades of other people’s guilt. I'd done this before. Not for him.

He pulled out additional equipment then. Not just the notebook. Scanners. Mapping tools. Compliance Institute gear.

Just need to document the architecture, he said. And the neural patterns during analog confession. Spatial analysis. Behavioral baseline. For the preservation study.

I understood then what I'd done. What grant money really pays for. How 'preservation' becomes cataloging becomes targeting becomes elimination.

The booth would be gone within a week. Flagged. Demolished. Archived.

My other clients would never forgive me. Everyone who'd found sanctuary here. Everyone who needed somewhere the algorithms couldn't see.

It wasn't hard to confess what I’d done. I’d destroyed the only place left where confession mattered.