Gamemaster by Jesikah Sundin

Author:Jesikah Sundin [Sundin, Jesikah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Teen, Dystopian Romance, Eocpunk, Medieval Fantasy
Publisher: Forest Tales Publishing
Published: 2018-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

***

Your mind is a walled garden. Even death cannot touch the flowers blooming there.

— Dr. Robert Ford, in Westworld, 2016 *

Stability’s the beginning of the end. We only walk by continually beginning to fall forward.

— Milgrim, in Zero History, by William Gibson, 2010 *

***

Wednesday, April 4, 2058

FILLION PUSHED AROUND FILES OF INFORMATION across his screen. He was determined to read every word in the MELISSA Project’s folders by morning. Not necessarily to comprehend fully, but to highlight specifics for further investigation later. Plus, his mind was too wound up to rest. It was either this, other work details needing his attention, or mentally ranting the night away.

“I need help,” he mumbled to himself. God, still talking to himself. Would it ever end? Fillion stared at the wall by his bed, disgusted. “Hey, Hanley, you pervert,” he muttered to the wall. “Stop listening to me.”

His gaze leaped around his darkened room. Waiting for some kind of reply.

Nothing appeared. No rebuttal signal. He didn’t feel any different. Whatever. That asshole’s days were numbered. Fillion was gathering every scrap of evidence he could find. The mind game was about to spin. Fillion was now the Gamemaster—he moved the pawns on the chessboard—and Hanley was going to find himself in forced retirement. Bonus if orange became his new dress code, too.

Puzzle pieces were finally coming together. Bio-hacking and body augmentations had been around for decades. Hell, he’d considered a few enhancements himself. Now it didn’t matter. Seemed Hanley had made that choice for him, like usual. That is, if Fillion and Mack’s suspicions proved true. At least he wasn’t chipped. So demeaning. He wasn’t the government’s pet. Or a corporation’s.

In Europe and some parts of Asia, citizens were required to get chipped. Identity mining and digital cloning were rampant. It was getting harder for security to remain ahead of implanted consumer tech.

But biotech developed by New Eden Biospherics & Research was a game changer in the science community, not only for transgenerational epigenetics but also for the transhumanism movement. The dark irony wasn’t lost on Fillion.

Isolation, confinement, and extreme environment syndrome? No. Villagers preferred their close quarters. Most couldn’t perceive visual depth beyond the limitations of the biodome. Not enough far distances for the retina to focus on. When faced with the expanses beyond The Door, villagers routinely cowered or threw up their hands as protective measures. The lab had labeled their reaction “the sky is falling syndrome.”

Imprinted by Earth? Not really. Not like all other globally connected humans. Role-players had done their job well. The second and third gens could only comprehend the closed-loop cycle of their Martian biosphere. The reality of Earth, of the greater ecosystem’s enormity, was incomprehensible.

Self-correcting medical biotech to heal and avert major medical crises? Yes. The mother-infant mortality rate had dropped to record low levels—lower rates than even the most progressive industrial nation. Very few adversely reacted to foreign viral and bacterial infections too. A guarantee that a Martian colony could multiply and be fruitful. But, so far,

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