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authonomy
by HarperCollinsPublishers
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
POV
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Extra Material
The Warning
The Happy Pills
The Knight in the Library
How to Write a Novel in 30 Hours
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
I pushed the needle into the woman’s eye. She squirmed.
‘It’s okay,’ I told her. ‘It’s okay.’ I brought my voice down a little, trying to calm her. ‘Just relax.’
She clenched the side of her chair, her knuckles turning white. ‘I’m trying.’
‘You’re doing fine, Sarah,’ I said. ‘Honestly. Just try and fight the urge to blink for another couple of minutes. It won’t take long.’
‘It feels strange. Is it okay?’ she asked.
‘It’s going exactly as it should go,’ I said, slowly pressing down on the syringe’s plunger. ‘This is normal.’
‘My eye feels heavy.’
‘Your eyes are going to feel a little heavier than normal from now on, but that’s something you’ll get used to in no time.’
She let go of the side of the chair and dug the nails of her right hand into her thigh. Even through the jeans she was wearing, I could see that she was doing it hard enough to hurt. Those sharp, thick, red nails looked lethal.
‘I’m freaking out a little bit here,’ she said. ‘I’m trying not to, but I am. Are you sure this is going right?’
‘It’s going fine.’ I said. The plunger was about halfway into the syringe now, and I could see the thick liquid swirling around underneath it. It was grey-white and metallic, and moved around of its own accord. ‘This isn’t taking any longer than it should. It’s just a strange sensation, that’s all.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Look, while I’m talking, I want you to take your hands and put one on top of the other, okay?’ I said to her. This was a technique I’d used before to try and calm people down. It sometimes worked. The problem with this procedure was that it wasn’t something you could stop halfway through. If I stopped now, the connections wouldn’t be made, and the liquid would just settle at the bottom of the vitreous humour, rather than filling it. It would push against the retina instead of surrounding it comfortably like packaging, and would damage her vision irreparably – possibly blinding her completely. And if she pushed her head against the restraints too far, she would break them and I’d have no option but to pull the needle out.
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Right. What I want you to do now’ – The plunger was about three-quarters of the way down. ‘– is to gently scratch the back of your hand with one of your fingernails. Can you do that for me? Do it very slowly.’
‘O … okay,’ she said, as she began to do so.
I glanced down and saw the light, white trail left by the point of her nail against her skin.
‘Okay, so while you’re doing that, imagine you’d never felt any sensation against that part of your body before. Like it’s the first time you’ve ever been touched.’
‘Okay,’ she said. I had almost finished the first eye now.
‘Now, can you imagine how uncomfortable that scratch would be, if you’d never felt anything there before?’
‘… yes,’ she replied.
‘Right,’ I said, extracting the needle and dabbing a small cloth covered with clear gel over thehole in her cornea. ‘That’s why this is uncomfortable. You’re not used to any physical sensations inside your eye, so the first time it happens, it’s a shock – and look, there’s the first one done.’
‘I … I can’t see out of my left eye.’
‘It’ll clear in about six or seven minutes,’ I said. ‘Then you’ll be able to see in an entirely different way. Do you see what I mean about the sensation?’
She tried to nod, but the restraints against her head prevented her. ‘I can feel it moving in my eye.’
‘It’ll settle, trust me.’
‘Right, so it’s … this is what normally happens.’ She smiled, and I could see two small indentations in her bottom lip where she had bitten it.
‘Now, once it clears up, I can do your right eye. Or, if you would prefer, I can do your right eye while it’s still dark.’
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Well, everyone is different,’ I said to her. ‘But I usually suggest getting them both done together. It’s strange enough adjusting to your new vision without having your other eye lose sight at the same time. Better to stay in darkness and start seeing with IDRoPS than trying to adjust to two completely different kinds of focus at the same time.’
I put down the syringe, and picked up another one. Very carefully, I removed the cap, and pushed the liquid right to the tip of the needle. I couldn’t let any spill, but this was something I was used to.
‘I’m feeling a little panicky, but less than before,’ she said, and I watched her front teeth dig back into her lip.
‘Then you don’t want to be taking in two different loads of information at the same time. I’d suggest that you let me do the other eye now.’
‘Okay,’ she said, and moved her hands back to the side of the chair.
‘Is this a bad time to mention that you’re only my second patient?’
Her eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘I’m joking,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist.’
‘Jesus. You had me going there.’ I couldn’t quite tell if she was amused or annoyed, or both.
‘You’re my third.’
‘You’re joking again, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. You’re my fourth. Now, this is going to feel just the same as the first one, but you’re going to be anticipating it differently now, so I want you to take a few deep breaths, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay,’ I said, and pushed the needle slowly against her right eye.
I remembered what it was like when it was done to me. The single point of view as the vision from your remaining working eye is filled with a needle moving towards it.
Every natural part of your psyche wants to react. You want to pull back, or even attack the person doing it, but you know why you’re here, so you try to relax instead, while the tip of the needle gets bigger and bigger and the person behind it, the person looking at you and pushing that needle, gets more and more out of focus until the world goes black.
And your point of view changes for ever.
‘This is going to be fine, Sarah. Don’t worry, I promise.’
The needle pushed against the fibrous tunic surrounding her eye, pushing it gently inwards against the point, until it finally yielded and allowed the needle access underneath. I felt the gentle tearing of the cornea as I pushed through to the vitreous jelly underneath.
I remembered that tearing when it was done to me, and the panic and nausea I felt rising in my gut. I’d only ever had two patients ever actually throw up while I was doing this procedure, thankfully. One of them had been a teenage girl and she’d covered both of our fronts in her recently digested meal. She’d been one of the only patients I’d ever had that had actually cried during the procedure as well, but once it started, it had to be finished.
I pushed the plunger downwards slowly and smoothly once again, as the IDRoPS liquid inside wriggled free and began to fill her eye.
‘Is it feeling okay?’ I asked her.
‘It feels like curtains closing,’ she said. ‘It feels like I’m looking at a huge stage, and the curtains are dropping between acts.’
I smiled. ‘I like that way of describing it.’
‘Will it be as good as I’ve heard?’ She asked. ‘Will it be as good as everyone says?’
‘Sarah, if the curtain just came down at the end of the first act, then the second act is going to be entirely revelatory, just you wait.’
She smiled and began to laugh. ‘It’ll be worth it, then? Oh God, I can’t see. I can’t see. This is really weird. Is this okay?’ Her voice cracked, and her knuckles went even whiter than before. She was becoming hysterical.
This was okay, though. The procedure was almost finished. As long as she gave me time to finish it, this would have actually gone pretty smoothly.
‘It’s more than okay. The second act is just beginning, and I promise you, Sarah......’
‘What?’
I dropped my voice and whispered to her as gently and as calmly as I could.
‘… you ain’t seen nothing yet.’
Chapter Two
My name is John MacFarlane. I am a forty-seven year old optometrist. I actually tend to think of myself as an optomist, due to the fact that I have always had a weakness for bad puns.
I have been married for the last seven years to a wonderful woman called Rachel. We met eleven years ago, after I recovered from a very difficult period in my life, and we have an eight-year-old daughter called Natalie. I started studying when I met Rachel, and quickly excelled at optometry, and ended up helping to lead the research into improving it.
I was born near the start of the century. I don’t feel very old when I think about the fact that my parents were born in the twentieth century, but it’s something that Natalie consistently finds amazing. It seems unfeasibly old to her.
‘They watched Clinton get into office,’ she said to me as I tucked her into bed. ‘CLINTON. That’s insane.’
‘I remember Clinton,’ I said to her, sitting down on the bed in front of her. ‘I liked Clinton.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t remember him as president, do you?’
‘No, but he was around as an ex-President. And he seemed pretty cool back then.’
‘You’re old.’
‘I’m not old.’
‘You’re old. And stupid.’
‘You’re young and annoying,’ I said, smiling.
‘You’re so old, you remember Clinton. How are you not dead?’
‘It’s a mystery to me.’
‘You probably remember cavemen. Were Granny and Grandad cavemen?’
‘They were not cavemen.’
‘Are you sure? Had they discovered fire when you were little?’
‘I am not old.’
‘It must have been difficult growing up before fire.’
‘It was very difficult. Before we had fire, we would have had no way of burning someone as annoying as you at the stake.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Burning at the stake. It’s what they used to do to witches.’
‘Why did they do that?’
‘They thought they were evil.’
She gasped. ‘That’s awful!’
‘It was very awful,’ I agreed. ‘And they did it for a long time.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, this was back in Britain, and they used to have something called a witchfinder general and he would find out if someone was a witch.’
‘How would he find out?’ Her eyes were open wide, and staring at me. I loved the way she would do that. There was no pretence over something she didn’t know. Only questions and assumptions that I knew the answers. I hoped she would never lose that attitude, although I knew that she would.
‘He’d throw them into a lake, and if they couldn’t swim, they were innocent. But then they drowned. If they could swim, they were burnt. Or he would jab needles into their skin and if he found a spot that they didn’t bleed from, they were a witch. They were mainly women, too.’
Her mouth was gaping open. ‘That’s horrible. And stupid. How stupid is that? There was no way those poor ladies could win!’
‘I know.’
‘How did it stop?’
I warmed to the subject, remembering what I’d learnt as a child. ‘A bunch of village women got together, because village women were smart, and they thought about it. Because the witchfinder wasn’t actually part of the church. He was something like a freelancer and the church would pay him. So they pointed out that if he wasn’t part of the church, then he couldn’t be getting his information about witches from God.’
‘So how did that help?’ She frowned, confused. God, I loved her expressions. Complete honesty and lack of self-awareness. She was going to be brilliant when she grew up. You could see the potential exploding out of her in every direction.
‘Well, they pointed out that if he wasn’t getting his information from God then he must be getting it from the Devil, as that was the only other way he could have found out.’
‘So what happened?’ she asked.
‘He was burnt as a witch.’
She laughed out loud for an impossibly long time, barely drawing breath. She had a big, loud and high laugh. I couldn’t help but join her.
When she stopped laughing, she folded her arms and nodded. ‘It served him right.’
‘It did serve him right.’
‘Village women are awesome.’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘Awesome.’
‘Awesome,’ I agreed.
‘How long ago did this happen?’
‘Back in the sixteen hundreds.’
‘Wow. That’s hundreds of years ago.’
‘How many hundreds?’
She counted backwards on her fingers. ‘Five hundred years ago. Wow.’
‘I know.’
‘How old were you then? Twenty?’
‘Go to sleep.’
‘Can I read about the witchfinder and the village women first?’ she asked.
‘Only for a little bit.’
She folded her little reader into a small square and searched for information about witchfinders.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘Goodnight, Nat-Mac.’
‘Goodnight, Dad-Mac.’
I closed the door slowly, looking in at her fascinated face illuminated only by the glow of her reader and smiled.
I went downstairs, walking carefully down – my ankle was broken years ago and it has left me with a pronounced limp ever since. It still hurts at times, as it never quite reset properly. Rachel was playing her favourite multiplayer role-playing game on the bigger display unit. I could see the little reflection in her eyes where the IDRoPs were reacting to the game. She touched her finger to her watch and paused the game. ‘Did she go okay?’
‘She’s reading a bit. I was telling her about witches.’
‘She’d better not get nightmares.’
‘She’s a tough kid,’ I said. ‘I think she’ll be fine. She loved it, really.’
‘Okay then.’
‘How’s the game going?’
‘Not bad. I reached the next level, but I haven’t figured out what to do yet. You going to log in and join me for a while?’
‘I’m going to get a sandwich first, then I will. Do you want anything?’
‘Fancy sharing a bottle of wine?’
‘You read my mind,’ I said. ‘Can you share the level with me, and I’ll be on in ten minutes?’
‘I’ve already shared it with you. It’s just waiting for you to log in. Check the news, by the way – there’s been a clone outing.’
‘They’re still going?’
‘I know, right?’
‘Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Cool.’
There was a shout from upstairs. ‘DA-AAD!’ followed by some stomping down the stairs.
‘Is that the sound of angelic, cherubic footsteps?’ Rachel asked me. ‘You did a great job putting her to bed.’
‘What do you want, honey?’ I said loudly enough for her to hear.
She pushed the door open, walked into the middle of the room and folded her arms, her eyes glaring up at me. ‘They didn’t burn him!’
‘What?’
Her eyes blazed with anger. ‘They didn’t burn him! That’s just a silly legend. He did all that stupid stuff and he got away with it.’
‘Really?’ I asked, surprised. ‘You’re sure?’
She thrust her reader at me. ‘Look!’
I looked at the information on it. She was right. ‘Oh. I could have sworn that …’
‘He did all of that!’
‘I read that he got burnt.’
‘It’s not fair! The village women were meant to be clever. They didn’t do anything!’ Her eyes, which had been so filled with light a little while ago, now swam with tears.
I knelt down. ‘I didn’t know that, honey. Are you okay?’
Rachel came over and knelt beside her as well. ‘It was a long time ago, darling.’
‘It’s stupid!’ Natalie said, her voice breaking. ‘He was supposed to get burnt. That’s the way it’s supposed to end. You’re not meant to do something like that and not get caught. That’s not how it’s meant to work.’
I hugged her, and she buried her head in my shoulder and sobbed. I could feel the wetness through my shirt.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I said to her. ‘I wouldn’t have told you that if I thought it would upset you.’
‘I know, Daddy,’ she said, and gripped my arm.
Rachel stroked her soft brown hair, and said in a voice that only she could do in such a soothing way, ‘Do you want to sit up with us for just a little while longer?’
‘Yes, please,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Okay, then.’
‘Thank you.’
Rachel glanced over at me. ‘I think hot chocolate rather than wine, don’t you?’
‘I think so.’
She gestured over to the display, and switched it from the game to a gentle background music stream. The screen showed slowly moving blobs interweaving continuously.
Natalie and Rachel went and sat back on the sofa, Natalie curling up with her head against Rachel’s chest. Rachel gave me a little smile as I went into the kitchen to make the hot chocolate.
I swiped my finger across the touch unit on my watch and used it to scroll my visual display through to media headlines while I made it. I wasn’t looking for any in-depth information – just enough to give me an idea of what was happening in my locality and the world at large. Small, bite-sized little bursts of information, allowing me to make some sense of the swirling cloud of information that was constantly moving.
As the hot chocolate heated up I made my sandwich, while vaguely paying attention to the headlines, and as I sliced the knife through the bread, I saw a headline that changed everything.
SARAH SIMONE, 22, MURDERED
I put the knife down, no longer trusting my shaking hands, and double-tapped the headline using the touch unit. It expanded until it filled my field of vision, and I stood there for a minute taking the information in.
Artist Sarah Simone (more), 22, New York (about NY), was found dead in her home earlier today. The NYPD suspect foul play. There were signs of a struggle in the artist’s home (GPS/Photos) and evidence that an intruder had broken in. Ms Simone lived alone (Single? Cheating? Women in your area are looking for you now). Police indicated that a violent struggle had taken place. Items from Ms Simone’s home were taken, and her eyes had been removed. Police have asked for information from anyone who is offered black market IDRoPS (IDRoPS – See the world with a new point of view) and anyone who was around Queens Block Seven (GPS/Map/Photos/News Headlines for Queens Block Seven) between eight and twelve last night.
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I switched off the display and took a deep breath. Sarah Simone had been my patient a week earlier. I put her through the IDRoPS procedure. And now she was dead.
Killed for her eyes.
Chapter Three
IDRoPS – Internal Display Retina Operating Systems – are big business, and have been for the last four years. Take-up was slow at first, as people had been skeptical for two years before that, but as more celebrities began to extol the virtues of them, and the procedure became smoother and easier, more people began to get them.
Then, more and more media outlets started streaming to them. They were easy to adapt information for and that was before you got to all the other benefits.
I was one of the optometrists involved in creating the procedure and working out a way for it to be as safe and painless as possible. Before they got us involved, it was damn near butchery, and early converts were left with unsightly scar tissue across their eyes. While some of them wore the scars proudly, almost as a fashion accessory, others found them embarrassing and took to wearing dark glasses, which pretty much defeated half of the functions of them in the first place. While some worked fine in the dark, others needed light in order to function at the proper capacity.
Getting the procedure right was a big part of the rise in popularity. We had the number of problem installations down to almost zero percent, and the procedure was now six times faster than it had been when it started.
Originally, the liquid was used primarily for display purposes, and for data information transfer during the slow upgrade to visible light communication becoming a standard way of receiving streamed information.
The nanotech is filled with receiver units and translation units, which allow for a number of uses. One of them is to use your eyes as a display screen, featuring windows of information that display straight onto your retina, automatically adjusting so it is comfortable for your own vision. You can also programme it using the touch units on your watch, which are configured directly to your personal IDRoPS and allow you to navigate through any options.
The system used to be two-way, and could send information as well as receive, but this was deemed to be inordinately dangerous and we were obliged to fit certain breakpoints into the software in order to make them receive-only. We had to track down the earlier converts – this was not fun.
The most popular aspect of the technology, though, is real time information mapping and visual transformation. This is called Personal Reality and was the single biggest selling point that brought people on board.
The IDRoPS act as a filter, using object recognition technology to remap information. So, you can use your visual display to, say, change the colour of a car from blue to red in your own personal viewpoint. But it isn’t clumsy – it’s fine-tuned enough to recognise face and body features.
This means that you can look at somebody and change your perception of them so that they look different. The most popular use of this is actually personal. Most people change the way they look at themselves in any reflective surface or pictures and videos, allowing them to see themselves as thinner or better looking than they are. It remaps the information across the recognition points, allowing you to look in the mirror and lose that spare tyre around your waist, or that second chin, or give yourself more perfect breasts, or a different shade of skin colour, hair … you can be who you want to be.
According to research, thirty-seven per cent of people who use the technology in this way become more confident.