H+ incorporated Read online

  Table of contents

  Special thanks

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Thank you section

  Legal mentions

  Special thanks

  The writing of this novel has been made possible thanks to the very generous support of these financial backers, during the month of October 2016. The full list of backers is available at the end of this book.

  William Astred

  Sylvie Cahuzière

  Elisabeth Dejean

  Jean-François Dejean

  Marc Dejean

  Mona Dejean

  Raphaëlle Dejean

  Romain Dupuy

  Harley Fagetter

  Alexis Moroz

  Igor Magot

  Germain Valas

  I would also like to thank Conrad Zimmerman for his numerous edits and criticisms, and for altogether taking a chance on the project.

  Prologue

  It blips, it flickers, and suddenly it’s on: the bluish light of neon tubes falls upon a dozen cheap folding chairs in a windowless room. Footsteps follow; silhouettes limp inside, accompanied by the soft purring of rotors, the friction of steel against plastic, the clinking of canes and prostheses. The figures arrange the chairs in a circle as quietly as their bodies allow.

  The paint on the walls of the common room is crumbling, ceiling panels are missing, and the fake wooden floor is stained with suspicious patterns. A man with a prosthetic jaw pours himself some coffee from the nearby table while a fifty year old biker takes off his leather gloves, revealing metal hands. A Chinese woman in her late twenties, a third of her face covered in crude cybernetics, helps set up the remaining chairs. A quadriplegic man in an exoskeleton sits down next to a woman with prosthetic legs, the pair bumping fists together with a complicit smile.

  David and Jake sit next to one another, a chubby Indian and a six foot tall android with a white motionless face, painfully aware of how their brand new clothes make them stand out among the group. To a casual observer, they might appear to be a wealthy eccentric playing dress-up with a smart mannequin, but not in this place. Here, murmurs and glances are exchanged, because everyone is aware that Jake is not merely a machine.

  A Brazilian rasta makes his way to the circle of chairs and casts a quick glance at the small crowd, pausing briefly on David and Jake. “Couple new faces today,” he declares in a thick accent. “Welcome. There’s donuts and coffee, if you want. We’ll get started in a minute.” He then turns to address the middle-aged biker: “How’s the elbow, Bill?”

  Bill curls his right arm a few times in demonstration, producing a light squeak with each motion. “Much better, thanks. You saved me a trip to the choppers with that.”

  “Great! That’s great. See, I told you, it’s the little things.”

  “No joke. You could be a mechanic.”

  “What’s the difference, brother?”

  They chuckle. Tying his dreadlocks back with wires protruding from his skull, the rasta finally sits. “So! Before we go around, how’s everyone doing?” he asks. The group mumbles assorted, half-hearted variations of “fine” in response; they’ve all seen better days, but it doesn’t seem to affect the rasta’s enthusiasm. “Great! Now let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves, yeah? Hi. I’m Malcolm and I'm the… group coach, so to speak.”

  One by one, the group identifies themselves. Jake pays little attention to their names, focused instead on their handicaps and the strange solutions modern technology has provided them. When they’re done talking, each looks at him with pity. And before he’s even thought of what he’s going to say, David is already taking his turn. “Hi, I’m David,” he says. “Nice to meet you all. This is my son, Jake.”

  Jake’s embarrassment at being the object of every gaze in the room renders him incapable of more than a slight nod and a soft “Hi.” His unease is palpable and the room is rendered silent as it spreads from one member of the group to another.

  So as to break the spell, Malcolm speaks up cheerfully. “It’s nice to meet new folks. David, Jake, you’re among friends. OK! Who wants to go first?”

  The room remains quiet as glances are exchanged. Seeing the awkwardness of the moment, Bill raises his metallic hand. With relief, Malcolm points to him. “Yeah, Bill?”

  Turning to Jake, the biker speaks in a playful growl. “These people are too polite to say it, but that’s quite a getup you got there, kid.”

  Jake is startled. He had hoped after the introductions that he would be able to fade into the background, but all eyes remain fixed on him. After a moment of stunned silence, he responds: “What?”

  The bald, armless man points with his prosthetic hand, grinning like a scoundrel. “I’m talking about your workout, son.”

  Malcolm suddenly raises a hand, motioning Bill to shut up. “OK! Thank you, Bill.” His voice adopts an apologetic tone as he turns to address David and Jake. “What he’s trying to say is we’ve never had someone with such… extensive prosthetics. But that’s not relevant. Everyone’s welcome here.”

  David looks a bit concerned but does his best to mask this with a reassuring smile, as he and Jake exchange a glance. Inside Jake’s face, soft panels start moving beneath his artificial skin, mimicking a frown. “OK. Err… Thank you?” the boy timidly replies.

  “Like he said. You’re welcome,” Bill contributes, seemingly happy with the discomfort his directness has caused. Pressing further, he asks: “So, how old are you?”

  Malcolm shoots a disapproving look at Bill before forcing another smile at David and Jake. The Chinese woman leans in, spectating intensely, her artificial eye capturing every moment of the encounter.

  Jake takes his time answering, and the reply comes in fits and starts unbecoming of his smooth features. “Ha… You can’t tell. That’s kind of funny ain’t it? Yeah, I was going to talk about my height… This…” He pauses to look at his plastic hands as he gestures; he has no nails, no lines, no veins, no beauty spots or inconsistencies of any kind. “Custom bodies are expensive. So, I’m taller now. It’s pretty weird.”

  “How tall were you before?” asks Bill. The sense of unease still lingering in the room regains in intensity as Jake sits up straight and uses a hand to draw a line across his chest, his perfectly indistinctive face bearing a blank expression, his eyes locked with Bill’s. From his seated position, the meaning of the gesture is unclear and several of the group members exchange tense glances. Bill frowns, realizing the implication, but presses on. “How old are you, kid?”

  Jake takes a quick glance to his sides. His voice is faint when he answers: “I’m ten.”

  Chapter 1

  At the turn of the century, pumped up to eleven by digital communication on a global scale, scientific and technological progress entered an exponential growth. If the human genome could be mapped in a matter of decades, uncovering the mysteries of the nervous system would be a walk in the park. By 1999, rats would control a robotic arm with their thoughts and by 2008 monkeys would eat bananas with it. In 2014, a young man paralyzed from the waist down opened the football World Cup with a kick of the ball assisted by the same technology. Direct neural interface in humans was achieved.

  All the while, industrial development fed on increasing demand. In this rapidly expanding electronic age, renewable energies piled atop usual forms of consumption rather than supplanting them. Icecaps finished melting, new routes opened to drilli
ng, and sea levels continued to rise. In 2017, green moss was discovered in the Antarctic. By 2020, rivers across Asia would flood every year. In 2023, a hurricane hit Manila.

  For weeks, it was as if the sea had risen up and taken the entire coastline with it. When finally the skies cleared, all that remained was a swamp of Babylonian proportions. In the months to follow, humanitarian dispatches relocated the survivors to the surrounding hills while the cash-strapped nation scoured for ways to rebuild its capital. Desperate, its leaders called upon the assistance of private companies across the continent. From the few options presented, a plan emerged to use cutting-edge robotics in the construction of a titanic, flood-proof platform that would cradle the center of the rebuilding metropolis.

  By the end of the year, a massive government contract would be approved, a partnership between public and private sector heavily weighed in favor of the latter. With this leverage, the corporations involved exerted their influence on policy to establish the city as a free market bastion with few regulations.

  When the humongous platform was completed in 2029, construction began on skyscrapers destined not to the victims of the flood, but to the numerous executives called upon by companies in the haven. The citizens displaced by the hurricane, most of whom couldn't afford returning to the city, remained trapped in the slums that grew from the former refugee camps.

  As development continued, the corporate forces that built the platform turned on each other. Rivalry morphed into vendetta, faceless shareholders pushing unscrupulous board-members far beyond the constraints of the law. Ten years later, on the side of the tallest skyscraper in town, a bright, white logo shines higher than any other: H+ incorporated.

  September, 2039. The air outside the common room is hot and dusty. As the group emerges from their session, it’s only late afternoon, but the sun is already setting. The street is cluttered with glass fragments, plastic bags and cigarette butts; broken streetlights and cheap smart-cars border the road. Down the street, a driverless truck swallows the content of trash dumps full of discarded computers.

  David and Jake exit last, Jake walking with the slow shuffle of an old man, holding his father’s arm. A few feet from the door, the Chinese woman with the artificial eye approaches them, her face smiling kindly from behind the bulky prosthesis covering half her face. “Hi again,” she greets the pair as they walk.

  “Hey,” David responds.

  She points forward with her chin. “You’re going this way?” Ahead of them, a block down the street, citizens are marching in protest, raising banners, chanting, demanding jobs. Jake pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, and puts his hands in his belly pocket.

  “Hem. I’m sorry,” David apologizes to the woman. “I don’t remember your name.”

  “It’s alright! I’m Chloe.”

  “You know,” he starts.

  “Yeah,” she interrupts with a cheery dismissal. “I get it. A lot of new faces.”

  “Right.”

  They creep down the sidewalk until reaching the protest, a slow-moving flood of bodies walking in the perpendicular street. David, Chloe and Jake stop for a minute, taking in the scene of colorful characters chanting in the early evening. Half naked and drunk young people just here for the party cavort alongside elderly syndicalists reciting slogans through megaphones and too many tired faces to count. The pink evening sky, that rare beautiful byproduct of pollution, barely penetrates the anarchic web of cables connecting dull concrete buildings.

  David sighs audibly. “What is it this time?”

  On the tips of her feet, Chloe peers over the flow of heads to observe the path of the protest. “They’re going towards the center. We can move with them down the block and get out at the next corner.”

  She pushes in first, attempting to force an opening in the herd for David and Jake to enter. With David close behind, Jake manages to take a few short, shuffling steps into the street before being enveloped by the mass and violently jostled by a passing protester. As he tries to maintain his balance, David throws an arm around Jake's shoulder in an attempt to create some kind of protective space for his son.

  Terrified by the noise and activity of the crowd, Jake sinks low, wrapping his arms around David’s waist, his head pressed to his father’s chest. The pair pitifully crawl in this pose across the street for a long couple of minutes. Reaching the pavement on the other side, where the population is less dense, they stop to collect themselves.

  “Unbelievable!” Chloe exhales as she looks back across the half dozen meters they exerted so much effort in traveling. Jake continues to cling to his father’s midsection, staring at the ground like a broken doll. David gives him a gentle pat on the back, but Jake’s robotic body betrays no indication of comfort. Chloe turns back to face them, crouching to meet Jake at eye level.

  “Hey,” she says, speaking softly. “You OK?”

  A moment passes before Jake meekly responds. “I wanna go home,” he says, in the slightly distorted whine of his budget voice synthesizer.

  “Of course,” she replies before standing to look at David.

  “We’re parked over there,” the father says, gesturing toward a car parked on the nearby corner. “Chloe, thanks for the help.”

  “Anytime,” she says as she reaches into her purse, produces a poorly printed business card and offers it to David. “I mean it. Call me anytime.” Without looking at it, David puts the card in his pocket. He then smiles and turns away with Jake, helping his son into the car. Chloe continues to watch them drive away, Jake waving goodbye as the car’s automated system smoothly moves the vehicle out of the parking lane.

  After they’re gone, Chloe slides comfortably back into the roiling crowd. Walking faster than most, she joins in with the droning chant, “Robots took our salaries! But robots have no families!” As she advances with the discontented flow of humanity, she tries to count how many marches like this have been held in recent months. The new city was supposed to be a beacon of hope through technological innovation but, to these people, all it’s done is generate poverty, with basic robotics stealing blue collar jobs and still cheaper algorithms poaching the white collar ones.

  Night has fallen when Chloe reaches the front of the protest. A cordon of policemen in anti-riot gear blocks the way to the center of town while megaphones spew orders to disperse and surveillance drones float overhead. As the crowd amasses and the distance between the two groups closes, it doesn’t take long for a lobbed bottle to crash on a riot shield, giving authorities all the excuse they need to crack down. Tear gas canisters are fired into the crowd and the police move in to engage, clashing batons rhythmically against their shields.

  Chloe pulls a bandana from her pocket, covering her mouth and nose in an attempt to protect herself from the gas. In the chaos of smoke and panicking people, she can hardly see two feet away and is barely successful at staggering her way to relative safety on the side of the street. Those at the center of the swollen crowd are less fortunate, and more than a few suffer injuries due to trampling by retreating compatriots.

  As the smoke thickens, the crowd does thin out. Suddenly, from an alleyway less than half a block from the cordon, a decrepit, rusted van swerves into the street, its suspension drawing sparks as it screeches toward the police cordon and skids to a stop. The sliding door opens to reveal two men in yellow industrial exoskeletons, their faces wrapped in clothing behind protective cages; the van nearly bounces into the air from weight displacement as they disembark and charge the barricade.

  Barely able to comprehend what they’re witnessing, the riot police are able to do little more than raise their shields before the two workers crash into the cordon, sending cops literally flying from the force of their impact. Stunned but still able to recognize an opportunity, Chloe moves closer to the action and zooms in with her prosthesis. She gives her artificial ear a light pinch, activating her phone. “Call boss,” she yells. As the call connects, she does her best to catch her breath. When finall
y someone picks up, Chloe bursts, “You’re gonna want to see this!”

  Life on the city platform buzzes with the managed chaos of rush hour activity. Driverless cars shuttle workers home from a long day as police surveillance drones hum through the air, patrolling for any disturbance. At every corner, on every building, in every hand, screens shine with information as data, life blood of the twenty-first century, invisibly directs this transit ballet.

  In an upscale apartment dozens of stories above, Jake sits on a cream colored leather couch facing a video wall, casually cycling through streaming video channels with a remote control. On the opposite end of the well-lit and open space, is a kitchen area where David extracts a tray from a microwave oven, setting it on a platter next to a fork and a cylindrical plastic vial labeled, “nutrients.”

  “Hey,” Jake exclaims, pointing at the screen, now showing live footage of a riot in progress. “It’s that protest we saw!”

  As David carries the platter from the kitchen to the couch, he sees that Jake is correct; the march they had unwillingly participated in just an hour prior has escalated into violence. Two people in construction exoskeletons appear to have broken through a barricade and protesters are flooding out of the previously cordoned area. Overwhelmed police are seeking cover behind water-cannons being fired on the crowd as shoes, glass bottles and general detritus are flung in response. In the center of it all, the two workers in exoskeletons are wreaking havoc, overturning an armed response vehicle and fighting with cops in riot gear.

  “Are you sure you wanna watch this?” David asks, putting the platter on a coffee table and sitting next to his son. Wordlessly, Jake lifts his sweater to expose a small, rectangular panel in his chest. David presses it and the cover slides down, revealing another plastic vial identical to the one on the tray but for the contents, small bits of brown residue clinging to the inside. With a twist, the tube slips easily out of its cavity and David replaces it with the full one before sliding the cover back into place. Jake’s face never once looks away from the screen, only acknowledging the ritual’s completion by moving his hand back to his side, his sweater falling back into an awkward bunch in his lap.