Forget food pills, flying cars, everclean jumpsuits and moon holidays—what we got (if we’re lucky) was a Job.
They got some things right—cranial inputs and interface shunts, weakly omniscient AI, fully realised immersion environments: so fucking what. The dependency principle is ever present—data access, comfort, presence, credibility, fiscal viability: all predicated on the maintenance of a stream of fragile income. And at the mercy of a diminishing number of giga-nationals; like the autonomic twitching dermis of a dozing bovine, one errant spasm from these behemoths can snuff you out: PRESS 2 TO SPEAK TO OUR RECONNECTION TEAM…
Its 2026 and the framework, the very tenets of my existence totter uneasily on a creaking Heath Robinson framework of queasily integrated utilities. A deeply fragile interconnected system of dependency, only working because everyone participating ignores the feeble underpinnings of a tissue thin redundancy; the ever present threat that with one system sneeze we could slip into a runaway cascade event of scarcity.
For some of those fortunate enough to be gainfully employed we have the Jobs. AI, it transpired, is imminently doable; it was just a question of getting some sufficiently self-referenceable applications to bootstrap their next few iterations and job done: morally ambiguous, wholly alien minds bumbling around in their tanks like a bunch of Hawking savants. So what do we do with them, parallel link them to examine the Godhead, implant them in a generation ship, redesign the free market; no, they run the Jobs. Admittedly, they don’t use the full fat, transcendent-capable, Examinds—we get the hobbled, dog-like intelligences of middle management—competently running the Jobs with adequate efficiency, minimal notions of betterment and a depressing penchant for lacksadaisical encouragement: good doggy, have a biscuit.
My Job (illegally nicknamed Babs if you recall), is a fairly typical semi-permanent example, i.e.: it uses utility hook ups on site; (some models are self contained, using concentrated organic feedstock [read: user waste], an atmospherics water extractor, and third gen infraPV for electrical power). Babs resembles an old fashioned self-supporting garden hammock, albeit one made from carbon struts, chromogenic display panels, a xenograft meat sling and other paraphernalia exotica.
Jobs have one primary role: the maximisation of efficient work time—the culmination of a carefully calculated augmentation/productivity algorithm. Entry is machine assisted and involves a considerable degree of prep time, not least because of the average immersion duration is 40K seconds and any wrinkle in your caul can rapidly becoming an unbearable irritation. The immersion sac is proto-sentient (slaved to Babs) and can adapt to most human basic body types (however WorkSpace policy means that endomorphs need not apply). Nutrients and hydration are supplied via femoral shunts; waste management is via a couple of less than agreeable technologies I think I have already mentioned. Once ensconced in the meat sling immersion is fully automatic, the dunk quality is sufficiently excellent so as to engender a degree of physical censorship—the body goes away, no longer enCased and a fifty year old dream takes flight. This is the payback; the 1K second pre-shift orientation period is sublime; gravity nixed, body nulled, the comforting pseudo-embrace from Babs, my favourite leisure Map scrolling in exquisite rez and full surround sound—flying over an endless landless world, teasing the air currents with boosted senses, a dream made real.
Bing. Bong. Bing. Re-entry in 5, 4, 3 …reality reassertion. Shift begins.