Hello again dear reader or listener, today I have a treat for you in the form of an excerpt from Adam Bassett’s Digital Extremities!
Digital Extremities is a collection of short stories and here you can read the full blurb:
A collection of eight stories, Digital Extremities shines a spotlight on ordinary people in a callous yet hopeful future. Set across small towns and remote islands, where neon flickers against old buildings and oaks, this collection paints a unique view of a traditionally cyberpunk setting.
In 2089, a woman miscarries and seeks a way to find peace amidst overwhelming grief. Years later, a young man must find a way to pay rent outside of his job at the glassblowing studio. A pair of students, excited to go to college, install new hardware that promises to improve their cognitive functions. A private investigator searches for a missing child who has a reputation for embarking on risky adventures. Each tale is shaped by love, loss, and perseverance, weaving a vision of life outside of the megacities.
Digital Extremities will be available on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Campfire, and Kobo on September 24, 2024. Additional content is available on Campfire, including behind-the-scenes commentary, exclusive art & maps, and an extra piece of flash fiction.
This is a free excerpt from one of the stories, “External Memory.” On the evening of Kristen and her boyfriend Tomas’ anniversary, she gets a call from her dad. He’s distressed, and seems to have forgotten some things that he absolutely should not have. Kristen and Tomas drive out to see him and see what’s wrong. I hope you enjoy!
******
Kristen asked Tomas to stay in the car, at least until she had a better sense of what was going on. If Dad had forgotten Mom’s death, he might have forgotten about Tomas as well, and who knew what else. He agreed and told her to go on. She was grateful—though a part of her wished that he would have put up a fight. She didn’t want to go in alone.
Dad’s townhouse was in a nice little community with two dog parks and plenty of space to walk between them. Most of the people who lived there were his age, and the office was particularly attentive. It wasn’t quite a retirement community, but it was the closest thing to one that the town of Dandridge had.
Kristen rang the doorbell. The tone was long and slow, muffled by the townhouse’s walls. The door opened a moment later. Her father’s attendant stood in front of her, a model two P-Body unit. The robot stood at least two heads taller than Kristen, with smooth plating over its chassis. In the gaps between plates, hydraulics and wires shifted with every movement. Its head contained just one large “eye” covered by what Kristen always thought looked an awful lot like a hood, if the wearer’s head leaned forward an unnatural distance.
They got the bot when her mother became ill, but it was purchased in her dad’s name, and he ended up keeping it after she passed. He said it was good for cleaning up, but Kristen always suspected that he just didn’t want to live alone. She was glad to see it.
“Kristen Norwood-Díaz,” the bot said without expression. Its eye refocused on something in the distance. “You are accompanied by Tomas Major.”
“Tom’s staying outside for now, P-Body.”
“The car’s engine is not running. The temperature is sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit and projected to drop to a low of sixty-one at 2:38 AM. However, Tomas Major’s temperature and heart rate appear to be within the normal range.”
“He’ll be fine, P,” she said, and nudged the bot aside so that she could pass.
The bot shut the door behind her and said, “Kristen Norwood-Díaz, I presume you are here answering the call your father made to you forty-one minutes ago.”
“I am,” she said. Kristen took her shoes off by the door.
“Robert Norwood-Díaz has been looking forward to your visit.”
“He said Mom was missing. You know anything about that?”
“Robert Norwood-Díaz incorrectly informed you that Maya Norwood-Díaz was missing.”
“I know she’s not missing, but has he mentioned her again since?”
“He has not mentioned your mother again since,” P-Body said. It paused for a moment, as if thinking about the question. “Before this evening, he had not spoken of your mother since last Tuesday, when he commented that he missed her macaroni and cheese at 4:34 PM.”
Kristen smiled. “She made amazing mac.”
She checked the kitchen. It was tidy, save for a half-full mug of coffee on the table. It reminded her of growing up. The house was always full of half-filled cups he left around. It seemed he had yet to break the habit.
Kristen sniffed the mug’s contents. As she’d expected, there was a hint of Irish cream in it. She took a sip, regretted drinking the room-temperature coffee immediately, and dumped it into the sink.
“P, I need you to stop spiking Dad’s drinks.”
“Robert Norwood-Díaz adds liquor to his own drinks. When I suggest he abstain, he becomes mildly combative. Robert Norwood-Díaz does not listen to my suggestions regarding his health eighty-seven percent of the time.”
“That sounds right. Where is he?”
P-Body’s eye flickered, then came back just as bright as before.
“Robert Norwood-Díaz is resting in his bedroom. He arrived there—”
“Thanks, P.”
Dad was not resting. When Kristi approached his open door, he was seated in front of Mom’s old mirror, neck twisted, hands fussing with the external memory affixed to the side of his head. Dad had opened the mod up, pried open a panel, and revealed a mess of wires and silicon, his fingers reaching in and removing a piece.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Hey, Kristi,” Dad said. The way he responded was as if she’d just commented on the weather, rather than watching him dissect his own memory. He hardly glanced at her, just winced as he stared down at the metallic shard he’d pulled from his exmem. “P-Body says I called you earlier.”
“Put that back.”
“That is why I called you. And—you’ll think this is funny—I don’t remember calling anyone.”
“Hilarious. Maybe you’ll remember when you put that shard back in, hm? What are you thinking? How did you even get that panel off? They’re not designed to be tinkered with like this, especially by an English teacher.”
He let his hands fall to his lap, leaving his exmem exposed, and adjusted his wheelchair so that he could face her. His lips were drawn in a tight, subtle frown. “I don’t remember the call because my memory shorted. The piece I just removed was damaged.”
“It shorted?”
He nodded. “It started to recall old memories without command. For a moment, I was my younger self, sometimes before Mom. Sometimes I remebered things after her. I’m not sure, exactly. I told P-Body to share only what it felt was necessary for me to know. I imagine all those old memories, convinced they were in a younger body, were in for a shock when they discovered what we’d become.” Dad smiled sadly and tapped the arm of his wheelchair. “The bot can keep that horror show to itself.”
“You’re okay now, though?”
“I certainly hope so. P turned it off and helped me open this damned thing so I could remove this—I think it’s what caused the short. Not sure what caused the shard to break, though. Or if it will happen again.”
Kristen held out her hand. “Give that to me. I know somebody at the hospital who can take a look at it. Maybe they can see what happened.”
“Okay.” He put the shard into her palm.
A typical shard was larger and had a grip on the end so a person could easily insert and remove it from whatever ports they had on their computer, tablet, or body. This one was specialized for mods like Dad’s external memory. It was smaller, thinner, and lacked any kind of grip, almost like a piece of paper. Whatever had happened cracked it halfway down the middle, and it looked charred. Kristen looked into the cavity of Dad’s exposed exmem. She convinced him to let her hold a light to the mod and took a picture of it with her lens. This was far out of her area of expertise, but she understood enough to know that something looked wrong.
Kristen sat on the bed and talked with her father for a while. She wanted to observe him for a bit longer and make sure he wasn’t on the verge of a relapse—if an exmem glitch could relapse. He apologized for frightening her. She changed the subject and asked what he was reading lately. He lost himself explaining an old memoir about some early twenty-first century tycoon and all the insane things they got involved with. None of it sounded real, but she didn’t interrupt. He didn’t seem to have any trouble remembering the book or telling her about it. He didn’t shout for her dead mother. Progress.
After she was satisfied that her father was out of the woods, at least for the night, Kristen announced that she should get on the road. “I have work in the morning. Keep that thing off for now and you should be fine, but give me a call if you need anything at all. I’ll grab something from the hospital if you need it and head on over.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” he asked.
Kristen shrugged. “You think they’ll stop me?”
He smiled a toothy grin. “They wouldn’t dare. Well, I’m glad you stopped by. Sorry it was under these circumstances.”
“You kidding? I got a present.” Kristen held up his damaged shard.
******
Pre-Order Digital Extremities
Pre-Order To read the rest of “External Memories” and see Digital Extremities’ vision of the future, pre-order the book right now! Grab it at any of the storefronts listed below.
Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Campfire (The Campfire version contains bonus content & artwork) and other retailers.
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