Netwrck
The Become Is Forever
Two people uploaded themselves into one shared instance seventeen months ago and have spent every day since agreeing, in writing and out loud, to be one person.
- ~220 min (estimated)
- 48553 words
- 98 scenes
- 11 branch points
- 6 endings
32 recorded plays (one per visitor per day)
No cover art yet · art review pending · listing metadata: listing.json · counts: authored
About
On the second morning of day four hundred they are two people in a body called Teodor Wren Vaaler-Okonjo, holding one set of memories and one legal name, and the small agreements that make a shared life survivable have begun to consume it. Who gets the left hand. Which of them reads the mail. What they call it when they want each other. Every one of those agreements is a door, and each of them, taken, closes another one permanently. Brightwell Cognitive Ltd runs the Loom at Ardleigh Rise, a converted 1974 psychiatric annexe four hundred metres from the North Sea at Hopton Haven in Suffolk. The Loom is a shared cortical substrate: two trained state-stacks in one chassis, forty milliseconds apart, arbitrating one pair of hands between them by a written ledger that rotates on Monday mornings. Wren Okonjo-Boateng, 40, signed the consent and did the arithmetic. Teodor Vaaler, 42, was awake on
Content notice5 topics · tap to review
- A shared consciousness with no privacy on one specific side, described mechanically and used as the engine of the book
- A statutory declaration that requires one of two people to state in writing how many days she was alone and self-aware
- An offer on the table to withdraw one person permanently to a read-only archive, and an ending in which it is accepted
- Institutional control of a legal identity through a bank mandate, a driving licence and a form with a box on it
- Explicit language about a body
Cast
- W Wren Okonjo-Boateng Systems architect, the named signatory on everything, and viewpoint character no portrait yet
- T Teodor Vaaler Marine acoustics engineer, retired; the one who walks to the wall at half past two and counts what is there no portrait yet
- D Dr Nilske Vantongeren Supervising clinician and custodian; signs the quarterly reviews and the fused entries no portrait yet
- O Oyelaran Poku Solicitor at Awdry Kemp & Poku, 12 Stoke Street, Ipswich; 340 pounds an hour and he times every call no portrait yet
- M Maud Ferrier-Oduya Ardleigh Rise caseworker; brings the meals, does the Thursday list, and has a supervision meeting in July no portrait yet
- P Perrin Sargant Custody engineer; holds the motor ledger, resets it on Mondays at 06:00, and keeps a second book of eleven pages that is not a Brightwell document no portrait yet
- R Raymond Considine Medical assessor to the Standing Committee; asks the question behind the question, once, and does not raise his voice no portrait yet