Chapter 1 - NuGen Industries

I don't believe in resurrection. Well, not in any spiritual way. Certainly not in any biblical way. In fact, I don't much believe in heaven. Or hell. Or any afterlife spent playing harps on fluffy white clouds while we tickle the nuts of the "creator".

I guess if I'm being really honest about it, I don't much believe in belief. I don't believe in anything that doesn't have the strength to stand on its own merits, without being buttressed by my own blind faith. I don't believe in the myriad bromides and desperate promises we make to ourselves to quiet that little voice in the back of our minds. The one that relentlessly whispers: You're going to die. Just like everyone else who's died before you.

Yet here I am. Like some fuckin plebe making the oldest - and worst - bet in the book. Just another rat, lost in a delusional maze, chasing the dream that he could be the first Eternal Rat. An Immortal Rat. The rat which defies every law of thermodynamics that's governed man's corporeal vessel since the advent of time itself.

My coworkers warned me that it's... different up here. Working in the boiler room, so to speak, for all these years, you tend to feel like you "know" this place. Hell... spend enough time squirreling around the intricacies of the codebase and, eventually, you start feeling like you built this place. And then one day you decide to walk in the front door - the ground level, main entrance. And everyone looks at you like you're just another schlub off the sidewalk. Another mark to be separated from the meager contents of your register. Up here, I'm... nobody.

The grand foyer of NuGen Industries is everything. And nothing. All rolled up into one disconcerting casserole of marketing lies and cheap facades.  Not that most people would notice the incongruities. 

Most people don't know how to attenuate their AR receptors. They see the world as they're meant to see it. As they're told to see it. They don't ask questions. They don't wonder what's behind the façade. They don't dare question the nature of the façade itself. Because they're part of the façade. If they were ever to question the integrity of the AR constructs, it would invite others to question the veracity of their own AR projections.

The receptionist is a stylish fellow - not at all unattractive. But not nearly as fetching as his projection implies. Not nearly as fetching as he himself believes. The strain of biceps against his shirt sleeves is entirely fictional. The not-so-modest bulge below his belt is similarly counterfeit. Even his prominent cheekbones are dependent upon the magic of AR receptors. But in many ways, he fits into this environment all-too-comfortably.

Everything at ground level is a shell. Everyone at ground level is a shill. It's not a malicious act of deception. It's a basic requirement for survival.

Thus it stands to reason that NuGen Industries' primary public access point is the grandest shell of them all. A shell that shields the shills. A virtual slight-of-hand that screams to the careful observer: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" But for everyone else, they're all-too-happy to slide mindlessly into the comforting delusion of NuGen's corporate headquarters. They never stop to consider the fact that "NuGen" is, by definition, a lie.

Generation is a wholly natural process. The Big Bang generated expansion. Which in turn generated a panoply of stars. And our star, at least for the time being, continues to generate thermonuclear radiation on a scale that has fostered the generation of new life, and new species, for billions of years. Each organism is its own dynamo of generation - creation, if you will. Cranking out cells at a prodigious rate until the critter finally slides into oblivion. But not before having generated a variable brood of descendants. And the cycle continues. Generation birthing ever more generation.

But regeneration?? Well, that's an entirely different rubric altogether. It's an idea steeped in the stench of faith. And alchemy. And mortal fear.

Regeneration is a myth. Resurrection is for zealots. Revitalization is for politicians and plastic surgeons. Rebirth is for new-age spiritualists. And while they're all thinly-veiled portmanteaus of regeneration, they all share one common thread: They're all stone cold lies.

Since the creation of the first basic elements, nothing has ever truly regenerated. Never. Not once. Creation (generation) is the greedy purview of nature. But regeneration?? That arena is dominated by the charlatan. For as soon as we are born, we're all on a long, slow, irreversible path of degeneration. Those who claim otherwise cruelly target your wallet. Or your heart. Or both.

And yet, here I am. Like every other mark who marches through that door - cash in one hand, dreams in the other. Here I am. Succumbing to the same lie that built this skyscraper. This corporation. This industry. The lie that I can somehow, some way, live again.

It's a bit alarming to see the receptionist moving toward me.  It's a tactic rarely seen from a servo.  He's shed the security of his desk and acquired some degree of urgency as he moves to intercept.  

Receptionist:  You can't loiter here.  This is not a public space.

Me:  I work here.

I could probably set him at ease by transmitting my credentials, but I'm rather enjoying the competing affectations of confusion and annoyance that flash across his facile features.  I had no idea they used these models at ground level.  He's an antique - but most would never know it.  AR smooths over every incongruity of time-worn aesthetics.  

He was manufactured before they outlawed human mimicry.  In fact, he was manufactured before the tech grew so advanced that anyone felt bothered to worry about the vanishing line between man and machinery.  His creators tried to make him look human - and they failed.  Miserably.  But NuGen apparently keeps him in service because, to average onlookers, his appearance is far more dependent upon the AR receptors in their own brains.  To average onlookers, the receptionist is whomever NuGen projects him to be.  If he were composed of nothing but an empty plastic bucket, most visitors would be none the wiser.

Receptionist: If you're here for orientation, please report to HR on sub-level eight.

Me:  I've been working here for seven years.

Receptionist: Then why would you be wandering around-

Me:  I have an appointment.

The subtle twitch of his left middle finger betrays the fact that he's "thinking".

Receptionist:  You mean, as a customer?

Me:  You're smarter than the models I've programmed.

The comment doesn't seem to register with him.  Or maybe it registered and he's willfully ignoring it - because he knows I'm lying.  Rather than follow the thread I've left dangling, he straightens his posture and reassess his presentation.  Thinking of "customers" seems to have kicked him into a service mindset.  The corners of his mouth arch upward at an angle never seen on an organic lifeform.  

Receptionist:  Welcome to NuGen!  May I have your name?

Me:  Revan.

Receptionist:  Is that your... last name?

Me:  No.

Receptionist:  May I have your last name?

Me:  Because you have a plethora of Revans littering the appointment calendar this morning?

His left middle finger resumes twitching.  My full profile is available to him.  It was scanned as I walked through the front doors and undoubtedly broadcast to his subnet.  He doesn't need my last name.  He needs to find a path through his internal customer-service algorithm.  And that algorithm is stuck in a loop requiring him to prompt me for this information.

My ex used to give me endless grief about the fact that I fuck with the servos.  She couldn't see anything that moves, or hear anything that speaks, without innately ascribing a soul to it.  It's not that she was an imbecile.  On some basic level, she understood that these things are dressed-up motors bolted to deprecated computers.  But anytime I'd start tripping up the servos, she'd get this look on her face like I was pulling the wings off a butterfly, or kicking a puppy.  I kinda suspect it had something to do with her leaving.  Not that I really give a shit, one way or the other.

His face empties of faux emotion.  He fixes a glassy gaze upon me.

Receptionist:  You have a 9 AM appointment with Imprinting.

His internal logic apparently reached some fall-through that allowed him to just move on without the perfunctory gathering of banal information.  His matter-of-fact acknowledgment catches me a little off-guard.

Me:  That's right.

Receptionist:  You'd better get moving.  It's currently 8:58 AM.

Me:  Isn't there some kinda... escort?  You know, like, for customers?

Receptionist:  You work here, right??

Me:  Well... yeah.

Receptionist:  I cross-referenced your credentials.  Your security level grants you access to the elevators, and to the Imprint labs on 32.  I trust you can manage to find your way within your own place of employment?

I can't help but grin.  He can't help but answer with the same unnaturally-upturned mouth that he flashed earlier.  I can almost feel his subroutines returning to neutral state.  He turns, with no further attention to me, and walks back to the receptionist desk.  Looks like I'm on my way to Imprinting...