Upgrades

‘Bout a hundred and sixty-seven years ago, I got my third husband—what’s-his-face—to pony up the cash for a complete diamond refitting on my ‘member-banks, but they’re totes obsolete now. I’ve had to do three hardcore purges and constant weeding in the past fifty years alone, so it’s totes time to replace. I mean, I had to wipe everything from my 70’s, the husbands are just a list now, and I’ve got no space for song lyrics, which sucks. How can I pick up cute adoles-boys at concerts if I can’t sing along?

Nah, it’s all about organics now, which is kinda funny considering that’s what I started with, but they’ve made super-major advances. I guess they take some kinda microbiotic or bacterial or whatever sludge, cram enough human DNA in there to keep our hyper-immune systems from eating it, and then voila! I can keep every encyclopedia in there and still remember the name of that awesome store where I bought my first pair of snappy rocket boots. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works or whatever. I totes failed bioscience in school, and that was, like, before they’d even invented AI-biology and just a couple a’years after the aliens had to sued to get xenobio into the books or something, so we didn’t have, like, anything of this shit they have now.

Anyways, the awe-cool part is that the bacteria can talk to each other not only in your skull, but to other skulls, too. Which, I mean, doesn’t sound too great—since, like, if you don’t have room for your ‘members, who’s got space for some major loser’s eighty-memorized episodes of, like, Super Dino Manga, right? But I guess they sorta keep your memories floating in mid-air or something—I’m kinda confused about that part, but it sounds snappy—like a juggler or something, and then get it back when you want it, which is pretty high-rolling. And I guess the micro-whatevers can also share storage tips with each other and sorta, like, evolve, so that you don’t have to prune like ever, and the system even gets better ‘stead of older. No more replacing your tech ‘cause it turns out that your third husband, whatever the hell his name was, skimped like a cheap creep and left your medulla oblongata as straight-up meat. Which he totes did, but as soon I figured out that little tidbit, I got my boyfriend to cough up enough dinero to fix it. Sure I had to mention a few pic-files that coulda hurt a delicate polit career, but it was totes worth it.

Of course, it’s all galactically expensive, but I’ve been squatting in my ex-girlfriend’s apartment for the past 3 ½ years—she’s on a trip to Neptune, something ‘bout finding her inner Greek god or adjusting her Water Element, I dunno—so I’ve got a nice chunk saved up, and I’m pretty sure I can pay in installments or whatever. I can’t wait to shed this old sparklers in my skull and get this new stuff, lemme tell ya’—it’s getting so I have to dump a phone number if I wanna learn a bartender’s name, or whatever! Whatever I’ve gotta do, it’ll be totes worth it.

. . .

So, I went to the pace today—and it’s called “Micro Memory” and how loser is that?—and they gave me a price range. Man, it’s not just galactic in price, it’s freakin’ UNIVERSAL, like I bet there’s some alt-uni folks who are totes riding in their balloons or whatever and feeling how much it freakin’ costs from there, but I’m still totes hooked. I’m still pretty hyper—those muscles implants I got a while back have totes paid for themselves, and those DNA scrubs and patches were bad-assteroid—but let’s face it, I am out of storage. The other day I had to scrap my mom’s freakin’ maiden name! It was totes for a good cause—the boy was so cute even his phone number was sexy—but I still feel kinda bad about it. Good thing she’s dead or she’d be totes giving me her “hairy eyeball” or whatever for that one. But I wrote it down in my journal so that when I’ve got my new mnemonic I can load it back in. But the one good thing is that the doc-chick told me that they do do it in installments, thank God. They kinda have to, though; I mean, there are like major governments who can’t afford this shit.

Man, I was totes skeptical about my whole “fruit stomping fetish website” gig, but it has been a freakin’ lifesaver, no jokes. Whodathunk that stilettos and satsumas would’ve been the keys to like, my calling? And that people would be super-stoked to shell out major clams (ha!) to see me apply one to the other over the Interwebs? I’d thank that one husband of mine who turned me onto it, but I totes flushed his name in the first purge. What a disaster that marriage was—I’m pretty sure it was a disaster, anyway. I tossed most of it, except for the wedding part, ‘cause I looked major hot in my dress.

Anyways, they told me at the ‘member-place to come back in a week to get the surgery done—and I have to shave my head, which kinda sucks, but I’m gonna dye my skull green afterwards as this, like, statement. Yeah, they told me to get all my mem-banks copied, too, just in case or whatever, but I dunno. It would be kinda snappy to lose everything and be like, an amnesiac. I’m totes gonna leave a message in the apartment in case I do, and I’m gonna tell Amnesiac Me that I’m some kind of super-secret-spy for the AIs or something, all mysterious-like. That would be soo awe-cool.

. . .

Well, got all my new memory today and I’m still me—which is good, of course, though being a spy would have been the shit too. I feel soo freakin’ poor now, though. May have to sell of a couple a’ old tings and work overtime at the fruit-site for a bit if I’m gonna, like, eat. I’m major hungry too—I guess all the extra bacteria in my skull have a totes high metabolism or whatever. It’s worth it, though—I’ve loaded all kinds of old stuff back in there and no sign of strain yet. I’d forgotten just how much I’d forgotten, like 2/3rds of my kid-hood, how weird is that? Some remembers—and this is pretty snappy, like even I was impressed and the last time I got impressed was when I first found out why they call Longboys Longboys—the micro-critters can actually pluck out of ya’, like, you don’t even have to upload ‘em again. Something ‘bout “intrinsic cell memory” or whatever, which is kinda weird ‘cause I thought I read somewhere, like, freakin’ decades ago that all your cells got replaced or something? I dunno, I flunked out of med school, too.

Holy shit, I’d completely forgotten about that. These little buggers are good.

But whatever, I’ve been all beauty and not too much brains for freakin’ forever now, so docs know best, I guess. It is real nice to remember more—s’funny, a lot of this stuff I don’t even know why the hell I put it in storage. I mean, my eighth-grade play? That was really fun! Way better than the sixty-seventh sequel to Saw or whatever that I dumped it for instead. But hey, it’s still all background to like, my real life, of course. Plannin’ on makin’ a real round of the clubs tonight, yeah, see how much new boy-toys’ faces I can shove in the data banks. I s’pose if I was some, like, serious chick, I would stay in and like, assess all my new ‘members or whatever—like my third husband, whose name was freakin’ Dylan, of all things, what t’hellness was I thinking—but I still haven’t even dyed my shaved-skull yet, ‘cause I didn’t want to docs to yell at me or whatever, so I got to do that before tonight. And then I was thinking that I might go all retro in, like, honor of my past coming back up, and get some tattoos of circuits on there too in—in—oh, in like a shiny blue. Yeah! Plus then I’m booked a double shift at work and only then can I do what I like, promised, and go out with the amigos. So I’m not gonna sit and sulk like when I got stood up at my eleventh-grade pro—dammit.

. . .

The ex came back from her Neptune-tour and kicked me out, which, thanks to my little micro-buddies, unfortunately seems like a perfectly reasonable response. I mean, dang, in the guest bedroom while she was asleep? That’s pretty freakin’ cold, I gotta admit. So now I’ve got to find new digs, which is gonna eat into my micro-payments (ha!) I guess I could start doing night-shifts at work, which are triple-pay. It would totes kill my social life, but I think—and now I kinda know—that I have had a pretty decent amount of that already. Sometimes I wish bacteria-brain wasn’t quite so good and I’d have to excuse to scrap some of couple a’ the thousands of one-night stands I’ve had. I mean, come on, does a girl have to remember the night she—well—never mind. It kinda makes me think about, like, what I’m really doing, ya’ know.

But it’s all awe-cool. I can totes just take a night off a week still, I mean, I don’t have to kill myself with work or nothing, if it gets really way too much of a murder on my out-and-about time, I could go back to my old diamond banks. Definitely do some different prioritizing on what I keep though, I’m telling. Not that I’m gonna go all responsible and shit—I’m still the same chick who out-drank a whole bar, I mean, just ‘cause I ‘member a bit more. But it’s for def gonna be out with the crappy lays and stay with the lullaby my mom used to sing to me before I’d go to bed. Shit, sometimes I think I haven’t ever really slept a whole night since she stopped singing to me. Well, I mean, I think that now; I musta totes been on something when I let that go. Or I forget it before I even had the option, back my when my brain was my own meat. I forget when I forgot. Doesn’t really matter, though, because I am totes not gonna have to. I kinda think I’d miss most of this stuff—like, how could I have forgotten how long Dylan had to save to get me my diamond ‘member-banks? It was a birthday present ‘cause I’d been sad when I realized that I couldn’t remember my grandma’s favorite color. And he was my second husband, how could I forget that? I musta transposed him and Greg, who was a real creep, by accident when I made the list and trashed the rest. And Paul, my first husband, barely counted—we were both major drunk in Las Vegas II and annulled it in the morning. But Dylan was . . . he was a really good guy.

. . .

Blargh. By all the rings and little moons of Saturn, double-shifts make me so tired that I’m almost too worn out to use my damn memory. My little microbiological amigos have really been working overtime, dredging up new memories. I went to the Micro-Memory facility to make another payment—ouch—and had a quick check-up with one of the doctors while I was there. He scanned my skull and said that the bacteria had evolved four times in a major way in just three months, which I’ll admit freaked me a bit. He said it was all perfectly okay and whatever, but named me that I might start getting, like, extra memories. I asked him what the heck that meant—was the whole intra-bacterial communication between different colonies gonna give me other peoples’ memories or something—but he said no, thank God. He said it would be just that I’d start remembering everything, more than I ever would’ve with my regular brain, or straight-up tech like the diamond banks. It would be, like, the tiny details and some really early stuff, like—like—oh god, I just got a flash of before I was born, holy damn.

Geez.

Anyways I should probably haul my ass to bed and get some sleep, or I’m never gonna have enough energy to head to the bar with Jesp and Allie tonight. Ugh. I’m not even in the mood for the bar or alcohol anymore, I’m serious. But they’ve been complaining that they never see me anymore, so. . .

. . .

Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Some son-of-a-bitch hacker wrecked the website for a full week, and I’m short on my micro-memory payment for the month. I tried to do some free-lancing but halfway through the gig I remembered how my first hamster died and burst into tears. Not the right fetish for that, I and I couldn’t get anything else. I guess the director was so irritated that he posted my name on some kind of do-not-hire list, the creep. I took as many extra-shifts as I could at the fruit site, but it just wasn’t enough. So I called up the company and begged them to add the difference to next month’s, but it’s going to be tight. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to give it back, I really don’t.

Last night I dreamt about my mom, and every detail was perfect—her funny cowlick right above her bangs, the way she always smelled like vanilla and mint, the sound of her voice. I haven’t been so happy since—

Since—

Wow. Even the bacteria can’t remember that.

But I’ll figure something out. I’ve got to.

. . .

I wish I could forget to go—

. . .



. . .

Something’s missing. Something’s missing, and I don’t know what. It’s on the tip of my tongue and I open my mouth to let it tumble out so I can know what it is, so I can understand, but it won’t budge. I turned this apartment upside-down, searching for it, but I couldn’t find it, not even a clue as to what it is. There was this strange note about me being a spy of some sort, but that doesn’t feel right. At least, as much as I can tell.

And everything’s wrong. Everything around me seems different and the date on the calendar is a whole century than it should be. I’ve been trying to get ahold of my mom for days but she seems to have gone missing.

There’s pictures of me with people I don’t know, in places I don’t recognize, with expressions I don’t like or understand.

The only thing that seems like it might apply is this—this note I found scribbled n a notebook cover—a cover that has no notebook with it. It was lying next to a small container full of ashes of which I can only pick a few random letters. It says—in a weird shallow parody of my handwriting—“if you knew, you’d know it was for the best.”

And I don’t know what’s going on.