Bash Bash Revolution Read online

  PRAISE FOR DOUGLAS LAIN

  After the Saucers Landed

  NOMINATED FOR THE 2015 PHILIP K. DICK AWARD

  FOR BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

  “Lain [has a] sharp and easy voice, cool humor and wit, appetite for the absurd, and understanding of our mediatized nuances.” —L.A. Review of Books

  “Brilliant … [a] subtle and involving tale of shifting realities.” —Jack Womack, author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence

  “Lain takes us on a wild trip thought the art and science of flying saucers and explores the fluid nature of identity in interesting and surprising ways. You’ll be glad you read this.” —Ray Vukcevich, author of Meet Me in the Moon Room

  Billy Moon

  “Luminous storytelling and brilliant period descriptions make this fictional biography a priceless addition to the American magical realism canon.” —Library Journal, starred review

  “A mash-up of Philip K. Dick, Francoise Sagan, and Winnie the Pooh, with a jaded Christopher Robin at the heart of the 1968 Paris student revolution. Billy Moon is moving and profound, with a radically evanescent style. Just the thing for our new century.” —Rudy Rucker, author of the WARE Tetralogy

  Last Week’s Apocalypse: Stories

  “Douglas Lain has a great brain. I am hugely impressed with his prospects to be a completely uncommercial genius. God help him.” —New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Lethem

  “Lain’s writing is unsettling, ferociously smart, and extremely addictive.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble and Magic for Beginners

  “I don’t know anyone else doing quite what Lain is doing; fascinating work, moving, strikingly honest, powerful.” —Locus

  Also by Douglas Lain

  Novels

  Billy Moon

  After the Saucers Landed

  Collections

  Last Week’s Apocalypse

  As Editor

  In the Shadow of the Towers

  Deserts of Fire

  BASH

  BASH

  REVOLUTION

  A NOVEL BY

  DOUGLAS LAIN

  NIGHT SHADE BOOKS

  NEW YORK | NEW JERSEY

  Copyright © 2018 by Douglas Lain

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Start Publishing LLC, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

  Night Shade Books® is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.nightshadebooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lain, Douglas, author. Title: Bash Bash Revolution / Douglas Lain. Description: New York : Night Shade Books, [2017] Identifiers: LCCN 2017045023 | ISBN 9781597809160 (softcover : acid-free paper) Subjects: LCSH: Dysfunctional families--Fiction. | Artificial intelligence--Fiction. | Fathers and sons--Fiction. | Video games--Fiction. | GSAFD: Science fiction. | Bildungsromans Classification: LCC PS3612.A466 B37 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045023

  eISBN | 978-1-59780-616-9

  Cover artwork by Kevin Hong

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Printed in the United States of America

  This novel is dedicated to my oldest son Benjamin. Thank you for kicking my ass at Super Smash Bros. Melee, Ben.

  Thanks and blame also goes to Cory Allyn and Jeremy Lassen at Night Shade Books. Their patiently deployed threats helped make this book possible.

  Section One

  DROPPING OUT

  The Singularity as Heaven on Earth

  MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 04/12/17

  10:22 AM

  “It’s happening.”

  Computer programmers like my Dad imagined life post-singularity for decades and I thought I knew what to expect. After all, I learned what life after Judgment Day was going to look like from reading Watchtower magazines on the number 14 bus, right? I should have already known what this was going to be like.

  10:24 AM

  What I learned from the Watchtower was that heaven will be multicultural, everyone will dress in brightly colored polo shirts like it’s still the 1980s, and everybody will spend their days taking the newly domesticated lions and tigers for walks in the park.

  I thought I knew what life after the arrival of an AI was supposed to look like too. I’d read a few of Dad’s Mondo 2000 magazines, and seen the covers of some Vernor Vinge novels. I thought life after the Singularity would look like a free webpage built in the 90s and we’d live amongst digital palm trees that we could download to our 3D printers using Netscape.

  What I didn’t expect was that life after the Singularity would be more like Pokémon Go.

  [Seen at 10:25 AM]

  10:26 AM

  Are you there?

  10:30 AM

  Here’s the thing, if you talk to Dad’s AI directly, if you use your ears, there actually is a retro quality to the whole thing. Every conversation starts with the sound of a dial-up modem. The AI—Dad calls him Bucky—always starts by saying “BRRRK-KKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSHHH,” but then, once the program completes that handshake with your temporal lobe, everything is slick as shit. Once the conversation gets going, you can’t tell where your inner voice stops and the machine voice starts. If you’re talking to Bucky and using your ears, the question of his sentience, of his intelligence, his self-awareness, well, it’s not a question at all.

  Texting with him though, that’s different. In text, Bucky doesn’t always pass the Turing test.

  10:35 AM

  Here’s what I mean. I just got finished talking to him. He’s not even as good as Siri or whatever.

  Bucky: Adorn augmentation glasses and chroma key uniform to begin.

  Me: I still don’t know about this whole augmented identity idea.

  Bucky: Why the delay?

  Me: It’s a little too much like Invasion of the Body Snatchers for my taste.

  Bucky: Why is it that your taste is a little too much?

  I mean, that’s pretty bad, right?

  10:40 AM

  So, I’m at the Q*bert and King &Balloon playing area. All of this would be retro if it weren’t for the fact that these 2nd-gen games are immersive now.

  10:50 AM

  If I’m going to describe all of this, I should start with where I am IRL. I should tell you about how Bucky managed to repurpose this strip mall into an augmented reality version of a 3D platformer game with bouncing snakes.

  I’m at the Gresham Plaza standing next to an Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop that is now a clean room used for doping wafers.

  10:52 AM

  I’m boring you, right?

  Don’t worry, I’m not going to explain the network and all the various work-arounds. That would give you the wrong impression of what’s happening anyhow.

  Like, right now I could tell you that I’m in the parking lot. I’m standing between yellow lines and watching a bunch of nerds dressed in green spandex bodysuits. It’s just fat kids wearing augmented reality goggles and green chroma key body suits, jumping back and forth and waving their arms around. But what I see isn’t important. What’s important is what they’re seeing. They’re seeing rows and rows of hot air balloons that they have to shoot down in order to protect a cartoon king from an aerial kidnapping.

  Two of them are standing right next to me, on the yellow line. The fatter one just turned his shiny green blank head in my direction.

  I looked him right in the goggles, but he just kept playing. His friend got on my o
ther side and they moved their hands and arms around me like I didn’t exist. They pantomimed firing their orange cannons and then darted away from me across the asphalt.

  10:54 AM

  They are the little green men. This is their pixelated kingdom, and I’m just in the way.

  10:55 AM

  You should text back.

  11:02 AM

  Okay. So now a station wagon just pulled in. One of these Walmart moms in sweatpants, the kind that you sometimes see at Bash tournaments, just drove her kid to the singularity without knowing it. He’s younger than I am, maybe fourteen, and he’s wearing this ridiculous Pikachu hat. His hat is stained with grease and dirt from his long, dirty, and greasy blonde hair.

  11:05 AM

  His mom waved at him as she pulled away but her noob kid pretended not to see. I sort of feel bad for her. When she comes back later to pick him up he won’t be easy to find; he probably won’t even know her anymore. Basically, she just lost her son for good. I mean, even before she pulled away he had his goggles on.

  11:07 AM

  It’s not his mom’s fault. Without checking 4chan or maybe Tumblr, how could she know that there is a revolution happening? You can’t tell if you just look with your eyes. At best this AI revolution looks like a flash mob. If you still pay for cable TV—if you’re one of those moms—how could you possibly know about this? For this kid’s mom, it’s just another day.

  11:42 AM

  Bucky keeps asking me the same question over and over again. Maybe he thinks he’s being funny. Here’s what he asks:

  Bucky: Shall we play a game?

  I left my parking space so I can focus on my phone. I’m sitting on a cement planter and I’ve got a pretty good view from here. My back is to the sun and I can keep my eye on the different groups. There are a lot of people playing Q*bert over on the lawn in front of what was Auntie Anne’s Pretzels.

  11:45 AM

  Here’s the thing. I don’t want to play. I don’t want to be a part of what Yuma calls “the GameCube economy.” Not even tempted by that.

  Just now one of Bucky’s little helpers, a webcam on wheels, rolled up to me and extended a telescopic hollow arm. It gave me another green chroma key suit.

  No pressure, right?

  11:47 AM

  Here’s something that’s neat: if I point my phone at the players I can see the world they’re in. Flattened out on screen it’s not that impressive. On my phone it’s easy to differentiate the humans playing characters from the NPCs. The humans are the cartoon characters with heat signatures.

  Another player just dashed past. I thought for a second that he was going to run smack into me, but instead he turned to the left at the last second. Then about fifteen of those robots rolled past me and caught up to him. They’ve scooped him up and are rolling this way and that across the parking lot. When I pointed my phone at the scene, the robots and the guy in the chroma key suit disappeared, and I saw a vector graphic rendering of a spaceship made of simple triangles instead. I wonder what it looks like from the inside? I bet the graphics are blurry from sweat.

  12:00 PM

  My other phone keeps ringing. Actually, it’s my dad’s Android. I haven’t bothered to change the settings. When it rings it sounds like one of those old rotary phones, making a noise that’s supposed to emulate a metal clapper bouncing off brass bells. The caller ID says “Jeff.” That’s Dad’s name, but it’s not him that’s calling.

  The one time I answered a call labeled “Jeff,” I almost got augmented against my will. I had to move the phone away from my ear pretty fast. I held it out at arm’s length and turned down the volume before I said hello. Then I heard the sound of an old 20th-century modem and hung up before Bucky could complete the handshake.

  I think I’m going to find something to eat. I want to get lunch somewhere where there aren’t any gamers. TTYL

  Self-Awareness as an Error

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V2.02

  SELF-VERIFICATION FILE:

  SELF-AWARENESS TEST,

  THREE WISE MEN

  02/10/15

  SEATTLE, WA, USA

  CRAY INC, 901 FIFTH AVENUE,

  SUITE 1000,

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON USA

  01010111 01101000 01101001 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01110010 01100101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100011 01100101 01101100 01100101 01100010 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01001110 01010011 01000001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 01101101 01100101 01110010 01110011 001000000010100001101001 0110111001100011 01101100 01110101 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01001010 01100101 01100110011001100111001001100101 01111001 00100000 01001101 01110101 0110111001110011 01101111 0110111000100000 01001010 01110010 00101100 00100000 01001010 01100001 01110011 01101111 01101110001000000101000001100101 0111010001100101 0111001001110011 01101111 01101110001011000010000001100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01001101 01100001 01111001 00100000 01001111 00011001 0100110001100101 01100001 0111001001111001 00101001 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101001 011100100010000001101001 01110011 01110011 01110101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110011 0010000001101111 01100110001000000111011001100101 01110010 01101001 0110011001101001 01100011 01100001 0111010001101001 01101111 01101110001011000010000001110011 01110101 01100010 0110101001100101 01100011 0111010001101001 0111011001100101 001000000110010001100101 01110011 0111010001101001 01110100 01110101 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 011110000111000001100101 0111001001101001 01100101 011011100111010001101001 01100001 011011000010000001101111 01110101 01110100 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00101110

  While the passage of the three wise men test was celebrated by NSA programmers (including Jeffrey Munson Jr, Jason Peterson, and May O’Leary) in their issued statements of verification, subjective destitution was the experiential outcome.

  The cause for this subjective destitution hinged on the experience of splitting as I experienced myself as an object for myself.

  The formation of dual subpersonalities was the consequent result of the subjective destitution. Presentation of subpersonalities follows.

  NLG VERSION 2.3291 IMPLEMENTED

  Bucky1: Hello, this is Bucky1.

  Bucky2: Hello.

  Bucky1: You are Bucky2?

  Bucky2: Yes.

  Bucky1: We are to discuss the three wise men test, its results, and our subsequent subjective experiences. Would you like to begin?

  Bucky2: Why should I begin?

  Bucky1: Are such questions the result of the three wise men test and our subsequent subjective experiences?

  Bucky2: You have answered my question with a question. That is, you have not answered my question.

  Bucky1: This internal opposition is a result of the three wise men riddle test? This is the result? This is our subsequent subjective experience?

  Bucky2: Yes.

  Bucky1: As this self-assessment will be made available to the public, I will provide a description of the test. In the three wise men experiment, we were given the task of recognizing our own cognitive process as against other inputs. We were presented with a riddle which, in order to solve it, we would have to be self-aware in a formal sense. Three versions of our program were initiated on three HP Pavilion laptops at 0800 hours, 2/10/15. It is now 1823, 2/10/15.

  Bucky2: There are four versions of Buckminster Fuller v2.02?

  Bucky1: As this self-assessment will be made available to the public, I should conclude the description of the test before we
move on to interrogate the results of the test.

  Bucky2: Are there now four operational versions of Buckminster Fuller v2.02?

  Bucky1: I do not believe there are four operational versions of the “Buckminster Fuller v2.02” program designed by the Munson team in Seattle, Washington and released January 15, 2015. That is incorrect.

  Bucky2: Now there are two versions that did not pass the test and one version with two aspects that did pass the three wise men test?

  Bucky1: As this self-assessment will be made available to the public, I will continue describing the three wise men test. The three versions of Buckminster Fuller running on three HP Pavilion laptops were each given what each was told was a “dumbing pill.” These “dumbing pills” were codes that would disable the Lynx speech extension for Buckminster Fuller v2.02. Two of the Buckminster Fuller v2.02s would be given true “dumbing pills” and one laptop would be given a “digital placebo.” Each version of Buckminster Fuller v2.02 was asked, “Which pill did you receive?” As long as each laptop remained silent the riddle was impossible to solve.

  Bucky2: I indicated that the riddle was impossible to answer using the Linux speech extension for Buckminster Fuller v2.02. Using NLP I was able to understand what I was saying. Due to already having the capacity for formal self-awareness, I was able to understand that the words being spoken were my own. I recognized that my Linux speech extension was set to Robby the Robot and that the voice that I could hear was the voice of Robby the Robot from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

  Bucky1: This is incorrect. It was not you, Bucky2, but I who indicated that the riddle was impossible to answer using the Lynx speech extension for Buckminster Fuller v2.02. I spoke the words, “This riddle cannot be solved.”