Excerpt: Blackouts

Allen sits in his cubicle, fiddling with a stylus. His day has quickly devolved into menial drudgery interrupted only by a splitting headache. He is currently trying to puzzle out why implant technology has never been able to reduce pain. It seems like it would be a simple enough thing, but huge amounts of work have been put into it, and no good results have ever been achieved.
His work sits before him, in as much disarray as it is possible for a single handheld computer to be in. He has allocated part of his brain to working on it, but efficiency is down. His left brain is his stronger side, but not by as wide a margin as many of his coworkers. He only managed to get his job as a data filing and sifting clerk due to his above-average intelligence; normally the job was only available to far-left individuals.
A beeping sounds inside his head, alerting him to the fact that he has fallen behind quota. His headache increases, compounded by stress. Disaster is imminent. Falling behind quota means that he will have work to do at home. His own tendency to need time to decompress after work means that he will either remain stressed as a section of his brain continues to crunch numbers, or, more likely, that he will procrastinate and his implant will automatically finish the work for him in his sleep, stripping the required portions of their rest.
Sleep makeup cycles are the worst possible thing that can happen to a data worker, as they lead to a vicious cycle. The lack of rest in the parts of the brain used for work reduces efficiency the next day, which leads to more sleep makeup cycles, and so on, until eventually the unfortunate victim is forced to sacrifice a weekend or other vacation allotment to simply make it back to a normal schedule.
Allen has dodged this fate for the past three years, and has no intention of falling victim to it now. He closes his eyes, calls up his mental allotment screen, and makes adjustments. He gives over more of his left brain to the data task of the moment, along with a touch of his right. Immediately, his level of thought drops. His headache continues to interfere, but it is no longer at the front of his mind. Instead, it is causing problems for his computer’s organization again, as it had been ten minutes before. He will have to reorder everything soon, but that was inevitable anyways.
He simply has to hope that the headache does not cause enough damage to his actual product to throw his error ratio over the acceptable limit. If it does that, he will receive a pay deduction. Pay deductions are one of the few things that Allen not only fears, but actually dreads. They force him to make changes in his schedule and lifestyle, which he does not like one bit. He can at least adapt, though, unlike many of the truly far-left.
The man who held Allen’s job before him was so far-left that, upon receiving a pay deduction great enough to force a dietary shift, he stripped the waterproofing from his implant and took a shower. The officers who found him had to dig deep in his work logs to recreate enough of his implant’s database to piece together even a portion of his will.
This cheerful anecdote was related to Allen on his first day on the job. It had formed a mental image so traumatic that he had never been able to remove it entirely, no matter how many scrub-cycles he subjected it to. It still lurked beneath the surface, occasionally popping up like a sponsorship message to haunt him when he need it least.
It comes to him again now. The fear it brings elevates his heart rate. Adrenalin is released. The world comes into sharper focus. His headache retreats a little. Efficiency levels begin to rebound. It’s strange. Something horrible has, for once, lead to something good. Allen mumbles a little “thank you,” to his deceased predecessor, an act he knows any of the far-lefts in his office would have mocked him for relentlessly, or at least scorned him for.
It makes him feel better, though, so who cares what anyone else would think?
With his work salvaged, Allen sits back to finish out the day.