v2.1.1: Digital Scars 

MIT could go fuck itself.

Anna Gibson stared at the short rejection message, then deleted it. Their loss.

She didn’t know why she was surprised - her grades weren’t ever stellar. Math was easy for her, sure. And CompSci as well. But she didn’t care about Biology or History or the rest, so mid 3s was where she landed.

The truth was, Anna wasn’t even sure she wanted to go to college; something she bravely put in her entrance essay. “If I’m not accepted, I’ll probably just join a startup or start my own company. I’m mostly interested in the networking opportunities MIT provides.” She thought it made her sound ambitious and entrepreneurial; the admissions department thought it made her sound like an asshole.

Anna didn’t know how her mom would take it. MIT was mom’s alma mater. To her credit, if she had high hopes, she’d kept them to herself; preferring instead a more subtle and supportive approach. But Anna expected she’d be disappointed in her own solitary way.

Anna would deal with that later. Her mind had already turned back to her projects. Never lost for ideas, she had shipped her first software at fifteen. It was a spectacular failure, of course, but nonetheless it shipped - more than most could say. And it taught her a lot about what she’d do differently next time. Next time hadn’t come yet though. She’d started and dropped a dozen different ideas, none of them making it past beta, either due to boredom or because something else hit the market that was better staffed - and therefore better coded - than her laissez-faire-punk, one-woman-operation could muster.

The trends had come and gone as they always did in tech: one by one new paradigms failed to deliver much beyond incremental improvements - even AI had failed to live up to its initial promises, finding itself relegated to providing shortcuts for everyday tasks, instead of delivering unto mankind a new utopia. Maybe Dad had been lucky - companies a lot bigger and better funded than ASI had fallen along the wayside of this particular technological cul-de-sac.

One thing that had improved over the last decade was her personal setup. Her tablet gave way to a forty inch ultra wide, which gave way to three monitors in a portrait/landscape/portrait configuration. And then her spatial glasses replaced it all with an infinite - and infinitely configureable - virtual desktop which was little more than inputs and screens running off of an elastic cloud computing pull.

The clean spacial setup ran in contrast to her bedroom, which still carried the vestiges of both early young adulthood and an angsty teenager. Posters for bands and athletes she used to love hung tacked to walls, and below them knickknacks from former hobbies and interests collected dust. An old bass guitar. A BMW iM. Mbappe hung next to the self-titled debut for The Bennet Sisters Scream. Ellie from the third and final game. None of it represented who she was today, while all of it represented how she got here. The archive of her life arranged in objects and images.

As she slid the glasses on, her flat desk displayed layers of information and widgets for her most common files, programs, and projects. She could have worked anywhere - her glasses were environment-aware and adaptable - but Anna preferred keeping her files on the flat surface, while four portrait coding windows floated at mid-eye height. Media she slotted to the sides and hung on the walls, regardless of whether it was a series she was “watching” or some background music. Spatial computing hadn’t made good on all of its promises, but making the entire world a place for your screens was one of the ones it did with aplomb.

Anna was old school when it came to inputs though; she never really got into the gesture or vocal controls when it came to work, preferring the tactile feedback of a keyboard and trackpad to waving her hands around like her classmates. Besides, she could type faster than she could speak - it was the only communication technique that could keep up with her speed of thought. Games were the exception to all of this - games were a full body experience or nothing at all.

She quickly fanned her files up and opened her latest project - an idea she had about tracking pets via 6G IoT devices, when a blinking notification at the edge of her vision caught her eye.

Dad’s Day

She knew. She didn’t need the notification to remember. Every year she asked herself why she had it, and every year she told herself “because one year I’ll forget that it’s not just another day in June and if that happens I’ll never forgive myself.”

She should call her mom.

—————

Taryn picked up on the third try. As much as she worked to keep up with tech trends, she still missed buttons. TVIs - Total Visual Interfaces - just weren’t her thing. Something about actually moving to press a button instead of simply talking to her earpieces or waving her hands in the air - it just fit her mental model of device interaction better. Regardless, after three yesses to a machine, she finally heard Anna’s voice.

“Hey Mom. How’s it going?”

Taryn smiled. She knew that this was a call with purpose; her daughter was checking up on her. Her schedule was full today, but she didn’t mind. Everyone should be so lucky. Taryn waved to her secretary to indicate that she was unavailable for the time being. He nodded and got up to close her door.

“Oh, it’s fine. Work is work.”

“Did your presentation go alright?”

It didn’t. Taryn never found the narrative she needed to connect all the dots, and had to postpone. Her ego was a little bruised, but in the grand scheme of things it didn’t feel important. Not today, anyway. The other partners would wait, and she’d deliver.

“Fine enough. How are you dear? Did you want me to pick something up on the way home?”

“No, I just…”

Taryn let the pregnant pause hover in the air. Anna could take the time she needed to find the right words. Which she did after a moment.

“It’s dad’s day, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Ah yes. Dad’s Day. The day they chose instead of his birthday. It wasn’t Taryn’s choice - if it was, she would have picked his birthday over his death day without hesitation. But at some point, in the ways that these decisions are made with children, today became the day. Anna continued.

“I know you probably talked with Zach-” her therapist - “but I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Taryn looked around at her surroundings. A corner office on the edge of her office complex. Blue skies out the windows. Birds. Ken with his extra large milkshake-flavored coffee outside her door. A normal Tuesday. Something she had gotten accustomed to. Certainly an improvement from before.

The grief had been unyielding. And it came coupled with this sudden feeling that anyone could bring more of it. That every stranger was potentially dangerous. Because some had been.

When she came up for air two years later, she came up with anger. Perfectly timed, as it coincided with David’s death being exploited nationally and internationally by those with a vested interest in appealing to the unhinged and desperate. The worst was that dumb bitch out in Colorado with presidential aspirations. For five years, not a week went by where she didn’t toss red meat to the dumbest of the unhinged masses about David being a secret pedophile, or how he had undergone satanist-funded gender-reassignment surgery, or how he was a literal demon from the parts of the Bible they’d never read. Taryn’s pain was the fundraising foundation upon which political dreams were built.

More than a few times Taryn had been unable to ignore the lunatic tweets, the statements to congress, and the targeted frothing to screaming crowds about how her husband had been not just dangerous, but supernaturally evil - and that her family needed to be punished on his behalf. The congressional subpoena was the straw though. And in a moment of simultaneous strength and weakness, she laughed and screamed and swore at the congresswoman for ninety minutes, ignoring all questions and threats of contempt, and offering nothing except her rage, her pain, and her judgment.

It bounced around social media while Taryn moved her and Anna again. Santa Monica to Beverly Hills had become Beverly Hills to Silverlake. It would be the final time, she said. To her relief, it was. And as they unpacked in what would become Taryn’s current home, and settled into a new life, quotes and videos of her standing up to those who had spent years dragging her again and again through the pits of hell became the final nail in that congresswoman’s presidential primary coffin.

Two years later, Taryn watched her fall into the obscurity of hosting daily podcasts from her garage to a few thousand people, instead of proclamations to a district of a million broadcast to billions. Her voice had faded into historical obscurity, and she had become a political pariah. It wasn’t justice - or at least not what Taryn would consider justice - but silence was good enough.

Now a partner in a law firm working on behalf of those left behind by society - the poor, immigrants, refugees, and those whose mental, emotional, or physical health never allowed them the option clawing out a “normal” life - Taryn had found purpose again. Her fight was “the good fight” and her time would be spent leaving the world a better place for her work. She had no need for money, but she did have a desperate need for all of her trauma and pain and sadness to be a reason for something positive, and this let her write that final chapter. But for all of it, she would have never changed lives. But for all of it, she would have never saved those who would have fallen by the wayside. But for all of it, she would have never made the world a better place than she found it.

But all of it would always be there.

“I’m doing alright dear. I did talk to Zach for a bit this morning. Just to take my internal temperature. But … you remember how I said things would get easier?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s mostly true. I ache a little, but it’s a dull ache. I’m okay. How are you holding up?”

“I’m alright.” Anna answered too quickly for it to be true. Taryn heard her searching for the right words again, but this time felt her duties as a mother required her to step in.

“I was thinking we’d make pizzas tonight. Just us.”

“Outside in the oven?”

She heard her daughter’s voice pick up, and felt like some pain from the past decade had fallen away. This was always something special for them both. Something which had become theirs over the intervening years. When they first moved to this house, they discovered an old pizza oven out back. Cobwebbed and rusted, they restored it together - Anna providing mostly emotional support with the occasional top fetching and paint choosing.

It was the first real thing that was theirs alone after David’s passing and their constant moving. Their first discovery, project, and bonding moment together, in the final solace of rebuilding a normal life together, alone but for each other. And in that, it had become something of a symbol of the two of them creating something new with each other.

“Of course.”

“Can I have extra pepperoni and cheese on mine?”

Taryn laughed. Her daughter was, after all, still a teenager.

“Sure.”

“And champagne like last time?”

A teenager, but almost an adult. Taryn was drinking red wine at fifteen for special occasions with her very Italian family - Anna preferred champagne, and wouldn’t touch anything else. At least to Taryn’s knowledge. At least when they were together.

“We’ll see.”

—————

Anna felt silly saying “I’m gonna go spend time with Dad,” so instead she made up an excuse about a project deadline, said her goodbyes and I love yous, and hung up.

She pulled down her copy of The Lord of the Rings, and pulled out the USB key. It had become her way to feel close to him. She knew it wasn’t like he wrote everything on it himself, ASI had had almost a thousand engineers after all, but he left it for her for a reason, right? He never got the chance to say what that reason was - or, she remembered bleakly, to say goodbye - but it was something from him to her, in a way only they shared. That meant something.

She’d kept up with a slew of adapters over the intervening years, as actual plugs became less and less used, and wireless data transfer became the default. And she kept two hard copy backups from years ago that she checked every now and again for any data loss - two backups of the original files, untouched, and one she regularly updated with her changes.

Anna put in her password and navigated to the file she’d placed there a few years ago. Or rather, the file the OS had created years ago. The python file with an acronym she never understood - PHIS5225core.py - was locked to changes, and her first save created an editable duplicate. She had used this duplicate to write her stream of consciousness notes to her dad like before. Later, Anna had been understood how critical this happy duplicative accident had been, and she subsequently got very careful about not overwrite anything. Copies upon copies - hence the hard copy of the original. She might not know why he’d given it to her, but she knew it needed to be protected.

Anna didn’t only write him on the anniversary of his death - early on she wrote him almost every day - but the more recent ones were closer around that date. Every year she’d skim through what she’d written previously, and every year she’d find herself wondering what the rest of the file was intended to build, and take yet another look through the miles of code strings and wonder what inputs it was missing in order to run as he’d intended. Not having all the interconnected references or server addresses, it was like a recipe without ingredients, names of ingredients, or even an understanding of what ingredients were used for.

// I got rejected by MIT today. Or I guess I probably got rejected sometime last month, and I finally got notified today. It sucks that it was today, of all days. Either way, I wish you were here to tell me that it doesn’t matter and they need me more than I need them. I know it doesn’t, and I know they do, but it would still be nice to hear from someone who believes it. I haven’t told Mom yet. I meant to, but chickened out. She’s single again, by the way, but I kind of agree with her this time. Ken was kind of boring. Cute, but like zero personality. I’m not dating either - Mary and I broke up. We’re still friends, but that’s it. Maybe mom and I will do a single girls’ night thing this summer. Just barhop all over town and rage until sunrise.

Briefly, she wondered if the sarcasm came though. She added a “(/s)” just to be sure, and started a new line.

// I think you’d be proud of me. I’m not gonna say I followed in your footsteps, but mom says I’m a lot like you. Personality wise, I mean. She says she sees a lot of you in me. We get along better now than we did two years ago. I read what I wrote back then and…I dunno. I feel bad. I almost deleted it last year, but it felt wrong. I told myself it was version control. Anyway, she changed or I did or we both did, but it’s better now.

// I miss you dad. It’s weird that I keep getting older and you stay the same age. I still picture you like I remember from when I was eight. Mom still has photos around too, so that helps. Fewer though - our house doesn’t feel like a shrine anymore. Which is probably good. But I’m glad there’s still enough that I don’t forget your face. I miss Poppie too. Can you give him a big hug for me? He’ll know what it’s for. I love you.

She smiled - sending errands to the afterlife. Then she hit save, compiled it out of sheer habit, and cried until she felt better.

—————

Taryn had discovered that baking cured many ails. In the depths of her mourning, making something nourishing, life affirming - in many ways life giving - became a salve. She started with breads, but moved to all manner of pastries, pastas, and treats. If it had flour, she learned how to make it at least at an acceptable level. Croissants were her specialty though. She reveled in seeing the dozens of thin layers, and made sure the tops were egg washed for a pristine snap and shatter.

There was a point where Taryn considered opening a bakery. There were a lot of considered life changes over the past decade. But after some expensive experimentation, including a period of time where she was hand grinding hard red wheat berries on her kitchen counter, she found herself with her current career and a few more hobbies. As far as mid-life crises go, having several years’ worth of grains, a very nicely made Italian mill, and the enviable task of many friendly requests for baked goods wasn’t the worst outcome.

Pizza dough was a cinch in comparison. Four ingredients and you’re good to go. Six if you’re feeling fancy. Which she was. Anna helped by staying out of the way, and providing moral support, as well as by stealing small bits of the raw dough when she thought her mother wasn’t looking. They both knew the farce. They both pretended they didn’t. It was nice. Normal. Needed.

Later, they sat on the back porch as the pizza oven cooled off into the night air. Anna offered up a toast to her father, and they both sipped in his memory. Later, she would hold her daughter as Anna softly cried. The sharp pain of missing her father dulling a little more as time passed, but not today. Taryn would wait until her daughter was in bed, and then sob into her pillow on her half of the bed. The other side remaining both empty and occupied.

David and her … hadn’t been perfect. By any stretch. But they had comfortable with and around each other. And when she was able to regain control of the freefall, Taryn realized she had become, in many ways, more comfortable by herself than with someone else. It wasn’t that she was unable to move on - she’d dated, and even got serious once or twice. But over time she gradually stopped feeling like she needed someone. Once she had broken through the fog of horrible loss and the unsettled unmooring of her world, once she was able to stand up and take stock of her life with clear eyes, she saw that she was already enough.

She had her routines and her friends. She never had to compromise her interests or desires for someone else. And she had Anna. So anyone who wanted to slot into her world needed to accentuate what was already established, and she found that not many men her age were willing to bend themselves to someone else’s world. So her relationships had moments of spark and fire, and then usually fizzled - and she was comfortable with both elements.

Taryn was, for all intents, mostly happy. Settled and unapologetically comfortable. Finally. But today was still a sad day. And it would always be a sad day. She could have been happily remarried to someone Anna adored, rebuilt her life in a new image, and spent her hours pursuing nothing but frivolity … and today would still take on an outsized importance for both of them.

“We’re only human,” she reminded herself just after midnight, as she walked into the bathroom to find a melatonin. “Remembering important dates is just part of our programming.”