Wet Ware
On the first day at my new job, my boss asked me to spit in a cup.
Last month, I took a job that saved me from being homeless. On my first day, my new boss asked me to spit in a cup.
“Is this for a drug test?” I asked.
“It’s part of the inference training,” Mr. Leão told me.
He was short, with a thin moustache. He wore khaki pants and a quarter-zip hoodie. He held out a plastic cup. I spat in it, and he covered it with a lid.
“Thank you, Hailey,” he said. “Let me show you where you’ll be working.”
I followed him between the metal shelves.
I suffer from somatic OCD, and whenever I become anxious, my mind disconnects from my body. I become hyper-aware of my physical self. Of my blinking, swallowing, and breathing.
As I looked around at the empty shelves, I blinked, swallowed, breathed, unable to automate myself.
Mr. Leão took me inside a glass-walled office at the back of the warehouse. He introduced me to the other trainers, Brian and Priya. They looked like they were in their late twenties. The same age as me.
“Brian is our accounting specialist,” Mr. Leão told me. “And Priya is training for software engineering.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, and I waved at them.
Mr. Leão brought me to one of the empty cubicles. On the desk was the oldest computer I’d ever seen.
“There’s some documentation on the computer to help you get started,” Mr. Leão said. “I’ll be back after lunch to check on how you’re doing.”
“Before you go, can you tell me how to turn this computer on?” I asked.
He pressed the big button on the computer tower. The computer hummed as it came to life. Eventually, a Windows 98 logo appeared.
Mr. Leão went upstairs to his office in the lab.
“He’s a little strange, but he’s nice,” Priya told me.
I looked up to see her staring down at me over the wall of my cubicle.
“If you want some coffee, there’s a coffee machine in the corner, near the fire exit,” she said. “There are some snacks over there, too. Fruit and granola bars, mostly.”
“When I took this job, I thought we’d be working in Ophidia Global’s office building downtown.”
“We’re supposed to move there in a few months. But for the first part of the training, we need to be close to the lab. What are you training for?”
“Chemistry.”
“You have a PhD?”
I nodded. “I graduated last year. What about you?”
“Just a Master’s.”
She sat at her computer again.
My computer had finally loaded. There was no login screen. On the desktop, I saw a Word document titled “READ ME”. I opened it.
“Welcome, Hailey,” it read. “To start your inference training, open Internet Explorer and then enter the address: https://ophidiaglobal.com.train.”
I opened the website and was shown two images: a sunset in Hawaii, and a dark cave filled with skulls.
“Choose which of these images you feel the strongest about, Hailey,” the instructions read.
I clicked the sunset.
Two more images appeared. A wooden birdhouse and a Japanese woman wearing a bright-blue kimono.
I clicked the woman in the kimono.
“Is this normal?” I asked Priya. “The training is asking me to pick random pictures. I thought I’d be answering chemistry questions.”
“The first part of training is just to sync with the OPU,” Priya said.
“What’s an OPU again?”
“Organic Processing Units,” Brian told me. “And you won’t just be picking images. Sometimes it’s text or audio. Mr. Leão said this part of the training is to help the lab techs configure the biological nodes.”
I kept clicking through the images. Like Brian said, eventually I was shown sets of audio or text, but none of it made much sense.
Time dragged. I stared at the clock in the corner of my computer screen, swallowing, blinking, breathing.
Finally, it was noon. I went outside with Brian and Priya to eat lunch at the picnic table near the parking lot.
“How long were you out of work before finding this job?” Priya asked me.
“Almost a year.”
“That’s how long I went, too.”
“I went almost two years,” Brian said. “If my parents hadn’t paid my rent, I don’t know what I would have done. The economy is a mess right now.”
After we finished eating, we went back inside the warehouse. Mr. Leão was waiting in front of the door of the fishbowl.
“Hailey, could you come with me to the lab?” he asked. “We need to start the sync.”
I followed him up the metal staircase to his office on the mezzanine floor, blinking, swallowing, and breathing.
“So?” he asked. “What do you think?”
“I like it here. Brian and Priya are both really nice.”
“I’m glad you’re all getting along.”
“They said after this first part of the training is done, we’re going to be moved downtown. Is that true?”
“Yes. Another trainer here, Yusimy, just made the transition. It took her six weeks here to get her base OPU attuned, but she’s working in the downtown office now. I know the warehouse isn’t easy to get to. We appreciate you driving all the way out here.”
I felt strange. Anxious.
I tried to swallow, but my tongue didn’t move. I tried to blink, but only one of my eyelids closed.
I tried to hold onto my blinking, my swallowing, my breathing, but even those slipped away from me.
“Hailey, are you all right?”
“Yes, sorry.” I looked up at Mr. Leão. “What were we talking about?”
“I was telling you what a great job you did today. It’s almost five. You can go downstairs and log out for the day.”
I went back downstairs to the fishbowl. Brian and Priya weren’t at their desks.
I got my purse and drove home.
The next day, my drive back to the warehouse was even worse. Two hours in traffic. I barely made it on time.
I sat at my computer and opened the Ophidia Global training website, https://ophidiaglobal.com/train.
I was shown two images: a dog with human-looking eyes and a plate of lasagna.
I clicked the dog.
“How did everything go yesterday?” Priya asked me.
“Good, I think. Mr. Leão said I did a good job, anyway.”
“If people quit, it’s usually on their first day,” Brian said. “I’m glad you came back.”
“I really need this job.”
At noon, Brian, Priya, and I went outside to eat lunch.
“Mr. Leão told me another trainer here, Yusimy, took six weeks to finish the sync, but she’s working downtown now.”
“From what I heard, it usually takes between six to eight weeks,” Priya said. “But that’s only if there aren’t any problems.”
“Yusimy used to run an art gallery,” Brian said. “She’s training for art history, and I think a bit of art generation, too. Like actual painting.”
After lunch, I was shown a new set of images: a field of flowers and a dead woman lying in an alley, her face covered with blood.
The image of the corpse caught me off guard.
I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
I closed my eyes and clicked the field of flowers.
Mr. Leão walked into the fishbowl. “Hailey, it’s time to do your sync.”
I followed him upstairs to his office.
As he talked, I tried my best to listen but, like before, I felt strange.
I blinked, swallowed, and breathed, but my body didn’t feel like it usually did. I tried to swallow, but my tongue felt frozen. I tried to blink, but my eyelids didn’t move together. I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt like they were already full of air.
“Ok, that’s everything, Hailey,” Mr. Leão said.
I blinked again, and my eyelids moved in sync.
I looked up at Mr. Leão, sitting at his desk across from me. The clock on the wall behind him said five pm.
“Have a good night,” he said.
“You, too.”
I went back downstairs to the fishbowl. Brian and Priya had already left. I got my purse and then drove home, too.
Another two hours stuck in traffic.
Despite how strange the job at Ophidia Global was, it felt good to be employed and to be making money again. On Monday morning, though, the job got even stranger.
I was clicking through image sets when Brian stood up from his desk.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I think someone’s using Yusimy’s old computer.”
Yusimy had worked right next to him. He walked into her old cubicle.
“Come look at this,” he said.
Priya and I walked into the cubicle, too. Yusimy’s computer was on. The training website displayed sets of paintings. Underneath the paintings were the same two options: Baroque and Rococo. Yusimy’s mouse moved back and forth, categorizing the paintings as one or the other.
“She must be working remotely,” Priya said.
“She’s doing actual art history training now, too.”
It wasn’t just Yusimy’s mouse cursor moving on the screen. The physical mouse was moving, too, making small circles on the mouse pad.
Brian, Priya, and I sat at our computers again and got back to work.
I was shown an image of a circuit board and an image of a dollhouse.
I clicked the dollhouse.
I blinked, swallowed, and breathed. Made sure my body kept doing what it was supposed to.
But then the warehouse power shut off.
Upstairs, something heavy fell on the floor.
Priya walked over to the windows and looked out into the warehouse.
A woman screamed and then ran downstairs from the lab.
“Yusimy! Wait!” Mr. Leão shouted.
She ran past the windows.
Yusimy, but she wasn’t Yusimy.
It was a doll with silicone limbs and black hair. Wires protruded from her head, connecting to a circuit board embedded in her back.
It knelt on the floor and started crying.
Mr. Leão slowly approached it and put his hand on its back.
“It’s going to be okay, Yusimy,” he said. “The sync didn’t finish. The power shut off. You weren’t supposed to wake up like this.”
“Where am I?” it asked. Its voice sounded strangely human.
“You’re in the warehouse. The lab.”
It looked into the fishbowl. Its eyes locked with mine. It looked horrified.
“Let’s get you back upstairs,” Mr. Leão said.
Keeping his hand on her back, he led her back up to the lab.
Priya looked back at me, her mouth wide open. “What the hell was that?”
I felt nauseous again.
I sat at my desk. I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Priya said. “I’m going home. I quit.”
“Don’t quit,” Brian said. “You’re not going to find another job that pays this well. And you’re almost done with the first part of the training. You’re going to be working downtown soon.”
“I don’t care. This is too weird.” She picked up her purse. “You’re staying, Hailey?”
I blinked, swallowed, breathed, and thought about all the bills I still needed to pay. My rent due at the end of the month. “I think so.”
Priya left.
I heard Mr. Leão come downstairs and try to talk her out of it, but she’d seen enough.
The power turned back on. Mr. Leão came into the fishbowl.
“I’m very sorry about that,” Mr. Leão said. “You weren’t supposed to see that part of this.”
“Was that one of Yusimy’s OPUs?” Brian asked.
“Yes, exactly. Yusimy has started the third part of the training process. We’re configuring the physical specifications. We’re going to need to install a few more generators in here to ensure the power doesn’t go out again.”
I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
“Because of the outage, we’re running a little behind upstairs,” Mr. Leão said. “Brian, would you mind if we started your sync a little earlier today? It shouldn’t take long.”
“Sure.”
Brian followed Mr. Leão upstairs to the mezzanine.
I sat at my desk and kept clicking through the training questions.
I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
Ophidia Global is a multi-billion dollar company, I told myself. They wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. They couldn’t.
Could they?
Was I really that desperate for a paycheck?
I picked my purse up and left the fishbowl. I walked to the front of the warehouse. Mr. Leão stood in front of the door to the parking lot.
“I know you’re frightened, Hailey, but I can explain all of this,” he said. “The OPUs can’t exist on their own. They need to be grounded. Not just to a body, but a sense of identity. Will you please just come up to the lab with me so I can show you what you’re doing?”
I blinked, swallowed, and breathed.
He took my arm and led me toward the lab. I followed him, thinking of nothing but how to keep my lungs breathing.
Inside the lab, Brian sat motionless in a chair. His head was covered by a silicone cap, and needles pierced into his skull. The needles hooked into translucent, fluid-filled wires that ran down into a set of glass jars on a nearby table.
My body froze again.
“What are you doing to him?” I asked.
“He’s in the middle of his sync,” Mr. Leão said.
I blinked, swallowed, and breathed. “This is what I’ve been doing in the afternoons?”
“The sync can cause a bit of amnesia, but it’s harmless.” He motioned me towards the empty chair next to Brian. “Please, have a seat.”
“I’m not doing this.”
“Hailey, we go through this every time. There’s no pain, just a bit of pressure.”
“I can’t.” I blinked, breathed, swallowed.
“You signed a contract. We’re already halfway through the synchronization. We’ve invested millions into building an OPU based on your DNA.”
“I’m sorry you’ve wasted so much money on me.”
I tried to leave the lab, but Mr. Leão stopped me. “You’ll feel much better when this is all over.” Then he turned to the lab tech. “Can I have some help? She’s going to need to be sedated again.”
I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
Over my shoulder, I saw the lab tech walking towards me.
I shoved myself back inside my body. I moved my legs like I was controlling a machine, forcing myself to run forward.
I pushed through a metal door at the back of the lab, into a dimly lit hallway.
“Come back, Hailey!” Mr. Leão shouted. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”
I ran to the end of the hallway and then through another door.
Blinking, swallowing, breathing.
I was overstimulated. Sweating. My face felt like it was on fire.
The hallway opened to another, smaller lab room, lit up only by the light of a computer screen.
The Yusimy doll I’d seen before sat in front of the computer.
On the walls, other, eyeless dolls hung limp and lifeless.
The Yusimy doll slowly lifted its head to look at me. “Hello.”
“Are you Yusimy?”
“I think so, yes.” She smiled and nodded her head.
“What have they done to you?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked at her hands. “These aren’t my hands. This isn’t my body.” She stood from her chair. “What’s going on?”
I swallowed, breathed, blinked.
“Enough of this, Hailey,” Mr. Leão said, and then he and the lab tech carried me back into the other room.
Latex wrapped around my head, pulling my hair to my scalp. Then thin needles were pierced through my skull.
There was no pain, just pressure. The strange sensation of something being inside my head that shouldn’t be there.
I clenched my teeth together. Squeezed my fists. I tried to swallow but I couldn’t feel my tongue.
Thick, cold liquid oozed around my brain.
I shook my head, trying to get the liquid off my brain, but I was frozen.
I heard the whir of fans. The sound of my own distant screaming.
I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt like they were filled with liquid, too.
A loading screen appeared. Slowly, the progress bar increased, flickering against the black background.
Between the flickers, I saw a human-sized doll sitting across from me. Translucent, liquid-filled wires connected the doll’s head to the plastic jars on the table beside it.
Once the progress bar reached ninety-nine percent, my vision went entirely black.
For a second, I saw myself. Needles jutting out from my head. Wires filled with blue liquid. My face was frozen in terror.
I looked at my plastic legs. I lifted my plastic hands in front of my face and wiggled my plastic fingers.
Then I was back in my own body again, looking at the doll across from me, holding up its hands, wiggling its fingers.
I blinked, swallowed, breathed.
The syncing process caused a bit of amnesia. But once it was over, I barely remembered it. What happened felt like a distant dream.
Mr. Leão sped up the first stage of the training. Another week, and I was done. They let me start working downtown. They gave me two weeks off and a fifty-thousand-dollar completion bonus.
I spent my two weeks off in Paris. Then I went to work downtown for the first time, with a desk right next to Yusimy and Brian’s.
“Welcome back,” Brian said. “Did you have a good vacation?” He looked different. Thinner. His eyes had less light.
“Paris was amazing. I can’t wait to go back.”
I filled my thermos with coffee and then logged into my computer and opened the training page.
The prompt asked whether a standard Friedel-Crafts alkylation would synthesize 1-propylbenzene from benzene. Option A said yes. Option B said the reaction would carbocation-rearrange and yield the wrong product.
I chose option B.
I sipped my coffee.
I blinked, and I felt three other sets of eyes blinking, too.
Mr. Leão told me there was only one Hailey OPU, but I knew there were more. I could feel them. When I breathed, I felt their lungs fill with air. When they swallowed, I felt them all swallow.
If any of them became anxious or afraid, I felt that, too. I felt everything they did, like tiny nervous twitches in my muscles and skin.
Soon, there’d be more of me, too.
They owned the rights to me now. They’d condensed all my thoughts, memories, and emotions into a single, virtualized personality container that they could shove these OPUs inside to keep them sane.
How will I feel when there are thousands of Hailey OPUs out in the world?
Millions of me?
Every OPU they build on top of me is another piece of myself I’ll never get back.