Misc. Bits

Chip

As I crest the hill, my vision is awash with brilliant hues of green. My eyes zero in on a squat tree bristling with flat dark leaves. As my view zooms forward, Tilia Americana flashes at the edge of my vision. A single leaf comes into focus, and I can see dozens of little veins extending outward from the stem. As my vision zooms forward even further, I can see each little pore of the leaf. There are thousands of them, each breathing in and breathing out.

I plop down in the grass, thinking of nothing better to do in this moment. I remember learning about leaves when I was a kid in school—exaggerated diagrams of "stomata," "lamina," and "petioles." Back then was before the Chip of course, before students could simply intuit the nature of such things by observing pristine AI generations integrated seamlessly with their own eyes. I think about the stuffy teachers and vocabulary words scrawled across index cards.

But almost as soon as the unpleasant thoughts begin to crawl through my mind, my eyes swivel to another tree—this time, finding purchase on a budding yellow flower. Liriodendron tulipifera appears above the plant, just long enough for me to see it. The yellow petals are so bright, I need to squint. A neon orange line—jutting across the petals—acts as a veritable billboard for the pollinating insects.

This close, the petals are so thick and soft, I imagine putting my head down and sleeping on one of them. It reminds me of the sofa I had before I got the Chip. I would get home from work—twelve hours staring at 1s and 0s—and collapse on it. I would stare at the television and let its crude imitation of this beautiful world distract me from the unopened mail, the overdue rent, and a list too long to begin counting.

Those worries evaporate as my eyes land on their next subject, a bird flying high in the sky. Its wings—speckled with blue and white—are spread wide as it glides toward a tree. Hirundo rustica. Its red throat vibrates as it lets out a cacophony of staccato chirps. It lands on a branch, its eyes swiveling nearly as quickly as mine. For a moment, it stares back at me—a brief but intense acknowledgement of two living things, separate but the same—and then it is gone. Its metabolism will not let it idle for long. Not like me.

I allow myself to revel on the hillside for hours. I watch mice scurry across the forest floor. I listen to individual drops of water forming on the underside of mushrooms. I smell the pheromones of ants, yelling at each other in their chaotic odors.

But eventually, my Chip reminds me that it is time to move on, that it is getting late. I look up at the sun—a low orange ball—and 4:04 flashes across my field of view. I look to the south and see a flashing blue waypoint marking the campsite. With my enhanced vision and predictive software, I could see how it looks out from here—despite the distance and the wall of foliage—but no need to spoil the surprise.

I clamber slowly down the hill, my Chip gently pointing out loose stones and other hazards. I even see a snake slithering in glowing red, but the Chip has of course guided me away from it far in advance, creating a wide berth.

When I reach the tree line, it is starting to get dark in earnest. I hardly notice, thanks to the Chip's artificial filters making the moonlight nearly as bright as its source.

I do my best to stay on track toward the waypoint, but, inevitably, I am distracted by a troupe of buzzing bees. I follow them for a while, watching as they bury their faces into fuzzy plant organs, extracting what they can.

They remind me of that old expression—busy bees—that used to apply just as readily to my kind. That was back before the Chip—before the Revolution—when people went to factories, offices, and fields. I shudder to think of it, of a time when my agency was controlled by my most base desires.

Before I know it, a flash of blue in the corner of my vision gently guides me back to my desired path. I am hesitant to leave the bees, but my calves are straining, and I know it won't be long before I crave sleep. 92 minutes, my Chip informs me. With renewed determination, I march through the forest toward my desired clearing, deep in the wilderness.

When I arrive, the moon—its every crater and scar visible—is high in the sky. I shrug off my knapsack, and the Chip begins drip-feeding me thoughts of how to pitch the tent. I indulge the ideas and erect the structure with the familiarity of its designer.

As I close my eyes, I fall asleep to thoughts of soft tulip petals.

#

Danger.

I awake to a start. Orange and red blobs lap at the edges of my field of vision—human-shaped heat signatures.

Danger? I think, querying my Chip at the speed of thought.

Images flood my mind. Protestors in the streets. Masked men. Burning buildings.

Not needing any further guidance, I leap from my sleeping bag at once and unzip the tent.

"Not so fast, Chip-head," a bearded man says. He has a baseball bat in his hand. His companions—a slew of burly-looking onlookers—likewise hold an assortment of blunt objects.

I feel myself begin to panic, but the Chip sends soothing thoughts. It organizes and supplements my ideas, resulting in something resembling a plan.

"I don't mean any harm," I say. "I enjoy hiking and camping in these mountains, just like y'all."

Before the bearded man speaks, the Chip has already assessed his facial expression. My ploy for relatable sympathy has not worked.

"Y'ain't like us, feller. We're all natural," he says, pointing at his head.

I can tell he's right. His pupils are wide in the darkness, not supplemented by filters. I wonder if he can even see my face.

"Yer go'n be too," he says with a nod, and another man with a bald head approaches.

I feel my head go light before the Chip steadies my breathing. The bald man is holding a wand magnet.

"Please, I won't know how to get home," I say. "I'll starve out here."

"It's better w'thout all that junk in yer noggin," the bearded man says. "Y'can't live life with a fuckin' machine tell'n ya what to do."

"No, please, I can't—"

As the bald man approaches—wand magnet in hand—the Chip floods my brain with so much information, I almost lose consciousness. The location of the nearest highway. A compendium of edible flora. How to read a compass.

Then, realization hits me like a truck. The Chip is offloading. It knows I'll be alone soon.

The bald man raises the wand to my head, and clicks a button. My world goes dark for a moment, and I feel myself fall to the ground.

"Now ain't that better?" the bearded man says. "Y'can actually 'preciate these mount'ns, now that'cha don' have that AI bullshit. We're doin' you a favor, feller."

After a while, the grizzly group of people leave, and I sit alone in front of my tent. The forest is dark. Truly dark. I no longer see the trees breathing, only jagged and foreboding blobs of foliage. I no longer hear the soft rustling of feathers, only hushed movements that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. When I catch movement on my peripheral vision, I am greeted not with tooltips and information, but with a primal desire for self-preservation.

I am afraid.

#

AN: This story is my submission to the January 2023 Science Fiction contest, AI.