Dream Merchant

From the movie Metropolis

I've been writing for quite a bit longer than I have been publishing, so I have a significant backlog of "open projects" as I like to call them. When I get an idea for a story I often write about 20 pages or 15000 words of it so that if I need to leave it for a while when I come back to it there is a pretty good foundation to remind me where I was going with it. Occasionally I'll even toss in a very brief outline of where I had planned the story to go. I don't always follow the plan I originally laid out. Sometimes I revisit these unfinished writings and massage it into something I hope is better. Whom the Gods Love started this way. I had about 15000 words of it finished for quite some time before I revisited it and was compelled to finish it.

I'm going to share another such "open project" with you. This one is science fiction and it's an idea I return to from time to time with tweaks. I'm getting close to being able to finally complete it, but of course I plan to finish the Tanvian trilogy first. Here is the first small part of this story, approximately 5% of what I've finished to date.

The Dream Merchant

It is important to remember that people are looking at you all the time. In order to appear the most natural, never have an expression program running your face unless actively engaged in some form of conversation, verbal or otherwise. This may seem counterintuitive, and that you should always be running some program, but my extensive study into the subject says otherwise. Maintain a blank look throughout most of your day. Only change your expression after making direct eye contact with another person. Then, engage a smiling function from a randomized set. When you are responding to an individual you appreciate more, make sure to program in the eyebrow lift. Various texts suggest this is an automatic response when greeting someone you know and like. I prefer to use Peterson’s Greeting Expression software for all my facial emotes as it has been programmed with all the most up to date studies in mind.

From the text, “Naturally Human: The Comprehensive Guide to Appearing Lifelike” 

*** 

The city pulsed with the comings and goings of dark transports, quietly hissing through the air save when they paused to land at one of the many parking levels throughout the city to pick up one set of tall, perfectly beautiful people and disgorge another. The majority walked to and fro busily chatting with each other, seemingly taking no notice of the minority of drably dressed drones that were among them. The bald drones, all dressed in the customary gray jumpsuits that they were compelled to wear, trudged along behind their owners—their faces blank and their expressions unresponsive to the colorful world of light and noise around them.

Amidst the bustling flow of life, one motionless man stood out. He was dressed in a sharp suit and stood in a shadowy spot between two buildings, staring across the street. His eyes were fixed on the small shop there that specialized in dreams. His own drone stood behind him, motionless, his eyes glazed over. The man, whose name was Soltaire, hesitated, his softly humming transport shielding him from the rest of the street.

Compared to all the other shops crying out for attention, this one was nondescript. It had no extravagant lightshow describing the contents within. The shop wasn’t crowded with fanciful furnishings meant to delight the eye. It simply had the product lined up along the walls; tiny chips of silicone that were deceptively common looking. Soltaire knew quite well that if he approached the wall of chips and reached for one, a signal would pass to him describing the contents of the dream stored within. Currently there was only one person in the store perusing the wares. She had her drone with her. The store’s owner, a pale-skinned, dark-haired woman, was smiling at her customer as she spoke. Soltaire could read the owner’s lips if he so desired but decided that would be unnatural, so he resisted the urge to do so. He watched for a bit longer, waiting for the customer to finish. He liked his privacy and had no interest in entering the shop while anyone else was there.

The customer was listening to the feed from a product in front of her. Her drone was standing patiently to her left, seeming lifeless until its owner addressed it. Soltaire didn’t even have to glance back to know his drone was standing just behind him in the same lifeless way. This drone had been particularly well behaved so far. He’d been forced to get rid of the last one. No matter how many inhibitors he had injected into the thing, it still smiled too often.

Finally, the woman took one of the programs off the wall and took it to the counter. Soltaire could feel his excitement kicking in. The program cascaded through him, aptly imitating what he believed to be anticipation. The owner of the shop smiled widely at the woman and nodded toward the terminal interface in front of her. Soltaire didn’t relish his own interaction with the owner of the shop. She had been flirting with him since he first began frequenting the shop. Affairs were natural, so it had seemed prudent to start one. Even so, Soltaire had no interest in beginning one. He found it trying to keep the one relationship he had running, let alone another one on the side. The very idea of it tired him out.

For anything else, he would have simply found another merchant, someone he personally found less abrasive. But Soltaire had tried many dreams over the years and nothing matched what this shop offered. It was well recognized among the synth community that this particular merchant was the most skilled at creating dream sequences. So far she had managed to keep her trade secrets, and no one had been able to compete with her in all the years she had operated this particular shop.

Soltaire watched the customer place her hand into the terminal and saw a considerable amount of credits transfer into the shop owner’s account. As soon as the customer left and climbed into her own transport, Soltaire strode across the street with purpose. He paused, his hand halfway to the door. He savored the moment as a program caused a chill to run down his spine. Tonight, he would dream.