Ghost Extraction

This story was originally a microfic I uploaded to Twitter on a seperate account that I wanted to focus on scifi horror. Hence some of the weird formatting to get it within the tweet character limits. I did not intent for this to be kinky I swear.

The unveiling of the 'cyberbrain' brought with it a host of regulation. The invention of converting the human mind into raw data had advantages too good to pass up, but with it came risks. Data can be copied, modified. Even elites don't like having their 'humanity' compromised.

The UN CIPR (Cybernetic Individualism Preservation Regulation) made sure that each cyberbrain would have enforced protections. Your ghost, whilst being able to transfer between locations or bodies, would be difficult to ever copy or modify.

That didn't stop criminals however.

If you can have one expert, why not have a hundred? Why should one individual get to be top of their field when there could be a thousand just like them? Bodies are cheap, minds are much harder to mass produce. It's only fair to be able to steal and clone.

Which is where you come in. Getting a contract with a corporation was hardly what you had planned in life, but really it's the only way of guaranteeing your security against data hackers. You live locked up in a skyscraper, but at least you know there's only one of you.

It's late. You tend to find yourself regularly burning the midnight oil.

Your workstation lies next to the window, you often find yourself gazing out over the forest of glistening skyscrapers. Daydreaming, until something touches the base of your skull and snaps you back.

You swing round in your chair, hand clasping at your neck. No one. There's never a soul around at this time. Yet the touch continues, a shiver, like a spider that you can't catch.

Pulsating, it connects with something sensitive you didn't know was there, and then it clicks in.

You've had ghost extraction described to you before, but learned knowledge can rarely prepare you for the real thing. The feeling of falling backwards whilst being perfectly still.

The feeling of being sucked out of your body through a straw, your form coiling within the tube.

Dizzying, nauseating, your perception growing fainter as you're scattered and distorted into raw data, continuously pulled out from your body.

Copying a cyberbrain is nearly impossible remotely. Better to steal it and copy it at a more secure location.

The human mind's survival instinct will always naturally try to pull itself back together, but that concept of 'you' becomes harder to perceive the more spread out you become. Warped, the only thing that persists is that tugging feeling. Something was reeling you in.

The corporate security officer groaned through their helmet, rubbing their shoulders through the overly-armoured uniform. Thugs breaking in they'd been trained to handle, but an attempted ghost extraction, on THEIR night shift? An unbelievable nuisance.

"Is everything okay, officer?"

One of the cleaners, or more, 'cleaning supervisors'. Cleaning had long since become an automated process within all corporate structures. She was only there to take care of the little cleaning bots, should they break down.

"A slight data breach, but nothing for you to worry about. The tech gals locked down the system the moment the intrusion was detected. Something got in, but it ain't getting out."

The guard was unnerved though. How had they not been able to find the target yet?

They felt a tap at their foot and looked down. It was one of the roombas, a tiny cleaning droid. Slowly it moved back, then accelerated forwards on its small wheels to tap the guard's foot again.

"One of yours, I assume?"

The cleaner sighed. "Acting up again, clearly."

She scooped it up in her gloved hands and the little thing went wild, wheels trying to turn it in every direction. "No matter how much we meddle with them, they won't stop glitching like this." She pressed the off switch with a huff and instantly it quietened down.

"Well, on that note I'm heading home. Have a good evening, officer, best of luck on your data issue!"

She slid the machine into her shoulder bag and let the office resume their duties. Out the door she strode, the getaway vehicle purring in waiting where she left it.

You wake up very, very close to the floor. A proximity it's usually difficult to get your head to.

But that would be because you don't have a head any more. It comes whirring back, just like your motors. The chilling feeling of having a disc for a body crashing into focus.

"Hello there, cute stuff. And what a cutie you are."

It takes a lot of energy to strain to perceive her, your cameras and sensors only designed for looking at the floor. She sits curled up in an armchair, smirking fiendishly down at you. It's all you can do to back away.

"Oh dear, is that it? Some try to charge at me, you know? That's always delightful. Others just sit there, dormant. I don't know if it's from the terror or if it's them trying to reactivate some functionality they had before. I guess I'll never know, hmm? Hahaha."

You'd probably whimper if you could. Maybe shiver if your motors could do that sort of thing. Your sensors warn you of an incoming impact, then something bumps you from the left. It's another roomba, two roombas, three. They're all the same model, indifferently bumping into you.

"Awww, look! They're saying hi! Welcome to the collection, bounty number 7. Or was it 8? They always let me keep the original after the job. There's probably at least a dozen copies of you working for criminal organisations already. It's nice they let me keep a trophy though."

You try to bump back, but your sensors flash up warnings each time, screeching at you. The unit programming is screaming at you, and you realise it only goes away if you start to clean the floor.

"Ah, there we go, acceptance. Be thankful I have an unbelievably clean apartment."

She closes her eyes and counts to 10.

And when she opens them, all she can see are a few roombas cleaning the floor, now unable to tell any of them apart from each other.

With a hum, she flicks on her tablet, scrolling a list of bounties. Her apartment can always be more clean.