Technopathy Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
One day Brian was at the casino and the slot machine he was
gambling at began to speak to him. Not out loud like it had a speaker, but
there was suddenly a voice in the back of his mind like someone was psychic or
telepathic. Of course Brian thought at first that there was some elaborate
trick being played on him and it only seemed as if the voice was in his head,
when really it was coming from somewhere else.
Brian cautiously looked around, but saw no immediate indication
that anything else was out of the ordinary, or that he was being set up for
some sort of punch line.
The machine seemed to realize it was making Brian uncomfortable
and apologized profusely. This didn’t really help the situation.
A practical joke seemed like the most logical explanation, but it
seemed like a lot of work and probably a very expensive endeavor to pull off, and
there certainly was little reason as to why he of all people should be on the
receiving end of this prank. Brian assumed there must also be some real world
technology that could project sound waves directly into his mind. Brian was
unaware if anyone had been developing such technologies, but even if they
could, it still didn’t explain why him and why a slot machine.
Brian was aware of superpowers in fiction and in films, and so
part of him was aware of the idea that someone could actually develop some sort
of power to do just what he was doing. But that all seemed too extremely
unlikely and a little bit silly. His mind couldn’t quite accept that if there
had been some mystical or magical or evolutionary jump that the first power to
be developed would be the ability to speak to gambling machines. Sure people
spent more and more time with technology, so techopathy wasn’t entirely out of
the question, but a slot machine seemed like a ridiculous first contact. A much
more likely choice would be a phone or computer. He just didn’t think the slot
machine had the appropriate hardware for this.
Brian considered the idea of his sudden technopathy. If he was a
technopath, he wasn’t a very good one. He could hear the machine in his mind
and he could talk back, but that was it. So far it seemed like it was just the
one slot machine. His phone wasn’t talking to him. None of the other machines
were talking to him. The casino security system wasn’t either. As far as he
could tell, it was just the one slot machine. And he had no control. All he could
do was talk. He couldn’t tell it to let him win or make it change the odds in
his favor, or just print him out a winning ticket. Technopathy without the
ability to control wasn’t worth much at all.
Brian realized that perhaps he wasn’t the technopath at all.
Perhaps the slot machine had somehow come to life and it was the machine that
had the superpowers. The slot machine itself could have been telepathic and
Brian might not have any powers at all.
Brian didn’t like that very much. Even if the power was lame and
didn’t do much at all, he wanted it to be him that was special and not the
other way around.
Brian asked the slot machine, but the slot machine didn’t know.
Faced with an insane situation with no obvious answers, Brian did
the most logical thing he could think of and he used this new communication skill
and he gambled. He played and the machine told him what to do. It told him when
to best small and when to raise the stakes. It told him when to bet the max and
it told him when to take a break. The machine knew what it was programmed to do
and it could tell him when and what to do to best take advantage of that. And
so he did. And he won.
Brian looked around. He was cautious. He was no fool.
No one showed up – no one from the casino and not some host of a
practical joke reality series.
Brian won and he was going to keep it. He hadn’t made himself
rich, because the machine wasn’t programmed to do that, but he had made himself
very happy and had a very successful day.
Brian thanked the machine when he left and quickly began making
plans for a return visit. If this kept up, Brian figured out he could easily
make a solid living for himself. It might not work everyday; he wasn’t sure how
the machine was programmed to pay. He would have to talk to the machine about
that later. He was sure there would be enough payouts that he could make the
numbers work out. And it would be better than having to work at his desk job.
Brian realized this was his real shot at having everything he wanted – money,
freedom, and a leisurely existence. It was going to be great. He didn’t even
care anymore whether the power was his or the machines. So what if it wasn’t
him? He didn’t need to be special. He didn’t need to have magical powers. Just
so long as the machine stayed friendly and kept up its end of the deal.
Brian did return.
The machine did not. The casino had remodeled as casinos so often
do. There were all new machines with all new randomized payouts that were
designed to make sure he wasn’t really going to win anything.
Brian tried his best to find out what happened to the machine, but
casinos weren’t prone to releasing that sort of information. His dream was dead
and apparently so was his superpower. No other machine ever talked to Brian
again. As time went on, he began to wonder if it had really happened at all, or
if he had had some sort of induced hallucination or perhaps just a really vivid
dream. Brian never knew.
No comments:
Post a Comment