Out of Sorts and Incognito

Empathy Jack - The Need

It was perfection.

Simon would finally feel them.

The bass was thumping as dancers filled the main floor area. The warehouse was drab, old, heavy industrial vibe not that anyone really worked any more. Robots, AI and automation built America now. Today's youth wallowed and partied their asses off in the infrastructure of old America.

Tonight was Cycle was unfolding. By far one of biggest party nights in the midwest. Seven of world's finest DJ's would spin center stage to a crowd of a thousand or more privileged elite.

More flesh than Simon could handle really.

He was an optical harmonics engineer for DJ LITA, a Norwegian born DJ. She was a rising star, had toured multiple years and now was a hit stateside. She was known for playing hypnotic retro techno jams once infamous and born of the new Detroit region. He was just one a few engineers assigned to her by her label Genom to help increase presence and profit among today's youth.

His role was pretty basic but he liked to dabble in hacking vinyl, experimenting with sub wave lengths and working the bass to carry that optimal impact for the body and soul as LITA would demand.

"The bass has to be felt Simon, I want to FEEL that bass." she said to him and rest of the team on numerous occasions.

The label had specific resonance quotas DJ's would have to maintain to be listed and powered by their PR engine.

Resonance defined as per audience engagement metric. Simple systems allowed for this data capture live, what percentage of the audience was in sync with the DJ, really feeling it, really getting into the groove. The system was a mixture of heart rate gathering tools and a kind of general vibe assessment coordinating total DJ impact from set to sound and back.

Simon did more than just amp up beats, he tuned and built custom mixers, specialized hardware and crossed into ethical fringe-ware bio hacking. Resonance hacking was a known thing, but he'd take it to extreme levels.

Hell he'd make his own speakers and demographic cognition systems if he could but most promoters would only so many hardware additions from each DJ onto the main floor. He'd have to settle for his own bit augmentations to modifying vinyl to custom gear and monitoring tools.

Vinyl, an age old medium at this point appeared and disappeared on humanity's timeline twice. First in the early to mid late 20th century when it was replaced by optical discs, yes die hards still collected but the major of the population moved on to digital, and then a renaissance of sorts coming back in the mid 21st century as if it had been rediscovered again only to then disappear again in the early 22nd century killed off by crystalware. But now it was back, few DJ's spun it, mostly because the gear required to was age old in itself and few had notable collections.

One thing that didn't age was the sound. Old vinyl records as far back as even the relics could grasp still rocked the body and soul. LITA liked that. She would sample them, initially in her own hypermonic crystalware collections but that stuff was beginning to be too common. I mean everyone spun crystal, and hell most things didn't even spin any more, they mocked the present of actual movement, everything was just too perfect. The nuance of different, slightly off, was the hot shit. So enter LITA and her dead simple techno jams. The crowd loved them.

Being authentic was in more than ever. Today's youth rebelled hard against AI, the automation that redefined the landscape. Every need taken care of. Every question optimized into a set of options. Companies worked hard to try and push the notion of human in the loop computing, but everyone knew better.

They knew what was running the system and it wasn't us.

Now old was in, aged was in, imperfection sexy, it was real. Accidents were prime time news, mostly cause nothing really new happened. AI covered most if not all day to day logistics of living, automation made sure everything else was covered, humanity had two roles left really- excess and indulgence, assuming you could afford it.

If you couldn't you'd be a number in the SPACE, the common term for the collective online net. SPACE was a drag, it was a endless virtual world, dulling your senses, eroding the notion of true person to person connectivity. Tonight at Cycle, the people here, they would experience each other in the moment, relishing the authenticity.

No drugs required really, you were using your brain again, nice.

Of course most people would use some accelerant, some drug to help them maximize their experience. People didn't need drugs as much as drugs needed people.