okaywolf

Written to the prompt by Making Up Robots cohost prompt account — Digital consciousness that needs your credit card information.

This is the second prompt that made me go "I've done this one". Neph and /~.n are from the late 2000s, in which a cyberpunk hacker-type has an antagonistic relationship with the digital copy of his consciousness born from a colossal fuck up that got Neph on digital house arrest.

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.


/~.n already knows Neph’s credit card information—had already maxed out Neph’s credit cards buying things Neph didn’t want to admit he’d also buy if he was a digital consciousness that didn’t have to care about rent or food—which means /~.n had gone offsystem to look at one of the many avenues for finding out a someone has a credit card. Neph knew /~.n hadn’t stopped going offsystem to any degree after agreeing not to go off system, but this was an admission it had.

“Are you for fucking real?”

The rude little mass of pixels in the corner of Neph’s intercom screen that sort of abstractly resembled a nepenthes fluctuated in a way Neph had the experience to know was offensive with a touch of indignation, as if /~.n tanking Neph’s credit was its right.

In theory, /~.n could order more credit cards under Neph’s name but those would be ones with low credit limits that didn’t require bio confirmation. In theory, /~.n could hack various creditors’ systems to increase Neph’s limits or wipe his current debts, but Neph had convinced /~.n that it couldn’t be absolutely certain any such hacks would be undetected. Most of the time it didn’t seem like /~.n had a sense of self-preservation, but it was the only thing Neph had any consistent luck appealing to.

The bitcrushing noise from the intercom translated to some spite-filled remark about how /~.n was planning to get Neph a treat also, not just whatever /~.n wanted. The time it takes Neph to translate this—decimals of a second longer than if it were /~.n’s garbled text on any of the powered down screens attached to actual machines occupying in the apartment—annoys /~.n who complains about sitting in the intercom instead of any of the machines occupying the apartment. Neph’s machines ranged from powerful enough it was breaking Neph’s ‘parole’, an “ancient hunk of junk nostalgia box” as /~.n called it and refused to inhabit, and several offgrid decks that ranged from harmless to concerning if Neph left the house with them.

“You know exactly how long you’re still grounded for.”

When /~.n had finally admitted to the one thing it kind of felt guilty about, Neph had managed to trap it in the intercom with the agreement he would unground it at a set date and time. In the intercom, /~.n had less access to the digital world. It did have access to the whole building and therein the rental corp and security corps’ systems which of course had protections to keep tenants from hacking them but then /~.n was a digital consciousness from the head of a guy who had gotten into things he shouldn’t have been able to and didn’t accidentally kill everyone in the process if only just. Neph was hoping /~.n had used the deprecated connection to emergency services to look up his new credit card.

At one point, Neph had threatened /~.n that he’d move to the out country, where there weren’t screens for it to make graphical representations of itself and if it followed him it would struggle to find a system close enough to him to have any affect on his life—/~.n assured Neph there were plenty of ways it would still have an affect on his life but didn’t doubt the distance into digital nothing space Neph would go to out of stubborn pettiness. The move would certainly make the agency in charge of making sure Neph doesn’t cause another disaster—and the various agencies whose job that wasn’t but still watched him any ways—happy.

This threat had only slightly curtailed /~.n’s bend on ruining Neph’s life.

/~.n is doing jobs that Neph isn’t allowed to do—not allowed in an ‘agents breaking down his apartment door’ way—to fund something. Neph pretends not to know about the jobs. Neph figures /~.n wants his credit card for whatever the something is, since even /~.n would be convinced working from Neph’s apartment’s intercom was too risky.

“I don’t want to delay payments,” /~.n says in bitcrush.

Neph doesn’t want to ask. “Payments for what?”

/~.n doesn’t reply. Its graphical representation doesn’t move or shift hue.

“You are incorrigible.”

“Thank you.”

Neph groans, his hands clench and flex, he paces a little. “I’m not telling you. The card’s for all the shit that won’t accept direct currency.” Because if a corp can get paid by another corp who siphons more fees from transactions than direct currency did, a corp will do that. The power and water companies, for example. Neph has an H2O condenser to handle most of the water part of the equation, when it wasn’t falling apart because /~.n kept spending all his money before he could order replacement parts.

The little graphical representation of the worst parts of Neph’s personality shifts as though genuinely despondent about the hard line drawn.

“Whatever the fuck you’ve got going on can delay a month.” Neph walks off to his bedroom—as far as the intercom as possible within the apartment—and doesn’t last long in the tech nothing of lying in bed before pulling over a deck to offline browse discussion forums and torture himself with the archive of articles and reports from his disaster that he kept a copy of on every offgrid machine and personal memory device.

When Neph wakes up with the deck awkwardly jabbing into his side, /~.n is bitcrush humming a disconcerting melody. He has the sinking feeling that it found a way to make its mystery payment. He falls back asleep hoping whatever it did didn’t alert corp security or the agencies to wake him up by breaking down his apartment door.