Early Adopter

8/9/2019 Early Adopter

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/early-adopter 1/27

EARLY ADOPTER

Short fiction by

SCOTT C. MARTIN



Early Adopter – 2010 - Written by Scott C. Martin

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. This means you are free

to share this story with whomever you wish, and reproduce the

story for any non-commercial purpose. I really wish you would.

I would be delighted to hear your feedback and suggestions for improvement at my website.

You may also re-write it if you didn’t like it, and distribute the

reproduction for any non-commercial purpose.

Please attribute Scott C. Martin with any redistribution or

remixing. I really do appreciate your time and attention.

The front image “wea01200, NOAA's National Weather Service

(NWS) Collection” is in the public domain. It is available at the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Photo Library

site.

Visit Scott’s website soon for more free stories.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/




http://www.scmartin.com/contact-scott/




http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/wea01200.htm



http://www.scmartin.com/











1

ould you like directions?" That voice! Emotionless,

as usual.

The voice is echoing off of the pool of blood at my

feet. All of the blood! You figure there's going to be a lot of it,

in situations like this, but you really have no idea until it

starts flowing. And then, after the heart stops... gravity! The

squeeze of skin! Force, pushing the blood to the points of

least resistance. It just keeps coming. Blood, blood, blood.

There is a knife in my left hand, bloody past the hilt. In

my right, a phone.

The man at my feet is dead. I killed him. I am not alone

in this, however. I had help. I've had a little extra help for a

few days now.

And what is that noise? There's a woman. She has

locked herself in the bathroom. She's pleading for me to go.



EARLY ADOPTER

3

"Really?"

"The most popular smart phone in the world," I said,

repeating the words I had heard from my editor only hours

before. "And probably not the next version, but the version

after that. Real next-level shit."

Samantha furrowed her brow. "How did you get this

again? Where did it come from?"

I sat back and sipped my coffee. "So Hugh calls me to

his office this morning," I said, "and he wants 3,000 words on

yet another cell phone preview. But, you know, his magazine

pays pretty well for those things, so I agree to it."

"How is Hugh?" said Samantha. She'd met him at any

number of parties, and she seemed to particularly enjoy his

dry sense of humor.

"Hugh's good. So anyway, I go over to his place, and

Hugh tells me that this unmarked package came in the mail.

No return address, no tracking info at all, except a stamp



SCOTT C. MARTIN

4

from the Cupertino, California post office. Cupertino is, of

course...."

"The home of the best-selling smart phone in the world,"

said Samantha. "Got it."

"Hugh tells me the phone's unlocked, and his tech has

already got it up and running. There aren't any logos on it, no

company names mentioned in the software... but we're pretty

sure it’s the real thing. Hugh said he wanted me to write the

review, because I'm his best guy."

"You were the first freelancer to answer your phone,"

said Samantha without looking up from the device. "I don't

see it. It's neat, but it's just a phone. My phone has all this

stuff. You guys are kidding yourselves about where it's from.

It's nothing new." This was Sam's nature. We'd worked well

together for years because I believed everything I heard and

she believed nothing. Her logic, however annoying, had

saved my ass in countless ways.



EARLY ADOPTER

5

"Sam," I said, "this thing can do shit we haven't ever

seen before. Watch. See the front-facing camera?" I tapped

on the small lens right above the screen.

"The same one my two year-old phone already has?"

said Sam. "Yes, I see it."

"Look right into it and press this button on the side."

She did, and the reaction was predictable. "Whoa," she

said.

"Cool, huh?"

"I take it back," she said quietly. "This is new."

I watched with satisfaction as she selected icons with

her eyes. Somehow, in the dim light, the phone had fixated on

her irises and was using them as an input device. After a

moment Sam realized that she could open applications byfocusing on the icon for a moment and then blinking. She

looked up in wonder, speechless. I nodded, grinning.

"It's so natural," said Samantha, returning her gaze to the

screen. "It's so... wow. I want one."



SCOTT C. MARTIN

6

"Hugh wants me to use a code name when we talk about

it," I said, sitting back. "He wants to call it Excalibur. God,

what a dork."

§

"You showed it to her, huh?" said Hugh, his voice spotty

through the phone's speaker. "I figured you would."

"Sam can keep a secret," I said. The phone was quiet.

"Still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here," said Hugh. "I just get nervous

about telling too many people."

"You know, you asked me to write an article about this.

Pretty soon a lot of people are going to know about this

phone."

"Is Samantha with you now?"



EARLY ADOPTER

7

"No, she had to meet a friend or something," I said. "I'm

sure she wanted to go to a bar, which I can't quite do, you

know. We're safe to talk."

The streets between the coffee shop and my apartment

were comfortably busy for a Thursday evening, full of

couples walking briskly and dogs being taken for their last

walks of the day. Nobody paid much attention to a twenty-

something guy holding a generic-looking phone out in front

of his face.

"Well, just don't do the eye interface thing out inpublic," said Hugh, with a hint of resignation. I smiled,

manipulating a poker game on the phone with my finger as he

spoke.

"Way ahead of you," I said.

"So what else can it do?" said Hugh, "I only had it for

about twenty minutes before you came over and stole the

damn thing."



SCOTT C. MARTIN

8

"Before you handed it over to your best freelancer?" I

said. "It doesn't do much else. There is an app called

'PlzAdvise.' A 'Plz' and then 'Advise.' No space. I think it's a

mapping application or something."

"Oh?" said Hugh, sounding hopeful.

"Nothing we haven't seen before. I think it just finds

restaurants and stuff like that. Standard GPS stuff, but I'll try

it again later."

"Oh." I heard a door creak open at Hugh's place. "Well,

keep at it. I gotta run, bro."

"Later," I said, as the active line icon disappeared.

I got to my apartment, and its general disorder made me

want to turn right back around and go out again. 10 PM,

however, was my prime time to get work done, so I thought

I'd better get working on the phone.

I stepped over the late rent notice on the floor, grabbed a

notebook and a pen, sat down, and pressed the "PlzAdvise!"

icon. The menu icons disappeared, and the screen went dark.



EARLY ADOPTER

9

"Please advise!" said the phone, sounding like a female

version of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The

screen displayed a stark, inelegant message in plain text.

"Type or speak your request," the phone said.

"Library," I said. The screen went black for a moment,

and then was replaced with a map of the city only a few

blocks away. The library building was correctly, if crudely,

highlighted.

"Would you like directions?" said the phone. The

program might certainly have been revolutionary five years

ago, but now every rental car in the United States carried a

device capable of the same thing.

"This kind of sucks," I grumbled.

The map disappeared.

"What sucks?" said the phone's voice, just as impassive

as before.

I stared at the phone.

"Please repeat your request," it said after a few seconds.



SCOTT C. MARTIN

10

I breathed again. Of course, the phone had merely tried

to parse my statement correctly in terms of the map. The

reply wasn't personal. It couldn't be.

"Chinese food," I said. After another pause, the

neighborhood appeared again, The Ming Phoenix and Mr.

Roll highlighted.

"Would you like to search a larger area?" the phone said.

"No," I said, and tried to think of another request. I felt a

familiar rumble in my stomach. As the phone continued to

disappoint, and Sam's abrupt departure earlier in the evening

came back to mind, I thought about the comfort of the

barstool, the first sip of whiskey on my lips, and just how

good it would taste.

Aw, man. Not again.

"Alcoholics anonymous meeting," I said.

"Meeting at 10:30 P.M. tonight," said the phone,

highlighting a building one mile from my apartment. "Would

you like directions?"



EARLY ADOPTER

11

Wow, I thought, twirling my two-month sobriety coin in

my pocket. That's actually very specific. I put my shoes back

on, and marched out the door, trying not to think about

anything at all until I reached the meeting.

"Why not try Tacos by Tony?" said the phone, referring

to the restaurant next door. Bizarre. I clicked the 'lock' button

on the phone and shoved it into my pocket.

§

The next morning, Hugh looked freshly scrubbed when I met

him at Danny B's for breakfast. The B was short for "Bacon,"

and the diner had tried to build its reputation around creative

uses of the pork product. I was trying to enjoy a bacon bit

pancake when Hugh insisted on breaking the silence.

"I'm worried about you," said Hugh, scratching his

goatee. Though probably in his fifties, time had been pretty

good to Hugh. The only sign of an adulthood spent writing

and thinking about computers was a minor case of under-eye



SCOTT C. MARTIN

12

bags. He was otherwise a healthy, decent-looking guy, a long

way from his uptown apartment.

My appearance, unkempt and sleep-deprived, was

indeed cause for a friend's concern.

"I'll be all right," I said. "It was just a long night."

Hugh laughed. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not worried

about you for your health. I'm worried that you won't get my

review done on time."

Without a word, I opened up the messenger bag sitting

next to me, pulled out some paper-clipped pieces of paper,

and tossed them across the table. Hugh snatched it up.

"First draft," I said into my coffee. "Thought you might

like to see where this is going."

"Paper, huh?" said Hugh. "I don't think anyone hasturned in copy on paper to me in five years. This new email

thing is pretty awesome, you know. You should try it."

"Yeah, well, this phone has got me a little paranoid."



EARLY ADOPTER

13

"Why's that?" asked Hugh. I took the phone from my

pocket and flipped open the virtual lock with my finger. The

bright interface popped open, the icons moving fluidly under

my gaze.

"Watch this," I said, opening the email application on

the phone.

"You have two unread email messages," said the phone's

smooth voice.

Hugh looked at me, waiting. "Okay," he said, "so the

message is a little bit 1995. So what?"

"I didn't enter my email account information," I said.

Hugh took the phone from me. "Are you sure it's even

your email account?" He poked the phone's screen. "Oh...

yeah, there I am. I emailed you this morning. Well, you must

have entered it at some point."

"Like hell I did! I never put my actual email information

into preview phones, much less my any of my passwords."



SCOTT C. MARTIN

14

"Okay, okay," said Hugh, holding his hands out. "I'm

just saying that it’s unlikely that it figured out your email

address and password, that's all. There must be some other

explanation."

"Damned if I know, and it's your problem now," I said,

holding up my palm when he tried to return the phone across

the table.

"Seriously?" said Hugh. He leafed through copy I had

printed for him. "It's been a while since I've had to word

count by sight, but I feel like I'm looking at about a thousandwords here. There's no way you're done with this."

"Forget it then," I said. "I waive my fee. I can't risk this

kind of exposure. These are the same people who sent the

police after that one freelancer, remember? I think they're

tracking me."

"Look," said Hugh, putting the phone and my copy

down and leaning towards me. "Just finish it. I know you



EARLY ADOPTER

15

need the money, and I'm very sure that however the phone

got the information, it's not going anywhere."

I poked at my pancake with a fork.

"Come on," he said. "I don't have time to do this. You're

the best I've got."

"Sam said that I'm the best you've got only because I

take your calls," I said.

Hugh laughed. "Damn. That Sam. She is funny," he

said.

§

I tried not to think about the phone as I crossed Fouth

Avenue. Danny B's was conveniently close to the library, so I

thought I'd try to capitalize on the morning hours and get

another thousand words on Hugh's assignment. He was right.

I did need the money, and he had convinced me that the way



SCOTT C. MARTIN

16

he obtained the phone freed us from legal responsibility. We

were just reviewing a preview phone received in the mail.

It's just a job, I thought. Finish it and move on.

Excalibur chirped in my pocket. I pulled it out, and it

spoke.

"New text message from Samantha," it said.

I cursed under my breath. The communication appeared

in the screen. Whatcha doin?

I stuck the prototype in my pocket and dialed her

number with my old phone. "Hello there." She was easy to

hear in the quiet street.

"Hey," I said. "Got your text. I didn't give you the

number for Excalibur, did I?"

The other end was quiet for a moment. "No," said Sam,"I texted your regular number. The one you're calling me

from now."

"No," I said, "I didn't get the message on this phone. I

got it on the prototype. Who gave you that number?"



EARLY ADOPTER

17

"I'm telling you, hon," said Sam, "I just pressed that

lovely little icon of you on my phone and texted, like I do

every d...."

I held my personal phone to my face. The call had been

lost. College students and retirees passed me as I stood on the

sidewalk.

Excalibur rang in my pocket, a startling, chirping sound.

I pulled it out.

"Phone call from Samantha," purred the prototype

phone. I touched the answer icon.

"Sorry, got cut off," said Samantha. "As I was saying...."

"How did you get this number?" I said.

"How many times, dear?" said Sam, now truly annoyed.

"I clicked your contact. Same as always. You're talking onyour old phone now... aren't you?"

Excalibur's screen dimmed, some energy saving

measure going into effect. My old phone sat in my other

hand, utterly inactive.



SCOTT C. MARTIN

18

"Ted?" said Samantha's voice, sharp and bright,

emanating from Excalibur. "Ted? Are you there?"

§

The evening further darkened my already dim apartment.After hanging up on Sam, she called me five more times. I

didn't answer. Each time, her number appeared on Excalibur's

screen, and her name was announced by that cool,

emotionless voice. I spent the day with the windows closed,

peering through a crack in the curtain.

I tried to turn the phone off, but each time I thought it

had shut down another call came through. It couldn't be

deactivated.

The battery cover wouldn't come off, either. It wouldn't

budge.

I wondered how the police would come for me. Would

they knock? Would they drill a hole through the ceiling and

drop down, automatic weapons gleaming?



EARLY ADOPTER

19

Excalibur chirped underneath my couch cushion. "Phone

call from Hugh," said the muffled voice.

"I've got to get a hold of myself," I said aloud, then

laughed. Though I had meant it, it was a movie cliché of the

highest order. I stood up from the couch, deciding that

"getting a hold of myself" would start with my first shower in

a few days.

I tried to parse the facts. It was just a phone. It was just

an assignment. This assignment would pay my week-late rent

and next month's rent as well. I had not fallen back ondrinking. Samantha had not left me yet.

The shower steam cleared my sinuses. These are the

facts at hand, I thought. Nothing complicated. Let's just sort

this out.

Deciding to address my situation in reverse order, I

decided to call Samantha back first. Not having had a land

line in years, I picked up my old cell phone. It wouldn't turn



SCOTT C. MARTIN

20

on. I popped out the battery, repositioned it. Nothing. I

plugged it into the adapter. Still nothing.

If I was going to call Samantha and move on with my

evening recovery plan, I had to use Excalibur.

And why shouldn't I? It's just a phone, I said to myself.

The faint, remembered taste of whiskey pushed me forward. I

couldn't afford to overthink. Overthinking led me back to the

bar. Bar fights. Bad things.

I dug Excalibur out from under the couch cushions. The

interface popped to life before I even pressed a button.

Clicking the phone icon, I dialed Sam's number.

"Calling Samantha," declared the phone. Several rings,

then voicemail. I disconnected the call.

Samantha frequently failed to pull her ringing phone out

of her purse in time to answer, and always called me right

back. I waited. A minute stretched by. Then two. I redialed.

"Calling Samantha."



EARLY ADOPTER

21

The voicemail kicked in right away. She was on the

phone now, or in an area without service.

Or she had turned off the phone.

My stomach twisted. I thought of Sam, who had made

her expectations clear about my sobriety. She had stayed with

me during the worst of the detox. She had scolded me about

fighting while bandaging my wounds. She had driven me to

my first meetings. Her biggest flaw was giving a damn about

me, and I had repaid her with spite.

"Calling Samantha." Voicemail again. I threw Excalibur

on the couch.

"Damn it!" I said, and stomped my foot childishly on the

ground. I took a stack of books from the kitchen counter and

flung them across the room.

"Please advise!" said a voice from the couch. "Type or

speak your request."

I yelled, emitting a stream of curse words that certainly

should have inspired one of my neighbors to call the police.



SCOTT C. MARTIN

22

"What is 'motherfucker?'" cooed the robotic female

voice. "Please repeat your request."

"Okay," I yelled back, eyes fixed on the phone across

the room. "Where the fuck is she?"

The dim screen became bright with color. "Would you

like directions?" it said.

I walked to the couch. Excalibur was showing me a

map.

A street corner I didn't know was crudely highlighted.

"What is this?"

"Please repeat your request."

I paused, and considered the possibilities. The ability to

track other phones through GPS was nothing new, but to do

so surreptitiously was far beyond legality."I have to call the police," I told myself. "I have to turn

this thing over. This isn't right."

"Updating location," said the phone. The screen

regenerated. Samantha was moving uptown.



EARLY ADOPTER

23

"This isn't right," I said again. I recognized my own

voice. It was the voice of clear thinking, of sobriety. Though

thrown into crisis with a clear ethical quandary, I felt a warm

confidence. I was going to get through it. I wasn't going to do

anything stupid.

"All right, asshole," I said to the phone. "I'm getting

dressed. You're coming with me. To the FCC with you. We're

going right to the police station."

The map updated to the nearest police precinct. "Would

you like directions?"

"Very funny," I replied, and placed the phone on the

counter. "You aren't right, my friend. You are incredibly not

right, and I am going to get dressed, and we are going to turn

you in. Fuck the story. Fuck the rent. Fuck Hugh."

From my bedroom closet I heard the phone speak.

"Would you like directions?"

I stopped, my shirt half on, and gasped. For all of my

unreasonable paranoia, I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to



SCOTT C. MARTIN

24

me before. I walked out of my bedroom and picked up the

phone. Excalibur showed Hugh, or at least Hugh's phone, in

his uptown apartment.

"Where is Samantha?"

The same map stayed illuminated on the screen, with the

green arrow relocated just outside of Hugh's building.

Samantha was on the street below.

"Keep going," I said. "Please keep going."

The map stayed static for a moment, then updated.

Samantha was in Hugh's building.

I stared at the phone for a long time.

A building across the street from Hugh's apartment lit up

in an orange color. "Why not try Alanna's Liquor Lounge?"



EARLY ADOPTER

25

§

I don't remember all of the specifics after that. There was a

cab uptown. Excalibur and I sat at Alanna's Liquor Lounge

for some time. I talked to it. I talked a lot.

I don't know why Hugh even answered the door. He washalf dressed, and perhaps he was too surprised to think

clearly. He was certainly surprised when I grabbed the knife.

Samantha yelled "police" over and over from locked

bathroom, crying and screaming. I sat on the floor counter

next to Hugh's body, watching my new friend display a map

to the nearest police station over, and over, and over again.

Early Adopter

Documents

Transcript of Early Adopter