Free The Progression Switch by Brian Krogstad, Damien Darby

meal, he put some padding up against a log and laid back. It was too early, and his mind was too alive for sleep yet, but books weren’t appealing. To hell with it, he figured, and finally he brought out the tablet that sat calmly at the back of his mind since the kitchen.
    “Hello, in there?” Arthur said aloud, looking down at the screen like a skeptic. Within a second, the two soft rings let out, and the computer scanned his face again.
    “Analyzing.”
    Arthur set it down and kicked up a few coals to apply more heat to his toes. His sneakers were still wet from a job a few days earlier, and his boots were too heavy to wear at night.
    “Hello, Arthur Cadman, it’s nice to see you again. What can I do for you?”
    “I don’t know. Tell me something interesting. Tell me more about why I was chosen, and by whom.”
    “You were chosen because the one who…”
    “Hold that thought, let me grab something really quick.” Arthur interrupted, and began moving about excitedly.
    “Yes, of course.” The reply sounded a tad scripted, but it was polite nonetheless. The screen was still blank, because Tupaia hadn’t ascertained what Arthur desired to see.
    There were four other things in his bag not mentioned before, and they were his prize possessions. Two big pickle jars full of his own home-brewed moonshine, from old potatoes that were left over by whomever lived in the home before Kale, three ounces of homegrown weed, four packs of cheap rolling papers, and two sleeves of chewing tobacco.
    The one substance he had to go without was caffeine. That sucked, because coffee was his favorite thing in the morning, but he could survive without it.
    Arthur got everything ceremoniously set up for his conversation with the robot machine. He looked forward to it all day, actually. Tupaia faced him propped on a rock by the end of the blanket, by his feet; he had a jar sitting next to his right knee, his gun behind his left, some chew in his lip, and he began rolling a joint.
    “OK, go on with what you were saying,” he said with his tongue almost sticking out. He did this every time it got to the part where he had to roll the paper, and try to make it as even as possible without being too tight.
    “You were chosen, Arthur, because of your education level, location, age, and the lack of any virtual identity.”
    “Uh huh, and what exactly do you mean by that? Like bank cards and credit history? Shit like that?”
    “Along with other aspects of online life.”
    “Yeah, I’ve never been into that kind of thing. I used the computer lab plenty in college, but never owned one myself.”
    Tupaia waited until his voice went silent, paying attention to specific tonal nuances.
    “You were chosen by my creator, Báo.”
    Arthur was just taking in his first puff. “Báo? Tell me more about him.” Then he let it out and coughed, chased it with booze, and laid back watching grey smoke behave violently in the updraft by the fire as he stuck a pinch of chew in his cheek.
    “Báo was a young man of about your age who lived in a Chinese province dominated by retail factories with strict working conditions. Would you like to see a picture?”
    “Yeah, why the hell not?” Arthur sat up.
    “As you wish.”
    A photo appeared and there sat Báo in all his glory wearing a tired and solemn face. There was nothing special about his appearance. If he was in a crowd of others like himself, he would disappear completely without a single thing setting him apart.
    “Looks harmless enough. OK, so what exactly are you? Who am I talking with here?”
    With that there was a pause. Arthur took another sip, another hit, and felt things already beginning to kick in. Then, two thin slots opened up on Tupaia, one in the top and bottom. Red and green beams shot out, and were fuzzy at first, like hardware stretching its wings.
    A few seconds later, Arthur, with a look of astonishment, was staring at a projected 3D holographic image of Báo sitting next to him