Skull Deep: A Sci-Fi Story

The warning signs--insomnia, irritability, brain fog--had started earlier, but things came to a head a week before their twentieth anniversary.

Friday morning got off to a rough start. Noah was pretending to be hard at work on a DNA sculpture, but in reality he was thinking anxiously about what to get Muhammad. His desperate daydreaming was interrupted by his boss, Amelia.

She pulled him into her life success alcove. “Noah, what’s going on? I’ve reviewed your logs for the last couple of days and your productivity has been bloody awful.”

“Sorry, just knackered,” Noah said. Not for the first time he found himself put off by the exaggerated elegance of Amelia’s face. Her most recent Fibonacci compositor, he thought, was too aggressive, making her slightly lopsided features harshly symmetrical. Likewise, her photon-sensitive foundation was too homogenizing; it removed every hint of natural skin tonality and emotion. Noah felt like he was looking at a mask. “Twenty years with Muhammad,” he said resignedly, “and I can’t come up with one decent gift.”

Something in Amelia’s eyes softened. Empathy filter? “Take the rest of the day off,” she said, “and clear your head.”

Limply he disconnected from the company platform. Today can’t get any worse, he thought, but he was wrong.

Barely five minutes later Muhammad got home. “Bad day, love?” he said as soon as he saw Noah’s expression.

Muhammad came in for a hug, the close, tight kind he knew Noah favored in such moments. Then, for the coup de grâce, he caressed Noah’s cheek. As he retracted his hand, Noah’s eyes dwelled on Muhammad’s fingernails.

“Like them? New coding engine.” With a subtle command of his intra-ocular lens Muhammad’s fingernails switched from clear to mandala-laden. A few seconds later that design was replaced with 3D-texturized roses. When Noah looked more closely, he saw a pattern within the rose petals; superimposed against a heart, curves spelling out the numbers “two” and “zero.”

"Every time Muhammad thinks of you he’ll literally get high"

“Ella,” Noah said, “I’m in trouble.”

“Let me guess.” She swiveled to give him her full cam attention. “Anniversary?”

Noah chuckled. “That obvious?”

“If I couldn’t tell from the veins sticking out in your neck and your apoplectic scowl that it’s serious, I wouldn’t be a very good friend,” Ella said. “Also, my sociality AI reminded me. You went through something similar ten years ago.”

“I suppose I did.”

“I took the liberty of brainstorming some ideas for you,” Ella said.

Noah perused her visi-display. “Custom microbiome reset, done that,” he said. “Bioluminisicent body tattoo, been there. Self-regulating eyelash nano-extensions, check.” He continued in this fashion, discarding suggestions until he reached the end of the list. “Two decades is a long time,” he mumbled.

“Okay then,” Ella replied, “let’s go a little deeper. How about this oxytocin-regulator? Every time Muhammad thinks of you he’ll literally get high.”

“Ugh--he finds direct neurotransmitter adjustments dodgy.”

“Then maybe a DISC rotator? Minimally invasive, and you guys can tweak your dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance ratios.”

“Hmm,” Noah said. “I think we like our personalities the way they are.”

“Fine.” She made another recommendation, and another, and another, until finally she shrugged in exasperation. “Noah, what do you want from me?”

This was his chance. His reciprocity app warned against it, and for that matter his conscience told him it was an infringement, but he worked up the courage to ask anyway. Pointing to the proprietarily-pixelated workspace behind Ella, he said, “I heard a rumor you’ve been working on this prototype…”

"Noah turned to face the man he loved, heart in his throat"

On the appointed day, well before dawn, Noah was subcutaneously alerted to a drone delivery. He turned on his decibel-cloak and left Muhammad sleeping in bed.

In his office, Noah pulled out the prototype from its case and began to adjust the settings the way Ella had explained. He didn’t get far before feeling a familiar presence behind him.

“You didn’t think I was going to sleep in on our big day, did you?” Muhammad said. His bathrobe released a citrus scent tailored to Noah’s mood.

Noah turned to face the man he loved, heart in his throat. “Good morning,” he managed.

They kissed.

“Happy anniversary,” Muhammad said. From the palm of his hand extended a visi-projection of two tickets to the upcoming Stuart Perrin fashion gala.

“You didn’t have to.” Noah’s hands began to tremble as he set the prototype down on the desk.

“I know you’ve been wanting to go forever. These are VIP, too—we can hobnob with Stuart himself after the show!” He paused, noticed the peculiar garments on Noah’s desk and laughed. “Are those yarmulkes?”

“No, silly… I was going to wait… but…” Still shaky, Noah donned one mesh skullcap and gave Muhammad the other. Though he was clad in cotton pyjamas, Noah had never felt this naked. “Are you ready to see the inside of my head?”

Muhammad wordlessly put on the second skullcap.

As Noah activated the caps, his skull became transparent, revealing the brain within. In a shimmering visual envelope created by the cap, coruscations streamed and rippled from one region to another. “Your cap is magnetically stimulating your brain with my emotions,” Noah explained. “When you walk in the room, this is how I feel.”

Noah saw a shadow of confusion flit over Muhammad’s eyes. Then, as he adapted to the sensation, his face passed from surprise to wonder, and Noah was flooded with relief.

What seemed an eternity later, Muhammad whispered, “This is the most beautiful day of my life.”

"What he saw was my pure, unadulterated perception of him; no expectation-based enhancements at all"

Later Ella asked, “How did it go?”

Noah grinned. “Better than I could have hoped.”

“Did you remember to activate the feedback algorithm, to ensure that the amount of cortical stimulation Muhammad felt in you precisely exceeded his expectations?”

“That’s the thing,” Noah confessed. “I didn’t get a chance to. What he saw was my pure, unadulterated perception of him; no expectation-based enhancements at all.”

Ella studied him with earnest admiration. “You must be one of the few people I know,” she said, “for whom beauty is skull deep.”