“Complete peace of mind for a tiny piece of your mind.”
Superb dark speculative comedy. Loved it.
The population have eagerly adopted Jaffle Inc’s brain ports that connect them all to everything and each other. Of course, how much you get depends on what package you can afford. In return, Jaffle uses spare brain capacity to run the world more efficiently.
Alice (Jaffle Standard Package) works in customer care at Jaffle HQ. When a mouse disrupts her day less than optimal events snowball, culminating in her giving brain space to an antsy blue whale and struggling with senses experiencing the world fully for the first time: everything from a tasty sandwich to the male form excites her. She wants colour, flowers and love in her life; she’s no longer content with cold beans and the Smiley show on TV, day after day. Will she be able to stop Jaffle’s latest software upgrade which will down-grade human brains to less than human? Will Jaffle’s security catch up with her and her new accomplices and zap her into an empty, a human shell with no conscious awareness? Can she harness the Jaffle port’s connectivity to break down the arbitrary grades of experience and participation Jaffle allows? Will the Piggywig orchestra evade their bacon destiny?
This is a brilliant concept that can be read on so many levels. On the surface there’s Alice’s awakening and determination to free others from the “safety” of Jaffle’s total control, with a soupcon of romance thrown in. Beneath that are some sharp satirical digs at social media, political manipulation, what it means to be human, and current capitalism. While CEO Rufous Jaffle enjoys off the books whale encounters he’s oblivious to the suffering caused by his company’s actions, pushed by senior management who will stop at nothing to retain their power.