Just a Bit More: A Science Fiction Short Story

She couldn’t hold back her excitement. She had been waiting almost two years for it to come out, and four months since she had ordered it, and now it was finally here and in her hands!

It looked like a pair of glasses, although a face fitting visor might have been a more fitting term, so tinted green from the front that no one could see through them while the other side was easily seen through, granted with a slight tinge. The lenses were heavier than expected, but not so much that they would be uncomfortable for a long period of time, and they completely covered the eyes and formed in such a way that they went around the side of one’s head, rubber placed around the edges to create a seamless block around a person’s face. There were cushioned headphones that fit perfectly over her ears, canceling out unwanted noise to a certain point designated by design choices.

It was unusual, not quite what she had expected, but that wasn’t automatically a bad thing. After giving the instructions a through read she donned the visor, pressing it gently to her face before feeling around and quickly finding the fingerprint sensitive power button, jumping a tad when a dim confirmation notification popped up before her eyes, prompting her to enter her personal information.

One would think that inputting personal information without any sort of input device would be neigh impossible. But that was the beauty of this particular device. There was no need for any outside human interface device because the person wearing them was the human interface device.

Tech had come a long way in the past few years, especially in the case of EEG. It had taken off after the success of multiple computer accessories that measured brain waves for the purpose of data collection and game play and nearly every company was rushing to come out with their own devices for practical use in everyday life. They went from making keyboards with attachments to write what you want instead of typing to instead making keyboards that were little more than a wireless USB device and a headband to control your screen with. Then they moved on to mice, then to combining them, and then to making it so it was built into the computer itself, for desktops and laptops and even tablets. They moved to make the computers themselves more durable, smaller, and easier to move about and with less space taken up by towers.

Even the most modern phones now worked like small hand held computers with an OS, attachments made for input coming out for them in droves.

But this device, The Personal Automated Computing System, was different. Sure, the name was simple and even a bit silly, but that didn’t change the device itself. It claimed to be both a competition killer and a way to bring multiple companies together in join use through a third party. And by all accounts it was. It made everything else obsolete, it made desktops and laptops and phones alike not needed past its use. At least that was what the reviewers stated.

And now she was going to finally be able to test it out for herself.

It was so simple, really. All she had to do was concentrate and think of what she wanted to put in and the EEG devices in the rubber siding picked it up, putting it in for her. It was an almost exhilarating rush, really, seeing what she thought pop onto this screen from the comfort of her own bed, relaxing without any need to hold or look at a screen that wasn’t able to move with her, the ability to control the opacity of the screen and the brightness and every little detail without any sort of need to do anything at all.
It was so much simpler than she had expected, the OS was new but the more she explored the more she realized what it could do. It could look like any of the three most popular on the market or be customized in any way she wanted, fitting the user’s personal taste near seamlessly. It had a simply massive hard drive in comparison to many other devices of a similar size and much better and faster processing. Many common programs such as internet browsers, word processors and virus protection were pre-installed on her device, but that was to be expected with an expensive custom order.

Testing out everything proved to be just as impressive as the initial start up was, if not more so. Everything loaded so quickly and effortlessly, and once she enabled the wireless internet connection and signed in through her online account she was able to access her could storage and set everything up in little to no time at all. It was so… simple. With everything she needed moved to her cloud for much easier movement, after all she saw no need to hook up with the USB cable when this was so much easier.

Everything was working so seamlessly, so fast and simple, once she got the hang of it all it was almost as if she had never made the transition. She could just lie back and think what she wanted to write up and it would type on the screen so much faster than any other device, and she could switch and close and move programs and files in the blink of an eye. She could dim, change, turn off the display at a whim, change the volume of music and videos, play nearly any file with her chosen software and do almost anything she wanted. So… so simple and easy…

She had to make dinner for herself soon, but she had at least two hours before that. She had plenty of time to play around… yes… plenty of time once she set her alarm…

Oh… she closed that alarm hours ago. Well, a quick dinner of noodles would be good enough. Then she would get to bed after working on a few articles. Then she could watch a video or two. But the sun was already up! Well, she was getting tired, it would be best to head for bed then.

After just a little more browsing… and some game playing… the sun was already down, she didn’t know when that had happened. She fell asleep somewhere along the line as well. How strange. She would get to work, right after checking her e-mail and blog posts. Then lunch, she missed breakfast again. She didn’t mind being hungry, she would be fine with her bottle of water and some bread for now. That would be fine. She didn’t notice how much her stomach begged for real food before then, she would just finish this article and listen to some music as she cooked… her eyes were starting to hurt, she thought she remembered a warning in the instruction booklet.

It didn’t matter, she would be fine once she had some sleep, then she could get to work again and do more browsing. It had only been a week since she bought it; there was plenty of time to adjust.

If only she wasn’t so tired… and hungry… and thirsty… and her eyes hurt so much… but just a little more.

Just a bit more.


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