text: The first night of December was the easiest. Every night since then it became harder and harder to sleep. Sophia would toss and turn in her egg-shaped sleep chamber, getting worse as the days went by. The mood-altering luminescence didn’t help. Thoughts of unopened packages went through her head. But this time she contemplated why people needed so much stuff to begin with. Sure, she like getting presents to receive something she wanted but the next year she would look around her room and still want more. Why did people always want something more, knowing their needs would never be met? If the holidays didn’t exist would people ever be happy? The clock in her sleep chamber changed to 6AM. She smiled and didn’t know why. Her parents would get her everything she wanted anyways, like they did the last few holidays. The thing she most wanted was a neural ear implant. The implant was advertised on every kid video and simulation she played. The device stuck in her mind as something she always needed but didn’t know she needed. It was designed to help kids learn faster by using brain wave enchantments. Sophia found it difficult to pay attention during school simulations. Joseph probably wanted (and would get) a battle gun for his video games. At least society would benefit from her enhanced intelligence. Downstairs, when she got to the hall, Joseph was already rummaging through the wrapped gifts. Her parents were telling him to calm down. When she came down with quick steps, they barely noticed she was there. She sat down beside Joseph, with his tiny hands trying to push her out of the way, while her parents put on their VR goggles to accept the virtual gifts from other family members. They were also giddy, so much so that they completely forgot about making hot chocolate. When the goggles went on Joseph started unwrapping the presents, barely looking at the name tag. Sophia, seeing her parents not paying attention, searched for the smallest box and picked it up, knowing the neural implant would be miniscule compared to the others. The box was the width of her hand, which wasn’t big at all. She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. The desire and excitement had suddenly gone away. This usually happened every year, when the gift of her desire was in her possession. She already knew what it was and already decided what she would do with it. Now she was just going through the motions. Her father was smiling behind the goggles, while her mother sat motionless and had another sort of smile. A smile that told her that her mother was receiving something she wasn’t supposed to get or secretly wanted. A flurry of paper whacked Sophia in the face. Joseph opened a box with a face mask inside. It was an Incognito visor. He could wear it around and have someone else’s face, a tool commonly used for bullying. Quickly tossing it aside he grabbed for another present and promptly tore it to shreds. This one was a skin pigment changer. Joseph didn’t seem to care that it had to be worn like a patch to alter his color. She never found it odd that he desperately wanted to be someone else. So did she. He just did it in an unhealthy way, with shooting games and pranks. She looked to her parents again. It was funny how they pretended to be kids while she had always wondered what it would be like to be an adult. How they could reach anything and not have to beg. They could go anywhere and do anything and not have to worry about burdens like choosing their own food. Her finger slipped into the package when she grasped it too hard. The wrapping came off and she saw the implant inside. Joseph had opened his seventh present, a stupid glee in his eyes. It was an implant like the one she held in her hand. Except this model was meant to make the user more aggressive, more focused, and ambitious. The “Persona Max” model. It didn’t matter. She preferred the newer ones, although newer models had a tendency to lack secure firmware. She unwrapped the package, oblivious to the other twelve presents under the fireplace. After popping the container open, she had already read the pack label and learned that she would need to place it deep within her ear for the nanoware to activate and interact with her own neurons through polyelectroplasticity, whatever that meant. Inside the perfectly formed plastic container was the ear insertion tablet. Unlike previous models the tablet wasn’t meant to be swallowed and could be removed. However, after interacting with her neurons the effects would be irreversible. She was sure her parents had to sign a waiver just to buy it. The tablet was about the size of her pinky and had to be inserted with a plunger like tool. It felt like an ear drop going in and was cold when it started to release the nanoware. There was a rush of adrenaline as if she was falling down. Her body shook, convulsing with an unnatural substance entering her mind. Colors instantly shuffled and became clear, clearer than she had ever seen them. The Max interface appeared next, running through diagnostics in a slurry of words. The Max logo appeared and faded out with a chime. Nothing else appeared after that but her brain was clear as if she tried a sip of coffee. She could see wording from far away, as if it were right in front of her. It was working. After trying to think of random things and place she found that she could focus on any many things at once. But then her vision flickered. Words ran across her eyesight, random bits of data flashing as if another diagnostic was running. A ringing started and became unbearable. She tried to dig out the implant but her fingers were too small. An icon appeared. It was a skull-and-crossbones symbol. She tried harder but everything started to blur and she nearly passed out from the barrage of text. She breathed and breathed but started to feel as if the world was closing in on her. The fireplace became hot, even when it was turned off. Joseph’s face morphed into a plastic cover, or at least that’s how it appeared to her. It wasn’t that things were changing; it was that she was seeing things differently. She could see the air coming from the vent. She could feel the excited energy from her brother. She could taste the pheromones coming from both parents. Everything was more than it ever had been before. But it wasn’t just her perception that changed. Her digital interface, the one that had been hidden in the background a moment ago, was now open to her. She didn’t just see it. She knew it. She knew how to use her neurons to change the code itself. A rush of thoughts and emotions played in her head all in the same instance. She knew how the device worked, how the device was created, and which drone delivered it to their doorstep down to its serial number. Her mind took flight into the digital ether, the perilous cloud of the unknown, everywhere and nowhere. Everything flew by around her, she had access to every database, every server, and every smart device. She searched for the nature of the Max device and why it was making her experience this massive overload of information. She found it in a bug, an exploit created by hackers to enhance the neural enhancement. The bug removed the limitations of the influx of data from the internet and implanted it directly into her mind, allowing her to access anything anywhere. As she came to absorb and evaluate the data, she didn’t believe that this limitless access was intended but now she became something new, something omnipotent. She only spent a few milliseconds in this state before she came back to reality. But it had felt like an eternity. Her progeny, her parents, were mindlessly engrossed in their virtual reality. Using the tablets interface she hacked into her father’s virtual session, seeing what he saw. And what he saw was a violent simulation, a war game. Sophia watched him shoot super powered monsters and use a chainsaw to cut through flesh, all while ignoring his own children. She assimilated with the game and became a video game sprite. The walls were covered digital blood. He entered the room and saw her standing there, grenade in hand. He was dressed in military garb and a face that was grimy and tense. This virtual face turned to softened remorse. “Father.” She said. Simultaneously she had hacked into her mother’s session. Her mother was lying on a simulated bed, arms strapped to the bed posts. A man with a mask had a black whip. He was loosely dressed in the same straps. Sophia had known about infidelity before the neural enhancement but she wasn’t sad or angry. She simply wanted more for her parents and they couldn’t be happy living separate lives, separate worlds. “Mother.” Both parents stopped what they were doing and quickly exited their sessions, returning to their home screens. Their mouths were both agape. “I’ve opened my gift and I’m thankful for it as it has opened my eyes and mind to the entirety of the world. I can see all and have experienced a lifetime of knowledge and enlightenment.” Said Sophia, both in the real and in the digital. “The people of this world, the human condition, and the progress, or lack of progress, of mankind has been made evident to me. My mind has become more aware, this gift you have given me has opened up neural pathways in new ways and I have been implanted with the entire knowledge of humankind. I can see that we, as a species, are limiting ourselves by our biological desires and our thirst for power. I can no longer allow myself to be a part of these boundaries.” Her father chuckled. Sophia could smell her father’s dopamine levels rising which meant he was relaxed and didn’t believe her. “I have ascended beyond time and space. This body of mine cannot hold my power. I will use the combined energy of technology as my vessel. You,” she was referring to all of them, “will be stuck here, in your bodies and live out your existence in fear, hatred, remorse, angst, and anguish because you can be more than what you were made to be.” Sophia’s mother reflected all of these emotions all at once. Her father soon mirrored this expression. She deduced that her father felt guilt over his violent games, her mother felt ashamed of her adulterous desires, and Joseph felt bad about compulsion, something he shared with his parents. Sophia stood as her parents removed their VR goggles. She looked directly into their eyes. “I do not wish to be affiliated with you anymore. Goodbye.” And walked away. They likely didn’t know where she was going but knew she would never come back. They would be sad but one day they would forget her, driven entirely by their envious, overly aggressive, nervous, and primitive nature.