I Put Your Brain On Speed-Dial

This is my final testimony, my last confession. The State is minutes away from chemically castrating and lobotomizing me. Who I am is going to disappear forever and these are the last intelligent words I’ll utter for the rest of my life—all captured on video for your amusement.

My name is David Ashton Jzerkhoff, but the media calls me ‘The Mind Spammer.’ I never spammed anyone though; I just invented the technique. In 2027, when implantable phones became available, everyone rushed out to have one stuck into their head. In 2029, I figured out how to hack the downloadable ring tones feature and sold my services to ‘enterprising businesses specializing in invasive product promotions.’

The technique is a work of genius, in my not-so-humble opinion. It bypasses the reverse-911 and Amber Alert system the government put in your phones. They designed the software that shunts your ring tones to a buffer and then replaces it with an emergency broadcast message. When the phone rings, regardless of whether you answer it or not, you’re forced to hear their message. I exploited their program to insert my own message.

Here’s how it works. The first call you receive downloads the new ring tone. Second call, two minutes later, conveniently allows you to hear the product message, or ‘SPAM’ as the press calls it, in your sleep. A third call resets your phone to the original ring tone. This process could happen a dozen times a night without you knowing it. The messages were quiet, like a lover whispering in your ear. It was the perfect scheme, as long as you remained asleep.

I earned millions every night while millions of you lost a few insignificant minutes of sleep. Where’s the harm? But you felt harried by subliminal messages urging you to buy penis enlargement products, hair growth formulas, and anti-aging creams. Those were my clients' messages, not mine. I never spammed anyone.

It only took one stupid or greedy spammer, I mean enterprising business, to bypass the sleep detection routine in my program. Insomniacs and night owls began receiving relentless unsolicited phone calls. That’s when the suicides I was ‘allegedly’ responsible for started. Hundreds of people, ‘allegedly’, committed suicide from lack of sleep or from going crazy from incessant phone calls.

I say the radio waves from the cybernetic implants fried their brains and drove them crazy. Too bad my lawyer and his panel of so-called experts were unable to convince a jury of my peers of that.

I doubt half of my ‘peers’ were paying attention during the trial. Most were probably listening to streaming music. I swear I saw a couple of you sub-vocalizing--making a phone call during the trial for my life! Couldn’t go for even a few hours a day without using your implants. You spend every waking moment talking to each other but saying nothing. I found a way to talk to you in your sleep and now you want to blame me for your insanity. Well, I allege you were already insane.

Watch where you’re sticking that thing, doc.

Hey, that didn’t hurt so bad…and there go my reproductive organs. I don’t know what I expected the injection to feel like. I certainly didn’t expect it to be a warm tingling feeling. It felt almost sexual, ironic as that sounds.

According to the doctors, I won’t have another sexual feeling in my life. My testicles will eventually shrivel to little peas. Even if a pervert molests me, I won't have a response, leaving both of us completely disappointed. If I could think or feel, I’d probably be happy to receive even the attention of a pervert.

Millions of people may want me dead, but in your collective, compassionate wisdom, you outlawed capital punishment. Then you forgot the entire issue and let the states decide that they could do anything to the body they wanted as long as they didn’t kill it outright. You might be satisfied to know I’ll spend the rest of my brainless life as a drooling moron in a high-tech bathtub. A sterile float tank, euphemistically called a coffin, will be my perpetual solitary confinement.

My unconscious brain will probably be rented out to perform image recognition. I don’t even need to be conscious of it. If I recognize whatever it is I’m supposed to look for, sensors will detect my visual cortex lighting up. At least until my body decides to quit living in five to ten years from 'natural causes'.

In a few minutes, there won’t be a need to appeal my conviction and life-ending sentence. Even when I am proved innocent--I didn’t kill anyone!--I won’t be in any condition for release. The lights might be on, but no one will ever be home again.

An hour from now, most of you will have my video confession and identity death piped directly into your brain for the endorphin hit. Your addiction knows no bounds.

I was the messenger, but you didn’t like the message and now you’re going to kill ‘me.’ Politicians are talking about giving control of your implants to artificial intelligence. It’s a shame I won’t be around to gloat when you learn AI-control is worse than what I did—but you won’t be able to kill it when you do.

Oh shit, that’s a big needle. Wait, this is all a big mistake. It’s not my fault. I didn’t kill anyone!

Ouch! The chemicals feel like cold syrup oozing through my veins. It tickles as it crawls up my neck and I want to laafff….