Little could be said about the London Metroplex’s Transit System, except that it was always on time. The transparent, bubble-like tube cars were silent and uninteresting to look at, and absolutely didn’t distract from the natural dull gray metalwork of the Metroplex underground itself. With much of the physical world depopulating and falling into disuse, replaced by the efficiencies of virtual existence, there seemed to be little point in ornamental detail — or mass-transit systems, for that matter.
Fewer than a third – the so-called “fluid” – of the Earth’s population bothered to leave their homes and interact in the physical world. The rest led strictly virtual, idyllic lives in the Phrame, participating via holo ubiquitous or humaniform slac drones. She’d seen it everywhere. Cities once overpopulated with tens of millions of residents were now hollow shells slowly succumbing to the relentless forces of entropy in a couple of short decades. Political initiatives were converting the outer districts back to nature preserves or tomb-like historical centers. Meanwhile, inner districts were routinely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up to reflect the condensed population’s changing needs. At least, after centuries of destroying the planet, mankind was finally starting to repair the damage it had done.
The nine-minute commute from Bethnal Green to the Soho Tower Centre was pleasant and usually the social high point of Serah’s day—a chance to interact with the few remaining flesh-and-blood acquaintances she had left. The “Car Seven Commuter Club” was beginning to feel like something of an elite group, having had relatively few additions or losses to their membership in recent memory.
She was in no mood for social niceties today, however. The lack of sleep gnawed at her concentration and normally upbeat mood. A “bad dream” seemed a trivial excuse for ending a three-year perfect attendance record, though she had briefly entertained the idea of calling in sick.
As the train sped along, she avoided eye contact with the half-dozen other passengers and settled into a comfortable rear-facing seat at the back of the car. Her personal datapad, the most essential item in her life, scrolled her itinerary over a pale blue background. At least it would be a light workday.
“Amazing,” a man’s voice came across the aisle beside her, startling her. “I didn’t realize anybody still used antiques like that.”
The man was a stranger, which made him stand out already. There was something else “off” about him that put her instincts on alert. She smiled thinly and patted the datapad’s flat screen as if it were a favorite pet. “My oldest, dearest friend.”
The man was tall, handsome, and well-dressed. His hair was perfect; his eyes piercing and unnaturally green. She recognized the suit, unmistakably hand-made by one of the more expensive boutiques in the Chelsea district. She’d bought one like it for her last boyfriend.
“I’m Michael,” the man said, cautiously extending his hand with a warm smile.
“Serah,” she replied, shaking his hand. His skin was smooth, and his grip firm. When she pulled back her hand, she caught the scent of expensive cologne, one of her favorites. “I’ve not seen you on this train before,” she said.
“Yes.” The man looked away. He was attempting to appear shy, she thought, but everything was too well-rehearsed. “I normally take the second train, but most people have stopped riding lately. You know how it is: new jobs, promotions to virtual offices, early retirements, etc. I was feeling energetic, so I thought I might change my routine and earn some overtime credits.”
That had to be an outright lie. Nobody who could afford a suit like that was overtime-eligible. She said nothing. The hair on her arm began to prickle. The man wanted something. He was performing a soft interrogation, exactly the same way she would if she were trying to get a story out of an unwilling witness. She should just excuse herself and move to a seat next to one of the riders she knew, if only superficially. Something compelled her to hear the man out, however.
“Do you work in Soho Tower?” He finally asked. Again, awkwardly, as if looking for a way to keep the conversation going after she tried to shut it down.
“Yes, I’m a journalist with Neward and Provident.”
Michael paused, thinking for a moment. “That’s right, Serah Wyles,” he said at last. “Didn’t you do that wonderful interview with the Emir of Persia from the Diego Garcia penal colony a couple of years ago?”
She shivered involuntarily, both at his unexpected use of her full name as well as the mention of the Emir.
“Yes, that was me,” she said. “Frankly, I’m surprised anybody watched that. Usually, the darker, tragic stories about human cruelty and suffering aren’t very popular with viewers.”
“Popular?! You won a Euronet award for that, if I remember correctly.” He paused, seeing her skepticism. “Okay, I’ll admit, foreign politics is a particular interest of mine,” he said, then quickly added, “not necessarily incarcerated former dictators and insane mass murderers, mind you.” He chuckled slightly, then leaned a little closer to Serah. She involuntarily shifted away from him and pretended to go back to reading.
“Seriously,” he continued, apparently not noticing her social cues, “that was a great piece. Taking him on the way you did took a lot of guts. Though I must admit, I had nightmares for weeks after seeing some of the documentary footage.”
The word “nightmare” echoed in her head and triggered another chill. Her hand shook as she scrolled through the datapad’s menu. The Emir had given her nightmares as well. She remembered having nightmares of her own as she sifted through hours and hours of footage from the Persian archives. Footage that documented the worst human suffering–and inhuman atrocities–in recent history. She remembered Henry, her boss, forcing her to visit a psychoengineer. In the end, it was the dreamspinner that saved her sanity more than therapy.
Her surroundings faded; she pictured the old man in her dream again, remembered every detail of his features, the warm spray of his blood hitting her face. She snapped back to reality with a jolt. She had been staring blankly at Michael whose smile seemed somehow sinister now.
“And what do you do for a living?” She recovered, changing the subject.
Michael uncrossed his legs, meticulously brushing something from his trousers. “Oh, a little bit of everything, I guess. Whatever puts food on the table without requiring a lot of effort.”
“I see,” Serah said, knowing full well someone wearing a custom-tailored suit could not possibly be the slacker he was claimbing to be. A few seconds of awkward silence passed.
“You seem a bit out of sorts,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows. “If I may ask, is everything all right?”
The soft interrogation was becoming more direct. He’d provoked her by referencing the Emir. He was studying her responses closely.
“No, it’s nothing,” she said, then took a deep breath. “Just a little problem with my dreamspinner last night.”
That made his eyes light up. He leaned in again. Serah had nowhere left to reatreat. “I know exactly what you mean.” His voice was conspiratorial and low. “My old dreamspinner started acting up, and after a while, I just didn’t trust it not to fry my synapses while I slept. I ended up replacing it with that new Stewart Mosaic 2700 and their premium subscription service. They have a complete staff of qualified analysts who–”
Reality snapped in focus for her. She felt instantly stupid. “Wait. You use a dreamspinner?” She nodded toward the neural interface jack visible behind Michael’s left ear. “That seems a bit redundant when you can sleep in Phrame.”
Michael’s smile quickly faded. His eyes darted around the car as if looking for the answer. Serah frowned in disappointment. “You’re a billy!” She grunted in frustration then leaned straight into his personal space. “I can’t believe I fell for that. You people are shameless. Does my consumer file really make me out to be this desperate and gullible?”
Michael smiled acerbically and shrugged like an errant child who had just been caught telling a lie. “Human billboards,” guerilla salesmen, whatever the moniker, preyed on unsuspecting fluids for their virtual bosses in the corporatocracy and had gotten out of control in recent years. One recent statistic suggested that if only one-third of the population maintained real-world bodies for occasional use in the physical world, or Root Realm, as many as 25% were actually employed as billys, influencers, surveillance specialists, or other flesh tools to keep a vigilant watch on unsuspecting potential consumers. Many days, Serah was convinced that number was too conservative.
Her service call to Noctivo Systems had been a klaxon last night, altering agents and tracking databases all over the planet that she was alive and well, living in the London Metroplex, and having problems with an outdated dreamspinner. Hundreds of corporations would have spent the last three hours retrieving copies of her consumer file, analyzing her work history, mapping her commute, cataloging her hobbies, and cross-referencing her interests, now they were sending their legions of trained experts to deliver a clandesine, perfect sales pitch. The next forty-eight hours would see offers for every conceivable product and service: sleep-inducing medications, dream analysis specialists, and dieticians who claim to have developed an all-natural alternative to computer-controlled sleep regimens. She was now the hapless target of the ultra-competitive post-capitalist marketplace at its most ferocious as it tried to maintain its last foothold in a post-scarcity society.
The sad part was that such tactics were still profitable enough to keep the machinery in motion. People purchase goods based on the recommendations of billys and influencers all the time, often without knowing it. The corporatocracy recorded and tracked these light touches, analyzed them for trends, and then sold or traded details through letigitmate, often government-run, networks as part of a comprehensive data set containing intimate details of each citizen of the Sol Directorate.
Michael blushed slightly, trying to salvage his work thus far. “Honestly, Ms. Wyles, we only want to help you. If you would just–”
“Help!?” Serah laughed incredulously, raising her voice for the benefit of the rest of the commuters in the car. “Every word out of your mouth to this point has been deliberate deception. Why would I ever do business with you?”
“I understand. It’s just the job,” he said defensively. “I have a right to –”
“Yes, let’s talk about rights,” she interrupted, completely fed up with the conversation. “How about ‘Article 43?’” She tapped a quick series of commands on her datapad and beamed her consumer ID number to the government-mandated personal recorder Michael was legally required to wear on his belt. She grinned triumphantly as the device beeped in acknowledgement. “Now, go back to your little hole in the wall and spend the rest of the morning scrubbing my data from your systems!”
That had felt good. Serah was okay with corporations tracking and storing minute details about where she ate, what she wore, or, as Michael’s appearance would indicate, her tastes in men, fashion, and cologne. She could not abide a company that abused the privilege, however. Michael got up and quietly drifted to the other side of the car a few moments later. With luck, his competitors would have been monitoring and gotten the message: Don’t mess with Serah Wyles.
The Neward and Provident Newsnet Agency was the ninth largest newsnet corporation on the planet, employing thousands of agents, analysts, and other content producers. Surprisingly, it’s Root-Realm footprint was a meager 350 square meters tucked in the back of the 263rd floor of the Soho Tower Centre’s northeastern wing. The entry room was empty, as usual, except for the solitary avatar of a young, bright-eyed man, with spiked hair, tinted glasses, and a ruffled lavendar suit sitting behind an empty, featureless desk who appeared to be waiting for Serah even before she stepped off the lift. “Good morning, Ms. Wyles.”
“Good morning, Erik,” she nodded to the avatar. “Slow day so far?”
She had a rapport with Vir. Erik Walker. Probably the most informal of all professional relationships. He was flamboyant, mischievous, and above all extremely competent as a research and personal assistant, making him one of her favorite people.
“Oh, we’ve got 37 people in the Phrame offices right now,” he said disinterestedly. “Most of them are here to complain about our ‘biased coverage’ of the Comanche Embassy bombing yesterday. They’re not even taking 20 percent of my bandwidth. I’m here for you.”
Serah rolled her eyes, knowing Erik’s penchant for controlling simultaneous avatars. With a base configuration and no special training, most people had the mental acuity to convincingly run two at a time, three for short durations in a pinch. She had personally seen Erik to convincingly run as many as half a dozen avatars simultaneously, allowing him to effectively be six places at once. It was said only expertly trained military and government specialists, particularly in intelligence and infiltration, could regularly accomplish this. She’d never summoned the courage to ask if he had ever performed such work, though nothing about him surprised her anymore.
“Erik,” she grinned, rehashing the running joke the two had shared for the past five years, “You do understand when most people moonlight at two or three companies, they usually don’t go to all three jobs simultaneously?”
“Hey, it’s not enough that I am able to afford my opulent lifestyle. I must also have enough time left over in my day to enjoy it.” He bowed flamboyantly. “So, what the hell happened to you last night?”
Serah arched one eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” Erik took a deep breath and summoned a swarm of holographic text around himself. “You’ve received 270 new messages in the past six hours, and all but thirteen of them were solicitations of some form. I routed the legitimate ones to your terminal and kill-filed the rest. You’ve also had six calls from gentlemen claiming to have lunch dates with you and wanting to know your favorite restaurant. I know you never mix business with your social life, and since Henry had already ordered lunch for two to be delivered to the conference room, I assume they were all billys. Two of them were rather cute though, so I ran a quick background check and made sure they weren’t married or violently psychotic, then left things a bit vague in case you wanted a free lunch and a chance at some social interaction–”
“No more salespeople!” Serah cut him off abruptly. “K-F them as well.”
“Sensible policy,” Erik continued without missing a beat. “I’ll call them back and tell them all of your personal finances are held in trust by a cult of devout mango worshippers in New Tibet, and they should really go through those channels if they’re trying to get their hands on anything but your–”
“–Thank you, Erik.” Serah smiled and hissed before he could complete the thought.
“You should hire one of those blockers to accompany you when you go out. Some of those billys can be dangerous, you know. I’ve heard stories about them intimidating people into signing over their life’s savings.”
“Tell Henry I need a raise then. I don’t have a life or savings,” Serah said as she walked down the hallway toward her office.
Her work area was an extension of her living quarters, which were an extension of her personality. Everything had an efficient spot, and an automated routine that ran like clockwork. As she entered the small room, ambient lights flickered on, and a desk lamp swung into position over her work area. The holoprojection on the wall came to life, displaying a dense forest of a variety of trees and adding much needed greenery to the gray room. The food dispenser in the corner, after a well-memorized musical series of gurgles and beeps, presented her with one perfect cup of coffee and one glass of water. She placed the coffee on the sandstone coaster on her desk and gave the water to the bright red bromeliad in the corner.
Next, she called for her terminal and personal portal and slid into the perfectly formed chair behind her desk as a jumble of reports and tickers materialized and danced through the air before her. She casually pulled up a couple of headlines concerning the American block commodity markets and the latest on the Comanche Embassy incident—which, it turned out, was the one in the Antarctic preserve. Everything else was a jumble of meaningless numbers to her this morning. She yawned — a bad sign for 9:05 when she hadn’t finished her first cup of coffee.
Concentration was going to be a problem. She stared blankly at the projected forest. Though she didn’t know the artist’s name, the picture was a favorite of hers and had been since she first saw the original in the Buckingham Dome Museum at the impressionable age of ten. The painting’s subtle details sparked an interest in pursuing a career as an artist … then a poet … then a sculptor … and then a novelist. It didn’t matter which dream was prevalent in her mind; the painting simply represented sheer creative force. Ironically, the copy projected on the wall in her office was now the only expression of pure creativity she saw most days.
She sipped at her coffee and studied the picture in a focusing exercise she regularly practiced. Find one new detail. Find one new brush stroke. Find something she’d never noticed when studying the picture before. Then, she found it: nothing more than a swath of black paint behind a brown tree trunk. Now, she saw it as a shadow, possibly cast by some woodland creature the artist had painted, then covered up with the tree trunk. She imagined momentarily that she could peer behind the tree and see a figure standing there, dressed in a black uniform with a visored helmet.
He stood there, not moving, regarding her for a moment. He somehow transfixed Serah; she could not avert her gaze or look away. Reaching slowly with his right arm, he removed a sidearm from its hip holster. Casually and methodically, so as not to startle his prey, his arm raised and aligned the sights on Serah. There was a loud bang as he pulled the trigger.
Serah jumped and yelped reflexively, then stared at the painting again.
The figure was gone, as was the streak of black paint she had spotted earlier.
“Rough night?” a friendly voice in the doorway boomed. Serah shrieked and jumped again, this time splashing coffee onto her desk. “Sorry, kiddo,” the man apologized.
“Morning, Henry,” she said with a nervous giggle as she exchanged the coffee for her datapad, stood up, and headed for the door. “Staff meeting?”
“That’s where I was heading.” His face grew concerned. “You look beat.”
“Yeah, having issues with my dreamspinner.”
Henry grimaced in distaste. “I hate those things; the idea of some quack analyst and his computer monitoring, programming, and controlling my dreams just to improve the efficiency of my sleep cycle and gain me a few more hours of boredom during the day.”
“I can’t get along without it … obviously.”
Henry frowned. “How long is your sleep cycle?”
“Just under four hours.”
“Good grief!” he exclaimed, amazed. “How can you function like that? I take at least nine hours, all-natural and unassisted, as nature intended.”
Serah laughed, “You’re missing over a third of your life that way.”
“I’ve already done everything. Now I’m just trying to recuperate.” He smiled warmly. “Try it once in a while. You’ll feel a lot better.”
“Well, when you retire, and I have your job, then I can afford that time. Until then–”
“Hey, I’ll give you the time if you want it. All you need to do is ask, you know. You work too hard as it is, and I can’t afford to lose my best reporter.”
Serah raised her hand and smiled, hoping to end the argument for the moment.
Henry patted her gently on the shoulder, then slid back the door to the conference area and motioned Serah inside. “Well, think about it anyway. I worry about you.”
Serah regarded the man for a moment. Henry Whittaker had been her mentor during her university years and had immediately recommended her when a position at Neward and Provident opened up. She knew she owed no small debt to him for her subsequent successes, which had culminated in her becoming the youngest full correspondent the agency had ever had. Like herself, he too lacked the neural jack needed for complete sensory immersion in the Phrame. While she merely tolerated the labels of “slow-bander” or “primitive” that came with the decision, Henry reveled in it. The benefits of rank, she decided.
On one occasion, after an intense debate about his inefficient insistence on using his physical body, Henry used the ancient typewriter in his office to type all the senior staff’s annual bonuses on paper cheques. He then sealed the cheques in envelopes and left them on the conference room table, inviting the assembled avatars to “drop by and pick theirs up” at their convenience; no slacks would be admitted into the office. The lesson was lost on his employees.
Serah figured him to be some eighty years her senior, though he appeared to be in his early sixties, and she knew he had a wife at home who looked even younger. The idea of commodified beauty was one of those nagging questions that always ate at Serah. Would she end up spending her later years and a small fortune on rejuvenation treatments to extend her life for additional decades? For that matter, would she one day break down, have the neural jack installed, and pay for a metabolic stasis tank for her body while her consciousness lived permanently online in the Phrame, waiting for her brain to wear itself out physically?
“Something else bothering you, kiddo?” Henry asked.
Serah realized she was staring at the man and smiled defeatedly. “Oh, Henry, why is it that my most meaningful relationships are with men who are either married, incarcerated madmen, or worse still, salespeople?”
A female voice giggled from the other side of the room. “Because you persist in that degenerate Root-Realm lifestyle of yours instead of meet-netting a nice man and settling down in the real world.”
“I was misinformed,” Serah sighed, “I thought this was the real world, Maggie.” She nodded to the avatar seated at the table.
“Not anymore, my dear.” Vir. Maggie Steward had been with the company for twice as long as Serah had been alive and, for most of that time, served as the be-all-end-all decider of what went into the style-related content the agency published. Maggie was a significant expert and influencer on cutting-edge fashion and outrageous pop culture professionally, at least in the Phrame – she regarded the Root Realm to be stylistically dead, or at least sterile. This contrasted with her self-righteous devotion to traditional, conservative values like marriage, the duality of which confounded Serah. Maggie was happily married for over sixty years, and she took pains to remind Serah of this at every opportunity. Still, she had only been in the same room as her husband three times — at least as far as the physical world was concerned.
“Honestly, dear,” Maggie continued, “you’re never going to meet anyone unless you spend a little more of your time in-Phrame. I don’t see what you have against joining the civilized world and settling down with your soul mate,” she smiled condescendingly, then added, “online that is.” Serah busied herself, flipping aimlessly through various files on her notepad, hoping to end the discussion. Maggie persisted, however. “Unless, of course, you have aspirations of being a breeder or something as–”
“Now, Maggie, don’t be such a cynic,” Henry scolded. “The important things in life, the ones that really make you happy, can’t be cataloged, preprogrammed, or distributed by the Phrame with a stamped-out compatibility rating. If two people were meant to be together, love will find a way.”
Maggie was polite but not amused by the argument. “That’s a sweet, primitive sentiment, Henry, and I’m sure it has worked out just fine for you, but surely you understand you’re the famous anomaly.”
Another avatar, a younger man with short-cropped red hair, rezzed into the chair beside Serah.
“I don’t know. I find something curiously arousing about the idea of a physical relationship. It seems so … primitive and feral.” The words came out like an animal’s growl. “Not to mention dangerous.”
Serah blushed in embarrassment, fearing her sex life, or at least what her co-workers imagined it to be, was a frequent topic of discussion when she was not around. She could only hope that the perverted fantasies of her co-workers proved more interesting than the reality of her situation. “Careful, Jafet, or I’ll find where you keep your pale, atrophied body and breathe on it,” she said dryly without looking up from her notepad. She genuinely liked Vir. Jafet Meléndez, and she knew he would appreciate the slight taboo of the joke that simultaneously would offend Maggie.
Jafet laughed, then leaned in close to Serah and whispered, “Well, I’m not one for bleeding through the eyeballs or whatever you get with the latest venereal disease out there, but if I thought you were the least bit serious, I’d happily take the risk.” The offer was no doubt serious. Sex was quite a casual act in the Phrame, especially random, anonymous sex. In fact, despite the average Phramer’s fantasies, they would probably find conventional sex in the Root Realm about as bland and boring as Maggie found its culture and fashion.
Serah laughed off the proposition, knowing Jafet would let it drop out of respect.
“You really should listen to Maggie once in a while,” he said, smiling dejectedly. “You might just meet the man of your dreams.”
Dreams …
The word hung in Serah’s mind. Again, she saw the old man, remembered the pleading look in his eyes, and heard the needler exploding in his chest. The last thing she remembered was Henry, in the corner of her vision, darting across the room to catch her as she fell out of her chair.
© 2022 Darrin Snider. All Rights Reserved.
