The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans

by David A. Ross

  Which is why I suppose Iggy is building a boat. I have a vision of his half-made Ark balanced precariously upon the pinnacle of one of southeast Greenland’s more prestigious peaks, poised in anticipation of the gorge below filling with water to launch it on its voyage of preservation. Or maybe it won’t happen that way at all. Maybe we’ll all simply be engulfed one night while we’re asleep in our beds.

  Whoosh!

  The Virtual Broadcast Venue is an outdoor amphitheatre in Virtual Life where events that promise to draw a large audience are held. The last time I was there was for what turned out to be author Kurt Vonnegut’s final interview. That discussion, too, was conducted by NPR’s Jack Straw Huckleberry for a series of interviews called The Unlimited Mind; and either ironically or not so ironically, Mr. Vonnegut (who was half-heartedly hawking his latest and what turned out to be his last book, Man Without A Country) made a reference to the same environmental issue on which Igloo Iceman and so many others are presently concentrated. Vonnegut lamented that the environmental damage was already well advanced and that in all probability nothing would be done to repair it, and that civilization was, in his estimation, kaput.

  Just before eight o’clock, Virtual Life Time, I transfer into the VBV. The scheduled time for this event is quite convenient for me since in PL I live in Seattle. Neither Crystal nor Kiz has answered my IM, but I’m hoping they will both show up for the lecture. Making my way through the large crowd that has already gathered (the lecture has been advertised all over the VL network) I search for my friend Igloo, but I do not see him.

  As I claim a seat close to the stage, I see Kizmet Aurora rezzing into the VBV, so I get up to greet her. Opening another window on my computer, I also check to see if Crystal has answered my original IM. As it turns out, she has, telling me that she will not be able to join us at the lecture, and that she will have to catch the broadcast later on YouTube. I lead Kiz to where I am sitting and make a place for her to sit as well.

  A moment later, the emulation of Jack Straw Huckleberry rezzes onto the stage. He lands precariously, as if he is unaccustomed to traveling in such a fashion. Of course transference is not a foreign means of transportation to Mr. Huckleberry, as he has been logging on to VL for some time now in order to host events similar to this one. Nevertheless, his arrival is full of clumsy slapstick, and it brings laughter from those gathered in the VBV. Huckleberry smiles and says, “Sooner or later I’m going to get the hang of this…”

  Of course the arrival of Mr. Huckleberry’s EM has piqued the crowd’s interest, and the chatter between those gathered to hear the presentation creates chaos on our conversation bars, so Kiz and I are forced to turn on our filters in order to talk privately. I tell Kiz that I’ve been doing a bit of research on global warming, and Kiz offers that where she lives on the high desert of northern Arizona temperatures are definitely on the rise. “During the summer of 2005,” she tells me, “Flagstaff had sixteen days over a hundred degrees.” Engaging in a game of one-upmanship, I relate Iggy’s story of how the lower floor of his house is no longer habitable because it is permanently flooded due to snow melt, and that he now has to live exclusively on the upper floor. Soon, he says, even that will not be possible, and he’ll have to abandon his house and find another place to live, which will make him, I suppose, one of the first refugees of global warming.

  Kizmet Aurora types: Is he serious?

  I type: In PL, Igloo lives in Greenland.

  Kizmet Aurora types: Oh, I see.

  “We’re just waiting now for our distinguished guest to log on and transfer to the VBV,” Huckleberry tells the audience over the microphone. His is now the only sound enabled voice in the REP.

  As the featured speaker rezzes onto the VBV stage, he is greeted by scattered applause from those in the auditorium. The emulation of the respected Dr. Adler looks youthful and vital. In fact, his EM looks fifteen years younger than he does in photos I’ve seen in magazines and on the Internet, but who can fault him for that, as we all tend to cheat the calendar a bit when creating our emulations. (With Dr. Adler’s entrance to the VBV it becomes obvious to me that Igloo Iceman is nowhere to be found in the arena, but perhaps that is not so unusual as some VL citizens are known to manifest not as a single EM but two, or three, or even multiple emulations, and Igloo’s absence at an event with which he was not only concerned but actively involved only feeds the speculation that Igloo Iceman is indeed the EM of the esteemed and famous Arctic researcher, Dr. Conrad Adler. Who really knows? And who cares? Igloo Iceman or Conrad Adler, we’re all here to learn something about the catastrophe that is taking place above the Arctic Circle.) Dressed in casual clothes, and looking as if he’s about to go for a hike in the Sierras, Dr. Adler waves to the crowd in acknowledgement then greets Jack Straw Huckleberry. Once Dr. Adler’s EM is settled, Huckleberry begins to speak.

  “What a fantastic crowd we have here tonight at the Virtual Broadcast Venue in Virtual Life to hear the remarks of our very special guest…

  “Of course our guest does not need an introduction full of accomplishments and accolades, but I know you will join me in thanking him for being here in Virtual Life, and also for his concern for the earth, and for his courage to speak out at a time when far too many remain silent about what is obviously the most crucial issue of our time…

  “Dr. Conrad Adler is well known for creating the Ki Principle—an ecological hypothesis that proposes that both living and nonliving parts of the earth must be viewed as a complex and interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Sumerian earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all life has a regulatory effect on Earth’s environment.

  “Dr. Adler, who holds numerous degrees, and who continues to lecture at some of the world’s most prestigious universities, and to consult for some of the world’s largest and most influential corporations, is a scientist, a researcher, an author, an environmentalist, and a futurologist who, after twenty-five years’ research above the Arctic Circle, continues to document the recession of the polar icecaps, monitor species migration and document climatic changes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm Virtual Life welcome to Dr. Conrad Adler.”

  The crowd gathered on the bleachers at the VBV applauds loudly for Dr. Adler. At least a dozen conversation bars light up.

  Standing before the podium, Dr. Adler first blows into his microphone and then poses the essential rhetorical question: “WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?” Without waiting for an answer he continues, “Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, and temperatures are rising. The vast majority of scientists, as well as a recent United Nations decree, acknowledges that global warming is a real phenomenon, that it is already well underway and that it is not a cyclical occurrence, but rather it is largely caused by human activities. If you had spent as much time as I have above the Arctic Circle, you would know that the changes are obvious. Glaciers are melting and plants and animals are being forced from their habitats. But the effects of Global warming are not visible only above the Arctic Circle. At lower latitudes, the number and frequency of severe storms, aberrant temperature fluctuations and droughts is increasing…

  “To make matters even worse,” Dr. Adler laments, “companies—mostly big oil, but not exclusively—are actively funding research to challenge the scientific consensus as part of a strategy to mislead the public,” he reiterates. “This campaign is presently financed—about ten million dollars—by the largest carbon polluters on earth, and meant to create the impression that there is disagreement within the scientific community. The truth is that there is virtually no disagreement. But because we now live in a world where the dispersion of propaganda has been elevated to an art form,
the deception persists and is accepted by the uninformed.”

  A smattering of applause is heard throughout the audience in the VBV, and Adler waits until it is again quiet before continuing his speech.

  “After the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report that determined the cause of global warming to be man-made, the corporate denizens offered ten thousand dollars to the writer of each article published (and it didn’t seem to matter where it was published) that disputed the consensus of the Panel and scientific opinion. In short, they are happy to make us—each and every one of us—the unwitting victims of their corporate agenda!”

  Again, applause is heard throughout the audience.

  Dr. Adler continues: “The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. I know this to be true not only from my research, but also from on-the-scene observation. At least two hundred species of plants and animals are already in retreat as a response to climate change. If the warming continues, we can expect disasterous consequences. The Arctic Ocean will be ice-free by the summer by 2050, or perhaps even sooner. Global sea levels will rise by as much as twenty-five feet, which will devastate coastal areas worldwide. But that’s not all… Intense heat waves will begin to scorch the more temperate areas of our planet. Droughts will deplete aquifers, and wildfires will claim our forests and grasslands. By the year 2050, more than a million species worldwide could be extinct. Yet, as dire as these predictions might seem, we can solve these problems with only the smallest changes to our daily routine. The time has come to wake up and get our heads out of the sand…”

  Again the speaker pauses for dramatic effect. It’s obvious he’s a real pro at public speaking, and at persuasion.

  “The European Union—and even China—are far ahead of the United States when it comes to fuel efficiency requirements. Both Ford and GM are filing suit against the State of California to stop stricter fuel efficiency standards. These standards are already in place in Europe and in China—and in may other parts of the world as well. American automobile manufacturers are struggling to compete with foreign-made vehicles. Why? It’s quite simple: they make cars that are illegal in the rest of the world!

  “Former vice president and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has stated: 'With Hurricane Katrina the U.S. has entered a new and critical era.' Warmer oceans will mean more intense storms; and higher sea levels will threaten coastal populations from Shanghai to Amsterdam, from Indonesia to Florida.

  “The crisis I am talking about has been escalating for decades. We’ve known about it almost as long. And we’ve done nothing! I ask each and every one of you: Is life on our planet worth so little that we refuse to take the simple steps necessary to maintain a viable ecosphere?”

  At this point Jack Straw Huckleberry breaks in to guide Dr. Adler’s diatribe. “Dr. Adler,” he addresses, “what is your specific prognosis for Planet Earth in the coming years?”

  “I speculate that as we enter the twenty-first century we will slowly grow a little more crowded and a little more polluted, but civilization will continue in much the same way as it has in the past—for a while, anyway. That said, remember that any number of things could go wrong. A major volcanic eruption could disturb the growing cycle and cause widespread famine. Unchecked flooding could disperse refugees on an unimaginable scale. Any number of catastrophic scenarios could pose a life-altering or life-ending threat. But, in all likelihood, mankind will survive… Not because he deserves to survive… And probably not maintaining current culture, you understand. Cultures come, and cultures go. The one thing we can do, I think, is to make sure that our successors know what we did wrong. We might document all the hard-won facts of science, philosophy and art—the essence, if you will, of our present culture—to enable whomever is left to start a new civilization.”

  Jack Straw Huckleberry: “The greenhouse effect and the potential damage to the ozone layer have only entered the public consciousness in the last ten years. With the onset of unleaded gas and ‘environmentally friendly’ products, is it really a case of too little too late?”

  Conrad Adler: “Too little too late? Who is to say at what point we reach a critical mass? Yes, maybe it is too late to save our civilization, but even if it is too late, people will survive, and there will be another one. There were some thirty civilizations before the present one.”

  OMG! Is that the bottom line? The damage has been done, and the planet is so far gone that it’s too late to fix it. Write the manual, says Dr. Adler, to help those poor fucks that survive the noxious air and polluted water and radiation and whatever else plagues our environment to begin anew. My question: Why would they want our advice?

  “Maybe we’re already writing the book, Fizzy,” Kiz proposes.

  “What do you mean, Kizmet?”

  “Virtual Life,” she says matter-of-factly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Another Splendid Day in Quinn Town

  EVERY TIME I see Crystal Marbella walking towards me I blush. It’s not that I prefer women to men, but the way the full skirt of her dress moves with her body as she walks, and the way her long brown hair bobs and sways with each and every movement she makes, or the expressions on her face as she turns to listen to something I say somehow makes me understand what real beauty is all about. Of course I am looking at a digital creation, an arrangement of pixels projected on my monitor: I know that. So where does that sort of beauty actually originate? Certainly, it must come from inside the person the emulation represents. What else could it be?

  Most of the time Crystal and I meet at our shop in Lit-A-Rama. After all, the shop is the VL symbol of our mutual interest: timeless literature. Sometimes, though, when we’re both feeling social, or when there’s a band playing on the patio at Dirty Nellie’s, we meet for a drink at our favorite pub. We also sometimes chill out at Writer’s Pen Café with a virtual latté or a cappuccino. When we want to talk seriously about personal subjects, we often meet at the lighthouse in Lit-A-Rama (the REP is actually surrounded by water—even if it’s only virtual water—and the REP’s chief builder, our landlord Sly Sideways who says he lives his Physical Life in Barcelona, has constructed a lighthouse on a rocky outcropping that actually has a searchlight that shines its beam out to sea 24/7). All these places have become favorites in our everyday VL lives, but there is another place in the VL network that Crystal and I frequent—one we consider absolutely vital to our VL existence. It is called Quinn Town.

  Quinn Town is the creation of Artemis Quinn, a very talented animator whose PL company, Quinn Town Creations™, is located in Austin, Texas. Artemis’s curious emulation is a little boy called Ego Ectoplasm who actually doesn’t speak, though fortunately he is an excellent typist (lol)!

  Whenever Crystal and I go to Quinn Town, which is admittedly a bit like a trip to a digital Disneyland, we like to hang out in an area called Sugarland. There evergreen lawns are studded with day-glow stepping stones that lead us as we walk hand-in-hand past windmills and water wheels and great big urns with endlessly flowing clear water pouring over shiny slippery rocks into crystalline pools. All the buildings in Sugarland have mushroom tops in bright green or red with big white polka dots. Enormous yellow sunflowers with fat green stems tower over our emulations, and busy bumblebees buzz endlessly around giant asters with multi-colored corollas. At the end of a particular cobbled walkway there is a very large and very friendly dinosaur guarding the pitch-black entrance to a cave. Braving both Brontosaurus and blackness, we enter the opening. Inside we find a cozy chamber with a fire burning at the center of the circular cavity. What an elemental place for us to rekindle ourselves! That cave in Sugarland, a cavern within the boundaries of imagination and recreation, safe and secure and guarded by a comical reptilian sentry, is certainly the designated womb of our new existence.

  “Crystal,” I ask as we sit in front of the virtual fire (and I really do wish I could feel the warmth of the flames), “are you afraid
of the day when your PL body is no longer alive?”

  “I can’t actually say I’m afraid, Fizzy. I just wonder what if anything comes next.”

  “And what will become of all this: VL and our emulations and Open Books?”

  “I suppose it will all still be here,” she says. “Once created, digital representations go on forever. They just won’t be animated anymore.”