The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans

by David A. Ross

  I know the odds of finding Filo here are a thousand to one, yet it’s common knowledge in VL that his emulation turns up here from time to time, and that he’s really a nice guy, and quite approachable, too. So, why not try? I’d love to talk to him—EM-to-EM—about Virtual Life, and about PL, too. I have a gazillion questions I’d like to ask him, and I know he’d have insights and visions I’ve never even thought about. Am I overestimating his contribution to modern culture through technology? Maybe… But for me, meeting Theo would be like meeting Socrates, or Galileo, or Thomas Edison.

  Whether by chance or by coincidence, or by deep longing, or simply by blind luck, our purpose for being at Samantha’s Music Bar is realized when Mr. Virtual Life himself saunters into the saloon for a drink. How do we know it is Theo, the Creator? Buy his emulation’s legendary appearance, of course. Tall and lean, and wearing chaps and a cowboy hat over blonde uncombed hair, his handlebar moustache half-covering a thin-lipped, precocious smile, there is no mistaking him. Meeting the Creator is, by all accounts, the chance of a Virtual Lifetime. But is God really supposed to look like Billy the Kid?

  Theo’s story in PL is no secret to anyone involved in Virtual Life. He was born in San Bernardino: shy as a kid, his family moved around a lot; he spent much of his time alone in his room; he was a nerdy, creative kid, a C student with a preoccupation for ‘inventions’. He spent his adolescence not playing sports or pursuing girls, but surfing the Internet. At the age of twenty-five, he founded Seedbed Studios, which embarked upon the creation of Virtual Life. Starting with only a few simulators, he grew his newly made ‘world’ into a virtual community approximately ten times the geographical size of the Silicon Valley (where Seedbed Studios is actually located) which is now powered by forty thousand simulators hosting four hundred terra-bytes. In essence, Theo has created a flea market reality in which many of us now live and communicate, work and build and love, and yes, even sometimes where we die.

  Once Filo Farmer has greeted the staff, ordered his drink, and settled himself at one of the tables, I gather my courage and approach him. “Hi, Filo,” I say.

  “Hello, Fizzy Oceans.” He knows my name from my ID banner.

  “My friend Kizmet Aurora and I were hoping to find you here. Would you mind if we join you?”

  “Pretty ladies are always welcome in my ‘world’, he quips.

  I motion for Kiz to bring the drinks, and we join Filo at his table. “Filo Farmer, this is Kizmet Aurora; Kiz, Filo Farmer, Mr. Virtual Life.”

  Filo stands and shakes hands with each of us. “The pleasure is mine,” he says.

  We take seats at the table and endure a moment of awkward silence (it’s not every day you meet a god).

  “I’ve wanted to meet you for a very long time,” I tell him.

  “Then I’m glad the opportunity has finally ‘materialized’,” he laughs.

  “All kidding aside,” I say, “I have some important questions to ask you.” I pause a moment. “And a favor to ask as well. Or maybe it’s actually a suggestion…”

  “Tell me, Fizzy, what’s on your mind?”

  “VL, of course. I mean the nature of it. You know what I mean.”

  “I could give you my standard interview description,” he offers.

  “That might do for a start.”

  “Okay, here goes. I started with a couple of essential questions: Is it possible to digitize a person, a human being? And if so, is it feasible—or even possible—to create a matrix, or meta-verse in which digitized people can interact? Each question, I found, led to an answer. The concept of emergence… Bit by bit, the digital atomics were created. One mega-watt runs the entire Virtual Life structure.

  “Originally I thought VL would be a world full of nameless entities, but the opposite has come to pass. Because VL’s development is left to the seedlings, the greater setting has developed as those in VL project their thoughts and intentions and fantasies into the matrix. Virtual Life has become a world of vision and inspiration. What we build here in VL is the algorithmic expression of our dreams…”

  “Thanks for the media blurb, Filo, but I already know all that.”

  “Some do and some don’t,” he relates.

  “What I’m really interested in is the convergence of PL and VL. And what comes next…”

  “Why don’t you elaborate a bit?” Filo invites.

  “In PL, my life isn’t so great. I used to work as a medical billing clerk (ho-hum), but when the big economic meltdown came, I lost my job. Now I work in a fish market mopping up fish guts. Most of the time I’m dead broke (although I always manage to pay my IP bill). I don’t have many friends—I guess I’m not that attractive to most people; constantly smelling of dead fish is a pretty big turn-off, obviously…

  “But my life here in VL is quite different. It’s made all the difference in the ‘world’ (lol)! Especially since I became a VL greeter. I’ve met some really great people here in VL (I nod at Kiz), and I’ve really ‘bloomed’ like a flower. So I totally get the Seedbed Studios bit, and the seedlings, and all the rest. Those are pretty great metaphors, Filo. But you probably planned all that in advance. Whatever…

  “Anyway, I’ve really found myself here in VL. I help a woman named Crystal Marbella with her publishing project, Open Books. We are trying to republish as much of the ‘world’s’ great literature online as we possibly can. For a time when… Well, I’m getting to all that. Bear with me.”

  “Of course I will,” says Filo. As he takes a sip of his drink and assesses me over the rim of his glass, I can tell I’ve captured his interest.

  “And that’s not all. Besides being a VL greeter, and helping out at Open Books, I’ve created my own REP to dramatize the life of Vincent Van Gogh and to display his life’s work. And I’ve also been doing a bit of traveling, you know?”

  “What sort of traveling?” Filo asks.

  “Well, here in VL—but not really. You see I’ve been visiting some of the more ‘realistic’ REPS—places like virtual Pakistan, and virtual Bolivia. Places where PL is in serious peril, you know?”

  “I know that some seedlings have recreated some of the not-so-nice places and events that exist in PL…”

  “Right! Have you ever been to the Big Easy?”

  “Not here in VL,” he admits.

  “They also call it ‘The City That Care Forgot’. And with good reason! Hurricane Katrina is perpetually going on there in real time—or in VL ‘real’ time at least. The Cateret Islands in the South Pacific are in the midst of sinking—both in PL and here in VL, too. If you visit the VL Amazon Rain Forest, you get the PL picture of the devastation pretty well. The air in China is a mess, not to mention chemical pollution in the water system. My friend Randy, who is also a ‘farmer’ in Iowa, says the ground there is contaminated beyond repair with pesticides and herbicides and other shit. Lately, I’ve been monitoring the oil spill off the Gulf Coast, and it looks like not only the marine life there will be totally destroyed, but over time as many as thirty million people might suffer physical consequences from the various dispersants that were used, many eventually dying from exposure to Corexit and other toxins. My VL friend Igloo Iceman, who lives in PL Greenland, has told me all about the melting glaciers and the rising water. He’s even building an Ark, though I’m not sure whether that’s in PL or in VL. Whatever…

  “I get the picture,” says Filo.

  “And I’ve had other experiences as well. I spent an evening with Jacques Cousteau—or at least with his EM (Is there really any difference?). And the picture that he paints of the PL aquatic environment is grim to say the least. I also had a chat with radio talk show host Daedalus Dunworthy, and together we watched Harlan Geltspinner (aka Sharky Overbite) speaking at the BloomEx mall and giddily laughing as he threw dollars up into the air as if they were worthless pieces of paper, which in my personal PL life I guess they are! I’ve met Gandhi, the Dalai Llama, accompanied Moses on his pilgrimage through the desert, stood by at the trial
and the Crucifixion of Jesus and watched the Battle of Gettysburg. PL can be a pretty scary place, Filo.”

  “But it’s altogether different here in VL,” he says.

  “It sure is!” Kiz interjects.

  “All for the better, I’m convinced,” I say.

  “It is what we make it,” Filo reminds us.

  Our waitress waltzes over in her cute mini, winks at Filo, and asks if we’d all like another drink. We all nod that we would, and Filo says, “This one’s on me; VL is awash in greenshoots these days.”

  “Glad to hear at least one economy is not in the tank,” I tell him.

  Filo smiles and repeats, “It is what we make it.”

  As we sip our drinks I’m trying to figure out just how to approach the dénouement of my VL story, how to tie it all together, and how to make my ‘suggestion’ to Filo Farmer (aka Theo Ola), the Creator, the facilitator, the god of VL). If I hesitate, it might just be curtains for us all. And I’ve got an idea—a really good idea—one that just might save our civilization from extinction. I decide that I have to trust my instincts, my intelligence and my vision. Filo will understand. He has to understand! Dive off the platform, Fizzy, straight into the deep end of the pool. It’s sink or swim, girl!

  “So this is what I think we’ve got to do,” I begin. Then I qualify, “Or rather what you’ve got to do, Filo… I mean Theo…”

  The Creator nods for me to continue.

  “Virtual Life is certainly everything you say it is,” I recap. “But at least in my mind it is something more as well. It is an archive, so to speak. It is a record of our culture, of our very civilization, with all its triumphs and all its disasters. You’re absolutely right, Filo: It is what we make it. And what we are making here in VL is not only a manifestation of our dreams and aspirations—though we are certainly doing that, and one can only hope we do a better job of it this time than we did in PL—but it’s also a legacy of sorts of who we are, and maybe even what we once were, in PL. If I don’t miss my guess, Dr. Adler is right when he says we’re going to need a guidebook pretty soon, because we will not only be creating an alternate world, but our primary one. See what I mean?”

  “Yes, I see where you’re going,” he says.

  “So I think it’s absolutely essential that VL be protected against PL catastrophes. We can’t have all this washed away—whoosh!”

  “What do you suggest, Fizzy?” he asks.

  “A vault in PL,” I tell him.

  “A vault?”

  “Yes, an underground vault to protect the mainframes, to safeguard all the data. If the bomb goes off, or the planet decides to rebel in some way, then VL will be intact.”

  “But if PL is destroyed, as you and others suggest it might be, and somehow the mainframes and all the data survive, how would the emulations reanimate without their PL counterparts?”

  “I guess that’s your challenge to figure out; I’m no technical wizard. But I know one thing: I feel alive here in VL, even more alive than I feel in PL, and that has to account for something. There’s more here, Filo, than even you imagine.”

  “I think you’re talking about FL, Fizzy. Future Life.”

  “Maybe I am. But FL has to start sometime…”

  “VL is not FL,” he corrects.

  “But it could be,” I assert. “Maybe it has to be.”

  “I don’t know how that would work,” Filo confesses. “What you’re really talking about here is the chicken or egg conundrum: which came first?”

  “Look,” I argue, “I don’t know shit about chickens, or eggs for that matter, but I do know that PL and VL converge, so why not VL and FL? Surely it must be possible…”

  Filo raises his eyebrows. Obviously I have presented him with a challenge. At least I think he understands how critical it might be to protect VL.

  “A time capsule: that’s what you are suggesting,” he says.

  “More!” I tell him.

  “Yes, more than a record. A blueprint for a new start.”

  “Exactly!” I confirm.

  “Isn’t she just wonderful?” says Kiz with a smile.

  “I think I’m going to offer her a job at Seedbed,” says Filo. “In the think tank!”

  “I accept!” I joke.

  “Look, I know you’ve got something here. But even if I can figure out how to do it—to save and protect everything—you do realize that some things will be lost.”

  “We’ve got to do what we can,” I emphasize. “I think the time might be short.”

  “You’re right, Fizzy Oceans! I’ll get our team working on it right away.”

  “I knew you would understand, Filo,” I say with relief.

  He nods his head, obviously already cogitating on the problem at hand. “Thank you for your insight and your vision,” he tells me.

  I am flattered; I activate my blush response. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” I tell him.

  “You’re already doing it,” he encourages.

  Yes, I AM!

  CHAPTER 14

  The Velvet Underground

  KIZMET has created her own REP. Apparently she bought the ‘real estate’ with greenshoots won at the blackjack tables in virtual Vegas, and undertook the construction of the REP without telling Crystal or me a thing about it. The REP is an exact recreation of the Hopi Pueblo at Old Oraibi, and Kiz has invited Crystal and me to a ceremony to initiate it.

  At least that’s what we think it’s all about…

  Crystal and I arrive, a bit disoriented, at the newly created REP under a scorching desert sun. The rust-colored adobe pueblos just ahead offset the cloudless turquoise sky. The vista from Third Mesa, where the pueblo has existed since 1609, is expansive and inspiring. The distant San Francisco peaks rise off the desert floor and hover over the horizon like ships at sea. In the dusty central plaza the entire Hopi Nation has gathered, and nearly all are dressed as kachinas, symbolic manifestations of Hopi gods and spirit manifestations.

  “This is paganism to the tens,” I tell Crystal. Not being familiar with pre-Caucasian America, Sonja doesn’t know what to make of this spectacle, but the look on Crystal’s face tells me that she is fascinated nonetheless. I am American (at least Amy is), but in all my life I have never seen anything like this. And not only are the Hopi dressed as fierce warriors, or sacred animals, or benevolent caretakers of the earth, but Kiz is also wearing a vibrant Native American costume—the ‘Corn Woman’. I’m wondering just what she’s got up her colorfully embroidered sleeve…

  Since Kizmet will be participating directly in the ceremony we are here to observe, she has asked her old friend, the esteemed American writer Frank Waters, to show us around and give us an orientation of the Hopi community and of Hopi customs. In the literature of the American Southwest, Frank Waters is nothing short of an icon. Author of such titles as The Book of the Hopi, Pumpkin Seed Point and The Man Who Killed the Deer (I have read all these books and others), this dean of American letters and Indian lore is purportedly the only White man ever to be allowed by the Hopi into a kiva, their place of high worship. In PL, I know that Waters has been dead for more than a decade; but in VL he is alive and well. For Crystal’s benefit, I access the Wikipedia page about Waters and place it in her cache to read for reference.

  Frank Waters was born on July 25, 1902, in Colorado Springs, Colorado to May Ione Dozier Waters and Frank Jonathon Waters. His father, who was part Cheyenne, was a key influence in Water’s interest in the Native American experience. Frank Jonathon Waters took his son on trips to the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico in 1911, described by Frank in his book The Colorado.

  Waters continued his education at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. He studied engineering but left school before receiving a degree. Between 1925 and 1935, he worked on his first novel, Fever Pitch (1930) and a series of autobiographical novels beginning with The Wild Earth’s Nobility (1935). In 1936, he moved to Taos, New Mexico where he completed a biography of W.S. Stratton,
Midas of the Rockies. Waters’ masterpiece, The Man Who Killed the Deer, was published in 1942.

  In 1947, Waters purchased property at nearby Arroyo Seco, New Mexico, and married Jane Somervell. He served as editor-in-chief of Taos’s bilingual newspaper, El Crepusculo from 1949-1951, and as a reviewer for the Saturday Review of Literature from 1950-1956.

  In 1953, Waters was awarded the Taos Artists Award for Notable Achievement in the Art of Writing. Waters also held positions as information consultant for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, New Mexico, and for the City of Las Vegas, Nevada, (1952-1956). He held a variety of other jobs, including writer-in-residence, Colorado State University, Fort Collins (1966); and director, New Mexico Arts Commission, Santa Fe, New Mexico, (1966-68). On December 23, 1979, Waters married Barbara Hayes. He continued to write and make public appearances. He and his wife lived alternately in Arroyo Seco and Tucson, Arizona. Frank Waters died at his home in Arroyo Seco on June 3, 1995.

  “It is a great honor to meet you, Mr. Waters,” I tell him as he approaches us.

  “Welcome to Hopiland,” he says as he shakes both our hands. “And you can call me Frank.”

  In her VL invitation, Kiz has cited the words of the Hopi Elder, Grandfather David. I show the invitation to Frank, and he reads the words of the Hopi Elder aloud:

  “‘You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, but now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered...

  ‘Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships. Are you in the right alignment? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time!