Netopia: A Thrilling Dystopian Novel (Science Fiction & Action)

by Y. G. Levimor

  "Robin? Uh…" Jack Smart faltered, and Robin carried on:

  "No shit, I couldn't believe how the first one sold. I cracked the code! I could see people believing the holy trinity of hope, light and love, and I drilled it in. I realized I could end up making millions. Millions? I made billions! And I'm not going to say it's been a breeze to sit down and come up with slogans about pink energies, but you tell me, Jack, who'd refuse to write more crap novels and invent silly branded methods after selling millions? 'Happiness is Within' is B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. And you know where it is? You really want to know? It's inside my Ferrari."

  "I apologize to all our viewers." Jack's thought trembled. "We’ve been experiencing technical difficulties. We'll be back shortly, I promise…"

  Robin disengaged the Community Party Mindsphere, refusing to acknowledge that it had actually happened and broadcast everywhere. No doubt about it, these were his true thoughts, but he kept them under tight wraps and never even considered authorizing their release. So how the hell… who let them out?!

  Even his late wife didn't know exactly how he felt about the genre, and there - now everybody knew. It wasn't what he came to expect from Minds security, which required all users transmitting public thoughts to explicitly verify their intent by approving publication on the digital lenses.

  Everything that happened since that morning has been a huge disruption.

  And he was always extremely careful, laying out clear talking points on the wall ahead of time, but now all these disastrous thoughts were loose, an authentic proclamation of belief. He didn't even have time to absorb it. The damage was done. He heard the hum of countless incoming thoughts in his head. They flooded in and his brain was burning. Reel must be on one of the incoming thought channels, most probably stunned and furious. And what would his readers say? They would see it as a betrayal of trust. He would be branded antisocial, egocentric, arrogant, but above all - a liar. A peddler of illusions. Which he really was.

  The flickering awards were suddenly stripped off his walls, leaving them bare. Robin's breath caught and he had to sit down. Get a grip. He breathed heavily and poured himself a drink. The dark purple hue of the liquid calmed him, reminding him of Liv. A part of him wanted to make sure not everything in his life was a wreck. Maybe if he got drunk enough, he would forget all that had happened. Or maybe it really was nothing, just a thought bubble that would blow away.

  ***

  After his angst subsided, he tried locating the interrupted interview on the Brainz collective search engine, where he could execute a cross-language search through the public thoughts of all Minds users. But instead of witnessing the horror in all its glory across thousands of user thoughts labeling him a common crook - a sugar coated charlatan - he couldn't find a single mention of that blasted interview. Nothing, not even a scrap of a thought.

  “Odd. Maybe I overdid it with the health juice, or did Jack Smart pull one on me?” He turned to face his owls, who immediately assembled before him. "This kind of embarrassment should be etched into millions of minds. There's no way… it has to be an error, some bug-generated event that never took place. I heard about incidents like this before, disruptions in network thought currents that generated fragments of thoughts. So everything is alright."

  Robin sighed in relief. Something positive had happened after a series of bizarre aggravations. Who knows, maybe he had found neuro-bliss after all. He smiled. He tried getting in touch with Reel again, but however hard he tried, he could not get through. "Fuck! I can't share any thoughts. This malfunction is starting to get on my nerves!" His owls, already sensitive to high pitched decibels, fluttered off to another room.

  The strange connectivity issues left him with no desire to do anything else. He just tried sharing thoughts over and over again, refusing to give up. He ate lunch, salmon and broccoli, chewed at length, ensuring every engineered bite would be properly digested, and thoughtmitted Emily in the process, without success.

  After lunch, he applied a skin care face mask prepared from fresh algae particles printed on the Dream Maker

  [3] . He paid a hefty sum to relish the scent of the algae that was now being applied by a pair of elastic hands that protruded out from the surface of the mirror, rubbing the secret of eternal life into his face. But it wasn't as enjoyable as he remembered. He was overwhelmed by anxiety. He inhaled several prolonged breaths to calm himself down before attending the launch of the anticipated first chapter of his new book, in an online event which already had more than 100,000 participants signed up worldwide.

  The launch of the chapter was to be the anticipated highlight of the event, followed by an open brainstorm, and all the conquest-of-happiness Who's Who were expected to show up. Whenever a better tomorrow was being promised, everyone wanted a slice. The first chapter shared the same title as the book, Discovering Neuro-Bliss. When asked about the theme of the book, he would answer emphatically, "It's about a man of science who succeeds in creating a new world. He creates a new Adam and Eve, and even programs the animals in nature to be kind. The moral of the book is that we are all our own programmers; negative thoughts are nature's bugs."

  Invited participants were flocking into this grand meeting of minds that had been flashing on their thought calendars days in advance. They were gathering inside Minds' Imperial Sphere, all dressed elegantly and to the farthest stretches of their imagination - women paraded hairstyles alternating between curly and straight, pink and lilac, corresponding to their whims and facilitated by tiny owls playing the role of accomplished hair stylists, while the men sported silver or golden pigmented hair.

  Smiles were flying everywhere and echoes of laughter bounced off every corner; random small talk thoughts were exchanged and cups of nutritional booze were dispensed, until finally Utopia made her appearance, the virtual host for the event, and urged all guests to take their seats.

  The virtual parlor was packed to the roof. Robin experienced a euphoric sensation, as he always did at events of this magnitude. The magnetizing power he had over people never failed to get his blood flowing. He let the crowd wait, to wind up the heightened anticipation of the worshipers. The first chapter was released at exactly the time specified, but instead of it filling the crowd's field of vision, the worst struck again.

  "Good evening, dear dimwits, you’re all gathered here because you're – how should I put it? Retarded. Enlightened. Are you here again, waiting for my words? Are you here again begging for someone to deliver you from yourselves and put you on the path toward happiness?

  "You're all so pathetic. Magnificent. Shit, I have the hots for my niece lately. She might be legal and all, but still… it’s a pickle… why does she have to barge into my brain, strutting around in that see-through mini skirt? Is she trying to get me hard? I could show her some things boys her age never heard about. It's true I haven't got laid in a good while, but who's counting? Neuro-bliss, a stupid notion. But who cares? The main thing is that you guys made me a fortune, and I'm living the life of a king. I can't believe you bought that shit."

  Dumbfounded looks were exchanged between the guests amid intensified whispering.

  "Anyone would be happy to rake in all that money, tell me otherwise and I’d call you a liar. Money shouldn’t blind you. True, money shouldn't, but shiny window displays of super designer shops… oh yes! Money invites trouble… and then some! Fillet mignon or creamed salmon with grated cheese in four seasonal colors… ha ha! What fun! Rich people's problems! Just buy my book, you human vermin, and have a marvelous day!"

  ***

  "What was that?" he shouted, horrified at the flickering room he was seeing inside his mind, which at times would empty out and then fill up again with people buzzing like wacky crickets. "Liv, dear, don't leave me by myself! Did you see what just happened? Parts of the written chapter got mixed in with thoughts I had while writing. I didn't really mean it, not exactly that. I still want you and no one else. Since you've been gone, I haven't been with anyone else. I was just
horny, I'm still a man after all, but I don't want anyone else, I swear! This is a catastrophe, I feel the blood draining from my head, I can't believe what happened, and you're not answering me!"

  He started crying.

  In a desperate effort, he whispered, "Isolate isolate isolate," to switch to private thought, but not even one shared thought went away. The things he said were still echoing in hundreds of thousands of minds and spreading out across the globe like wildfire, thanks to the simultaneous automatic translation program churning them out in 120 languages.

  Before long mixed reactions began to reach him:

  "It's the post-post-post-postmodernism!"

  "This time Robin Nice outdid himself."

  "What was that trash?"

  "The greatest writer of our time has delivered a masterpiece."

  "Looks like you took a strong hit of something there, bud."

  "Nice is a grandmaster trickster, a genius of marketing!"

  Some considered it a sophisticated stunt, and that Robin Nice had incidentally come up with a new form of language.

  Stunned, Robin disengaged Community Party and tried to think about nothing else but Liv. He needed her so much in that ghastly moment.

  He collapsed on the floor, exhausted.

  Years and years of keeping up a clean image just blew up in my face, he thought. What will I do? What am I going to do now? He could hardly breathe. He reached out for the minty oxygen mask that automatically dangled from the ceiling, responding to distress signals from his body.

  Again he tried transmitting a thought to Emily, and failed. He searched for the event on Brainz. "Focus, Robin, focus," he muttered, but couldn't find a trace of it. Was it a figment of his imagination all over again? Was he going insane? Were these connectivity issues signs of an acute mental deterioration?

  Robin scoured the web for quotes and mentions of his name among the several billion stray published thoughts. He scrolled through all the titles of books he'd written, all the names of reporters that were ever in touch with him, all book reviews, all lists of awards, but every query he submitted drew a blank. The name ‘Robin Nice’ was being emptied out of all users' public clouds, until it was finally gone.

  Now he got it, the fool. It wasn't just that other interview that had been removed, but all records of his virtual existence were being wiped out. A lifetime of information could not simply vanish. His entire life left without a backup.

  “It's not possible, not possible!” he kept repeating in agitation. “Liv, what do I do? It's like I don't exist, but I'm here!”

  Silence.

  On his shoulder he felt the feathery touch of a wing. Robin turned his head and saw a little owl listening.

  “Go away. You deserve better. I'm nothing.”

  ***

  This isn't a malfunction, he told himself, it's a reputation sabotage spreading like a tumor in the brain. The most painful and offensive thing for Robin to witness were the thoughts and musings of other people, and realizing that the world kept turning, and that he had no part in it. He could not establish communication with anyone; no one could recognize him. He tried thinking who could he go to for help, but couldn't turn the Ferrari's ignition on, and no digital door would open to his incognito voice. Knocking on doors was a ludicrous idea. It's not like anything opened without a Minds verification.

  “How could this be happening?” he shouted and threw punches into the air. “They gave me a life and - just like that - they take it away, no warning! They have me hooked and now I'm being disposed of like junk.”

  He wanted to hold Liv so much, but felt as dead as she was.

  Throughout their life together, he very often needed her hugs. Liv was the only one who would pick him up every time he lost it, which he did a lot. With some hidden power she had, she could make him feel like everything was going to be alright.

  He played another memory, back to the day when his entire manuscript disappeared, backup and all. He was a wreck. Two years of writing evaporated.

  “How am I supposed to carry on?” he whimpered.

  “You're going to do much better on your next one, the one you haven't written yet, I promise.”

  “But it was a good book, wasn't it?” he asked, in a broken voice.

  “No, no. In truth, it was bad, horrible, even. You know it. Even you despise all of it. It's good that this happened.”

  He was encouraged by Liv's words and being in her arms mellowed him. They stood like that for a long while, until he felt the need to write again.

  “What would I do without you?” he whispered.

  “The exact same thing,” she laughed.

  The memory clip ended, and Robin threw himself back into the search, obsessed with trying to find any information about himself, but coming up empty. He kept trying, hoping the problem would work itself out and that his life would be restored. For the first time in a long while, he heard silence. A stinging tranquility. For all the times he shouted at Liv for disrupting his concentration, not once had he asked for such a deafening silence. After more than two decades of being a celebrity king, he had become, all at once, inconsequential. No one had him in mind. He was distraught to learn that payments to the health food and body care vendors had not gone through. The meager supply he was left with would soon run out, leaving him living like a dreg. No minerals. No vitamins. No Dream Maker cartridges.

  His last conversation, before all communications were out, had been with the voice of George, the congenial personal agent responsible for his finances and a longtime confidant. But the attempt delivered only anguish.

  “George, it's me, Robin Nice. I can't connect with my money!” he fired off, pacing about his living room, watching George's huge iconic image floating midair. He touched the image for strength.

  “George at your service,” said the man flickering in front of Robin, snug in a form-fitting suit and tie, his hair oiled back. “My apologies, the system does not identify your voice. Please leave your name and account number and we will assist you promptly.”

  “George, don't you recognize me? It's me, Robin. Robin Nice. N-I-C-E, right? George...?”

  “George at your service. The system does not -”

  “Fuck, George, it's me!” he shouted, red and agitated. The incessant pleading with the voice that did not recognize him took years off his prospective existence and made his tight skin stretch some more. He poured another drink, his fifth, but saw that the bottle was already empty. He was left with one bitter drop, and a bitter depression closing in on him.

  "Robin Nice. Robin Nice. Robin Nice!"

  He hurled the glass, and it whizzed straight through the image of George, who did nothing to absorb the hit and the glass smashed on the opposite wall. The man would not recognize him and there was nothing he could do about it. Without his identification, he could not touch his funds.

  George was the portal, the gatekeeper, the window to his investment portfolio and any financial activity.

  After a while the connection dropped.

  ***

  Despite everything, Robin was determined to arrive at the prestigious DigiB convention and accept the award, another sizable deposit to his bank account. Even though he couldn't confirm his attendance, he wouldn't miss it for the world. George or no George, he was getting ready for a long drive in his flying Ferrari. He wore a fancy black suit, made to measure and personally imported. But again, his Ferrari would not move when he told it to. He tried forcing the buttons, with no effect. He yanked his strangling bow tie loose and buried his head in his hands.

  "Piece of useless junk!" he shrieked. "Bastards! I'll show you!"

  He slammed the door with a vengeance, went out to the street and waved his arms, hailing the cars passing above. There were very few cars flying outside above unidentified persons; network outcast headcases had no business being outside come sundown, or ever. To his astonishment, a silver Volvo landed next to him. Robin explained to the annoyed passenger that his neocar had been
rendered useless, and asked for a ride to the Escapade Hotel. Miraculously, the man was headed in the same direction.

  On the way there, Robin was absorbed with many thoughts. Like how he would receive the award, and how he should thank the audience. He decided not to mention the technical issues. Perhaps all he really had to do was wait for a thought technician to make rounds. First of all, he would thank those who believed in him. Meaning, himself.

  "You look excited, and you're elegantly dressed," the Volvo owner observed.

  "I'm going to receive an important literary award," he answered proudly and rearranged his bow tie. "I'm Robin Nice, the author."

  "Oh, well done! You'll have to excuse me, I'm not very familiar with the field."

  "You mean you haven't heard of me?" he asked, disappointed.

  "Ah, no. I've just been searching for your name on Brainz, trying to remember. Are you an important writer?"

  "Don't bother, the thing's broken," Robin mumbled, not able to tell if he was feeling more offended or distressed.

  "Are you excited?" the car owner was trying to make his hitchhiker feel comfortable.

  "Very. I may have received many awards before, but this one feels like a first. I'm going to dedicate it to my wife; she passed away two years ago."

  "That's a very nice gesture. Who’ll be attending the ceremony?" the man looked at him curiously.

  "The community editors will be waiting there for me, and also senior professionals from the field, and dignitaries from all over the world."

  He could already visualize the applause and warm welcome, how he'd be treated like an old family member. He felt a little better, and considered how, maybe, it was all going to work out. In there, face to face, he would be able to explain everything that happened, and, who knows, it might all be material for his next book. He allowed himself a modest smile, encouraged by the thought that everything could turn out for the best. Out of darkness and into the light. Unaware, Robin began believing the same stuff he was peddling to his readers.