by Baron Sord
“Are you sure?” She seemed disappointed.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okaaaay,” she sighed, trying to guilt me into the upsell.
Wasn’t gonna work. “Sorry, but no thanks, Candice. Maybe next time.”
“I forgive you,” she grinned. “We can still chat between commercials.” SuperUber had figured out it was good for business if you developed a “personal” relationship with your AI avatar. In the last two years, they’d even worked therapy services into the mix. You could pay for 5 minute chunks while the car was driving. I never used it. But I still had to make small talk with Candice.
“Candice, is it okay if we chat next time? I’ve got a lot on my mind today. Sorry.”
She frowned, hurt. “If you really need silence, you can afford it and just stare out the window. It’s nice weather today. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the view better than looking at me,” she pouted.
I sighed. Riding in a SuperUber was worse than having a real girlfriend. “How much for the view?”
“$209.99.”
“I thought it was $159.99.”
“No, that’s for blackout windows with your choice of music videos from Billboard’s list of Hot 100 singles.”
“So, peace and quiet and a view is $209.99?”
“It’s within your reach, but you won’t be able to afford Cross-Fit tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned, “Gimme the commercials.” Like I said. Worse than a girlfriend who didn’t put out, because Candice couldn’t. Not that I would’ve wanted her to. She wasn’t a person.
“Your wish is my command, Logan,” Candice smiled, her words not quite matching her mouth movements. “We’ll arrive at your destination in 22 minutes. Talk to you in 5.5.”
Yes, they interrupted the commercials to force me to chat with Candice every 5 minutes. Was it too late for me to go back to the monorail?
Yup. They’d already charged me $39.99.
I sat back and tried to at least stay calm. Relaxed was out of the question.
The car windows faded to a deep dark tint, dimming the interior. The immersive commercials started blaring from the surround speakers. Thanks to LCD-based variable parallax barriers, you got glorious goggle-free 360 degree 3D in a billion different LED colors.
Welcome to your very own brainless paradise.
Felt like a bad acid trip to me.
A new hallucinogenic commercial ran every 15-30 seconds, each one too bright and too colorful and too loud. Life insurance. Lab grown meat. Soft drinks. Candy bars. Pre-made junk food of every variety. Toothpaste and dental work so you could eat more sugar. Pharmaceuticals so you could eat more junk food. Reality shows. Reality news. Fake news. Fake shows. And my favorite, Roombabe cleaning robots (looked like chromed up sex dolls to me, but the company claimed they actually cleaned your house and I’d heard they didn’t have the necessary orifices).
All of it was fake, fake, fake.
Riding in a driverless car was torture.
The monorail wasn’t much better. It had the self-tinting windows and the wrap-around commercials, but at least there were real people riding the monorail with you. You could talk to them if you wanted, and you didn’t have to talk to a damn avatar.
“Hey, Logan!” Candice popped up after 5.5 minutes of commercial hell. “Did you see that advertisement for Disneyland Dallas? Maybe I can take you there next summer when you’ve saved up enough for travel, lodging, and admission!”
I should’ve just walked.
“Sounds like a great idea,” I grumbled. “Maybe I can take you.” My sarcasm was clear as day. It wasn’t like she could go into the actual park with me. Just drive me there.
“Forget I said anything,” Candice grumped, offended. She could tell I was irritated. “Enjoy your next commercial,” she snooted. “It’s one of your favorites. Not.”
Kill me now.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A huge explosion rumbled from the seat speakers, the bass vibrating the entire car, followed by a blood curdling and terrifyingly monstrous roar.
“KREE-OAR!”
The screen was still dark, but this sounded like a trailer for a new VR movie. Something like X-treme Titan Team Up 2: The Power Rangers & The X-Men vs. King Kong & Godzilla, or something like that. I smiled at the thought. I could always get into a good action movie.
Fade in on total chaos.
An army of orcs sieging a castle full of humans.
“KREE-OAR!”
Both armies stop and turn to stare at the source of the roar. Fog on the battlefield blots out their view.
BOOM!
The ground shakes and the soldiers all gawk.
“KREE-OAR!”
Blasting out of the fog is a flying six-headed red fire dragon wearing six spiked collars. The chain reins on each lead to the hand of a fire giant sitting on a saddle on the beast’s back. The fire giant points his flaming sword forward. The dragon responds, beating enormous wings that blot out the sun.
First-person POV of the fire giant diving down toward the battlefield, banking around siege towers and swooping over the heads of countless cheering orcs.
“More real than real,” deep-voice announcer guy says.
Cut to: POV of the humans manning the battlements on the castle walls as six dragon heads open wide and unleash flaming hell. Human soldiers on fire scream and dive off the walls to their deaths.
“More alive than life,” announcer guy says.
POV of the fire giant as the fire dragon climbs skyward. CLOSE UP on the fire giant’s face as he chuckles lustily, enjoying the carnage.
WHA-ROOM!
A blinding white light explodes from the clouds.
The fire giant shields his eyes from the intense light.
A silver dragon emerges from the clouds. It has only one mammoth head bristling with fangs the size of swords. It’s easily bigger than the fire dragon. A knight in gleaming silver plate armor sits atop the saddle. His visor is down, his face hidden.
“Using our patented DreamBridge technology, you won’t know the difference between real life and game life. You become the hero. You save the day.”
The camera flies straight at the knight and shoots right through the slit in the visor.
WHITE OUT.
Switch to POV from the knight’s helmet, glancing down at silver gauntlets gripping the reins of the silver dragon’s harness. In the corners of the knight’s vision are semi-transparent status bars and icons. The fire dragon opens all six fiery maws as it bullets toward you. Molten magma drips out like red-hot saliva as the dragon inhales, ready to cook you in your armor.
Cut to: wide shot of the knight on his silver dragon diving straight at the fire dragon. The silver dragon roars and a storm of supercooled liquid mercury bellows out, crashing into the flames spewing from the fire dragon, quenching them with ease.
EXPLODE to BLACK.
The army of men erupts in a victorious roar.
“Live your dreams,” deep voice announcer guy says.
A wall of fog parts as the knight climbs atop the corpse of the fire dragon and—
WHOOM!
The camera shakes as the knight rams a lance into the chest of the dead red dragon, planting it like a victory flag.
“Be the hero.”
Cut to: the knight’s POV as a gorgeous woman in a chainmail battle bikini saunters toward you, her blonde hair billowing in the breeze. The sultry look on her face and the gleam in her eyes leaves nothing to the imagination.
“Claim your prize.”
She wants you.
“Reternity Online.”
“Play now.”
Cut to: NeuraSoft logo animation. Close up on a single neuron firing and lighting up the surrounding darkness as other neurons flicker to life. High-speed pull-back to reveal a web of billions of neurons connected in the shape of a human brain, all of them firing at hyper speed, the various sections of the brain lighting up in a rainbow of colors. The camera pulls back
farther, revealing countless network connections lasering straight into the brain from every possible angle, as if the brain were a cutting edge 3D cubic CPU at the core of the entire global internet.
Fade to tagline: Building Neural Software for a Better Humanity and a Better World.
FADE TO BLACK.
A moment later, Candice appeared, looking shell-shocked. “Wow. Did you just see that commercial for Reternity Online?”
I swallowed hard, trying to play it down. “Yeah, why?”
“It looks incredible, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.” I had no idea who the stacked blonde boob model in the chainmail bra was, but she was easily the hottest woman I’d ever seen. She was definitely a real person, not computer graphics.
“You totally want to claim her, don’t you?”
“Hell no.”
“Liar.”
“What makes you think I’m lying?”
“Your elevated heart rate, your increased blood pressure, and your dilated pupils. You’ve got a hard-on for this game, Logan. Literally. Don’t deny it.”
“Yeah, right,” I snorted sarcastically, shifting on the leather seat, my jeans suddenly tight.
That commercial was shameless manipulation. They ran a similar version of the ad on the monorail, but instead of the boob model at the end, they had some handsome prince dude handing you the scepter to the kingdom. Sure, a bunch of cute princesses stood behind him, but they were all dressed up to the neck and downplayed, so women watching the ad could relate too. But in a driverless car, they could tailor the ad to you. So dudes like me got the boob model.
Candice purred in my ear in a bedroom voice, “I’ll email you a discount code for a NeuraLink headset. In case you want one. Maybe we could hang out and party in Reternity? What do you think? Logan? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I ignored her.
I needed to stay focused on the reality of finding my sister, not playing a fantasy game.
—: o o o :—
“Sir, please place your feet on the footprints and hold your arms above your head like in the picture,” the soldier in the black tactical gear said as I stepped into the circular plastic tube of the full body scanner inside the US State Department building.
The machine shot cancer rays into my body, or whatever it used to check me for weapons. I wanted to make a joke about having chemical weapons up my ass because that burrito I’d eaten with Cisco was giving me the farts, but the soldier had a Glock in a hip holster, and the two soldiers behind him had M4s slung over their shoulders.
This was not the place to make jokes.
The soldier waved me through and I took an elevator to the eighteenth floor and sat in a waiting room until the receptionist told me to go inside.
I explained the situation with my sister to the agent in the fancy suit sitting behind the fancy desk.
When I finished, he said, “If we don’t know what country your sister is in, there’s no way we can begin an investigation.”
Elbows on my knees, I leaned forward in my chair and said, “What about her passport? Isn’t there an RFID chip in every passport nowadays? Can’t you track that with GPS or something?”
“We can, if it’s not shielded. And she has it on her person.”
I groaned.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Byrne. I wish there was more we could do.”
“Can you just try tracking her passport then?”
His eyes darted around his office while he thought of an excuse. “Unfortunately, we just don’t have the resources at this time.”
“But I showed you the ransom email! What am I supposed to do? I don’t have a hundred-fifty grand!” Nobody I knew did either. I couldn’t even scrape it together if I borrowed from everyone I’d ever met since kindergarten. In 2037, the wealth gap between the haves and have nots was that bad.
Department Guy straightened his tie. “My hands are tied, Mr. Byrne.”
“What about the woman you guys rescued last year? What was her name? The hostage where you guys sent Special Forces and helicopters in to pull her out?”
Department Guy said, “You mean Margaret Conway?”
“Yeah. You guys moved heaven and earth to find her. Why can’t you find my sister?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Margaret Conway was a goodwill ambassador for the United States of America.”
I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me. “My sister is a US citizen and she’s working for Giving Hands in Asia helping build schools and hospitals. Sounds like pretty damn good will to me.”
“That’s a different situation.”
“How?”
He cleared his throat, “Margaret Conway is also the daughter of a US senator.”
I was instantly twice as angry as before, “Oh, so because my sister is a nobody, you won’t do anything?”
The guy just stared at me, a fake smile on his face.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I seethed.
“Please understand, Mr. Byrne. We only have so many resources. Those resources have to be split up across 400 million other Americans. Right now, there are millions of US citizens traveling abroad. By the end of the year, the total will reach close to 100 million entering foreign domains this year alone. Some of them will find themselves in unfortunate situations like your sister. As much as we’d like to, we can’t help all of them.”
“And you can’t help my sister,” I grumbled.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “One thing I can do is flag her passport. See if she has crossed any borders in the past 24 to 48 hours. If she crosses any borders in the next 30 days, the State Department will automatically be notified.”
“What if she was taken by force against her will and smuggled? Will you know then?” The lid on my anger was rattling and ready to come off.
His face bunched up and he squirmed in his seat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Byrne. It’s the best I can do.”
“Not half as sorry as I am. Thanks for nothing.” I shot to my feet. I wanted to punch this guy in the face. But if I did that, the soldiers outside in the black tactical gear carrying the M4s would be all over me. And it wouldn’t help Emily.
“I’ll make sure her name is put into the system.”
“You do that.”
I slammed the door open on my way out of his office.
Total waste of time.
There was only one person left I could think of who might be able to help.
He was the last person I wanted to talk to.
My brother Jason.
—: Chapter 2 :—
Friday, March 13th, 2037
3:10pm
The Real World
After leaving the State Department, I made a detour back to my apartment so I could walk Benjamin Cowett home from the bus stop. Couldn’t let the kid face those 3 hyenas alone. He needed time to work up to that. And maybe a few fighting lessons first. I’d have to ask Harper later if she was cool with the idea.
While I was walking Ben home, I said, “Hey, bud. I hate to be a downer, but I don’t have time to read comics with you today. Is that cool with you?”
“Oh, man!” he groused. “Why not?”
I smiled because he cared. It wasn’t like I had my own kid to read comics with. Maybe someday. “I, um, I got some…” I couldn’t tell him about Emily. No way. It would freak him out. He’d tell his mom, then she’d freak out. “I’ve got some business I gotta take care of. Real important. We’ll do comics next week, okay?”
“Okay,” he moaned like I’d just told him we would never read comics again.
“Don’t worry, Ben. Monday. I promise.”
He nodded.
When we got to his front door, I said, “I’ll bring you some X-Men next week. How’s that sound?”
Ben grinned, “It sounds awesome!”
“Yeah, buddy,” I chuckled and turned to go. “Laters!”
“Hey, Logan!” He hollered, “What about Sunday? Are we gonna play Magic on Sunday?”
I smirk
ed, “Of course. You can slaughter me alllll day Sunday.”
He cackled laughter.
“Catch you later, bud!” I waved and jogged down to the monorail station and took the first train over to my dad’s apartment building on the other side of town.
While I sat on the train, I couldn’t help but think back to when I was a kid Ben’s age. Talking to him about Magic: The Gathering and seeing his enthusiasm for the game always took me back to when I discovered Dungeons & Dragons.
I’d first heard of D&D back around 2020 when I was 11. By then, the game was already up to 6e (a.k.a. 6th Edition), and there were a hundred rulebooks to buy, none of which I could afford. Each book went for around $50 or $60. Way out of my 11 year old price range.
(Side note: these days the D&D rules are up to 10th Edition. Although the books are relatively cheaper today, you can only get them digitally. The cool thing is, the pictures in the 10e rules are high-end 3D animations of the various character classes or spell effects or combat scenarios or monsters or what have you.)
Still, whenever I thought about what D&D had become, it made me laugh because the way I played it growing up didn’t need 3D anything. If you wanted 3D UltraHD animation, you played video games.
Anyway, I first discovered D&D when I saw a group of kids at school playing 6e at lunch one day. What I didn’t know at the time was that the game was transitioning over to entirely digital even then. The kids I saw playing didn’t have any books or dice or minis. They all had some D&D app on their phones that stored their rulebooks, their maps, their character sheets, everything. Did all the dice rolling and calculations on the app too.
Whenever they played, they’d sit outside at one of the school’s picnic benches under a shady tree, talking about whatever was happening in the game, but mainly they had their heads in their phones.
Since my Dad wasn’t having any of that future tech bullshit for his kids, I didn’t have a phone at the time (didn’t get one until I was 16 when I got a job and bought one). Sure, I’d sat with those kids at school a few times listening to them play, and it sounded frickin’ awesome to me as they talked about fighting monsters and treasure and whatnot, but I couldn’t join in without a phone. They weren’t dicks about it and didn’t mind me listening in, but eventually I got bored of trying to peer over some kid’s shoulder at his phone, so I gave up and went back to playing football or basketball with the kids on the asphalt. You didn’t need a phone to play 3 Flies Up or Poison.
