The Stories of Ibis

by Hiroshi Yamamoto

  As soon as the window closed, our order materialized in front of us along with a voice that chirped, “Enjoy!”

  Sitting across from the young man, I wondered if I had chosen the wrong place to go. He certainly stood out among the young fashionable girls that filled the parlor. He seemed restless in his surroundings.

  The fancy restaurants and cafés that lined the virtual streets were all the rage among women. Even though the meals were a lot cheaper than in real life, the taste was the same, not to mention you didn’t consume a single calorie, making it perfect for dieters. Virtual anorexia, a disease in which people ate only in virtual space and refused to eat in the real world, had become something of a social issue.

  “Hey, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Subaru Kashimura. The kanji character for ‘Subaru’ is a little hard—” He opened up a personal window in front of him and displayed the kanji character for “Subaru.” “You write it like this.”

  “Oh, what a lovely name.”

  “And you are?”

  “Mizumi Onouchi. You write the characters for ‘water’ and ‘ocean’ and read it ‘Mizumi,’” I explained.

  “Mizumi-chan,” he said. “Man, I’m so glad you’re real.”

  “Huh?”

  “To tell you the truth, you’ve been on my mind for a while now. I mean, I always see you reading at that bookstore, and every time I passed by that store I wondered what kind of girl you were.”

  “Oh, I see.” I had to admit that I had never noticed Subaru before.

  “Hey, but no kidding. I was nervous all the way up until I talked to you. You’re always at that bookstore, and you give off such a classic good-girl vibe that I thought you might be a non-player ES.”

  Non-player ESes—characters not controlled by users—were planted in some stores to make them look crowded with customers. Though non-player ESes, which operated with a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence, basically looked and acted like real ESes, you could the tell the difference because their responses sounded unnatural in conversation.

  “By the way, I live in Yokohama. I’m connected from a sleep gate near the train station. What about you?”

  “I’m from Jiyugaoka,” I replied.

  “Hey, we aren’t that far away. What a coincidence. Which gate?”

  “Actually, I have access at home.”

  “What, you have a NONMaRS at your house? All right!”

  It was no wonder Subaru-san was surprised. Although the NONMaRS (Nano Objective Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Scanner) system, indispensable for connecting to MUGEN Net, had become pretty popular, it still cost almost a million yen and took up a fair amount of space. It wasn’t something that the average household could buy easily. Most people used the system at their workplace or rented NONMaRS access for five hundred yen an hour at a communications facility known as a sleep gate. You could find them in just about any city.

  According to my father, there used to be places before I was born called Internet cafés where customers could surf the net. But with the proliferation of computers in the home, the number of cafés rapidly declined. MUGEN Net was probably in a similar period of transition now.

  “My father is in the Internet business, so he bought it for work three years ago. He lets me use it at night and on his days off.”

  “So you always connect from home?”

  “Yes, my parents say that I shouldn’t go out by myself, so—”

  “Gee, you really are a proper lady.” Subaru-san seemed thoroughly impressed. “No wonder you seemed a little unusual. I have to admit I was shocked when you blurted out, ‘Thank you!’”

  I blushed. The NONMaRS read my emotions and colored the palette of my ES’s face red, to be exact.

  Afterward, we chatted about each other’s hobbies. We both enjoyed going to the movies, the kind at the virtual theater that took over all five of your senses, making you feel like you were a part of the action, of course. With the proliferation of MUGEN Net, the old two-dimensional movies were quickly becoming a thing of the past, which made my father, a fan of such movies since he was young, lament the changing times.

  Cherry Street also had a theater that showed a different program every month. When I told Subaru-san that I liked action films, he exclaimed, “You don’t say!” I got that a lot. I wonder if it was because I looked reserved and talked slowly.

  I guess I was on the introverted side. But that didn’t necessarily mean that I liked tame things.

  “I’ve always aspired to be active since I was little.” Before I knew it, I found myself sharing my innermost thoughts with someone I’d just met. “My mother is a wonderful storyteller who used to tell me all kinds of stories every night before I went to bed. That’s what stirred my imagination. I used to dream about running free in the countryside, becoming an astronaut or an explorer who went on adventures all over the world—the kinds of things I could never hope to accomplish. That’s why I like going to the virtual theater that makes my dreams come true, even if it is fake.”

  “I see.” Subaru-san nodded. “Then maybe we can go together some time.”

  “Yes, but I think Nire’s Tree on Nightmare Street is playing this month.”

  “Right, maybe a gorefest isn’t such a great idea.”

  As we continued to talk, there was a beeping sound, and a red light flashed next to my head. It was a sound that only I could hear and a light only I could see.

  “Oh…”

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’m so sorry. My alarm just went off.”

  “The color timer?” Subaru-san looked disappointed.

  It was the overtime access warning signal, otherwise known as the “color timer.” Although the NONMaRS essentially posed no adverse effects on the brain, there were those who believed that the effects of the magnetic field and electromagnetic waves increased the risk of cancer. For this reason, an alarm went off and a light flashed every minute after three hours so people didn’t stay connected for extended periods.

  “I must have been at the bookstore longer than I thought. I have to go.”

  “That’s too bad. Can I see you again?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Where do you want to meet? We don’t live that far away from each other, so I guess we could meet for real too.”

  My heart skipped a beat. That wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t keen on the idea of meeting in the real world.

  “But not if you don’t want to.” Subaru-san hastily took back the offer after noticing my troubled look. “No, you’re right. It’s too soon to ask you to meet for real.”

  As relieved as I was, I felt guilty seeing Subaru-san so disappointed. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that I don’t like you…

  “Then where would you like to go? I’d be up for anything.”

  “Yes… um…” I started to speak but faltered. Could I ask someone I had just met something so forward?

  “What is it?” Subaru-san waited for me to finish.

  I reconsidered and summoned my courage. “Um… could we go to Dream Park?”

  “Huh?” Subaru-san seemed taken aback.

  Yes, I preferred Dream Park to the theater. In the theater, I was nothing more than an onlooker, while Dream Park enabled me to be the heroine of my very own adventure. I’d been hooked since my first time in grade school. Although I’d never counted, I’d probably played over a hundred times.

  However, the scenarios I’d played up until now had all been C (child) grade. The reality was toned down quite a bit out of consideration for the negative psychological effects it might pose to child users. When you struck down a monster with a sword, not a single drop of blood was spilled, and the enemy disappeared as soon as you defeated it. It was all a kind of trickery to eliminate any scenes of cruelty or immorality.

  I had turned sixteen last month. I was old enough to play the Y (young) grade scenarios, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to go. It took courage to try out a new grade alone.

  Pl
us, I was getting rather tired of playing on my own. I longed for someone who would play with me. Having been brought up very carefully, I had only my parents to play with. But an adventure in which you were accompanied by a parent wasn’t an adventure at all.

  “What do you think? Would you mind playing with me?”

  “Sure. If you don’t mind me tagging along.”

  “Thank you!” In my excitement, I bowed my head again, getting whipped cream from my sundae in my hair.

  The color timer prodded my exit. We quickly decided upon a time and place to meet. Two o’clock next Sunday in front of the Dream Park entrance on Cherry Street.

  After thanking Subaru-san repeatedly, I opened up a personal window and selected END TRANSMISSION. I was disconnected from MUGEN Net and returned to the real world.

  3

  ENTRANCE TO A WORLD OF ADVENTURE

  The six days that followed were the longest, most heart-pounding six days of my life. When I thought about next Sunday, I became so distracted during my studies that I couldn’t hear a word my tutor was saying.

  My heart skipped a beat when my mother asked at the dinner table, “Did something good happen to you?” Apparently my excitement was plastered all over my face. I hastily made something up to dodge the question. There was no way I could tell my parents that I had been picked up by a boy on Cherry Street.

  My first pickup, my first date, my first Y-grade scenario—it was all new to me.

  I couldn’t tell whether this dizzying feeling was love or not. I’d never been in love before. The levelheaded part of me questioned whether I might just be in love with the situation. Maybe so. It was too soon to fall in love with someone I had met only once and barely knew anyway.

  I didn’t even know if a romance in virtual space could be called a romance to begin with. After all, Cherry Street was an imaginary place, and ESes were imaginary, no matter how true to life they appeared. Would Subaru-san have tried to pick me up if we had met in a real town?

  My heart-pounding week was also ridden with angst. What would I do if Subaru-san asked to meet for real again? When I thought about the possibility of Subaru-san hating me, I didn’t have the courage to meet him face-to-face in the real world.

  While I continued to worry over such things, Sunday arrived.

  It was twenty minutes before the appointed time. I went into my father’s study as usual, took out my hairpin, removed my broach and bracelet phone, and dropped them in the shield box. The NONMaRS employs a magnetic field that causes metal objects to become magnetized and cell phones to malfunction; you had to remove them beforehand.

  Settling into the recliner, I strapped on the harness, felt above my head, and grabbed the headset that usually hung on the back of the chair.

  My father once explained to me very proudly, “The headset is the most essential part of the NONMaRS.” The practicability of cut-rate superconductive materials and advances in high-density optical computers that could process information at high speeds had made nuclear magnetic resonance scanning on the 100-nanometer level a reality. It was now possible to monitor the activity of every single nerve cell in the brain in real time. Not only could the NONMaRS capture human thoughts and senses as data, it stimulated the sensory cortex, enabling you to experience the same sensation of sight and taste as in real life.

  I didn’t care a bit about how it all worked. To me, the NONMaRS was a magical hat that freed me from my constricted reality and took me to a different, freer world.

  I rubbed the surface of the headset, as was my ritual, before slipping it on. The headset was about the size of a small washbasin, weighed down by small superconductive coils, with four optical cables and an air-pressure tube attached to it. Its surface was grainy with gold speckle that was pleasing to the touch. O, magical hat, take me away to Cherry Street!

  I slipped on the headset and hit the button on the side. The inner cushion inflated, fixing the headset around my scalp. Now that I was set, I felt for the button on the armrest and pressed it.

  Fffp.

  I felt my body float up out of the seat. With my tactile senses intercepted, it felt as though the chair beneath me had vanished. I floated all by my lonesome in the dark in zero gravity, unable to tell up from down, right from left. The lights in the distance, blinking like stars, came from the NONMaRS reading my cerebral patterns.

  A window popped open, and the usual opening message and logo appeared before me as a familiar melody played.

  Welcome to MUGEN Net!

  copyright © 2014

  by MUGEN NETWORK Corporation

  Last logged out

  05/10/2020 16:38:44

  You have no unread messages

  I ignored the endless “latest news” announcements that followed and opened a personal window. I selected CHANGE COSTUME and chose the cutest-looking items from my stock of V-wear.

  This took some time, as I hesitated over this and that. In addition, I selected CHANGE MAKEUP, an option I rarely used. Staring at the projection of my face in the window, I tried changing my skin tone slightly but couldn’t find a shade I liked.

  Before I knew it, it was three minutes to two. I gave up obsessing over my makeup and closed the menu. I then selected JUMP and visualized the place where I needed to go. Cherry Street in front of the Dream Park entrance…

  The window disappeared, and just when I noticed the area becoming flooded with light—

  I was standing on Cherry Street.

  Subaru-san jumped in around five past two. He was wearing the same leather jacket as before.

  “Sorry, the sleep gate was crowded. Were you waiting long?”

  “N-no, I just got here.”

  “Great, let’s go in.”

  We walked through the colorful arch with the letters DREAM PARK dancing overhead and went inside.

  It was difficult to imagine just how vast the park was from the outside. There were buildings and monuments of every color, and lively music played in the background, just as though we were in a real theme park. Dragons, biplanes, and fairies flew about, while on the ground, robots and animals roamed and frolicked with children. There seemed to be quite a few visitors today, what with it being a holiday and all.

  Of course, such a scene had been created purely for ambience. Since you could jump freely to each area by following the directions on the guidance panel at the main plaza, there was hardly a need to walk inside the park.

  Dream Park offered over twenty types of adventure worlds. Although “Fantasy” and “Space Frontier” were especially popular, you could choose any area to suit your taste, from “Wild West” to “Pulp Detective,” “Ninja and Samurai,” “Super Team,” “Atomic Monster,” “Night Horror,” “South Sea Adventure,” “Sky Ace,” “Robo Wars,” “Secret Mission,” “Martial Arts,” “Tabloid Report,” “Toon Street,” and “Young Romance.” Of course, there was a wait at the more popular areas on crowded days.

  Subaru-san and I chose “Jungle Drum,” an adventure, though not a terribly authentic one, set in early twentieth century Africa. Although this area had the advantage of not having a wait since few people played it, I was quite fond of it because I liked animals. I had played the area on C-grade a number of times, but I was curious to see what would happen on Y-grade.

  Before entering the world, you still had to transform into your persona—the character you took on in the adventure world.

  The faces and figures of ESes essentially had to look the same as those of the users themselves and, with the exception of certain physical disabilities, couldn’t be altered. However, Dream Park was an exception in that you could freely choose your persona’s appearance.

  I went into a small room called a dressing room, where I projected my persona over my ES with the same ease as changing my clothes. I decided to use the persona that I had used in a C-grade scenario. Subaru-san was playing “Jungle Drum” for the first time, so he had to create a persona to use for this area. Since I was a native warrior, he chose to play
an explorer to balance out the team.

  If you chose the “archetype” setting, the persona’s ability level, skills, weapons, and basic equipment were automatically decided for you. Then all that was left to do was to acquire additional abilities, pick out some extra equipment, choose how the character would look from dozens of preset designs, and give the character a name, all of which could be done in five minutes.

  Once Subaru-san was done creating his persona, we took a moment to look at each other.

  Subaru-san had chosen an Indiana Jones look for himself. He had a gun and a whip hanging from his belt. His ES was already fairly good-looking, and his persona looked wild and cool too.

  “Uh, is that really you, Mizumi-chan?” Subaru-san looked a little surprised to see my persona.

  Looking down at my appearance, I feared that I might look too bold. Having only played alone up until now, I had never paid much attention to how my persona might be seen by others. I had on something like a leopard-skin bathing suit and little else. I was tall with long hair and had a necklace made of animal teeth wrapped around my neck. My weapons were the spear in my hand and the knife hanging at my waist.

  In whatever area I played, I consistently chose a persona with immense physical prowess. Because I wasn’t able to run free to my heart’s content in the real world, I alleviated my unhappiness and feelings of inferiority by playing a character that was my polar opposite.

  “My name is Pansa. In this area anyway,” I answered, fidgeting under Subaru-san’s gaze. This tanned and slender body looked nothing like that of my ES, to say nothing of the body of Mizumi Onouchi. Even though I understood that in theory, I still felt embarrassed to be stared at by Subaru-san.

  In any case, we picked a Y-grade scenario and stepped into a world of adventure.

  4

  THE TWO IN THE JUNGLE

  Bang! Bang!

  Subaru-san’s gun drilled two bullets into the panther’s skull. The panther crumpled to the ground.