A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

by Hank Green

  I immediately started freaking out. How were these shitty little objects doing so well? The back of my neck was getting sweaty. I was panicking. That’s when I started realizing how much this meant to me. Fifty people in the whole world were going to get selected for an experience that was, if the people playing Fish were to be believed, a kind of nirvana.

  I logged out of the Space and logged into The Thread.

  Twelve: Does anyone know what’s going on with the new chintzy trinkets in the Altus Space Store?

  Eight: Celebrities. People with big internet audiences are asking their fans to buy cheap items to get them into the Space.

  Five: They’re billing them as “Limited Edition” items. They’re available “Only today and tomorrow!” So, like, exactly the days they need to sell stuff to get into the Premium Space.

  Twelve: Fuuuuuck. That’s shitty. The whole idea was that it would be available to the people who added the most value to the Open Access Space.

  Eight: Well, yeah, I mean . . . have you met capitalism? The whole idea of everything is to reward people who create value and yet . . .

  Twelve: Fuck. Why doesn’t Altus ban this?

  Eight: At a guess, probably because it’s getting them lots of users and free marketing and money.

  I was about to log back out when I got a private message from One.

  One: I need you to experience the Premium Space, and it’s possible you won’t need the help getting there. But can you tell me what your object is? I might be able to give you a bump at the last second if you need it.

  Twelve: It’s Breezy Spring Day.

  One: Hah, amazing. Breezy Spring Day is a genius object. Thinking to make wind! I love it.

  It was amazing how good it felt to have them compliment me. All anybody wants is to be appreciated by the people they think are cool, and it turns out I kinda idolized One.

  Twelve: I could also just tell my audience to buy it. It’s not like I don’t have an audience. Hell, I could just start selling custom limited-edition socks and it would put me over the edge.

  One: If you do that, you’ll get in, but you won’t be taken seriously. You’ll just be another rich person who bought their way in. You need to work for it, you need to really care.

  Twelve: OK, I’m going back into the Space, I think I’ll make a limited-edition Breezy Spring Day to make fun of the weblebrities. Some of the people who check on my work will find it funny at least. But maybe I can sell a few.

  One: This is such a great video topic. An open market rewards people who work hard and think critically at first, but once real value is at stake, the market rapidly transforms to reward those with access to capital. The fact that, in this case, the capital is fame and not money only makes it that much more universal and interesting.

  Twelve: Yes. The top 50 today compared to the top 50 yesterday shows directly that people who aren’t adding value have bumped out at least 10 people who are.

  One: And by the time the top 50 are selected, I wouldn’t be surprised if that number doubled.

  Twelve: Just leave me a message here if you want any help with that script.

  One: Will do. But first priority . . . get your ass in the Premium Space.

  So I did. I ate a protein bar and peed and went back into the Altus Space. First I checked the ranking. I was in forty-first. No doubt, if I didn’t change something, I’d be knocked out by celebrities soon. The top sellers were still all legit object creators, mostly people making super cheap clothes and decor that traded on having tons of sales. But there were enough people making environments that I was just one of many. I might have been one of the top creators, but I only had one product.

  I dropped into the Open Access Space and went ahead and did a gimmick. I cloned my Breezy Spring Day and made the sky pink and the grass purple and created low-flying, super-light objects that looked like massive, transparent crystals. It took me a couple hours to get the look right, but at the end, it was an alien world that still felt like a beautiful spring day. I released it under the name Breezy Spring Day: Alpha Centauri ~-[{(One Day Only)}]-~. Here’s what I wrote in the description.

  Hey, no offense to anyone who’s cashing in on their celebrity to get into the Premium Altus Space with ~-[{(Limited Edition)}]-~ trinkets . . . OK, actually . . . offense. This is dumb. If you want to see someone who has worked to actually create value, you can buy this very cheap, high-quality, slightly modified version of my 500,000+ download Breezy Spring Day for one day only.

  With six hours left, I was in the mid-thirties. And I felt secure enough to take a bio-break. Spending hours at a time in the Altus Space wasn’t uncomfortable until you left. You felt fine when you were in there, but the longer you stayed in, the more it sucked to come out. Headaches, body aches, low blood sugar.

  The stress of the ranking was real, but I felt like I couldn’t do anything else about it, so I did the healthy thing and went for a walk down to the Subway were Bex worked. Altus didn’t feel like a massive world-destroying entity; it felt more like Etsy at the moment. But that’s the way of these things. One day, an internet company wants to sell books, and then ten years later they’re a threat to nearly every industry on earth.

  The city felt a little dead. There just weren’t a lot of people out. I passed a store that said “Altus Headsets!” But then, under that, it said “Sold Out! Restock Thursday!”

  “Andy!” Bex called out as I came in. “Are you OK?”

  Apparently that’s how bad I looked.

  “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Altus Space,” I answered honestly.

  She pursed her lips and pushed them to the side of her face. “You and every other dude in New York. Business was starting to pick up with the recession, but now no one’s out at all.”

  “Business was picking up?”

  “Yeah, folks stop going to expensive lunch places, but they still need lunch! Now almost all of our orders are delivery apps.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if I dropped off the planet.”

  “You’re not the first guy who’s ghosted me for a couple days.” But she didn’t have her usual confidence as she said it.

  I looked at her gorgeous dark eyes and felt like such a complete turd. But she saved me from having to say something.

  “What’s Altus like?”

  “You haven’t been in?” I asked stupidly.

  She just laughed, though. “No, I’ve heard about it. They say it’s like the Dream. I miss the Dream.”

  “You were into it?”

  “Not any more than most people. I solved a couple sequences that had already been solved for fun. I mostly just walked around. It was nice to have a place to be alone.”

  I barked out a laugh. “That’s the opposite of the problem I have. I can’t find time to be with people.”

  “You know our lives are pretty different, right?” she asked.

  “I mean, yeah. That’s true of everyone but more . . .” And then I didn’t know what to say.

  “With the immigrant brown girl, yeah, you’re allowed to say we’re not the same, Andy.” I didn’t know if we were having a fight, but apparently we weren’t because then she just said, “Sweet onion chicken teriyaki?”

  “Yes, thank you. After tonight, I should have more time. Can you come hang out tomorrow?”

  “I’ve got another afternoon shift, so I can come over in the morning or late.”

  “Come over in the morning, I’ll either have something to celebrate or something to be miserable about. I’ll explain then.”

  “Why don’t you explain now? We’re closing, you can eat your sandwich and tell me what’s going on. If it’s so hard to find time to not be alone, just . . . stop being alone.”

  The urge to leave the Subway and rush back to my apartment to check on the rankings was almost a physical tug. I could feel the nerves on that side of my body light up with sensitivity. I closed my e
yes, took a breath, sat down, forcing my brain to settle, and unwrapped my sandwich, took a bite, and probably (knowing me) started talking with my mouth full.

  “The Altus Open Access Space is amazing. It’s like the Dream in that you’re completely immersed. It’s as real as this”—I gestured to reality—“but there’s basically nothing there. You have to buy things to fill your world with. But you can also earn in-game money by creating and selling objects for other people . . .”

  As Bex locked up, cleaned up, and mopped the floor, I followed her around, explaining the Premium Space, how I’d been fighting to get into the top fifty for the whole week and somehow had done it, but then found myself getting kicked out by celebrities.

  “But you’re a celebrity, why don’t you just join in?”

  “That’s not how I want to do it. I want to get in by creating something valuable, not by cheating my way in.”

  “No offense”—Bex put her mop back in the bucket—“but that’s some fool shit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, use what you’ve got, Andy. If you want in, get in. Nothing’s fair.”

  I thought back to the conversation I’d had with One.

  “OK, you’re right,” I said, still thinking. “But there’s more to it than that. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in the Premium Space, but I do know that there are going to be two kinds of people: people who created their way into the top fifty and people who just famoused their way in. I want to be in the first group.”

  She thought about this for a while.

  “You should’ve said that to start, then.” And then she started mopping again.

  “Are you sure I can’t help? It feels weird to just talk while you’re working.”

  “Now you’re back with the fool shit again.” She smiled. “I wouldn’t trust you to not fuck up, honestly.”

  “That’s probably a good call.”

  “So only fifty people in the whole world get to have access to . . . what?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling a little foolish.

  “But you’re probably freaking out right now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t know where you’re at in the standings.”

  “I don’t.”

  “And you managed to sit here and talk to me instead of refreshing over and over again?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “That’s pretty impressive, actually.” She pushed the bucket behind the counter.

  “How would you feel if I checked the rank now?” I said when she got back, my phone already on the table.

  “I mean, I’m interested.”

  I opened up a third-party website that lagged just a bit behind the ranks in the Altus store. It was 10:30. The top fifty would be chosen in ninety minutes. I was in fifty-seventh place.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Not good news?”

  “Fifty-seven.”

  “Is there anything else you can do?”

  “I could tweet that I made Breezy Spring Day and that I need people to go buy it and I’d be in the top fifty in like ten minutes.”

  “Is it worth not having the cred?”

  I just shrugged and then put my head in my hands. Who knew how things would look a week from now? I could keep dropping. This could be my only chance.

  I was literally opening Twitter when I got a DM from One.

  Don’t worry, I got it.

  Bex was done at the Subway, so we went back to my apartment to sit with Jason and refresh the page.

  Jason didn’t seem super invested in the whole thing. It felt like he was hoping I’d get pushed way back and give it up and go back to what he probably saw as a better lifestyle for me. A lifestyle where I did things besides get up to pee and eat a Clif Bar for ten minutes every five hours. My body really did feel like shit.

  I’d gone from a pretty meaningful life to one where I mostly did not get out of bed all day very fast.

  But Bex was on my side, and that was nice.

  At eleven, I was sixty-fourth.

  But then at 11:15 I was fifty-ninth and it seemed like I was climbing pretty fast.

  “Holy shit,” Jason said.

  “What?”

  “Well, I was just trolling Twitter to see if people are talking about your object at all, and I think I figured out why you’re rising in the ranks again.” He turned his phone to me and showed me the following tweet.

  Justin Bieber

  @JustinBieber

  Hanging out in the Altus Space. Breezy Spring Day is amazing. Go check it out.

  937 replies 8.4K retweets 29K likes

  “What the fuck,” Bex said.

  I texted One, Are you friends with Justin Bieber?

  They texted back, No comment.

  Wait, I replied. Are *you* Justin Bieber?

  A very fast reply: No comment.

  At 11:30 I was in the top fifty again, and by midnight I wasn’t even worryingly close to fifty. Justin Bieber had pushed me through the finish. The power of #influencers!

  Jason poured everyone a round of the only bottle of wine we had in the house, and we drank for fifteen minutes.

  “OK, you boys have a nice night. I’m going to go home,” Bex announced.

  “Why?” Jason asked. “You said you don’t have to work in the morning anyway. We should play a game or something.”

  “Jason, look at him.” She gestured at me. “He’s torturing himself not going back in the Altus Space right now. I’m shocked he’s lasted this long.”

  “No,” I said. “I can wait.”

  I did not want to wait. My body was literally itchy with the desire to go in and see whether I had access to the Premium Space and, if so, what on earth it was. But also, maybe Bex was going to stay the night. And if there was anything better than the Altus Premium Space . . . Ugh, I hate this sentence, I apologize.

  So we played some games, and drank White Claw, and smoked a little to celebrate my success. And then Jason and Bex talked while I went into my room and cleaned up what had become the worst possible room to bring a girl into.

  I went back into the living room and, immediately, Jason stood up and stretched comically. “WELP IT’S TIME FOR ME TO GO TO BED GOODBYE.” And then he slipped into his room.

  “Hey, you want to come . . . see . . .” I had no idea how I planned to finish that sentence.

  Bex moved over to me, and we were kissing and falling toward my room. She was so soft and real and smooth. Her lip balm tasted like raspberries and her hair smelled like . . . the way girl hair smells. Look, it was awesome, OK?

  * * *

  —

  I woke up a couple hours later hanging off the side of my double bed. I looked down at my watch and saw that I’d had a DM come in from One.

  Have you been in yet? We’re all waiting! Report!

  It was the first time Bex and I had been together. That was something that was really important to me. I knew that lying down on the floor in just my boxers and going into a full-immersion virtual space while she slept alone in my bed would be the opposite of respect.

  I lay down on the floor, put the headset on, and went to the Altus Premium Space.

  Ashe

  @marsupialpudding

  I’M IN! Just had my first @AltusLabs Premium Space experience and, like, I’m going right back in. GOODBYE! THIS WORLD HAS NOTHING LEFT FOR ME!

  110 replies 894 retweets 6K likes

  ANDY

  Hello, congratulations on having access to the Premium Altus Space,” Alta’s voice said to me as I entered. It looked exactly the same so far, just my breezy day filled with a few other objects people had made and I had purchased. Trees, a small home with some furniture and paintings. I hadn’t spent much time decking it out; I was more interested in
making the Breezy Spring Day nice and selling as many as I could.

  But then something very new suddenly blinked into existence: Alta. She was short, dark-eyed, dark-haired, pale skin. She was not April, but she looked enough like April that a stab of anger went through me. What the fuck were these people thinking? Why would they pick a model for their digital assistant who looked like the former nemesis of the company’s founder?

  She didn’t pay any attention to my emotional state and just kept moving with the script.

  “You may be thinking that, with the exception of my appearance, this doesn’t look so different actually.

  “But if you’ll open the Altus Space Store, you’ll find that you have access to many Premium objects constructed by Altus, available to you at no cost. And you will also see two new categories . . .” As she said this, the Altus Space Store automatically opened. “The first are our sandboxes. These are professionally constructed environments for you to enjoy and be yourself.”

  The Open Access Space was lacking significantly in things to actually do specifically because creating detailed, enjoyable environments was pretty hard.

  “And second we have experiences . . .” The Sandboxes menu closed and the Experiences menu opened. Here I saw a listing of categories:

  ADVENTURE

  EDUCATION

  DISCUSSION

  MUSIC

  BOOKS

  RELAXATION

  ADULT

  “Before you select any of these things, understand that this will not work how you expect. The Altus Space is not designed to be a primarily recreational platform; it is designed for self-improvement. Humans spend a third of their lives unconscious. When we at Altus lost access to the Dream, we realized that the great loss was that we would once again be unproductive during that time. With the Open Access Space, we have reactivated the ability to work while we dream. But here in the Premium Space, this ability turned out to be greater than we had imagined.