The narrow moving stairs brought him from under the ground and straight into the overpopulated downtown, the maze of narrow streets, towering concrete walls, and broken asphalt no longer good to drive on. A thin strip of the faraway skies was still grey, but the morning drizzle stopped for a while. Ben threw his head back, enjoying the weak rays of blurred sunlight seeping through the clouds, finding their way down between the many clotheslines crisscrossed overhead, strung between perpendicular project buildings.
“Pew! Pew! You’re dead, ninja scum! I’m with the Assassins, y’all!” Ben heard, and then was nearly swept off his feet as he was rushed by a flock of young boys, one of them armed with a beeping toy pistol.
Swarms of little children were playing in the street, some of them shooting each other with pseudoplastic toys, some busy baking mudcakes in the sun, some stretched on small patches of grass among the broken asphalt, playing puzzle games. Children were not allowed into the Dreamweb until they reached fourteen years old, and movies, along with videogames, were gone from the Wakeworld, banned by most of its governments in a drastic attempt to steer future generations away from addictive virtual life.
Ben smirked at the kids as he squeezed past their noisy encampment. He was sure all the measures were futile, and every second kid he saw in the street, no matter how little, was quite familiar with the Dreamweb. Ben remembered how his friends at school took him there for the first time; through an illegal access point ran by a cynical chubby man with tattoos on his arms. Ben was eight years old then, and he’d visited the Dreamweb on regular basis since then, not every night or day, but at least once a week. He mostly went to the places full of steel bikinis and weaponry, where he could try all kinds of weapons on all kinds of targets. And those were the times when public school was still somewhat mandatory, not completely replaced by the “homeschooling” of today, which mostly consisted of learning mental commands to give to a computer in order to get what you wanted.
I can only imagine what Father would say if he knew most of them can’t even read anymore, Ben thought, squeezing past more and more kids, their bunches at times supervised by silent mothers.
It wasn’t just kids. Many girls Ben dated inside the Web, the girls his age, would choose their movies or foods based on images and not the printed words. If they absolutely needed to read something, they brought up a virtual assistant, a thing or sometimes a small creature to read everything aloud to them.
“But not Daphne,” he muttered. Not her. Daphne was special. This girl could read. And dance. And fly a helicopter. And she knew a lot. And disregarding all this, from their very first date, Ben felt at ease with her, very comfortable by her side. And he missed her terribly now, especially given the fact that they’d parted in such a stupid manner, both despawned via a random sniper bullet.
The residential blocks fell behind him and the sky overhead was gone — Ben stepped under a section of an old dilapidated motorway, a huge steel-and-concrete piece of an overpass resembling a giant broken table, still standing despite its ancient age, city maintenance bots crawling all over it keeping its decaying frame together, their little welding fireworks sizzling here and there.
This was a famous hobo neighborhood. Instead of little kids, Ben now had to make his way between small droves of homeless folks resting on old automold mattresses or huddled around little glowing blocks of plastic — battered weatherpods, devices that made their traditional barrel furnaces obsolete.
A weatherpod was another thing of old, same as most of these homeless, Ben thought. A relic from back when people still went out camping. Each weatherpod unit tried to control the climate around it as best as it could, providing heat or cool breeze, regulating moisture levels — each of these things could even dissipate the rain overhead when it wasn’t a downpour.
At least, being homeless in the year 2099 is comfortable like never before, Ben thought. A few of these unkempt characters lying on their mattresses even had ancient VR glasses on, he saw. Ben didn’t doubt these folks had their own crèche in here somewhere, built of pieces of pseudoplastic and artificial wood with an illegal sonolight inside providing them with the Dreamweb access day and night. In the Web, even these hobos could own luxurious homes.
Essential Choppers, the workshop established by Ben’s father and his partners half a century ago, was a nondescript garage-like façade squeezed between two massive buildings — former office towers the construction bots had converted into residential places back in the 2060s, when the housing crisis struck right after the energy crisis was seemingly conquered. The workshop seemed tiny compared to the buildings next to it, and yet its placement resulted in a gap between them which wasn’t a street; a constant thorn in the city-planning AI’s side. If Ben had wanted to, he could have sold the business for quite a hefty sum by now. They wouldn’t be buying the workshop itself of course — no one was interested in buying the workshop. They all wanted the land it occupied. This was why Ben knew that the moment he did sell his father’s business, Essential Choppers, the last place of its kind in the entire Wakeworld would be demolished in the blink of an eye. This was what held his father back from selling it, and this was what held Ben. At least, until now.
Inside, the workshop was a single hall with a couple of backrooms, all concrete and cement and pipes and neon and steel and brickwork and painted-on motor oil stains — everything made to look as genuine as possible despite a huge old 3D printer mounted in the middle, a pseudoplastic device of a futuristic design that was popular once and looked extremely tacky in 2099. The place smelled of gasoline, always. Ben kept tapping into the last dregs preserved by his father, mixing the fuel into the air-conditioning fluid to add this specific aroma. With the smell of it gone, he knew the shop would instantly feel much less authentic.
“Hey boss. Nothing to report as usual. Ah wait. No. Some fellow’s been asking for you, a rich type. He left an ID tag, wanted you to call him.”
Ben’s only employee, Diego, reclined prostrated in an automold chair stretched past any chair properties and reduced to a narrow couch. Diego styled himself as the last biker on planet Earth, and he wore the battered leather jackets of his grandpa to back up his statement. Since the actual roads were gone now, not to mention the fuel, Diego spent most of his Wakeworld days either polishing and detailing the inventory or having himself an endless siesta, listening to a portable Web radio as ancient as his jackets, yet another thing of old that barely worked but somehow refused to die.
“Man, not Strawberry Fields again, you know I hate this song,” Ben complained, making his way past Diego and a few choppers they had on display, all in different states of disassembly.
“Well, it’s radio, man,” Diego responded from under his battered baseball cap. “You cannot just pick songs on the radio, you know.”
“Switch it to another station then,” Ben said. “Turn it off. Do anything. This track, it just drains me of my will to live.”
“Maybe the lad who came in this morning will want to buy something?” Diego made no move to do anything. “I mean, he was rich. He had this… cool long coat and everything. Hovershoes. Maybe he’ll buy something from us, yeah? Why not?”
“Hovershoes,” Ben muttered as he unlocked the small office in the back of the hall. This was the fad that he believed had ultimately killed roads, along with road trips and motorbikes. It was so easy to travel in hovershoes, a pair of thick-soled boots that kept you an inch above the ground and steered you in any direction you desired to go without any effort on your part, merely on a mental command. And they weren’t even too expensive, these shoes, unless you wanted to buy a new pair every month.
This was nothing new of course; both the technology and its control interface had existed since the beginning of the century, except it wasn’t half as miniature and lightweight and practical back then. Still, this gadget went big a couple decades ago, and then cars went nearly extinct. Hovershoes were a mark of someone who would never choose to own a
gasoline-driven thing, especially back then, with gasoline already more expensive than vintage wine.
Ben examined his dusty office and sighed. It was quite silly to expect anything from this call except a new buyout offer. Their last real order came in a lengthy two years ago, from a Faith-affiliated group arranging a big parade of old motor vehicles as a protest to the End of Gasoline. Since then, it had been only buyout offers over and over again, in all forms, from sleek and user-friendly AI-composed messages to veiled threats from government functionaries who were still theoretically human.
A plastic caller ID card in his hand, Ben switched on the full presence call console he had installed in the office, a thing meant to remove a wall and connect your room with another person’s habitat, letting you do anything but step in and shake hands with them. After a moment’s thought, he decided to stick to the voice call for now.
“Benjamin!” His caller was not surprised by the lack of visuals. “Or do you prefer Ben?”
“Benjamin is fine,” Ben replied, though no one really called him that. “Who am I talking to?”
“My name is Mr. Reaper — James Reaper. I represent a group of private collectors residing mostly in the Dreamweb, yet quite interested in the cultural and technological inheritance of the physical world. There’s a certain business venture I would like to discuss in person. Would you mind — ”
“Is this an acquisition offer?” Ben asked.
“Would you mind if I visit your workshop tomorrow at this time?”
Hovershoes, Ben thought, gritting his teeth.
“I’m not selling the business,” he said. “If your offer is about that, I’m telling you now: no deal.”
“I liked your old-school Harley modification, as well as the Triumph. Are they in running condition?” The answer was.
“Umm, we could prepare them for you, Mr. Reaper,” Ben said, caught somewhat off guard. “By tomorrow, why not? We still got all day. I don’t have too much fuel left though. And I’m not sure I can sell it, either.”
“The fuel is not needed,” James Reaper replied. “My client’s intent is to rebuild your motorcycles so they can be powered by microfusion cells.”
“I see.” Ben swallowed. His father would hate him for it if he ever knew. The classic Harley chopper, the gem of his collection; its beautiful coffin-shaped fuel tank to be mutilated to accept the abominable modern power source.
“Do we have a deal, Benjamin?” Mr. Reaper asked.
“Yes. Yes, sure, Mr. Reaper,” Ben replied after a pause. “Then, I hope you understand it will cost you some. These are the best models we have. Both unique and in perfect — ”
“I wouldn’t settle for less, I assure you,” the man on the phone said. “Please think well on the price, and don’t be too modest. See you tomorrow then?”
“Sigma.” Ben nodded to no one in particular, then hung up.
As he exited the small, dusty office, Ben found Diego exactly like he left him: in the same automold chair, listening to the radio and having a siesta under the lowered baseball cap.
“Get up, you lazy animal,” Ben said. “I’ll need you to detail the Triumph while I do the Harley.”
Diego sat up so fast he nearly toppled the morphing automold thing.
“Do we have a buyer, then?” he asked, holding his baseball cap in place.
“Could be,” Ben replied. “Though I cannot say I like it. They want to convert our babies to microfusion.”
“Oh,” Diego said. “Well, man, this stuff was bound to happen one day. It’s a good thing, no? Better than never see them running again.”
“My old man would kill me if he knew,” Ben muttered. “To him, it’s like selling your soul to the devil wearing a pair of hovershoes.”
“Well,” Diego said, grinning wide. “We bikers are old pals with the devil, ain’t we?”
Ben sighed and waved his hand. “Take the Triumph,” he repeated. “And I’ll work on the Harley myself. I owe my dad this much.”
Together, they procured the huge piece of rolled-up oilcloth and spread it across the cement floor, then pulled out a metal case of old-fashioned tools — the only way to treat a bike, according to Ben’s father — and rolled the two motorcycles down from their podiums. Soon, both of them would be gutted out and stripped down to their frames, their chrome and steel details spread wide across the oilcloth, each one of them to be checked, then cleaned, then reinstalled once more.
As they moved on with the disassembly, the musical number on the radio ended and the news lady kicked in, her voice most likely synthesized or filtered to be extra-thrilling and seductive.
Baron Edward Plunkett, a prominent Digital Citizen of Albion, a Clockworld domain, has gone missing tonight after a violent clash with non-specified police hunters in one of the twentieth-century-themed worlds hosted by the US/C. Despite extensive surveillance and safety measures, the Baron’s virtual personality has been reported as, quote, gone without a trace, unquote, its code not found so far by any monitoring agency within the Web. With searches still going on, many speculations arise concerning the Baron’s wellbeing or possible whereabouts.
“I’ll switch it back to music.” Diego rose up and took a step towards the radio.
“Wait!” Ben stopped him. “Wait, this is… I mean, I saw it happen last night, I was right there! This Baron… police snipers got him. His head was blown straight off his shoulders. He was right there in front of me; it happened before my eyes, believe it or not.”
Until the situation is resolved, the Digital Citizens of the Web are strongly advised to abstain from any virtual activities which may result in despawning. Baron Edward Plunkett, the last of old British nobility remaining alive, is a prominent virtual figure, widely known beyond his Clockworld reality and even outside the Dreamweb itself —
Diego let out a long whistle. “I bet your man is dead,” he said. “Totally erased. For real.”
Ben shook his head.
“But, I mean, this is impossible,” he replied, putting away his monkey wrench. “No one has ever died in the Web. Not a DC. Those Dead Creeps are supposed to be immortal. Isn’t that, sorta-kinda, the whole point behind the procedure?”
“I have a gut feeling about this!” Diego flashed his pearly grin again. “Trust me; I’m rarely wrong about such things. Everything happens for the first time eventually.”
Daphne, Ben thought. Right before they killed her too, she said none of it was accidental. I wish I could talk to her now.
Still, it was not until night that they would finally meet again.
Chapter 2: Sequence Interrupted
The Bradbury Hotdog Diner, this is what the place was called. I’m sure of it now because I was looking for it for weeks afterwards, all around Manhattan, and failed to find it.
That night on November the twenty-third, it was still in place though, and I located it without problems just by revising my conversation history with Daphne, which was stored inside this horrible cellular phone. The place was on Third Avenue, right across from this green park, where I found myself after emerging from some kind of pond in the middle of it. My clothes were already on, and I’d have a hard time drying them in cool night wind, but the entire place was built for comfort, so my jeans, t-shirt, boots, and jacket were dry in less than a minute. The pond area was dark and deserted but, as I followed the sounds of music and crossed the dark wall of trees surrounding it, I instantly found myself in a big meadow lit by Chinese paper lanterns, with an AI band playing in the middle of it and real people sitting on the lawn here and there, having a good time. I only had to ask for directions once, and was pointed towards the nearest line of skyscrapers; I found the diner across the street right beneath them, in the middle of an empty lot.
The Bradbury Hotdog Diner was a long metal cabin with rounded corners; it had a line of little colored flags rustling above it in the wind, an Open 24h neon sign on its window, and a cone of lone sodium light pointing at its p
arlor in the most romantic fashion.
Daphne was already there, seated at the furthest table and drinking virtual American coffee from an ample mug, her eyes big and mysterious, her dark goth lipstick matching her drink in a fascinating way.
“Missed me?” she asked as I squeezed my way into the red-leather booth across from her.
“Yeah,” I said. “Especially after we parted like that, picked off by snipers one after the other.”
Daphne lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. I had no idea something like that would happen.”
“You did know this Baron DC fellow would show up though, didn’t you?”
She merely stared at the black coffee sloshing inside her mug. A waitress approached me; not an AI-controlled, but a real human playing a waitress.
“Coffee?” she asked.
I nodded, me and Daphne watching in silence as she placed a similar huge mug in front of me and filled it with dense black liquid out of a fat glass pitcher.
“Tell me about him, Buff,” I said as the waitress departed. “I mean, I heard a lot about the Baron. Wasn’t he a cybersportsman or something?”
“He simply loved hunting. Not hunting hunting. He didn’t kill human characters, just big AI game, dangerous animals and such.” Daphne shot me a careful look from under her silver fringe. “Why?”
“Dunno.” I shrugged. “It just feels nice to see a Digital Citizen so full of life, I guess. I wish my father would make such a DC in the afterlife.”
“Uh huh,” Daphne said. She picked up the spoon and stirred her coffee, then pushed a tray with sugar and cream towards me. I could see my girl wanted to talk, and tell me something; it’s just she didn’t know where to begin.
“So what was Baron Plunkett doing in this Gangworld of NYC anyway?” I asked her. “Not many dangerous animals to be found around here, if you don’t count humans. Then, when you hunt humans in here, you naturally get shot by local police, don’t you?”
Enter the Clockworld Page 3