Don left the room pleased and a little fuzzy, picturing waves of energy flowing between his brain cells. It was an oddly pleasant tickling sensation – like a complimentary brain massage, and a ticket into worlds that were closed to him until then. His details were accepted by the system without a problem. He was now listed as Jack White. Businessman. Bachelor. Clean. Spotless. Nothing remarkable in his past. He was everything he was not and everything he would never be.
Like every new user, Don received a bonsai tree shaped to express his one-of-a-kind personality. Users received bonsai firs, maples, junipers, mastic and olive trees, all reflecting their personal taste. These trees rarely needed water, and through genetic manipulation grew to reflect the user's success on Minds: when a user's brain rank increased, the tree flourished and stood tall. If a user neglected his activities in the virtual world, the tree would begin to wither. When it blossomed, the tree responded by dancing to music and smiled at its owner, and when it declined it looked at its owner with miserable eyes and stretched out a branch to hold the owner's finger in a desperate plea. In those early days, only users with hearts of stone could turn it down. Most people were incapable of ignoring the dying humanoid tree, stretching an arm to them in a cry for help.
Now Don - our very own Jack White - was about to open a new window to reality. His only concern was that people might recognize him as Don Little - but the world was too busy moving forward to dwell on his affairs.
During his lesson on operating Minds, he could only think about one thing: how to revisit his victims. He was curious to know his options, the experiences he could invade. Among the very small number of limitations set by the service was a restriction on adults following minor girls, or anyone under eighteen. A sixteen-year-old girl, for example, could only meet or follow people her own age. Popularity played into this scheme: a girl who always dreamed about dating her attractive and smart classmate could ‘go out’ with him – if she paid. It was a way for people to turn themselves into a source of income. In many ways, this was mental prostitution, but it generated a lot of money for the beautiful, smart and successful. Albeit, some perfectly ordinary people also fancied other likewise ordinary people, and so the virtual bounty spread around.
Hypothetically, a person could live it up in the slumber party of an eighteen year old girl through the eyes of one of her friends, and the other girls would not necessarily know the identity of their guest.
“And she'll know that I'm there, in the experience with her?” Don asked the instructor.
“That girl will know who's watching through her friend's eyes, and will be able to block or remove anyone who harasses or bothers her.”
“Obviously,” Don blurted. “No one should be allowed to harass or bother.”
The instructor continued his explanation. “You come and leave as you want. Of course, there's a price to the time you spend in any one place. Every month, Minds will bill your salary a sum that corresponds to your activity level.”
“This is insane!” a familiar, excited voice said. It was Sunshine, from behind him. “I always dreamed about living through other people's eyes. Way to go, Minds!”
Don hung his head. He could only hope that she would not approach; he had no patience for the distraction.
“Hey, Jack,” she said and popped right in front of him. “How did it go?”
“I'm still a little out of focus,” he answered.
“I really feel my life's transformed. Something in this place gives me hope. Look at all the dedicated workers. I'll try to land a job here soon, contribute my skills.”
“Sounds good,” he answered without knowing what skills, and not asking.
“I still don't get all those people who spoke against the network...”
“You'll always have people stuck in the past. Who cares?” he answered, still not looking at her.
***
Don was about to leave his house after many days willingly spent shut in, in front of the wall. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually walked outside, breathing air. But he had Re-Minds for that; he remembered how, at first, he thought that he wouldn't be using the feature, after speaking with Sunshine. The instructor warned them it could get addictive, even with the system's controls against over remembering.
“It will be like diving into the very same moment,” the instructor said with glittering eyes. “I went back to my wedding day. I cried again.”
“Can we also experience difficult moments, or bad ones?” Don asked and touched his hair, as if to make sure his head was still there.
“Sure, but I guess you'd want to erase the bad ones, no?”
“Sure, sure,” Don answered.
Don had a shivering thought about that night with his mother. He'd be happy to forget that one.
On his way back, right after connecting to Minds, he could feel that, with every step, something of his old life was restored, and with it his joy for life and the taste for air. He wanted to thank his father for getting in touch with the anonymous friend who hacked into the system to give him his fake digital identity.
His father, still not on Minds, appeared heartened to see his son in better spirits than usual.
“When you connect, you'll see how wonderful it is… it's hard to explain,” Don said and hurried off to test run the world's new toy on a re-creation of the experience he shared with Becky Myer: his first victim.
Becky was in her thirties when it happened - a single mother to Tommy, a young boy. She made a living by leasing her image and voice to 3D virtual medical stewards. Her uniquely distanced eyes gave her face a very refined and carefree appearance. Her facial features were majestically proportioned, perfectly framed. Her lips were full, her figure slim, and together with her blond hair, she was gorgeous without even knowing it. It was only during the trial that Becky first became aware of the hidden passenger in her life, ever present, examining every step, collecting every word she uttered and for months patiently waiting his turn.
Becky was easy prey for the Mentor, and he confessed that after her, he chose more challenging victims, “To keep from getting bored,” as he told the court.
Don returned to that moment with Becky on Re-Minds, wanting to be there again. When the memory played out, his return to reality was accompanied by the realization that his actions were immoral and socially unacceptable. From time to time, he felt occasional disgust for his abusive acts and got angry with himself for being aroused. Even when he got caught, and was asked to reenact his actions, he felt a shuddering excitement in the telling. And it was not from guilt.
But, despite his benevolent realization, he could not help going back there. True, what he did was wrong, but he had paid his debt to society. There was nothing to keep him from at least enjoying his memories. “What does a man have as his own, if not his memories?” he asked his father.
Every time he felt the same level of excitement, as if it was happening again. And Re-Minds did give him a complete sensory experience that imitated reality with sounds, sights, feelings, and a three-dimensional environment in which the owner of the memory played the part of himself.
Don felt relief at not feeling the urge to go out looking for new victims.
But his father was appalled that his son would rather spend his time on Re-Minds over having a flesh and blood girl in the present. “What do you do there all this time?” he asked him. “What do you get out of it? What? It's stupid. Is this what you connected to Minds for?”
“Stupid? It's brilliant! I can spend time with whoever I want and go out with whoever I want. Nothing in reality can come close to it. Dad, be real, who’d want to be with me?”
“You're not the same, you've changed.”
“I changed because they 'fixed' me. What change are you talking about? What choice do you think I had? Be glad that at least I'm doing something worthwhile. Don't be so hard all the time, take it easy. Let me live. I just read Robin Nice, who said it exactly like it is: 'Minds is fantastic because,
with it, anyone can conquer the world from his own home. It gives people the opportunity to be someone they never dared to be, and to live like they never tried to live.'”
“I appreciate him, but you still can't ignore reality as much as that,” his father insisted.
“In an interview, Nice said that he stopped going out and found happiness inside his four walls. Dad, you have to read it.”
“I know his style.”
“Then you understand. My reality isn't interesting. I have nothing in real life, no woman, no home of my own, no career. What I have is illusion, and I’d rather live in illusion than in godawful reality.”
***
Don wondered how things turned out for Becky Myer. The former ‘Mentor’ stood in front of the control screen and verbally instructed the system to search for her on the database, until the visual interface had a picture of someone who matched her physical description. She was now working for a media, non-profit outfit that fought against mental violence. He grinned and browsed through her photos. Over the years her hair had become even brighter than it once was, and her breasts had grown a size but were not big; they looked like nice, firm oranges.
He felt like he was strolling in flowering fields on a spring day. He breathed the erotic flavors released into the air by her images, which announced a sensuality even when she did not mean them to. He eventually noticed that she approved public access and let people follow her on brain events. He could pay Minds for using Becky's image… go out with her, or do whatever he wanted in the time that he paid for.
He wasted no time in registering his request to invite her to a virtual date on the Mindsphere. His request was approved and he set a date for a walk in the park. In reality, he was strapped to the Minds Pod in his room, and his brain and contact lenses were programmed to experience the setting in a deviously real way.
It was rainy. Dew drops were still falling from the leaves to the blades of grass, just like in the first time they met. The system would be able to predict Becky's behavior and reactions according to her personality and past behavior. She was not so young anymore.
“Pleased to meet you. I'm Jack,” he said to the virtual woman.
“Hi, Jack,” she thoughtmitted. “I'm Becky.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he thoughtmitted again drily, but something stopped him there.
“Hello? Hello?” Becky said, but Don didn't answer. He pressed his lips together and stared at his feet.
Her voice had changed. What was once sweet and innocent, was now heavy and exhausting. His memories of her just made him sad.
“Jack? Are you there?” she thoughtmitted.
The connection dropped.
She’s suffered enough, Don told himself. He needed a distraction and switched to Robin Nice's book on the meaning of life. He knew the meaning had to be somewhere out there, but not in Becky Myer.
7
The Next Big Nothing
Candy Metal was replaying a particularly painful childhood memory over and over again, and tears flooded her Minds lenses.
There she was, ten years old, standing in the middle of the living room wearing a pink chiffon dress and a white ribbon in her hair, and singing to her parents in a rare, silvery voice. She felt that she was tugging at every fiber in their core, and that they were proud of their little wonder. It was a rare and riveting moment when she moved them to tears – and likely one of the last they shared together, before they eased into the mundane slumbering routine of their lives.
She thirstily absorbed every fragment of the elusive memory, every nuance she could pick up from her parents, every look they gave each other, clinging to the memory for dear life. Anticipation flooded her body with wild endorphins and crackling explosions of happiness. Her eyes took in the charged images that blasted on the wall as a heavenly experience in 360 degrees, white and yellow jelly bean pyrotechnics spinning around her head.
“Sing it again, it's so very beautiful! Doesn't she sing amazing?” her mother said to her father.
“Yes, it really is extraordinary, I didn't know she had such a talent for singing.”
“Look at her, I just hear her voice and I'm almost crying, she's turning me into mush.” They both looked at her, raptured.
“I want to sing it again!” little Candy shouted, pleased with herself, and they nodded.
“Sure, sure,” her father said as he looked through the window, watching a small bird cut a line through the sky.
“You're not just saying that, are you?” the little girl suddenly wondered.
Candy was drawn again and again to the Re-Minds program, lured like so many other users to wash away the present and delve into the past - the ability to breathe new life into cherished moments from memory, gave the past a charming appeal over a present that could not always provide more alluring sustenance. Memories resurfaced as moving and painful living moments, in high fidelity and premium 3D definition. Educators and scholars were quick to declare Re-Minds the new drug, more dangerous than all its chemical predecessors, an easy and legal temptation to sink into past times and be lost in fantasy instead of living life in the now.
In an online referendum, the nation almost passed a bill authored by the Legal Admasador Alexander Cage to limit a person's access to Re-Minds to three hours a week. “Do we really want to have a hundred million zombies that don't live in the present?” Alexander posed the issue in a speech he delivered on Talking Heads, the thoughts program that broadcast live and echoed to the heads of millions of constituents.
But Minds management, which made a fortune from Re-Minds time use, was not going to stand aside. They secretly approached the top young thought leaders to initiate a counter campaign. They challenged the prejudice that put the present on a higher pedestal than the past and future. And who was to say with any certainty that living in the here and now was better than the there and then? Why not allow every user the freedom to make his or her own decision? they asked. In the end, the bill was rejected by a majority of half a million votes.
Candy snorted the past deep into the capillaries of her soul, and it eased her suffering somewhat, or so she felt. Remembering those days of innocence was particularly painful in those moments when Jeffrey Star, CEO of the Creation Company, the leader in image design and maintenance, was brain raping her. What a mind fuck, she bitterly joked about it later. Technically, of course, it was not considered rape.
The act between them was documented in a series of images stored in their minds and on the Minds Cloud for legal purposes and for later ‘study.’ Candy knew that Jeffrey could reuse those captured moments, even though he never actually touched her and the entire event took place on shared virtual space, in the Mindsphere projected into their minds.
“Do you, Candy Metal, agree to participate in a sexual act with Jeffrey Star?” said the voice of Dan, Star's virtual agent.
“I agree,” she answered submissively and looked toward the black clouds that hung low in the sky beyond his huge windows. They both sat in separate Mind Pods, not touching, withdrawn, absorbed in the experiences that were taking form in their minds.
“Do you, Jeffrey Star, agree to participate in a sexual act with Candy Metal?”
“Oh yeah, I approve,” he answered with a randy smile, mentally dropping his designer pants, eager to begin his orgasmic moment while his frozen body was sitting still on the executive sofa three meters away from her.
“Today, at two o'clock, inside Jeffrey Star's office at Creation, Jeffrey Star and Candy Metal have given their consent to perform a sexual act. What shall the act include?”
“There will be rear entry,” Jeffrey started laying out his list, “breast fondling, caressing of the inner thighs, I'm going to lick her nipples, I love nipples... uhh, I'll rub myself all over her, I want wet kissing, for her to lick my face, if I feel like it... then I'll turn her around to face me and have her as movie star Lovely Silver. That'll do,” Jeffrey laughed at his own joke.
“Does Candy Metal agree
to the details of the act?”
“Yes,” she answered tersely, taken aback by his description. They were still sitting three meters apart, not touching, and their clothes were still on. The saying goes that 'actions begin with a thought,' but in this case the act was confined to thought; so why was it so painful?
In Jeffrey's head, Candy's avatar began to undress, reticent, trying to minimize his image in her head.
Jeffrey did exactly what he said he would. She felt herself shrinking with every touch. She sat there, shut her eyes and waited for him to finish and leave her alone. When he touched her breasts, she felt a coldness climb from the tip of her toes to her nipples. Time froze along with her.
He held her from behind and thrust into her, violently pumping her from behind with increasing pace while she browsed through old memories on her lenses. Star still wanted more… he spun her round like an acrobat and saw the virtual starlet he programmed into the session, one of those open-legged fantasies you could generate for just under a million Unis.
***
Candy had never imagined that her dream of being a singer would come true only if she let the head of Creation stick her from behind on the Mindsphere. But she saw no other option. The Dream Company, as they marketed themselves on brain ads, had total control over the industry and no new talent became known without them being involved. Without their meticulous planning and digital designing, that ran to hundreds of millions of unis, you could not create an authentic image the audience would take a liking to. Algorithm authors were the new gods, and they sold the junkies lines of code to send up their noses.
The competition between the young and hungry singers in that slave market was impossible. In fact, the need for human talent was limited, since the company had the world's best virtual image designers in its employ. The greatest musical stars were created in their feverish minds, and flesh and blood artists were only used for backup and inspiration. The worldwide thought network slowly made the need for human beings obsolete.
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