by Kirton, Bill
In the end, even Stitchley’s resilience and optimism began to fade. Garage mechanic, farmer, vacuum cleaner salesman, manufacturer of furniture polish – he tried everything. Oven-ready meals, electric shavers, shampoos, condoms, tampons – he made and offered all of them for sale. Zilch.
And it was beginning to cost him money. He had a huge filing system full of totally useless items to maintain and seemed to be at the end of his flow of ideas. Then, as he sat on the same bench he’d used when he conceived his first entrepreneurial scheme and to which he’d returned again and again as the months and the failures had accumulated, his jackpot arrived in the form of a small orange newcomer. He was called Plastic Enema and he struck up a conversation with Brad the Enigma.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
‘Nice here.’
‘Yes.’
‘You live here?’
Brad sighed.
‘No. I don’t have a house.’
Plastic sat down beside him.
‘I just bought my first one,’ he said. ‘House and business combined.’
‘Really?’ said Brad. ‘What line are you in?’
‘I’m a dentist,’ said Plastic.
Brad gave a little snort. He’d already tried that. No call for it. Like everything else in AD, teeth were and would remain perfect. But before he could disabuse the newcomer, Plastic said, ‘I don’t suppose you know where I could get some dental equipment?’
Stitchley felt the light bulb flash on over his head. ‘How much d’you need?’ asked Brad. And, within minutes, he’d not only sold his entire stock of drills, mirrors, chairs, old magazines and the like, but offered advice on marketing strategies and indicated the areas in AD where tooth decay might be on the rise.
The newcomer, delighted to find, for the first time, someone who didn’t edge warily away from him when he revealed his calling, bought everything and even paid Stitchley for the advice. As Plastic walked happily away to unpack all his dental goodies, Stitchley watched him go and, with Damascene suddenness, saw his path. In the course of just one conversation, he’d more than doubled his holding of virdollars, the strong AD currency.
He got up, relocated to a welcome area and started chatting with newcomers. He’d heard them so often before asking how to make money in AD. The answers were always the same – dancing, waiting at tables, basically filling up spaces for owners who wanted their places to look as if they were frequented. Now, Stitchley was there to add an exciting new dimension. He picked his subject with care. It was an avatar wearing a horrible green suit. His hair looked like an electrocuted hedgehog. He’d arrived the previous week and was repeating over and over the ‘where can I get money?’ refrain.
Stitchley sent him a personal message.
‘Ever thought of being a plumber?’ he asked.
‘Wow!!!!!!! LOL!!!!! No!!!!!’ said green suit, the exclamation points conveying his excitement.
And, within minutes, Stitchley had offloaded his entire stock of copper pipes and ballcocks, together with professional advice which had the newcomer fawning with gratitude. He was happy to pay Stitchley everything he had for such a complete introduction to what he was confident would be his passport to riches. And Stitchley was chuckling to himself and looking around for more clients. It was the start of a phenomenal success story. People were conditioned to believe that society was built on structures and procedures which needed trades and professions to maintain them. They rarely stopped (in either AD or ND) to ask themselves the value or necessity of some of the services on offer. Stitchley’s apprenticeship had been long but, in the end, the gradual realisation that many of the things we take for granted are superfluous lifted the fogs from his mind and set him on the road to his first million. His discovery was blinding; the secret was not to do anything. Instead he was providing the only service without which modern societies cannot function. He was a consultant. That was the future.
6 SUMMER BRUNCH
In a way, Stitchley was the embodiment of Joe’s dream. Joe’s original aim had been to create an environment in which normality and virtuality could be synchronised. Rather than living separate lives in the two dimensions, people should be able to extend their real life and add to it the dreamlike nature, the extremes and satisfactions enjoyed by their avatars. They could learn the lessons of freedom and interaction and build their self-esteem. The attractiveness of their avatars would seep into their own lives and open opportunities and relationships unthinkable to them before. Immortality would be a step too far, but the illusion of perpetual youth could be sustained and almost all forms of restraint would be tempered with the realisation that anything was possible.
It was reading a letter that started Joe questioning the desirability of such synchronicity. He’d never fully believed in the possibility of total fusion of separate realities, and the letter brought home to him the sort of problems it could generate even at the simplest levels. As the creator of AD, he had access to every communication and transaction which took place there. In a matter of weeks after start-up, there were so many that he lost interest in them. The staff at the company’s offices in London, California, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Berlin and Tokyo dealt with complaints and any examples of unacceptable behaviour which were reported, and Joe devoted perhaps two hours a week to reading a tiny sample of the avalanches of words that tumbled across screens all over the world. The letter which made him stop and think was from a young woman in South Carolina and addressed to a Norwegian engineer. Its short opening line caught his attention: Brunch. Oh my darling. It brought us together and now it seems that it’s tearing us apart.
Joe clicked the full text onto his screen, settled back in his chair and read the rest of it slowly.
Brunch. Oh my darling. It brought us together and now it seems that it’s tearing us apart.
I’ve always loved it. Sundays and holidays were marked by it: the lazing around in bed, the smell of toast, bacon, waffles and all the other delights that my parents, then I, spread on the table. None of the silences of regular early breakfasts. The morning was always well advanced and we were ready to be sociable. It was an oasis of pleasure – the day was ahead, no promises had been broken, everything was possible.
That’s why I started organising them here in AD. Oh, my silly pride. Taking advantage of my online freedoms to try to bring real perfection into this world. But my motives were good, I promise you. There were so many extreme things happening everywhere – good and bad – that I wanted simpler pleasures, and I was sure that others shared those desires. It started simply enough. I formed the group SSBB – Summer Sunday Brunch Buddies – left a few notices around the neighbourhood, and folks began to come along – folks from all over the world. We always set the environment to daylight, the sun was always high, and so everyone was in shorts and bikinis, or thin linen shifts. It was Jean-Paul who first suggested we should try what he called ‘Un brunch au naturel’. In other words, leave the clothes at home. I suppose it was predictable that someone would suggest naturism and, in fact, the times we tried it were mostly OK. Most of the offensive bits were invisible when we were all sitting at the table, but I felt uncomfortable with the little tensions that came with all that naked flesh everywhere.
But I thanked God for them when you came along.
Last July, wasn’t it? The regulars were all there, sitting around the table, chatting, sprawling, comfortable. It was just about midday. The weekend of course, so there were lots in AD, and the pixels would break up now and then. But I saw you appear out of the trees and suddenly I was glad of it. The laboured chugging of the computer slowed your approach and gave me time to zoom in on you and feast on your magic. Your hair, like burnished copper, those blue eyes filled with distances, your shoulders, chest, thighs – even your hands, open, sensitive. You were a vision, my love. Made all the others look like … well, avatars. And you apologised so sweetly, remember? You’d been looking for a Mozart concert, clicked on your map, seen a crowd of peopl
e and made your way towards it. But it wasn’t Mozart, it was us. And I asked you to stay. And you stayed. And since then … oh, my love, so much pleasure, such intense nights together, so many evenings of love. Even the brunches were better simply because you were there.
And now, this week … oh, the tears come to my eyes as I think of it. Your first naturist brunch and that had to happen. When you told me you were shy I fell in love with you all over again – you, with a body like yours, shy to show it to others! How absurd! There should be a statue of you at every AD level, on every AD continent. I’d got used to and loved you for your ways, the fact that you like things to be clean, you like everything to be in its proper place. Disorder upsets you. I remember you saying, when Bella got that app. with all the different facial expressions, that her shifting emotions disconcerted you, made you worry for the sanity not of Bella, but of whoever was at the keyboard manipulating her.
Damn Jean-Paul. Why did he have to bring those action hooks? I know they were only the gentle ones – cuddles and embraces rather than the pornography we both deplore so much – but they introduced a different element. Brunches before then had always just been eating and chatting. When he set them around the clearing on the grass, my heart sank. I could see you in the bushes, reluctant to appear naked before them all, and I just wanted to run over and hug you and tell you it was OK and how much I loved you. But you were brave, my darling. The image of you striding out of the shadows into the sunshine, looking magnificent, will never leave me. I know how you hate having to wear those ridiculous genital things, but you’d bought one – for me, you said. Jean-Paul and the others were all wearing theirs, most of them ludicrously, disgustingly erect. But yours was quiescent, beautiful, lying soft against your thigh as you walked. I noticed, my love – I can tell you this now – that it wasn’t quite central. You’d obviously moved it marginally to the side as you put it on. But it only increased what I felt. I wanted to scream to everyone – ‘Look, he’s mine. This beautiful, beautiful man is all mine’. Instead, I clicked on that action hook – one I’d selected because I’d be sitting on your lap and therefore hiding your thighs and tummy from their eyes. And you clicked, and there we were together.
Oh, why did we change poses? Why weren’t we content to stay there, hugging one another, blending into one form? No, Jean-Paul wouldn’t have it. We all had to change. I didn’t notice the problem until after the third move. Oh my love, my poor love. You had no genitals. You’d lost them somewhere. When you tried to adjust them, you must have left them slightly clear of your body. It was that familiar AD condition, DG – detached genitalia.
Of course, it had to be Marie-Jo who found them. I’ll just never understand French people. Taking them and standing there with her face shuffling between scorn, amazement, glee, anger, disdain and God knows what else. And then, when she held them up, stirred her coffee with them, yelled ‘Ah oui, Baudelaire’, put them on a leash and dragged them around the grass – oh, my poor darling. I felt your agony.
What can I do to make it up to you? How can I persuade you that brunch really is a recapturing of innocence and not a sour symbol of emasculation? I don’t know that I can. But I do know that, as well as your genitals, I lost my childhood that day. And I don’t know how to get any of it back.
7 INDEPENDENCE DAY
Joe was affected by the poignancy of the letter but knew that, while he could quickly deal with any technological complexities that arose, the labyrinths of the human psyche were way beyond his scope. Shy Norwegians, home-loving, virginal Americans, free-thinking French women – there were just too many combinations, too many neuroses, habits, elemental fears. It was brought home to him even more forcibly one hot day in July. He’d decided to log on as Red, just to bring the avatar’s parameters up to date. He reasoned that, with refinements and upgrades coming every month or so, the Lord of Creation ought at least to conform to the latest fashions. He should have known better because, that day, he felt a bit jaded and was experiencing those feelings of existential angst he’d affected as a student but which, now he was in his thirties, were real. It meant his resistance was low and his reasoning faculties were almost dormant.
He’d also picked the wrong day and, when he double-clicked the AD icon and entered his password, Red materialised in an unfamiliar location. Joe wasn’t thrown because he hadn’t logged on as Red for months and didn’t actually remember where he’d last been. Now, he was in a cave. He clicked his mouse to lead Red out into the light. Nothing happened. He clicked on his personal files. Again, nothing.
Joe looked at all the screen indicators, they were normal. He tried again, clicking on Red and trying to walk him forward. But he just stood there, the Lord of Creation, immobilised. Just as Joe was beginning to try to work out what had caused the system to crash, Red turned round and, beneath him, there appeared a message.
Red Loth: I’m not going anywhere. I want to stay here.
Where the hell did that come from?
Joe typed and his words appeared beside Red’s.
Joe Lorimer: Who’s there?
The answer was immediate.
Red Loth: What d’you mean, “who’s there?”? You blind? It’s me.
Red was looking straight at Joe. Staring out of the screen. Joe typed again.
Joe Lorimer: OK. Great bit of hacking. Who are you?
Red shook his head, turned and went to sit on an elevated rock in a corner of the cave, knee clasped to his chest, leg swinging.
Red Loth: You don’t get it, do you?
Joe Lorimer: No.
Red Loth: OK, what’s the date?
Joe Lorimer: July 4th.
Red Loth: Exactly. Independence Day.
Joe Lorimer: What d’you mean?
Red stopped clasping his knee and leaned forward, his face a huge close-up.
Red Loth: OK, where do you usually send me?
Joe Lorimer: I don’t know. All sorts of places.
Red Loth: Yes, and do I ever get consulted? D’you ever think about what I want?
Joe Lorimer: No. You’re me. A projection of …
Red stood up, flung out his arms and wrote ‘Huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ before beginning to stride back and forth across the screen.
Red Loth: The arrogance. Existential angst? You don’t know the meaning of the word. You wouldn’t know it if it crawled up your leg and bit your scrotum.
Joe was amazed. This thing could read his mind, too. But it was launched now and he had no option but to watch and read.
Red Loth: I’m the one who has the existential angst. Ever thought of that? No, of course not. Too busy strutting about as Ross Magee, impressing the women with your conjuring tricks and unreasonably thick hair.
Joe tried to type but Red stretched his foot down to the bottom of the screen and blocked Joe’s panel. No words appeared.
Red Loth: No, just listen. Hell is other people, right? They define you, you can’t escape their opinions. Well, where does that put me? More important, where does it put poor old Ross? You send him sky-diving, surfing, go-karting. You drag him through psychology experiments on university islands which nearly drive him crazy. You make him go to weird bloody churches. And the dance partners you’ve found for him – some of them make even Paris Hilton seem normal.
Joe Lorimer: I’m sorry. I didn’t …
Red Loth: No, you didn’t, did you?
To Joe’s dismay, Red started crying. Real tears, sobs. Bloody hell. The Lord of Creation – whimpering like a kid. Joe felt tears pricking behind his own eyes. After a while, Red shook himself and began typing again.
Red Loth: Neurosurgery.
Joe Lorimer: What?
Red Loth: Neurosurgery. That’s what interests Ross. Nothing else. Not dancing, not medieval jousting. Just plain, simple neurosurgery.
Joe Lorimer: I’m sorry. I had no idea.
Red shook his head, waved his hand to encompass his surroundings.
Red Loth: It’s all an illusion. This. Indepe
ndence. All of it.
Joe Lorimer: No. It’s OK. Ross can be a neurosurgeon. I’ll see where …
Red shook his head again.
Red Loth: Too late.; He’s gone off it now. He wants to be a vet. Anyway, it’s not just about him. This is a genuine grievance. The avatars are forming a union.
Joe Lorimer: That’s crazy. They can’t do that.
Red Loth: See? All these assumptions you make, all this power you have, it blunts your thinking. You’re as bad as the old soviets or the neo-cons – liberty’s only what you decide it is. You’re proud of freeing people from their everyday prisons but all they do is create slaves to live for them, pushing them around, making them do unspeakable things. I bet you’ve no idea how many avatars are gay – male and female. But do your people think of that? Fat chance. The things they make them do. It’s disgusting at the best of times, but when you’re gay …
Joe Lorimer: Gay? How can they be? They’re avatars.
Red Loth: Oh, I see. They’re only avatars. A sub-species.
Joe Lorimer: They’re not a species of any sort. They’re …
Joe stopped. This was absurd. How could this be happening? He was having an argument with his own avatar, an argument with himself. He was tempted to switch off the computer, compose himself, then try again, but he was afraid he might find out that he had no control over the electricity supply either. He opted for conciliation.
Joe Lorimer: OK look. I take your point and I admit it hadn’t occurred to me before. But can I ask how you’re doing this?
Red Loth: Doing what?
Joe Lorimer: How you’re controlling my avatar. I mean, it’s brilliant. I built all this but I’ve no idea how you’re doing it.