JOHNNY GONE DOWN

by Bajaj, Karan

  ‘Are you ready?’

  I looked up from the computer to see Philip in a Hawaiian T-shirt and yellow flip-flops.

  ‘Yo boy! Today is our team offsite. Have you forgotten?’ he said cheerily. ‘Why are you working so early? And what are you working on anyway?’

  I blinked and looked at the time on the computer screen. Ten a.m. I hadn’t moved from my seat in fifteen hours.

  ‘Anyway, forget all this,’ he said. ‘I thought we’d catch an early lunch and take the rest of the day off. It’s a beautiful morning. We could grab some beer and kayak on Lake Calhoun. What say?’

  I flicked a tongue over my gums to remove the bitter taste of the sleepless night. ‘I’ve been working on an idea I wanted to share with you,’ I said groggily.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ he said, looking a bit hurt. ‘I thought we could have some fun today for a change, get to know each better and stuff. I was thinking about your accent last night. You know, I had a friend from Brazil in MIT, and you have the same twang. Were you - ‘

  ‘Sorry to cut you off, Phil,’ I said, my heart skipping a beat. ‘Why don’t we talk about my travels in the kayak? I don’t want to be late for our fun time! I thought I’d quickly show you the idea before we left.’

  He didn’t look very happy but he bent over the desk.

  ‘So, it’s a kind of computer game, but not entirely. It’s really a whole world in itself…’ I began taking him through the prototype, feeling the same knot in my stomach that I’d felt when I told Marco about the business plan for expanding beyond the drug trade.

  ‘You did all of this in one night?’ he said when I’d finished.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’

  ‘This is impressive,’ he said. ‘Un-fucking-believably impressive. And you’ve checked that there is nothing like it out there?’

  I nodded. ‘Not that I could find.’

  ‘Are you sure you never went to school? I mean, MIT PhDs couldn’t do this stuff in years. And you did it in a day? You are a bloody genius, like I always knew.’

  Please don’t get started on that, I pleaded silently.

  ‘What do you think about the technicalities?’ I said. ‘Can we make it work?’

  ‘You can make it work,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I am sure you can. This is already almost there. Don’t give me credit for anything.’

  ‘We are partners, remember?’ I said. ‘Eighty per cent of this is yours. Besides, I couldn’t care less. I just want to build this for, err, personal reasons.’

  ‘What personal reasons?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Thankfully, he let that pass.

  ‘I can help you take it to the VCs,’ he said. ‘At this pace, we could go as early as a week from now.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You have to agree to my terms, though. This is your idea. We reverse the agreement. You get eighty, I get twenty.’

  ‘That’s unacceptable, Philip,’ I said. ‘You taught me everything. I used your office, your computer, your books, your knowledge. It has to be…’

  He cut me short. ‘Don’t insist,’ he said quietly. ‘The only thing I have left, twenty years after graduating from MIT, is some kind of honour. Don’t take that away from me. Besides, I think this will be so successful that I could retire on just one per cent.’

  I nodded reluctantly.

  He began to get more excited and to my delight, the kayaking trip was soon forgotten.

  ‘I can do the soft stuff - the pitch, presentation, marketing, bells and whistles; you concentrate on the real stuff. We don’t need anything fancy, just enough to host the website live and get a few subscribers. Can you do that in a week?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then all we need are good answers to the objections that the venture capitalists raise,’ he said.

  ‘What objections?’

  ‘Nothing you should worry about. They just like to ask tough questions to check whether you’ve thought everything through. It’ll be a breeze for you.’

  ‘What kinds of questions?’ I asked, worried that there would be questions about my background again.

  ‘Believe me, that’s the least of your worries. They are just normal questions about you and the project.’

  About me, I thought, now seriously concerned. If it came to that, I would rather abandon the project.

  ‘What questions?’ I persisted.

  He gave me a surprised look. ‘What’s the matter with you? If you are so worried, let me just do a dry run with you, okay?’

  A dry run wasn’t what I had in mind at all, but he started before I could come up with a good excuse.

  ‘How is your website different from a computer game?’ he began.

  ‘Oh, those kind of questions!’ I said in relief.

  ‘Yes, what did you think? Go on, answer me now.’

  ‘Well, nothing about our website is like a game…’ I began.

  ‘No, don’t be condescending,’ he said. ‘They are the ones with the money, after all.’

  ‘Okay, try this,’ I said. ‘Another Life, or anotherlife.com, is much more than a computer game. It’s an alternate life, a complete world in itself, a virtual world where a player can be anyone he wants to be, live anywhere he likes, be with anyone he chooses to be with, do anything he pleases. There is no victory or defeat, no points to gain or lose; just being in this virtual world is winning.’

  ‘That sounds corny,’ said Philip, playing the role of a VC. ‘If there is no game, what would people do in Another Life?’

  ‘Well, they would live in the virtual world -exactly as they live in the physical world they inhabit every day,’ I said. ‘They would take on a name and an onscreen image that represents them in the virtual world. They would work for a living in the virtual world, earn virtual money, own virtual property, drive virtual cars, go for virtual vacations, buy virtual things, meet other virtual people like themselves; talk, love, mate, marry - or choose to do none of these things and just be a name and an image. It’s just like living life… another life beyond the real world, hence the name. All they have to do is sit at their computers and manipulate their virtual selves with a click of the mouse.’

  ‘But what’s the point then? Why would you go to a website in your free time to live exactly the same way you live in the physical world? People come online to take a break from their mundane real-world existence and become warriors who slay dragons and explorers who conquer the solar system. Why log in to live the dull lives they sought to escape in the first place?’

  ‘Because there is one big difference,’ I said. ‘You have choices here. You are in control of your destiny, your situation; you aren’t a mere pawn in a larger, incomprehensible game. The website allows you to choose your own identity, complete with an onscreen image that you can create from the huge menu of virtual body and skin elements, and attire from multiple catalogues of virtual clothes. For instance, if you are someone who wants to be young forever, you can be a ripped hunk in Another Life. With a click of your mouse, you can manipulate your image on screen and there is your icon - young forever, partying all night, meeting attractive young women, becoming a DJ at a nightclub - whatever you want. Can you imagine how liberating that is? Here is a defeated, fifty-year-old, balding, divorced accountant who made a series of wrong choices that left him broke and full of regret. Now, he can take control again. For twenty-four hours a day, he can be young, healthy and rich, an object of envy - in contrast to the real world, where everyone looks at him with pity and derision. Is his happiness at this change in situation any less because it is only in a virtual universe? He sits on the chair in front of his computer and, without any change in his physical self, with one click of the mouse, he is in Another Life; young and happy, a master of his fate and immune to the cruel twists of destiny. He interacts with everyone on the website with his alter ego; nobody he meets in Another Life cares about who he is in the physical world.’

  ‘Your eloquence
is impressive, but how is this different from lying about yourself in a chat room?’ Philip asked. ‘The internet is full of places where old men are posing as young men to lure nubile girls. How is this any different?’

  ‘You said it yourself. They are lying. The people they are chatting with don’t know that they are posing as someone other than themselves, but they do care if they find out. In Another Life, no one will care because it doesn’t matter. You choose to live an alternate life. You choose who you are going to be and people choose to talk to you - or not - based on who you are in this environment. All other dimensions of space and time cease to exist. You are living in a parallel world as real as the physical world.’

  ‘What is your business model?’ he asked.

  ‘The same business model that exists in the physical world! I told you, Another Life is an alternate, more pleasing reality; everything else is the same. We charge money for people to enter the website just as they pay taxes to live in the physical world. People earn money when they work in offices in Another Life; they spend it on the goods and services we offer in Another Life. The manufacturers of the goods and services, in turn, employ people whom they pay a salary. In a simplistic scenario, our young hunk would earn his wages in a virtual BMW manufacturing factory and spend it on a virtual BMW, while we make money on sales tax. It’s self-sustaining. Money comes in, money goes out; and we get a margin on the operation.’

  ‘It’s an interesting idea, but it isn’t tangible; it’s all make-believe. How can you live an alternate life in a virtual world, when you know it isn’t real?’

  ‘But what is real, sir? How do you define real? Isn’t everything around us fundamentally incomprehensible? Where do you and I, the mountains and rivers, the stars and planets which you consider “real” come from? You will say it is evolution, but what was point zero? What was the origin? Hindus think of the world as a maya jaal, an illusion. If that real world is an illusion, then so is this; and if that is real, so is this - only better. In Another Life, you can be a lawyer if you want to be a lawyer, instead of becoming a paralegal bulled by a lawyer just because of destiny or your own limited abilities.’

  ‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘Your software is robust, your business model is strong, but it’s your passion for the project that is most inspiring. It seems that you feel a compelling need to own your destiny?’

  ‘I’ve lost so much that I am tired of losing,’ I said mechanically. ‘Every time I build something, it crashes. Then I build again and it crashes, and so it goes. Here, I will preserve what I build forever. If this were Brazil…’

  I suddenly noticed Philip listening intently to me, and snapped out of it.

  ‘Did I do okay?’ I asked.

  ‘You will be a legend,’ he said warmly. ‘I haven’t heard anything quite like this before. They’ll whip out their passbooks faster than Jenna Jameson reaches an orgasm.’

  ‘Jenna who?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Why did you stop? What happened in Brazil?’

  ‘Not relevant,’ I said shortly.

  He eyed me curiously.

  ‘Should I line up venture capitalist meetings then?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m your assistant now. I will do that.’

  I began to protest.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t embarrass me further. For twenty years, I’ve been chasing mirages and blaming my failure on fate. Today, you made me realize that it was my ability that was at fault, not my destiny -and I find it oddly liberating.’

  ‘But…’ I began.

  He cut me off. ‘You don’t understand, but this helps me. I’m no longer a victim. I’m no longer envious of the success of others. I am a second-hander who is meant to follow, not lead.’ He paused. ‘One week from now should be okay, right?’

  I nodded. ‘I can build enough of an online community on a beta site to get initial feedback.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you haven’t even been to school,’ he said wondrously.

  ‘Err… Philip, another thing, and please take this the right way,’ I said. ‘Would you mind if I worked outside the office for the next couple of weeks? I will be able to concentrate better, I think.’

  Certainly I would be more efficient if I wasn’t constantly worrying about my past being uncovered.

  ‘I totally understand,’ he said.

  I hope not, I thought.

  ‘I can set you up in a hotel close by,’ he continued. ‘I have a little money in my retirement account from when I was a research assistant at MIT.’

  ‘Oh, no need for that,’ I replied. ‘I have a place in mind.’

  He looked confused. How could I possibly know the city when I had never ventured out of the office?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I will call you once a day to give you an update.’

  I meant to call him - and probably would have, had it not been for the events that transpired the first night in the shelter.

  ‘Welcome to Another Life,’ I typed, awaiting my first set of unsuspecting visitors while I fiddled around with the graphics of the virtual environment. A greener tree, a bluer tinge to the sky, a deeper sea, a brighter star, shinier cars, more elaborate buildings - a replica of the real world, only richer. In direct contrast to the plush surroundings of the Another Life environment, I sat in a chair without a backrest in a small, infrequently visited storage room in the homeless shelter. The room was dark, save the flicker of light from my computer screen, but darkness was an old friend now and I was most at peace when I was in it. No one probed into my chequered past here, though from time to time, someone would come in, smelling of sweat and vomit, quietly take a hit from a crack pipe, and leave without saying a word.

  Soon, the first few online visitors dropped in.

  They asked questions, they raised objections, they fought the rule of purging your physical identity when you entered, they got angry at the make-believe nature of the game - but they stayed.

  As the night progressed, Another Life acquired a hunky firefighter, a female astronaut, a few actors and models, a policeman, an engineer and a doctor. Almost all of them chose to create lean, tanned and fit avatars, though some adorned theirs with glasses and briefcases. Most identified themselves as single but some came with spouses who were as colourfully employed as they were. They interacted with each other as folks in the physical world would, only, they typed instead of speaking. No one seemed to feel the absence of speech, though. Words typed in the text boxes that I designed to look like speech bubbles were enough for the models to hit on the firefighter, the doctor to dispense advice on a myriad ailments, the astronaut to describe how the moon looked from close, and the engineers to discuss the insides of the virtual black Jaguar parked outside the virtual building. Maybe they were models and astronauts in real life, maybe they weren’t, but this was what they were in Another Life, and they were treated as such. In a matter of hours, the community had grown to thirty people and no one seemed to be in a hurry to leave. A universe had begun to form.

  In the darkness of the room, I didn’t even realize when it was morning. Soon, people began to sign out with passionate promises to return in the evening. When I probed them for feedback, they wrote that they had enjoyed the break from their mundane jobs, nagging spouses and ordinary, in different lives; it felt as though they had reclaimed their entire lives in the few hours they had spent on the site. Well worth another sleepless night, I thought, as I rubbed my weary eyes. I began to get out of my chair to inform Philip about our initial success when something caught my eye.

  ‘Lara,’ I typed, stunned.

  A spitting image of Lara, wearing the black cocktail dress that she had worn when we met for our first date, stared at me from my computer screen. She was walking on blades of grass (as she often liked to do), and had stopped in front of an office building. She turned her head to look at the building and my heart skipped a beat.

  Had she noticed the sign?

  A lifetime ago, when Lara and I had made love fo
r the first time, I had told her about the statue of the smiling Buddha in the monastery, which had haunted me for years. Initially, the half-knowing, half-condescending smile had angered me; later, it had become a symbol of the transience and impermanence of life. Nothing mattered, the Buddha seemed to say, everything you craved was ultimately an illusion. Now that I was rebuilding my life, I had embedded the icon in every structure I created in Another Life, blending it into the background so no one would notice. Everything could crash once again, it reminded me. It had happened before, it could happen again, but ultimately, even loss was transient.

  She continued to look at the sign. Could it really be her? But that would be too easy, and the one thing my life could never be was easy. But how else would she know about the sign? Why had her icon stopped in front of it? Why was she wearing the same cocktail dress that haunted my mind every time I shut my eyes? My heart skipped a beat - maybe this was the mosaic, the reason why I came to Minnesota and ended up in Philip’s office. Maybe she had been online warding off loneliness - just like me - and chanced upon the website, and realized immediately that I was the creator. But no, it couldn’t be, that was just too fanciful.

  ‘Lara,’ my fingers typed of their own volition. ‘It’s me.’

  I navigated the mouse to move my icon closer to hers. If it was her, she would recognize me in an instant. I had no desire to be younger, taller or better looking, and my icon mirrored my person, including a missing arm.

  She looked away from the building and stared at me.

  ‘And who is me?’ she typed.

  My heart fell. I had wished so fervently for it to be her that I’d almost believed it. Of course it couldn’t be her. Such a coincidence wasn’t logical. Maybe there was still a chance though, I thought desperately. Marco might have told her why I left Brazil. Maybe she was worried that the Godmother was following her actions in this universe as well; maybe she wanted to be certain before she revealed herself.

  ‘It really is me. Nikhil. I created this - for us.’