THE SENSORIUM (#NEWINTERNET #NEXTGENINTERNET #VR #VIRTUALREALITY #ONLINE #WHYAREBODIES)
VRTP://VIRTUAL-REALITY-ENTERTAINMENT-DISTRICT/FECKLESS-BACHELOR™.SIM
The Feckless Bachelor™ party was Woodrow Whiting’s adults-only gathering, a virtual club built into his e-state, Whine Manor, with design and logistics managed by the Great Lakes Casino Consortium.
On a good shift, five hundred people might toon into the party from around the world, with another hundred queued. The sim was fully immersive. Guests partied with friends, chatting, dancing, catching concerts. Many came hoping to see a live performance, or unlock a rare one-on-one meeting with the host himself.
Drow’s streaming concerts were randomly staged events, surprises calculated to keep subscriptions boosted, but he kept his main stage hopping with promising new virtuosi. Today’s feature, Whiskey Sour by name, was a sylphlike soprano with a killer sense of rhythm. She was just wrapping up a set—a mix of covers and her first original comps.
Drow closed his eyes, gauging the Feckless applause by sound, declining the aggregated user reviews. The crowd was upbeat. He didn’t need infographics to tell him the neophyte had done well.
“Give her another hand, @FecklessGuests!” He raised a roar in channel, then handed Whiskey down from the stage, straight into the arms of her gathered parents.
Suddenly, a guy dressed in old-time prison pajamas and burglar’s mask—a free overlay, for anonymity—plowed through the guests. He made straight for Drow, waving a red referral key from Social Support.
“I gotta talk to you! Emergency.”
Drow paged his casino sponsor, requesting a guest host for the party. “You’ll be all right, Whiskey?”
“Beyond,” she said. “I’m sky high!”
“You should be: they loved you, kid.”
She bounced up on tiptoe, giving his cheek an exuberant kiss. “Go. I’ll work the crowd.”
Drow ushered the burglar to an illusion of a secluded back-room table with a velvet rope. They sat and the party faded out. The metaphor shifted, painting Drow’s consulting office around them. A comfortable room with light blue walls and inviting couches, it had a window view of a copse of birch trees.
The convict toon was jittering, rubbing his knees. Tags popped up. His actual body was somewhere in WestEuro.
“My name is Drow,” he said, giving him time to get acclimated. “Pronouns he/him. My current physical location is the Great Lakes, Toronto District. I’m a volunteer peer counselor specializing in trauma—”
“Weren’t you just hawking old records?”
“Like most people, I have a mash-up of careers and passions,” Drow said. “Counseling is volunteer work.”
Was the guy incapable of eye contact? Just as Drow formed the thought, his guest met his gaze straight on.
He braced for the usual expression of surprise. Unlike many of his peers, Drow made no effort to avoid looking his age. His toon wore a smartly cut suit, but it was drawn over a sim that closely resembled his fleshly vessel, which meant thinning white hair, time-damaged skin, and a look to his face that was conventionally tagged #sunken.
Drow bore hexagonal scars on his temples, stigmata of a generation that had transitioned from external goggles and audio headsets to the first surgically implanted uplinks and biocybernetic augments. The scars were thick, upraised skin, almost a trademark.
Many of Drow’s Setback generation peers spent precious social capital getting their gogg scars removed. But even if Drow had wanted to pay someone to shoot him full of Superhoomin or give him nanotech skin grafts, it wasn’t really on #brand.
He asked, “Do you feel up to telling me your name?”
“Pox. Luce Pox. He-him-his.”
“You were referred by Cherubim Whiting?”
“Rubi-advocate-lawyer, she-her pronouns. Also notorious, though less so.”
“Uh-huh. You understand we have a familial relationship as well as a collegial one?”
“I should care about that?” Pox cringed, raising both hands as if he expected to be hit.
“You don’t have to care; I’m simply disclosing.”
Pox cracked the shield of fingers. “Truth?”
“Want to tell me why you’re here, Mer Pox?”
“Luce. I’m being attacked.”
A crawl of gooseflesh, rising on Drow’s arms and back.
One of the successes of the Sensorium’s often-creepy all-eyes culture was the elimination of interpersonal violence. Tranq drones deployed to the scene of any assault within minutes. Arrest, trial, and conviction—if you hurt someone maliciously—were a same-day service. The destruction of your reputation, as people shared abuse footage, was instantaneous.
Being attacked. The phrase implied repeated incidents.
So, he’s delusional. “Tell me about that.”
“Creeping horror, pain, noise, and I get…” Luce knuckled his temples. “I wake up, afterwards, in one of these … fausses boîtes?”
Fausse … what? Oh. “In a sim?”
“I’ve been … how to say? Conked out? My datacache riffled.”
“You lose consciousness and you wake in Sensorium. On someone’s e-state?”
“Yes. No. A public lecture theater.”
“Where?” Drow asked.
Groaning, Luce produced his datacache, a banged-up safecracker’s toolkit. Fists clenched, he stared at it, presumably waiting out an advertisement.
Social cap in the toilet. Typical of Rubi’s pet maladjusts.
After fifteen seconds, Luce popped the lid, extracting an iron hoop jangling with keys, and handed one over. “They’re free,” he apologized.
“It’s okay. I’ve been on Cloudsight’s bad side myself.” Drow made for the consulting room’s door. “You okay to revisit this site?”
Convulsive swallow. “It’s a classroom, not an abattoir.”
“Glad to hear it.” Drow slid the key into the door and opened it. Luce followed, slamming and locking the consulting space behind them as they crossed a metaphorical hallway and walked into a bland, functional room. Plaster slabs the color of sand, anchored by unassuming pillars, surrounded a small stage—a speaker’s podium, facing row after row of red chairs. The air carried a scent Drow found cloying: citrus and something floral.
“Classroom, huh?” He raised a hand and a textbook dropped into it. History of the Sensorium, Level I.
“It stinks of flowers.”
“Orange blossom,” Drow agreed.
“Stupid, stenchy, choke.”
“You can mute smells, you know.”
“I didn’t.” Luce sounded surprised. “Thanks.”
A speaker strode to the podium. Her toon was photorealistic but rendered in grayscale. Visual cues for a recording with limited interactivity.
“Lemme see if I’ve got this,” Drow said. “You’re having episodes, losing consciousness.”
“They’re assaults!”
“When you wake up, you’re logged into this lecture?”
The professor adjusted her glasses. “This module covers the crisis point in the culture wars and the destruction of the pre-Sensorium internet in the twenty-first century. The #PME, or point of maximum escalation, coincided with physical attacks coordinated by trolling networks, primarily @Gamergate, @ISIS, and the Dixie Purity Project.
“Events leading to the collapse of the first-gen internet will be on your test.
“Students who unlock module two will play through historical sims examining how media providers found prosocial outlets for the honor/shame culture of the new Sensorium. Module three deals with the gamification of the economy and embrace of the carbon standard—”
Luce knuckled his temples. “I can’t hear this again!”
Drow paused the lecture and then gave it two strokes, spending his social capital to thank the virtual university and the speaker.
“Why stroke her? What if her information’s no good?”
“It’s verified truth. Anyway, I endured the history you’re finding so unutterably boring. Survived the plagues. Even got evacced from Manhattan during the #waterfail. I know, you’re thinking everyone says they were there—”
“Why would I be thinking that?”
Was Luce young, then? Most Bounceback generation kids were Rubi types, relentlessly upbeat and courteous. “Appreciating the lecture is polite. Big Mother’s a fan of polite, remember?”
“It’s a recording.”
A chime told him the like had bounced. “Well, it looks like the professor’s passed away.”
“She deaded?” Luce rocked back and forth, gripping a chair. Full-blown panic attack. “Did she suffocate?”
“Luce, breathe.”
“Stupid Sensorium, stinking riots.” Luce ground his knuckles into his temples again.
“Any thoughts on why you’re booting here?”
Wordless keening and rocking.
Rubi had referred this guy. And he was calling from WestEuro. Obviously, this was the Paris client.
She’d have sent Drow a write-up. Crane had probably urged him to read it.
Could someone have found a way to evade surveillance protocols and make a meal of this guy?
No, that’s paranoia. It’s my damage talking …
“Luce?”
The toon heaved, wild-eyed.
“I’m trying to understand, okay?” Drow said. “You’re blacking out? Losing time?”
“No!” He fisted both hands. “Someone is making me lose time. Is. Present tense. Hacking me. Repeatedly.”
“If someone’s accessing your transcripts, you’re entitled to know who. Transparency—”
Luce shook his head. “Stupid! Stupid!”
“Why do you think someone is engineering your episodes?”
“Ow! Laughing. Pain, then I’m unconscious. Then…” He kicked the podium, which toppled with a simulated thump. “I’m here.”
“Had you ever visited this sim before the episodes?”
That got him a long, wary pause.
“Luce?”
Reluctant mutter. “It’s where she came when she died.”
“She? Who?”
“I don’t want to be here! Learning stupid history about stupid data collapse and stroke economies and bullshit rapid-response democracy—”
This was turning into quite the roller coaster. “Luce,” Drow said. “Who ran here to the classroom? Who died?”
Luce frowned. “How to explain? I lost her name.”
“What do you know? Take all the time you need.”
“Time’s what I don’t have!”
Drow could look commanding when he wanted to. He locked eyes, dialing up vestigial cisman authority. Live concert charisma, go! “Nobody can reach you. This is a locked one-on-one session.”
Luce stilled. Closed his eyes. Groaned and shuddered.
“Better,” Drow said.
“How to explain about the woman? Her flesh failed. No backups, no system restore.”
“She died?” Drow said. “Like the professor.”
“Yeah. I have … audio share.”
He blinked. “A share of what?”
“Her. The woman.” Luce wrestled it out of his safecracking toolbox, cursing the ads.
“Accept share, Crane,” Drow said. “Play.”
Sound filled the room. A hum at first, thousands of … wasps? Then …
“Those are screams,” Drow said. He found himself wishing that he could bring his helper dog, Robin, into Sensorium. Luce’s panic was wearing on his nerves. “Sounds like kids.”
“Goats?”
“Kids. Preadolescent people.”
“Oh.”
English can’t be his first language.
“So. Screaming children?”
“Fuck them. This! This is her noise. You hear?”
“That sounds like someone gasping for air,” Drow said.
“Yeah. She logged into this lecture hall as the stupid gasping—”
The recording continued. Each of the whistling noises was shorter and higher than the last, barely audible over the rising screams of the children.
Cessation. A last squeak, and a ch-ch-ch-aaaaaghhhh.
“Hear that? She suffocated.”
Drow’s fingers, over his mouth, felt cold. Reflexively covering the bottom of his face was a gesture he’d picked up during his own crises—he’d learned that laughing at the wrong moment could get him strikes.
“Are you … upset?” Luce asked.
“A little. Shocked. Thanks for asking.”
“These sounds, after she deaded?” Luce asked. “You’d call those … wails?”
“Crying,” Drow agreed. “The children are reacting to her death. Is that something you relate to, Luce? When she died, did you feel—”
“I was too busy running for my life to make noises.”
“Okay, tough guy.” Now he really wanted Robin. Drow swallowed. “Have you asked anyone? About the source of this lecture-hall mirage?”
The toon clawed off his burglar mask, revealing a sunburned, mostly bald face and pale dishwater eyes. “You believe me?”
“I—” Drow was breathless suddenly. He remembered saying something similar, long ago. And if Father Blake hadn’t said yes …
Rubi had been right to refer Luce. He had to have virtual trauma dissociative disorder. “This sound file is a verifiable artifact.”
“Everyone tells me I’m wrong. You’re wrong, Luce. Wrong-lying, wrong-antisocial, wrong-rude. Your story’s impossible. Nobody wants to hear that, Luciano, basta! Cheer up! Don’t be stupid. They send out punishments. The strikes, strikes, strikes.”
With Luce’s unmasking had come his Whooz data, and Drow saw he was indeed in trouble. Strikes had drained his social capital, reducing his Cloudsight rating to 14 percent.
Being wrong, a lot, was what forced Luce into the slowest channels for service upload and download. It had devastated his credit balance as fees for all but subsistence services skyrocketed.
As for what had caused him to become unpopular … now information on that came in, too.
“Want to talk about your soapboxing?” Drow said. “You’ve been advocating for a return to martial law?”
He began scrolling through the talking points. Suffocation was an obsessive through-thread. Well, now he knew why. And Luce was anxious about oxygen security, just as Rubi was.
Could he be a more perfect client for Drow’s do-gooding daughter?
Try to calm him down.
He triggered an app and a representation of a saxophone materialized. Out in his pop-in apartment, in Old Toronto, his in-the-flesh hand closed over the real thing.
“Let’s change gears, Luce. Think about your episodes. Can you do that?”
“Stupid question. Of course I can think—”
“See, that’s the kind of antisocial comeback that gets you strikes from strangers.”
Luce scratched his head. “I apologize? Je suis désolé?”
“Tone could use some work there.” Drow smiled. “Think about what happens just before the attacks: where you are, any memories or emotions.”
“Stupid feels.”
Drow launched a spotlight, simulcasting to the @FecklessGuest channel, and began a variation on one of his popular oldies, “Deep Six Blues.”
Luce tapped his safecracking kit impatiently.
Drow texted, without missing a note: You’re meant to be soul-searching here.
Luce grimaced.
Think. When do the episodes occur?
“When? Not when I’m doing deliveries. Not as I watch the global carbon markets. Not when I’m splicing vids, fiddling my account settings, and reading the user agreements for all the things, all the services.”
He read his own user agreements? Drow flagged that for follow-up.
“Shift end.” Luce seemed to struggle, momentarily, for words. “Bedtime?”
When you’re tired, Drow replied. Very common.
“Are you playing that thing right now?”
Realtime and in the flesh? Yes.
“How are you texting me?”
I’m an accomplished toe-texter. Focus, Luce.
His patient raked his nails over his toon’s balding head, moaning. Then, suddenly, his jaw dropped: “Attacks started after I began my social remediation course.”
Drow nodded, to show he was listening.
“Stupid remediation class. Play well with others. Blather about performative virtue, compassionate comms, and trigger warnings. Lists of words tagged as hate speech. Don’t use this, you’ll offend disabled people. Don’t say that, you’ll offend everyone. Invoking this Fuhrer’s name automatically loses these sorts of argument. Why? Because that’s what people decided in 1990 and, basically, we still like that rule. Talking about the first Setback Presidency is—”
Do you remember how bad it got? Plagues, starvation, trolling as open warfare—
“Stupid homework,” Luce muttered.
What did they assign?
Luce frowned. “Big Book of Feels, one was called. Inevitable outcomes of aggressive posts. Twenty ways to make crowdscoring work for you. Paying gigs, Volunteer gigs, and Social Capital Synergy. Mais non, this is stupid.”
Stupid how? Drow texted.
“I’m not seizing. It’s attacks. Asking what I’m thinking when I’m attacked—”
Thinking and feeling.
“Si. If it’s all my feels, then it’s in my mind, isn’t it? Is what you’re saying. But someone’s out there—”
Drow hit fade-out, giving the Feckless stage back to the house band. “Luce—”
“Battering me, conking me out, leaving me helpless, editing my memory cache…”
“Luce—” For a second, he wondered if this patient was a cleverly engineered plant. It all sounded so familiar.
But Rubi had sent him.
“You’re not helping! Someone’s after me; they’re hitting me and you stand there inflating a virtual reed instrument while claiming my problems are internal glitches!”
“It’s okay to be mad,” Drow said. Something warm pressed against his hip—out on the surface, Robin the Wonder Dog had picked up on his distress.
“I’m so tired of the punishes.”
His heart went out to him. “Okay, Luce. Okay. Can I see the deletion log from your cache?”
The anger drained away: “Briefcase is tangled in advertisements. One ad per data request. Going through it all would take—”
“When’s it getting untangled? When’s your support ticket adjudication?”
Reluctantly, Luce rolled up his striped prisoner’s sleeve, sharing a calendar grid tattooed on his bulging toon bicep.
The calendar was badly tangled. The two of them had to wait as an enthusiastic toon extolled the sexual benefits of getting low-dose life-extension meds printed into his daily protein order.
“Should never have told that survey I’m male-and-single.”
“If it’s any consolation, yeast infection ads are pretty gross, too.”
A skeletal soldier in a tattered uniform came next. “Play Ghosts of Prussia!”
“Non!” Luce yelled. “Refuse!”
The soldier morphed into a fit-looking pair of Bounceback kids. “Three-day courses in bamboo baling!” enthused one. “Save the world and earn social capital! Grow your stake by logging paying hours!”
“It’s almost over,” Drow said.
He was right. The round of for-profit ads was capped with a public service announcement. The calendar unlocked, scrolling out onto the back wall of the lecture theater. Letters as big as Drow’s head denoted the month and the days of the week.
The day, thus graphed, showed a food-delivery gig and a drone-piloting course as well as Rubi’s name, in blinking, crimson text.
“Stupid!” Luce swore. “This is tomorrow. Now there’s gonna be more ads when I, I mean—je suis désolé…”
“That list is for today,” Drow said. “There, an hour ago—that’s your face-to-face with legal support?”
“C’est vendredi?”
“Yeah, Luce, it’s totally Friday.”
Luce’s jaw dropped. “A day? How can you think I’m not being attacked when I’m losing whole days?”
“Oh, my poor White Rabbit,” Drow said. “You are, inconveniently and most officially, very fucking late indeed.”