Re:union, page 2
“Look, it was great seeing you,” I said, “but I need to run. I’m looking for someone.”
“I totally understand,” Rick said. He gave me a handshake, passing his contact information along. “Remember, have some fun, and if you ever need anything, anything at all, just message me.”
**********
I found her standing by the punch bowl dressed in a long green dress that shimmered when she moved, hundreds of tiny pixels flashing from across the room. I remembered that dress. She had worn it to our Junior prom, back when buying that dress had cost her months of savings, but school lunches were free. The world had changed tremendously, but for a moment, I imagined we were Juniors once more, and my biggest problem was finding the courage to ask her to dance.
It had been so much harder back then, when the floor had been more crowded and the school was bursting at the seams. I remembered muscling through dancing teens and fending off eager socialites. But today there was no dancing, and there was plenty elbow room. Overcrowding was rarely a problem now. Humans had left the planet in droves to find a more pleasant experience.
She hadn’t seen me yet, seemingly distracted by the overly-ornate punch bowl. A hundred years ago the complexities of the crystal artistry would have demanded a small ransom. Now, holding the secrets of life in code seemed so easy in comparison to growing a radish.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and felt her cool, smooth skin under my fingers.
“Troy,” she whispered, her milky voice triggering fragments of remembered embraces in my mind.
“I thought I had lost you forever,” I said, trying to turn her around. She resisted, continuing to study the punch bowl as if I didn’t exist.
“I missed you,” she said, beautiful words that sent my spirits higher.
“I tried to find you,” I said.
“I know,” she replied. “And now you have.” She turned and took my hands in hers. She looked every bit as radiant as she always had. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I felt the depth of her soul grip me, not a bit beaten down from the fall of civilization and the restructuring of humanity. Michelle was still there, unchanged, just as I had left her, just as I would now rejoin her.
“Let’s leave this place,” I said, gesturing to the veneer of reality around us. “Where are you now? I’ll come get you, take you home.”
Her eyes flicked downward, and she took a step back. “What’s wrong?” I asked. But her face remained frozen in anguish, and then she spun around and disappeared.
**********
“Fancy seeing you again so soon,” Rick said while I stared vacantly at where Michelle had stood. “Any luck finding your someone?”
“Rick,” I said, turning to face him. “Can someone just disappear in the middle of a conversation?”
“Oh sure,” Rick said. “It’s a very expensive feature though, certainly not something that your off-the-shelf avatar would be able to do.” His eyes scanned pitiably over my torso.
Was that it? Michelle took one look at my cheap avatar and realized that I was poor? Did she imagine that I wouldn’t be able to support her and could never afford the allocation for a child? With food still scarce, there was no longer a right to exist. You needed to earn your spot. I knew that, and with her in my life, I would work hard for our future. But before I could convince her, I would have to find her.
“There are loads of features that a good avatar comes with,” Rick continued. “The high end features allow you to disappear, track people, automate tasks... in many ways it’s quite an upgrade over your own body.”
“And you can help me learn how to do all this?” I asked.
“Of course,” Rick said. “We’re buddies.”
Just then, an elegantly dressed woman walked up to Rick, whispered in his ear and then walked away. I couldn’t stop staring at the faint bulge in her belly. “Who was that?” I asked.
“That’s my wife Elise,” Rick explained. “She didn’t go here though. We met a few years ago.
Suddenly everything clicked into place. “You’re after my Allocation,” I accused. “That’s why you’re offering me all this SymWare.”
“I’m just being a good friend,” Rick insisted, backing away from my towering glare. “And should you decide that you’ve had enough of this dreary world and want to Convert, well, I can set you up very nicely in SymSpace.”
“And take my real world allocation for your newborn?” I asked.
“Well, you wouldn’t be needing it then would you?” he asked.
“How could you ask me to trade my life for, well, for anything?” I said. “It’s immoral.” I could hear my father’s indignation in my voice.
“But perfectly legal,” he countered. “Look, the Great Conversion saved millions of lives. SymSpace took in the refugees no one else could, people who would have died from starvation but instead now live perfectly happy virtual lives. In fact, many people choose Conversion even to this day.”
“Runners,” I said. Father had hated runners. “People who have given up on the world and choose to have their brains scanned into a computer and let their bodies rot. No, I’m no Runner.”
“I’m not saying you are,” Rick said. “I meant no insult. But Allocations are hard to come by. There are now almost as many people living in SymSpace as there are in the real world. They take far fewer resources and honestly have much more fun. The human condition is changing, and I’m just letting you know that if you want to take advantage of it, then I’m here to help.”
He held out his hand. “Friends?” he asked.
I took it. “Sure,” I said cautiously. “Can you help me find someone then?”
“Of course,” he said. “Who are you looking for?”
When I told him, he laughed for twenty seconds straight before I could knock him out of it.
“What’s so funny?” I asked angrily.
“Nothing, nothing,” he insisted as he recovered his breath. “His eyes blurred as he accessed the information. She’s on the school rooftop,” he said. “But do yourself a favor. Take a look at her eyes. I mean really take a good long look.”
**********
I opened the door to the rooftop and breathed in the cool night air. It invigorated my lungs, a slight hint of peppermint giving the mundane experience of breathing extra vibrancy. As promised, Michelle stood at the edge of the rooftop, looking over the darkened fields in contemplation.
“Michelle,” I called out as I strode noisily towards her. I didn’t want to startle her and gave her plenty of warning of my approach. “I’m sorry,” I said softly when I reached her side.
She turned towards me. “For what?” she asked. “You don’t know do you?”
I didn’t. But when I looked deep into her eyes, I saw a wealth of pain and sadness that I didn’t notice before. She carried so much emotion in her face that my avatar must look like a hollow puppet in comparison. And then I realized what I was sorry for.
“I’m not looking at your avatar am I?” I asked.
“No, you’re looking at me.” she responded.
“Then you live-”
“I live here, Troy,” she whispered, her eyes pulsing with her heart.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” I said, memories of the FourH aftermath rampaging through my head.
I recalled the images of people starving all around the world, and even here in America. There was nowhere for refugees to go except for SymSpace, so the government forced mass Conversions. Rumor had it that they came for you in the middle of the night and collected your head so that they could scan your brain into SymSpace in large batches: gruesome but efficient. The official death toll went down, but the body count didn’t.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I never even mourned you,” I said, tears rolling down my face.
Michelle slapped me, hard. “I’m not dead,” she said, the sadness replace by anger.
“I, um,” I stuttered.
“You just assumed that I was taken in the Great Conversion,” she said. “No, I survived that, worked to build a community in Kenya, even thrived.”
“But then, how did you,” I started, refusing to believe she could be a Runner. She was a fighter, passionate about the earth, and passionate about me.
“I chose this, Troy,” she said. “I chose to live in SymSpace because this is where I can do the most good.”
I must have looked hurt even through the blunt emotional filters of my avatar, for her voice softened, and she put her hands on top of mine.
“I’m living a good life and working,” she said. “Yes, people can work in SymSpace too. I’m doing research on social structures, trying to figure out how humanity can live sustainably in the world. In SymSpace I have the resources to run simulated experiments. If I’m successful, then humanity will finally be able to live in harmony with the world. We can grow as a culture while maintaining the biodiversity of the earth and make sure another FourH doesn’t happen again.”
“But you’re not in the world anymore,” I said sadly, the rest of her words sliding past my ears. “You’re fighting to save a world which you’ve left behind.”
“Sometimes, when you love something, you have to let it go,” she insisted.
“So you’ve let me go as well?” I asked.
“Now that depends a bit on you,” Michelle said. She squeezed my hand, sending over her contact information. “The world is changing. SymSpace is now a necessary part of humanity’s future. Think about it.” Then once again, she turned away and faded from existence.
I sat on that roof for a long time, staring out at the millions of virtual square miles that stretched out into infinity. Fifteen years ago, I was the quarterback of the football team and dreamed of a brilliant future with Michelle. Then the world changed and all that was ripped away from me. But now I had another chance. This might not have been the future anyone had dreamed of, but still there was a future out there for me.
I pulled up Michelle’s contact card, and then slid Rick Chang’s beside it. I imagined a new life for me in SymSpace with Michelle and a new life here for Rick’s kid: three lives for the price of one. Hope.
Afterword:
I believe stories can save the world.
The progress of human civilization is tremendous. In the last two hundred years we have managed to take to the skies, explore the depths of the ocean, and even venture beyond our native planet into space unimagined just a few centuries before. In the last few decades we have flattened the world, freed information from paper, and made our pockets smarter than we are. The possibilities for the future are endless, and yet a great doom looms overhead, for the next century also brings humanity’s greatest challenges.
The world is changing, and our society must be willing to move forward with it. How can we prepare for a future that we cannot imagine? How can we sacrifice and overcome without hope? Our greatest tool is imagination, and its greatest vehicle is the story.
This is why I write. I seek to stimulate the imagination, to open up the possibilities for the future, and to package hope inside entertainment that inspires as well as teaches.
If you enjoyed reading this, pick up a copy of my book, Terrene: the hidden valley.
About the Author
Eric Liu is a career technologist, amateur sociologist, and passionate futurist. He has technical degrees from MIT and Stanford and has worked in high tech companies in Silicon Valley for over eight years. He exercises his creativity through song, dance, and writing and believes that we make the world stronger by bringing disparate things together: art and industry, science and tradition, corporations and communities, and government and technology. He lives in Santa Clara with his lovely wife Connie.
Discover other titles by Eric Liu at www.terrenevalley.com
Or search for “Terrene Valley” in any online bookstore.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/fiction4change
Blog: http://www.fiction4change.org
Eric Liu, Re:union
