I never much cared to be around other people. All they do is complain complain. And gossip. And brag. What’s the point of it all?
But this was different. I didn’t realize how notorious I had become. My virtual face had been stuck inside a “Wanted” frame and posted upon every square inch of available disk space like I was some kind of criminal from the Old West. All I did was delete a few “innocent” avatars.
It was all a game. At least to me. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t.
This world was the new real. Over the past twenty years, automatics had taken over physical labor, leaving only the creative aspects to humankind. Some people pined for the old ways. Idiots.
This world is so much fun. You can do anything you can imagine. But that’s just it. Some people can’t imagine. The virtual world they have created for themselves matches what was once the “real,” down to the last stinking detail. What’s the point of that?
So all I did to get me into all this trouble was to free those sorry people from their pathetic lives. And if they were really that attached to them, they could always apply for a new identity. It’s not like I actually killed them.
But, by the definition of the law, I had. So what if they can’t remember anything once they’ve been disconnected from the mainframe? It’s not like they had anything important to remember, anyways. Nevertheless, I just couldn’t shake this nagging feeling, like I had done something wrong. Or perhaps that was the feeling of my pod being opened.
Everything started to blink out of existence and the world faded to black before me. Panic coursed through me as I tried desperately to cling to my reality. Don’t wake me up.
The door slid open and blinding electric light filled my field of view. I tried to close my lids, but some kind of innate instinct to see my attackers, something I would never have experienced inside the matrix, prevented me. As my eyes slowly adjusted, two humanoid shapes appeared above me. How did they find me? I had not linked my digital signature to my physical body at all. I thought.
From an outsider’s perspective, it was probably kind of funny. The criminal, blinded by the light of justice, being read his rights by automatics, cowering in fear of what he himself had done to so many others. Termination.
And all I could think was, please don’t make me go back.
“This world was the new real. Over the past twenty years, automatics had taken over physical labor, leaving only the creative aspects to humankind. Some people pined for the old ways. Idiots.”
Great paragraph! I think you capture the idea of “liminality”–the crossing back and forth across the barriers that separate our physical and digital selves–beautifully.