When I was first new to this site and online publishing, a year and a half ago, I made the mistake of posting a short story I had written some eight years earlier entitled 'Wet Chip' in one shot, not realizing that a twenty page, forty minute read article would immediately deter any readership. So I'll present it again in digestible segments along with the many edits and expansions I plan on adding. I'm a hardened follower of the news, especially on technology, and so much has happened in these eight years that my mind is teeming with possibilities, which just might unfold.
The topic is current. It confronts the metaverse and IT and an alternate reality fast becoming a fact that we all face. This alternate reality has all the allure of a witches charm which advances in computer science are ever more capable to wrap our entire consciousness around. And as far as my study of human psychology stretches, escapism is one of our salient features, whenever insurmountable problems seem to arise. This is the tale of such a disastrous flight from reality, facilitated by an easily implanted chip, welcomed by the masses and promoted by an AI soon planning to dominate and destroy all of mankind.
I would place this scenario about a decade from now. Enjoy.
Wet Chip
The hanging gardens of Semiramis by H Waldeck.
Mary, Mary, are you there? I whispered to the woman lying in bed beside me. There was no response. I gently touched her delicate, white shoulder. After a long pause, ‘Decaville’, she flashed me, ‘Tully Palace’. I glanced in her mind and opened that door but wouldn’t step in completely. At the threshold I shouted her name. I only wanted her out so I could tell her the exciting news privately. There were a thousand people in her head right now.
It was a vast chamber of hanging gardens, a low pyramid hollowed out with deep balconies on all four sides, reaching to the top and facing the inside cavity, and from these hung the foliage. There were thousands of people on these porticoes in their select groups, lounging on pillowed beds and wearing silken robes, conversing while smoking hashish or opium in Persian fashion, some watching the circus-like shows on the huge floor below them, some kissing, lounging, having sex or small talk with their perfect mates. Music and perfume filled the cool air, and all had a perfect view. As I looked up some people were flitting about on butterfly wings, going from one pleasure party to the next.
It was foolish of me to shout her name. No one did that in polite society. Those who were closest turned abruptly and threw me an evil glance, and the door slammed shut in my face. It was an iron door and I was standing outside now, alone, on a cold concrete pavement with many similar pyramids all around, dotting an otherwise grey and flat horizon in every direction. I’d been there a few times before. It was a cyber void.
Now the picture began to disintegrate and holes started to open up all around me. I had to act quickly because I knew that to tumble down into one of these pits was an even greater trap than the pleasure gardens. I summoned up my apprehensions at this mistake, clenched a fist and smacked myself hard in the face, to wake my mind and then repeated three times my mantra: Jack Cade, Jack Cade, Jack Cade. This woke me up.
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