SF in The City Anthology (10 page)

“I guess we’ll find out Saturday,” Diop said as he looked over at Prolix’s cage. The bird looked ruffled after his earlier experience, but he seemed to have nothing to say on the matter. “Keep taking your Galantamine, and don’t forget to deprive yourself of rest on Friday night. We want you really tired for the big day.”

Declan thanked his mentor and uploaded the dream they had just recorded into his nanotubes. Physically writing about the content of his dream was only a way to increase retention. The actual digital recording c
ould be played back for study.

As he walked to the door of the small, shabby apartment, Declan was given one last piece of advice by his droach – “eat plenty of cheese Saturday.”

***

The following day provided Declan with little rest, yet his evening dream lacked the stunning visuals he had hoped. Something had to be done if he was to win his prefecture’s Dream Off. His father’s medical expenses demanded a solution, and his tuition was racking up debt. After Central Authority got done taxing him, $50,000 ECUs would be the prize of the regional competition. If he went to The City finals, he could win the $10,000,000 ECU prize!

Perhaps a greater investment than a personal trainer was necessary for winning Dream Off competitions? Declan decided to visit the “Vicarium” on Wú Avenue. He knew the operator’s son, Georgie Cavoballo, from a Bok Fu class he used to attend on Tuesdays. The two hadn’t talked for five years, but hectic schedules rather than embitterment kept them apart. Life in The City ironically brought billions of people together, yet it prevented them from investing in each other emotionally. That was the way of things.

Declan had forgotten that Georgie developed into a giant of stature. When he arrived at Vermillo’s Vicarium, he had asked for Georgie by name, and his mouth dropped at the sight of his friend bending down to squeeze through a door frame. As he bowed in greeting, the student could hardly comprehend the shadow of his 7’2” associate.

“It’s good to see you again Georgie!” Declan stared up at the towering figure.

“I’m glad you gave me a call,” the giant responded. “As I’m sure you are aware, the price for a session in a Vicarium is
very
high, and seeing as we’re friends, I thought we could strike up a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“What could I do in exchange for a discount?” Declan asked as Georgie handed him a clipboard with a waiver he needed to sign.

“I’ll give you an hour long session for
free
,” Georgie put emphasis on that last word as only a salesman could, “but you have to let me advertise with you during your upcoming competition. Just wear a Vermillo’s Vicarium T-shirt and we have a deal.”

“Georgie, I knew we were friends for a reason,” Declan smiled back and signed the unread waiver.

***

Vicariums were state of the art facilities, which used holographic technology to such an extent that fiction and reality often blurred beyond recognition. While denizens of The City could experience virtual reality within their own heads, without the need for external stimuli, nothing beat the experience of physically seeing a bizarre world with one’s own eyes. At some point in human history, entertainment shifted away from producing fictions in which the entertained actively participated and imagined to mediums were they passively accepted the narratives presented to them. Declan liked to think that Vicariums were a shift back in the direction of active participation, even if they weren’t as radical as the notion of reading a book with one’s own eyes or playing physical games.

As he stepped into the room to which he was assigned, Declan inhaled in surprise. The room reacted to his history of searches and downloads in his brain’s nanotubes, yet the world it created around him did not match his expectations.

The holographic simulation produced a land for Declan that looked like a sandy desert – an empty environment from the days before The City spread across the face of the globe. Declan had expected a forest or maybe even a clear underwater world to surround him, but a land of dunes and hot sun arose anyway. He had heard that a Vicarium room created the environment that its occupant most wanted to inhabit. How did this barren landscape reflect his desires?

He decided to enjoy it as much as possible. An exercise that helped lucid dreamers involved touching the surfaces around them and reminding themselves that they were awake and not asleep. Declan ran his hand through the simulacra of sand that surrounded him. It was an alien feeling, the minute, course stones running across his palms. Touchable holograms were not a new invention. They had been used in computer interfaces for decades, and The City’s pornography industry relied heavily on this technology. Still, the simulations of the natural world baffled Declan with their realism.

Deciding to make the most of his time, the student took off running up a dune and allowed himself to roll down the other side. He could afford to look silly in a fictional world like this. With a modern mind, it only took Declan twenty minutes to get bored with the incredible world about him and start racking his brain for an explanation regarding the room’s behavior.

If he focused hard enough on another environment, would the room change accordingly? He created an image of a tropical island, a locale he only saw in children’s books, in his mind and tried to think of nothing else. As is often the case, when he tried to clear his mind, a new idea hit him. His mind truly desired an empty space. The clutter of his modern lifestyle could not bury a primal motivation for a simple life. It was at that moment that Declan believed he had resolved the problems of his dreams. He needed to clear his head, and a way to do so would surely not be difficult to find.

***

After his session had finished, Declan graciously thanked Georgie for the good deal they had made, and he took an XL T-shirt with him. He had hoped to squeeze into a large sized shirt, but he had become one of the Sedants people talked about, spending more time sitting and reclining than moving about in the world around him. Then again, the whole City’s population was headed in that direction, so at least he didn’t stick out.

As he mounted his bicycle and rode into the nearby lane, Declan also downloaded a copy of
The City Now
and looked in the “experimental subjects” section of the wanted ads. Just as he thought, a new virtual reality device was being tested at Acciai Virtual Reality Research Institute (AVRRI). VR technology experiments were going on almost every day in The City. In just two hours, the first test of a device known as Slipstream Dogma would take place at Room 280 in the Mzeta Building.

Dropping by Loa’s Coffee and Tea House, Declan ordered a Maghrebi mint tea and reclined in a polyflex lounging chair in front of the establishment. He wanted to stay as relaxed as possible before the experiment. If clearing his mind was so important, the confusion resulting from a prototype VR device would be like a reset button for his brain, exhausting him and opening him up to new experiences. It would be good for an aspiring Dream Off champion. At least that was what he told himself.

When Declan started drinking his tea, a man suddenly came up to him, interrupting his musings. The gentleman looked rather wearied, though he had surprisingly impeccable posture for someone with such a run-down appearance.

“My name is Don Song, though it is not my real title,” the man sat down across from Declan. “You see I’m in the CA
’s witness protection program.”

“Well, that’s…something,” Declan pulled up a clock inside of his mind, hoping that this man wouldn’t take up too much of his time.

“I used to run a formulator business,” the man continued. “After they moved me to this Prefecture, the CA has kept me locked up most of the time. You look like someone who has it all together. Would you happen to be a DU (data unit) producer?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Declan trie
d to be as polite as possible.

“It’s a shame really. If someone could loan me enough DUs, I’m sure I could pay off my debts to Iw…, um, a friend, and I wouldn’t have to be a snitch.”

“Well, I’m sorry…”

“Do you know how well the CA treats informants,” the man leaned closer to Declan, exposing him to breath that smelled like day old garbage. 

“No,” Declan leaned farther back in his seat.

“They hardly ever let me out, and yet they expect to pull data out of my scull at the trial, for everyone to see.”

“Look, I’d better get going. I have an appointment.” Of course Declan did not have to arrive at the institute for some time, but he had had enough of this strange man.

“Well maybe I’ll see you around,” the man said as the student stood up to leave. “You know I only talked to you about this because you seemed like a decent guy, the kind of person who’s not out to kill me.”

              “Um, thank you,” Declan gave a half-hearted bow.

***

AVRRI was a small campus nestled amongst the colossal infrastructure of the Shé District. Of all its structures, the Mzeta Building was the most attractive, with Corinthian columns composed of a Traffigian alloy lending a Neoclassical aesthetic to its entrance way.

Though it was hardly worth as much as the trippy experience the VR device would lend, the 500 ECU payment to the experiment’s subject covered the expenses of Declan’s last three sessions with Mr. Diop. Needless to say, the student didn’t mind the extra money. An overly enthusiastic doctor named John Schmid met Declan in Room 280 with bizarre looking machine in tow.     

“I would like to introduce you to my baby, Slipstream Dogma!” she announced as the device hummed to life.

Looking at the bug eye like lens that would cover his eyes, Declan couldn’t help but say, “It has a face only a mother could love.”

An assistant named Kota Salazar lifted the VR machine, a thin shelled yet surprisingly hefty device onto Declan’s head. Thick and humming, a lengthy cable ran from the back of the headset into a power source in the wall.

“Why isn’t this wireless?” Declan couldn’t help but ask. “This isn’t some antique is
it?”

“No, of course not,” Dr. Schmid laughed with screeching vocal chords. “The energy we are about to pass through your skull is best converted in this manner. We are going to couple a series of volatile virtual reality worlds with a bombardment of your pineal gland until…”

“Wait a second!” Declan threw his hands up to the apparatus on his head. “Isn’t the pineal gland involved in regulating sleep patterns?”

“Yes,” Kota yawned and put a hand up to cover his mouth, “
is there a problem with that?”

“I’m participating in Saturday’s Dream Off. This won’t screw with m
y sleeping schedule, will it?”

The doctor and assistant looked at each other and shrugged. “Our goal is to find out if you can see into the future after a series of electron bombardments.” Dr. Schmid replied as she nodded to Kota, signaling him to activate the device. “You already signed a waiver, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” She pressed a button, locking the mechanism in place on her subject.

“We’ll you didn’t give me all of these details in the advertisement!” Declan struggled as Kota stabbed a needle loaded with a paralytic into his right arm.

“Sorry,” the doctor pulled up a series of images in her mind, displaying the data from the machine. “We tried being up front about experiments’ details before, but the number of applicants dropped. Ambiguity and fine print are far
better recruiting strategies.”

Declan thought back to his cousin Vernice and got a sick feeling in his stomach. As crazy as her suggestions were, he rejected them not so much because of the implications they really had for his life, but rather because he despised the messenger. Now, he really had made a deal with the Devil, and he walked right into it for th
e sake of winning the contest.

             
The humming from the VR device increased, and Declan belched from nervousness, the taste of Maghrebi mint tea rising into his mouth. Suddenly the eye pieces he looked through lit up and he could see out into the world around him. Within a second, the world turned dark, not in the way it looks when lights are turned off, but rather the absolute blackness of the dream world.

             
Bright lights suddenly flew by, and he was in a land surrounded by the sickly glow of neon lights. Words entered his ears from the outside reality, as Dr. Schmid played "That's Amore" on old-fashioned surround sound speakers.

             
The half luminous environment was replaced with darkness, then with light, then with abstract color. Declan felt himself dropping, flying, dropping. “I think I regret this decision,” he managed to wheeze (or was it in his mind). What separated thought from speech?

             
As the song played on, Dean Martin reached the “when you walk in a dream” part, and Declan’s eyes widened (or did they close). What separates opened eyes from closed ones?

“We’re not getting results!” Dr. Schmid threw a mug full of coffee across the room.

             
Of course you’re not you crazy woman
, Declan thought to himself (or did he say it).

             
“Switch up his perceived realities more quickly,” the doctor yelled.