“Finished playtime yet Rick?” I asked, shifting my hips from one side to the other and taking a drag from my smoke. I could feel the sense of safety that these weapons instilled in him. Perhaps he had a point.
In all cases, I wanted him to feel safe. I knew that one of his main reasons for coming here was to try and rescue his relationship with his estranged wife, Cindy, and I sincerely wanted him to succeed and raise a family here.
“Yeah, I think that about does it.”
“Good, because I think you scared the heck out of the wildlife I’ve managed to nurture on this tin can,” I said with a laugh, “and the tourists want to go back in the water-not that you didn’t put on a good show for them. That was quite the shock and awe campaign.”
“You gotta wake up the neighbors from time to time,” he laughed.
We’d purposely removed any reality filtering of the weapons test to measure the cognitive impact they would have on people. The response had more than exceeded the threshold for emotional deterrence that we’d needed for the project-just another success notched up on our path forward.
“Well, that’s your job, Rick, to help scare the world into respecting us. Mine is to scare the world into saving itself.”
I said this without humor, and Rick looked at me, nodding at my seriousness.
“Anyway, good work.”
A small pause while we looked at each other.
“Did you see that thunderstorm coming in?” he asked, and I nodded. “We’ve been tracking that depression for weeks, but we can’t avoid them all. Anyway, it’ll water your plants up top.”
He smiled. I smiled back.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” I suggested. I knew his wife was having a hard time adjusting to life here and missed her family. It was more than that, though, her depression being a chronic condition that stemmed from her relationship with Rick. It was something I thought we could help fix.
People reacted differently to the sudden immersion into limitless synthetic reality when they arrived here for the first time. Most adjusted quickly and within a short time they’d usually be off creating their little own nooks and crannies of reality that suited them. Some had a more difficult time, but I had a feeling Cindy would come around soon.
“That’s actually a great idea,” answered Rick after a moment, busy adjusting the control systems for the slingshot shutdown. He looked towards me. “So you really think that thing is a good idea?”
He was talking about the proxxids, simulated babies that Cognix was encouraging couples to try before the ‘real’ thing. It would help Cindy get acclimatized to pssi, but in general it wasn’t something I was comfortable with. In this case, however, it seemed like a good idea; putting a toe in the water first, so to speak.
“Yes,” I replied, shrugging, “why not?”
With that I looked over and smiled at Jimmy, and with the smallest of waves goodbye, clicked out of the Command sensory spaces.
Identity: Jimmy Jones
I smiled and nodded my goodbye to Patricia as she faded out of Command.
“I think that’s a good idea, Commander,” I said once she was completely gone. “I mean about going to see your wife. I can handle the rest of this.”
Rick looked over from the slingshot controls at me, smiled, and began nodding. Standing up from his workstation, he shifted the controls to me, and then walked over.
“Thanks Jimmy, I really appreciate it. You and Patricia have a pretty special bond, don’t you?”
I smiled.
“We do,” I agreed while I focused on some security protocols that had been breached during the weapons test. Somebody had been poking around up there in the UAV that had been destroyed during the test.
“It hasn’t been easy moving here,” he continued. “At least, it hasn’t been easy for Cindy.”
I filed the security breach report away to have a look at later, and looked up at the Commander.
“I can’t imagine how much of a change it must be for her,” I replied, “or for you, for that matter.”
Rick nodded, and then pulled a security blanket down around us. The other Command staff looked up from their workstations, wondering what was going on.
“Confidentially, son, I’ve heard that you had it pretty rough growing up here.”
I shrugged. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“If you ever need anyone to talk to,” he said softly, “I had it rough growing up too.”
“Thanks…” I replied uncertainly, surprised at this sudden intimacy.
“I’m just saying, any time, and of course, entirely confidential.”
“I appreciate that Commander,” I answered more confidently. “And I will, but I’m fine.”
I pulled down the security blanket, feeling self-conscious with all the rest of the staff there.
“Why don’t you get on to seeing your wife?”
He smiled. “I will. You just remember, anytime, right?”
“Right.” I smiled back at him.
“See you later, Jimmy.”
While Atopia was marketed as this amazing place, and the tabloid worlds were constantly spinning stories about the fantastic pssi-kids that grew up here, my own parents fighting had made my experience on Atopia a special sort of hell I had to drag myself through. Now I had the perspective to view it, even appreciate it, as a part of the fire that had forged me, but back then, pssi could be cruel.
I remembered it all.
“Look,” said my mother, back when I was an infant, soon after they’d first arrived on Atopia, “look at him, so cute. I think he just shat himself again, and he’s looking around wondering what the bad smell is.”
She was laughing at a shared rendering of my inVerse. She even tried sharing the smell with the guests. I wasn’t even a year old, and Mother was at it again, and drunk of course.
“Look, look, smell that?” she laughed. “Can you believe something so small and useless could make a smell so bad?”
As children, we had no right to privacy from our parents. Mother was always criticizing everything I did, in minute detail, and in excruciatingly public fashion.
My parents had been having another couple over for coffee, and Mother had turned our cramped apartment into a synthetic space projection that was decked out like a Spanish palace for the evening. We were sitting in the middle of an open courtyard, under a deep blue sky, surrounded by a three story terracotta palazzo, the walls decorated with intricate murals inlaid with tiny blue, white and gold tiles.
I was playing between potted ferns next to a small pool filled with colorful Koi fish. A fountain bubbled water into the pond, sprayed from the penis of a cherubic statue of a small boy. Dragonflies buzzed at the water’s edge, holding my attention as I reached towards them.
I still hadn’t learnt to walk yet, so I sat on my haunches in my own excrement, eyes on the dragonflies, curiously sniffing the air around me.
“Don’t you think you should change him?” asked Steve uncomfortably. He worked in the aquaponics group with my dad, and they spent a lot of time together, both at work and off hours. It was a source of friction between my parents.
“It’s all that fish protein in his little diet,” continued Mother. “Phil seems to think it will help his brain development and help him grow big and strong. So far, it just doesn’t seem to be working.”
She laughed again, louder this time, shrugging her shoulders. The guests didn’t share her sense of humor, but politely tried to smile and nod just the same.
Mother finished laughing at her own joke.
“Yolanda!” she yelled unnecessarily. “Could you change Jim, please?”
Mother smiled at my guests as her image flickered just a little. She detached and her proxxi, Yolanda took over control of her physical body. The pssi functioned less than flawlessly at this prototype stage, years ago, and the net effect was that Mother seemed to remain in place while Yolanda materialized into view and morphed away
