From: A.W.Hughes@bradford.ac.uk (AW HUGHES)
Subject: STORY: Rose-Tinted Virtuality
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 21:20:35 GMT


OK, here is another of my old stories. Before anyone says anything,
it is intentionally supposed to be ironic. This, you should be able
to pick up from the main char's naff dialogue. Also, I know it's not
overly cyberpunk but it edges onto the tech ideas side.
Things to come include:
An old 'Cyberspacy' story that needs sprucing up as it is just a
teensy-weensy bit 'I am 18 think I know the world but am in fact
very naive'.
A new story that just seems to keep getting bigger and bigger but is
unfortunately not in the right style to allow it to be spread over
a number of posts.

Thanks for reading. enjoy

Al
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                  Rose-Tinted Virtuality

   I died  yesterday.  It  was such a stupid  thing to do that  I
could  have  killed myself, honestly. I mean, you know you  some-
times  do things,  usually  they're  the  best  you can  come  up
with  at  the  time,  and  then later on you think of hundreds of
better  things.  Cooler things, smarter, funnier  things.  Things
to  keep  you alive.  Well, it was like that dying. I just messed
up, forgot one important  thing and lost track, all  because  I
was so pleased with myself for having got so far. Not because I
had that 'close to  the end'  feeling where the excitement of an-
ticipation  makes you lose sight of what you're doing, because in
life you don't  get  that.  Only  whatever  'God'  you  currently
believe  in can know when the end is due, and he ain't telling. I
suppose I'll just have to sit back  and  follow the advice of the
people. 'relax', 'throw yourself into your work', 'find someone
else'. They always seem  like the  right things to say, but  when
it's  you  they're  being said to they seem so silly and inane. I
know what I have to do.  Rebuild, start  again  and remember  the
mistakes.  There's  no  better  guide-book  than a catalogue of
you're previous cock ups. It's got to be the  same  though.  I've
got to start the same and follow through, and if the same problem
crops up again, i'll  just  have  to  try dealing  with  it  dif-
ferently.  'Cos I've found the way that gives me the most thrills
and I don't want to miss a bit. Except  maybe  the   divorce.   I
didn't  enjoy  that one bit, and of course it was just after that
that I died.
    I hopped energetically  out   onto  the    pavement,  Reeboks
tied   tightly   arund  my  ankles, and set off at a healthy pace
down Thumberland Avenue. In the few  months  that  I'd   been  in
Chelsetter  I  had  taken up this heart-pumping morning constitu-
tional, two miles along the conveinient square  of   roads-  past
many  a similar jogger two hundred yard sprint to the paper shop
and then the ambling return jog with  a  visualised  mineral  wa-
ter   to   keep  me going. It was nice to be out in the open with
the fresh air, allthough I couldn't really smell or taste it, all
I  could feel was the burn for oxygen, be it polluted or not. But
you know you are in the open, you can feel it, there's a kind  of
cool  feeling  that  fills  your  body, as if it realises this is
where it belongs, not in some godawful concrete  box  stink.  You
feel  more relaxed, well at least I do, and it helps you to think
but maybe that's just the way it's become  today.  Clean  air  is
healthy  and  the only reason you can give for going out in it is
if you have somewhere to go or for reasons of health. Either  way
you're  not  sitting still, you rush about at different speeds to
people and have no time of day for them, so it helps your  think-
ing. No-one interrupts a walker. So, like I was saying, I jog and
think, about the only chance I get these days,  about  new  ideas
for work and news. Mostly news, politics and violence, thats good
makes you appreciate how hard it is to  run  the  world.  But  my
favourite  part of the news is the funny little story they always
have at the end about, I don't know, maybe the farmer whos  turn-
ing his field over as a rabbit colony in the hope that they leave
his other fields alone. I love those bits, they're the ones  that
stop  people  associating 'news' with 'bad news', it's a bit like
the way the Gulf war wasn't called the Third  World  War  because
everyone knows how the third one ends. Yesterday some people died
in Spain because they were marching in the streets of  Milan  but
apparently  they  were  members  of  some activist group who were
planing some bomb explosions. That's what the  news  is  for,  to
tell you what's happening in your world, I don't care if they say
it's the government mouthpiece but at least they're voted in, not
like   where  I used to live.  I got back from my jog, turned the
T.V on and had a shower whilst I listened  to   it.   Then   the
sound  went  off,  so  I poked my head 'round the curtain and saw
Jenny standing there, the stupid mare had turned it off  and  was
standing  giving me one of her evil looks.

   'Can't you have one moment away from  that  blasted  set?  You
didn't  even   speak   to   me  when   you  came in. I like to be
talked to, I am human you know.'

Yeah right, I said to myself. Whatever I think I'm not  going  to
voice  it 'cos it still hurts when she shouts and starts smashing
things. Instead I stepped out of the shower,  starkers  and  went
right  up  to  her.

    'Put the bloody thing back on and make my breakfast. Woman.'

I spat out and turned back to the running  water.  She  shouted
something back, cried a little about 'whats happening, you used
to love me?', all amongst my  increasing  swearing.  I think  I
hit  her  a  few times 'cos next thing I remember is her lying on
the floor coughing. I smiled victoriously. 'Great' I thought   to
myself   'absolutely   perfect,  fuckin'  brilliant' but for some
reason still felt really bad about it.  Now  I  think,  that  was
probably  what  made  her start the divorce proceedings, good old
1990's, divorce is fast, damn fast. Only a week of  none  talking
between  us  and  an  hour at some office and I'd be able to find
some other woman.
     It was raining outside.  I  still  find  it hard to get used
to  it's  infrequency  and  how  cool and relaxing it is to stand
right at the edge of shelter and  watch  it  bouncing along   the
ground.  The  sound  it  makes is beautiful, and although there's
more than one sound it always seems right.  I  walked   down  the
road   my  enjoyment dampened somewhat by my own dampness and ad-
mired the glowing neon reflections that filled puddles   with   a
swirling  of  an  artists old pallette. There has always been the
distinctions in describing a city, that it is  divided  into  the
above  ground,  what  we  all  see, the streets sweeping with the
passing of busy travellers, all shopping  and  businessing.  Then
there  is  said  to be the underground, the evil part of the city
where deals are cut and so are people. But  they're  similar  but
darker,  a  shadowier part, slightly emptier but bustling all the
same with people businessing and shopping for what you can't  get
above,  the drugs and burning liquids that make flesh closer. But
they're always given the distinction as if it's a different place
where  the overlander will never venture but it's wrong, both ex-
ist at the same time in the same spot, a swirling double helix of
DNA,  the  two intertwined and inseperable. A city is it's people
and the people in both lands are the same getting their different
supports.  The  husband  won't beat up on his wife if he gets his
pics from charlie, he's crossed the line and his wifes' an acces-
sory.  The individuality of the two disappears when they are both
needed for each other. They are symbiotic and stop being they and
start being the single city.
 The arcade sat in between a butchers and a travel  agents,  it's
flashing  WIN!  WIN! signs competing with the  bikinied  beauties
lying on golden beaches and admiring the prices of pork. I sat at
a  TRON  game  and  fished  out  a  handful  of tens,  my  pupils
shrinking slightly as the brightness hit them.  Over  the  fading
music  other  mechanical   noises  rose  into  prominence.  Sat
in front of other cabinets people were slumped in a hunch of  an-
tisociability clutching joysticks in  hands  that  automatically
  molded around the grip from training. Here and there cabinets
resounded with  angry  kicks  and  occasionally  emitted clatter-
ing  music of coins hitting the tiled floor. Youths  in  je-  ans
and  torn  nothings  cheered  each other on  in  competitions  of
violence  whilst  others made the rounds of the units.    'Do you
for anything?' One white arm rested over  the  sprite's  flashing
image.  I looked up into eyes like shattered gems and, feeling as
if I had gone too far, dropped my gaze back to the  arm.  It  was
speckled  with  small  scabrous circles that may well have been a
join-the-dots that spelled  'addiction'.  I  shook  my  head  and
watched  the  jeans  being  pulled up and a hand removed from one
bulging pocket, the kid slouched across to the next cabinet where
she  lay  across  it in a mixture of exhaustion and menace. There
something was bought in the form of a bag of blue  pills  and  an
escort  to  the  back  room.  Even good scenes of entrepreneurial
spirit did nothing to raise my spirit and I slipped another  coin
into  the  slot to cover my wasted game. The little figure dashed
around the screen as I lived the scenes from  a  movie,  shooting
super  compuers  and  blasting tanks into digital nothingness. It
was then that I started to think about where I  was  at.
  Little people  rush  around  computers killing each  other  be-
cause  Mr Big tells them to, is it like that on the planet level?
I mean how do you  treat  people?  The  90s  still has some black
opression but think about the future, if computers had artificial
intelligence how  would  they be treated. With the 'they're  just
AIs you know' school of thinking? Sounds familiar, only computers
have  certain special  powers. Imagine if Tron just turned  round
to  the  screen,  said  'I have equal rights you know' and zapped
your joystick. Not a  happy person.  It's  the  same  with  women
though  but  in different ways 'cos they also have special powers
that can  get  past  most men.  Men  discriminate against  women.
Men  and  women  discriminate  against blacks. All humanity could
discriminate against  whatever poor  sods  next   in   line.  The
animals  or  the  AIs.  Poor animals, they've been getting it all
along. Amazing how playing a computer game can get your mind  go-
ing,  but  I had still played it too late.  By the time I changed
my ways, Jenny had  gone  and  the  divorce papers  were  sitting
on my beloved T.V.
   Sitting still and walking fast are my main  funtimes.  I  walk
and  think  and  ignore.  You   know a  dream,  where  the  alarm
clock incorporates itself into it as maybe a siren or  something.
It's  like  that with walking, I ignore everything  and  everyone
so  as  not  to be disturbed but still  they'll  filter  into  my
thoughts  somehow.  A   nail  being  hammered into a wall becomes
the sliding of a needle into that kids  arm  or  the  thud  of  a
street  fight.  Agression.   There's   so   much   of  it around,
though  I'm  not  sure  whether that means there's  more.   Maybe
it  manifests  itself   differently   like   a   form  of  energy
altering  states  and  becoming  more  kinetic  as  standards  of
yesteryear fall, but standards of the next  rise.  Morals  change
and  people  react  differently but it's only the past folks that
complain. But that's to be expected if you  grew  up  in  another
era.  Ha!  Unfortunately  if  you  don't change you lose out, and
that's usually a fatal situation  'cos  good  morals  don't  help
against  a  streetgang.  Maybe that's where I messed up.    I sit
still to read, to engorge myself on news and novels like  a  his-
torian  hitting  on  a stack of primary evidence. I always feel a
buzz of nostalgia but that's me. A week after  Jenny  had  left  I
wasn't reading I just sat and watched people walking past my win-
dow, occasionally returning my stares as if it was me who was in-
truding  on them. I wore a suit, dressed up to the mark in a hop-
ing that the suit would fail and I could show my  aplologies.  It
was  as  if  I knew what was about to happen and trying to change
fate. Possible I suppose, but if a butterfly's  wing  can  change
the  planets  whether  I doubt I could be all that accurate at my
meddling. Anyway I had a feeling that I wasn't really changed be-
cause it was my scruffiest suit and I'd sacked the cleaner-  even
getting close to hitting her husband just to give  me  the  buzz
needed  to  face  it.
     Outside, people were beginning to pull scarves around  their
faces  and  glancing  damnably   at   the  towers that  gave  off
thick wisps of smoke. In  the  distance,  kites  flew  high  over
hills, ducking in and out of power lines  in  what  was almost  a
chilish  power  game.  As  I  reflected over my life I watched  a
street hawker cunningly dressed in  rags  to  encourage his sales
of red lensed glasses talking animatedly to a policeman and real-
ised how much I loved where I was. The  poeple  who  sur- rounded
me  were so intricate and incomprehensible, the land was  beauti-
ful  and relatively animal and tree free.  Humanity  was  in it's
ascendance and touching me deeply.
     I drove down the mo- torway fast  and  rapidly  arrived   at
the   Divorce   court  with  a screech  of my tyres. The fast jog
up the stairs conjured up pictures of my bad times. Losing  the
tickets  for  Phantom,   Gulf  war coverage(I  never did see that
Alec Guiness film  it  interrupted),  pneumonia  from  trying  to
record  the rain  and  that  odd  feeling after  I'd  hit  Jenny.
But when it came to it...
   The divorce was definitely the worst. I  mean  definitely  the
worst.   Nothing  I've ever  been through was that bad and I hope
nothing will ever feel that bad again. So terrible a shock to  my
system that I  wouldn't wish  it in my future. The marriage point
was definitely the mark of the end, I know  that  now.  I'd  lost
grip through  losing  track and  it  was  just  a matter of wait-
ing for the end. I fit wasn't that numbing  maybe  I  would  have
survived  but  maybe  it  was a  les- son. Jenny stood there like
normal and I felt little stirring, as if my  heart  had  gone  to
sleep.  Then as the case progressed we all heard  of my treatment
of her, the shouting, hitting and neglect.  Each one  hit  me  as
hard  as  I  hit  her.  All   the  while  I  felt  a stirring  of
memory  until  I  remembered the story of the drunk driver  woman
who  was  forced  to watch the autopsy and  her  words.  was real
and I'd killed it', I'd treated her like a toy as If  she  wasn't
real when she was all along.
    I walked numbly along some river bank, circling constantly in
the  same  viscious  circle  of my thoughts.  It got darker and I
still walked, occasionally hearing  the  verdict  over  the  rock
trickles  in the water. The moon  stared down  from the infinite,
it's legendary madness becoming a judgement. The return stare I
gave  it  must have lasted too  long.  Because it was then that
half a streetgang hit me. My pockets could wait, I could hear and
almost  giggled  at  the thought  of  whether there  would  be  a
later.  Pain struck through my head with the force of  the  spike
that caused it. Then I died. I knew I was dead from  the  glowing
words in wrapparound gold letters that filled the darkness around
me,  filling  my  conscious, my  senses,  everything. DEATH END
SITUATION INSUFFICIENT CREDITS  FOR  RESURRECTION.   Gradually  I
felt  my  senses  recover  and  my  emotions kicking in  as tears
rolled  my face and built up on the optic wires. Light returned
and  I  saw  dust,  covering everything. The  intense  feeling of
loss  hit  me as I realised what had  happened.  The  attack  had
happened so fast, when I wasn't ready to defend though I doubt  I
could  have.  My  arms  stung  slightly  and I looked down to the
speckling of needle tracks that covered it, just in time  to  see
the  last  needle  being  removed,  to  flow it's IV no more. Ten
years, that's how long I'd been going at it,  on  and  off.  It's
like  the  old role-playing games where you build up a character,
put him through different advantures but at some point he's going
to  die  and depending how much you put into it is a scale of how
bad you feel. Only in this I put the most into it , I put me into
it. I dictate the games I play but the games also seem to dictate
me. I stood, wobbled slightly- although I'd only been plugged  in
for  a  week  this time- and moved painfully slowly across to the
window and threw back the blinds. Ultimate boredom hit  me,  hard
wind and grey tower blocks, blank streets filled with the blanker
faces of workers. Other face peered out along with mine  but  re-
fused  to  meet  any eye. Vast billboards proclaimed all that was
new, more happy unemployment as robots moved in, food rations in-
creasing  for  those  picnics during increasing leisure time, and
the evil american states had been beaten by  victorious  England.
No  doubt  they would find the strength to attack again tommorrow
though. Possibly it started to rain, I didn't notice as it start-
ed  memories.  My alarm went off in the corner, pouring a burning
hum into my skin, thanks. A non-existent shower hit me  with  all
sorts of cleansing radiation. A med scanner stopped hovering over
my arms at the tracks, I could almost see it tutting at the obvi-
ous  wasting  of my time. It's attitude was the same as others in
the 90s holes in the arms mean addiction and it's the  same  with
Game touch, still means addiction though, but why not, as long as
you know what you're doing it harms no-one else. I  think  that's
why we all have them installed in our rooms we can't harm anyone.
What happened to the 90s it was so good, everyone was  wonderful,
none  of the problems we have today. They don't have the cheating
governments and the boredom of life.
    Virtual reality,  that's what  they  had.  The people in  the
body suits and helmets moving around their computer aided percep-
tions. Now I suppose we  have legions  of  the  virtually   dead,
permanantly  jacked  into  dream  boxes of a past that was better
than today, perhaps searching for the  point  where it  all  went
wrong.  Damn, it's so boring we have to do something even if it's
nothing to do  with  now.  Live  the life  of  the past, see  the
history,  interact  with  the  characters  and  do as you please.
'They're only AIs anyway'. Towering  pyramids,  more  than  one
culture  existing  side  by  side  on a world that is still green
,even if it is being burnt by  the  cancer-causing sun.
  Today  we're just too healthy, living off  pure  protein   pro-
duced  by  robots  in  factories,  staying  in   air- conditioned
rooms, being unemployed to do what we want whilst  be-  ing  sup-
ported  by more of the same. two hundred and twenty five TV chan-
nels  of gameshows and news 'cutesy' stories  to  keep  us  occu-
pied. But were bored thats what it is, and boredom is the  worst.
The  past  is better, the past is worst. What am I trying to say?
Yesterday I died and I've learnt somthing.  Lots  of  somethings,
but  I can't pull it together though I have the feeling that if I
could it would mean something as a whole, something to do. But  I
haven't  got  the  time 'cos Ive just got my new credit grant and
I'm chipping in.
   I hopped  energetically  onto  the   pavement,  Reeboks   tied
tightly   around  my  ankles  and  set off at a healthy pace down
Thumberland avenue. Keeping my  eyes  peeled  I  headed  down  to
the riverbank hoping not to slip.
--
| Alistair Hughes            |  'F*ck you,                     |
| A.W.Hughes@Bradford.ac.uk  |     you do what I told you.'    |
| Computing Msc.             |   Rage Against The Machine      |