Chapter 4: Announcement

The dark-haired woman woke up late into the morning hours. Her rise was natural as always. She didn’t ever use the alarm clock feature of her headclip. The only schedule Delta needed adhere to was her own.

Today was something of an exception though. In just two hours there’d be the announcement on the much sought after “time-dilation” feature. Delta wasn’t the only citizen that wanted more time in Paradise. Within the simulated reality, time was currently at a 1-1 ratio. That is, every hour in Paradise corresponded to one hour out in the real world. But, it didn’t have to be that way and people knew it. The resources of the computer farms scattered around the planet *had* to be enough for some desyncing.

The Council of Representatives finally approved the idea a year ago, and since then the Ministry of Technology apparently worked hard on it. Seems today they’d finally get some news. The firmware update for headclips this morning definitely confirmed that.

The only other feature even remotely as requested was that of digital immortality. Given the offerings of Paradise, it was only natural to want to spend one’s life forever there. That, the government refused to consider, claiming it’d be too computationally complex. Delta thought that bullshit, but she was young enough at 20 to not worry about it much. Besides, every old fart or unlucky bastard that passed away one way or another had their consciousness frozen in their headclips.

Those skull-embedded computers were tougher than the black boxes of a silver-seeder. The government assured people their relatives were stored away, safe and secure, in vaults for when the time came that computer tech was up to snuff for the hundreds of millions that passed since Paradise’s inception.

Delta disrobed and chucked her clothes into the dirty pile. She walked naked to her bathroom and did her morning routine of teeth brushing and a shower. Beneath the soothing hot water of the nozzle, she imagined herself a celestial being bathing in star heated ether. Eyes closed, she drew her fingers through her hair and thought of all the lives that’d end if those droplets of water sliding down light-brown skin were galaxies instead.

She didn’t plan on leaving her home today, so after getting her black undergarments on she donned some green shorts and another yellow shirt. She grabbed a Nutri-drink bottle and brought up a private-holodisplay before her eyes to check the time. She had little over an hour and a half.

Her chair swiveled her way at a thought and she plopped on it. Bare feet kicked up onto her desk. She thought her screen on and checked on her finances. Delta had a decent sized investment portfolio. That provided a nice hefty trickle of money from the passive funds which grew her sizable bank account even more every year. The woman worked for her initial principal, though. She wasn’t born rich. She was self-made.

Delta was a hacker, and she convinced herself she was the best. The vast majority of her initial success came from exploits she found. She was the Ministry of Finance’s worst enemy, and they didn’t even know her name nor that she even existed. She wasn’t greedy. When she found an exploit at a bank, she took things slow. Just a few cents off every account every week. Wealth by a thousand cuts--or millions, rather.

They eventually wised up. Her backdoors were quashed and the Finance Ministry up more security standards for transactions. By then, she already made herself a multi-millionaire a hundred times over. Now, she didn’t need to work at all. Retired at age 20! She wondered if that was a record of some kind. Probably not. There used to be lottos and the like in the pre-Misstep days, she heard.

Delta counted the zeros on her bank page and chuckled. It was funny to think there was a time she followed the usual path. She went to college once, for a year. Her aptitude in math and outright genius with computers was fast noticed but, alas, she refused to do any assignments. They were considered a waste of time. All her instructors with ok passing her regardless, sans one Professor Margret who drew a line in the sand so to speak. Thus, the brightest student the tech department ever had flunked out freshman year.

After that she briefly worked for a programming start-up for one Mr. Clark. She practically built the entire API for their dumb little service, but she wasn’t a team player. If a design decision happened that she didn’t agree with, she just did things her own way regardless. That lead to butting heads and a firing.

Tragically, Mr. Clark was the boss of his own work so no amount of Rain Forest dildo deliveries would get him fired. Prof. Margret, of course, had tenure so that route was a bust there too.

Those two and Bruce were on her shit list. Oh, and Lesli, a peer from her college days. That gossiping gadfly was someone who didn’t have to work like Delta did before coasting on passive income.

Delta swished a bottle of Nutri-drink around while she watched the rest of that show from last evening. She was biding time till just before the announcement before drinking. As of now, there was a hard limit of 8 hours in Paradise per-day. Aside from that, the ever vigilant computers clung in everyone’s skulls watched nutrient and hydration levels. If those dipped too low, you got kicked out early till you took care of it.

That’s why Delta always brought the “day” sized Nutri-drinks. One of these and she was set for the day on food and fluids. The 0-cal chips were just for pleasure, and while watching her show she munched on a few more from another, older, bag she had lying around

Of course, there were other reasons one could be ejected. Any sort of rapid change in real-body vitals. Motion was a reason too, in case you needed to shake a friend out of Paradise for whatever reason. Delta didn’t have friends, and the building’s doors were always locked so that was no issue.

With 10 minutes left before the scheduled morning event, she chugged the drink, buckled herself into her chair, and entered Paradise.

She poofed into the Nexus. Her circuit-patterned hair returned, as did her yellow irised eyes. Her default outfit of sweatpants was chosen, but she usually liked to match her clothes on the outside. She summoned up perfect replicas of the yellow shirt and green shorts on her body. A cloud of smoke occluded her form as the clothes changed, of course.

The system put her in some random area of the Nexus, even on such a big day as this. No worries for Delta, as people could zip around the Nexus with just a thought. No sooner than her clothes changed did she poof herself as close to Central Square as she could get.

The Nexus was the hub of Paradise, but the Central Square was like the hub of the Nexus. This is the area where people could be recorded to show up on screens out in the real world. Naturally, it was popular with everyone trying to show off on a normal day.

Today, the giant screens overlooking the virtual city square were host to an announcement most everyone looked forward to. The news would hit feed sites seconds after shown here for sure, but Delta didn’t want to wait, and neither did the thousands of others crowding the giant area.

She walked by folks with hair styled like ice-cream cones or tentacle dreads. Colors of the styles, hair and fashion, were all sorts of pastel and rainbow shades. People were wearing their best. Her bare feet moved her towards the center of the square with some effort squeezing by everyone. She never wore shoes in paradise. Much funner to feel the ground underfoot--pretend there were some tiny civilizations there while at it.

A woman approached Delta. She wore one of the latest fashions: a skirt with the colors of some ancient cathode-ray TV chromatic test patterns. Delta found that current fad particularly lame, but it’d pass.

“Hey!” said the rainbow haired woman. “I love your hair pattern. Where’d you buy it?”

Delta stayed silent for a bit, but it’s clear the woman wasn’t going anywhere. She spoke curtly.

“I made it myself.”

“Wow, really? You should sell it.”

The amount of times she heard that.

‘Even when people could make almost anything, they still found a way to outsource creativity.’, she often thought.

Delta forced a sweet tone. “Really? You think so? Thanks. I’ll consider it.”

That got the woman to leave her alone. Just in time for the announcement to begin.

There were plenty of screens. The biggest one hovered in the air a few hundred feet in front and a good ways above Delta. More were on the super-store buildings nearby. The USH emblem appeared on the black screens and most everyone cheered. The visual transitioned to a fancy looking office. A brown-skinned man with slick black hair and a friendly smile locked his hands on smooth-surfaced desk. His suit was a suave shade of gray and hugged his fit form just right.

“Hello.” he said. “I’m Martin Canmore. You may know me as the Technology Minister for our country.”

Delta looked around to see some of the other ladies--and a few men--swooning at minister. The 30-something year old official had a handsome flare, true, but her mind wasn’t set on ogling. She wanted to hear about the time-dilation feature.

“Now, I bet you are all waiting to hear about the new time-dilation feature.”

Delta’s eyes perked.

“I’ll get to that in a moment, but first a more somber note.” His expression became serious. Delta’s eyes rolled at the delay. Her right foot tapped impatiently against the concrete under sole.

“As we’re all aware, in two days from now is the 200th anniversary of the Great Misstep.”

‘Not this shit again. Just get on to the feature details’, thought Delta.

All the while, Martin still spoke on the screen.

“A dark period in our nation’s history. When resources were stretched thin on a rapidly warming planet, our predecessors committed a great betrayal. They told the other nations in the world they had a solution to help solve the climate issues. Our nation launched the devices into orbit under the guise of sending up the most hi-tech weather satellites known to humankind. Our predecessors promised to use them to monitor thermal patterns so we could more precisely cool the globe with aerosols. This was a lie. They were a state of the art laser defense system.”

The talking man was replaced with camera footage from one satellite’s wing.

The crowd paused, faces glum. Delta’s was stoic. She tried not to show her annoyance as Martin droned on.

“With the satellites in place, our nation shamelessly launched nuclear arms towards every other nation on the planet. There were retaliatory strikes, but the satellites shot down almost all of them with ease. A malfunction in one led to the western coast of the country getting hit. A great loss and penance, but while we were wounded, the other nations were dead.”

The visuals were that of nuclear explosions going off: recorded from some high-range camera. Delta heard a few sobs from people around here. Her foot tapped faster. Listening to this blather was time she could better spend breaking buildings.

“All that tragedy just to ensure our way of live would be preserved; that we wouldn’t need to fight over dwindling resources. Thankfully, we realized the gravity of our mistake over the years. To honor the memories of the lives our nation took, our government reformed and reorganized. There were to be no borders here, just one state, one nation. We went from the United States of America to a United State of Humanity. We pledged to set a good example as proper stewards of the planet.”

The visuals cut to a time lapse of sea water. In the lower rate corner was the date. As it increased, ice grew in the water from small little platforms to a great island. Occasionally, some curious looking boats were caught in the shots: ice-makers.

“Seizing control of the climate, we to this day mitigate the disastrous climate of old while maintaining the new. Yet no matter our nation’s efforts, we can’t bring back those lives we took. Aside from holding memory of them in our hearts, the least we can do is an official day of remembrance. As ever with every year, two days from now, July 1st, Paradise will be shut down for a day in memoriam. The old nations never got to enjoy Paradise as we do, so a day of refrain is the least we can do. I’m sure you all agree.”

‘Nonsense, get with the real announcement.’ thought Delta. This took long enough.

“Before our other announcement, a moment of silence.”, said Martin’s voice from the screen.

Delta screamed internally. Of course they’d front-load the feature announcement with sanctimonious spiel. She closed her eyes with the others at the square, but her thoughts were in the service of herself--not some long dead Misstep victims.

She imagined her hand coming down on the whole square. The buildings and their screens mashed into the wrinkles of her palm as she twisted it side to side. Every single person silenced in a smear rather than by choice. She wondered if everyone in the square could hold their quiet vigil when their sky was her skin.

The silence lasted an agonizing minute before Martin spoke again and everyone opened their eyes.

“Thank you. Now, let’s get on to a happier note. The time-dilation feature for Paradise. Though we’ve had the computational power for this for quite some time, Paradise wasn’t originally coded with it in mind. The council heard your wishes and set me to oversee the needed changes personally. It’s been a very long year, but the Paradise team finally finished it.”

As Martin spoke, the woman with circuit-pattern hair waited with baited breath. She could imagine it now: spending hours in here while only minutes passed outside. She wondered if that was possible with their technology, but she’d settle for a day in here being an hour out there. Limiting, but even with that she’d never get disturbed from a TV show again.

Days to herself before having to go back to a real and boring world. The thought was sweet. There was excitement in the crowd and for once Delta shared their sentiment.

Martin continued, his voice raising as he flashed a shiny smile.

“Starting right now, you can spend two hours in Paradise for every hour out in the real world! This means the effective daily quota for Paradise leisure time is 16 hours! Enjoy yourselves. Long live the United State of Humanity!!!”

The crowd erupted into applause and cheers that continued even after the screen shut off. In the midst of the dancing jubilee, Delta stood frozen as water at the poles. Her fists clenched so tight even her short nails dug into her simulated skin.

‘2 hours for one. A ratio of 2-1. *That’s it?!?*’

People reached out to hug one another. She heard bits of the chatter.

“Wow double time. That’s great!”

“I know bro, we can play twice the Make-Landia!”

“I can’t wait babe, twice the time to spend with you.”

“Neat, I’ll be able to catch up even quicker on my shows.”

‘Idiots! Idiots and imbeciles all of them. They’re celebrating this? This fucking *pittance*?’, thought Delta.

Her face was red with rage. The one thing she was looking forward to was a let down.

From right behind her shoulders, Delta heard a man’s voice.

“Whoa dudette cool hair. That’s, like, a computer board or something right? Have you ever consider selling-”

“Fuck off!” she shouted.

Delta paused. All around her were people staring. She felt vulnerable: exposed with true emotions slipped by. Her chest felt like glass. Hot glass, since rage still coursed through her veins.

She poofed out of Central Square to her realm and screamed.