Mark pulled himself out of the gel filled vat with the help of the robot droids that monitored his capsule. Getting out of the capsule was a disorienting experience each time he had to do it. One of the robots handed him a towel, and he walked to the bathroom to shower off the residual gel on himself and to reorient himself to the real World. “Eve”, he called out of the shower, “Brew coffee.”
A disembodied female voice said, “Yes boss”, and he could hear a cup of java being brewed in the next room. After he finished showering, one of the droids came in with a set of clothes for him to wear. A long-sleeved white shirt, black jacket, black slacks, black socks, shoes, and underwear, along with the graduation ring he bought for himself when he graduated the police academy and a blue-metal necklace he liked to wear in place of where a tie would normally go. He hated ties.
He looked at himself in the mirror, as the automatic dehumidifier turned on and pulled the steam out of the room. He looked identical to his player avatar, except the blond hair was black and he had a growing five o’clock shadow. He put on everything except the shirt and jacket, filled up a cup of coffee, and plopped into the love seat in the middle of his apartment. He took stock of his apartment.
The apartment was a single bedroom, only with a side bathroom separating it from the rest of the room. The dining room, living room, kitchen, and bedroom were all one area, with his Proxima galaxy vat sitting in the dining where guests would normally be entertained. Except he never had guests over, so there wasn’t much of a loss there. The kitchen was a beautiful island that allowed him to entertain guests while cooking, a delusion he had in his early years that he’d be entertaining guests and learning to be a professional chef. Unfortunately, today’s smart kitchens came equipped with a wide variety of recipes that they shared through a neural network, catering to the owners taste over time. Additionally, you could hire a droid chef who would knock the pants off any professional chef in the old World. Today’s chefs still existed, albeit in limited form. They were more chemist/professional tasters/data analysts that calibrated recipes that the machines invented and ranked them via tasting algorithms. Another job taken by the machines.
His former job had been taken by the machines as well. He’d been in the police force and worked his way up to homicide detective. While he liked to fancy himself one of the best officers, the reality was different to the people who worked with him. His close rate was above average, but not stellar. Despite what you see in movies, television shows, and books, most of being a cop is about doing lots of grunt work. Canvasing neighborhoods, talking to neighbors, talking to homeless people, street workers, and detailing everyone’s story. It was long, boring, and frustrating most of the time. Mark liked to delegate these tasks to the rank-and-file police officers underneath him, preferring to sift through the evidence after it had all been tagged, photographed, video recorded, and written down.
Unfortunately, the growing number of jobs displaced by robots and software lead to the creation of the “Useless Class”, people who couldn’t get jobs. Rampant drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, robberies, and homicides spiked. That temporary boom allowed Mark to get his job. But with every boom comes the inevitable crash. The first thing that happened was life chips were installed in newborns and the government started a reward program to get adults to implant them. This allowed government monitoring for signs of self-harm or anti-social behavior towards others.
The first attempts to use VR were for rehab programs and to train people up to new jobs, which was still in use, but several people just stayed in the game World. Governments started noticing a huge drop in the number of crimes and decided that a Universal Basic Income, enough to support going permamode in a Proxima Universe, was more cost-efficient than a massive police force. New humanoid robots started replacing police officers, capable of carrying out all of the tasks Mark had previously delegated. The preemptive monitoring with the life chips, the ability to use life chips to piece together what happened after the fact, and the enhanced droid capabilities to monitor breathing rates, vocal stress, and story inconsistencies meant that homicide detective became yet another job assigned to the dust bin fo history, and Mark joined the ranks of the Useless Class.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He’d considered going permamode himself, but he’d received a lucrative job offer just as his savings account dwindled to nothing. Strata Godsick, a big time muck-a-muck in the government and private sector, had a son who went missing into a Proxima Universe. The problem is, he had no idea which one. He started hiring anyone who had any investigative experience, and a bunch of braindead thugs, in a “Throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” approach to finding his own. Mark had taken the job.
He chose the Eternity Online universe for a few reasons. Going into game simulators of the past as a person of mixed ancestry didn’t seem wise. He wasn’t sure how accurate they were, but society had progressed a lot in the past few hundred years, some good, some bad, but reliving racism from bygone eras wasn’t one of them. Traipsing around with goblins and elves didn’t really suit him either. Military sci-fi though, he could get behind that.
The other reason he chose it was because he was a big fan of double-dipping. The game World was based on military experiments with colonizing outer space, the potential for extraterrestrial combat, and refining space combat tactics, which wasn’t possible with current technology. To prevent people from going permamode, the game had an ICO, Initial Coin Offering, that functioned as a cryptocurrency based on how much wealth players generated in game. Knowing that there was something more than the measly salary left by the UBI would hopefully get more players to log out.
As the game switched purposes, the coins simply transferred back to the company, who offered them back to their shareholders as dividends. If rich people love one thing, it’s making other rich people richer. In his case, he collected his coins in addition to his paycheck, because his motto was work smarter, not harder.
He decided to quit procrastinating and to rip off the bandaid. “Eve”, he said, “Set up communication with Mr. Grim.”
A pause filled the room before the modulated voice of Mr. Grim went over the speakers.
“Mr. Thomas. Have you actually done something today?”
Mark grimaced. Strata threw money around like it was beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Of course, Mark had been soaking it up from day one, he had no moral qualms about taking a rich person’s money. While he hadn’t heard of anyone losing their job over not progressing in game, Mr. Grim’s constant berating reminded him of the conversations he had with Luciana in the game. He didn’t like getting nagged both in game and out game.
“Yes, I’ve made major progress. I’m uploading the game logs now so you can see the progress I’ve made. Eve, upload the logs.”
Mark didn’t have a life chip installed in him, so his virtual AI Eve, a gift from the Reapers, helped him do most of the things a life chip required. One of the reasons why Strata hired him was precisely upon finding out he didn’t have a life chip installed, which was typical of the extreme libertarian persuasion or, far more commonly, organized gangs. This had been a yellow flag in Mark’s mind, until he saw the paycheck.
Mark made contact once a week with Mr. Grim, so the logs were extensive. Fortunately, Eve put them into a Powerpoint slide for quick summaries, with the full logs at the end. Mr. Grim came back online.
“So, what’s your overall plan with this move?”
“Simple”, Mark said. “Infiltrate the pirate groups, find out which governments are sponsoring them, and get promoted to the rank of Major. This will grant me access to the planetary ruling council, which is where the NVA seed will most likely be. Contact the NVA and see if there are any logs about Strata’s son visiting the Proxima World or if he’s trapped inside it.”
“Finally,” Mr. Grim said, “Some actual useful work from you. We’ve invested a lot in you and the mutant hack and backstory should have made your progress faster than it’s been. Keep me updated on any changes in the situation.” He didn’t say goodbye, just clicked off.
“Eve, what time is it?”
“The time is 10:21PM.”
That was a perfect time for Mark. He finished getting dressed and exited his apartment. He could hear Eve engaged the automatic locks as he walked out the door. Some tiny part of his soul growled in anger that he couldn’t do the most basic things, like tell time or lock his doors, without a robot.