He woke what seemed early, though he’d long ago disabled the clock function on his screen. The top five feeds showed different footage from yesterday so he assumed it was new. He fullscreen activated the sixth option on his screen and watched the recap of the latest news. A man with the predictable look of a news-entertainer sat on a couch with affected nonchalance next to a pert and perky younger and equally typical female new-entertainer.

‘Our top story today is of course the epic news that our top two SP users are expecting!’ he said while airily waving his right hand, his left casually draped over the back of the couch behind the female news caster. ‘Right on Sandy!’ she said with a crafted enigmatic grin at the man. ‘Now Sandy, as you know, Roy and Amelia have been our top two SP for over five years now, a super record! That seems likely to continue as we are updated with their pregnancy and expectant joy!’ Sandy nodded stuidiously at his co host then took over, ‘I do know Annie. A recent decline in their numbers has buoyed to new heights in the wake of the announcement. Amelia has gotten to SP 1,481,221 which is the highest recorded ever. With Roy’s SP 1,111,665 this baby will have the life of incredible luxury that only two of the richest users in history can provide! I suspect their baby cart will be made by Enigma Motors!’ a momentary slip in the mask of enthusiasm from Annie showed her discomfort that he’d been able to slip that product placement in but she recovered before anyone who didn’t work splicing edits together wouldn’t have noticed. ‘Oh yes indeed! A lavish life indeed.’ She stated with a conspiratorial edge. The two proceeded to continue for the next half hour discussing the top ten SP rankers with gusto. Duncan sipped the coffee dispensed by his server at his short counter watching half-heartedly. He tried not to think of the central server room for his level producing this coffee at an unknown time and storing it at temperature until it was consumed by him and his neighbours on this level. Finally, with the top news dispensed, the last few minutes were non-SP related news. Scratching furiously at itchy three-day stubble on his face, Duncan saw the top outside news. A different and less attractive news caster sat in an upright chair with a blue background while text that took up a quarter of the screen scrolled about the miscellaneous rising SP personages. A bored tone took up as footage overlaid the man. ‘In outside news, an earthquake has hit the South American continent affecting Venezuela. Approximately 1.1 million people are believed to have died. Local SP rankings have skyrocketed in the wake of the disaster with first hand footage accounts being shot and commentated.’ A selection of locals paraded across the screen for a few seconds then cut to an obvious StarPower spokesperson. ‘We regret the tragic loss of life for Venezuelans and StarPower is offering aid in recovering the injured and ensuring they have feed access constantly despite infrastructure outages.’ Duncan snorted in mild derision at the man’s words. ‘Well at least they’ll be able to post about the deaths of the friends and family’ he scoffed quietly. He then realised that doing that would likely provide these people with the ranking points to get out of the Universal they were stuck in, if only likely temporarily and wondered if that was such a bad thing.

After several hours of editing Duncan found himself listless. He went to the level gym and found it near empty. The faintly illuminated far end of the gym showed him that there was only one other person at the gym running one a treadmill. Uphill, he noticed, the surface of the treadmill rising and creating a textured surface to simulate what he guessed to be a forest trail. He saw her augmented reality, AR glasses lit slightly as she likely saw a scene complimenting the treadmills simulation. Duncan turned and swung his slightly over six foot frame onto the bench and started to bench press the weight already on the machine. It was set to what he’d left it at the day before yesterday. Not surprising. Gyms all over the world were provided by the housing buildings and anywhere but the tenements, they were constantly filled with athletic people jockeying for angles to show their incredibly happy faces while they worked out in outfits crafted for maximum skin exposure. This building however and all the others like it, housed only Universal receiving users and these populations generally did not go for self-improvement in order to garner more rankings. He had seen the other users here putting together the standard batch of reactionary videos to famous feeds, shows, movies and entertainment casters. They did their bare minimum if at all and simply ate what was provided and accepted their entertainment as a way of life. Duncan was a rare guy here with his fitness regime and disinterest in popular feeds. When he’d first moved in he saw his neighbours’ discomfort with him and they’d showed no interest in friendship. He’d given up any pretence of civility, instead adopting an air of disinterest. This had faded as his energy felt sapped away by the world though and now he simply barely noticed anyone in his brief forays out of the apartment. He ate, slept, worked out, did his minimal efforts on StarPower and worked, watching the world through holo-screens.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

With his googles showing a hazy overlay of his eighth favourite feed, a music channel devoted to revival of heavy metal from the end of the last century, the music being delivered by vibrations against his skull, Duncan failed to notice the woman from the treadmill finishing her workout and watching him. The presence of others was so alien to him though, that it wasn’t long before he felt her regard and removed his own goggles to look back. For a moment he was stunned as he realised this was the woman he’d cut footage for last night. He was so taken aback he stared openly at her and realised he was making her uncomfortable. Duncan tried to recover by speaking, “hey there’ but his voice was too quiet, given he was used to speaking to himself when he even spoke aloud, ‘Hey there.’ He managed to get out at a reasonable volume. The woman blinked and said, ‘Hey’. Her halo was still lit up and he realised she had been filming herself to show her post workout sweaty face. He could easily imagine her smiling stoically while extolling her latest personal best time for her SP 11 fans. ‘Hey!’ she said back brightly smiling. Figuring on making him one of those fans, he supposed. Duncan struggled for something to say, ‘Good run?’ he asked, then berated himself wondering if she thought he was watching her like a creep. He wasn’t a bad looking guy or anything but real life interactions were fraught with confusion for Duncan. She smiled again and nodded. ‘Yeah really great. I want to get as fit as possible, you know, SP.’ He did know. The terse way of saying she was doing her best to raise her SP for a better life. He nodded and affected the best smile he could back at her. His mouth went dry and his brain felt tumble weed barren. Thankfully, the woman had more social grace. Her hands came down to lightly slap her thighs and she stood from the bench with grace and ease drawn from her athletic form. ‘Well good luck with your workout.’ She said and offered him her wrist. Unconsciously Duncan tapped his halo against hers and a trill sounded simultaneously from both, the exchange of feed information. She walked past and he remembered his voice finally. ‘Duncan!’ he blurted, cringingly loud in the empty gym. She turned back to him and stated blankly. ‘I’m sorry?’ she asked, clearly confused. ‘That’s my name. I’m Duncan.’ It was rare for two adults to exchange names or details. Generally, a Halo tap would be all and they would use each other’s feeds to find out information. ‘Oh, uh…I’m Layla.’ He watched her walk out, berating himself again for his social stupidity, then returned to the weights.