The Metaverse: Virtual Life-Real Death Read online

  Glancing down the rows of hanging dresses Patricia’s eyes locked on a light blue satin cocktail dress with a low cut for the back. Removing it from the rack, she took it to an adjacent room with a comfortable chair and three-way mirror. Leaving the dress there, Patricia then went to a nearby drawer that built into one wall of the massive closet space.

  From it, she selected the undergarments that she wanted and then slipped into the dress. She removed the towel from her hair which fell perfectly into place. Patricia went to the shoe room off to her right. After a minute of searching, she found matching shoes. Moving to a bank of drawers in the main dressing area, Patricia selected a 14K gold necklace with a diamond-centered pendant, matching bracelet and matching earrings. A quick stop in the purse area and she was all set.

  Returning to the master bath, Patricia sat at the dressing table to confirm that her hair was perfect and to add a little blush to her face and some lipstick. Taking a final look, she called for Adam as she stood up and walked back to the master bedroom.

  “Yes, Madam?” Adam answered as he came into the doorway.

  “Please bring the car around to the front. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, Madam.” Adam disappeared down the hallway.

  Turning to a bedside table, Patricia removed a few hundred dollars from a drawer and placed them in her purse along with a pack of cigarettes, lighter and other odds and ends that a girl on the town might need.

  Leaving the master suite, she strolled down the marble-floored hallway, her light blue kitten heel shoes clicking along with her stride. Reaching a curving staircase with its ornately carved railing Patricia descended into a massive foyer.

  She turned and walked under the staircase through a corridor that opened to a great room. Patricia looked out through large French doors past the comfortable looking couches and tables interspersed with fresh flowers and fruit baskets to the patio and pool. Both perfectly lit in the early evening twilight. Patricia loved looking out onto her private patio and pool. She often spent quiet time out there in the evening with a glass of wine. Patricia also spent time at the beach, just a short walk away to sunbath and enjoyed relaxing to the sounds of the rhythmic sea as it washed ashore.

  Patricia turned and walked back into the grand foyer as she waited for Adam. To her right was a spacious Library with countless books, some very rare. To her left was a small parlor that connected to a large formal living room and beyond it a dining room with its massive dinner table capable of seating two dozen guests. Patricia loved this house. She was very lucky to have found it so close to the beach and completely furnished. Homes in this area were rarely on the market, she had paid top dollar to obtain it.

  Stepping from the foyer and onto the porch, she pulled the doors closed behind her. There was no need to lock them. No one could enter without her permission. Adam pulled the shimmering jet-black Mercedes Maybach Limousine into the large circular drive before stopping under the porte cochere.

  Adam put the vehicle in park, exited and walked to the passenger rear right door which he opened. Patricia stepped into the car as Adam pushed the door securely closed. She sank into the cream-colored premium leather seating and listened as the state of the art audio system played classical music. She always thought that one should listen to that type of music when riding in an automobile such as this.

  Adam returned to the driver’s seat and activated the intercom to the rear of the vehicle that separated from the front seat by a soundproof glass barrier. “Where will madam be going this evening?”

  “I was thinking a drive along the beach, by the harbor and then to the canal district.”

  “Yes, Madame.” Adam pulled the vehicle out of the driveway and past a large fountain that was the centerpiece of a perfectly manicured lawn.

  ***

  Patricia enjoyed traveling by chauffeured car in New Polis. It allowed her to take in the views without worrying about driving or navigation in the massive city. There was always something new to see, some aspect she had not noticed before. She wasn’t alone as there were many other chauffeured cars on the roadways.

  Driving past the beach, she spied some bonfires that made silhouettes of the beach party crowd. She made a note to herself to attend one soon. There was so much to do in New Polis that even if you could be in-world 24/7 you could never experience it all. But for Patricia, it wasn’t really about that. It was a place to feel comfortable in a way that she could not in the real world.

  As the Mercedes left the beach area, the harbor came into view with the massive yacht club taking center stage. Dozens and dozens of boats were tied to piers while dozens of larger ones lay at anchor farther out. Some underway, steaming past the breakwaters out into the open sea. Patricia wondered if they were just going to cruise along the coast or if they were going to a more exotic place.

  Many were brightly lit, illuminated as people gathered on the decks socializing. Tenders scurried about taking guests from the dock to anchored party boats. A VTAL aircraft swooped down and circled an exceptionally large yacht before settling down on the landing pad. She mulled the idea that when funds allowed she might invest in a boat and crew. She was confident that Adam could captain it as surely as he maneuvered the luxury sedan, or maybe she would learn to captain it herself. Patricia wondered if the saying was true. If you are short of friends, get a boat.

  Even a small virtual yacht was expensive. The Metaverse allowed a dollar to go quite a bit further. But high dollar items, like mansions, exotic cars, yachts, and aircraft cost money to build, store, maintain and operate. The result was while the Metaverse was open to all and as a rule, one would have a far better standard of living, but people were still segregated largely along social-economic lines. The economic system was partly by design, lest everyone be a billionaire business tycoon or celebrity. It was also to generate income to pay for the ever-expanding Metaverse and to create a sense of desire. Humans who had everything quickly got bored. That’s why so many had actual income earning jobs in the Metaverse. Others were entrepreneurial in creating areas, developments, or really anything that could be marketed to the masses.

  The number of people walking along the pier surprised Patricia. She wondered if they were all guests to parties on the various vessels, or if they just liked to people watch or just were intrigued by the fancy boats and wanted a closer look. Depending on how the night went she thought she might come back and stroll the pier herself. There were always parties going on, and most of the hosts welcomed new guests.

  To the left of the harbor and across the street from the yacht club was a center for the performing arts. Patricia wondered what performers were playing tonight as throngs of people entered the building. Behind the Center, massive buildings rose. Condominiums and hotels dozens of stories high. Behind them towered a sea of skyscrapers, home to both large and small international corporations a breathtaking number rising a hundred floors or greater. Some even had their global headquarters here rather than some brick and mortar place in the real world.

  Patricia sighed, she longed for a job that could allow her to be in-world for her employment. But only certain jobs could be done here. As an emergency room physician, Pat Sullivan could not do that job from the Metaverse. Many areas of medicine could, like radiology where diagnostics could be done in-world of X-rays taken in the real world. Or robotic surgery where the surgeon was in the Metaverse and operating on a living, breathing human being in the real world. All with miniature robotic arms able to enter the body in a precise and minimally invasive manner. Operating room staff was with the patient, but the surgeon could be in the Metaverse and his physical body a continent away.

  Administrative or other jobs that did not require real world interactions could be done in a virtual office, in a virtual skyscraper in a virtual place. But virtual was only a frame of reference. You would still have an office, a desk, and coworkers with whom you interacted. Meetings and conferences still took place. Employees still had to produce. The
daily grind was still there for the working person whether in-world or the real world. Technology could not change that.

  As Patricia’s car reached the downtown area, traffic slowed as hundreds of thousands of office workers left for the day in their vehicles or on foot or by public transportation. Patricia saw a few that still seemed to be working, closing deals as they spoke into their phones at the same quick pace with which they walked.

  Turning at the sound of a whistle, Patricia looked to see a traffic cop on a large draft horse directing traffic at a especially busy intersection. She had never seen a traffic cop on a horse here before. She had little experience with horses but now was enthralled at the sight of the mighty beast just feet from her window.

  The animal rocked its massive head up and down, nostrils flaring as its rider jerked the reins this way and that to keep them both out of traffic. Patricia smiled. That was exactly the kind of surprise that so drew her into this world.

  Adam accelerated the car, leaving the downtown district as the traffic thinned. The limousine made its way onto a bridge that crossed a large river. As the car reached the apex of the bridge, Patricia could see the Canal District below and to her right. The Canal District was a large island in the middle of the river, right where it expanded before opening to the sea. Like the real world city of Venice, the Canal District was just that. One that had canals instead of streets, hundreds of them just as the real one does. Like the real city, no cars were allowed here. The exception being the access bridge that linked it to the mainland. As the Bridge reached land in the Canal District, the roadway disappeared underground. A large underground parking structure was at the end of the road, a mean feat for a city at or below sea level. Clearly, the designers had taken some liberty with the design, but the result was one that allowed vehicles to be driven to this island and then put them out of sight.

  After the limousine had descended below ground, Patricia pushed the intercom.

  “Pull over here, Adam, and leave me at the elevators. Park the car and then you are free to wander around. I will call you when I’m ready to go home.”

  “Yes, Madame.” Adam pulled over to the drop off zone where a uniformed attendant opened the car door for Patricia.

  Stepping from the limousine, the blond, blue-eyed, young woman with her perfectly proportioned body made a striking impression in her expensive clothing and jewelry.

  “Thank you,” Patricia said to the attendant as she passed him a small tip.

  Confident that he was an AE she knew the little token of appreciation would not benefit him. But it was still the custom even in the Metaverse to reward another’s effort. The exchange of funds from one entity to another might seem pointless in a virtual setting, but a real exchange had taken place. Somewhere in the accounting records the amount of the tip was registered and added to an account and billed to Patricia. In this case, the revenue would go to fund community areas of New Polis.

  The attendant thanked Patricia with a tip of his hat before moving onto the next vehicle dropping off another passenger. Patricia walked over to an elevator to wait in a short line for the next available one. As she did so, she turned to watch the different automobiles line up to either drop off passengers or valeted.

  Driving was as popular as ever in-world. Many of the cars here would be either very rare or very expensive in the real world. Lamborghini’s Porsche’s, Maserati’s, were common sights in the Metaverse.

  The elevator opened, and Patrica stepped into it. The whole time smiling and making small conversation with a lovely couple on their first visit to the Canal District.

  She wondered if they looked like this in the real world. Both were clearly middle-aged and stood out from the typically super fit person that one most often came across in-world. Patricia thought it cute and so genuine the way they appeared. Obviously very much in love and not concerned with outward appearances. She was tempted to ask where they were from in real-life but remembered that reminding others they were all just computer-generated pixels was bad manners. Of course, there were exceptions. Usually work related where the Metaverse served as an interface between people. But in social situations it was frowned upon.

  The door opened, and the gentlemen motioned for Patricia to exit first. She smiled and wished them a good time as she stepped out into a corridor lined with teleporter booths. Emerging into the night from the indoor area, she again smelled the sea as a large canal was directly in front of her. Gondola after gondola was lined up, with others waiting patiently out in the water for an opening at the dock. There was quite a line here, and Patricia decided to walk along the cement pier for a while. This portion of the Canal District was wide and had sidewalks that doubled as docks that one could stroll along. Eventually, she would need to board a gondola to get to her destination but decided to walk a bit. She knew that once away from the entry areas the crowds would thin out and she could get a ride without much of a wait.

  Walking along the pier, she passed some stores selling the latest Canal District fashions. Patricia was tempted to go into them but was in a bit of a hurry. She fought off the momentary fear that maybe she should be dressed more in the local custom to impress the man she was meeting. But she knew that she looked dazzling and continued. Besides although they had never met face to face, they had spoken and exchanged views, three-dimensional pictures of another person who appeared life-like.

  After walking for a block or so, she came across a gondola with no passengers. The gondolier nodded to her, and she walked over.

  “Can you take me to the Luna Hotel Baglioni?”

  The gondolier beamed at the attractive woman. “I can take you to the pier of the Piazza of San Marco. From there it is a short walk to the hotel.”

  “Yes, of course, that would be fine.” Patricia felt a bit embarrassed that she did not know that the hotel was not directly adjacent to a canal.

  The gondolier offered her a hand as she stepped into the black gondola with red leather seats. As is the custom and once a law, all gondolas were painted black in the real Venice. So they were here as well.

  At least that much Patricia knew.

  Boulder, Colorado

  John Wayne Maddox, or as some of his friends and most of the people he had antagonized over the years called him, “Mad-Dox.” His family just called him Wayne to differentiate him from his grandfather on his mother’s side whom he was named after. He hated being called Wayne. To him, that name represented a relative and the town drunk who had never amounted to anything. It also was not lost on him that there are a significant proportion of mass killers, serial killers and other infamous people that used Wayne as a middle name. No, he would be called Jeffery or the preferred nickname that he gave himself “MD” a play on his last name.

  MD was in fine form tonight and why should he not be? The severance package from his former employer was quite generous. Of course, if they had only realized what an asset his mind was to the development of the architecture that allowed the H-Pods to seamlessly interface with SecondSkin they would have never chased him out in the inelegant manner that embarrassed him in front of his colleagues. Of course, those people all snickered behind his back as they publicly told him what a raw deal he had gotten. Who were they kidding? They were glad to see him go; he made them look bad. None of them, not even the head engineers with “Ph.D.” after their names came within fifty points of his IQ. He knew it, and they knew it.

  He had made that company, SDG, short for Silicon Data Group, a subcontractor to Digital-Life a lot of money with his design innovations. He could have taken both to the next level if they only would have allowed him to continue his work. Instead of heaping praise on MD the company management bristled at his system design that would introduce an undetectable hypnotic program where one person or an operator could, through the manipulation of subconscious media, influence the decision making of another while they were in-world and even when they returned to the real world.

  The possibilities for products and
services were enormous. He even had a working design that would use narcotic agents to induce an alternate reality for say a suspected spy or a crime suspect who could be brought in-world against his knowledge and his will. Authorities could then use the power of the Metaverse to convince him that he was still in the real world to follow him or get him to confide information to someone he thought was a friend or co-conspirator but was, in reality, a undercover operative. Certainly, the US government or some foreign government would want that kind of ability.

  The people at SDG were fools, and MD did not suffer fools well. It was their loss; they complained of the ethical and legal issues and how it could affect their brand. But then, of course, they bought the rights, and he had to sign a confidentiality agreement, all part of the nice severance package the lawyers put together. Of course, his temper tantrum and bursting into a board meeting to chastise upper management had not helped his cause. They should have realized that his emotional control, or lack of it, took second stage to his brilliance and that he was only trying to make the company more profitable.

  He was certain they were laughing at him after security had been called to escort him out. He would have the last laugh, though. Little did they or Digital-Life know about the other project he had quietly developed in company labs, and the ones he had since developed out of them.

  MD realized that he was seething as he stared at the screen of the large monitor in his hotel room that he had linked to his tablet device.

  Easy MD, you’ll have your revenge soon enough.

  Luna Hotel Baglioni, Canal District, New Polis, Metaverse

  Alex Reynolds rose to his feet as the maître d’ fawned over a stunning blond that entered the room. “Madam.” The maître d’ slid the other chair out from the table for her.

  Alex took in Patricia, specifically her perfectly symmetrical face and body. She had worked hard in designing both, and it showed with just enough curvature to convey beauty and still look natural. Not designed, which of course, he knew it was. It didn’t matter; he had already seen her images.