Top Level Player, page 4
The office was empty, but the desk had a silver bell with a sign. Ring for service.
“Allow me!” Laurel said. “Context sensitive actions are another specialty.”
She flitted down and tapped the bell. The instant her little hand touched the plunger, a door on the far side of the desk opened and in walked a familiar individual. Though the outfit was a bit less “game show host” and a bit more business casual, that impeccable hair and dazzling smile were unmistakable.
“Mr. Exposition? What, are you moonlighting as tech support?” Jazz asked.
“A common misunderstanding,” he said, with the same flawless diction. “While my appearance and personality are identical, thanks to using the same NPC template, I am in fact Mr. Helper, not Mr. Exposition. How may I help you?”
“I’d like to know why I’m here,” Jazz said.
“Presumably you paid your entry fee and, sadly, expired.”
“I know for a fact I didn’t sign anything about any After-Image. And shouldn’t you know, if you represent the company?”
His smile did not falter, but the rest of him did. Mr. Helper held perfectly still for three seconds, then snapped out of it and reached into his pocket.
“Sorry about that. I was answering generally. Let’s just take a look at your account.”
He revealed a small black book—also a match for the one Mr. Exposition held.
“Jazz. Ah, yes. Your fee was paid via a grant by After-Image International. Part of their ‘Eternal Charity’ program.” He snapped the book shut. “That’s that.”
“No, that isn’t that. Surely you can’t just dump someone’s consciousness into a simulation without their permission.”
“Ah, but you would have had to give your permission in the form of the charity application question on your brain scan form.”
“There was no such question on my brain scan form.”
“You probably overlooked it. It is a long form and easy to become confused about.”
“Setting aside the fact that there apparently exists a form that could lead to someone accidentally offering up their very existence to some bizarre corporate project by mistake, I didn’t fill that out either. The only form I filled out was a consent form for an experimental brain imaging test.”
Again, Mr. Helper froze.
“You must be asking very difficult questions,” Laurel said, drifting up to investigate the stationary NPC. “They’re not supposed to do that.”
Mr. Helper snapped out of it.
“I’m sorry, I seem to have reached the end of my flow chart. I will have to put you in contact with an IRL representative.”
“You can do that?”
Mr. Helper reached behind the desk and produced a sleek tablet computer with a tasteful black case. He blew a layer of dust from it and deployed it in front of Jazz.
“If you need any help upon the completion of the call, I will be right here,” Mr. Helper said.
With that, he again went still, not even blinking, as the screen lit up with a rotating corporate logo.
“Let me get this straight,” Jazz said. “I’m dead, but I’m about to talk to someone in the real world?”
“You’re a bunch of code running on servers. What’s so odd about technicians being able to interface with the code on their servers?” Laurel asked.
“What’s odd is that code usually isn’t a disgruntled customer with a death certificate filed away in the real world.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong about that. It is, definitively, normal. You’re doing it, after all.”
“Just because it’s happening to me doesn’t mean it’s normal. The first guy to get struck by lightning had every right to consider it strange.”
“Within the framework of your analogy, you aren’t the first person to be struck by lightning, you are the seventeen billionth person to be struck by lightning.”
Jazz tipped her head and looked more intently at Laurel. “Do all PDAs come equipped with philosophical debate skills?”
Laurel puffed up her chest. “Nope! But you picked the humanoid female Navi type. It is one of our special skills!”
“Why would you have that skill?”
The fairy deflated somewhat.
“Because people argue with us a lot more than other designs for some reason…”
The logo on the tablet vanished. A rather downtrodden employee replaced it. The shot appeared to be from one of those laptop webcams, the ones that never seemed to give the screen a good view of the user and the user a good view of the screen at the same time. This particular user must have chosen the screen over the camera, because the picture centered on his forehead, revealing more of the cluttered shelf behind him than his actual expression.
“Hello, After-Image Customer Service. My name is Jeremy and I’ll be your medium today. How may I help you?”
“Thanks for answering so quickly, Jeremy, I’m… I’m sorry, did you just call yourself a medium?”
“That’s correct.”
“Because you talk to dead people for a living?”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Isn’t that a little morbid?”
“Look, I don’t get to pick my job title, ma’am. How may I help you?”
“I’d like to know how I ended up in The After-Image.”
Two audible clicks accompanied his navigation to the appropriate document.
“Generally it is because you paid your entry fee and, sadly, expired.”
Jazz shut her eyes tight. “I’ve been through the whole ‘Mr. Helper’ routine already. And frankly the fact they had to put the word ‘sadly’ in the official script makes me a little worried. I didn’t sign any agreement or pay any fee. The last thing I remember before Mr. Exposition was undergoing an experimental brain scan.”
Jeremy sighed. “Okay. What was the date of your scan?”
“September 5th, 2021,” she said.
His expression shifted slightly, as if his brain had finally actively engaged with the issue at hand.
“Please repeat that date.”
“September 5th, 2021,” she said, slowly and more distinctly.
“Jazz, our records show that the first scans eligible for the After-Image were taken in December of 2025.”
“That would seem to support the premise that I wasn’t scanned with intention to be loaded into After-Image.”
“And you are sure about the date?”
“I’m pretty sure. From my point of view, that’s still today’s date. In my memory, I was in the scanner chair less than an hour ago.”
The keys of a cheap keyboard clacked through the little speakers of the tablet.
“Let’s see what I have here… Jazz… Yes, I have your activation date as today… I do not have a personal account on file for the final funding of your activation. You were activated by the Eternal Charity Program, so that explains that. Charity cases are generally activated many years after their scans, thanks to the lottery system that is used to time their activations and the limited budget to do so.”
“Right, but I didn’t sign up for anything related to The After-Image, charity included.”
“Ri-i-i-i-ght. Let me just see what else we have here.”
Jazz felt her jaw tighten. If someone had asked her this morning if she believed there would be irritating customer service in the afterlife, she would have started by saying she didn’t believe in the afterlife. And even if she did believe there was a higher power waiting to give her an eternal reward or punishment, customer service calls would certainly only have been a part of the latter.
The thought sent a chill down her spine.
“Okay, your records are archived. I can’t access them. And there have been some administration-level adjustments made to your account.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of archives to access them if you need to? Otherwise you could just delete the records.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I can access them, but that feature is only available to members of our Premium Extended Support Program.”
“The presence of the word Premium suggests there is a fee involved.”
“I am afraid so.”
“I wasn’t completely bankrupt when I was scanned. Assuming I died shortly afterward, there should be money left. I can give you the names of the people I’d left in control of my estate if—”
“The service is only offered to individuals in The After-Image. Thus, the fee must be paid in Plot Tokens. Accessing your estate would require me to get the data in the archive anyway.”
Jazz looked aside to Laurel. The fairy helpfully produced the inventory parchment and pointed to the 1020 PT still listed.
“I suppose I’ve got some in-game currency or whatever. How much does the extended service thing cost?”
He clacked at his keyboard some more.
“Players interested in our Premium Extended Support Program must pay an annual fee of six million plot tokens. Service begins after first payment and continues for one calendar year.”
“I have a thousand. Isn’t there a one-time fee I can pay for a single access?”
Jeremy tapped for a few more seconds.
“I’m afraid not.” He rubbed his temples and a measure of the already lackluster veneer of professionalism dropped away. “Jazz, would you like my opinion on the matter?”
“What I’d like is help.”
“Why not just go with it? You got scanned way before there was an established price structure for this stuff, so you probably don’t know this, but it is expensive to be loaded into The After-Image. People take out special ‘consciousness continuity’ insurance policies for their kids and pay into them over a lifetime to make sure they’ll get a timely upload date. It may have taken nearly… well, it may have taken a long time, but you got in, and you didn’t have to break the bank in your waking life to do it. Sometimes you gotta take the win.”
“Jeremy. I am… I was a scientist. Sure, I was a computer scientist and a software engineer, which isn’t what people usually think of when they think of the word scientist, but it’s all the same mindset. What’s real and isn’t real matters. This isn’t real. I am not real. And what was done to me was done without my consent. Now what happened happened, but you better believe I’m going to find out exactly what it was and exactly who was responsible.”
“I’ll put in a request for service with the higher-ups, but don’t hold your breath on getting anything without that service contract. Hold for the trouble ticket number. When you raise the six million tokens, you can present it to any Field Office and they will connect you to me to continue the investigation. I may be in contact with you again, if and when corporate weighs in on if your problem warrants special exception to the archive policy.”
Jazz jumped back as Mr. Helper’s immobility abruptly ended. He reached into the pocket of his polo shirt and produced a literal ticket.
“Here you go. Take good care of that. If you lose it, I’ll have to reissue it.”
Laurel snatched it and presented it to Jazz.
“Will that be all?” Jeremy asked.
Jazz gripped the ticket tightly, briefly imagining it was Jeremy’s neck she was wringing. “No. That’s not all. Because I’m going to be talking to you again once I get the money. See you then.”
“I look forward to continuing to provide the best of customer service.”
“You’d have to start first.”
She angrily tapped the disconnect button and crammed the ticket in her pocket. Laurel quickly jotted down the new entry in the inventory.
Mr. Helper picked up the tablet and stowed it. “Thank you for coming! And don’t forget to come right back if you have any questions or problems. After-Image International is dedicated to providing the best customer experience in this world or the next.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you are…” Jazz muttered.
She turned and stomped out the door. Laurel fluttered along beside her.
“This is why not many people visit customer service,” Laurel said. “It’s usually just easier to deal with whatever’s wrong than to get it fixed.”
“Again. I am… was a software engineer. If you’d given me the option to live for eternity in a world governed by people like me, I absolutely wouldn’t have done it. The idea of beta-testing an entire reality is…” She shivered. “And what do upgrades and patches look like.”
“They’re a little like hurricanes,” Laurel said. “You hear one is coming, then it sweeps through and sometimes everything you own has been violently rearranged.”
“Sounds lovely.”
She shut her eyes and took a steadying breath. She had to hand it to whoever made this place. It felt real. An odd mixture of half noticed scents drifted through her nose. Cool air swirled as it entered her lungs and warmed. A subtle breeze tousled her hair. It felt real. But it wasn’t.
Jazz huffed another breath, more frustrated than the last, and turned to Laurel.
“Okay, Laurel. Let’s hear about his gig economy.”
“Objective added: Earn six million Plot Tokens!” Laurel trilled.
Chapter 3
Jazz strolled down the street as Laurel gleefully provided the many economic options available in The After-Image. While she should have been paying attention to what the little assistant was saying, she quickly determined that it boiled down to “you can do odd jobs or sell your privacy.” Same as in the real world. The fairy seemed so happy to be listing off the endless series of odd jobs, Jazz decided not to cut her off and instead just let the words wash over her while she tried to be mindful of the finer points of her new reality.
While on the surface things felt perfectly realistic, as she focused on the less conscious and overt aspects of her life and surroundings, artifacts of the simulation became clear. For as long as she could remember, she’d had a nagging pain in her lower back. Usually not enough for painkillers, but always at the edge of her awareness. That pain wasn’t quite gone—not that she would have mourned its passing if it was—but it wasn’t quite present either. It didn’t feel like she really had back pain. It felt like someone besides her had just made a mental note that it should be there, so she only felt it when she thought about it.
The same went for a lot of the little things. She’d started mindfulness meditation in the last few months of her life in an attempt to calm her nerves and restore some peace. A few minutes of focus would turn up the tiny sensations her mind just filtered out in the average day. The weight of her clothes on her body. The individual sensations felt by each toe. When she focused and felt these things, it was always like she was pulling back a rug to find the loose change that had slid underneath. The sensations didn’t just appear when she looked for them, but she became aware that they had always been there. But not here. Here, she didn’t feel the little things unless she was focusing on them. A sharp, distinct line marked the start and stop of those sensations. When she wasn’t looking for them, they literally ceased to exist.
In the big picture it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. But in the small picture, it was a blinking neon sign that said “This isn’t real.” It was an optimized system eliminating the processing overhead of unobserved, inconsequential things.
“… and that concludes the standard categories of economic advancement,” Laurel said. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more opportunities to make money here. Just as in the waking world, you can earn money doing anything anyone is willing to pay you for. Just be mindful that different hubs have different laws, and actions can incur punishments from law enforcement.”
“So how would you suggest I earn my money?”
Laurel didn’t even pause to consider the question. “Full-time streaming, and do something viral.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, just about anything. Though I have a list of the general types of stream that earn the most views, and thus the most money, if you like.”
“I have feeling I already know, but let’s hear it.”
Laurel fetched a parchment from behind her. “In declining order of value. Amazing, sexy, embarrassing, cute (animals), cute (babies), inflammatory, gossipy, paranormal, wholesome, educational (food), educational (science).”
“Figures my specialty would be at the bottom of the heap. About how long would it take me to earn what I need?”
“Only a few months! Assuming you agreed to the full streaming agreement*,” Laurel said.
“Did you just say an asterisk?”
“Yes!”
“What’s the catch?”
“Nothing! Billions of people have already agreed to the full streaming agreement. I have a copy right here.”
She reached back and produced a scroll about the size of a roll of paper towels. The fairy tossed it into the air and darted above it. She grabbed ahold of it. The rest unfurled and bounced along the street, rolling out like a red carpet of clauses and codicils.
“Cut to the part where I list the rights I’m handing over.”
“Easy as pie! That’s just this little part here.”
She rolled the scroll up with dizzying speed until a section in the middle was presented.
“‘I, the undersigned, to hereby provide After-Image International and WireFeed the permanent, complete, transferable, and non-revocable access to my memories, thoughts, sensations, experiences, and physicality, retroactive to activation and persisting in perpetuity, to be presented, transmitted, stored, archived, or modified as desired by aforementioned entities or authorized subsidiaries and partners.’ Wow,” Jazz said.
“You get tons of tokens. A steady flow of them, and if you’ve got an interesting life, a huge flow of them.”
“Is there a way I can do it without literally signing away my life to them?”
Laurel dispelled the scroll and produced a smaller one.
“There is a limited contract that permits streaming only in pre-designated time slices, but it comes with a substantial payment penalty. You split your earnings with middlemen. You keep about three percent. You need to do something major during a given time slice to make any real money.”
