LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter Four: Meetings & Confessions
I started Sunday like every other day. I woke up at nine (fortunately, my house had the brains to let me sleep in on a weekend), dragged myself into the kitchen, and poured myself a shitty coffee. After pulling out a packet of SoyBread™, and bunging a slice in the toaster, I then proceeded to doomscroll the news, while munching on the bland and barely flavoured “toast”. Today’s news wasn’t anything catastrophic, at least, with the most concerning piece of information being that they had discovered a new species of mosquito in what remained of the Amazon rainforest that was about the size of a golf ball. Yikes.
Other than that, there was the usual celebrity nonsense. The royal family were visiting Australia for the first time since independence, and would be taking a tour of the country as part of a goodwill visit. There was a new scandal in the Los Angeles Metroplex regarding a strike by Hollywood executives over their imminent replacement with (allegedly) superior AI producer bots. Apparently they had forgotten how their predecessors of decades long past had done the same thing with writers, VFX artists, and even actors. On that note, the fifth AI to play the role of Hugh Jackman was marrying a human actress called Miranda Kalilah, who I hadn’t heard of before, but looked quite dashing in the photo of the loving couple.
Personally, I was mixed on AI. Some AI, like the ones that had been created to imitate Jackman, were capable of independent thought and reason, and even emotions. Of course, they were only capable of this due to their status as either brain scans of long-dead celebrities emulated in software. Jackman had been scanned as an elderly man, and had been simulated five times by five different studios. “He” technically had rights as a sentient being, but was the property of his parent studio, in this case Miramax-Paramount-Disney. The other four versions had been shut down due to various scandals involving PR disasters, and it was rumoured that this fifth version had been hobbled by inbuilt restrictions to avoid another Smokey The Bear incident.
On the other hand, other AI- like my school psychologist- were little more than chat bots that were capable of limited independent thought. Despite our technological advantages, AI technology hadn’t quite reached the level of science fiction, with our only truly sentient AI being simulations of dead human brains that were, on some level, not true AI. I didn’t know enough to really explain the technical differences, but I did know enough to know that while I’d happily call Jackman a fellow human being, my psychologist wasn’t much more than a toaster with an annoying personality.
Eventually, I finished my toast, closed the AR window with the news articles, and sat down on my beanbag. I had two big things going on today, and neither was happening within the next couple of hours. My appointment with the school psychologist wasn’t until twelve thirty
I browsed through my small library of AR games. Nothing caught my eye. I’d been obsessing over first person shooters as of late, and currently I didn’t have anything in my library worth playing again. I’d already finished Half Life 3 half a dozen times, and it had only come out last year. Since then, I hadn’t really had the funds to invest into buying new games, and a lot of the freeware I could access was awful. I certainly didn’t want to waste my time playing some sort of competitive shooter when singleplayer games were clearly superior in terms of storytelling.
Similarly, a browse through the list of film and television I could access resulted in disappointment. Most of my options were provided through the school library, and therefore were mostly boring documentaries and the occasional artsy film for English. About the only interesting options were the collection of Stanley Kubrick films (which I’d watched multiple times already) and a series of videos from the history course on the third world war. Since I wasn’t much in the mood to watch a video explaining that particular can of nuclear worms, I decided to close my media library and find something else to occupy my time.
I stood up and walked over to the window. The smog wasn’t too bad today, and my AR weather app was telling me it was actually going to be sunny for once. I hadn’t been to Victoria Park for ages, not since I first moved into my home. So, picking up my sneakers, and pulling them on, I got ready to go for an early jog. This would turn out to be a mistake.
Victoria Park was one of the few patches of unspoiled green in this part of the city. This was for several reasons. First, it was located next to the grounds of the old Sydney University, which had been preserved as a heritage site despite having been long since abandoned for a newer campus way outside the urban sprawl that now surrounded the old site. The heritage status meant that, to prevent it from being vandalised, eroded, or otherwise damaged; the entire area surrounding the campus was preserved under a large biodome structure that allowed light in, but kept pollution out.
Secondly, it was now the property of a small corporation known as the Heritage Foundation. As their name suggested, they existed to preserve the history of Sydney and other world cities for future foundations, a noble goal that was supported by their wealthy investors. In return for the money from their investors, the foundation turned historic areas of various world cities into tourist attractions and recreation areas, which tempered my opinion of them somewhat. It was rather hypocritical, in my view, for them to both promote the preservation of history while also renovating the historic structures they claimed to preserve in order to accommodate hotels, museums, and other money-generating facilities. Still, at least the park was mostly untouched, even if I had to pay for entry.
The campus was now a museum dedicated to the history of the city, and Victoria park was part of the grounds. It was also open to the public on weekends, with a small fee for entry of around thirty federal credits. A small enough fee that, for once, I felt comfortable visiting the grounds for a short jog around the park before heading home. As I approached the museum entrance, which consisted of a large airlock for vehicles, and a smaller pedestrian entryway, I smiled as I noted the line around the door was practically non-existent, considering how nice of a day it was. The queue of vehicles was larger, however, which wasn’t surprising considering how few people generally walked around this area due to the heavy pollution. Also, despite the area surrounding it being inhabited mainly by welfare rats like me, the park still attracted a large number of more wealthy people due to its relatively unspoiled nature.
After waiting in line for a mercifully short period of time, the autumn sun beating down on me like the world’s largest radiator, I approached the ticket booth, which was manned by a holographic attendant with an overly cheery smile on its face. The hologram, an image of a middle-aged man dressed in a bellhop uniform, turned to look at me as I approached.
“Hi! Welcome to the Victoria Park Preservation Dome! I’m Alan, your Simulated Greeting Assistant! How are you today?!”
I shuddered slightly at the overly cheery tone the hologram was using. While it certainly wasn’t unpleasant, it came off as fake and overly disconcerting when it was coming from a hologram whose face seemed permanently stuck in a massive shit-eating grin.
“I’d like one student ticket for entry, please.”
The hologram’s face didn’t change, but I had a distinct feeling that if it could smile wider, it would be doing so. “Excellent! Unfortunately, recent policy changes mean that the Heritage Foundation is no longer providing student discounts unless a research grant has been approved by a Heritage Foundation Research Associate Manager!”
I blinked. “What.”
The hologram flickered momentarily. “According to my facial recognition systems, you do not appear to be authorised to receive a student discount! You do not appear to be listed in my database as holding a research grant with a current university or other educational or research institution!”
I pinched my nose and swore under my breath. “Are you sure you’re not getting anything confused here? The Heritage Foundation have offered student discounts for school students for as long as I can remember. Perhaps you’re malfunctioning?”
The hologram kept smiling, and I had to resist the urge to futilely try and punch it in the face. “Please remember that the Heritage Foundation is not responsible for any technical error, and that all queries regarding possible malfunctions with Alan-256771 Simulated Greeting Assistants are to be directed to the manufacturer, Atlas Technologies! The fee for an adult ticket is two hundred and thirty five credits, with a small discount for family groups! Please note that this policy has been in place for over six months, and that the window for public commentary and criticism has been closed for over a hundred days!
I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth. I had nowhere near enough money to spare for a ticket, and there was no other way to get through the gates. I turned to leave, but stopped when a familiar voice spoke over my shoulder.
“I can shout for you, whoever you are.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I turned around. Standing there, wearing a red sundress, and a wide brimmed hat, was Alice. In the flesh. I immediately began to panic.
“Are you OK?” she asked, concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I couldn’t seem to find the words to say anything. Eventually, I spoke, forcing myself to speak in my rarely-used natural voice, my voice cracking as I did so. “I-I’m OK, thank you. Wh-why are you offering to pay for me to enter?”
She smiled, and my heart broke a little on the inside. “I saw you arguing with the holographic vendor. You’re clearly on welfare, judging by your clothing, and I have a friend in a similar situation to yours. She…well, I think she’d approve of me helping out someone with similar money problems, especially since she lives in this area.”
My heart skipped a beat. She was talking about me as if I wasn’t standing here in front of her. But, then again, she didn’t know who she was talking to. Internally, I fought the urge to say something, to tell her that I was standing right here in front of her. Eventually, cowardice won out, and I blurted my answer, sweat beading on my forehead.
“Thanks, Alice, I’d love that.”
I cursed inside my head. I’d accidentally used her name. She gasped, raising a dainty hand to her mouth.
“Oh? Have we met? Do you go to Macquarie Public School? I don’t think we’ve met in person before. What’s your name?”
I blinked. She…hadn’t cottoned on? I was simultaneously relieved and slightly heartbroken.
“Uh…Clarence. We’re not in any classes. But, I’ve seen you around, and one of your friends was talking about you in class the other day.”
I hated lying to her, but I didn’t have any other choice. I couldn’t come out to her here, and she’d reject the real me if she knew that I looked like this. I also hated using my deadname, but it was far better than the alternative of being rejected by her. In any case, she seemed to buy my explanation, and clapped me on the back with one of her hands. Her hand had a physicality that further reinforced that she was actually here, right in front of me.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Clarence,” she said, walking towards the holographic attendant. “Tell you what. I’m just about to pay for entry. My parents are waiting over there in the car, and there’s a queue forming behind us. They’ve already said they’re OK with me paying for you, so I’ll pay for all of us, and then you can ride in with us in the car.”
She pointed to a vehicle I had failed to notice while my attention had been fixed on her. It was a silver Hyundai SUV, with one of the rear doors open, and blacked out windows that prevented me from seeing the inside of the car. I took an uneasy step back.
“I’m…uh…I’m OK thanks. I’ll just use the pedestrian entrance. I…you don’t want to know me.”
She blinked, her finger hovering above the payment button on the ticket booth’s holographic interface. “You sure? You seem like a nice guy.”
I winced, and backed away further. “You know what, I’m late for…uh…things, I need to go. Don’t follow me.”
I turned and ran off, sprinting as fast as I could away from the park. Behind me, Alice called out for a person I wasn’t, her voice tinged with confusion. Eventually, she and the park faded into the distance, and the only thing I could feel was the pavement thudding beneath my feet, and the dull ache in my chest. In that moment, I hated the world more than ever.
I slammed my door behind me, and stood there panting heavily. Leaning against the door as if the legions of hell were trying to break it down, I let out a choked sob, and slid down the door, collapsing in a heap in front of it. Alice had been right there, and she’d seen the real me. The male me. It was like my heart had been torn out and left dangling outside my chest. There had been no sense of recognition, no sort of chemistry between us. Why would there have been? She was a lesbian, and I was…
…no. I wasn’t Clarence; the hideous, shameful boy. Not anymore. I was Kara, a beautiful and intelligent young woman who had friends and prospects. But no matter how much I tried to tell myself that this was true, I knew it wouldn’t make Alice attracted to the real me. And that was the kicker, wasn’t it?
After some time, I managed to work my way out of my funk and check the clock. I had about thirty minutes to get to my psych appointment with the school psychologist AI. However, I really didn’t feel like it, and no amount of demerit threats from Sarah could force me to go and spend an hour talking with a glorified chatbot about my feelings and my transition, and all of the other shit that the appointments usually discussed. Besides, it wasn’t like it mattered. I already knew I had issues, and no amount of banal pleasantries with a lump of metal and plastic in a server farm on the other side of the country could help me with those problems. What I needed was to get rid of this horrible male body, and the only thing that could help me there was transitioning.
I got up, and walked over to my bed. Sitting down on the pile of sheets covering it, I removed my shoes, climbed into bed, and lay back on the mattress. Now, more that ever, I wished for a better world, a better life. But I knew in that moment that those things weren’t for me. A sudden wave of grief washed over me, and I began to sob, curling up into a ball and pulling my covers over the top of me. I felt alone.
It seemed like an eternity before I stopped shivering and crying, and came back to my senses. My AR glasses, their slender frame lying on the bed beside me, were beeping softly, indicating a message waiting for me. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and sniffled the mucus out of my nose. Then, I slipped my glasses on. It was Alice.
Alice: Hey, ghost-girl, I sent you the link half an hour ago, you OK? My parents are eager to meet you.
Kara: I’m sorry, ghost-friend. I…don’t know if I can handle it this afternoon.
Alice: Are you OK?
Kara: I don’t know. I’m having some personal issues right now.
There was a long pause. I blew my nose into some Kleenex and wiped some more tears from my face. Then, Alice finally responded.
Alice: Alright. But we’re talking about this in VR, right now. I want to know what’s going on. I’ll be there in two minutes. Please, be there, I want to know if you’re OK.
Kara: OK. I’ll be there.
I walked over to my beanbag, unhooked my headset, and quickly cleaned the contact discs. Then, I slipped it on, sat down, and waited for Alice to send through a link. Finally, once she sent the link to the private session through, I joined the call, and the world vanished.
Alice’s private simulation resembled a grassy hill under a sea of stars. Fireflies buzzed through the air around the hill, and a lake glistened off to the side. A massive tree, with pink flower petals instead of leaves, bloomed upwards from the top of the hill, illuminated by the light of an oversized moon hanging in the sky above. A firepit crackled beneath the branches of the tree, and sitting beside the firepit, clad in her school avatar, was Alice. I looked down at my avatar, still in the image of my D&D character, and walked up the hill towards Alice, the grass rustling under my avatar’s boots. Alice looked up, her smile fading as she saw me.
“Kara, what happened?” she asked, concerned. “You look upset. Do…do you want to talk about this?”
I sat down beside her, my knees bent towards my head, and wrapped my arms around my legs. I rested my chin atop my knees, and watched the fire crackling.
“I…had an encounter today. It reminded me why I isolate myself so much. Why I can never see my friends face to face. It was…confronting.”
Alice’s face darkened. “Did someone give you shit over being queer?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. I…I…I don’t…I don’t know how to explain what ha-“
Before I could finish my sentence, Alice cupped my cheeks in her hands, turned my head to face her, and leaned in to rest her forehead against mine. Then, moving her right hand to caress my neck, and her left behind my head, she kissed me on the lips.
I kissed her back, my heart fluttering and my mind singing in joy. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she released me from that passionate kiss, and stared lovingly into my eyes.
“Kara,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything. I don’t care why you isolate yourself, or how ugly you think you are. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I would be honoured if you’d be my girlfriend.”
She leaned in again, and we kissed more, as the campfire crackled, and the stars shone down from the simulated sky.
Alice and I lay back on the grassy hill, the embers of the fire dying out as we stared up at the stars. It was beautiful, serene, and breathtakingly beautiful.
“Is this simulation based on a real place?” I asked, squeezing her hand with mine. She looked over at me and laughed.
“No,” she said, her smile broad and mirthful. “At least, as far as I know. My Dad put this together for me as a birthday present the year I got my first VR headset. He works for Atlas as a senior software engineer, and he’s very talented. It’s an old simulation, but I love it dearly.”
I smiled sadly. “My parents never gave me anything like that. My Dad was a caterer in one of the arcology dining areas, and my mother was a nurse at the local hospital. I don’t know what’s going on with them now. I…haven’t spoken to them for more than a year.”
Alice squeezed my hand back, and let go, she then rolled towards me, and wrapped her arms around my avatar. In this simulation, touch and other sensations felt much more real, but still muted. However, something about the simulated interaction felt more real than it had any right to be.
“What…what exactly did they say to you when you came out? For them to be homophobic like that…”
I frowned. I felt bad continuing to let her believe that I had been kicked out for homophobia instead of transphobia. Still, it wasn’t as if it was that different in function, if not in form.
“I…I’ve tried to block it out. I knew deep down that my parents wouldn’t accept me for who I was, and I was an idiot for thinking that they’d changed. My sister, she probably would accept me, but she’d left home years ago after she finished her medical degree. She and my parents weren’t on speaking terms anyway after my mother tried to force her to ditch her boyfriend because my mother didn’t approve of him. Last I heard, she was working as a specialist of some variety up north.”
I stopped, and refocused myself. It was surprisingly difficult discussing this, even with someone I knew I could trust. Alice patiently waited for me to continue, her face passive and serene. Eventually, I swallowed, and continued.
“It was an accident that they found out. My parents were out of the house, and so I was chatting online with a community I was out with. Some acquaintances overseas, no one particularly special. I was talking about my sexual preferences when I heard a gasp from the door. My mother, who had come back to fetch her purse. She stood there, and then she dropped her purse, and stormed out of the house.”
My mind flashed back to that moment. Her keys clattering out of her bag. Her scream of anger and fury. The way she hadn’t said a word to me before storming off. The sound of the door slamming. I focused back on my story and spoke once more.
“She…went and got my Dad. They grilled me on what I was talking about, whether I knew how disgusting I was, how they hadn’t raised some sort of queer. Then…then they began the beatings. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. A neighbour heard the commotion, and entered our home. He…pulled them off of me, and…and…”
I realised tears were pouring down my face. Alice’s father must have programmed the simulation with tear duct emulators and other systems that most people didn’t include in the code. The emulation would respond to my headset telling it that I was experiencing a large release of acetylcholine and serotonin in my brain, and respond by simulating the release of tears. It was rarely included due to most people not wanting to cry while in VR, but it seemed that Alice had a parent who had a thing for realism. Alice sat the both of us upright, and hugged my head to her chest, stroking my hair as she did so.
“Hey,” she said soothingly. “It’s OK. I think I understand. You don’t have to deal with them anymore. They can’t hurt you. I won’t let them.”
As I sobbed into her chest, the last few embers died out in the firepit, and the only light left was the moon and stars above, fixed in an eternal night.
J: Are you sure you traced the IP address back correctly?
M: Yes.
J: Excellent. Take as much video as you can, and then hand control of the drone back to whoever the fuck owns it.
M: On it. The video will take some time to covertly download. I can’t let Amazon know that their drone was taking illegal footage, nor that I was in their system. It should be ready by Friday. I also want to get some more imagery, just to make it worth the effort.
J: Urgh. OK, take your time. Besides, I want this to be a surprise. They’ll never see it coming