One day over virtual beers… (short fiction)

“What did you do last weekend, @joe2?” asked @Mark

“uh, I just dropped into maintenance mode and re-calibrated some visual algorithms”  he lied.

No way could he talk about how he actually spent his 4 hours offline.  It would be like signing his own career death warrant.  Total disconnect is greatly discouraged these days. Somehow humanity had allowed the offline world to be replaced by “Outdoor World”, a synth environment carefully curated by today’s modern social engineers (the new “government”).

In fact, Joseph (his real name) had hacked his own VR configuration to auto run a diagnostic sequence in a continuous loop.  Then he slipped off the headset and escaped the building with his dog “Tron”.

There weren’t many places to go outside of the buildings anymore. Definitely no expensive parks or sports facilities. He followed a robotic recycler trundling away from his basement, down to a yard where other robots were separating the refuse into piles of compostable, plastic and various ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

He found a smaller, overgrown trail off of the edge of the property and along a stream of liquids he didn’t like the smell of and didn’t want to think about too much.  Eventually the wild grass and weeds gave way to a stand of spindly pines that had escaped the land reclamation process.  The air had a foreign scent to it, not unpleasant, but fundamental to the derived aromatherapy that accompanies his VR system back home. Tron also experienced some atavistic urges and wandered ahead, his nose right to the ground.  Joseph would have to pick the burrs from his paws before they went indoors again so as to not give away their deviance.

Suddenly, he heard a strange bark from Tron off of the trail. Tron never had a need to go into a defense posture anymore so this sound was all the more disconcerting.  In a small clearing Joseph came across a grizzled old man fending off Tron with a stick. At the sight of each other, both stepped back in shock.  The old man alternately threatened Joseph and Tron with the stick.  He clearly felt an existential threat.

Joseph had heard legends about homeless squatters still existing beyond the margins of modern society.  This decrepit and undernourished man didn’t seem very dangerous to anyone but himself perhaps.  Joseph tossed him a couple of protein bars he had in his pocket as a peace offering.  The man dropped his stick and tore into the packages.  Joseph offered him his bottle of purified water, maybe the healthiest drink he’d had in awhile.  Still no words were exchanged.

Just then, two men and a woman stepped quietly into view from the surrounding trees, apparently also attracted by Tron’s barks. They were wearing a simple uniform patched together from recycled materials. One brandished a weapon but not menacingly.  The woman went directly to the old man and said in educated Spanish, “Hola Pedro, ¿cómo estás?”

The trio were from another social circle altogether.  These were the real rebels of legend, content to live outside of the technology infrastructure and occasionally hunted down and cleared from the land surrounding the city.  These were three scouts, protecting their own and acting as border patrol for their community.  Apparently, Joseph’s gesture with the snack bars had convinced them that, whoever he was, Joseph was not a threat.  Oddly, Tron was not alarmed by them either and just sniffed their pant legs.

Just then another noise sounded not far off.  The three of them and Pedro immediately melted back into the grove of trees and disappeared from view.  It was as if they were never there.  Just then a couple of security guards from the recycling center drove up in a four wheel drive ATV.

“What’s going on here?” one of them shouted.

“No cause for concern. My dog Tron just wandered away from the apartment and I finally tracked him down out here.”  He clipped a leash on Tron’s collar and headed back towards the city.   The security guards judiciously avoided engagement with a citizen of unknown political power.  They waited until he was out of view and headed back to their stations.

None of this could be discussed with the others back online the next day. Fortunately for Joseph, they quickly switched their attention to the current state of their fantasy sports teams.