Excerpt from an early draft of The Undernet...
(This part of the story is part of the original short story I wrote that inspired my first attempt at a novel. I've written a good chunk of it but I need to go back and fix a number of things. A lot of it was written with enthusiasm but a lot less skill than I have now.)
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The man behind the counter inside the store saw Ker staring at his reflection in the window with the look of shocked discovery on his face. When he started to make his way to the door Ker backed up from the window and started at a brisk pace down the sidewalk. He was a fair distance away when he heard the store’s door open and the man calling to him. He tried to keep calm and not draw any attention to himself. He kept his head down and kept walking straight ahead, the man called for him to wait. Ker was just getting to the corner when he looked back, only for a second, to see if the guy was still pursuing him and was too late to see the woman he bumped into.
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His momentum forced the woman off her feet and the collision knocked him off balance. She landed on her backside as he dropped next to her on his hands and knees. His immediate response was to look her straight in the eyes and apologize, but before he could finish saying “I’m sorry” he could see the look of disbelief on her face. Ker jumped to his feet. Hearing the sound of the man from the store around the corner, and possibly one or two others, he launched into a run, which eventually became a sprint, and finally a mad dash. He heard a few more shouts behind him but didn’t bother trying to make out what they were saying. He ran for five blocks and turned left on the last one running through an intersection to the sound of a couple of vehicles coming to screeching sudden stops. Eventually, Ker found an empty service alley and stopped running. He wasn’t tired but he was high on adrenaline and his mind was racing.
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“I should have seen it earlier, how could I just drop into this place and expect to just perfectly blend in!?” he cursed silently for not planning this out better, and his thoughts swept through the moments leading up to noticing his reflection and all the people that had likely encountered him in the last few hours before that. Many had not immediately realized he wasn't one of them, but some reacted as if something was off about him that they couldn't quite figure out. How many of those people would later make some attempt to investigate, or point it out to someone in an authoritative position who might want to do more than chase him down the street a couple of blocks?
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“Min!” He said it aloud not really trying to hide his communication. “I think it’s time to go, like right now! How do I make that happen!?” The alley was too perfect to him, the natural light of this world was starting to diminish so the alley was lit poorly. There were signs of use as well as random bits of discarded trash, but the cleanliness of the walls and their flawless geometry made it seem suspiciously like a trap, and his situation moments ago wasn't helping his paranoia any either. Ker pushed his back against a doorway trying to keep out of direct light and shout-whispered into the air once more; “MIN!”
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“Okay, okay! Calm down Ker!” He finally heard her in his head. There was concern in her voice and it helped calm him to know he wasn’t the only one a little freaked. “Do you remember how to make a console window? With your thumb and pointer finger on both hands make a box, then pull them apart a short distance, diagonally.”
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Ker felt a little silly, like he was trying to conjure magic at a very serious moment, but put his hands together anyway then quickly pulled them away from each other in opposite directions. In the space between his hands, a translucent rectangle of light came into view at chest height. He reached out to it and it felt solid in his hands. He could see letters in the console window in the format of a keyboard and instinctively typed the word ‘exit’ on them and struck the enter key... but nothing happened! He raised his fist in anger at the little rectangle of light but resisted the urge to hit it.
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“Min, I can’t remember! What’s the command!?” Ker said nervously, and looked around a couple more times. Thinking he heard someone coming.
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”Hold on Ker.” Min said, “Type ‘Cmd/Prioritylist’ then you’ll get the drop screen, select 'end session'.”
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Ker followed the instruction and a smaller window popped into existence above the first with several familiar commands. At the bottom of the window Ker saw the words ‘end session’ and jabbed it with his knuckles immediately. Everything blurred and then it all went dark and silent. Ker lurched forward in the dark, his eyes, his real eyes, opened and the light stung for a second but with a few blinks eventually the blurry blobs of color around him resolved into something recognizable as his apartment, his real apartment. He took a couple of deep breaths and started to lift himself out of the comfortable, smooth, ergonomic, reclining chair he was in only to feel a tug at the back of his head. He rolled his eyes in exasperation as he reached back behind his head and found the plug to disconnect it from the socket at the base of his skull, I'm going to forget that every time aren't I, I just know it.
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The sun had set, and in its place were the night sky and the sprinkled sparkling lights of the city he actually recognized. The automated lights of his apartment had activated at their usual time which kept him from emerging from his excursion into total darkness. To his immediate left the flashy looking black and neon-blue cube that was the computer on his work desk hummed quietly, the small holo-screen showing his Datagent, Min, displaying a concerned emotion.
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“Ker? Is everything okay? You pulled out the jack before I could check for trauma.”
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“I’m okay, Min. I’m fine… I think. Things just got a little too weird. That wasn't simply a simulation, not the way we know it… There’s no way that’s any consumer level avatar cyber-interface. No one could have created that!” Ker clasped his hands, resting his head on his knuckles and sat for a while trying to collect his thoughts on what he had just experienced, what he should do about it, and the events that had led him to the discovery…