5
The next morning I awoke early, feeling unusually refreshed. At this time of year, the rising sun just managed to sneak into the alleyway between the buildings next to me and cast cheerful rays in through my bedroom window. I dreamily watched motes of dust settle and spin in the sunlight streaming through the blinds. My mind was at ease for the first time in longer than I could remember. Something was different, but what?
Then slowly, very slowly, the noise of the world outside rose in volume, growing until it filled the same space in my consciousness that it usually did. I realized then that the pssi interface had been keeping it quiet while I was asleep.
Energized, I pulled back the sheets. Time to face the day! Swinging my legs off the bed, I called out to Mr. Tweedles, who trotted in to rub up against me. I leaned down to pet him, then stretched and yawned, sitting for a moment on the edge of the bed as I collected myself and put on my slippers and robe. Picking up Mr. Tweedles, I got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing my waiting morning cup of coffee.
As I rooted around for the holographic remote in the bowl of junk in the middle of the kitchen counter, my morning Phuture News Network sprang into life by itself, dissolving the opposite wall of my living room. Surprised, I blinked and realized this must be another feature of my new pssi system.
A message flashed up on the display. Mary had called again. I didn’t make friends easily, but we’d met a few months ago at a coffee shop nearby and hit it off. We’d struck up an immediate friendship, but lately she was beginning to annoy me as we got to know each other better. I was finding her to be a bit of a hypocrite. I ignored the message.
Sitting down on a stool at my breakfast countertop, I passed my bowl of instant oats under the tap and a short jet of boiling water filled it to the prescribed level. I stirred it absentmindedly while I watched predictions of the day’s news to come on Phuture News.
This new pssi display is amazing. It looked so realistic that I felt as if I could get up and walk right from my living room into whatever I was looking it. At that moment it was a swirling storm system out in the Atlantic, grinding its way toward some unfortunate Caribbean island. The image was far superior to my old holographic display, and much better than the contact lens systems I found so irritating and headache-inducing.
“By the end of the week,” predicted the Phuture News weather anchor who floated to one side of the display, “tropical storm Ignacia will reach hurricane status and progress into the third major storm of the season.” They were projecting it would wash all the way up the coast and threaten New York.
An almost regular occurrence these days.
In an overlaid display, Phuture News described soon-to-be-emerging conflicts in the Weather Wars, along with a list of predicted famines and disasters. It was all they ever talked about. No wonder everyone was anxious and depressed, never mind the advertising. I spooned my oatmeal absentmindedly into my mouth as they detailed the death and destruction.
“Good morning. I hope you didn’t mind, but I filtered out the street noise last night. I thought it would help you sleep better.”
I looked up from my oatmeal. My proxxi was sitting across the counter from me, strikingly composed in a tight, fashionable business suit with her hair done up in a severe bun. She looks amazing. Oatmeal dripped off my spoon as I took her in, uncomfortably aware that my own hair was a frizzy mess.
“I also took the liberty of preparing a relevant summary of world events that happened while you were sleeping,” she said brightly.
I stared at her. I just wanted to have my oatmeal in peace.
“I think that these may be most relevant regarding your work today,” she continued, and a blur of images hung in an augmented display space in front of me. I put my spoon down. “Instead of talking, it would be easier if we could commingle my subjective reality with yours—”
“Look,” I cut her off, “I just wanted to try this for the advertising block. I realize you are the main system interface, but please deal through Kenny, okay?” Anyway, my doctor had said to avoid the distributed consciousness features, which was what her commingling of realities sounded like.
She smiled. “Of course, Olympia. My apologies. I will interface with Kenny from now on until I hear otherwise from you.”
With that, she faded away. This proxxi thing was unnerving, but at least she hadn’t given me any attitude. I returned my gaze to Phuture News and my oatmeal.
“News off!” I announced, wondering how the pssi system would respond.
Magically, the display faded and my wall returned, but the system left behind a persistent visual overlay that was both visible and somehow invisible at the same time—information about some war that was about to start in Africa hung in my new overlaid display.
“Maybe I shouldn’t start my days with Phuture News,” I muttered aloud, and immediately a Phuture News feed at the bottom of my display said there was a 90 percent chance I would anyway. I laughed. The system was a comedian as well.
Picking up the new edition of Marketing Miracles from the counter, a rare print magazine, I leafed through it. That’s odd. Something wasn’t right.
And then I figured it out.
“Kenny,” I announced into thin air, “could you switch the advertisement blocking system off?”
Before my eyes, the pages of the magazine began to morph, shifting and dissolving until the same page appeared before me, but this time with the advertisements on it.
“Kenny, put the advertisement block back on, please.”
The images and text on the page quickly shape-shifted back and the adverts dissolved away.
Amazing.
As I considered this, I realized that the news broadcast hadn’t had any ads floating across it either, nor had it been interrupted by any advertising breaks. Sitting bolt upright, I listened hard to the noise from outside. I could still hear the traffic and bustle of people, but the baseline clatter of the street hawkers and holo-ads was absent.
Really amazing.