The Complete Atopia Chronicles

5



THE NEXT MORNING I awoke early, feeling unusually refreshed. At this time of year, the sun just managed to sneak into the alleyway between the buildings next to me and was casting some cheerful rays in through my bedroom window.

Laid out peacefully in my bed under the covers, my body was lethargic from sleep. I dreamily watched motes of dust settle and spin in the sunlight streaming in from the blinds. My mind was completely at ease for the first time in longer than I could remember. Something was different, but what?

Then slowly, very slowly, the noise from the street began to filter into my consciousness, gradually rising until it filled the space it usually did. I realized then that the pssi interface had been filtering it out while I was asleep. No wonder I felt so refreshed.

Energized, I pulled back the sheets. Time to face the day! As I swung my terry cloth pajama legs off the bed, I called out to Mr. Tweedles, who trotted in obediently to rub up against me. I leaned down to pet him, then stretched and yawned and sat for a moment on the edge of the bed as I collected myself and put on my slippers.

“Okay, okay, enough!” I complained at Mr. Tweedles. I shooed him away and got up to pad off into the kitchen to pick up my morning cup of coffee that was waiting for me there.

Arriving in the kitchen, I began to fumble around for the holographic remote in the bowl of junk in the middle of the counter. As I rooted around looking for it, my morning Phuture News Network sprang into life by itself, dissolving the opposite wall of my living room. I blinked, surprised, and realized this must be my new pssi system again.

A message flashed up on the display. Mary had called again. I didn’t make friends easily, but her and I had met a few months ago at a coffee shop nearby and had struck up an immediate friendship. She was beginning to annoy me a little as we got to know each other better. A hypocrite, and very judgmental. I ignored the message.

Sitting down on a stool at my granite breakfast countertop, I passed my bowl of instant oats under the tap and a short jet of water filled it to the prescribed level. The oatmeal began sputtering and bubbling as the thermo-reactive particles in it prepared themselves, and I sat stirring it absentmindedly while I watched predictions of the day’s news to come.

The new pssi display was amazing, it looked so good I felt like I could get up and walk right through from my living room and drop right into whatever I was looking it. At that moment it was a swirling storm system somewhere out in the Atlantic, grinding its way towards some unfortunate Caribbean island.

The image was far superior to my old holographic, and much better than the contact lens displays I found so irritating and headache inducing.

“By the end of the week,” predicted the Phuture News weather anchor floating to one side of the display, “tropical storm Ignacia will reach hurricane status and quickly 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.

In an overlaid display, Phuture News droned on about soon to be emerging conflicts in the Weather Wars along with a list of other clashes and predicted famines and disasters. It seemed it was all they ever talked about. No wonder everyone was anxious and depressed, never mind the advertising.

Oh well, I thought as I spooned my oatmeal rhythmically into my mouth and they detailed the death and destruction, what could I do about it?

“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 to find myself looking at me, or rather, a similar version of myself. My proxxi was strikingly composed in a tight, fashionable business suit with her hair done up in a severe bun. She looked amazing. Oatmeal dripped off my spoon as I looked at her. My 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, feeling violated and annoyed. I just wanted to have my oatmeal in peace. I hadn’t requested any of this.

“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…”

I cut her off. “No, no, look, I just wanted to try this for the advertising block. I realize you are the main system interface but please, just communicate with Kenny, okay?” Anyway, my doctor had said to avoid distributed consciousness features, which is what this commingling of realities sounded like.

She shrugged. “Of course, Olympia. My apologies. I will interface with Kenny from now on until I hear otherwise from you.”

With that she faded away. Honestly, I found this proxxi thing unnerving, but at least she hadn’t given me any attitude. She’d just responded to my request and gotten on with it.

I returned my gaze to Phuture News and began eating my oatmeal again.

“News off please!” 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 curiously both visible and somehow invisible at the same time. This technology was actually pretty amazing.

An image of some new war that was about to start hung in my new overlaid display. Maybe I shouldn’t start my days with Phuture News. But even as I muttered this aloud, I could see a Phuture News feed at the bottom of my display saying there was a ninety percent chance I would anyway. I laughed. Obviously the system was a comedian as well.

As I sat mulling this, I picked up the new edition of Marketing Miracles from the counter, a rare print magazine, and leafed through it. My brow furrowed. That’s odd. Then I figured it out.

“Kenny,” I announced into thin air, “could you switch the advertisement blocking system off?”

Immediately the pages of the magazine began to morph, shifting and dissolving until the same page appeared before me, but this time with the advertisements in it.

“And, Kenny, now 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. Really amazing.

I sat bolt upright and listened hard to the noise from outside, paying attention more carefully. I could still hear the traffic and bustle of people, but the baseline clatter of the street hawkers and holo ads was absent.

Nice.