All their friends want to go to heaven, and they don\u2019t want to leave Keysplash and Highscore behind. They\u2019re all family, and Noobsoft has determined that if they dive deep enough into dataspace that they never have to come back. They\u2019ve been there enough times to know it\u2019s better than the outside world. The outside world. It\u2019s worse. It\u2019s boring like school is boring, and they stopped going to school a long time ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s cops there too. The cops are random,\u201d Lenixgrad says. He looks like a rough outline of a person made up of ones and zeros. The whole crew does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re here because the answer to the question, \u201cDo you want to get high?\u201d is, \u201cYes,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Screentweak is the best high there is. None of the crew have been confronted with any compelling arguments against booting up a part chemical\/part code drug that blurs line between data and consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s like exploring the bottom of the ocean except you get to understand the bottom of the ocean as if you were the ocean itself, but it\u2019s really actually more than that because you have to imagine that the ocean moves on more than one axis of time as well as on several dimensional spaces that only exist in the abstract for anyone who is not the ocean. Also, you can have sex here and the sex is So. Much. Better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keysplash and Highscore\u2019s mother would not approve. She has a very practical conception of sex and what it\u2019s for. She also thinks VR\u2019s profit based product created to distract people. Despite this, Highscore and Keysplash love their mother very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe weather,\u201d Noobsoft says, \u201cis also too random.\u201d The ones and zeros that make up the body of Noobsoft are vibrating, which makes him blur in and out like he\u2019s lagging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning, Noobsoft, whose eyes were the color of dirty clouds that focused and unfocused in confused, jerking, pivots as he wandered around the storefront they all lived in, like a raccoon with rabies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNoobsoft? You there?\u201d Asked Key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noobsoft said nothing, and after a prolonged silence, picked up his hat and put it on his head, making sure the Starbuck\u2019s logo that’s holding two pistols was pointing outward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe deeper you go, the more to know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key said, \u201cYou know you\u2019ve been out since before yesterday, right? You\u2019re lucky High\u2019s here to keep you living.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noobsoft looked over to Key as he walked over to pour himself some nutri-drink. He said, \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been as deep as I have, you know this ain\u2019t living.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re welcome?\u2019 said High, who spent large amounts of time looking after zonked friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
High is a good brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhatever,\u201d said Noobsoft, gesturing to the Lenixgrad and Ladderhack. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna get high. You want to get high?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their mother isn\u2019t exactly what you would call a pleasant person. She often told her daughter and son that only fools chase their dreams. That most dreams got into their heads through ads they don\u2019t remember seeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what I want, and I don\u2019t like it,\u201d Noobsoft says, and the binary heads of the crew nod in agreement as they unfocus until their foggy numbers roll into each other like clouds colliding in the sky. There\u2019s excitement, moaning, and then climax which loops back into itself, and just when this arrangement seems settled, it all focuses back up again. Each of them avatars of pure and joyous code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019re not going back,\u201d Noobsoft\u2019s voice is tinny and filtered. \u201cWe\u2019re staying right here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their code disperses again, weaving together, and the whole crew speaks as one. They invite Key stay with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cForever?\u201d Key asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their mom made it clear when they were very young that her love was conditional. Contingent on a certain set of goals that needed to be followed under a specific set of moral conditions. Principally, they needed to make sure she didn\u2019t regret all the time and energy she spent on them. Another was to keep her alive and happy for as long as possible after she became host to a degenerative nerve disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnlike VR,\u201d she said to Highscore, \u201cyou weren\u2019t created for the purposes of your own entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key and High are getting fuzzy too. Unfocusing. Blending. Reunderstanding what they forgot since the last time they were here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo much of us gets left here,\u201d Noobsoft and the crew say, and it\u2019s all very tempting because she\u2019s sure she knows exactly what they mean. Here. Screentweak. The code. There\u2019s part of her here that cannot exist outside of this place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s better. The crew says so, and they show her the frames of code from all the crew she\u2019s known who never came back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re all here. Some of them long dead, some of them still walking around in the world. Here and there at the same time. Waiting to be reunited. To be complete. It\u2019s better. Screentweaked Key is better than anything she could be outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fundamental mathematics of existence in this place allow for the physical exploration of dimensions that only exist on theoretical axes. There are shapes here that prop up all known existence, like Atlas holding up the sky. They can swim through this underpinning geometry, basking in the pure elegance of it. Conceptualizing a complete structure of the universe. Or they can have sex here, or something that seems like a much better version of sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But not all of them are here. Key and High, their mom isn\u2019t here, and someone needs to take care of her. It\u2019s that simple, someone needs to take care of her because no one else is going to. Also, what Noobsoft is proposing shouldn\u2019t be possible. Key looks at High and then says as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not possible,\u201d she says. High\u2019s code floats. He\u2019s hard to read. He\u2019s loyal though, or exploitable, according to their mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not the point, is it? This place. It\u2019s not real: this is what Key thinks and has always thought. It\u2019s not real, or at least it\u2019s not real in a way that her mother is real, and her mother would never come here, which is why she can\u2019t stay. Why she wants her brother to come with her. Why they can\u2019t keep coming back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo much of you is already here,\u201d the crew says as they drift off into the surrounding code. They\u2019re right, and it\u2019s very convincing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highscore also said, \u201cI\u2019ll never leave you and mom. I promise,\u201d the last time she had them over to drink tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And she said, \u201cI know,\u201d while hand tremors splattered tea out of her cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key knows they have to get out. They need to grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though, Key thinks, there is always the possibility that Key could stay and High could go. Their mom had always told them she was interested in seeing which one of them would be more successful. High could do it. He has more potential anyway. Banks way more credits on his live streams. She could stay, and there\u2019d be no guilt because she didn\u2019t make the promise. High did. High made the promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He lied. Highscore disperses and goes with them. Is with them. Is them. Moaning while they seep out like blood in the tissues of a thirty-dimensional temporal lobe that hangs over extra-space like the only light in a sea of inky black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then they\u2019re gone and not gone in symbiotic selfhood of both non-self and extra-self, and Key can still hear them telling join in the most hopeful and honest tones. Like she doesn\u2019t already know. They\u2019re her family, but they do not need her. There is no need here. There is only the realization that need and hunger make no sense. It\u2019s amazing more of their friends don\u2019t come back. Key\u2019s mom needs her. There\u2019s no one else. She needs to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key unplugs from VR. She walks over to the corner to see the bodies of her friends and brother who are not breathing and who\u2019s hearts have stopped. She\u2019s exhausted. Still feels their code. She\u2019s going to have to explain this to her mom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key\u2019s friends, her brother, her Mom\u2019s son, are dead because they decided to un-self themselves. They wanted to stay in a place that was constructed by corporations in order to keep them occupied for profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The street outside is filled with people like it always is. The clouds the same. The rain. She sees the sameness so often sometimes it seems painted on. There\u2019s a dullness to it. A limited dimensionality. There\u2019s a greyness to the people who she\u2019s probably seen walk past a thousand times before with faces she never remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She weeps. Tears falling slowly toward the bodies of Noobsoft, Highscore, Ladderhack, and Lenixgrad. She still hears their voices. They tell her she needs to go back. There\u2019s already so much of her there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Saul Lemerond is a dyslexic writer who lives with his family in Southern Indiana where he teaches creative writing at Hanover College. His fiction appears in Bourbon Penn, The Drabblecast, Electric Spec, and elsewhere. He also has work upcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine. You can find out more about him and his work at saullemerond.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All their friends want to go to heaven, and they don\u2019t want to leave Keysplash…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":100043111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3292],"tags":[6,227,3297,3296,3350],"class_list":["post-100043110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fiction","tag-cyberpunk","tag-fiction","tag-poetry","tag-prose","tag-shorty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100043110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100043114,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043110\/revisions\/100043114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/100043111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100043110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100043110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100043110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}