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Barely a minute in, before the stain left by the opening credits has fully faded from my eyes, the words ‘vote now’ appear in flashing dayglo, and an involuntary surge of adrenaline darts through my right hand speeding the fingers into a rise and fall. A multitude of clicks. I’m caught short by how much it matters to press down and win.
‘Vote orange, orange, orange.’ One of the Chinese boys in the row ahead is shouting. I can taste the concentration carried on his breath, the thrashing excitement, can feel the throb of clicks coming up through the fabric of the walls like some universal pulse.
The film slips seamlessly beyond the vote into the next act. A familiar smell of static rises from the seats. I’ve no idea exactly how I’ve voted, but it hardly matters, since it wasn’t so much a vote in any case as a series of miniature acts of incursion. Press, press, press, tap, tap, tap, click, click, click, the will of the flesh bearing down onto a lifeless ring of green and yellow buttons.
The high of the moment quickly passes and I’m left staring through the gloaming at the row of stiffened necks and knotted hands belonging to the boys in front. Whatever thin narrative is flickering across the screen is irrelevant. Only when the next ‘VOTE NOW’, the insistent call to arms, appears will our heads rock and our fingers bounce and the spells leak out from our bodies and animate for a few seconds the dead passage of the square of light ahead of us.
We don’t have long to wait, for within a matter of a few moments the words ‘VOTE NOW’ are flashing on the screen and my lungs begin to demand their breath in shallow shots, tapping out the rhythm of the next click, the next hammering vote, the clueless choice, the next small pulse of power that will electrify the web of nerves running along my arm and pull at the muscles of my right hand and finally set off the cushion of cells along my fingertips.
Thirty minutes after it first began, seven brain-dead people stagger out of theatre five into the foyer in a kind of ragged trance.
One of the boys says it was cool. Another says it was galactic.
Back at Nancy’s house I unpack the shopping in a daze, reminding myself to squirrel away a few of my more creative impulse purchases such as the slab of dried Greenland halibut and the packet of cream of tartar behind the tins in Nancy’s store cupboard. I’ll confess to my product promiscuity the next time I find her in a particularly good mood. Meanwhile, a few remaining extras will have to be consigned forever to a dark spot under the bed in the spare room. I’m not sure even Nancy would be able to forgive Japanese pickled strawberries and black finger fungus.
With an hour to kill before she’s due back I flip through Nancy’s manual of the Net, but soon find myself struggling for comprehension through the pile of abstract, dreary jargon: ftp, tcp, pop, ppp. I mean, what is all that? It sounds like radio interference.
FRIDAY
As she’s leaving for work, Nancy invites me to a talk on education and technology being held this evening in the Valley.
‘You’re interested in the future, right?’ she says.
‘Well, yeah.’ I look up, uncertain of her tone, but the expression on her face has already moved on.
‘Sweetie, education and technology are the ways the future gets made,’ she says.
And with that she jumps up from the table, swings back that clot of brown hair and transforms immediately into Nancy the software marketer.
‘Why don’t you go browse my clippings box? Also there’s a big crate of articles and whatnot in the garage.’
In the garage it looks as though the San Andreas fault exploded over everything. Where the clippings crate might be among the heap of basketball nets, broken toasters, project files, back issues of Cosmopolitan and Wired, and beaten-up old software packages is anyone’s guess. Eventually, following a half-hour excavation I dig out the box from under a fortress of old Vanity Fairs and flipping through the disintegrating leaves of newsprint read the following:
28% of teenagers are screen addicts, 24% grey conformists.Annual US spend on entertainment and recreation reaches $34obn, only $27obn for elementary and secondary education.$800m spent every year in US on TV ads to children. Deyna Vesey, Kidvertisers’ Creative Director, says ‘the general rule of thumb is, once a kid is three, you can go after them on TV.’
American kids under twelve spend $8.6bn, 13–18 year olds spend $57bn.
And so it goes on, an avalanche of abstracted facts, public opinion surveys, vox pop statistics, flow charts, graphic predictions, trend tables.
The Sausalito Library’s catalogue of books lists a handful of titles under the category ‘adolescence’, including:
The Power of Ritalin: Attention Deficit Disorder amongTeenagers
Educating the Disturbed Adolescent
Suicide Among Adolescents
Coping with Teens
The Handbook of Adolescence, Psychopathology and Anti-Social Deviancy
It seems adolescence is treated as some kind of disease rather than a normal part of the human life cycle these days, but we feed on images of it still, like a flock of ageing carrion birds.
Nancy picks me up at six and we drive down to Mountain View for the education and technology talk. Inside the conference room at the Hilton a couple of hundred people in power suits with full shoulder extensions, sprayed hair and pigskin attaché cases flutter about with their business cards like tickertapers on VJ day. It’s all so eighties, somehow.
‘Where are the teachers, Nance?’ I ask, looking through the suits.
‘This meet is more for Valley types,’ says Nancy, fingering an Evian spritzer. ‘You know, software providers, consultants, techno-visionaries, wizards, that kind of thing.’
I flash Nancy one of my disgruntled looks.
‘I thought it was supposed to be about education.’
‘It is, but so what? We’re talking about a whole new technological revolution in the classroom. Kids won’t need teachers any more. They’ll need software supervisors.’
‘Jesus, Nancy.’
‘Look, Sweetie,’ Nancy is already moving off into the crowd, ‘I have to keep ahead, OK? It’s my job, if that’s all right with you.’
Nancy finds me after the talk.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I had to network. What did you think?’
We spin through the smoked-glass doors and out into the evening. The question bothers me, although I’m not quite sure why. A wave of defensiveness beaches itself at the front of my mind and I realize I’m reluctant to admit what I’m actually thinking, since it contradicts what I’d rather be thinking.
‘I dunno,’ I say by way of reply. ‘Ask me later.’
We decide to stop off for dinner at ‘the place everyone in new tech is talking about’, the Icon Byte Grill in the SoMa district of San Francisco, or Multimedia Gulch as it’s becoming known. Nancy, multimedia glamour puss that she is, was invited to the opening party, but it was so full of movie types cooking up white lines and special-effects deals that she couldn’t get inside the door. She had no choice but to turn around, go home and eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s instead.
‘We’re going to have to go, Nance,’ I say, spotting the themed menu. ‘I refuse to ask for circuitboard chips, or whatever.’
‘Aw, c’mon,’ says Nancy, looking peevish. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘I hate themes. They’re so, oh I don’t know, undignified.’
I hear myself whining to go to McDonald’s, like some sullen teen.
‘McDonald’s? Like McDonald’s is dignified?’
‘No.’ I’m stuck in some impenetrable psychological groove. ‘McDonald’s apple pie is though.’
This is the final straw for Nancy. Some weird, dark corner of her psyche launches into a white-hot diatribe about how little right I have to complain, and what a conservative little snob I am, and so on. Blah blah blah.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she says finally, calming down. ‘You’re in complete denial of the wave of change going on here. In any case, a touch of theming is like, so what? Big deal.’
To save the peace I cave in and adopt a humbled air. We agree to stay and Nancy orders for me, but the evening isn’t exactly what anyone might call a pile of fun. And I still think themed menus are ridiculous and humiliating. But one thing is for sure and that is whatever is awry between Nancy and me, a themed menu is the least of it.
SATURDAY
Completely pointless detail
Walnut Creek, California. No walnut trees and no creeks, only row after row of Contemporary Mediterraneans with yard pools and mulberry trees backed up along the suburban streets.
Nancy refused to come. Says she hates the suburbs. Strawberry Point, where Nancy lives, is not a suburb, despite looking suspiciously like one, but rather a spread of coastal brush with occasional urban fill-in. Personally, I don’t care what she calls home. I’ve nothing much against suburbs anyway. They appear bland, but that’s just surface skim. Underneath, they’re the same heaving mess of calamities and cock-ups as everywhere else. Besides, I have a little mission these days. To explore new worlds and seek out new civilizations. To boldly face the future, as it were.
And to that end I’m sitting in the Virtual World Entertainment Center on the main street in suburban Walnut Creek, waiting my turn to be entertained, and making conversation of sorts with my two new friends, Todd and Jim, to pass the time. Todd, a boy of about seventeen, thin and angular, with the jawline of SS officers in war movies, is doing his damnedest to impress.
‘C’mon, Todd,’ I say, faintly wishing I were somewhere else, ‘you’re too young to have been in the marines when they stormed Grenada.’
Todd appeals to the boy next to him.
Jim, six inches shorter and still ablaze with shyness, shrugs in a noncommittal way. ‘Whatever.’ And with that he dunks himself back in the Virtual Geographic League Battletech Manual lying on his lap.
Todd throws back his Coke, addresses himself to me:
‘So you’re a rookie, huh? First time?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Ha,’ laughs Todd, shaking his head. ‘Rookie!’
I smile back.
‘Yeah, ha,’ I say.
We sit in silence. A perky little grin spreads over Todd’s face, indicating a fresh idea for conversation.
‘Hey.’ He grabs my wrist, registers its small size then drops it, embarrassed. ‘Hey, see this flight suit?’ He smoothes an outsized palm across his chest. ‘Genuine Foreign Legion it is, I swear.’
I smile back and nod indulgently, thinking that if Nancy were in my place right now, she’d be having one of her fits about suburban militia enclaves full of inbred NRA types stashing away semi-automatics fast as Imelda M clocks up kitten heels.
‘I sent off for it in the Survivalist,’ continues Todd. ‘I wear it for luck.’
The Survivalist?
‘Listen,’ I scan the bar, trying to find an excuse to escape, ‘I think I’ll just take a look around.’
‘Yeah,’ says Todd, ignoring me. ‘This’ll be my fifty-fifth mission.’
‘No kidding?’ The Americanism tumbles from my tongue without anyone else noticing. It feels awkward and sly, like using a lover’s nickname for the first time, but good all the same. No kidding. Neat.
‘Hey,’ says Todd, pointing to his circle of bar snacks. ‘Want one of my Tesla Coil fries and some Solarian salsa?’
I’m not sure Virtual World Entertainment Centers exist as yet in Britain. But they will. In Britain and all over. Give it a year or two and there’ll be Virtual World Entertainment Centers in every major city from Uzbekistan to Angola. Since Tim Disney, nephew of Walt, and his partners took over the Virtual World Entertainment company a couple of years ago, centres exactly like this one have spread out over suburban America as fast as prickly heat, ‘and now constitute one of the peaks of the suburban entertainment landscape,’ according to Nancy’s memory of some article in Marketing America.
A strange sort of nostalgia pervades the room, running alongside the futurism. The walls are clad in fake wood panelling with brass wall lights; grim Victorian-style armchairs dominate a space presided over by yawing prints of Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Sir Richard Burton and Charles Lindbergh. Old-time heroes.
Back at the bar, Todd has turned his attentions to Jim. ‘I still say that the T6 is the übermech. People go out in Loki5s because they can’t handle the idea of hand-to-hand combat is all. The Loki5 is a chicken’s machine.’
I take up my stool again, feeling slightly foolish since it’s perfectly obvious that Todd and Jim are just two lonesome Joes looking for a life, like a zillion other teenage boys, and really not the crazed splatter-brats I’d momentarily imagined them to be.
‘What is a T6? And what’s a Loki5?’
Jim looks up from his manual, puzzled and faintly disgusted. Todd just gives me the eye and says:
‘Like, hello …?’ in a tone hinting at disbelief.
‘Well?’
‘Mechs, robots, you know, the things you fight in.’ He slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Man. Rookies! Listen, all you need to know at this stage is to select a Loki5. They’re easiest to handle. Then remember to keep your crosshairs on the black spots and don’t go up the ramps.’
‘Why not?’ I ask, returning the gaze.
‘It’s dangerous, man,’ says Todd, raising his eyes to the heavens. ‘Read the manual.’
The year is 3050. Man has colonized the universe. The one great Star League has degenerated into a corrupt feudal society riven by petty rivalries. Life is cheap. War is constant. Mercenaries equipped with futuristic two-legged tanks called BattleMechs drift from planet to planet fighting for whoever offers the most cash.
Like the jousting tournaments of old, war in the 31st century has also been ritualized into sport. Mechwarriors from far and wide gather on the desert planet of Solaris VII to test their mettle against the best the universe has to offer. Now you can join them.
At the cash till, Andromeda, a qualified Virtual Geographic League Briefing Officer, recites the mission plan.
‘For nine dollars you’ll be entitled to a mission briefing where you’ll learn about your destination of choice, followed by translocation to a virtual world with a group of other adventurers where your mission will commence. After that there will be a full mission debriefing and a pilot’s log. It’s a total twenty-five minute adventure. From ten to a hundred missions, every tenth mission is free. Take part in three hundred missions and you can become part of the Inner Circle.’
‘Which is the bit where I actually play the game?’ I ask, pulling a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet.
Andromeda looks uncertain.
‘You mean the mission?’
‘Yeah, which is the mission bit?’
‘It’s all an adventure,’ says Andromeda, handing me my ticket and a plasticized paper card. ‘Trust me.’ She advises me to choose a call sign for the mission.
The line of explorers requiring mission tickets begins to build up behind, forming a vaguely threatening mass.
‘Let’s see.’ Andromeda struggles to assist. ‘Variations on death are always popular along with pets’ names. Nexus 14, for example? Zombiewoman? Driller killer?’
My recent online adventures come to mind.
‘How’s about Fish ’n’ Chips?’
‘There you go,’ toots Andromeda. ‘We’ll enter you in the log …’ she types a few letters into a PC ‘… as Fish and … Chips.’
‘’n’ Chips.’
‘Sure, ’n’ Chips. It’ll be about forty minutes. Take a seat in the Explorers’ Lounge and you’ll get to meet some great people. We at VGL believe that one of the most satisfying aspects of interdimensional travel is the people you meet en route.’ Resigned, I hold my hand out for change. Andromeda shakes her head and waggles a finger.
‘Nine dollars for the adventure plus a dollar for the one-off pilot’s fee.’
