Matilda closes her eyes and furrows her brow, trying to remember something, anything, with clarity. Was there any time before she was a Scry? When she didn’t live by devouring the memories of others? When her ravenous informational metabolism didn’t break her sources into pieces and analyze them into oblivion, discarding everything that didn’t matter?
She needs to keep those most precious pieces, to separate the vital wheat from the digital chaff. But each feeding now, she thinks, is turning her into something she likes less and less. Was there ever a time when she was just like everyone else? Maybe once, there was a time, maybe back in the real w—
Matilda opens her eyes. Her forehead throbs. She is pumping a dry well.
Taciturn shifts in his seat, snoring gently.
Only three months ago, she was knee-deep in the misery and horrors of slavers and bounty hunters. Through it all, she knew the tag around her neck was not just a meaningless pendant. It had to be something bigger. Following her gut, she went into town and observed the Taciturn. Somehow, she had a feeling James would help her. What she didn’t realize was how connected this man was. Donovan’s words still resonate within her. As a lead engineer, James is responsible for this entire world. But two questions still bother her. Why did he abandon everything to be a Taciturn? And what are the memories he’s trying to hold onto?
Matilda downs the rest of her alcohol. Beside her, James continues to sleep. The Scry can only guess what Taciturns dream of.
James is back to his first week at Fall Water Lake, his final interview having gone so well that the company asked him to start work immediately. James doesn’t even mind that most of his paperwork has not been completed yet. He’s too excited. With his first few official, incredible days under his belt, James is pleasantly overwhelmed at the opportunity this position will give him and his family.
The week has gone by in a blur, and now he sits comfortably on a plane, traveling across the country to collect his family. The flight between Los Angeles and Boston is long enough to give him time to think. As he lounges in the business class seat, he marvels at how rapidly things have been changing. Not merely for him, but for the world as a whole.
Networks, advanced computing technologies, miniaturization, personal mobile communicators, robots, virtual and augmented realities – all have revolutionized human society in just the earliest years of the 21st century. All have radically changed how individuals interact with those around them. How they view the world. Connectivity and consumption have conspired successfully to make people so linked digitally, yet so removed physically.
Elated at his new position and genuinely excited for the future for perhaps the first time in his life, James can’t stop thinking, linking fancy to projection to prediction. He’s gone down this contemplative rabbit hole countless times, often over the course of a long night of drinking. Sipping more of his scotch and looking down on clouds through redundant layers of acrylic plastic, James grins, knowing where his brain is taking him. It’s a shame that he doesn’t have someone next to him to share it with. James knows that once his thoughts get going in this direction, the spectrum of discourse can narrow considerably.
Governments, as social institutions, have been lagging far behind the corporate sector in harnessing these new outlets and connecting with the people. Administrations continue to lose their relevance as one scandal bleeds into the next, and poor foresight makes them ever less able to cope with the speed of information. Throw in the three global economic meltdowns in the last decade alone, and a fundamental societal restructuring seems an inevitable conclusion.
The masses have forsaken their collective faith in traditional governing bodies, reinvesting it in major companies and alluring, flashy technologies. People are more likely connected with the owner of a similar gaming system than with a citizen of the same nationality. And as more global governments fall to bankruptcy, corruption, revolution or some combination of all three, all those willing to track the trends and face the numbers can see that the global economy has begun not merely passively deforming, but actively mutating.
Control and power continues to flow by greater ebbs and surges, into the hands of international corporations. In most cases, such entities have verifiably higher approval ratings – and indeed, more appealing personalities – than heads of parliament and members of congress. Without a doubt, corporations have more wealth stockpiled than major nations, and they extend their control over news and social media. With stories being changed or ignored, it’s easy to shift the blame to the political sphere when big business feels the need.
With their exponential rise in power and influence, corporations have long since taken the lead in assembling think tanks to ensure and continually refine their continued success. It was through one of these very brain trusts that the conglomerates realized they could step in where the governments were failing. Through ‘charitable services’ to their global consumer base, they’ve incrementally cemented their public favor, ensuring themselves unprecedented access to valuable resources.
Thus began the founding of corporate-funded trade schools, housing-programs and even social institutes – a drastic furtherance of the zaibatsu model, taken to its most unbridled, visionary, neoutopian extreme. Orphans, the homeless, and ex-convicts were brought up in special subsidized, unabashedly-corporate housing and developmental facilities – the lauded Collaborative Habitation Initiatives. Extensive education, strong leadership training, guaranteed jobs, and access to the latest technologies all helped provide these companies with skilled employees, workers with absolute loyalty to their future employers. Company schooling, company wellness care, company wedding chapel, company funeral home. While a vocal minority has long viewed this level of corporate entanglement as a detriment to national if not personal identity, a comfortable majority of the populace appreciates the lattice work of goodwill and unity – or at least the intentions thereof – that these groups have forged.
Thankfully, James is now part of this corporate elite, and he’s proud of it. Having made it through an extensive interview process, he’s climbed his way up to Lead AI Engineer at Fall Water Lake. He never dreamed he’d be working for the world’s foremost pioneer in the online services development sector. It is a dream job for him. As he drinks 18-year-aged scotch in a comfortable business-class seat, James can’t wait to see where this path will take him.
Soon he’ll land, collect his family, and return to work. Things are finally looking up, and life feels exactly as it should.
A lurch of turbulence wakes Taciturn, and he finds himself in a different plane than the one from his memories. Matilda rests next to him, wearing the new business suit provided courtesy of Donovan. James notices a flight attendant replace an empty cup with a fresh drink. He gestures to the attendant that he’d like two of the same and asks Matilda, “Are we almost to Neverland?”
Matilda sips her drink through a straw and nods.
“She says it’ll be about 20 minutes.”
James notices a slight glassiness in Matilda’s eyes.
“How many of those have you had?”
Matilda shrugs, leaning back in her chair.
“Does it matter? Donovan’s paying for them, right?”
To himself, Taciturn allows that she makes a valid point.
“Is it true what they’ve been telling me about this Virginia woman?” Matilda asks. “Most of it sounds kind of ridiculous.”
James shakes his head as two admirably-full drinks are placed on his tray table.
“Honestly, the truth is probably far worse than what you’ve heard. Neverland works on a hacked version of indexation. Most of the residents walk around in proxy bodies.”