Nodding, the driver gives them each a thumb ups before reentering the taxi. “Okay, you two have a great time.”
They enter the café and are quickly seated at a table in a vacant patio. An apparent 12-year-old waiter arrives with coffee and tea and takes their orders.
As the waiter leaves, Matilda suddenly laughs.
James cocks his head. “What?”
Matilda points to their waiter.
“I don’t know. Just the thought of that kid actually being, like, seventy is pretty funny.”
James frowns and unfolds his napkin across his lap. Matilda observes a group of children frolicking in the nearby park.
“But you know, James, I kind of get why people could want to live here. It just seems like they don’t really have much to worry about.”
Taciturn looks up from the table, “Is that right?”
He glances at the children playing in the park. “I’m sure perpetual youth and careless fun would appeal to some, but everything comes at a price.”
He tries to think of a good way to explain. “Do you know the story of the Lotophages?”
Matilda furrows her brow. “Uh, I think so. It’s a Greek thing, isn’t it? I know it has something to do with lotus.”
Taciturn pours himself a cup of coffee.
“Yeah, exactly. It’s one of the Odyssey legends. After a storm, Odysseus and his crew arrived on this island call Djerba. They found a tribe of people who put lotus in everything they ate and drank. It supposedly had a narcotic effect that produced a feeling of calm and apathy. Once Odysseus recognized that, he ordered his crew to leave immediately.”
Matilda raises an eyebrow. “Because…?”
James drops two cubes of sugar into his cup.
“When some of the crew tried it, they stop caring about their journey home. They were content to live on the island forever. Odysseus couldn’t allow it.”
Matilda selects the tea and adds some cream to it.
“Yeah, but doesn’t that lean more toward him just being egotistical? He was upset because they would stop helping him on his quest to get home. He was mostly concerned with how it affected him.”
James considers this. “Yeah, okay, sure. Let me reframe it. The crew that tried the lotus, they completely forgot about the rest of the people they were journeying with. Isn’t that self-centered? Forgetting our responsibilities isn’t the same as overcoming them. Would you be content living here in bliss and happiness, if it meant you might never remember who you really are?”
It’s Matilda’s turn to reflect on Taciturn’s words, but their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of their food. Their waiter comes back holding a tray larger than he is. Removing the top, he reveals platters of burgers, fries, eggs, and bacon. James waits until the waiter is out of earshot before commenting.
“I guess when you’ve hacked yourself to look like a kid, you can eat this stuff all the time.”
They dive into their food fervently. After several minutes of silent, focused eating, Matilda asks, “So, since you’re an engineer, I have to ask. How exactly did all of this happen?” She gestures to the land of Neverland around them.
James takes a moment to finish his mouthful of food. “Well, it started back in 2018, when social networks became almost a mandatory part of everyday life. It eventually got to the point where people were born, and they already had profiles.”
Matilda dips a handful of fries into a generous puddle of ketchup.
“What do you mean? Like, there were laws or something?”
James allows himself a small smile. “Not exactly. The crazy thing is, people did it all themselves. It started with people making funny accounts for their cats or dogs, things like that. Eventually that turned into parents opening accounts for their pregnancies.”
Matilda cringes, dropping ketchup-sopped fries back on her plate. “What?”
Nodding, James continues. “Yes, I know. Just hear me out. Parents saw it as fun to open accounts like that, to track the progress of the pregnancies. Once the child was born, social websites acted as a convenient and streamlined way to store all the photos of their child. A digital scrapbook for their kid to look at – or more likely for the parents to look at, when they got older.”
Matilda stabs at an over-easy egg, letting its golden yolk spread out across the rest of her plate.
“Uh-huh. So, did you have any?”
The question is a probe into his former life. Not wanting to discuss his son, he arranges a few more strips of bacon onto his plate with unnecessary care and dodges the question when he speaks.
“No. As an engineer, I knew exactly the type of information people were giving away on social sites, mostly without realizing it. I also knew exactly what was being done with the information. On top of that, after joining Fall Water Lake, we were forbidden to have social media accounts.”
Matilda holds her fork up and twirls it in a circle.
“So how did we get… this?”
James leans back in his chair and rests his fingers together on his stomach.
“Well, technology progressed until it wasn’t just photos. We got VR/AR panoramas, stereo video, and any other type of media you can think of. It became incredibly addictive.”
Matilda takes another bite of her burger. “So really, it was just like traffic is? The bigger the user base…”
James nods.
“Exactly. Big corporations identified that immediately. The value of the collected data from potential consumers was just too much for them to pass up. They started investing huge resources into buying up the big data.”
Matilda taps her fingers on the table.
“Okay, this is fascinating and all, but what about Neverland?”
James leans forward.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. So, the problem with everyone’s social websites is, no one tells the truth. Every post is carefully crafted to celebrate one’s ego. Essentially… everyone lies. This of course leads to problems with the information that companies were tracking. So, how do you get people to tell the truth?”
James resumes eating his food and talks between bites.
“It all started with what used to be a game. Or rather, a gaming backend, developed out of New York by this company called Octagram. Started by these two hot shots, Ron Staton and Sean Wilcowski.”
Matilda pauses her assault on her burger and looks at James. “Sounds like you knew these guys.”
Her perceptiveness causes James to stop chewing his food. He pauses, swallows, and drinks some water.
“Only casually. Met them a couple of times at conferences. Seemed like good guys. I just think they didn’t truly understand what they had created until after Fall Water had acquired them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
James hopes that this lie goes unnoticed. In fact, he knew them very well, but doesn’t want to go down that road just yet. He had in fact talked with Ron and Sean extensively, over countless vodka-fueled nights. They had all discussed, ad nauseam, the fundamental moral responsibilities of developing powerful, far-reaching tech. He looks at his surroundings, sitting here in the Cyberside – a self-fulfilling prophecy made manifest.
“So, they created this huge multiplayer VR game called Constellation, but the big thing was their back-end tech and AI system. The back-end would collect data from players’ actions, process it, and restructure their story narratives to fit each user’s play style.”
Matilda shakes her head. “Okay, you’re starting to lose me, chief. Reel it in. Aren’t stories literally infinite?”
James skewers a few fries with his fork.
“Combinations are, sure. But dramatic situations are actually pretty finite. There was this writer, George Polti, who said that there are only thirty-six dramatic situations you can break things down to.”