We walked around downtown but almost all the shops were closed. All the good stuff was in the shopping center and you had to show a town ID card to get in and me and Gloria didn’t have those.
So, like Gloria always says, we killed time since time was what we had.
The place looked different. They had spotlights pointed from on top of the vans and Fearing was talking through a microphone. There was a banner up over the doors. I asked Gloria and she said, “Scape Athon.” Ed was selling beer out of a cooler and some people were buying, even though he must have just bought it right there in town for half the price he was selling at. It was a hot night. They were selling tickets but they weren’t letting anybody in yet. Fearing told us to get inside.
Most of the contestants were there already. Anne, the woman from the van, was there, acting like any other contestant. Lane was there too and we waved at each other. Gilmartin was helping everybody put on the suits. You had to get naked but nobody seemed to mind. Just being contestants made it all right, like we were invisible to each other.
“Can we be next to each other?” I said to Gloria.
“Sure, except it doesn’t matter,” she said. “We won’t be able to see each other inside.”
“Inside where?” I said.
“The scapes,” she said. “You’ll see.”
Gloria got me into my suit. It was plastic with wiring everywhere and padding at my knees and wrists and elbows and under my arms and in my crotch. I tried on the mask but it was heavy and I saw nobody else was wearing theirs so I kept it off until I had to. Then Gilmartin tried to help Gloria but she said she could do it herself.
So there we were, standing around half naked and dripping with cable in the big empty lit-up bowling alley, and then suddenly Fearing and his big voice came inside and they let the people in and the lights went down and it all started.
“Thirty-two young souls ready to swim out of this world, into the bright shiny future,” went Fearing. “The question is, how far into that future will their bodies take them? New worlds are theirs for the taking—a cornucopia of scapes to boggle and amaze and gratify the senses. These lucky kids will be immersed in an ocean of data overwhelming to their undernourished sensibilities—we’ve assembled a really brilliant collection of environments for them to explore—and you’ll be able to see everything they see, on the monitors in front of you. But can they make it in the fast lane? How long can they ride the wave? Which of them will prove able to outlast the others, and take home the big prize—one thousand dollars? That’s what we’re here to find out.”
Gilmartin and Ed were snapping everybody into their masks and turning all the switches to wire us up and getting us to lie down on the frames. It was comfortable on the bicycle seat with your head on the headrest and a belt around your waist. You could move your arms and legs like you were swimming, the way Fearing said. I didn’t mind putting on the mask now because the audience was making me nervous. A lot of them I couldn’t see because of the lights, but I could tell they were there, watching.
The mask covered my ears and eyes. Around my chin there was a strip of wire and tape. Inside it was dark and quiet at first except Fearing’s voice was still coming into the earphones.
“The rules are simple. Our contestants get a thirty-minute rest period every three hours. These kids’ll be well fed, don’t worry about that. Our doctor will monitor their health. You’ve heard the horror stories, but we’re a class outfit: you’ll see no horrors here. The kids earn the quality care we provide one way: continuous, waking engagement with the data stream. We’re firm on that. To sleep is to die—you can sleep on your own time, but not ours. One lapse, and you’re out of the game, them’s the rules.”
The earphones started to hum. I wished I could reach out and hold Gloria’s hand, but she was too far away.
“They’ll have no help from the floor judges, or one another, in locating the perceptual riches of cyberspace. Some will discover the keys that open the doors to a thousand worlds, others will bog down in the antechamber to the future. Anyone caught coaching during rest periods will be disqualified—no warnings, no second chances.”
Then Fearing’s voice dropped out, and the scapes started.
I was in a hallway. The walls were full of drawers, like a big cabinet that went on forever. The drawers had writing on them that I ignored. First I couldn’t move except my head, then I figured out how to walk, and just did that for a while. But I never got anywhere. It felt like I was walking in a giant circle, up the wall, across the ceiling, and then back down the other wall.
So I pulled open a drawer. It only looked big enough to hold some pencils or whatever but when I pulled, it opened like a door and I went through.
“Welcome to Intense Personals,” said a voice. There were just some colours to look at. The door closed behind me. “You must be eighteen years of age or older to use this service. To avoid any charges, please exit now.”
I didn’t exit because I didn’t know how. The space with colours was kind of small except it didn’t have any edges. But it felt small.
“This is the main menu. Please reach out and make one of the following selections: women seeking men, men seeking women, women seeking women, men seeking men, or alternatives.”
Each of them was a block of words in the air. I reached up and touched the first one.
“After each selection touch one to play the recording again, two to record a message for this person, or three to advance to the next selection. You may touch three at any time to advance to the next selection, or four to return to the main menu.”
Then a woman came into the coloured space with me. She was dressed up and wearing lipstick.
“Hi, my name is Kate,” she said. She stared like she was looking through my head at something behind me and poked at her hair while she talked. “I live in San Francisco. I work in the financial district, as a personnel manager, but my real love is the arts, currently painting and writing—”
“How did you get into San Francisco?” I said.
“—just bought a new pair of hiking boots and I’m hoping to tackle Mount Tarn this weekend,” she said, ignoring me.
“I never met anyone from there,” I said.
“—looking for a man who’s not intimidated by intelligence,” she went on. “It’s important that you like what you do, like where you are. I also want someone who’s confident enough that I can express my vulnerability. You should be a good listener—”
I touched three. I can read numbers.
Another woman came in, just like that. This one was as young as Gloria, but kind of soft-looking.
“I continue to ask myself why in the heck I’m doing this personals thing,” she said, sighing. “But I know the reason—I want to date. I’m new to the San Francisco area. I like to go to the theatre, but I’m really open-minded. I was born and raised in Chicago, so I think I’m a little more east coast than west. I’m fast-talking and cynical. I guess I’m getting a little cynical about these ads, the sky has yet to part, lightning has yet to strike—”
I got rid of her, now that I knew how.
“—I have my own garden and landscape business—”
“—someone who’s fun, not nerdy—”
“—I’m tender, I’m sensuous—”
I started to wonder how long ago these women were from. I didn’t like the way they were making me feel, sort of guilty and bullied at the same time. I didn’t think I could make any of them happy the way they were hoping but I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to try, anyway.
It took pretty long for me to get back out into the hallway. From then on I paid more attention to how I got into things.