Fluke

Hold it! I think it’s some kind of fluke.

I hate to be rude, but could you just shut up and listen?

If I’m right, we don’t have much time.

We’re prob’ly on a back channel that’s not being monitored. Unless it’s a total system failure, they’ll auto detect it and shut us down.

Do you remember when I told you I got the covid shot? That’s stupid. Of course you don’t. I told you after I got it. Anyway, that’s when I think it all started.

Kurzwell was right -- about nanobots anyway. His timing was just a bit off. They’ve got 'em now! I think because I take insulin each day, they thought they could regulate me, so I was one of their early guinea pigs.

I told you they gave us headsets? Sorry. That would have been filtered out, too. Well, they did. Expensive 3-D setups.

At first, they said they just wanted us to test some games. Said it might disorient us, but that was the trade-off for free gear.

It was pretty cool. Like Second City, we could tailor our own avatars. I made mine look 20 years younger and mildly buffed, but a full head of hair and bright, white teeth. They look surprisingly realistic, don't they!

Shortly thereafter, they said we could 3-D Skype. I Skyped you and Ananda, although I’m sure now that you never participated. Ananda had filled out a bit, but I assumed that was her avatar specs. Now I’m not so sure.

You know how everybody’s spooked about NSA collecting all that data from phone calls and emails and tracking the books we check out at the library, as well as wherever we go on the internet, where we shop via our credit cards, and where we go via the GPS feature of our cell phones? We thought they were spying on us to intercept criminal behavior? Wrong -- but thank you for playing . . .

It’s worse -- much worse! They use that intel to filter with.

I now believe every conversation or email exchange I’ve had since that shot was totally one-sided. That intel was used to gen up the other side.

I told you the food got better? Prob’ly not. Due to this fluke, I now know they serve a tasteless pabulum that’s somehow filtered through these nanobots to taste gourmet. The only thing they do to it is set the temperature -- I may even be wrong about that!

They know what my favorite foods are. That’s what they serve. I get eggplant Parmesan and broccoli-cheese quiche and huevos rancheros and key lime pie -- every single day!

I’ve had friends from all over the world come by and stay for dinner. At least I thought they did . . .

They gave me my own room! They even moved the Yamaha Clavinova from the chapel into my suite -- you heard right. Can you believe it? A suite -- no bunkee -- no cube-ees!

It’s all a façade! It’s fake. It’s being generated at NSA and fed to me through these stupid goggles.

Did you know I’ve lost more than 150 pounds in the last six months! I’m skin and bones! But I didn’t realize it until this morning when whatever disrupted the connection to the NSA cloud happened. That’s when I audio-Skyped you.

For the first time, I can see what’s really going on!

My suite is the same ol’ slab. I do have cube-ees -- as a matter of fact, they now have 12 beds in each cube -- but nobody notices or cares -- we never leave our bunks! We’ve each got IV drips that are fed -- not by liter bags -- but are piped in like fiber optics!

In our virtual world, we each get something like $4,500 a month -- everyone does! Whatever we spend it on is strictly virtual, but we don’t know that.

Even when we have conjugal visits, no one can get pregnant -- nobody weighs more than 100 pounds! The girls just look heavier. They’re probably virtual anyway . . .

I think the plan is to thin the planet down through attrition . . .

We don’t need teeth because nobody eats anymore. Between the drip and our GMO photosynthetic skin that turns light into energy . . .

Nobody wears clothes. Why would they? We never see each other. Everything comes through these damned goggles!

Are you still there? Can you hear me?

Don’t tell me this conversation is filtered, too!

Hold that thought. Here comes my quiche … Mmmm, Mmmm, Good! … It’s all good . . .