The dream machine

It was a quiet night. I could almost hear my heartbeats and my breath. The air was cold and wet after a long and sad rain.

I went to bed early, hoping to get a good and well-earned sleep.

The sky was dotted with sparkles, and the moon showed just half of her face.

As I was drifting through my chaotic thoughts, I was thinking:

"Where do I go tonight?"

Every night, I try to fall asleep, thinking about a place I want to visit. I try to get there, at least in my dreams.

I am poor. I cannot afford to jump on a Space Shuttle and see places. I dream about them. Some dreams feel so real that I do not want to wake up anymore. It is like my second home. I feel better there.

Every morning, I wake up, trying not to move. I try to stay there, in my dream. I am forcing myself to remember every single detail. I try to live there. I feel comfortable. I feel safe.

One night, it struck me. It is the year 2122. We have robots that do our shopping. We have flying taxis. Because of mechanical organs, we have people living for over 150 years. We can do almost everything, right?

I pulled over my old note tablet from the Quantum University " Elon Musk". I was lucky and managed to study there for one year. After that, I couldn't stay longer. The trips to Mars were expensive, and I didn't have enough Bitcoins in my e-wallet.

The tablet felt so obsolete. I couldn't even remember how to use it. It was a 20 years old technology. Finally, I managed to charge it a bit, and it opened. I found the sketches of a basic neural chip.

People's memories are stored in the cloud now, using the nanochips in their brains. So no one struggles to remember anything. Instead, they just search their memory bank and find the last record of what they saw or heard.

My grandparents would have never agreed with such things. "Putting microchips in people's brains? Where is our humanity?"

Unfortunately, our humanity was lost decades ago, in 2050, when the great AI and our minds merged in the META space. Zuckerberg Junior made sure we were all part of the virtual universe. Everyone is working, studying and having fun in the Metaverse. Even sex is virtual these days. Mass epidemics and acts of violence have led to international laws restricting physical contact. Travels were allowed only for certain people.

This is the world we live in now.

Only rich people can afford to travel somewhere these days and enjoy the few corners of green places left.

Do you want to see to enjoy a sunny day on a beach? Then, you need to access the Metaverse. No one goes outside their metal and concrete boxes. There is almost no light in the megalopolis. There are no plants, no insects, or pets: just walls, screens and holograms.

What can I do? I was born in a working-class family. I work in the Metaverse for less than 5 Bitcoins per year. It is just enough to pay for my modular home on floor 199. At least I manage to see the sun from time to time.

The top earners live on floor 666, above the clouds. It is always sunny there. There are no shadows, no bad weather, and no noise. The rest of us live down below, trying to make our way up, one floor at a time.

I dream of reaching the top floors one day. I dream of visiting tropical islands and snowy mountains. But that is all I have for now: a dream.

I check my old tablet. The plan is a bit hard to understand. I manage to design a small neural chip. I set it on record and went to sleep.

My dreams are more colourful and vivid than before. I can almost feel everything. I can see clearly: the trees, the sky and the ground. I can feel the wet grass on my feet. I can feel a cool breeze on my arms. A few seconds after, I hear a voice:

"-How are you, Alex? Do you enjoy your holiday?"

I look behind me, and I see her. She has to most beautiful eyes, a pure and bright blue. Her skin was glowing, with different metallic reflections. I had to ask:

"-Are you real? Are you human or an android?".

"-Do not be silly. We are all androids up here, on floor 666. How do you think we live so long? Our body is a machine, and our mind exists in the Metaverse, forever, " she said calmly.

I woke up full of sweat, and my heart was beating faster than ever. I checked my neural chip: my whole dream was on record, all of it. I didn't expect it to work. I connect it to my wall screen and look at the android face again. She was so beautiful, but it seemed so artificial. I had never seen that face, but it was in my dream. How? I got scared, and I have never felt that feeling in my entire life. There is nothing to frighten you in the city. There is nothing to see.

Later that evening, I got a holo-mail in my room. I won the lottery.

Wait? What? I thought I had no luck. I believed that I had to stay on the lower floor and work my whole life. Now, I look at the screen and cannot believe it. I have won the SKY LOTTERY. Finally, I get to reach the clouds.

A few hours later, I was in a taxi and flying above floor 666. I couldn't believe what was in front of my eyes: a sky dome full of forests and lakes. I saw that kind of place only in movies and during virtual experiences. How did they build such a place, just above the clouds?

As soon as I arrived inside, I started to cough and feel slightly dizzy. After that, I could hardly breathe, and my chest hurt. It was the first time I saw natural plants in my life. After a few moments, I started to understand what was happening to me. After a lifetime of living in concrete cubes, my lungs were overwhelmed with too much oxygen.

I hear a buzzing sound, and I can barely see a figure approaching me. It was floating through the air like it defied any law of gravity. My vision was blurred, and I couldn't see much. It was probably the oxygen poisoning. I could feel that my feet were touching a soft, wet grass.

Then, finally, I feel a presence near me. A soft and calm voice tells me:

"-How are you, Alex? Do you enjoy your holiday?"