There weren't always dragons in the Valley

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

"Fucking, so what, never used to be Gollums either. Seems to be clearing those up. Maybe they can help with the vultures, too.

Ugh, those aren’t Dragons, ‘tard. I don’t know what those are but they’re small and grimy looking; can’t be Dragons",

Taylor croaked. Taylor did more talking out loud than other units but was usually alone and it still hurt.

"Just saying; don’t care", Morg just muttered and looked back towards the 'gate' even though it was early by several ticks. Morg liked the UBI more than most, maybe because he was so crinkled.

Taylor looked over towards the dragons and tried to determine whether they actually were dragons. Lot of weird shit out there. Or, actually, not a lot of anything out there so anything was weird shit.

They were grimy and stringy and squabbling over the remains of a couple of Gollums but he did see the occasional flame and puff of smoke as they pulled the guts out of the still moving carcasses.

They were hacking at each other and crawling over a pile of guts. And flapping off with bits and pieces hanging from jaw and claw.

So, yes, Dragons, of a sort, had returned to The Valley it seemed.

But those weren’t Dragon dragons, were they? There was a lot of content on the grid about Dragons of course.

Dragons were awesome and huge and golden, pure and patriotic.

These things, whatever they were, were gross and puny. And gross.

Normally everyone went back in through the gate when the 'Optional Motility Period" was over. Everyone got a ping and almost everyone rotated towards the gate and returned to the comfort, like returning to play mode after a cut-scene.

For some reason the UBIs (Universal Bodily Input) needed a break so units had to unplug and encounter the IRL for a period. Tissue and bone were the reasons given; keep up the tissue and bones.

So, 30 cycles of IRL motility outside of the UBI was encouraged. The fact that the UBI went dark and dry made it easy to decide to get out.

Most scooted back inside as soon as possible, Taylor often stayed and wandered the available area.

Not sure why, just looking. What he was looking at didn’t seem to be worth the effort; dry, brown, flat. And enclosed by walls of bland panels.

Some of the panels were spaced a bit so there were gaps, some of the walls were slightly below eyelines since ‘flat’ was not necessarily level.

The enclosures were hastily built to house the UBIs a long time ago. The UBI provided all the necessary ‘Universal Bodily Input’ BioChemicals that allowed the grid to monitor, manage & maneuver all UBI member participants. The enclosures provided the minimal required containment to prevent both unwanted visitors and unwanted departures.

Taylor had no idea of how long ago that was but Taylor didn’t really have a sense of time the way it used to be in the long ago. Taylor and all other member participants comprised over 85% of the remaining planetary population.

If Taylor acquired enough interest and skills Taylor could start contributing to the content pool and acquire more jewels and some day move on up..

Taylor felt something on his arm and turned,

“Hey, Taylor what are you so focused on?”, asked Kerry after she had punched(?) Taylor’s arm.

Why does that feel different than when being punched on-grid? It was strange enough to have an actual IRL contact but to be touched by one IRL was just … odd.

Taylor was caught off guard so tried to divert.

“Kerry, have you seen dragons?”

“Dragons? TF you talking about, sure I’ve seen them in content. Everyone has, big and golden, beautiful, right. Bald? They had one in Tiara’s music stream, and on that gooly show from way back. And, uh, from , oh ugh, those stale political mani’s and all their yammer content. Always Dragons, Dragons, Dragons, Freedom in those…”

Taylor had to stop her before she regurged her entire content history.

“No, over there” And pointing to help shift her focus.

“What? IRL? No, there’s nothing out there; oop, there’s my ping, gotta join.”

And Kerry was gone back to the gate to re-engage.

Kerry was a local friend, which was rare, meaning from the same UBI enclosure so you had a chance to meet IRL during the motility periods. Almost all contacts were on-grid and not only did location not matter, it never actually came up. Most communities were dozens, hundreds, thousands of units and only in super rare local connections would you have an on-grid friend in the same enclosure as yourself.

Both Taylor and Kerry had selected their basic avatars and personal exemplars which is how they presented their persons on-grid but meeting IRL in the enclosure was a totally different experience. And odd.

On-grid Kerry was up-looked a lot to match some feed’s visual of a ‘glam-puss’ which was … interesting ….

Taylor was more generic, unformed, handy. Useful, pleasant.

Kerry had been trying for Shuttle Selection to go to an off-site.

Those could lead to many jewels and growth opportunities, sometimes.

Many many maybe.

Taylor has not settled on a path to anything, really and his badges were scattered over multiple categories.

Kerry had been logging a lot of specific engagements and was hugely popular; focusing on a narrow range of skills and ramped up creds in Communication, Creation, Nutrition & Political History. She got extra jewels constantly and, as requested, spent those on products that enhanced her image and so resulted in more jewels and higher engagement.

So, while Kerry tried to get upvotes for Shuttle Selection,Taylor considered dragons and Dragons.

Were they in the Valley? Were those actual Dragons?

At this point a reference popped up on the wall in front of him, he didn’t have his ‘visor engaged so references would display on available panels with reminders or snippets of content un-consumed.

He was away from the UBIs longer than normal so the references were popping like zany now.

There was one for music theory school? He bought that eons ago as a gift for Kerry, why was the frackin’ thing still dragging him back to the grid.

“AARgh, Ok, leave me alone, re-engaging!!”

Taylor gave one last glance down towards the … dragons? then headed for the cage back to the UBIs.

He really did want to plug in and find content on dragon lore and origin stories, and undoubtedly be harassed by pings for Dragon merch. For. Ever.

Taylor slid into his UBI with a sigh and squiggled his hips a bit to let the nozzles find the inputs. And then waggled his head to get comfortable and let the ‘visor click and establish a connection. He was ‘jacked’ and back in life.

He loved the term ‘jacked’; couldn’t remember what content he found it in but it’s from way back and sounds cool. So, ‘jacked’ it is.

Taylor didn’t know about the history of ‘jacked’ and the references to the failed attempts at direct neural connections are buried in on-grid. It was a big, heavily funded IPO that couldn’t fail. Scientists from several investment groups were ready to prove that humans could be connected, ‘jacked’, directly to a digital network. Taylor will never know the number of humans who died in that corporate experiment and maybe more importantly the 10x the number of people who were just … scrambled.

So, anyway, they downgraded their product description to ‘Awesome Visor Interaction’ and just gave people migraines instead.

Once plugged and jacked his body both calmed and cooled and woke and vibrated. The lower plugs provided all required nutrients and all desired additives one could provide jewels for; the ‘visor gave unlimited content engagement and real time life statistics.

As always the summary panel first showed his jewels, online hours per channel, learning badges acquired, recommendations based on past activity (although there were always things in there Taylor hadn't looked at and they seemed to have prices based on his jewels available)

But, first, ‘there be dragons’. What were they actually? Everyone has seen the icons and memetic versions; large, rampant, golden, bald, bold, patriotic, beautiful. Were those based on a IRL? Was there an actual IRL anymore anyway?

“Dive, dive, dive” came into Taylor’s temp mind as it crafted some searches to see if there was an origin story in the grid somewhere. Taylor knew enough that the first 3 slates of suggested readings were basically opportunities to buy ‘Dragon Themed’ merch. And there was an awesome hoodie, but let’s ‘save for later’ that one.

This kind of research, as with all kinds of searching, was individually driven. There was no ‘educational system' anymore. It was decided decades ago that planning education was bad for units’ growth so with the advent of the UBI system, units were just given unlimited access to all of the knowledge of the history of everything. Sort of.

Don’t misunderstand, it was originally planned to restrict and control and guide and shape the educational growth of a unit but the corporations involved were simply incapable of either agreeing on a curriculum or developing the actual tech to manage the same.

After all the squabbling we are left with just a huge repository of everything with unlimited access for all and no guidance to help shape perspectives or opinions.

Ping!

It was Kerry, “Hey you, I made the Shuttle Selection, I think I’m gonna get picked and move on up.”

She then streamed a gaggle of clips of ‘success’; glam-puss gals and black and white suit guys, in cars and rooms and dancing and trees and ….

Taylor skipped and replied, “Good for you, you worked for it. Now, stay connected when you get up there, right?”

“Absolutely, I’ll ping you”.

They both knew there was no down-stream connection. No Ping. Ever. Once you moved on up you could not reach down back.

And if anyone disappeared from your network, you hoped and assumed they ‘moved on up’.

So, Kerry was gone.

And now all Taylor had was dragons; “How do I find where they come from?”