Turtledown

Life was good in Turtledown. Jacques and Jacqueline lived in a cul-de-sac on Nesting Lane near the center of the development. All the houses in the neighborhood had started with the same template, but homeowners in the community were encouraged to dream big and customize to their hearts’ content, resulting in a variety of expressive structures standing proudly all around. The business district featured an award-winning shopping mall and a beautiful lake with innumerable recreational activities available was just a short, pleasant drive away.

Advancements in automation had made life relatively idyllic in Turtledown, with plenty of free time for leisure pursuits, however life was not without its challenges. The grass might mow itself and whatever one desired could be delivered near-instantaneously by drone, but daybat infestations were a routine problem, and the clown that had been peeping in peoples’ windows at night remained at large. Also, Jacques had been having nightmares about Jack again.

Five days a week Jacques rode his electric-blue scooter past all his neighbors’ gorgeously landscaped lots to the nearby office complex where he’d spend eight hours filling out and filing purchase orders. The work wasn’t hard and it paid well, but it wasn’t terribly fulfilling, though he did enjoy watching the stack of papers in his inbox get smaller as the stack in the outbox grew taller. Most days Jacques felt like the clock just spun by in fast forward while he was at the office, and that was fine by him. He’d start his days with salutations to the sun, end them in the hot tub on the pool deck with Jacquline, and have plenty of fun in between.

Their two children, Robin and Matryoshka, were away. They must not have been gone long, though, because the schoolwork hanging on the refrigerator with magnets was still crisp and clean, with A-plusses standing out in red. Occasionally Jacques found himself sitting on his daughter’s bed weeping uncontrollably and he didn’t know why. Sometimes the clock spun by during these episodes, but more often than not, he’d just sob for hours, chewed at by a grief he couldn’t understand.

Lately he’d been spending these episodes staring at Matryoshka’s dollhouse, a lovingly-crafted replica of their real home in exacting miniature, down to the same brand of blender on the kitchen counter and Jacqueline’s prized kaleidoscope collection on the shelf in the living room. The crown jewel of the model was the replica of itself in tiny Matryoshka’s tiny bedroom, rendered in perfect micro-scale. So meticulous was the detail that within the dollhouse-within-a-dollhouse, an even smaller version of itself was visible through the bedroom window.

Jacques awakened at dawn the day the mysterious package arrived. He gingerly peeled back the bedroom curtain and checked for daybats, but the trees were mercifully clear of the swarms of fierce-faced little creatures that often roosted in such great numbers that they shrouded the whole neighborhood in black. Jacquline was downstairs and he could hear the blender whirring as she made their morning smoothies. She was an excellent cook, though sometimes her turkeys caught on fire and Jacques had to rush around the house looking for the extinguisher, which seemed to move about with a mind of its own in a high-stakes game of interest to some mischievous spirit.

He looked down at his sleek sports car in the driveway with a pang of guilt. The front end was smashed in, and he hadn’t yet taken it to the mechanic. He and Jacquline had been coming home from the bowling alley when he’d crashed into a tree. As they had pulled into the cul-de-sac at the end of Nesting Lane the damn clown had run in front of the car, causing him to swerve and drive into the Jones’ maple. Jacques wanted the bastard identified more than ever now. Things had gone from creepy to downright dangerous and somebody should do something about it. He’d check his credit balance later and see if he could get the car down to the shop this coming week. In the meantime he was grateful for his scooter.

The community slogan in Turtledown was “Life is Good,” and Jacques had to largely agree that it was. The sentiment was plastered liberally about town. It was rendered in topiary on the hill under the community center and on posters held up with tape in the windows of every business. It was emblazoned above the masthead on the front page of The Turtledown Times, which was delivered unfailingly every morning, though Jacques never caught sight of who or what left it on the doorstep. Life was good, but still Jacques felt a gnawing sense of unease. The arrival of the black-wrapped package did little to soothe him.

He wandered downstairs expecting to find Jacquline in the kitchen, but instead found only a note reading “GONE 4 A RUN” next to a frothy pink smoothie. Jacques was slightly disappointed. He’d awakened sweaty after another bad dream about Jack, some nightmare alter-ego living Jacque’s alter-life in some desperate worse-off alter-world where Jacquline and the children had been taken in some tragedy, who spent his life endlessly reliving the event, his tortured days punctuated only with dreams of better times lost forever. He needed a hug to check him back to reality.

Jacques decided he’d take the next best thing. It was a Saturday and with no daybats in the forecast they could proceed with the afternoon’s cookout. All the neighborhood kids were away and it was going to be an end-of-summer adults only pool party with a keg of beer. Jacques was looking forward it, but with several hours before the festivities kicked off, still trying to shake the lingering cobwebs of dread from the night before, he decided to skip salutations to the sun and head right for his favorite game.

“Virtual Reality” had been supplanted by “Immersive Reality,” which offered heretofore-unimaginably realistic experiences in various simulated environments. What really differentiated the new technology was its use of asynchronous inaudible frequencies played into each ear independently, allowing the system to directly, though subconsciously, affect the players’ emotional tenors. “LIFE 2.0” was, by far, the most popular game on the market. Players were provided with a version of their house rendered from satellite images and avatars of themselves based on their demographics. Subscribers could earn or purchase in-game credits redeemable for a near-infinite number and variety of upgrades to their homes, cars, wardrobes, families, and avatars. Jacques knew it was a silly waste of time to play as Jock, who was really just a more successful, muscular, confident version of himself, but the gameplay was just too engaging not to play. LIFE 2.0 was so successful because there was something intrinsically comforting about living an idealized version of one’s life, even if it was only ever temporary. In a lot of ways it was not dissimilar from being able to dream while awake, which made it an inherently relaxing endeavor.

When the doorbell rang Jacques wondered for a moment if it could be the damn clown continuing his campaign of harassment, but as far as he knew, the creep had never been seen during the day. He opened the door just in time to see the delivery drone fly away. As far as he knew, neither one of them had ordered anything so he was surprised to see a small box, elegantly wrapped in matte black paper, with a red bow tied around it on the doorstep. The package looked classy and expensive and made him nervous.

There was a nagging part of him that felt he had been too honest on his last semiannual mental health evaluation. His finger had hovered before he’d clicked “Life is Okay,” and he was now concerned about that decision. There had always been rumors in Turtledown that anyone who didn’t agree that life was good risked being subjected to a bit of reeducation. This could mean anything from a few holostreams to engage with, to being taken away for a while. The thought of being away from his family, however briefly, for whatever reason, filled him with dread. He was afraid that this package might somehow be related to his evaluation.

As Jacques stooped to pick it up, the ribbon caught the sunlight and he saw, with some relief, the words LIFE 2.0 repeating in crimson iridescence along its length. Taking it inside, he placed it on the counter and pondered the situation. He was relieved to see that the package had not come from the Turtledown higher-ups. Unwrapping it, he found a chicly-designed matte-black box with the game’s logo embossed on each side. Pulling the lid off he discovered a folded piece of paper atop a single data chip nestled into a small red-velvet hollow. “As one of our top premium subscribers you have been selected to be part of an exclusive beta test of new game features.” It went on to say that uploading the chip into the game implied consent for this and that. Jacques stopped reading. He had a vague memory of clicking a box asking to be considered for inclusion in this program and heaved a sigh of relief.

He snapped the chip into the console, admiring the nod to nostalgia when it would have been much easier to simply update his system from the stream. Settling down on the settee he pulled on his Immersive Reality suit and helmet, then scrolled through the options until LIFE 2.0 lit up. The game took longer than usual to load, but eventually Jacques found himself in Jock’s bed. Jock didn’t have Jacque’s aches and pains, so he leapt to his feet and admired himself in the mirror as he always did. Jacques was in decent shape, he and Jacquline regularly went to the gym, but Jock was an Adonis who flew his helicopter to work where he filled out and filed purchase orders in his corner office at the top of a skyscraper. This was a real blessing as it allowed Jock to avoid the infestations of purple scorpions that clogged the roads, a seemingly unfixable bug that had plagued the game since its inception, less common now, but still a headache for many players.

A message popped into the air and hung in front of him: “You have uploaded the LIFE 2.0 Gamepack Beta. Get ready to enjoy all your favorite games in-game.” Jock thought that sounded pretty cool. The bowling alley in LIFE 2.0 had an arcade cabinet which played classic retro titles like “Puck Man,” “Car Thief,” and “You are a Lizard!” They were primitive programs, fun for a few minutes, but mostly enjoyable as historical curiosities. Jock made his way downstairs to the living room and was pleased to see an Immersive Reality pod that hadn't been there the last time he had logged on. Annoyingly, it had spawned right in front of Jaclyn’s kaleidoscope collection and he’d have to remember to move it before company arrived for the dinner party later.

He could hear beautiful Jaclyn in the kitchen and his two brilliant, wonderful children, Egbert and Matryoshka, playing in the yard outside. The better angels of his nature suggested that he ought to go greet his family and the day, but the devil on his shoulder pointed out that it had been a long week of filing purchase orders and he deserved some fun. Three days with scorpions had filled up the helicopter parking pad on the roof at work so he’d been getting up extra early.

Jock climbed into the pod and booted up the system. He was met with a reminder that the Beta had been installed and saw that “Games'' was no longer grayed out on the console’s menu. Selecting it, he was met with thousands of titles stretching back through the last century of video game development. Scrolling through the list, he could feel time slipping by and began daydreaming about a barbecue as the endless options passed by in no particular order.

Suddenly, a glimpse of a game called “Mall Shooter” scrolling past made him gasp. It was like seeing an artifact from a nightmare in the real world. Jock, or someone, had dreamed of such a game, of a sad man perched on his couch playing at being a monster in a world that had lost its way. His breath hitched, but looking more closely he saw that it was actually a racing/shopping game called “Mall Scooter.” Jock felt better, but still a bit shaken. He then spied the first title that actually grabbed his interest.

Nestled into the list between “You Are a Lizard!” and “Stardust” was “LIFE 3.0.” Jock supposed this was what he was looking for, because he selected it. The program booted up and he was met with a message that read “LIFE 3.0 aims to provide the most realistic gameplay on the market.” Swiping it away, he saw the character creation menu. Selecting a name and various basic customization options to his avatar, Jock passed through the familiar steps, spending more time lovingly crafting his family than he did on himself. When he was done he discovered a new game feature. “Spin the Wheel of Trauma” hung in the air next to a circle divided into pie-wedges, each inscribed with a tragedy. He spun the wheel.

Jock watched as the options passed by in a blur. As they slowed down he saw the selection arrow click through “Killed Family while DUI,” “Parents Murdered,” “Parents Murdered (Witnessed)” and dozens of other equally horrific scenarios before settling on “Family Killed in Massacre.” This must have been the final step in the character creation process, because Jock suddenly found himself in what he clearly recognized as his living room, but it was a place he had never been before.

Every flat surface in the dark room was covered in beer cans and trash. Stains stood out on the couch and carpet, some still spreading from beneath long-forgotten takeout containers. Jack felt terrible all over again when his eyes drifted to the smashed shelf and shattered kaleidoscopes. At least he remembered that, staggering into the wall and falling, then laying among the gleaming, bloody shards like a stained-glass martyr cast in crimson. He could not remember bringing Matroyshka’s dollhouse down from upstairs and placing it on the kitchen counter, where it now sat shrine-like, daring him to ignore it.

Jack had long-since given up on cataloging the severity of his hangovers, they had just drifted one into the next for as long back as he could remember. He’d been dreaming of a better life, where his family was still alive and he had a shiny black helicopter he could fly them to the lake in. These dreams were the only true respite from his tortured existence. He had plenty of credits and the bills got paid automatically. The wrongful death settlement had been both embarrassingly large, but also impossibly too small weighed against the value of three lives stolen.

Jack wandered into the kitchen, stopping at the cellar door for a moment to listen for any rats skittering in the basement. Unable to find a clean cup, he stooped and drank from the tap. Wiping water from his face as he rose, he avoided eye contact with the dollhouse as he grabbed a beer from the fridge, which was covered with the tattered remnants of the childrens’ schoolwork, and headed back into the living room for another day of drinking and virtual reality. He knocked back half the can, then pulled on his goggles, nestling comfortably into the stained cushions of the couch.

Having lost interest in pornography some time ago Jack knew he really only had two options. He was in contact with a therapist often enough to keep him supplied with certain medications, and they had both agreed that playing “Mall Shooter” was an extremely unhealthy use of Jack’s time, but most days he only briefly fought the urge before starting up the game. At first it had seemed like a great idea, as one could play in “Hero Mode” and attempt to take out the attacker while minimizing casualties. The game was endlessly customizable and he’d recreated the Turtledown Mall with each and every person there that day accounted for with one addition. His simulated successes saving Jackie, Jack Jr., and little Matroyshka felt worse than the failures and so he’d sometimes play as the shooter, indulging some terrible part of him that he hadn’t known existed, but which he knew Jackie would have hated. Jack thought he was past the point of ever feeling better.

The thought of returning to the mall filled him with a mixture of anticipation and dread and he hesitated a moment before scrolling away, deciding instead to play a new title, simply called “LIFE,” which he’d been enjoying recently. His character, Jacques, lived with his family in a house just like Jack’s on Nesting Lane in a place called Turtledown where life was good.