The NEXUS

I come out here every night to watch the sunset. Well, it’s night here at least. It could be anything you want really. Day, night, late afternoon.. Hell you could even make it Christmas day. Snow and everything. Only issue is that it’s not exactly real. Not real in the formal sense of the word. But then again how do you define what’s real? Perception is reality, afterall. Although the perceived reality rarely is based in truth, but instead due to our weak human brains attempting to explain the world and the people around us with judgements. It’s easier to fool the weak minded by allowing them to perceive what you want them to perceive. Show a man you’re an asshole; they will perceive you to be an asshole. That is the reality you both share through his perception. The only challenge to this reality occurs when the perceiver questions this reality and attempts reason. Unfortunately this is a lost trait with the aforementioned weak minded. A weak person does not question their reality. They accept it and move on. The Shadow realized this.

This precursor aptly explains how the world found itself in this position. Hindsight is always 20/20 but looking back the system was waiting for an entity to fully capitalize on the vulnerable 9 billion Earth dwellers. Everyone thinks they are smarter than the system. In the case of The Shadow, the system is pretty fucking smart. It started slowly with Social Media where every user would basically hand over their entire life profile in the form of data over to whoever was motivated enough to access it. People were studied, grouped, analysed, all behind closed doors and all without consent besides a box you click when you create your account that promised you appropriately “read the rules and guidelines”. Once The Shadow had enough data, they found how to target each group to believe whatever they want. They learned how to think for the world.

This took an exponential leap once the NEXUS was created. The NEXUS is a hyper realistic virtual reality device with haptic feedback that connects directly to your nervous system. While in the NEXUS you feel and experience everything as if you are actually there. You can manipulate the system to change the weather, experience an event from the past such as the Super Bowl III with Joe Namath, WWII storming the beach at Normandy, anything you can imagine. Then there is Earth 2.0 where most everyone lives at the NEXUS. Earth 2.0 is a social media platform created on the NEXUS where you can live your second life. You can go to work, go out the bars with friends, and come back to your home just like in the “real world”. The NEXUS was so realistic that the lines between virtual reality and actual reality were blurred beyond repair. Nobody lived in the “real world” anymore. Everything was the NEXUS. The NEXUS was perceived to be the one true reality. And as we all know, perception is reality.

The best feature was that while you’re hooked up to the NEXUS you are invincible in the virtual world. Thrill seekers routinely find the most gruesome way to try to die in the NEXUS but to no avail. That is until the last update.

The update changed the NEXUS forever as death was introduced. In order to live forever in the NEXUS you had to pay. If you could not afford the “Life Subscription” then your avatar aged in the NEXUS just as you would in the “real world”. Without the Subscription you were no longer invincible either. You gotta pay to play when Capitalism is religion. The other caveat to this update, whether intended or not, was that death in the NEXUS meant death in the “real world”. When your character died, you died. The only salvation that was offered to those who could not afford the subscription was that a finite number of heart shaped lockets were created that would grant the user immortality. As long as you wore the locket, you were once again invincible and could live forever in The NEXUS. These lockets were scattered around Earth 2.0 and became the largest treasure hunt the world has ever seen. Unless you could locate a locket, the NEXUS was no longer a safe haven for immortality, but became a mirror image of the “real world”. Only this one was completely controlled by one entity. Earth 2.0 was a petri dish and The Shadow became their God.

As people began to rebel after the update, more people started to leave the NEXUS behind and disconnect. Re-enter the “real world” and live life as it should be, real. The Shadow started to lose control of the people. Protests broke out all over the world. Protests turned into riots and there was no turning back. The algorithm that drives The Shadow then took a turn few expected. It decided the current human race as constituted had a future with a clear and upcoming expiration date. So in the infinite wisdom of the algorithm, it was decided to trim the fat.

February 24th, 2053 was the last day the Earth saw a real sunset. The Shadow had deduced humanity as presently established was beyond the point of saving. They decided to begin a new humanity to mold as they saw fit. Their plan was executed in two phases. Phase 1: locate all possible leaders of resistance and eliminate them. WIth all the data they had collected over the years, the Shadow could use their algorithm to determine who had the traits of a leader that was a variant outside the control of the Shadow. Everyone on this list was taken care of in a matter of days. Everyone they could locate at least. You see, the lockets they released to the public to provide immortality had an unintended consequence; the user was invisible to the Shadow’s systems and could no longer be tracked. This fact forced the hand of the Shadow to enact Phase 2: nuclear holocost. On the night of February 24th, 2053 the Shadow simultaneously launched nuclear missiles at every country in the world rendering Earth inhabitable. The only survivors live underground, but are hunted day and night by the Shadow until they can begin Phase 3 and create their new humanity.

As for me? I was one of the lucky ones to have my own bunker. Well, luck doesn’t have much to do with not being an idiot. Lucky would be if the Shadow never existed. Lucky would be to have my family here with me. Lucky would be to live in a world where people would question their reality and not allow a faceless cult overtake the minds of the world like taking candy from a baby. This life isn’t luck. It’s survival. All I can do now is sit here and stare at the fake sunset of this fake world while I clutch my heart locket and pray for better days...