Overcoming Virtual Reality
In the year 3000, a new era has risen and virtual reality has advanced that it is part of every human being. Too advanced that social media platforms are dead and talking and seeing people in opposite parts of the world is possible with one device. It feels like you are in a video game with those pixels, connection, avatar, etc. To go inside you are unconscious and your brain is connected to a certain hard drive which is the connection between you and this digital world. With this, almost everything in virtual reality has free trails, and getting the full versions are paid and expensive. You also have data in that world where it is limited and if you run out you are frozen or idle, gray, emotionless and you have to wait for a month for a free refill.
Jake, a teenager who lives on a farm, full of grass, trees, animals, and inhaling fresh air would like to try this new trend and asked his parents if he can do it. With his parent’s approval, his parents gave him an allowance to be sure to share his experience when he comes back. Going to the city his excitement is like an egg about to hatch, going with the trend, getting to know more about technology. Going there he wondered why there are very few people mostly the old and young mostly babies with one parent or guardian. While looking around he saw something bright, like a giant building, having a really big antenna looking like a giraffe. In the brightness, he saw a really big sign “Virtual Corp.” Being the tallest building and brightest thing in the city he approached it. Going on the front porch he got confused about how to open this mirror-like door, about some time trying to find a way in, it automatically opened. Going out of the door was a person with a lab coat and was holding some kind of document. Seeing Jake, he immediately came up to him in a big rush. “Hey! Hey! Can you lend me a hand? One of our participants just escaped the building in an instant, can you occupy his place for me. I don’t want to be in trouble! Also, my name is James and you are-?” Jake stuttered like a broken voice box and was forced inside. Looking around it looked like a hospital with many patients connected in a big CD player. After passing by James reported it to his manager and approved Jake immediately in going into the virtual world. In the preparation ongoing in James sees some money in his pocket. Then he immediately knew that he wanted to come here in the first place. While no one was looking he told Jake to spend his money wisely because of how expensive it is going to be there. So they kept it as an open secret. Before going in Jake asked the people if he needed to pay for entering and they said that the person who was supposed to be here already paid for it. Remembering the advice of James earlier he was lucky. Having this opportunity for free. Before going in he said in his head, “Dear Virtual World, please give me a lot of experiences to tell my parents or they’ll kill me!”.
Going in he was transported in somewhat a transparent UFO that shows the beauty of the clouds and view. A second later a green button that says “start” appeared. Out of curiosity he pressed it and was transported into a room. In that room, he was thought the basics or basically the tutorial on how to change his avatar, how to travel to other places, and many more. After a while, he wanted to eat breakfast so he was transported to a buffet and wondered why he would be hungry if this is not even the real world. But he still insisted and eat some food. After eating a robotic voice said “Breakfast is over.” and all the food and plates disappeared into thin air like “POOF!” and Jake was surprised by the power of technology. After a while, he wanted to explore the places that are available. Before that, he was checking his status and settings and he saw his data and his data consumption from the beginning, he was given one thousand gigabytes but after 30 minutes for the tutorial and 1 hour of eating he consumed about a hundred gigabytes. Looking at this he got worried that he should watch out for his data consumption or else he might go to the lower class and potentially run out of data and be frozen. When he went to a popular tourist spot he saw no people and got confused walking by he saw a person and ask where are all the people. The person told him that we have a render distance which is having less visible sight. The further the subject is the lower the quality and movement will reflect back to you since this is like a video game. As the person shows another person about to dive into a river it looked like she was lagging.
After enjoying there for 3 days he realized he only has 100 gigabytes left. Checking his balance, he consumed a lot of this because of the extra premium stuff that he bought because he didn’t know that he would pay it through gigabytes and it would increase. So he immediately canceled all of his paid items to save gigabytes to not go to the lower class. All he did was to socialize with other people, talking about their lives how it is different here, etc. After that day he was in his room gathering his thoughts, he realized that living on the farm was better for him so he decided to go out.
When he was about to go out of his room he was automatically transported to the lower class. Jake being confused he realized the even talking to people needs gigabytes. Being there his gigabytes gets more and more consumed. Until he remembered in the tutorial he could exit if he had 100 gigabytes. Using his allowance from his parents he immediately paid for 100 gigabytes which was the exact amount he had. After he quickly exited the game and he said that being in there wasn’t too bad. “Ahh…my pocket never failed me in these kinds of situations,” Jake said in great relief. After that, he thanked the people in charge and encouraged him to come back. He said that he will nervously. James wanted to talk to him outside. Telling his co-workers that he will just accompany him out, they talked outside. Outside, they talked about how Jake was lucky for having extra money and how he was one of the people who escaped the endless cycle in the lower class. Jake thanked him for reminding him to keep watch of the data. James told that the person who left and took Jake taking his place got scared he was like him.
Jake seeing the man worried about more victims falling into the endless cycle in the lower class, he invited him to go to the farmlands so he can take a break from his worriedness. Going there it reminded of himself for the first time he went in virtual reality but now it was real. Everything wasn’t glitchy and you can smell it for real. James met his parents and they told stories of both the experience on opposite sides of virtual reality and real life. As it’s said, “A copy cannot defeat its original.”
