God of the Game (Dreamstate) (3 page)

   “Try this out.” Jai-I said, since I could not mouth Sha-Rronne’s dilemma.

   “What is it
?” I replied, distracted by Jai-I’s action. He removed his shades and handed it to me.

    I knew that instant
it was some new project he was working on. One of countless he had going all at once.

   “I haven’t got a name for it yet, but it’s pretty cool.”

   “What is it?” I asked again.

   “Try it on,” he repeated, “and for goodness sake
, it’s not gonna bite,” he added with sarcastic spice, his intolerance and impatience bubbling out of him.

    The sunglasses looked very normal. It was an Oakley Jai-I had modified over. In the transcendence, there followed the rise and fall of businesses. New companies came, old ones crumbled; but there were some from old-Earth that made it to the future. Brand names like Apple and Ferrari are still icons today as they were yesterday, albeit drastic changes in their business model to cater for a society of ultra-instant gratification. You can have anything you want, anytime you want. Even more, you can make everything you think. Super-duper competitive industry; no more are companies competing with other companies, they’re competing with individuals. Apple now, I must say, is only Steve Jobs and a few number twos. He’s an electronic god; nevertheless, so are most of his ex-employees.  

    I fitted the eyewear to my face, the frame resting comfortably on my ears and nose, and immediately the room we were in was different…though still the same.

    I removed it
. Jai-I had a smirk ready. “Overlapping technology,” he boasted, “runs parallel dimensions on a single environment.” 

    I put it on again. A monster crashed through the
walls to give me a heart attack. I took it off, gasping; Jai-I laughed. I tried it on again; a club dancing. Chic chicks in revealing outfits grooved to The Nobodies in DJ Trekz’z private room.

    I flipped it upon my temple. Jai-I handed me a handphone with unsightly wires jutting out and dangling to a power source. “It’s a prototype
, but you can record the alternate universes in it and playback to your liking fantasy and mood for adventure. I hope to perfect it…if I can find the time,” he joked in a self-depreciating manner, “either incorporating the memory space into the eyewear itself or on an external device like this Nokia.

   “I think option two is easier, otherwise I have to have storage in the frame. It’s gonna be ugly if there’s some alien hardware sticking out of the glasses…but then again that could be a fashion statement. Anyway, option two,” he reasoned aloud, “besides
, you know how everyone just loves to have something cool to hold in their hand.

   “I think it’s so strange that we don’t need to have any gadget to operate and access the multiverses
, but yet we crave for material. Says something about our species, doesn’t it?”

   “I couldn’t agree more.
” I added, “
We are living in a material world and I am a material girl
,” quoting the pop queen.

   “Or
, spirits in the material world.” Jai-I interjected with that The Police song, throwing the discourse into new light.

    Jai-I and I are fans of philosophy. We can debate the whole night through. We’ve even encoded our private dimensional space in Syurga. Technically, there are only two entry points, one from the closet in my abode, and the other from Jai-I’s oven at his home. But of course we can enter by remote
spilogical
(spirit biology) password from anywhere.

    It’s a simple interpolated spatial
reality in ordinary 3D. In its spartan setting, it has two chairs, a table, and free flow Starbucks coffee. Due to its simplicity, we named it Sparta. Entering only requires the spirit mind, which conceptualizes an image of being that is then mirrored in the molecules that make up this analogous world. I can therefore be in another part of the galaxy but exist simultaneously in Sparta. Omniscience is as common as caffeine.            

   “Everything has to take form, otherwise it’s just a massive void of nothingness,” I said, “Eternity cannot exist if it’s everything. Opportunity cost. It has to choose to be something, and when it does, it is not another thing. But good thing is that we can be more and more things all at once. An eternity of eternities.” I said.

   “You always have to fucking complicate things up,” Jai-I butted, “the simplest explanation is that it looks cooler to be something
rather than nothing, to hold something compared to nothing. What’s the use of being this invisible god floating around in space?” he mocked, “I’ll rather be this cool dude you see in front of you anytime.” Jai-I displayed his arrogance like a peacock and laughed out loud.

   “If Nirvana was merely nothingness…poo
i!” he coughed, “where would all the glam be, the designer brands, the hot toys, fast cars, luxury yachts, teleporting spacecrafts, etcetera, etcetera? Where would be the bling-bling, the bootie shakin…
hahaha?
”

    He was right. We weren’t disagreeing on any counts, but I just felt a zest of envy that he was describing it better than I could. It tasted like I was biting
into a slice of lemon.

   “Let’s take this to Sparta; there are other things I wanna talk about here.” I suggested.

   “Ok,” Jai-I agreed.

    We mentally punched in our password and we were sitting at the table in our simple universe. At that same moment
, we were also on the verge of another conversational topic in Trekz’z room.

    Jai-I remarked immediately upon appearing in Sparta, “We have to do something with this place. It’s beginning to look like a shame. And it’s fucking boring too with just the two of us.”

    A spark of genius hit
me, I had an eureka, the light bulb blinking, or more like a high-def LED TV with its wide array of colours. “Why don’t we open a Starbucks franchise, and we can invite those likeminded in. I’m sure we can come up with some sort of an agreement with those Americans.”

   “Yah, it’ll be quite a cool marketing campaign for them,” Jai-I contributed his thoughts. He was getting excited with the idea. “Intellectual debate and coffee go together, caffeine spurs the brain cells.”

    We started planning our modus operandi, our business model. “This is gonna be one fucking interesting dimension we are talking about. We can even franchise the working model to others. Wow, this is great!”

    Back in Syurga, I said, “I met someone in ZOOL.A.ND. She told me something interesting. Was just wondering if you could enlighten me?”

   “Sure
, go ahead,” he replied.

   “Have you heard of anyone born in ZOOL.A.ND?”

   “Countless times. It happens every nanosecond.”

   “What about those
that...er...just
wake up
, without a childhood or past?”

   “It happens,” he shook it off casually.

   “Would you know the creators?” I questioned.

   “I could;
or it could be me. I’ve done lots of stuff like that; but then again, I may not, unless I dig. ZOOL.A.ND, as you know, is created with anarchy in mind. It’s my experiment; I don’t hold much control of what goes on in there. I created, and opened it up to all the gods in my database, and advertised it as a wild land of freedom so that I have a place to go to to feel inspired. There are a zillion things going on that I could not have thought of. Cool thing is that it’s all caught in my mainframe for future projects.”

   “So you can trace someone if you wanted to.” I persisted.

   “Of course I can, but maybe not to full comprehension.”

   “Meaning?”

   “It depends on how the creator or inventor designed the being. If it’s clearly within ZOOL.A.ND, then I shouldn’t have any problem; however if the creation is a hybrid of ZOOL.A.ND and other programming platforms, it could be more difficult, especially depending on how technically adept and agile the maker is. It could be some hot-shot deity behind for which I’m no match, or even from an unknown portal…since I advertised ZOOL.A.ND far and wide, transmitting its waves across celestial zones.”

    I sat silent. Pondering.

    Jai-I horsed in, “You got de hots for someone, eh?”

    I sat silent. Pondering.

   “She must be some kinda goddess to get you all gentlemanly. Careful, she may be charming you.”

   “I don’t mind” I replied cunningly, my hands crafting the shape of her hips in thin air.

   “Ha ha.”

   “Thing is
, she said she’s stuck in ZOOL.A.ND. She says she can’t exist outside of it. Sure, ZOOL.A.ND is great, with all respect, it’s got a zillion things going on…but it’s still just in ZOOL.A.ND.”

   “You just want to fuck
her out of ZOOL.A.ND. Fuck her in Syurga, I’ll say. Heavenly.” Jai-I closed his eyes, fantasizing inside while he puffed on a cigar.

   “Well
, I can fuck her in ZOOL.A.ND anytime,” I prided.

   “Yah, but you wanna fuck her
out
of it too. Lover boy.” Jai-I slid on the Oakley. After a moment’s silence, he added, “I’ll see what I can do after figuring this fucking memory system out,” he tapped on the shades and picked up his dissected Nokia, and escaped to an alternate parallel reality.

7

Syurga

    I left Club Utopia, my brain updating all information conceived in Sparta. The strategy can be summarized accordingly:  

Brand Positioning:
A cosy hangout for intellectuals to chill and network.

Partners:
Starbucks and potential member franchisee*

Marketing Campaign:
Coffee and TV** (using the Blur song of the same name as theme)

* To be loyal to the Starbucks brand, all construction of the dimensional bubble will be in         the setting of a Starbucks café for branding purposes.

** In other words, the potential caffeine has to spur the mind like the idiot box.

    The lower strata of Syurga had no sunlight. It was in permanent darkness except for artificial lighting from the neon bulbs of shops that lined the streets. Certain spots reminded me of many cosmopolitan Earth cities. Old uncle selling Chinese takeaway, the front of his stall decorated with roasted chickens and ducks, hanging from hooks like a zoophilic horror movie. The XXX corners and strip clubs, streetwalkers chatting up potential clients in hovering cars. 24-7 convenient marts. Even many of the citizens look Earthly.

    I enjoy people watching, and in many occasions
, avatar watching. The pinnacle of many tall buildings can be seen from the ground, piercing space like Babel on steroids. Our phallic obsession: erect, and artificially make it bigger, taller and stronger. The sun shafts find strength as you ascend the levels, the architecture changing, metal and glass skyscrapers with huge parks and lakes within its enclosure; pristine like a sea of chandeliers with natural luminance dancing upon its surface. There’s so much here in Syurga, you can spend centuries and not be bored.

    A thousand meters above sea level, I rested and decided for breakfast. There was a shopping mall nearby, and shops do
tted the walkway. I chose an outdoor seat at a restaurant, a galactic fast-food chain serving big breakfasts of eggs and meat, poultry supplied from a farm on a planet orbiting the Orion Belt. It was a suitable time to relax and watch the world go by.

    The culture here at a kilom
etre in the sky is urban middle-class. Families raising their young, teenagers exploring their avatars,
Nephlim
exploiting theirs. There was a group of girls with catlike ears and miniskirts, tails slinking out from knickers, used as an additional limb. At the distant corner, half a dozen bikers that could transform, together with their machines, into flying phoenixes of the rainbow’s hue, hung out. Beneath a monument of prism glass that reflected the happenings in other parts of Syurga as well as other worlds, boys skate on jet powered boards, attempting a variety of stunts to impress the ‘cat’ gals, I presume. They were smokin joints rolled by hand, and some even had their incarnations as wild animals to scare mothers and little children. The restaurant faced a garden, wherein its centrepiece was a fountain with waters annoying and disobeying the laws of nature. Instead of cascading towards gravity’s command, the liquid danced as if to tease the many lovers canoodling by the rim of the pool. Some placid, others amorous, and as though seduced by the songs of sirens from the core of this unnatural waterfall, the lovers were drawn into the sea, making love underwater while mermaids coaxed them into foreplay in a netherworld. 

    I felt like getting away, climb to the highest peaks of the commercial district and jump down. This was not suicide (you couldn’t kill yourself anyway) but rather merely a sport. Many people do this to feel the mighty rush of air against their face even as they stare
into the blackness of space. There is a temporary grace, as if physics forgets its role, confused even, whether to propel matter into the far regions of the cosmos, or to plummet back to Hell, the centre of Syurga, which powers its massive economic system.