Alternative Dimension (2 page)

2 IN THE BEGINNING

After such a long period of concentrated development, Joe was more than ready to take some time off from both research and the corporate world. With all the servers and other platforms handling the levels of traffic with ease, he could shift his focus to actually logging on to AD and finding ways of enhancing the experience of living there. His aim really was to create a dimension which residents could synch with their everyday lives and so he’d made it a world which reflected the geography and structures of the real one; its continents were the same but players could add more if they wanted to, using the in-game protocols to form new land masses, build structures, create artefacts.

Most activities were available by simply using devices which Joe called action hooks. Players could buy them and install them on their properties or just carry them round in their personal files. Simply by taking out the relevant hook and touching it, a player’s avatar could dance, ski, sail, eat, make love and perform more or less any action in the normal human (or animal) repertory. Moving about their world was easy; they could stroll, run, fly or, if they didn’t want to waste time, simply translocate by clicking on a button beside the desired location on a list of the ones they’d stored or in a travel directory. The richer or more flamboyant ones could choose to ride dragons or unicorns. In AD, if you could imagine it, you could do it.

There were cities, naturally enough, but also seemingly endless forests, magical kingdoms, medieval landscapes into which stressed escapees from the ND rat race could materialise and, for a few precious hours, live a pastoral idyll.

As creator of this magical place, Joe had to choose his avatar with great care. He made one which was a rugged, handsome Brad Pitt type, calling him Ross Magee and dressing him in black leather. Through Ross, he could lose himself amongst all the other avatars which residents had made for themselves and find out exactly what they did, what they wanted.

But he also wanted residents to know that there was someone responsible for it all, a creator, and so he sometimes logged on as Red Loth.

The name evolved from his pride at being responsible for such a place. He’d tried various anagrams of Jehovah without success and soon saw that The Lord, as well as covering several beliefs, including aristocracy, offered more scope. He wasn’t in any way religious but he recognised that most of the early users of AD would probably be from western democracies and many of them would expect a comfortable deity to be involved at some point. In a way, it solved the problem of worship – no need to go to a real church, you could just fly your avatar to an AD one and pray from the comfort of your computer chair.

As he tried out the various possible anagrams – Held Rot, Herd Lot, Told Her, Her Dolt and so on – they all sounded mundane and somehow significant. In the end, he opted for Red Loth because Red was a simple, familiar, cowboyish forename, and Loth had a Norwegian feel to it and could therefore imply a sort of connection with the Norse sagas.

And it’s with this avatar that we make our first entry into AD. Joe shrugged off his puny humanity, became Red Loth, creator of AD, and stood on a hill overlooking his creation. And he saw that it was good. He had laboured many months creating its light and shade, lifting its mountains, filling its oceans, taking the ribs out of avatars to make other avatars, multiplying species and forging the many dimensions which permitted the co-existence of humanoids and sprites, beasts and princesses. His forests spread through the land, dappling the shade beneath their branches where lovers walked, and his deserts and mountains baked hot under a sun which rose and fell, rose and fell – again and again throughout the day, as often as the residents wanted it to.

And He rested.

But soon His rest was disturbed by big music. Really big music, with trumpets and other brass instruments building in triumph to a climax, then swelling to a yet higher one. It was music that was noble, inspiring, worthy of His grandeur. But it was very loud.

As it climbed to yet another climax so extreme that He would have thought it impossible if He hadn’t been omniscient, a male avatar appeared over the crest of the hill. He saw Red Loth and fell to his knees, placing on the earth before him two bare tablets of stone.

(The ensuing conversation, like most of those in this story, took the form of words typed on a screen. To avoid clumsy repetition, we’ll just convey them as normal verbal conversations.)

‘Oh Great Lord of all,’ typed the new arrival, ‘Maker of all that there is. I come from Thy humble servants in search of wisdom. I seek the principles which will guide us on our way through lives dedicated to Thy glory. Show us Thy commandments.’

‘Go away,’ said Red.

The man kept his head bowed but was obviously surprised by this response.

‘Oh Lord of the Earth, vouchsafe …’

‘I said “Go away”’, said Red again.

‘But …’

‘Listen, you don’t want a plague of boils or locusts or something, do you?’

‘No Lord,’ said the man.

‘Then go away.’

The man hesitated then rose slowly, bowed deeply once more to Red, turned and began to stride back down the hillside. Immediately, the music swelled.

‘And turn that bloody music off,’ shouted Red.

The various instruments stilled in succession and Red sighed and sat down. He’d hoped that his work was done. But the bare tablets still lay where the man had left them. Maybe He should lay down a few rules. There were bound to be some people who needed them, people who couldn’t manage to fend for themselves and needed to be told how to live. He gave a quick nod and typed ‘GABBY’ in upper case. Almost at once, a picksel appeared before Him. She was the angel avatar of one of the many programmers who’d helped him to create the world and carried the pick which marked her calling.

‘Yes Lord,’ she said.

‘What do you know about commandments?’ He asked.

Gabby spotted the tablets.

‘Ah, they’ve been up asking already, have they?’

‘Yes,’ said Red. ‘Some guy with blue eyes and high cheek bones.’

‘It was bound to happen. They’re never satisfied. They could just get on with having a good time, getting to know each other but no, they need a cause, a purpose. You’re omniscient, You must have seen it coming.’

‘Of course I did. It was just faster than I expected.’

‘Well, I did warn you. I told you you’d need your PR machine to be in place.’

‘Alright, alright, smartass.’ Red paused, then asked, ‘Am I allowed to call you that?’

‘You can do anything, Lord. It’s Your world.’

‘Yes, but swearing – not really all that divine, is it?’

‘You can forgive Yourself.’

Red shook His head and muttered, ‘Absurd’.

‘Want to make a start?’ asked Gabby.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Right – Your name.’

‘I already changed that,’ said Red. ‘It’s an anagram. I did it deliberately so that nobody would know me.’

The picksel pointed at the tablets.

‘Didn’t work, though, did it?’ she said. ‘Anyway, Red Loth is not a good brand – sounds like some sort of reluctant communist. So the first thing You need is rebranding.’

‘Alright, smartass,’ said Red.

He stopped and looked around. No lightning flashes or rumbles of thunder. The rude word hadn’t upset the equilibrium.

‘No doubt you’ve already got something in mind.’

Gabby smiled.

‘Well, now You come to mention it,’ she said, and she produced a tablet from behind her back on which was a single word carved in upper case Monotype Corsiva.

‘DEM’.

‘Dem?’ said Red. ‘Is that it? That’s what your agency’s come up with after all this time?’

‘Like it?’ said Gabby.

‘Not much,’ said Red.

So Gabby explained to Him that her team had brainstormed hard before Iron Lucie spoke up.

‘It’s an acronym for Deus Ex Machina’, she said. ‘God in the Machine.’

‘I know what it means. I speak Latin …’ said Red, impatiently.

‘It seemed perfect. And, on top of everything else, it’s the beginning of ‘demos’ – the people.’

‘… and Greek,’ said Red.

‘Well, what do you think? It’s short, snappy.’

‘It’ll do,’ said Red.

‘Good. That’s the brand settled. Now we need a credentials document, corporate vision and values, mission statement …’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ said Red.

He waved His hand to encompass the lands spread below them.

‘I’ve created all this. I had enough trouble getting the funding and wasting time in meetings. I came here to get away from that. I’m not going to mess around with corporate communications. That’s your job.’

‘Fine,’ said Gabby. ‘But we need just a wee bit of guidance here. Maybe commandments aren’t such a bad idea. We could base our proposals on them. Gives everything greater credibility if we can say that Upper Management is on board.’

‘OK, make them up,’ said Red.

‘Hmm,’ said Gabby. ‘It would be better if we could actually say it was the word of the Lord. Surely there are some things you’d like to forbid. Things you don’t like.’

Red thought briefly.

‘Anal leakage,’ He said.

Gabby paused, but only briefly.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. But the thing is … Well, there isn’t any.’

‘What?’

‘Anal leakage. I mean none of the avatars, animals or otherwise, has a functioning anus.’

‘Just an oversight,’ said Red. ‘They will. Shit is part of creation.’

‘OK Lord,’ said Gabby. ‘What else?’

Slowly, with minimal discussion, the two of them drew up a list of the things Red liked and disliked most. He was fond of graven images so that was one instruction – if the people wanted to worship something, that’s what they should worship. He toyed with the idea of circumcision but, in the end, preferred comprehensive castration, including removal of the entire male member. The men amongst the population would not then be encumbered by the genital equipment that made riding a bike or a horse so uncomfortable and generally got in the way. More importantly, they’d be freed from the habitual anxiety about size. Instead, they could collect an appropriate organ from various locations and merely strap it on when it was required.

And so it went on, Red’s interest in it all waning as its artificiality became more and more apparent. It was only when they came to choosing a name for the religion that He became agitated once more.

‘No name,’ He said. ‘The minute you call it something, you limit it, and somebody else comes up with another name, another label – so they start arguing about it.’

‘But we need a name,’ said Gabby. ‘You can’t run a campaign without one.’

‘Then don’t run a campaign. Listen, I built this place so that they could all have fun – maybe learn a few things, too – but it’s supposed to be a celebration. Of life.’

‘Hmm, not much mileage in that,’ said Gabby. ‘People will want to hear what plans you have, where it’s all going to take them.’

‘Nowhere,’ said Red. ‘This is it. Look at it. It’s beautiful. Why the hell would they want to be taken anywhere?’

‘Ah yes, hell. I was going to bring that up later,’ said Gabby.

‘Don’t bother,’ said Red.

‘OK. But I’m sorry, Lord. We do need a name.’

‘The only name I could give you would create mayhem. You see, I want them all to get along together, have a good time, enjoy themselves. I want them to help each other. This is for all of them. I want them to share. Equally. That’s it – nothing more.’

‘But that’s … socialism,’ said a horrified Gabby.

‘Exactly,’ said Red, ‘But call it what you like, that’s why I built the place. So you call it that or nothing.’

In the end, wisely, they decided to call it nothing.

And week after week, Red sat there and watched as the world filled with His creatures and they read and either followed or rejected His commandments. And Red didn’t care which they chose to do, because they were free. That’s why He’d given them choice.

But, in the end, the more He saw, the less He liked, and He began to think that His creation was flawed. Some of them spent money they didn’t have erecting huge cathedrals to His glory, others ‘interpreted’ His words to suit their own appetites. In one case that was literal because the vegetarians went everywhere telling people that DEM stood for ‘Don’t Eat Meat’. In one of the islands, He was surprised one day to see that the women had to hop around in wooden barrels. It seems that the men at the head of their society had decided that the temptation of the sweeping curves of their buttocks and thighs was hard to resist so, to help them maintain the purest thoughts, the offending bits had to be hidden.

And it became harder and harder to bear the miserable music that rose from the northern European churches, the gaudy statues and paintings of Him that crowded the chapels, front lawns and even the crossroads of southern Europe. And the things some of His American followers did stretched even His capacity for forgiveness. He’d built the world with joy, creating a wonderland for those who inhabited it, and they were dragging it down into misery, accusations, antagonisms and tribal superstitions.