In THE SPIRAL: Connected Stories & Fragments from the Virtual Future

VOICE/FRAGMENT: 'Vestiges' [7XP]

THE SPIRAL GAMER : BLOGPOST : Pretty Much The Last...

(views: 22,000,345)

'Ok dear readers and followers, it seems my success with the Revel/Fountellion key-finding has gone viral. Big-time. For once, people are appreciating something about myself and yes; it feels good, but just as it feels good I'm also... worrying.

Why worry? Well, maybe I wasn't always me, this person I am today. Maybe I had opinions I no longer hold and represented things I no longer believe in...'

...and for once, at last, he was to be known for something 'proper', away from lesser, technology-driven realities, their shadows and magnifications and closer to something... more relevant... something that made all his previous history online seem... so pathetic. He would come to all of that, but first he took a long sip from a cold, strong blonde ale. It seemed to be helping.

What was their tagline again?

ERASE YOUR PAST AND REDEEM YOUR FUTURE!

Yes, that was it. He needed to edit his past in order to protect his future... his great 'legacy', of being the first to progress so far inside the game.

And that meant tracking down all his cyber-demons and ghosts, his PIPs, agents and avatars, still roaming about the virtual spaces - and linear web.

It meant - literally these days - confronting his memories, his bad recordings, old opinions and... Nicola. What if one of them came back to haunt him, in the real world? Maybe they weren't really so bad. But they felt bad - to him. And so he was sure that somewhere they were. The problem, especially, lay with his avatars, PIPs and search agents. He just didn't represent them anymore. There might still be remnants even of his gaming history, his Bedlam addictions; his young, bestial side he'd now (mostly) left behind...

He thought for a moment, about when it was all finished. When they were finished. How tidy it would feel! He would feel more at peace.

And that was why he would go ahead and meet with this Decker guy, from the specialist agency. Apparently they were the best at killing off people's pasts, their VP's - Virtual Presences - and ghost P.I.Ps... He just wasn't sure if by using them he wasn't somehow going to 'expose' himself further, by adding to the manipulation of the connected world.

Thank God for Fountellion!

Another sip. He'd tried to specify all the places where they could look but - just maybe - they would end up killing too much of himself than he liked.

But it still had to be done. He wanted to protect things from the public. He had to protect his new self, his forward-thinking one. He must leave no virtual stone unturned. The time to clean and be redeemed was now. The time to evolve - beyond what he was and had been - had come...

And he had begun to find love for things in the real world again; the Source. Already through his contact with the nature of Fountellion and love for the world itself; its guiding light back to reality. It had shown him so much already, visions that unveiled the narrow-mindedness and pride in all his former lives. And if he was to stay on course to becoming a Mage, he owed it. It had to be protected, so people would respect him.

He finished the ale, and felt relaxed. Fully resolved.

And they would respect him, if they ever came to find him. For his loyalty.

He continued typing the entry...

'Thus, good readers, viewers and gaming buddies... let me ask you: if you do happen to run into - encounter - any 'little ole me's', floating around out there, in forgotten cyber-spaces... please be sure to report them directly to myself... OK? And send them packing. Or just go ahead and 'override' those young, stupid, self-obsessed, attention-seeking imitations of my present, quieter self!

It's pretty simple... I have moved on. I've... changed. And am moving away from technological transience, other men's puppet-strings and frustration-making systems... towards a bigger one; a much deeper one, that is... reawakening... a sense of connection to our world...

Thank-you for your 'awareness' of what I have represented in the past. And in the future, at least, you'll know where to find me - if you really know me - fully edited and renewed!...

Some folk are calling it 'the green garden'; this new world where all virtual paths seem to be leading....I have been there. I have played it. Outside of the tower... beyond the bottom of this ale glass, darkly, and shortly I will be bound for its shores once more...

YOU too, can come along - within me - on my full avalog 'walkthrough' adventures...witness my thoughts, coming soon to my humble channel (when the Private Beta ends and recording restrictions are lifted!)... Stay tuned!'

[FRAGMENT COMPLETED! +7 XP : BACKGROUND ITEM - see more under XP + Ranking.]