Project Tickle

  Project Tickle

  Copyright 2011-12 Dimitris Christou

  Cover Artwork by Dimitris Christou

  License Notes

  *****

  In the not so distant future a large portion of world's population lives virtual lives. Connected to machines, they spend time in imaginary worlds build by their own selves. The alienation, loneliness and generally poor living conditions lead most to a new form of depression. As a result the dream worlds that users were initially manufacturing, gave their place to virtual nightmares and odd, sick simulations.

  The only, temporary, escape from digital depression is by consuming chocolate. When this became known, big corporations and governments rushed out to declare chocolate drug and use or possession became a hard punished crime. The profits were, as expected, huge and forced those involved to take steps in order to protect their investments and control the traffic of chocolate, inside or outside of the world network.

  A panel established under the pretext of protecting the public from the new dangerous drug, the CFG (Chocolate Fighters Group). Free for access and intervention at any time in each area or system, CFG became extremely powerful in a short amount of time.

  Chapter 1: VR Highways

  Icarus sits on a bench near an elevated highway. In fact, his view includes several streets that branch, pass one above the other, spin and go far to the edge of the horizon. These roads are filled with cars, almost identical to each other, so many it looks as if the roads are made of metal automobiles. Every now and then, sounds of horns interrupt the relative silence and instantly cover the engine sound of thousands of cars that sit almost still in a virtual -traffic jam- reality.

  On roadsides, and floating away from him, hundreds of small and large, bright animated ads do their best at selling a huge number of products. The whole picture is a weird, colorful spectacle in the eyes of Icarus.

  He is drawn by an odd black and white advertisement about a poor miserable guy selling his belongings for some chocolate. He is forced by his sick addiction and becomes a thief just to get his hands on a small dose of the dangerous new drug. His babies, always in such case, kids are crying in their cribs, while their mother totally alone and helpless, sits between them and breaks in tears.

  Shortly after, in big and bold red letters, the obvious conclusion appears. Say NO to drugs. Say NO to chocolate.

  Icarus disgusted turns his head to the opposite direction. He is sure that the ad continues showing a beautiful healthy family, in full bright colors this time round, living a happy carefree life away from the dangerous drug.

  "Chocolate!"

  Icarus remembers eating lots of sweet chocolate bars when he was a kid and the greatest evil that he ever faced was a bellyache when he once had too many, accompanied by his mother's nagging for his unreasonable gluttony.

  He once more felt that the image had the power to make us hate the stuff we once loved and love the things that used to made us sick and angry. He was clearly disgusted by the way things were shown to us all by the media. A voice above his head spoke with clear words.

  "Image is a powerful weapon, and like any powerful weapon out there, it's placed at the wrong hands and used for the wrong reasons. Am I right Icarus?"

  "You're right Phoenix. Guess you had a good teacher..."

  "I think I do."

  A metal sphere in the color of sand with golden mechanisms, surrounded by soft white light flies over Icarus shoulder. Truth is that Icarus is not his real name but his user-name. Most Internet users avoid using their real names and personal information to maintain a degree of anonymity and acquire a certain sense of safety. Icarus has even more reasons to hide who he truly is.

  During his visits on the web he always appears as a thin yet strong build robot with long agile hands and strong feet made out of glass. His face is also a metallic one piece mechanism that changes shape, form and expressions according to his thoughts, reactions and feelings.

  Just a few inches above the body Icarus has designed as his web avatar, Phoenix is flying gently. Phoenix is an artificial intelligence machine coded by Icarus, a helping hand and information provider when online. Through it, Icarus can handle anything, control his navigation and even change the web world code he visits. Although Icarus is occasionally teasing Phoenix by calling it a simple virtual keyboard, he knows that his little assistant is a great piece of software. He is almost sure Phoenix is the most delicate, smart and simple piece of code he'll ever produce. Calling Phoenix a simple virtual keyboard is totally wrong too; it's designed to take voice orders and usually answers using a gentle female voice.

  Icarus gets up slowly and gives Phoenix a simple order.

  "Can I have a count please?"

  Phoenix's voice is clear and soothing.

  "Connected, nineteen thousand, two hundred and twenty four registered users and twenty three thousand and fifty six visitors."

  Icarus moves his head sideways as he tries to capture the entire scene.

  "Virtual Worlds turning into sad spectacles. This is so odd. So many people? a river of souls that finds a virtual traffic jam entertaining. Especially since digital depression showed up all we see are virtual worlds turning into virtual nightmares. Dark, depressing places. I have to admit though that this one is ideal for our little test. Phoenix, execute the transformation program please."

  "Transformation software ready. We now have the ability to upload compatible files to this simulation. File conversion program is loaded. Administrator password overrun? done. We're ready Icarus."

  "Let's see. Taking control?"

  Icarus stands still for a while and soon huge illuminated letters appear above them. Letters form words within seconds while their shape and color keeps changing. A funny face appears on the robot's head as he's working hard to shape the meaning and look of his message. He soon reaches a point that seems satisfying. He stops and tilts his head to the sides to check his progress. A comical expression is drawn on his face while he's looking at the result. Phoenix also reads Icarus message.

  "You can't be serious Icarus. No way!"

  Icarus turns to look at it with another funny face appearing on his metallic head.

  "Why you're saying this?"

  "Well? Chocolate is just a sweet little pleasure? Although I'm just a piece of code, I can clearly see writing isn't your strong point."

  Icarus lifts his metallic fist with a hilarious angry face on his head.

  "That's not polite to say to someone who actually wrote tons of code to make a living! I don't remember programming you to be rude!"

  Phoenix is gently gaining extra height, taking some distance from the slightly mad robot.

  "I can obviously say you're a great coder and I'm the living proof of your skills. You were also a great artist a while back. But this isn't good."

  "Is it so bad?"

  "Well it reads like a chocolate candy-something product, aimed at single women from the past doesn't it? Remember we're trying to test something here?"

  Icarus stays still and in an instant a different colored set of letters appears above them. Phoenix turns around to see the new green glowing text.

  THIS IS A TEST

  "Funny, but we could use this opportunity to actually write something, right?"

  "If talking was the foundation of learning, you'd be a genius in no time Phoenix. You talk too much pal? All right, let's get over with it!"

  In an instant they're both under some bright gold letters.

  CHOCOLATE ISN'T A DRUG.

  ICARUS

  Phoenix reads this one too?

  "I think I'll regret making you change your initial message. Is the signature necessary?"

  "Yeah, why not? I don't care to be honest."

  "Well?
It looks ok, so maybe we could?"

  Right before Phoenix could complete his suggestion one lighting illuminated the night sky and the whole virtual scenery. When thunder struck three huge robots appeared out of thin air, not far from them. They looked weird with big bulky feet, thin but long upper bodies and small hands. There were no heads too; a hemispheric construction on their shoulders seemed to serve as a communication center. On the relatively thin spines, one could easily see a dozen sets of auto guided rocket launchers. From small openings on their feet hundreds of flexible tentacles appear. They're hitting the air like metallic whips and destroy lots of flying ads as the giant robots move.

  Pandemonium takes over the web world. Drivers hit their cars horns in agony, shouting and cursing. Most of them disappear leaving their virtual cars behind.

  Icarus is watching the three robots coming straight at him and for a couple of seconds stays completely still in awe. He decides to take action when he sees five to six rockets launched from one of the giant robots. He can feel the whole place vibrating under his feet. These rockets seem to have a specific target. He raises his voice hoping to give the right orders.

  "Time for a real test Phoenix! New object, mesh, sphere. Sphere radius set to five meters. Material, new material. Set material transparency to seventy per cent!"

  In an instant Icarus and Phoenix are surrounded by a perfect, light gray transparent sphere.

  "I want a triple exit, now!"

  Icarus has to scream since the rockets are closing in, painting the night sky with the fumes coming out from their tails. Phoenix is nervously flying up and down making sure he stays within the formed sphere.

  "Any specific destination Icarus?"

  "Are you kidding me? Triple, wait I want a fivefold exit for trace cover and final destination to a low traffic web world! Do it!"

  Icarus isn't sure Phoenix can now hear him. Four of the rockets hit the protective sphere. The explosion is so violent that a big chunk of the highway close to them is destroyed within seconds. Dozens of cars get tossed around like they're little toys. The sphere surrounding them absorbs the attack and breaks into small pieces. Icarus can now see at least four more rockets fired. He thinks he hears Phoenix getting ready for log out. He turns to see the robots once more and now that their closer, realizes they're really huge.

  "New CFG toys. He whispers."

  "We'll deal with you later?"

  Icarus and Phoenix disappear in a flash right before getting hit by the second attack. In just a few seconds they pass though a dating website followed by an online encyclopedia were some detailed 3D space galaxy visualization is on display. They then pass through a web porn simulation and they instantly see a virtual tour at a holiday resort found somewhere at the Mediterranean. Finally they reach the fifth and stopping destination.

  Chapter 2: Electra's Forest