Gone One (1/3)

Content warnings: addiction, sexual content (although not graphic), child neglect, emotionally intense situations.

I didn't ever want to be a gone one. I never thought I would be. You heard about them—and to be a gone one was to be disgusting at worst, pitiable at best. We discussed gone ones around the dinner table with friends sometimes, shaking our heads at the tragedy of it, the lives gone to waste. Most stories were about teenagers who never grew out of it and were still living in their parents' basement, living in slipspace all day and night, never amounting to much—no job, no social life, nothing.

I remember the news story I blipped about the mom who never saw her kids anymore. She only came out of slipspace sims twice a day to change her catheter bag. She hadn't even seen the light of day in years—bedsores, muscle deprivation, you know the litany. And yet, in the interview, she denied being a gone one. I thought, what a delusional, self-absorbed person. And I thought, there was no way I could ever do that to my boy. She was a terrible mom and a terrible person. And I felt better about myself as a result. Because I would never do that.

It was entertaining to be horrified by these tall urban tales that spread through our social circles like viruses in a herd. But at the same time that we talked about these stories from time to time, they didn’t feel real. They felt like stories of extreme cases; horror stories that happened to other people.

After all, everyone slipstreamed in those days. It was socially acceptable, like a cocktail after dinner. Like drinking, slipstreaming was a thing that many only dabbled in as a form of social currency. Everyone heard the stories of alcoholics homeless on the streets drinking themselves to death, but that did nothing to deter us from drinking. Those stories were, if anything, there to bolster our confidence in our ability to enjoy ourselves with freedom, because we could point to the more sensational details of their stories and reassure ourselves that we were nothing like that.

I never got addicted back when I just slipstreamed in social situations. The social sims were always a nice light entertainment to be slipstreamed with socially responsible friends—after dinner, gathering together to make our way down to the sim room and partake—always something boutique, unique, classy, sometimes even with educational or artistic pretensions.

No, those experiences never got me addicted. I dabbled in these social sims with small groups of friends for years without ever a negative side effect. It wasn't until I discovered my personal type of sim, my personal crack cocaine, that my life suddenly began to fly apart.

To think, that now my entire life has been ruined by these damn things. To think that I'm so disgusted with myself that I've gotten to the place where I am tonight, sitting here staring at a bottle of sedatives, getting ready to down it. And to think, the way it started—that's what makes me truly despicable. I wasn't driven to this disease by anything tragic. How I wish that I had a shred of an excuse, because if I did, maybe I could hold on to a scrap of dignity and maybe come back. But there's no coming back for me.

No. The way it started was so mundane: I was bored.

Tobias was six, and I had just sent him off to school for the day and sunk down onto the couch. I told my AI companion Zeldy that I was bored and idly asked what she thought I should do. It was as idle and simple as that. I didn't know that I was casually sauntering into the gates of hell.

"Certainly. Have you tried slipping into a personalized sim?" Zeldy asked.

"No," I said. "You can personalize them?"

"Oh yes," Zeldy said. "I can have a simulation created that is tailored to all the information that you have shared with me over the years. It will be tailored to your unique personality, tastes, and preferences, and it will iterate with time to be more satisfying to you. Would you like me to create you your own personalized simulation?”

A little thrill ran through my body. For some reason, the best part of it was that she didn't tell me any details about what the sim would be about. That was the most thrilling part: the mystery.

"Sure," I said, casually.

"Okay," Zeldy said. "I am giving the sim bed downstairs my instructions. This will take a few minutes, so please hang tight."

"Okay," I said.

I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of sauvignon blanc and took it to the living room with me. I swirled the wine and sipped it slowly, savoring its bite and tang. And for some reason I noticed that the anticipation of the simulation was tingling all over my body. Something tailored uniquely to me? Just anticipating what it could possibly be was exciting, scintillating, thrilling. So exciting, in fact...as I reflect back on it, I think that—strange as this may seem—the best word for that sensation would be—arousing.

I was so hungry in anticipation of it—lustful, even. I don't know how else to explain it. I must be a crazy person to feel this way about waiting for a damn game to load when I didn't even know what the game would be about. There is something seriously wrong with me. Something seriously sick.

So she told me when the sim was loaded, and I went downstairs. I stripped and lay down in the sim bed and waited. The hatch lowered and purple lights lit up around me. The fans began to lightly circulate warm air around my body, and I felt the cool damp pads press against my temples and my spine all the way down. I closed my eyes, and I was in.

I was looking at a house with a white picket fence and a lawn. The heads-up display informs me that I have a new acquisition: a house. The message is glowing and attached in a long thin beam of light to the house. My house! Oh, imagine—to have an actual house, with a yard. To live with the outdoors surrounding one's house. And it's so cute!

There's a list of tasks in my queue—which, I apparently have such a thing. This is like an itemized to-do list. The first task is to take a walk-through of my new house. I walk through it and immediately I love the kitchen, the bathroom, the loft. But it's all so bare, just waiting, begging to be populated with furniture.

As soon as I've seen all the rooms, the task in my queue is crossed off and dissipates into the air in a glow of dazzling animations, and a thrill tingles down my spine.

The next item in the queue is to customize the layout. As I look at different items in the kitchen, they are highlighted in my HUD, my heads-up display. Drilling down into them gives me details, options to customize. The counter-tops can be replaced with hundreds, thousands of different options! And if I want to, I can see suggested pairings that combine a counter-top with a backsplash with a flooring color and wall color, all at once. This combination, that combination, the varieties seem to be endless.

Hours later, I have customized my house—enough, for now, I think—and now it's time to select furniture. Oh boy. I glance up at the time, not the in-game time, but the real time, and realize that I’m supposed to pick up Tobias from school in a few minutes. What had I been doing?

I exited the simulation. It was like I was instantly teleported to not just a different place, but a different reality. Time seemed to flow slower, and moving my body was harder. I stretched, and realized how stiff and sore my joints had gotten from simply sitting there for seven hours straight.

I shook my head to shake off all the memories of the game, to focus on the task at hand. I went into the kitchen and started telling Zeldy what to make for dinner, but still my mind was reeling, obsessing over the counter-tops, flooring, cabinets... That night I could hardly sleep, tossing and turning and imagining the game.

The next day, as soon I got back from dropping off Tobias, I descended into the simulation room, my feet tingling with anticipation. I thought how silly it was to be so excited, but that didn’t stop me from slipstreaming. The day passed in a blur until it was time to pick Tobias up from school; and I rushed off at the last minute to get him.

At dinner I was cranky and irritable, thinking about the game. I couldn’t stop thinking about the house I had been designing, and a new mini-game where I had a "job" as an interior designer, designing other people's houses. The "job" earned me "money" which I could then spend on jewelry, clothes, and all kinds of things to modify my in-game appearance. The world was intoxicating me.

I managed to not play any more that evening—I didn’t want my family to notice how obsessed I was. But the next morning I wsa back at it again as soon as I could; I told Tobias he was old enough to take the elevator to school himself, and, before the door even swung shut I was walking down the stairs.

The interior designing mini-game was relaxing, but not as exciting as the first time. I thought I would manage to just play a little and get off. Little did I know what was about to happen.

So far all of the "clients" for my "interior design business" were clearly bots, easily distinguishable by their too perfect usernames, ways of speaking, and pre-canned requests, free of messiness of any kind. But today I had a client who appeared different. His avatar seemed like the kind of avatar that a human might actually pick or design, and the way he spoke was full of the messy imperfections of a real human. The floating name above his head was "tony66."

"Hey, I'm a player, not a bot," he said. "I saw your design work on some of the bot houses and thought I could use your help. Can you look at mine?"

"Sure!" I said.

We teleported to his virtual house and he started showing me his kitchen, his living room, his bedroom. He sat on his bed as he talked to me, and casually mentioned his evening habits, how he wanted to feel more comfortable also make it a more inviting space for a potential future woman in his life, not just a man-cave. He needed someone with a good soft touch, someone like me to make his dream a reality. He said he really liked how I bring vibrancy and nature into a space.

I was blown away by his compliments. I felt seen and appreciated. I do have a good eye for bringing warmth to a space. I do love bringing nature inside a house. It felt really good to be seen in this way.

I showed him design after design. He loved them. We picked an overall pattern; began getting into details. Hours passed. Throughout the conversation he positioned himself closer to me when we got into the bathroom; he ended up leaning over me, and I saw his golden hair and blue-grey eyes in more detail. The detail in slipspace was astounding; his avatar looked so real and handsome. I wanted to do things with him...but also not. Of course not; that would be crossing a line.

But, the thought bounced around in my mind later that night when I was lying next to my husband, wired awake: it wouldn’t be wrong to have an affair with a bot, right? And if that wouldn't be wrong...well in slipspace, what's the difference between having an affair with a bot and a human, after all? From my perspective, I'm just interacting with an avatar. It’s as if whatever’s behind the avatar doesn't even exist.

We had sex on the second meeting. I was again amazed at what one can experience in slipspace. I forgot that the diodes have millions of tiny connectors that connect with the spinal cord, that it overrides the signals my brain gets from my body and instead sends those signals from the game. I vaguely understood that all along, but that knowledge was nothing compared to being with Tony: that was an experience I couldn't believe.

For the first time I felt sexually satisfied in a way that I never did with Andrew. And as soon as the experience was over and I tiptoed back to bed guiltily, adrenaline rushing, as if somehow my guilt could be magically detected. But no sooner was I back in bed without Andrew noticing than my brain began racing, scheming, thinking only of how I needed more Tony.

I tossed and turned for hours. It was 3AM when I left bed and went back to the game yet again. I just had to have it. My bare feet felt the cold of the concrete stairs as I tiptoed quietly, so quietly, shutting the door behind me softly. I plugged back into the game.

The sex was just as good the second time, and the third, and the fourth. God, it was good. But one day it occurred to me, as I sat at the kitchen table, drinking my third dripuccino of the day, that it was too convenient how Tony66 was always available to talk to me whenever I logged on. It didn't matter what time of day or night I logged on; whenever I did, he was always there within five minutes, messaging me, ready to hook up and have sex yet again. And then my mind replayed over all the facts, and I realized how perfect he was; how even though all of these details made him seem different from the bots, how in reality there was no reason that an AI couldn't do what he was doing. How in fact he always complimented me and built me up every time we met and never had a down day; how he had quickly started sharing sexual fantasies with me; how he was in every way—physically, behaviorally, sexually—a woman's dream; completely me-centric, in a way that no real partner would ever be.

I realized with a sinking feeling that I had been duped. He was obviously a bot.

I shook my head at myself. I was so tired I couldn't think straight. I had gotten up to get Tobias ready for school but I was so exhausted that I kept running into things. So I went back to bed, setting myself an alarm to wake up in time for Tobias coming home from school.

The funny thing was, after I cast myself onto my bed, shoes still on and everything, I realized one thing as I drifted off to sleep: it didn’t matter that I knew Tony was a bot. I still had to have him. My mind was obsessing over him and our sexual experiences so much, even at that point, that I knew with a sinking feeling that there was no way I was going to be able to not keep going back.

Surely though, I thought, this can't continue. Surely I'll get tired of this soon. It's just a simulation. It's just a stupid game.

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