Initially, I was gob-smacked. I just didn't know what to do when The Ghost appeared.

     Then again, I can't use the datasphere, so how could I know how to react?   I'm sure you have heard other people say they can't use it, when really they have no excuse, except so-called moral ones: the neo-Luddites, the Resisters.   But I was part of that other group.   Yes, the ones you pity as much as you fear.   I am non-eactive.

     It's not that I'm against the implants I need enter the datasphere; it's that my body won't accept them.  

     My doctor says that someday science will crack the problem, but I suspect it will never happen.   There are so few of us that carry the gene, and those of us that do will make sure that we don't pass it to our kids.   I know I double-checked when Elena and I had Toby.   He doesn't carry it, so he will be normal.

     Imagine that you never experienced the datasphere.   As if reality was all there was to experience.   Flat, boring, reality.   So it was a shock, when the Ghost just walked through the door to my office at the university.   A real shock.

     He was tall, with wild, long hair, but he had a friendly face that looked vaguely familiar. I could almost place him, it was on the tip of my tongue…   Anyway, I wasn't frightened by him.   More bemused.   Yeah, I was definitely bemused.   But then in my experience, long-haired characters can't walk through solid objects.   Oh, and he was wearing a suit of armor that added to the incongruity of it all.  

     He smiled at me broadly as he sat down in my reading chair, and said, "oh shit.   I've forgotten my freakin' armet."

     You might think it odd that I knew what he meant.   But I'm not able to partake in the multitude of virtual realities that you can, so I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism a long time ago.   An armet is a kind helmet, characterized by large, hinged cheek plates -- you'd know what I meant as soon as you saw the pointed "sparrow's beak" visor.

     "I don't mind," I told him.   I wasn't really sure what to say.

     "Well, I don't have time to go get it now.   So, I'm here about the problems that you're having."

     "What problems?"

     "Let's start with your work problem Jasper.   Your work.   You know that you're never going to rise above the rank of assistant professor without being able to use the datasphere?"

     "That's not true!"

     "It is.   Especially as long as Dr. Brafer is in charge of the department."   The Ghost was quiet for a moment, and he smiled.   Apart from its translucence, it was actually quite a nice smile.   He seemed friendly.   He reminded me of someone.

     "But the university has an anti-discrimination policy!"

     "Pffftt! Nobody likes a troublemaker Jasper.   You just have to accept your limitations."

     "But I can do just as good research using older methods.   I can type almost as fast as most people can process information in the datasphere.   I've had it measured.   My computer system is designed for my disability.   I can do most things the others can."

     "Face it Jasper.   You're an anachronism.   A media studies professor who can't even access the most important medium ever," he said.   His eyes twinkled at me, and I suddenly had the feeling that he was putting me on. "Say," he asked, "do you have anything to drink in this so-called office of yours?"

     "Uh. Okay.   A coffee?"

     "How about a beer?"

     "It's nine am."

     "I'm dead Jasper. Social niceties don't mean anything to me now.   Besides, I know you keep a little supply of pilsner in the bar fridge in your closet."

He was right.   I'd had it installed when Elena and I were having our problems in the early 20s.   That and the inflatable bed.   I went to the fridge, and opened up two Smichov's -- Czechia's best pilsner -- and handed him one.   What the hell.

     "Cheers," the Ghost said, and took a long, substantial swig of the beer.   I half expected liquid to pour out of the seams of his armor, like an old Warner Brothers cartoon, but he merely belched.

     "So what are the other problems?"   I asked after I'd had a sip.

     "Apart from the fact that you're drinking in the morning?   Well, you, my son, have a wife that isn't so faithful to you anymore.   What's worse, she isn't even having an affair with a person.   She's getting it off with one of your run of the mill, free-roaming artificial love-memes in the datasphere."

     "Uh huh."

     "I know that you don't know what I mean.   Cause you're   non-eactive.   Boo-hoo.   Poor baby.   You should be glad Jasper.   You should be happy.   That is the root of your problem.   You have a golden opportunity to do something meaningful, and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself!   That's your real problem."

     "I'd say that you're a nasty drunk, but you seem sober.   So why are you bothering me?"

     "I'll admit to a mean streak, but if you'd been through what I've been through. . ."

     "See, we all feel sorry for ourselves."

     "No!   No, we don't anymore, Jasper.   That's the thing.   Has it ever occurred to you that you never see your colleagues?   Your students?   Does anyone actually come into this building except for you?"

     "Well, no.   But most people don't have to.   They can do it all remotely, from their homes, or the beach, or the park, whatever.   I do see people out in the world you know.   I eat dinner with my wife and boy.   We talk.   It's not as though everyone is hopelessly mired in the datasphere.   They live real lives and virtual lives."

     "You got that right, brother!    But they live them at the same time.   They have a meta-reality that you don't share.   Even when she's making love with you, Elena is also with the meme.   I don't want to be cruel, Jasper.   But you have to understand--"

     "Why?   What is it to you?"

     "You'll see."   Inexplicably, I heard a cock crow, and the Ghost looked frightened.   "My time is up for now.   See ya' around sucker."

     Then he dissipated.   One minute he was translucent, then insubstantial, and then gone.   The bulb of Smichov beer fell to the floor, and it was empty.

     I stared at it for a long time before I got back to work.

#

     I tried hard to forget the Ghost, but he kept springing to mind.   Just like the meme my wife was supposedly sleeping with -- in fact, exactly like the meme my wife was fucking.   I was meme-onic.   All the other stuff that the Ghost had said certainly resonated with me, but the meme shit, well, it was like a 400-kilo tuning fork.   I was vibrating with that conversation.   It haunted me.

     So I datacamed my wife for a day, just to prove that the Ghost was totally out to lunch.   But as it turned out, he was right.   My wife was more in love with a freaking entertainment program than me.   She spent most of her day talking with the love meme, being with it, and loving it right back.   Never mind that it wasn't real.   And it was true, when she made love to me, she was also with the meme.   In fact, after I watched the holovid, it was more that while she was with the meme, she happened to be with me.   That was pretty hard to take, particularly given our past.

     You see, Elena had an affair back when I was still grunting out my post-doc.   It was about the time that the datasphere was fully "corporeal" as the media-types will describe it.   What they mean is that it was possible to enter the virtual world in body as easily as you could look at it before.   It was a complete experience.   You could feel things through your body and you could smell things and see things and hear things and just generally sense everything that you could with your body.   The difference was that what happened to your body was simulated and that physical laws didn't apply.   Whatever could be imagined could be created.  

              That was the beginning of a new entertainment industry, but to tell you more about that, I'd have to understand what the datasphere was really like, and of course, I can't.          

     What I can tell you is what I've learned as an academic. If given the choice, people will fill their time with the most pleasing activity available to them.   If the activity is not strictly speaking, "real", will that matter to them?   The answer is either "no", or "it depends."    It sometimes matters if it is socially acceptable or not.

     But the datasphere is almost universally accepted.   It has no stigma attached to it all, unless you're a neo-Luddite or a Resistor.

     It is the ultimate escape, now that I think of it.  

It's not just a new medium, it's a new plane of existence.   The ultra-real.   Is that what the Ghost was talking about?

#

     That night, I had the strangest dreams.   I was sleeping next to Elena, and she got out of bed to meet with the meme.   It was foggy, and she didn't see me following her.   They met in a strange place, with gyrating lights and loud atonal music -- the kind my son calls "heavy dissonance".

     The bar was filled with odd-looking people, some dressed in costumes from historical periods, or classic movies, and others looking like they'd sculpted their faces and bodies to a variety of weird fantasies and nightmares: aliens from old science fiction movies, multi-armed Indian gods and goddesses, and the impossibly beautiful.   My Elena and her meme favored the latter.   She had the aura Helen of Troy, and he looked every inch the classic Adonis.   They spent some time mingling at the party, and then went up to a private room, where they could watch the proceedings and partake in a number of physically impossible sexual couplings.   But virtually, they were blissful.

     It enraged me, and I remember bursting into the room.   I killed the meme.   With a sword.   A heavy two-hander that bisected the meme-gigolo from crown to crotch.   Of course, there was no blood, no gore, just a terrible synaptic jangle as it blinked out of existence.  

When I woke up Elena was gone, and I was late for work.

#

     He returned that day.   This time, it wasn't as surprising, but it was still unnerving.   He looked worse than he did on his first visit, but he was wearing his helmet.

     He was missing some of his leg armor and his gorget -- the piece that covered his throat.

     He went straight to my bar fridge and popped open a Smichov.   He tilted the visor of his helmet, and downed the beer in one enormous gulp while I watched him; then he grabbed another and opened it.   He looked at me; I couldn't see his face, but through the visor, I could see his bloodshot and fatigued eyes, and said, "you gonna join me?"

     I shook my head no. He clanked back in my reading chair.

     "I'm beat," he said.  

     I tried to ignore him.   I thought that maybe he was a sign that I was having a nervous breakdown or some other kind of neurological disorder that had somehow slipped the notice of my doctor and the university's genetic assay.    It might explain why I was non-eactive.   I continued writing, and the Ghost sat there quietly sipping his drink.   He sighed.   It was impossible to ignore.

     "What?"

     "I said: I'm beat."

     "Why are you beat?"

     "From protecting your sorry ass.   Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in?"

     "What trouble?"

     "You can't just murder anyone you please, you know."

     "What are you talking about?   I haven't murdered anyone!"

     "Well, maybe not the way that you think of it, but I'm sure Elena doesn't feel the same way about her lover.   You erased it, didn't you?"

     I was drawing a blank.   I really didn't know what he was talking about.

     "What did you dream last night?" he asked me.

I looked up at the Ghost with a feeling of horror, and he nodded sadly.   "That wasn't a dream.   You may be non-eactive, my son, but you are capable of entering the datasphere.   You just don't need any implants to do it."

     "But how is that possible?"   I asked the Ghost.

    He burped, and got himself another beer, this time also handing me one.   "Hey, do I look like a scientist?   I'm a medieval knight.   Luckily I'm your knight.   Maybe it's evolution at work.   Maybe the reason you're non-eactive is so your mind could adapt its own way of entering the datasphere under its own power."

     "I must be losing it," I said as I looked at the beer he'd just handed me.

     "Could be.   Who knows what kind of effect the datasphere is having on your consciousness?   You could be in it right now, for all I know.   But the thing is, you are going to be hard to trace, because you don't need any implants to enter it.   You don't leave an electronic trail.   You just appear there.   And disappear.   But last night my son, you did something you shouldn't have."

     "God.   I can't believe I killed someone -- even if it was just a love-meme.   I mean, to actually ..."   The thought was making me sick.

     "Hmmm," said the Ghost.  

     "What?"  

     "So you don't remember the rest of what you did?"

     "No!"

     "Best you don't for now.   Just remember.   You're non-eactive.   You can't enter the datasphere.   Remember, that nobody should be able to identify you in the datasphere.   You have to appear as other than yourself."

     "What do you mean?"

     "Last night when you went into that bar, you looked exactly as I see you now.   Poor old shit-upon Jasper.   If it hadn't happened so quickly, I'm sure your wife would have recognized you."

     "Were you there?"

     "Of course I was."

     "Then why didn't you stop me?"

     "I told you Jasper, you're my liege lord.   My main man.   I'm your cyber-paladin, and you're the digital king."

     "Why am I so worried by that?"

     "Well, probably because you can't control me."

     "So then how am I the king, if I'm not in control?"

     "Hey, it's a feudal thing, man.   I look out for your interests, but sometimes us knightly types are free agents."

     My computer beeped, and passed along a text-version of a datagram: the chair of my department, Dr. Caroline Brafer,   had a stroke the night before, and would not be able to maintain her duties.   It occurred to me that with her gone, I might be able to get some of my research proposals approved, perhaps even get on the tenure track that had been denied me for so many years.   Hell, if I could consciously access the datasphere, then I'd be way ahead of everyone else in terms of media analysis.  

     "I wouldn't let people know you can do what you do," suggested the Ghost.

     "Why not?"

     "Hmm.   Sun Tsu said, "O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.'   Right now you have an advantage that nobody knows about.   That nobody can even imagine.    Why give that up?"

     "Because maybe there's a way that other people can benefit from my ability.   If we study it, maybe they'll make it possible for everyone to go without implants.   We can be in the datasphere without having to be cyborgs.   You know it's the reluctance to give up human form that keeps the Luddites and the Resisters from using the datasphere.   If they didn't have to meld with it physically, maybe they'd be more open to it.   It could bring in an era of peace," I said.   The idea excited me.

     "You can't do it Jasper.   They'll pick at you and poke at you, and most likely, nobody will ever know about it."

     "Why?"

     "You think the governments will like the idea of not being able to track everyone in the datasphere?   You think the corporations who create the implants, the infrastructure, the various paraphernalia of the datasphere are going to be happy that they're suddenly superfluous?   That's their gig, Jasper.   Corporations make people redundant, people don't make corporations redundant."

     I could see what he meant.   My mind wandered over the possibilities.   All the inequities that had worked against me could suddenly work for me.   But I didn't want to just selfishly use this incredible power I had.   Heck, I didn't even have the power.   If the Ghost hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have even remembered what I did to the meme.   Perhaps it was for the best, given that he hinted at some other things I'd done too ...

     My face went as white as his.   The chair of the department.   Somehow I'd caused the stroke!   I felt myself swaying in my seat, the room spinning around me, my vision narrowing.   A horrible thought crept into this sudden torment, and I looked at the Ghost as squarely as I could.

     "Who are you?"

     He laughed, a hollow echoing sound from within the helmet.   He didn't seem so friendly, at least not in the right way.  

     "Take off the armet," I commanded.

     "Well, like I said Jasper, you don't always get to be in control, but in this case... you're the King."  

     "The metal creaked as he slowly pulled the helmet off his head, his long hair flowing out from underneath.   My vision continued to spin, as I began to understand why he'd looked so familiar.   Vertigo almost overwhelmed me as I focused on the face.

     I could place it now.   It was my own.

The End

© 2007, Mark A. Rayner

Originally published in (Neometropolis, September 2004) Photo by Wili Hybrid.