It was the most beautiful beach imaginable. Silvery, warm sands, palm trees with lilac, purple and violet leaves, small waves breaking into very fine smooth layers of transparent water that reached the shore calmly. A huge white moon and thousands of stars with a bluish shine pearling the cobalt firmament and reflecting on the water. In the distance, the friendly voices of a group of people enjoying the most delicious exotic fruits, drinking coconut water and smoking fragrant weed. The crisp sound of a night breeze at twenty-seven celsius. Distant notes of a piano playing Ravel's Jeux d'eau.
Alondra was walking along the shore. Carimea called her excitedly from where the group was.
– Alondra! Alondra! Come! We are here!
– What do you think of this beach? I've been working on it for a long time. I wanted to have a special place for us to meet.
– It's marvelous. Nobody designs like you – Carimea answered –. You have a knack for giving everything anyone could want, and even adding something more that no one had thought of.
– So it was a compliment last time, wasn't it? – She answered with sarcastic mischief.
– The other time it was more fear than admiration, but after seeing this… the truth is that I am impressed.
Alondra winked and sat with the group. She liked to contemplate her own creations. Although most of the sets in the game were recycled from old libraries, she always added textures and colors that she thought would be the most pleasing. This particular set was a classic, but in its original form it was very different. Alondra had expanded the horizon, the height of the sky, the color range, the textures of the sand and water. She had changed the temperatures, the collection of background music, the fragrances in the air. She had added weed and fruits, and she still had a battery of attractions stored away, to be pulled out little by little over the time it was in use.
– This decoration is encrypted. No one else can see us here. It is accessed by rigorous invitation... Before you get drunk on coconut milk, I need us to discuss one issue.
– Baaaaah Alondra, always thinking about working, working, working… You have to enjoy it too – said Cemetery.
– It's not work, it's future plans. Important plans. Today, for the first time, people from all over the city belt can gather here. That’s great. But if you want us to be able to continue meeting in wonderful places like this, we cannot sit idly by.
– The truth is that I believed that the true purpose of setting up the peripheral network was to play. Why have we come here? Is this a political trap meeting? – asked Star.
– Do you want to live another war? I don't. I was born in the middle of the war and it is the only thing I have ever known. I can invent paradises like this, but then I have to wake up again in my filthy apartment, surrounded by injustice and misery. How can it be that we have become used to this? There has to be something better. I think this is the right moment, the one we have been waiting for.
There was an awkward silence. Angel Gate spoke:
– Used to? This may be a great moment in history. The war is over and we can enjoy places like this.
Crystal Sea answered:
– But what Alondra says is reasonable. One thing is that we can enjoy this, and quite another is that it is available to everyone, or that it is part of what we consider real. This is nothing more than a dream that takes us out of the shitty reality we are living.
Muses intervened:
– Except for Alondra, we don't even come here using our names. What are we afraid of? We know that our little paradises consist not only of decorations, but also of the freedom of not depending on anyone. If the government comes tomorrow and resells us our own paradises, will they taste the same? My grandmother always told me about the times when virtual reality was controlled by corporations. She died fighting against those groups. We can't let them steal everything from us again.
There was a silence. The music stopped. The breeze began to flicker in the palm trees. Carimea, who was sipping heavily on the straw of coconut milk, looked both ways when she noticed that everyone was looking. Alondra smiled at her.
–The other day they came to my building saying they wanted to do a census. I imagine they have also gone to the other neighborhoods. The way I see it, we have two options. Say yes to the census and take care of what will come next, or avoid the census and flee the city – said Alondra.
– False. We can also accept the census and not run away – said Atalaya.
– But then they will take away our autonomy, the game and everything else – Muses pointed out.
- Do you think so? – City of Angels, who had been giving them a disbelieving face since the beginning of the conversation. – Maybe we can reach good agreements. Maybe we can be part of the government. A true democracy.
– True democracy? With the army? No one who can point a gun at my head is in a position to offer me democracy... They will want to give us real coconut milk, but in exchange they will force us to kill each other countless times. Me, I prefer to die.
Everyone was silent and the coconut milk no longer tasted the same after imagining Alondra committing suicide for the common good.
– It would be useless if you committed suicide for the common good, Alondra – said Carimea.
– I would not do it for the common good, but to free myself from so much hypocrisy.
– You are so dramatic… But you are right. If you commit suicide, Alondra, that would be an irresponsible act like the one you fear on our part. For mine, although I may have a great desire to forget where we are and why we rebuilt the networks, I would dislike nothing more than handing over to the government what we have built with so much care over these decades. It seems to me that it is clear what we have to do: organize neighborhood meetings, oppose the census at all costs and marginalize the censors.
Alondra smiled again at Carimea, who finished her speech by hitting the palm of her hand with the fist of the other.
– I have another surprise for tonight.
Alondra put her left hand inside her right sleeve and threw a bright golden dust from it on the group.
– Actually, this is pure spectacle. I've been working on a new drug that allows me to change bodies’ sensations at will in the game. This, which as we know is impossible in reality, since you can only go in one direction, and not completely, and with great physical costs, is now possible here. I know that, although we live happily in our gynoecium, there are more than one who has this recurring fantasy. So I bring it to you, for whoever wants it.
"Ohhhhh!" said the people. Although avatars were perfectly possible within the game, obtaining physical sensations different from those of the real body was not. Everyone understood that what Alondra brought was exactly that, because it was something they often fantasized about in virtual meetings. Alondra always knew how to add what until then seemed impossible to the fantasies she created. This gave her enormous credit among people, who saw her almost as a magician. But it also seemed scary to them, because it was light years ahead of the rest in design, and that made everyone very dependent on her. Furthermore, there was almost always a coldness in her gifts that was not understood, and for a long time many people had been wondering when and what she would ask of them in exchange. There was always the rhythm of calculation in her movements, and yet she seemed to offer everything with unlimited generosity. Something didn't fit.
“I’m not really into this,” Carimea said to Alondra’s ear.