The sun was high in the sky over Los Angeles, casting harsh shadows onto the pavewalk. I looked around, marveling at the little details around me. Each brick was individual in each of it's grooves, like a thumbprint. Yet all bricks were the same. I pushed my way past the people walking aimlessly down the street, got to a crossing and waited. The traffic went by silently. What was there to do in L.A? I had no idea. Feeling a funk coming on I made my way back to my car and started to drive down the middle of the road. I stopped for a while and watched as the shadows slowly tipped before blending into everything else as clouds rolled over. I continued to drive, making my way out of city and onto the highway. There weren't any cars around but I still drove at a steady pace. Off in the distance I could make out distant hills, solid green and standing in stark contrast to the baby blue sky behind them. I drove off road onto the muddy landscape. Back towards L.A. I could make out the glint of windscreen but out here there was nothing. Just a featureless plain that rolled on as far as the eye could see. I'd lost my concentration on my driving and didn't see the hole in the floor ahead of me. My car fell into it silently, my vision below spiralled fractal-like into a whirlpool of infinite dashboards. I looked around and could make out the underside of the city, off in the distance there were even one or two people trapped beneath buildings.
“Some parts aren't finished.”
“I know.” I said, turning away from the screen. “I like those parts best.”
Rich Favelle squinted at the screen around me. It had been custom-built for this project, curving around my entire body like a huge electric pringle. He pressed a few buttons on his tablet and the simulation reset to the starting point.
“What do you think?”
“It's good...quite realistic.” I said.
“Everything you see is taken from hd cameras we mounted on a few assistants. Think google street view, but with people rather than cars.”
“It reminded me a lot of street view.”
“Well, it's sort of based on that whilst being an evolution of that. This is google maps, grand theft auto, facebook, all rolled into one. We're hoping when we finished we have an entire simulation of America that looks and feels like real life. The sun in our game is actually 150 million km from the surface, so the lighting looks real. We import weather data, traffic data, wildlife data, all sorts of data into one colossal engine.”
“What kind of computer runs this?” I ask, turning back to the game. I walk down the street and go into an empty building.
“Well, at the moment it pretty much needs a super computer. But maybe...two playstation 3's? Probably by the time this is ready the playstation 4 will be out anyway, so whatever.”
“What's the point in making something that nobody can use?”
“Listen, this is a next-next-gen experience. What do old people do at the moment? Watch tv. By the time this game comes out, we'll have the first generation that might have played computer games. So I'm making a massively multiplayer online social reality simulator for them. They'll be the ones with the money and the time to get really involved in this virtual digixperience.” he said, running a hand through his soft beard. I turn back to the game, shrugging. Who cares if grandma wants to play on the Atari? This game was very boring. You couldn't interact with any of the people walking around, steal cars or even jump off buildings. What was the point.
“Since you're saying this is a simulation game and only total nerds play simulator's, why do you think people would play this over say...Operation: Flashpoint?”
“The social element. You can upload a character with your face and go out into the world, meeting other people you know or people you don't. It's another platform to interact with people.”
“Why don't people just do that in real life?”
“Danger. Our new sim will allow people to be safe and explore a version of America without risking car accidents, global warming, terrorist attacks and so on. Not only that, but why does anyone use technology to talk to others? This is the ultimate in communications tech, the ultimate in games tech, social media-”
“Yeah, you said. Well, it looks good at least.”
“Thanks. Users can upload-”
“Yeah. Will there be guns in the game?”
“Real life has guns.”
“So if this is such an accurate simulation of real life, why don't I buy a gun and go around shooting people's tweets from out of their hands? Or set fire to myself on a bus?”
“Well, you could, but we think by allowing users only one account in which they have to tie their cell phones to, this would create a pro-social community. Of course there's going to be jerks, but there's also jerks in real life so you know...” says Rich, looking at the floor for the end of his sentence.
“But this is a game, it's not real. So of course people are going to be doing stuff on here that they wouldn't do in reality. That's the point, right?” I demand. He pauses for a moment.
“I don't think you understand the social media aspect of the simulation.” he said.
I turn back to the game and go to the building I arrived at earlier. This is one of the few buildings that has been modeled accurately and I admit, it looks amazing. I make my way through the main lobby, up a lift and along the corridor. I stand outside a doorway and then look behind me at the other side of the door, wondering for a moment if I were to open it would that door also open? It didn't of course. The room is empty and I walk over to the curved screen and try to start the game up. To my surprise I find another version of the game starting up just as it had done when I arrived twenty minutes ago.
“It's a little easter egg we put in there.” said Rich happily.
“You mean putting the game inside the game?”
“It's simple enough. You're still playing the game, just on a minutely smaller scale.”
“But if there is such this...nice version of the game you're hoping for, can't people then use this version of the game to fuck about in?”
“I hadn't thought of that.” he says, laughing. “Maybe we'll take it out.”
“But if it's a perfect copy of America, won't it have the game inside itself?” I said.
“Sounds like a bit like Inception to me.”
“Well it's more like an onion actually.” I said back to him. Who did this guy think he was? God? Maybe. But if he was God then I was a man, and what is a God if nobody acknowledges it's existence. Nobody would buy this piece of shit game. And if they did they probably spent all their spare time locked away in their basements, eating tinned meat and wanking. Who needed a game when there was real life waiting outside the front door? I burst into song.
“Hello little computer man.
Welcome to the real world.
There's no gigabytes or high scores.
Can you handle life?
And all of it's blackness?” I sang as loudly as I could.
When I went outside I felt more alive than I had felt for weeks. By glimpsing the potential nerd future that awaited us all it had ignited a fire in my brain. I craved rare meat. And fun. I sprinted down the road and went to buy a bottle of cheap bourbon. I cracked open the lid as soon as I stood back outside and let the sweet liquid pour in and around my mouth before wiping with a hankie. Stuffing the handkerchief into the lid of the bottle I walked back to the computer lab where the foul game was being worked on and scowled.
“Long live the old flesh!” I cried, setting fire to the top of my molotov cocktail and throwing it at a window. The hankie flopped out in midair and was left smoldering on the ground, whilst the bottle of whiskey smashed through the glass. I heard a shout from inside and ran away. This was what real life was about, the potential risk of failure.
I spent the rest of the afternoon examining L.A. by helicopter. Long Beach rested at it's lower most point, with the beach running in a shape similar to Africa all the way up to Ventura County. Santa Monica, Anaheim, Whittier, Glendale, Bel Air, Sun Valley, Hollywood, Compton. From the air you couldn't tell where places started or ended, the whole city blurring into a general zone of activity. Where were it's edges? If a section of the city was removed and placed elsewhere, how large would it have to be to still be considered Los Angeles? I yelled at the helicopter pilot to swoop down and land outside the Capitol Records Building. The building resembled a stack of dirty dishes and smelt twice as bad. I ran down the road, shouting and shouting. "Is this Los Angeles? Am I a part of Los Angeles?" but nobody replied. Maybe Rich Favelle was right. Maybe all of life should just be like a video game. I began to hop up and down and strafe people as they walked towards me. Yes, that was it. Yes! I laughed as I walked into a bar and ordered a bottle of wine fresh from the Californian vineyards and made a toast.
"Here's to the finest experience be it real, imaginary or otherwise." I cried, slamming the glass into my mouth.
