Viren sat alone in his living room. The curtains were drawn, the air-conditioner cooled the room perfectly to his desired temperature of 18°C, and the 8-bit orchestral music from his retro-tactical RPG resonated through his dimly-lit apartment. His 40-inch television screen served as a monitor while he ran an emulator for the game which was made back in 2021.

For an 18-year-old boy living in 2049, a relaxed Monday morning was quite a luxury. Living with machines (which included androids, AI programs, apps, animatronics and automatons), had greatly improved the quality of life and had also challenged human innovation capabilities and developments in the fields of science, arts and politics. With changes in global affairs and a cross-feed of data and information 24x7, money and influence lost their allure of status; now, that coveted mark of status was ‘freedom’.

Viren’s circumstances were not in his favour: the anklet on his left leg and its online custodial registration was a cautionary reminder to any hiring party that this individual was a precarious selection in an already harsh job market. Most of his classmates from Manoja International had probably already found employment or commissions. Some had started gigs while still in high school, to build up a considerable number of service offerings to compete in this postmodern day.

The game that Viren was playing, ‘Legends of the Future: Children of Fate’, had also been created by a teenager who had done most of the coding and design on his own. According to his teachers (most of whom were born in the double-Os), even back in the 20s, individuals undertook projects that had previously taken entire companies to accomplish.

“Sweet! A new skill!” Viren exclaimed when his in-game unit gained a level after killing an enemy, acquiring a new ability in the process. “I see. So it’s a damage multiplier.” He adjusted the unit to target an already half-beaten enemy, to gauge how much damage the new skill dealt.

Whoa! 3658! That’s enough to take out an enemy’s full health. I shouldn’t have wasted it on that half-dead grunt.

The soldier who had just died let out a cry of pain, mouth agape, hands clutching his chest, before fading out from his position, as the camera shifted from the game screen to focus on the selected player again. The act itself was two frames of animation; basically a sprite change. Despite the accessibility to 4K and 60 FPS games with lifelike characters and settings, Viren preferred the use of pixelated sprites and the gameplay of the ‘Gameboy Advance Era’. His view was that the lack of player control and conclusive responses left more blanks for the mind to fill in.

With only a few targets left, Viren focussed on the best way to eliminate them all, so as to efficiently distribute the experience points amongst his own team. Just as he was about to continue his turn, the game was interrupted by a message icon blinking on the top right corner of the screen. It did not actually occupy the screen space of the game emulator, but the persistent blinking needed a response.

At least I can pause this game, he thought to himself and did so first ensuring that the message was not a video chat request. He wasn’t keen to show off his dishevelled appearance on camera considering he had just got out of bed a while ago.

Had he actually been playing online, he would not have bothered to respond. That often left quite a few unchecked messages, which spawned a vicious cycle of delaying responses until the time that all of them could be answered at one go.

Audio: Off? Check. Video: Off? Check.

It turned out that the message was only a note from one ‘cassidy.rodes@122367815’.

Cassidy… Viren tried to put a face to the name. Wasn’t she one of my seniors? In Jakov’s class.

Jakov was an e-celebrity and a good friend of Viren’s – one of the very few he had. Jakov had graduated from Manoja International a year before Viren.

I think she was the brown-haired girl who wanted to be a music composer.

Viren remembered her from those many meet-ups they had with their seniors, but he was not a hundred cent percent sure it was the same girl.

Why would she be messaging me though? Viren thought as he began reading the message with some misgivings.

Heya Viren, how’s it going!

I’m from the 2048 batch of Manoja International. I know you may find this unexpected since we haven’t ever met formally, but I am contacting you on behalf of my company, Dumah Interactive. The thing is, we need beta testers for some of the simulations in The Anachron. I’m sure you’ve read all about that in the press. Since a large number of our testers have unfortunately quit, we are urgently seeking new recruits to meet our 2050 launch deadline.

Let me know if you are interested. Respond to this channel.

Thanks. Take care,

Cassidy

Ah, so I don’t really know her. That’s a relief.

Everyone knew of The Anachron ads: ‘Welcome to The Anachron!’ An over enthused woman's voice started. ‘Fulfil your every desire! Shape your perfect reality! Live within the stories you create. Join us, in the next stage of life.’ While all this was being said, the audience was being enamoured with the high-resolution locations and ambience, with scripted AI character interactions. A few decades ago this would easily have been mistaken for a live-action advertisement.

Viren stopped daydreaming and returned to the email. The casual nature of the message put him somewhat at ease. He was used to responding in a formal fashion. Especially to the uptight formality of most of his correspondents. But he was not particularly good at it.

Dumah Interactive! That’s quite a proposition!

Manoja International was based in Viren’s home country, India, but had a reputation abroad with so many international students studying there, and who later secured jobs in more well-established companies abroad.

Even if this is only an interview, Viren considered, it was still an opportunity to work with one of the escapism industry titans. He suspected that this could possibly be too good to be true. He thought about the articles he had read on the company and why their beta testers had quit:

“3 Men admitted to clinic due to unethical game simulations.”

“Dumah whistleblower missing from guarded hotel.”

“Government eases human trial guidelines after the success of The Anachron.”

Maybe, I should contact Jakov. Jakov was a contractor with Dumah Interactive, and was ‘voluntarily’ a part of their entertainment initiative. However, Viren hadn’t been in touch with him since graduation, and as a passive audience member to what Jakov had gone through in the past year, Viren was unsure whether calling him was such a good idea.

Wait, what’s this? Viren scrolled through to his unanswered messages and found a thread by Jakov from two months ago.

“Hey Viren. How r ya?” 14:57 | 12/06/49

“I know you must have seen my show. wade think?” 22:34 | 12/06/49

“U there? can we catch up soon” 10:12 | 13/06/49

“A**hole i hope ur not f_king ignoring me” 17:14 | 14/06/49

Well, shit… The last message was auto-censored. Jakov was lucky to not have been auto-blocked for spam. I should probably call him. He looked at the time on his digital clock (11:16) and tried to figure out what time it was in Slovenia where Jakov lived.

Definitely.

Viren un-paused his game. Right after I finish this level.