Chapter 7 - Expelled from the game
In a blink of an eye I’m in the game again. I’m lying in bed. Nia gets up and she’s agitated. She doesn’t pay any attention to me but gets dressed and heads out the door. I get ready for school and find Maddie on my way.
“Are you okay?” Maddie starts, “You don’t talk much anymore. Do you still want me to be your friend? Sometimes I think you don’t want to be friends anymore. I overheard some girls at school saying that you’re just trying to show off because you think you’re smarter than everyone else.” I interrupt her.
“Maddie stop!” I exclaim, “Of course I still want to be friends and no I’m not trying to show off. If you want to know the truth, I’m not really even trying very hard. Those other girls will just have to get over it.”
Maddie stops talking and just stares at me. “If you don’t dumb it down, no one will want to be your friend.” She finally says.
“I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not Maddie, if that’s the way it’s going to be then so be it.” I answer. When we get to school, the other girls don’t talk to me but I don’t care. I have more important things to think about.
When I get home from school. Mom and dad tell me that there is something wrong with Nia and tell me to go to Maddie’s for a while. When they all get back, Nia seems different. I’m told that Nia doesn’t remember anything she has done in the past two weeks. That confirms that there was someone else in the game and that now they are gone. This means that I can figure this whole thing out without having to worry about someone getting in my way.
Nia is confused. I guess that should be expected when someone else has taken over your body and you don’t remember anything. I wonder if I should tell her about her affair with Lidia. Nah, I should probably keep that information to myself. I remember the other player being interested in history. Maybe that’s the place I should start.
The next day when I wake up I’m still in the game. After what passes for school in the Stone Age I head over to the library. I ask the librarian for the book that Nia had checked out earlier. I sit down and read.
It’s about this woman who was leading a project team. Back when technology was a huge part of everyday life, it made life so complicated that people were not able to manage their lives in real time. So this computer basically did that for them. It eliminated stress and allowed people to enjoy their lives. After a while people started to get bored and stopped living. To fix this issue the computer started introducing hardship into people’s lives and removing the technology that made life so comfortable so that the people’s instinct for survival would kick in again. The computer returned people to a simpler life and saved the human race from extinction. I guess that explains why there are no computers.
The history I am familiar with is different than the history presented in the book. In the history I’m familiar with, there was no central computer controlling everything. There was competition driving technology to become more transparent and people learned to simplify their lives rather than be overwhelmed by it.
After reading the book there are a couple of things that don’t make sense. The first thing is that the book never says what happened to the central computer which means it could still be operating somewhere. The second thing is that I’m almost positive that the preacher is a machine which means that the history book isn’t telling the whole truth.