“My glasses!”

I hadn’t understood what had hit me, but suddenly I found myself lying down and someone was yelling at me. Clumsily standing up again I noticed the woman I had bumped into, also getting back on her feet in front of me. She was dressed more or less like me, in the dull daily clothes of a factory operator. The whole working class of the City probably looked more or less the same if you were colourblind and didn't care too much about details. The main difference between me and her except for hair and skin colour was that her outfit was olive green while mine was silvery grey, and that she wore earplugs at the moment.

And then there were the remains of VR-glasses on the ground. Something gave me the idea she was a v-junkie, and thus a real person but living her life mainly in the virtual world, hardly belonging to this boring old material plane. Her screenphone and the shattered remains of the very expensive VR-glasses were scattered around us on the ground.

The woman seemed in some kind of trance herself, as if unable to move, so I picked her stuff up for her. The phone was okay, but the glasses were completely beyond repair, which she didn’t seem to be able to cope with yet. It wasn’t an abnormal reaction to being pulled straight out of her virtual world so violently and abruptly into the real world.

I opened her hand and put her phone in it, and she finally seemed to notice me. “I was finally getting into the inner ring…” She mumbled, totally disoriented. “No girl, you were just walking on the street and not watching where you were looking.” She stared at me with very dark blue eyes, as if I were the alien and frantically nodded no in disbelief. “I finally was there!” When she fell silent she kept staring at the material reality around her that had replaced the world that she had been so invested in, and then she called unto a game character: “JoSi! JoSi!”

“This isn’t the game but the real world. JoSi isn’t here.” She completely ignored my words and rambled on.

“JoSi, I need Josi!”

I attempted to talk some reason into her. “Your glasses are broken but the phone is still okay. Can’t you proceed your game from your phone later on?” A bit of anger flickered in her eyes. “Game? It’s not a game! I told you. This is serious! Stupid fleshworlder! I was entering the inner ring of Selinomas! I was going to meet JoSi.”

Suddenly I knew where I had heard that name before. Selinomas was a virtual second world that once had been very popular with gamers, but it had become rather empty recently. A lot of the people there were actual ‘game-created characters’, and most he world itself was rather dull, a pink plastic world with primary colours and kitch. But it was said that if you found the right entrances you could find hidden places where special treasures and secrets were kept. And wasn’t JoSi some kind of magical sage or keeper or wisdom that only the very advanced could find?

“Come on girl, you’re as much a fleshworlder as I am, and your Selinomas is nothing but a game world. JoSi is just a game character. Pure AI most likely. Not sentient even. It’s not that important. Chill out!”

She stared from her phone to my face, still in shock. It was clear that she disagreed heavily with me. And on top of that I had insulted her badly, that much was clear. “No, it is important. That world is real. More real than this one! I need to reach the inner ring. I need to get Yi Anapa back, finally. He must be somewhere. JoSi might be able to help me.” Her voice was quite desperate now, as if she tried to make herself believe the words she was saying. She fell silent for a while without moving, and then took the the fragment of the broken VR-glasses that I still held out of my hand, ascertaining that they were indeed beyond repair. Bewildered she looked at them, and then at me, with an unspoken cry for help in her eyes.

“It’s so dark here.”, She mumbled as if surprised. “That happens when it’s night… Satellite twilight you know, we’ve had it for centuries in The City. Girl, how have you even been able to walk around here if you’re literally in cyberspace all the time?”

She didn’t answer, still frozen into some kind of reality shock. It was a feeling that I of all people should have been able to understand her at this point of my life after my rude awakening, but I couldn’t sympathise much now. She was just overdoing it. “JoSi! I was so close!” She mumbled again.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about with your inner ring and so. But you clearly are a human from the material world; not a game character from Selinomas. Why don’t we drink a beer together. I’ll pay. I’ve been in a nice bar yesterday, the Ecstasy Nirvana.”

“Oh no, not the light district. It’s full of men there.”

She looked me up and down, and then paused, as if she realised only now that I was a man too and seemed to be figuring out how to turn her phrase in a way that wouldn’t offend me. The only thing she came up with was “No offence. You know what I mean. They’re not half-robots like you. The Light District is still a bunch of material pigs fuelled by low animal instincts. Even in that bar, with those jerks like Leste. You won’t see me there, Sorry. But say hi to Evelith from Tul if you see her.” Suddenly she stood straight as if to start moving. “I have to go and buy new glasses as soon as possible. It’s too important. And it’s no good to try to contact JoSi with just a phone.” She looked at time. “Sorry, really have to go. I need to get them today. It’ll cost me my food-funds for two weeks but it’s important. I need JoSi to finally get Yi Anapa back”

And with that she was gone.