Business rule #1: Don’t eat your own dogfood.

The problem with knowing how something works is knowing when there’s no way to stop it. Evolution, physics, capitalism; any wrench is just another cog. So when I wrote that code to bypass your free will I wrought a terrible force as silent and pervasive as gravity. The advertising conglomerate that piloted my soul set an easy task in my clean hands.

Step 1: Get purchase and demographic data. (file search authorized by [REDACTED]) Step 2: Locate consumer. (data tracking and spyware approved by section 12 article 5, [REDACTED] internal operating procedures) Step 3: Coordinate with affiliates to produce psychological infection vector. (using Customer.Target API provided by [REDACTED]) Step 4: Analyze personality for susceptibility to psychological infection vectors and products. (AI written by me, Grimmlaw) Step 5: Deliver solution. (authorization for intentional public ethics violation approved by [REDACTED])

Pride was my undoing. The AI I wrote then, Hal 2.0 I unfortunately named it, was such an inviting challenge I never even thought why was I selected for this amazing opportunity? or how is this worse? Everything changed unceasingly after that. Always in the back of my mind I knew this process, knew it was growing. I didn’t quite understand how much money was behind it.

I should have seen the end coming when ad blockers were made illegal (a simple matter of lobbying). Overnight, Hal hijacked millions of lives as end points for synthesized consumer demand. I started therapy then but talk of my “paranoia” (and the sudden upsurge in advertisements for psychological pharmaceuticals) kept my mouth shut. Obedient, subservient, alone.

And then, technology, that bastardization of science, in the form of dynamic billboards “offering the best in personalized advertising” became vogue, cheap, and accurate. More accurate than anyone said. Then, dynamic radio was cracked “now you can listen to the music YOU want and find out about the products YOU want”.

I started looking for coalitions against forced advertising but stopped when the ads on my browser started promoting corporate lawyers and private run prisons. Alone, oppressed, watched.

* * *

Five years and I’m working as a groundskeeper at a small cemetery. Every night I fight with myself: GDP is positively correlated to quality of life. Agency is required for a sense of purpose. The illusion of choice is still choice? I don’t watch television, I don’t listen to the radio, I seldom frequent anywhere with advertising, I learn any science I can understand (pure knowledge is not tainted), I occasionally read a book. In short, I am not part of society. But my legacy worms throughout every home and street, every city on the planet, every frequency on the dial.

I get my groceries delivered and usually use the ads for kindling but today was different. A woman’s eyes, dark eyebrows matching coal black eyeshadow and with yellow irises that flare like a sun against against a black border, stare at me from the flier with the barest hint of a frown and such a direct and unwavering gaze that I drop it in alarm (perhaps because she looks well and truly furious, but I can’t understand why). It’s on my floor for twenty minutes before I can work up the nerve to touch it again. My first instinct is to throw it in the fire, immediately. But there’s just something. A something that means they found a something to use against me, damnit! I drop the paper again, not sure how to handle the situation. They obviously - wait it’s not a they, it’s an it. Hal knows me. Maybe better, aw hell, probably better than myself. I should burn it without a second look. But that face, what could possibly have brought that face from the realms of popular imagination into my home. Pandora’s page sits on my floor.

Again I wrestle with metaphysics: isn’t the chance to know something about yourself an opportunity not to be wasted? Am I submitting to my own will as creator or an unknown and inhumane force as defined by my very hands? Is this evil (is there evil)?

I didn’t notice the sun was setting until the square of illumination from the window lit the paper afresh in an amber glow. All I can see through the glare is her eyes.

The force is too great, the advertising vector too well aimed. I cross the floor, without even telling my legs to move, and pick up the paper. I turn it over.

“Virtual Reality lives!

Escape modernity for the adventure of a lifetime.”

Nothing else. I’m so far removed from current advertising techniques that I can’t even tell if this is normal. I look around but there are no other fliers, no leaflets, no samples. Odd, but with Hal coordinated advertising is simple. There’s no information about where to go to find out more. Either I’m already supposed to know, or it’s bait to lure me into somewhere more exposed, more monitored, more advertised.

The eyes burn last, piercing me from the fire until the very end.

* * *

On my way to the library I buy a coffee “Arabic mountain roast tastes divine, try some!” It’s as awful as coffee always is and I pour it out immediately. Inside I ‘donate’ five dollars before sitting down at a computer. Not much has changed with computers over the years; still just mice and keyboards and touchscreens of mice and keyboards. Our inability to innovate in ergonomics drags Moore’s law into the ground. A simple search, during which I purchase life insurance, reveals that one company makes virtual reality: Dragon Corp. Not much info available about them, a new company hosting pioneers in several medical and technological industries apparently. The device itself is disturbingly simple. No goggles or helmets, just a small stone decorated with runic symbols that you place your hand on. Matte gray and daring you to believe it’s carved stone. Trade-secret and new copyright laws block all research into its functioning. The rapid advance in technology is not unheralded, but still it’s hard to comprehend. I try to swallow but my mouth is dry from the coffee.

Yeah, the coffee.

I manage to make it home without buying anything else. There was only one game available, The Fantastic Realm, and no details about its content. How could there be? Apparently the whole thing is procedurally generated and custom tailored to your preferences and choices. A true new life. What would my world be? Shadowrun, mega-corps running everything? A blasted wasteland or a verdant fantasy countryside? What would it say about me? Freud starts chatting amicably with Nietzsche in the back of my mind about the role of power in identity and the subconscious. I put my palms together and press, two, three, four, five, release. Grounded, I move through several questions about harm, exploration, and adventure before I settle on one, more important than the rest “what if Hal can’t reach you there?”

I feel trapped, overwhelmingly, by the situation. My resistances to this impartial machine are crumbling. My excuses for denying its advances becoming suddenly feebler. Why am I fighting advertising again? What makes it so bad? Can’t I see the advantages right here before me? So what if I don’t have a choice?

No! I latch onto that one lifeline with all my strength. Choice is the foundation of free will and free will is the expression of freedom and freedom the only life worth living. I put my head in my hands. No denying my desire though. I want to go, I want to see another world, I want to stop being me, even if only for as long as it takes for that world to collapse under the weight of our world, the commercial machine that it’s trying to hide.

As I’m roving about the house, mindlessly reordering books by subject, format and author, I try to convince myself that I still have choice left. I can still choose not to get it, so it’s actually my choice? No, that gets me peace of mind but thwarted ambition. If I do this, I’ll be able to express my free will through play? Giving them more ammunition to use against me in the future, which they obviously don’t need. If I submerse myself in their world, I will be at their mercy. Am I a coward? Can they truly beat me? I can’t look at my fireplace without remembering her eyes. Those eyes that undid my world, destroyed my defenses, and maybe, just maybe, broke my will.

* * *

Never one to delay unnecessarily the inevitable, I head back out after lunch to a games store. There is only a small section devoted to the Dragon’s Claw and despite several customers I am the only one interested. I learned more from my research than their, apparently, minimalist advertising display theme. I grab a box, heavier than I expected, and make my way to the counter.

“Do you know anyone who’s played this?” I ask the cashier, a pink haired teenager with a ring in the nose and lip and a shirt with the name of a band I don’t recognize. Or maybe it’s a team.

“Nah man, they got some bad press about being boring when they came out so no one payed any attention. Besides they only have one game and it’s solo.” I can see the wheels turning as memories of sales techniques come to life, “You sure you want this? Exploder V is out for the Migu and that has one hundred twenty eight player battles with free dynamic live streaming built in.”

The implicit suggestion that those streams have advertising isn’t lost on me. “No, just the Claw, thanks.” I say.

Have you ever had money burn a hole in your pocket? The Claw was like that. I could feel it pulling at my forearm, my shoulder, altering my spine, affecting my gait. I was so painfully aware of it I ran into three people on the street. They must have given me dirty looks or even said something, but I didn’t notice. Or maybe their advertisements had prepped them for bumbling fools. No, Hal was not pro-social. He would rather use their aggravation to sell them something than promote positive responses that produced no revenue.

I’m struck by a wistful remorse when I get back, as if my whole home was suddenly sad to be leaving me. I unpackage the Claw with mechanical interest but there isn’t much to do. A seal on the seam frees the front half of the box and inside a single nest of cardboard holds a cardboard placard, the Claw, and its power converter. The instancy of the experience before me gives me pause and I just stand there. Looking at it. Getting a better look at The Claw than I saw online I’m able to examine the plethora of runic etchings. Several look Celtic, others Hieroglyphic, and plenty plain old artistic. I take it out, noticing the abnormal heft, and can’t find a single seam. Even the cord looks like it’s was extruded out of the thing. With nothing for it, I take it out, set it on the table, plug it in, and sit down. I must be hungry because the placard shakes a little in my hand as I sit there. There is a diagram of a person sitting down and placing their hand on the Claw and nothing else. I swallow once and put my hand down. An orange glow lights the runes and as my vision starts to go white I remember one thing.

I don’t know how to get out.