Working Vacation

Hunched on the branch of a birch tree covered in frost a solitary crow lets out a lonely call. The crow ruffled its wings, its black feathers blurred and broke apart as the hologram rebuffered the image. The crow lets out another series of piercing caws before rising off its perch, flying through the travel agents front window and dematerializing into millions of small pixels.

The inside of the travel agents office is filled with the aroma of exotic spices. Dusty knick-knacks from cities and gift shops from around the world are displayed in the front window. Posters of pristine air-brushed locales hang on the wall. The office is filled with the bustle of ringing telephones, and muzak that hums through the overhead speakers. Female travel agents sit at their desks with their backs straight, smiling white mannequin smiles as they describe tour packages to dull-eyed customers.

The offices lone male travel agent is named Denis. Denis is in his late fifties. He has short gray hair with a receding hairline. Today he is wearing a blue dress shirt that is covered with sweat stains around his armpits. The shirt is pushed into his jeans, his worn black belt strains against the mound of flesh that pushes against it. His skin is pasty and covered in liver spots. There is a faint ring tan line on his left ring finger. He has a deep baritone voice, he elongates the end of each word that slips from his mouth, a country bumpkin lost in the big city.

Denis has his own private room in the back of the office. In his office, a framed photo of a young woman with dark hair resting a paper umbrella on her shoulder looks down on the desk in the middle of the room. The desk is covered in a thin layer of luminescent white glass that radiates a pale blue light from the touch screen computer icons imbedded within it.

Denis sits at his desk rocking back and forth in his chair pressing his fingers against one another. A young couple sits across from him whispering to one another. They take small sips from piping hot cups of tea. They pursed their lips with each swallow. The couple had pale porcelain skin, strawberry blond hair, perfect white teeth and freckles that shone when they smiled. Their bodies were slim and well muscled, almost as if they were cut from marble. They wore white clothing with large holes cut into the fabric, exposing large portions of their skin. The exposed skin on their bodies and faces were covered in mechanical implants. Their eyes had been replaced with ocular implants, their mechanized eyes continuously scanned their surroundings with a mosquito-like buzz. Thin wires ran down each of their fingers, up their wrists and under their clothes. There were small circular nodes at each joint that slowly flashed a rotating series of colors.

"Can I ask you a question?" Denis said.

"Yes, of course," the woman said.

"How long have you been digitarian? If you don't mind me asking."

"Ever since I turned twelve years old," the male said.

"What is it like?"

"Opening yourself to the Cloud is the ultimate experience."

"Billions of thoughts run with your own, merging together into a beautiful singularity," the girl added. "But, it has its down sides. I can barely remember my life before the upgrade. I don't even know if the memories I have are mine or those of someone else's that I picked up somewhere in the Cloud," the woman said. "Why do you ask?"

"Being digitarian is perfect for this process. Your implants compliment the vacation programs perfectly." As Denis spoke, he dragged his tongue across his upper lip, sneaking quick glances at the young girl's pert breasts.

She crossed her arms defensively and gave Denis a frigid glare.

Denis was unfazed by her cold stare. "Let me show you one of our most popular packages," he said flipping on the computer desks vid-screen. "How does spending a week in the fiery pits of Hell sound? It is very popular, especially with religious types."

"Well, I'm not sure," the young woman responded flatly. "Everybody does those kind of trips."

"They are very popular," Denis repeated. "Let me show you," he said, double tapping a thumbnail picture with his index finger. The acrid smell of sulfur and burning flesh filled the room. Moans and screams echoed off the walls. "Can you feel the searing hot flames? Imagine the hordes of demons poking and prodding you along lakes of boiling blood."

The young couple pulled back in their chairs as the flames licked at their feet. They looked at one another, slight frowns curling at the corner of their mouths.

"Don't worry, it's all perfectly safe," Denis explained. "I can't tell you the amount of people that come through that door and want to spend their holiday being whipped and tortured, but don't worry if this package is not your thing." He paused pulling his belt over his belly, and wiggling in his seat. "Let me see what else I can find for you,"

"Can you explain a little about how the process works? Is it painful?" the young man asked.

"No, its not painful. It's actually quite pleasant. Its as easy as drinking a cup of tea," Denis said without looking away from the screen. "The tea has some nano-mites inside of it that connect directly to your eye-phones creating a complete sensory simulation. It's your vacation, anywhere you want to go, and everything is connected to your eye-phones. So you can use it anywhere, as much as you want, within a limited rental period of course."

"That's all?" The girl said staring into the depths of her teacup.

"The nano-mites are preprogrammed with the simulations, once they enter your system they control your sensory input as well as your muscle control, so you can move around freely without walking into the street or falling down your basement steps."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"No it's not dangerous. The nano-mites are totally harmless."

"How do you get out of the simulation?"

"All you have to do to stop the simulation is click your heels three times and say 'there is no place like home,'" Denis said, smiling.

The couple looked at him befuddled.

"Never mind, it was a joke. Just blink your eye-phone and you automatically stop the simulation, but don't think about that. Think about relaxing in your favorite armchair, drifting off to sleep and waking up to the greatest vacation you will never have," Denis said with a wide grin on his face.

The young couple exchanged a long glance.

Denis cleared his throat as he activated another holo-screen window. "How about visiting ancient Greece? Imagine spending your days sunning on the shores of the Mediterranean. I think it would be good for you two, you're both pale as ghosts."

"Do you have anything a little less geriatric, and something more thrilling?" the man said, picking at the dirt under his fingernails.

"We're looking for something we can do together, an adventure. Do you have anything that you would recommend?" the woman said, squeezing her boyfriend's arm, staring doe-eyed at him. "I'm looking for something that will heighten our merged programming, something to bring us closer together."

"A couples adventure. Why didn't you say so," Denis said pushing back in his chair, his paunchy beer belly undulating with the sudden movement. "This is one of my favorite packages," he said, as he rummaged through the holo-screens collection of images. "How about being a pair of secret agents?"

"Well," the digitarians said in unison, elongating their l's.

"One thing we, I, was curious about was to see what life was like here before the massive integration of technology into our lives," the woman said.

"Isn't that something you like?"

"I am just curious what it was like for people before the Cloud," the male said.

"Well this one is one of my favorites. Did I mention that? Imagine yourself on the mean streets of old Toronto, rubbing shoulders with gangsters, crooked cops, and gutter punks. What could be more exciting than that? But don't take my word for it, see for yourselves."

Their eye-phones flared to life as the sound of screeching tires, honking cars, and screaming taxi cab drivers filled the room. The small desk and the floor beneath it began to shake from the rumble of the simulated traffic activity. The walls began to undulate, with every tremor the smell of sour sweat and rotting garbage burned the inside of their nostrils.

The young girl cleared her throat as she disengaged from the simulation. "I was hoping for something a little more exotic. Is there anything else you would suggest."

"Exotic? Let's see what I can find," Denis said flatly. He waved his hand over the desk. The holo-screen whirred as images of exotic places suspended in a delicate lime colored haze flashed before their eyes.

"That looks interesting doesn't it honey?" the young man said as he stopped the conveyor belt of vid-screens with a wave of his hand over the desk.

A large red planet orbiting binary stars hovered over the desk. White clouds snaked across its sky swirling over the copper tinged surface of the planet. The planet spun in an elliptical orbit above the desk it emitted a slight hum as it moved through the air.

"Can we see that?" the couple said.

"Behold the planet Sirius-67. Truly a unique experience," Denis said proudly.

Denis's office walls dissolved as alien shrubs and foliage sprouted from the floor, water poured from the walls coalescing into a bubbling lake that rested under the unblinking eyes of the planets suns.

"If you are looking for a one of a kind vacation why just spend time visiting an alien planet, when you can experience life on that world as one of its native inhabitants," Denis said, as a small purple insect with four legs and six eyes scuttled through the underbrush directly in front of their path.

Suddenly, without warning they were all seeing the simulation from the creatures point of view, it wailed in a high pitched voice as it began to eat the bright green grass. The grass left a sour after-taste in their mouths.

Scuttling through the grass they moved towards the sound of rushing water. The creature took hurried drinks from a stream with its long pink tongue, the water in front of it began to bubble.

A dark shape ascended from the bottom of the stream. A creature covered in black mud broke through the waters surface, it stared down at the small purple insect with its three eyes. It lunged at the purple creature biting it in half with its razor sharp teeth.

One of the digitarians blinked their eye-phone and the simulation crumbled into a billion fading pixels, and they were once more surrounded by the white walls of Denis's drab office.

"That's nice and all but it's not really what I'm looking for," the man said.

"What kind of fees do these trips involve?" the woman asked.

"Well one of our premium packages will set you back around one thousand credits each, but there is more modestly priced packages that we offer."

"We saw on one of your in-dream ads that you offered trips to the end of the world," the male asked.

A thick grove of Japanese cherry trees, with bright pink leaves, sprouted outside in the main lobby as one of the other travel agents pitched one of the other trips that they offered at the agency to an elderly couple. Sakura blossoms drifted between Denis and the digitarians. The petals began to fade before disappearing in a hiss of static.

"Oh that's not very exciting. Its just cold, and dark. Nothing to see really," Denis said rummaging through the holo-screen videos. "Now the beginning of the universe, that's exciting. Imagine it, all the matter in the universe exploding before your eyes, its almost sexual. We have a chalet built into the simulation where you can watch the event in comfort."

As soon as Denis activated the video, the murmur of dozens of voices began bleeding into their conversation, and the holo-screen video seamlessly merged into the chalet. Denis and the digitarians stood at the entranceway as waiters in white tuxedos walked briskly through their incorporeal forms. Through the chalets window the big bang unfolded in slow motion, bright swirls of colored gas burst across the void swallowing the blackness that surrounded them.

The young woman blinked and let out a protracted sigh as the simulation crumbled around her. The couple exchanged a quick glance. "I think we will need a few days to think about things before making our final decision," she said.

"Of course," Denis said deactivating the projector. "Take my card and let me know."

"It was nice meeting with you. Thanks for seeing us," the woman said.

"The pleasure was all mine," Denis said, forcing a smile. He watched as the couple scuttled quietly out of the office and disappeared into the passing crowd. "Damn, that felt like a sale."

As Denis sat back down at his desk the walls began to shimmer, the floor, his desk, and his own body all began to blend together like all the episodes of a tired, long-running reality television show. Torn apart like wet tissue paper, all of Denis's senses began to fade. He tried to scream but his voice made no sound.

For an instant, he found himself stranded in a white void. No sounds, no smell, no up, no down, only endless white. Then Denis woke up back in his apartment. He was lying in the centre of his living room floor. His arms and legs were stretched out like a starfish. There were a dozen translucent tubes sticking in his skin that protruded from the floor like the thin legs of a spider.

A hologram of a humanoid robot in a white lab coat was bent over him, the hologram flickered and hissed. "How did you like it Mr. Brennan?" The hologram stared down at Denis with unblinking eyes. Sunlight from the window punched through its translucent body.

"That was not what I expected. It was so realistic," Denis said. He clawed at the immersion helmet with his fingers. He removed the helmet and tossed it towards the aloe plant in the corner of the room. "How tiresome their lives must have been. Spending their lives working. How dreary. I can still feel the sweat on my skin." Denis shivered. "I need a shower just thinking about it. I've never felt anything like that before."

"I am glad you found it interesting, we pride ourselves on providing authentic working vacations," the hologram said flashing a wide smile.

"I still can't believe people actually lived like that, how awful. Having to spend most of their lives working with no chance of ever getting to truly enjoy the fruits of their labor."

"Yes, it was a sorrowful existence that they lived back then. It is hard to imagine working menial jobs like that for the majority of your life with no hope of any real respite."

"Makes me glad we don't live like those savages any more." As soon as Denis began to move, the tubes retracted, retreating into small sockets within the floor. He sat up and stretched his arms and legs. He rubbed the spots on his skin where the implants had left tiny red marks. When he stood up the joints in his knees cracked.

As he stretched his legs, his vision began to blur. Denis took three tentative steps before his legs buckled. He took deep gasping breaths clutching at his chest. A quivering blob of memory-gel rose quickly from the floor solidifying into a rectangular cube that he leaned against for support.

"Just take a moment to get your bearings sir. The after-effects will wear off momentarily."

"Thanks," Denis said woozily.

"If there is nothing more I will disengage. Thank you for using Tengoshi Vision we hope to service you again soon."

"Yes, thank you."

The hologram bowed, it glowed faintly before fracturing into a thin green mist that curled in the air. The disintegrating hologram left behind nothing but the smell of burnt hair. Denis watched the mist disappear through the ceiling before falling backwards into the embrace of the memory-gel furniture. The memory-gel instantly formed a chair that wrapped itself around him in an opal colored cocoon.

Lying back in the chair he began to pick fastidiously at one nostril with his little finger. He blinked on the power icon in his contact lens and the wall screen sprung to life. "Computer, I want something to eat and a glass of wine," he said in a commanding voice. "All that work has made me thirsty." At the sound of his voice, the machines within the house came alive, ready to serve his every whim.

Wrapped in a fluffy blue cotton bathrobe Denis stood in front of his window. He took several sips from his glass of red wine. Blimps with holographic billboards floated above the city skyline. When he looked at one of the passing blimps the advertisement scrolling across its side sprung towards him. A man swung a pickaxe directly at him. The image pulled back as the man wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. The audio from the blimp kept repeating the same three sentences, looking for a different experience this weekend? Don't waste another minute. For a premium working vacation, call Tengoshi Vision today! Denis looked away from the blimp and continued scanning the skyline in search of his next diversion.

THE END

Bio: Mr. Tennant's is perhaps the mild-mannered alter-ego to a known superhero, or maybe just forgot to submit a bio, forcing the editor to make something up. You must decide for yourself.

E-mail: Graeme Tennant

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