A Strange Turn of Events

It was a rough escape. Lisa, aka Britney Spears, was picked up first. As the search engine was scanning the data of the book and found Britney Spears, my wife simply disguised herself as that data, slipped into the search string, and was off. One second she was there, the next she wasn’t. I’m glad she got picked up first. Of course there was no doubt that she would be the first to go. If the world in which the server resided bore any resmeblance to the fictional land in which we had been raised, then there were millions of horn dog males out there trying to find nude pictures of shapely celebrities. All my wife needed to do was to become a temporary virus. Risky business. It was a good thing that anti-virus software as we understood it was meant to keep predefined known viruses off of a computer. Lisa/Britney would be a complete unkown. Once out of the book and in viral form, she would slip onto the search engine when the user hit the back key. On the search server she would quickly change her name to WillieMae Svetlana in an attempt to avoid getting tossed back out of the server on another search string.

With her gone from my world, I waited anxiously for my ticket out. Damn it, what was taking so long? Lisa/Britney (and now hopefully WillieMae) had been swept up in no time. Why was it taking so long for me? It was degrading enough having to pose as a pop icon I despised. My old ego and my new alter ego did not need the added degradation of sitting around waiting for a search that might take days, maybe even weeks or months, to occur. With all those guys out there looking for a starlette like Britney Spears, why was there no one out there looking for me?

The realization hit hard. The thought was ten times more revolting than the situation I currently found myself in. As I thought it through, it seemed the most logical course of action. Right then and there, I dropped my pants and started masturbating. Never before in all my life had I actually felt shame while performing the act. I knew what kind of computer was going to pick me up. I just hoped the user would click his back button before blowing a premature load and quitting out of the browser. And hopefully he was using protection while downloading all of this stuff. Fearing Anti-virus software was one thing. Having to deal with a drive full of viruses, spyware, and trojans was another thing all together. While I had no clue what any of this would be like, I did not particularly want to find out.

Sure enough, along came the search string and away I went. There I was, streaming as data across the ether. It was quite a rush being whisked away, one metaphorical hand latched onto the search string and the other firmly grasping myself. I popped up on a computer, quickly inserting myself into a cache of things unmentionable and possibly illegal in some states. Fortunately someone didn’t find the story quite as entertaining as they had hoped and the back button was punched. Seizing the opportunity, I dove for the opening and onto Google before he could try out another link. Now it was time for my name change. James Alexander Quitney, after a brief stint as Justin Timberlake masturbating, was now Gaylord Psalter.

While our new names offered us a slim level of security, my demon pal Bill was already hard at work with the second stage of our plan. “Yeth, yeth, yeth. Thith ith my thpethialty.” Bill, hidden under the search protection of one Gaylord Psalter, was busy setting up new fake identities for my wife and me.

First he created a bank account using my new assumed name. Into this he deposited a few thousand dollars. This would be plenty to survive for quite a while where we were headed. The idea was that once we slipped off of the search engine servers we would need a home that was more permenanent, less invasive, still connected, but with minimal volatility. Bill swore to me that he had it all figured out. Even the gods and goddesses insisted I just needed to trust him.

Trust a demon? Where had that money in the new bank account come from? Had he manifested it out of nothing? What should I care? I was a fictitious character on the run from a second rate e-book. If the deposit was fake, I was just as funny as the money. Can a fictional character steal money that never existed in the first place? But we were going to use those funds to purchase services that were normally purchased with some sort of real currency. If we did that, wouldn’t it be theft? But the funds would transfer out of our account and into whoever’s account in a supposedly real sum. If that entity wanted to, there would be nothing keeping them from withdrawing that sum from their bank as cash. The bank would see the transaction as legitimate and give them the money. This was all very puzzling.

While my little demon friend went about his business, I spent some time poking around the server, trying to get a grasp of the world in which it existed. With economics fresh on my mind, I started my research. What I found shocked and confused me. As near as I could tell there was no actual money. There was a currency, but it wasn’t backed by anything. The issuing agency would purchase assets equal to the value of the currency they wanted to create, but nobody was sure with what they were actually purchasing these assets. If there was currency to purchase such things, then there was no need for the agency to purchase anything because the currency already existed. If there was no currency, then there was nothing to purchase the assets with. Yet this agency would continue to issue currency for folks to use. People continued to use this currency despite it not really meaning anything. It was just an idea. Imagine someone walking up to you and offering to trade you the idea of a few dollars in exchange for a loaf of bread. You’d probably laugh at them, and rightfully so. Why not sell your loaf of bread for the idea of a million or even a billion dollars? It would mean the same thing. Yet folks continued to trade this stuff for goods and services while others insisted on receiving it in exchange for the same. Suddenly my few thousand in the bank didn’t bother me. Funny money in a funny account held by a funny character. All of it was worth exactly the same amount. I think the only reason Bill didn’t fill it with millions was because so many people seemed to take the whole charade seriously. You can’t flaunt the illegitimacy of a monetary system in front of a group of the faithful any more than you can tell a cleric his prophet was a dirty, smelly, hateful mysoginist. At least not if you’re trying to keep your head in the vicinity of your shoulders, even if they are somewhat metaphorical body parts at present. Now my life as Jaq made a bit more sense. If everything has a monetary value and the money itself has no value, why not accumulate everything you have ever desired?

Did the author understand that? If so, the world around him still did not. That could drive a sane man crazy. Perhaps it was he, and not me, who was going mad. But I was a creation of his, which in turn would be a manifestation of his madness. Of course I could not fully let go of the idea that he was just a two-bit hack writer grasping at straws in search of a story.

With that thought, I delved into researching elements of my life as Jaq. That rat bastard of an author was stealing story lines every chance he got. I found threads of my own story in several other books by more prolific and respected writers. He had stolen from Neil Gaiman, Robert Heinlein, Robert Anton Wilson, Terry Pratchett, and even Douglas Adams, just to name a few. There were also elements stolen from film and television. Nothing was sacred to this lunatic!

For my own sanity I was thankful when Bill came back and told me it was all ready. My wife and I could now move over to another server where we could start our new lives. If there was any truth in what I had been finding, living a virtual life would be a welcome escape from this madness.