There was this one story that lives rent free in my head, which is terrifying when you realise. And this comment might pass it on, so read on at your peril.
It might be a Steven Baxter story. I know I read it in an anthology, but it could have been a different author.
The story is about a person who lives in a world where it’s illegal to not use augmented reality devices every moment of every day, to ensure that you’re seeing enough ads and behaving like a law-abiding citizen.
The protagonist is in charge of an investigation into people who deliberately live outside this system and seek to disrupt it. One of these people may or may not be the protagonist’s son.
The story meanders for a bit but the investigation is hampered by the very technology it seeks to enforce, so the protagonist insists that their augmented reality device temporarily disable everything.
It claims to have done so, but it soon becomes clear that augmentation is still going on.
So the protagonist invokes an override to turn it all off.
And then...
The story f**king ends with “And then…”
My fear, intended or otherwise is therefore:
The story ending is the device turning off. If protagonist still exists, they are now witnessing the reader’s reality through their eyes. There’s a protagonist stuck in my head unable to get back into their own world.
There was this one story that lives rent free in my head, which is terrifying when you realise. And this comment might pass it on, so read on at your peril.
It might be a Steven Baxter story. I know I read it in an anthology, but it could have been a different author.
The story is about a person who lives in a world where it’s illegal to not use augmented reality devices every moment of every day, to ensure that you’re seeing enough ads and behaving like a law-abiding citizen.
The protagonist is in charge of an investigation into people who deliberately live outside this system and seek to disrupt it. One of these people may or may not be the protagonist’s son.
The story meanders for a bit but the investigation is hampered by the very technology it seeks to enforce, so the protagonist insists that their augmented reality device temporarily disable everything.
It claims to have done so, but it soon becomes clear that augmentation is still going on.
So the protagonist invokes an override to turn it all off.
And then...
The story f**king ends with “And then…”
My fear, intended or otherwise is therefore:
The story ending is the device turning off. If protagonist still exists, they are now witnessing the reader’s reality through their eyes. There’s a protagonist stuck in my head unable to get back into their own world.