This is how I imagine the fu would be in real life; The result of a thought process that started with how social sites work and how we end up creating real relationships despite the fact that the only thing we have of the people we meet is an online persona. It's a long story; do as you please.
The year is 2099, in some place.
I’m on the Highway, in my electro car, on my way to the fu, passing dusty road signs and huge led screens, advertising some product or other.
My gps beeps, and in a friendly voice says” Arrr you be near the fu matey, take the next exit and ye be at the booty, park where x marks the spot”
Yes, I confess when the voice software came out for the gps, which allowed you to put different types of voices, like pirate or ninja, male or female, I was one of the first to give hard earned credits for it. I was going with male pirate that week, because female bimbo got old after a while.
The Highway rises and I can see down from the right hand lane, the Fu growing in the distance. It’s a medium sized mall, for a certain value of medium. There’s a spinning oval shaped lcd screen that shows the fu sign, white letters in a black background, with this week’s motto, which is, come get some!, with the obligatory capitals and exclamation marks.
It’s early midday, sunny and dry as I take the turn off and slowly descend to the parking lot, taking one of the spaces in front of the entrance, I have bribed the robo attendant for, with some bootleg 90’s source code.
As I step out , and hear the door of my car lock automatically with a token beep, I stare at the fake marble entrance and remember how, I accidentally came across this place, on my way to a strip sociology convention. I came, I saw, I got the membership card and gps coordinates…
I smile and languidly walk up to the entrance. As he doors swish open, a tired security robot gets up and with a swish, beep and nod passes a scanner over the member id card hanging from my neck. It sits back down, returning to his stale oil coffee. I still don’t know why they gave robots personalities. As if depression was such a great gift , we felt robots might benefit from. Oh well at least it makes more jobs, robot shrinks being what they are.
I shrug, as that thought zips through my head, and stare up at the big screen in the middle of the mall, with the now overdone picture of babyj in the gutter begging for referrals and a sense of humor. I take it all in; the mall, a big circle, three floors high with the screen in the middle, gently revolving, people walking, running or skating by. Some are reading or talking loudly to themselves in those hands free walkie talkies, the shout boxes. It always makes me think the person is talking to himself or the voices in his head until I notice the little headset sticking out of their ear. It makes me giggle when they shout. What can I say?
I walk down to the reception, nodding my head to the music in my head. That little chip was worth the credits.
I’m greeted by a cheerful receptionbot, not one of those new flashy models, but the older version, styled after a brunette undergrad with glasses. Very grunge and retro. Smiling, she scans my tag and hands me my bar tab, a flat liquid screen display approximately the size of that A4 paper they used to use, when there were still tress and photocopiers.
I check the messages and rates and do the obligatory rate back shuffle. It’s a real shuffle by the way, I do a little dance to confuse the bot, the old models don’t understand dancing.
Done, I can at last go for what I came for. As I take the levpad down, I talk to some people on the WT, making sure to make crazy faces once in a while, maybe cause a giggle or two on whoever is looking my way.
I pass all the stores, full of bling and triteness. The mall is still half empty, since the place is off the beaten track and not a lot of conglomerates have sunk their teeth in. This is nice, since there is no face control or armed guards. So skaters can skate, and couples make out in no so dark corners. I pass empty shop windows with Space For Rent!!! signs scrolling across them, the number of exclamation signs proof of the renter’s desperate glee.
Finally, I reach it, squeezed between a comic store and a estate agent’s office manned ( ha ha) by a robot agent who, despite being one, manages to look as tired and despondent as his human counterparts did. I look at the antique revolving door and the neone signs with the last letter flickering off and on, The Mumms, the owners stab at a 00’s flashback.
I waltz in, making sure to push the door just right, since the famous face hitting glass incident taught me it tends to get stuck if you push too hard.
There’s a long and wide space with a bar on the right, with a couple of lurkers, sipping water through a straw and leering at the mummetes. In the back are 5 tables; the kind that are just one really long tables that can easily seat 20 people or 5 Americans. I remember that’s what I liked the most when I first came in, other than the low light, 00’s décor and antique cigarettes. Because You can’t sit without having to speak with other people. Unless, you wanted to lurk at the bar, and those people scared me. I mean who drinks water?
The place is already kind of busy, some familiar and some not faces already here, nursing a drink or a hangover. I take a seat on my favorite table and try to follow the conversation.
Time passes, the place fills and empties, I drink and smoke, joking, shouting, and flirting. People come and go, shouting goodbyes to the room and the seated shout back or wave if not too caught up in whatever is going on. The lurkers lurk, or clumsily join the conversation, only to get booted or fed up, if no mummete is willing to show the much yearned for and rarely seen bewbage.
In a lull of conversation I remember when I first looked up at the entrance of this place and wondered what kind of joint it was. Asking myself, is it a new version of the Blue Oyster club? Did I dare enter?. Or the one of the most frequently asked questions in humanity’s history, Will there be hot bisexual chicks here? .
I am glad I braved it and entered, I think, as the conversation picks up and I get dragged back in.
At some point, my watch rings, and I see its time to go. I get up and leave, nodding to the lurkers in fake bravado. I don’t shout or wave goodbye, letting my absence say my goodbyes for me.
On my way up I wink, nod or smile to various passerbies, depending on their gender and hotness.
I stop by the reception to sing out and sort through any leftover messages, talking and shouting on my WT.
At the exit I clandestinely hand over this week’s source code to the valet. I hand in my WT and get my id card nodded at.
As I step in to my electro car, with a “Yarr Matey!” in the background, I smile.
Time to go home.
