Tuesday 24 August 2010

4

- The Contact Centre was an expanse of performance capture gear-clad employees generating avatars for horny punters across the planet and beyond, the long-distance ones coming at a premium. Esplinade was the Contact Centre capital of the known universe. RLE was one of the largest, spanning floors 290 to 308 of the Stateler Building. A room rammed with out of towners in need of a buck.

The horror, Tel thought to himself, staring off at the scramble wall hiding the depraved actions of his colleagues and their avatars. He had to leave it behind him soon.

Tel wondered why he'd stayed so long. Then he remembered: the nightlife. He'd grown up in some forgotten northern nowheresville, cold and safe. Huge human communities were scattered across the snow-swept higher hemisphere. It was the last place on earth humans could carry on with civilization in peace and quiet, without wild animals and weather craziness dragging the population into alienation and discord. That was what was happening across the overpopulated mass of the rest of the earth's surface, billions of creatures slugging it out for survival. That's what was forever threatening to happen here in Esplinade, Tel reminded himself. Exiting the centre of the Contact Centre, Tel chose the stairs over the elevator, then ascended said stairs taking every opportunity to peer through plate glass windows at the massive fall into the free-for-all of the floor. He was so isolated from the noise and craziness of it up here. He hadn't actually ventured down there in... how long had it been now?

His first few months in Esplinade, Tel had gone downstairs and visited the floor every weekend. As time had elapsed, he'd grown content with the in-house amenities at the Stateler. How long had it been? A year? More? Since he'd left the Stateler? Tel stopped suddenly on the 306th, letting the realization sink in. He hadn't been outside in over a year. The thought made him sick. He'd shut himself up in the Stateler building and let it slowly swallow him whole. How much had he saved? Enough, surely. Tel's eyes started to dart rapidly across the populous surface of the floor. He was leaving the Stateler. And not just for the weekend. He was going to go straight home, gather his stuff, hit the floor and go. Tel smiled softly to himself and carried on up the stairs to the 309th.

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