### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ## ## ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ## ## #### # # ## ## ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ## ####### [ AI ] [ By The GNN ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ "AI" by THE GNN/DC/uXu "Visions, of the future..." (trust) As he entered the arcade, he knew that this was something special. During the last years, arcade games had only been dumb machines who did what you told them to do when you pulled and pushed a joystick. But this was different. This was new. Everybody knew that the Virtual Reality thing that came twenty years ago was amazing but that was only child's play. The new AI games was the future. As always, there had been some hard criticism against the AI arcades and some people claimed that they had been brain-washed while playing. "Bullshit", he thought. Some people just can't stand new technology. Everything was silent in the big room. Arcades used to be noisy places with sounds screaming from every direction. But now it was only chairs, with people sitting in them with a large helmet over their heads. Their eyes were dead, you could look straight into them but they wouldn't see you. They were at another place in their minds. What happened in their brains was a secret. He found it rather nice that no one could watch what he did when he played. It made him feel free, and that was the purpose. He loved it. Everybody did. He looked around in the silent black room. Only one chair with the sign "World War I" was free. He walked to it and sat down in the comfortable chair. A voice started immediately to talk to him from above his head, where the helmet was placed. "Welcome to World War I. Please place the helmet over your head and wait". He already knew what would happen. He had played before. A few seconds passed and then "Welcome. The scanning of your files shows that you are healthy enough to play". That was something he didn't like. It used to say "completely healthy" but now it said "healthy enough". Could be anything which made it say that, from a small cold to cancer. Frustrating. "Your credit shows 10 ecu which is enough for you to play for 20 minutes. Do you want to continue?" It's strange how nice the voice gets when it talks about money he thought. "Yes", he said with a low voice. He didn't have to say it, the machine knew it already from the positive waves in his brain. He ran. The gun in his hand felt uncomfortable heavy. The ground was muddy and it rained. Explosions and machine-gun fire was everywhere. Screams, blood and death. The rain felt like stones from the black sky. His brown uniform was wet. He had already killed many people when they attacked the small camp. But the backup from the german army was tougher than they ever could imagine. They must retreat. He ran. Only one mile left, then he would be back in safety. He made it. He survived. Life went on. He fought a couple of years more on the front and he survived every attack. More years passed. After six years, the war was over. He could go home. "YOUR TIME IS UP!" Light and a dizzy vision of himself sitting in the chair with a hi-score table floating over his face. He looked around and watched the big digital clock on the black wall beside him. Twenty minutes had passed. But he had been gone for longer than that. "Damn!", he thought. If he had got more credits on his account he could have fucked his AI wife in the game and later been elected to a AI president. He knew that because a friend of his had also played the game, but with more credits. It wasn't so bad anyway. He had been in the war, and six years was quite alright. "Ready?" a girl asked him who probably had waited for a while. She looked quite irritated. It was normal that people who just had left the AI game just sat and stared into the wall. They had a whole life to remember and that was rather overwhelming. He cleared his mind, looked at her, nodded and walked away. She sat down and placed the helmet over her head. "Welcome...". He felt quite relieved to hear some noise again. The street was as usual packed with cars who made a terrible sound compared to the silence in the arcade. His head was still a bit heavy from the WW1 experience but it would go away after a few hours. This time he didn't take any pills to forget all about it. He used to do that all the time when he first started to play. The memories was too much for him to handle. But now he just wanted to remember the shooting and explosions for a while. They would go away and disappear after a few days anyway. He liked the war games most of all. Many he knew only played "Life of..." games, which were games where you could be just another human, living a normal life. He didn't understand how people could play that kind of games. No action, just being someone else. "I spent 300 ecu once and lived a whole life in another town! It was great!", his girlfriend once said. That hurt! He said that if she didn't like the life she had with him, then she could go back and live her life in the arcade forever! She tried to explain, but he didn't care to listen. A memory came back when he sat on the bus home. He had met a soldier in the game who turned out to be a german spy. He had been in charge of the execution. He chuckled and felt once again the good feeling of the kill. It was a strange feeling to have absolutely no idea who you really was in the game. But that was a part of it all. How could it be fun to live another life if you knew that you weren't that person? It would loose the charm if you ran around with an axe in ancient times, hunting trolls, knowing all the time that you are an 18-year old, living in the 20th century with no action at all. How could you feel any pain if you knew it was faked? He got some sand in his eyes when the bus rumbled away and continued. The sun shined on him. A short walk and then he was in front of his house. A small string of smoke came from the chimney and floated away with the light breeze. In the garden hi-score table "YOUR TIME IS UP!" silence /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Call INFO ADDICT - Home of Underground eXperts United +46-###-#### \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ I would like to get in touch with other textfile writers around the globe. Mail me a letter: THE GNN, P.O.BOX 5, 79023 SVARDSJO, SWEDEN. _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ .