Metaverse 404 — Chapter 2: Doubt

4 January 202212 min read First on Medium

It is by expressing doubt that we begin a journey to discover essential truths. Dead Toad Scrolls*, Kilroy J. Oldster*

Yuval, challenged, turns around. It takes a moment before he recognizes the woman who is suddenly standing in front of him. She hasn’t changed much, but she doesn’t belong here, and that certainly disturbs him. It is indeed her, Joy, the senior happiness manager responsible for his dismissal. Well, not exactly responsible, but rather in charge of telling him the news because in reality, he knows it, it is HAI who decided his fate, once again.

It has been over a month now since Yuval left the GHC, he is living simply now and is very happy about it. After leaving the Global, handling all the procedures as best he could as he had promised Joy, Yuval was assigned to the 1789th metaverse. In this newly opened world, he had settled in a simple cabin located in a clearing in the middle of a forest of giant trees. From there he could look out over the world and write his diary. After leaving the real world, he had decided to devote himself to writing. The practice of this art soothes him. It allows him to externalize his thoughts, to spit out his heart on a sheet of paper. He will become a very famous writer, even if he does not know it yet. Crossing the metaverse one by one, he will publish his diaries. At the beginning, it will be hard of course, but one day he will cross the world 288, will write about these two different species which, living on the same planet, had to cooperate to survive, and will publish his first big success. After that, it will be a series of best-sellers, and Yuval will become the most famous writer of the metaverses, which, for sure, will make him happy.

This still doesn’t tell us anything about Joy’s arrival in this little corner of happiness that Yuval has been maintaining for 35 days. Why is she there? To tell the truth, Joy herself doubts it. Since her short interview with Yuval, Joy does not know what to think. This happiness emanating from Yuval when he was about to lose the only thing that made him a free man haunts her. She doesn’t understand. Sometimes she finds herself doubting trivialities that don’t make sense. Two weeks ago, for example, while she had an appointment with Sora concerning number 18–756 of the world 404, incited by the latter Joy started to call a normal by his first and last name, David Graeber. It is however completely unprofessional, and even against nature for Joy who disgusts the normals, but she had done it. More and more often, Joy doubted. She doubted herself, the system, and she didn’t like it. So, in order to understand, she had decided this morning to go to the root of the problem, and so, a little on a whim, to come and visit Yuval. Joy wanted to understand, or rather to convince herself that all this was just nonsense and that she could finally continue to believe.

As Joy’s surprise wears off, Yuval wonders what she’s doing there. As far as he knows, no happiness manager has ever been reinstated after being fired, and no one in charge has ever ventured into the metaverse in search of old worn-out bolts. As much as Yuval thought about it, there was no logical reason for Joy to be here in the 1789th metaverse. He was about to find out for sure.

The young woman finally reaches his level, hesitates a few moments, before asking: “Yuval Himizer ?” It is true that the last time Yuval had seen Joy, and Joy had seen Yuval, he was in his human body, not in his avatar. So it’s normal that she has trouble identifying him, but Yuval doesn’t think about that, and just sees in front of him his former manager who a month later seems to have already forgotten his appearance, which makes him even more bitter.

“What do you want from him?” Yuval says in a suspicious tone. “To discuss”, Joy answers. “Without any bad intention”, she hastened to add to try to counterbalance the distrust that she quickly detected in her interlocutor. It seems to me to recognize you, is it really you Yuval ?

Without wanting to spin the suspense like an old movie with more form than substance, Yuval doesn’t bother to deny :

- Indeed it is me, the one you sent here Joy.

- Ah, exclaims Joy before apologizing, I’m sorry, I thought I recognized you, but I prefer to be wary of avatars.

“Avatars!” thinks Yuval, so she hadn’t forgotten his face.

- It can be misleading, I grant you. What are you doing here? What do you want to discuss? I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it seems to me that it’s pretty rare for a senior manager of happiness to go after a former scion of the system. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with me or something like that?

That last part, he’s sure, Yuval could have kept to himself, but he feels so free since he left GHC. This kind of inappropriate joke doesn’t scare him at all anymore. Joy, a little embarrassed by this last remark, pretends not to have paid attention to it:

“How can I put this…”, she hesitates. “You see, ever since that famous interview when I had to tell you that you were leaving GHC, I’ve been thinking about that moment with the feeling that your action was actually intentional. I know, it probably sounds crazy to you too. I mean, who would want to leave the GHC and end up a normal person?” Joy is hesitant and self-convinced of the insanity Yuval must be allocating to her as she speaks. “But you… You gave me the impression that you wanted to leave the GHC and join the normals of your own free will.”

Yuval is somewhat confused by this question. First of all, he was clearly not expecting it. Then Joy’s tone and her more or less open disgust for the metaverse and normals upset and saddened him. He takes a few seconds to think, and judges that it is wiser to avoid answering her for the moment “she is not ready” he says to himself:

- Well, I’m sorry to say that you’ve come all this way for nothing. I have nothing more to say about it,” he concluded before turning away in the direction of his cabin.

- You know, I’m really sorry it had to come to this, but I had no choice!

“Sorry”? “No choice”? This makes Yuval laugh out loud and he can’t help but reply:

“Oh but don’t be sorry, Joy. You know, I’m really glad I’m not part of that system anymore. And, yes, I know the drill, of course you didn’t have a choice since it wasn’t your decision. Let me ask you a question,” he continued, cutting Joy off as she was about to answer. “Do you have a problem with the fact that HAI, a machine, is responsible for all the decisions made within the global organization?”

Again with the questioning of HAI? As if Joy hadn’t already had enough of Sora, and her “revolutionary” thought movement. “HAI is the only solution”, although she doesn’t admit it to herself, Joy tries to convince herself of this, but, unconvinced of herself, she can’t help but show some hesitation before answering:

- No, I don’t think so. I don’t see it that way. To me HAI is there to help us make decisions, to advise us.

- Is that so?” asks Yuval, in a tone of false surprise. “If that’s the case, then tell me who decides who gets fired? Who decides what roles are assigned to the new normals? Don’t tell me it’s you happiness managers. Oh no! I’ve heard that too much. The truth is Joy, I know it, I’ve lived it, in reality we are just following the directions given by HAI. In an automatic way. That’s it, like automatons we apply the orders of the supreme intelligence! You are only robots”, Yuval launches on a tone assumed accusatory, whereas however, he knows that, the young woman prostrate in front of her, like the others besides, makes only undergo the system.

By reflex, no doubt from her few years as a manager, Joy, who can see the anger rising in Yuval, takes refuge in the non-violent communication methodologies she was taught at school. She still finds it hard to accept that someone can think like him, yet it is necessary for the sake of their exchange that she understands, or at least acts out. Far from suspecting that this moment of comedy would be for her the beginning of a much more concrete thought, she discreetly inhales and asks with a calm tone:

- It’s true that I never thought of it that way. Is that why you wanted to leave the GHC? You no longer support the way it works?

- Partly yes. Yuval answers with a sigh

- So you admit to having intentionally left the GHC?

- Yes and no. What actually happened was that I realized that I was no longer finding meaning in my work. I came to understand that it was no longer about working to make normal people happy, but that what guided my actions was the quest for performance. I had to reach all the right levels for each metric at all costs. So many smiles a day, a serotonin and endorphin level of so many etc. I saw my normals as numbers of smiles, I didn’t even know who they really were anymore! For a profession that is centered on the human being, there was nothing more inhumane than what I was doing. So I wanted to try to change things on my own scale. I started to pay more attention to how to make normals really happy. Not just to inject a few extra rays of sunshine to raise their serotonin levels. I tried for example to let them overcome their obstacles by their own means because the happiness provided by the feeling of accomplishment is consequent, much more than when everything goes well directly… Except that it was incompatible with the objectives to be fulfilled set by the GHC hierarchy. I was then called to order several times and the rest of the story… Well, you know since you were in charge of finishing it.

While she had initially taken the initiative to be interested in a purely fictitious way to learn more, as if trapped, Joy found herself really interested by Yuval’s words. In front of Yuval’s sad look, she could not help but nod, a sorry look on her face. She had listened to him speak very carefully. Little by little, she was beginning to see the answers she had come for.

The two continue to exchange snippets of conversation on the subject. Without fully realizing it, Joy gives more and more credence to Yuval’s words as the discussion progressed. Shocking as it may seem, Joy agrees. She agrees with the man she thought was crazy a few minutes ago. For some time now, this strange feeling that something is wrong has been gradually creeping up on Joy, but she hasn’t been able to put it into words. The conversation progresses, and she encourages Yuval to continue to develop his thoughts.

- I didn’t feel so much in place or in tune with my values,” Yuval continues, “that I ended up seeing being fired as an opportunity to escape this meaningless life. That’s why I seemed so happy to be sent to the “normals” you seem to reject so much. Your feeling is right Joy. I was actually looking forward to leaving my position at GHC,” he finally admits.

- Didn’t you think that maybe a solution could exist? That by going to the hierarchy, as a Happiness Manager, with more than ten years of experience, you would be heard and your opinion taken into account?” asks Joy who seems more interested than ever in Yuval’s words.

- “Taken into account?” You know, I gave up negotiating with the hierarchy, and especially with the office, a long time ago,” Yuval replies. “That’s another fundamental problem with this organization,” he adds. The weight of the hierarchy is far too great, the pressure exerted by the hierarchy is immense, especially to meet the objectives set for managers. The system is too procedural. There is too little exchange between employees, and decisions are therefore taken in a decentralized manner and are therefore far removed from the “reality on the ground”.

A little stunned by all these ideas that have shaken up her world, which was so stable, Joy no longer knows what to think. She who thought she was playing, she who felt so stable, so sure of this system of which she had felt the guardian for years, now finds herself embarrassed, sad, betrayed, and especially lost. She had come to reassure herself and to convince herself that these doubts which had invaded her these last weeks were only nonsense. She left with her head filled with even more doubts. Yuval had succeeded in doing what he had not even really hoped to do: planting the seed of revolution in the brain of one of the most valiant soldiers of the world.

After exchanging a few more minutes on these subjects that so animate Yuval, and so distress Joy, as if tired of such an intense discussion, of a common and implied agreement, Joy and Yuval gave way to silence. However, rather than to leave, Joy grabs a tool from the table in front of Yuval’s house and begins to help him clear his meadow. This is a first for her, who had done nothing else with her two hands but handle her sphere for the past ten years.

Finally, they exchange a cordial goodbye, Yuval goes back to writing his journal that will propel him to the forefront, and Joy goes back to the global that will propel her to her happiness.

Link to Chapter 3.

https://link.medium.com/rdzp95Zzzmb

how to submit ? Data-Driven Fiction