The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to Disillusionment

ReFactory

It felt as if the city opened up like a flower in his mind. Everything that had been hidden was now revealed and more remained to be discovered. Marto knew there had to be more to the Interconnected of Montreal than first he perceived, and now he knew he was right. The shape and flavor of the groupings was different, the mode, philosophy, and drive was new, but the depth of content surprised him. Marto felt like his sense of smell had returned after a long illness. He was back in a life that made sense to him again.

The white dinner had been beautiful. He ate the rich food, drank the white wine, and all the while, his mind opened up to the surrounding people who greeted him as if he were a beautiful new plaything in a room full of toys. He split his time between the world of taste and smell and touch and the world of thought and fantasy and shared dreams. The evening was profoundly transformative. The months of solitude made everything more intense as he reconnected with the shared mind in his new home.

Two hours into the celebrations, Sukyi showed up. She wore a white vest with a starched collar that matched a stiff white skirt that shot out to points on the left and right. It was stunning. Marto couldn't keep his eyes off of her. She smiled at him but kept her distance. There was an unbridgeable chasm between them, Marto realized. He was a diver, and she was a swimmer. He would always be looking for oysters and pearls. She would always be perfecting her stroke. Late into the evening, shortly before dawn, she thexted him as if she knew what he was thinking.

["Glad you could make it tonight, Matthew. How you like our little town?"]

["Love it,"] Marto returned. ["This is just beautiful. I'm just so grateful for the invitation. How can I thank you?"]

["No need to thank me. However, I think you might want to meet my friend Coralie, if you have some time tomorrow. She's like you. A digger."]

["A digger?"] asked Marto, before grasping her meaning. ["Okay, yeah. Where do I find her?"]

["You're on the trampoline with us now, yeah?"] she sent back. ["I'll hook it up. You relax."]

Marto didn't remember his walk back to his apartment, or how he fell asleep. The party and his new attunement to the network in Montreal had changed his perception of the world. He had assumed there was only one network of Interconnected people. He was wrong. There were many networks. Fresh possibilities bloomed in his head as he pondered the implications of this. Could he travel the various other networks of the world taking notes? Could this be his new mission, his new set of journals? How would he publish his findings? Did all the networks connect in some superficial way? Did he finally perceive a way out of his exile?

He woke the next day mid-afternoon feeling hung over but invigorated. He knew he would soon have to pay his rent, and he didn't have sufficient scrip. Thinking about his next steps, he gathered his few belongings into a pile near his travel bag and left it by the side of his bed in case he needed to pick up and leave. Then he walked to the park to sit and contemplate his situation. Soon he got a message from Sukyi.

["Hey digger boy, Coralie wants to meet you. I told her you would make interesting conversation."] The location of another old box store lit up on the map. ["She said to be here at 17:30, okay?"]

Marto sent back that he would be happy to meet Coralie there. He had literally nothing else to do except find a bagel shop and explore the Montreal network.

The virtual culture here was different. There was no formal economy of Merit, no offers and ratings, though there seemed to be a hierarchy of popularity among the personas he discovered as he crawled the local area connections. The amount of activity an individual's posts received determined their popularity. The system was intended to set everyone to an equal status, but it was clear that some people were just more interesting than others.