This Digital Life
“See you online!”
-EC 4126-
Silky Socks groaned as her bleary eyes strained through the blue-white glow of her monitor, scanning the small paper manual in front of her as she finished adjusting the strap on her uplink. Turning a page, she squinted to see her final instructions.
“Attach wire to uplink, Line-In yellow, and then attach Line-Out black to buffer,” Silky mumbled. Her wings twitched in the semi-dark, knocking an empty coffee cup from its perch on her desk. She glanced at it in irritation, picking up the offending object and setting it next to the other two. She had been at this for hours, packing materials strewn carelessly about her as she wrestled with the tangle of wires linking her computer to the net. Connecting one last wire to her headset, she settled down into the warmth of her couch with a tired sigh, finally ready to visit the M-Net for the first time.
“Alright Coral, let’s see what you’ve been nagging me about,” she said, looking at the screen for any final problems. Nothing seemed out of order, the application reported that everything was up to date, and was requesting permission to start the uplink. Her hoof wavered above the keyboard, uncertain. She didn’t know what exactly waited for her in cyberspace. Coral had assured her that the system was perfectly safe, but Silky still had her doubts. Everypony knew about the ponies who burned out of the system; a recent case had even made the news. Not even two blocks away, the charred wreck of an apartment block was being renovated because one of occupants had fried his system while cruising the M-Net. Coral had kept saying it was a freak accident, but Silky wasn’t convinced. Regardless, she had a date to keep.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed the key to start. Immediately, the computer started working. Lines of code flew across the terminal screen too quickly to read, and for a fleeting instant Silky feared she had forgotten something. Then, a message appeared in her vision as her awareness started fading:
Load Complete!
Welcome to the Magic Network!
The world melted away.
*****
The first thing she felt was nausea. A sickening twist had made itself known somewhere in her small intestine and Silky felt like she had just eaten one olive too many. She could feel bile rising in her throat, followed by an overpowering urge to vomit, and then suddenly, nothing. Every sense that she had been feeling ill vanished. She puzzled over this while her head cleared, swaying on her hooves, instinctively catching her balance before sinking to her haunches. A migraine followed the nausea, throbbing in her head with an oddly distant quality.
“What just happened?” Silky moaned, cradling her head in her hooves. The pain dulled, her dizziness fading with it.
Calibration complete. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Silky stopped. The message had risen like a thought in her mind. Not her own.
“Hello?” she called. The sensation passed, leaving her to the silence of the net.
Sensation. She bounced the word around her head until her brain made the connection. She could feel! She hadn’t known what to expect in the M-Net. Coral had told her it was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Silky had to agree. She could taste the air, cool and fresh in her nostrils, and feel a wispy breeze tugging at her wings. Present yet distant, the sensation altogether foreign and yet familiar. Slowly, Silky opened her eyes. Her jaw sank.
“Whoah,” she muttered. Two cities stretched into the horizon, above and below, mirrored like a calm lake under a night sky. Massive buildings pierced the skyline, jutting up from the depths, intertwining with their cousins from above and forming seemingly impossible patterns. Their dark shapes glowed along their edges, dotted with lights from millions of tiny windows.
“Oh my Celestia...”
Directly above her she could faintly make out streets. Tiny ants of things moving about their business. Vehicles, Highways, plazas, platforms, the sheer scale of it seemed to mock her understanding of size. It stretched as far as she could see, and she somehow knew it kept going.
Silky sank to her elbows, overwhelmed, as she struggled for words to help her process what she was seeing. She shook her head to fight the sick sense of agoraphobia creeping its way in.
“So this is the M-Net,” she wondered aloud. In the distance she could see other platforms appearing in the great divide. Ponies flashing in and then disappearing just as quickly. She stared in awe at the size of it, and the frenetic pace at which everything seemed to move. Silky felt dizzy.
“You made it!” Coral squealed as she tackled her friend on the platform. Silky fought off a headache while she tried to pry her grey-blue friend off her person.
“Nice to see you too, Coral,” Silky managed as she struggled to escape her friend’s death grip of a hug. Her forelegs legs struggled for purchase until they bumped up against something feathery. “Now could you please let me- Coral! You have wings!” Silky nearly shouted.
Coral broke the hug and proudly displayed her new appendages with a beaming smile. “Yep! Just like yours! You can be anything here!” she said, waving a foreleg in a circle around her. “even other genders,” she added with an eye waggle.
Silky distinctly felt herself blush. “Um, that’s… uh, nice?” she said, taking an uncertain step backward from the earth pony turned pegasus.
Coral laughed. “We’ll work with that later though, let me show you around!” she launched into the air, motioning for her to follow before bolting away toward a nearby advertisement. With a flap of her wings, Silky took off after her. Immediately she dived, narrowly avoiding a floating advertisement.
Instinct fought unreality as Silky adjusted her pace. “It’s so… easy.” Silky remarked. She felt lighter than normal. Her weight seemed so insubstantial that Flying felt effortless. Silky had never been a great flyer, not with her tech job taking up most of her time. “It’s like flying in zero G! Only not...”
Coral whipped around, floating for a moment before regarding her with a big smile. “See I knew you’d like it! I mean sure it’s all a little overwhelming at first, but it’s super fun once you get used to it! I’m super jealous of you Silkie, you get to do this all the time!”
Silky chuckled nervously, “well not exactly all the time.”
“You know what I mean,” Coral replied.
“Yeah,” Silky could see the appeal, it wasn’t every day you got to walk in somepony else’s horseshoes. Then again...
“It’s not… real, is it?” Silky asked, her eyes once again wandering toward the skyline.
“Of course not! Well, I mean, sure it feels real, but ultimately it’s just an illusion. We’re still sitting in our chairs back home, ‘it’s all in your head’, remember? Though I’m pretty sure there’s a debate about it somewhere out there. Like, kooky philosophers and stuff or something.”
Not real, but still impressive. But not real. Silky felt her heart skip a beat knowing she’d have to go to work the following morning. “Yeah,” Silky said, feeling disappointed, “I suppose you’re right.”
“Aw don’t look so glum. Tell you what, why don’t we head out to one of my favorite spots and we’ll see about cheering you up, okay?” Coral offered, her cheerful smile.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Silky replied.
*****
The trip took no time at all. Coral grabbed her foreleg and in a flash they were outside a busy club just off a street somewhere in the nether. The walls seemed to glow, emitting a soft light near their edges, while digital patterns lazily drifted across their surface. Coral trotted up to the entrance, presenting herself to the club’s bouncer bot, a simple sentry who scanned her and Silky before letting them pass.
Silky watched the sentry with some uncertainty, before stepping into the building after her friend. The steady pulse of music grew in volume as they approached the main atrium.
“What’s with the security?” Silky asked.
“This club is member’s only. You have to be somepony special in order to get in,” said Coral, “and I just so happen to know a special somepony with staff access.” She winked, stopping in front of the main door. “Ready?” she asked. She didn’t wait for my response.
The door opened, Silky’s jaw dropped. The inside of the club was sheer chaos. Ponies sat in small booths scattered throughout the digital construct, on walls, in the air, on the ceiling, it didn’t matter where. Physics, it seemed, had been checked at the door. The world was what you wanted it to be, and the owner of the establishment wanted this to be chaotic. No detail was spared, even down to the way the glasses shook in time with the music.
“This place is… whoah. There are ponies sitting on the ceiling!” Silky gawked, watching an upside down couple sharing drinks above the bar. The griffon bartender beneath them refilled one of the glasses, the liquid pouring upward into the glass.
“Yeah! Isn’t it cool?” Coral replied, her voice carrying through the din. Silky sat down and absorbed it all. Loud music, lively crowds, nearby a DJ entertained a dancefloor of ponies, some doing flips between the platforms in sync with the music.
“Can I help you ladies?” a zebra in uniform said as he walked up. He had a gold ring in his ear as well as a few silver bands holding up his mane. Upon seeing Coral he brightened, “Coral!”
“Hi Jericho!” Coral replied cheerfully, pulling the stallion into a friendly hug.
“Hello maishuul! It’s been too long! What brings you to my humble club?”
Silky’s eyes bulged. His club?
“I’m just here to show my friend a good time. It’s her first time in the net!”
“Oh?” he turned to Silky, appraising her. “well you certainly know how to pick them. I’ll see if I can’t get you a good table near the dancefloor. In the meantime, please, make yourselves at home.” The zebra made a polite bow before moving to a pair of staff standing nearby and shouting a few orders.
“Thanks Jericho!” Coral called after him.
“Was that-” Silky started.
“The owner? Nah, Jericho’s just the floor host. He’s in charge of all the wait staff here,” Coral explained, smiling. “I met him in person a while back. He’s a really nice colt! We started dating a few weeks ago and that’s when he invited me here.”
“Alright ladies, I’ve got you a spot near the front. Have a good time! Also, maishuul, you and me, later? Mmm?” The zebra asked with sensual undertones.
“Maybe,” Coral replied slyly, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Priorities, remember?”
“Mmm, maybe I’ll free up my schedule then,” he said happily. “Enjoy yourselves!”
Coral waved to him as he went back to work, then took silky’s hoof and dragged her to to the dance floor.
The rest of the night was lost in a sea of moving bodies. Hours passed in what felt like minutes. After a time they took a break. Coral dragged Silk off the floor to one of the tables in the corner. The music dimmed around them as they reached their table, and menus popped open in front of them. Silky stared in wonder, her head still swimming from she had just done.
“So what do you think Silkie? Do ya like it?”
Endless opportunity, endless possibilities. In this world it didn’t matter who or what she was, where she lived, or what she owned. Only her actions mattered. In this digital life, she could be anything.
With a big smile she said, “This is AWESOME!”
