Monopolis 

He knew they were invading his dreams; injecting their product directly into his unconscious. For weeks now, Terry Rowntree had not gone a night without dreaming about Coala. Every time he slept, an unquenchable thirst, like a curse, afflicted him, and the only way to lift it was by dreaming of guzzling ice-cold Coala. His waking hours were not much different; the bottles had piled up, a testament to the power of thirst. 

It was the end of the week, and Terry was looking forward to another marathon session in his favorite game. As he arrived home from his day job at The Bank, dozens of empty Coala bottles welcomed him, strewn across parts of his attic flat, as if they were now an integral part of the décor. Nonchalantly, he threw his bag and coat down and headed straight for the fridge. He grabbed a fresh bottle, opened it, and took a loving gulp of the dark liquid. Who would have thought the secret ingredient was, in fact, a by-product of fossil fuels? The thought flashed through his mind as naturally as breathing. He carried this thought over to his computer, kicked aside the empty Coala bottles that had gathered around the desk from the night before, synchronized his Bio-Chip implant with the computer’s Poly-Core processor, and informed it via a wirelessly transmitted brainwave to load up Monopolis. 

In Monopolis, the aim was to form a virtual company and systematically take over all other opponents’ companies until only one remained. As a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy immersive simulator (MMORITS), players from across the globe started out as limited companies in industries like media, banking, or even more obscure commodities, like Dream Space. Terry had always found the notion of owning dreams fascinating—yet somehow, lately, it all felt too familiar. 

The invention of Monosoft’s revolutionary biochip, the Butterfly, made the impossible possible: an infinite number of variables, all rendered directly from the player’s mind. Implanted into the user’s brain, the chip fed off brainwaves to generate original content in real-time. It eliminated the need for programmers, transforming the game into a reflection of the human subconscious—a place where every twisted fantasy, every hidden desire, could come to life. 

But Terry had begun to suspect something. The game was not just a game anymore. It was changing him. At first, he shrugged off the nagging feeling, attributing it to exhaustion. But every night, the thirst—the same one that haunted his dreams—seemed to deepen. His life was becoming harder to distinguish from the game itself. Was he dreaming about Coala because of the game, or was the game dreaming of Coala because of him? 

As the game loaded, he sipped another gulp of Coala, feeling the cool liquid rush down his throat, quelling that persistent itch in the back of his mind. Terry’s avatar materialized in front of a sprawling metropolis: towering glass buildings and endless streams of data coursing through the streets like veins of digital life. In this world, he had control. In this world, he was the conqueror. 

Imaginary Monetary Fund: Evening all! R for some takeovers? :))) 

Sly News: Gevenin’ Tez, taken over most of North America already. Just about to take down Icequeen’s Fraud car manufacturer. 

Fraud: Wtf Doc! I thought we had an agreement; take down Warmart then go for Armazon in the south >_< 

Sly News: Muahaha! Sry Ice but there’s no room for love in this game. 

The banter between players flowed as easily as the Coala did through Terry Rowntrees’s system. Yet, as the messages flickered on-screen, something gnawed at the back of his mind. He’d heard stories—rumors that had spread through Monopolis‘ player base like wildfire. There had been a real-world murder, a direct result of the game. A player, furious after a hostile takeover, had tracked down the CEO of Armazon through their online profiles, waiting outside their home and shooting them in cold blood. And how had the killer known where to find him? The Butterfly biochip. 

Imaginary Monetary Fund: Didn’t you hear about Armazon? CEO murdered one of its members in real life. 

Fraud: WTF!!! Really!? 

Imaginary Monetary Fund: He used the biochip to track him down. The chip connects everything: your location, brainwaves, even your unconscious thoughts. 

Terry froze for a moment. He’d heard rumours, but hearing it now in the game, from a reliable source—how much of his life was being controlled? Could the Butterfly chip know more than he wanted it to? He felt a shiver run through his spine, but he quickly buried it. He was winning. He couldn’t stop now. 

The lines between the game and reality were beginning to blur, and Terry could feel it. As players merged companies, eliminated rivals, and clawed their way to the top, their behaviour grew more erratic. Corporate greed gave way to personal vendettas, and Terry wondered how long it would take for someone to come after him, not just in the game, but in real life. 

As fossil fuels and rainforests dwindled, the in-game corporations began investing in biofuels, lithium, and the hot commodity of the moment: Helium-3. Terry’s corporation, once a soft-drink empire, had long since expanded into mining. In-game scientists raced to build oxygen-breathing apparatuses, as the Earth in Monopolis was rapidly becoming uninhabitable for carbon-based life. The remaining corporations turned to robotics, shedding their human avatars for more efficient, mechanical vessels. 

Terry’s hand shook slightly as he took another gulp of Coala, and thirsted for more. He could feel his body weakening—his limbs stiff from hours in the chair, his vision blurring. He reached out to grab another bottle and gulped it down, yet the thirst remained. He then struggled to get up from his chair, startled at how frail he had become. His real-world body was shrivelling, starving for nourishment, but his virtual corporation was thriving. 

With a sudden, overwhelming need for air, Terry stumbled to the window. He opened it and felt the toxic wind slap his face. Below, the world outside was no longer what he remembered. The street was gone, submerged in murky water. Synthetic sea-bulls grazed where his driveway used to be. In the distance, the outline of Monopolis emerged, shimmering like a colossal crystal labyrinth, its towers stretching into the heavens. Terry’s hands trembled as he realized something terrible. 

He wasn’t in the real world. He was still in the game. 

Panicked, Terry Rowntree clawed at his face, trying to pull off the headset, only to find there was none. His mind, flesh, shrivelled and weak, was still fused to the game, trapped in the chair, unable to wake up. Every attempt to escape was met with failure. The Butterfly chip had fused with his mind, trapping him in a perpetual loop of virtual conquest. 

He stared out into the expanse, watching the pixelated world before him shimmer and dissolve into the luminous skies. As it dawned on him: the others hadn’t stopped playing. They were trapped too. Everyone who entered a MMORTIS game, never left alive. 

© Aiwaz 2024