I went home and opened my MacBook.
Shivering from the cold, I clicked the link from Hiro. The letter “U” floated slowly onto the black screen, accompanied by a pulsating sound.
“…U?”
The screen lit my vomit-spattered face.
An invitation page appeared with a message on it.
U is another reality.
Your AS is another you.
You can’t redo life in the real world. But in U, you can.
It’s time to live as another you.
It’s time to begin a new life.
It’s time to change the world.
“……!!”
I stared at the screen, transfixed, forgetting the outside chill.
The app started up automatically on my laptop, syncing with my cell phone lying next to it. The registration page appeared on the screen, asking for my name.
“My name…”
I hesitated. I felt reluctant to enter it. Still, my hands reached out to the keyboard.
S…u…z…
I typed the letters haltingly.
…u
Powerful anxiety welled up inside me. I impulsively tapped the backspace key and closed my MacBook like I was shutting an open door.
“……”
I curled over the table and sighed shakily.
“I wanna be next to Ruka!”
My eyes landed on Ruka, who was sitting on a bench in the courtyard.
Girls were pressed in all around her. Our first year of high school was almost over, so they’d decided to take a group photo.
“I’m sitting next to her!”
“No fair!”
“I wanna be near her!”
Standing in the shadow of a column, I looked longingly at Ruka. I was jealous of the girls who got to take a picture with her.
“Ruka, look over here. I’m gonna take it now,” the girl holding the camera said. Ruka looked forward. She must have noticed me then, because she started waving dramatically.
“Hey, Suzu!”
“Me?”
She gestured for me to come over to them.
“Get in the picture with us!”
All the other girls stared at me, obviously wondering what had gotten into her. Panicking, I hid behind the column, then poked my face out and waved dismissively.
“N-no, I’m okay.”
She kept gesturing for me to come.
“Hurry up!”
Later, someone sent me the picture. Ruka was surrounded by a group of girls making cute peace signs. My freckle-splattered face was among theirs. I was standing right behind Ruka like some sort of ghost, making the most awkward peace sign.
When I tried registering for U again, I had to upload a photo of myself. I didn’t have any. Why would I ever want to take a selfie? So I used that group photo.
A facial recognition marker appeared, asking me to identify myself among the girls. I moved the cursor to the freckled face behind Ruka.
A message appeared. Our AI system is automatically creating a new AS, it read, along with a note: AS is what avatars are called on U. Another you.
Another me.
After a moment, the freshly rendered AS was displayed.
“Huh…?”
The AS was completely different from me, almost frighteningly beautiful. She looked more like Ruka than me.
“Why Ruka…?”
Maybe the AI had gotten us mixed up because we were next to each other in the photo? Pretty sloppy for artificial intelligence. I figured I’d better fix the problem and lifted my finger to hit the BACK button.
“Crap, no. Back, back, cancel…”
Suddenly, I froze. A pattern of red dots was drawn clearly on the AS’s face.
“Freckles…”
I instinctively touched my own cheek. Weren’t those mine?
“No way… Is that me…?”
I slowly typed one letter at a time into the name field on the registration screen. This time, I didn’t write Suzu.
B…e…l…l
The English word for Suzu.
“…Bell.”
As soon as I chose a name for the AS, I felt a surge of tenderness for her.
A CANCEL button and an OK button appeared onscreen. I had to choose.
“What should I do…?”
I didn’t feel brave enough to claim that beautiful AS was me. I was losing my nerve.
Part of me felt like it didn’t matter that she was completely different from the real me. Wasn’t the Internet all about distancing yourself from reality? Lots of people used showy names or icons on social media. U was a virtual world, and ASes were virtual people. This world’s creators claimed to strictly protect privacy and ensure anonymity. In that case, no one ought to be able to criticize me here.
So why not? I thought. But the next moment, I hesitated.
Why did U’s AI system create this beautiful AS for me in the first place? Was it just some chance outcome of indeterminacy? Had it looked deep into my heart and seen my greatest desires? Or…
“Cancel or okay?”
I had to choose.
It was late at night; a desk lamp offered the only light in the study. Sitting in front of my MacBook, I made up my mind and steadied my breathing.
It’s time to live as another you.
The U message looped through my mind.
I clicked the OK button.
The U app on my phone instantly started up, like it had been waiting for this moment.
“Please put on your device,” a calm, female voice instructed.
I did as I was told and took a pair of what looked like earbuds out of their case, then popped them into my ears.
“Reading biometric information…”
The U insignia on the device flickered blue. This single device was apparently able to scan all sorts of biological information. Really quickly, too.
“Scan complete,” the voice said. Then, as if confirming something, it added, “Now initiating body sharing.”
There was a bwawawawa sound, like something spinning fast. My head felt like it was wrapped in a rubber band. I’d heard that was caused by the powerful magnetic field that the device generated. Maybe that was why my hair was floating as if I was in an antigravity chamber.
“Syncing vision.”
I felt the magnetic field gather at the back of my head.
I slowly opened my eyes.
“Ahhh!!”
Brilliant white light flooded in.
It was cloth. White layers of cloth maybe thirty feet high flapping in the wind. I looked down at my body and my heart skipped a beat.
My feet were floating.
The announcer’s voice came again, like a message from heaven.
“Now syncing cognitive functions and deep limb sensations.”
What does that mean? I was speechless even in the unreal world, too. Sweat seeped from every pore and my heart pounded in my chest.
“Transferring your sense of bodily autonomy and ownership to your registered AS.”
Something approached me slowly from behind. I caught a glimpse of pink hair.
It was the AS I had just registered. But its face was completely blank, like a white plate with nothing on it.
As I stared in a daze, this faceless girl—my embodied AS—was overlayed onto my body. The sensation of a separate body invading my own made my skin crawl. The AS shifted forward and backward like she was adjusting her focus and quickly achieved a perfect fit. Instantly, my disgust vanished.
On the far side of the fluttering white cloth I could see a large white door. I walked slowly toward it, both hands stretched before me.
“Welcome to the world of U,” the announcer said.
I put my hands on the door, and it flew open.
As I rushed through the door, a vista of soaring skyscrapers unfolded as far as I could see.
“Whoa…”