The young boy sitting next to me on the subway adjusted his AR implant settings through his mobile interface. I watched as his face shifted into a great white shark. He smiled at his mother with large serrated teeth and she rolled her eyes. I could only assume the woman sitting next to the boy was his mother. She had her AR set to resemble a popular anime character. An upgraded appearance option.
No one appeared as they truly were anymore. Augmented reality, social media, and the power of perception changed the way we interact with one another. Anonymity online became reality, and what once existed only in video games and the internet now walked the streets beside us, sharing our world. Real faces were a thing of the past. Now we could be anyone or anything – for a price.
I left the boy and his “mother” on the subway and walked through a crowd of cartoon characters. A young man with flaming hair and orange skin flirted with a group of girls who resembled cats. I did not know if the flame-haired man was, in fact, young or if his real body matched his AR one. The “girls” giggled at his jokes – their cat-like eyes following the man’s flaming hair as it shifted and moved like a candle. The man’s upgraded hair must have been expensive. I didn’t understand how people could spend so much money on such frivolities.
When AR hit mainstream I refused to buy into the dream. Sure, it was a fun toy to play around with, but to wear another appearance on a daily basis was wrong. Children were growing up not knowing what they or their friends really looked like. People were getting married without ever seeing their spouse’s true appearance. It was frightening and dangerous.
Optik, the company behind the AR phenomenon, ensured the public they created security safeguards to prevent people from stealing appearances. You could alter your own appearance, but would not be permitted to copy an influencer or individual. The idea was to enhance your looks, not steal someone else’s for nefarious purposes. But, like everything else, programers soon discovered a way around the safeguards, allowing murderers and rapists to infiltrate family homes “presenting” themselves as someone’s spouse, or parent.
Black market deals and crime waves almost shut Optik down and halted the AR bandwagon. However, the public’s desire to become someone else allowed Optik to keep making everyone’s AR dreams a reality.
I didn’t need that reality. My husband, John, and I agreed we didn’t need AR to be happy. We loved one another long before AR existed and wanted our future children to grow up in an AR free environment.
The walk home from the subway hurt my eyes. The shimmering AR haze surrounding everyone distorted reality in such a way that you began to question it. What was real anymore? I would be happy to get home inside our small and very real apartment, away from the distortion of the outside world.
John usually arrived home before me and would start dinner. He was a great cook. I opened our apartment door expecting to be greeted by the warm aroma of a home-cooked meal, instead, the entryway was cold, dark, and stale. The light was on in the kitchen, and there was no sound of cooking. Quiet whispers drifted down the hall and greeted me. John was not alone.
I slowly made my way to the kitchen, concerned about the change in routine. I could make out the voice of a woman as I rounded the corner and stopped dead in my tracks.
A man with John’s voice stood up and approached me. He held out a smooth hand, imperceptibly fuzzy at the edges. His face was angelic, free of blemishes, and reminded me of a younger version of John. As if someone had photoshopped John’s scar away from his motorcycle accident when he was 19, and filled in his thinning blond hair with fully wavy locks.
The smooth hand gently took my own, and I heard John’s voice as he led me toward our small kitchen table. “Anna, don’t be frightened. It’s me.”
The strange, perfect, John sat me down facing an equally strange woman. Her hair was jet black, and her skin was porcelain, unblemished, and smooth. She smiled nervously with plump red lips. Her whole body, including her ample breasts, appeared hazy as if she was an animated character from a video game.
Young John sat down next to the woman and held her hand with his own oddly perfect one. Years of welding, and manual labor erased by the AR implant.
“Anna, this is Celia.” I realized John was speaking again. “We are in love,” He said calmly as if speaking to a child.
The two fake people stared lovingly into each other’s eyes and Celia nestled her tiny head on John’s shoulder.
It slowly dawned on me what he had said. “No,” I replied.
John’s angelic face distorted into a scowl. “Anna, don’t be difficult. Celia was brave enough to come here and talk to you as an adult.”
I laughed, “An adult?! Is she? How do you even know?”
“Anna, don’t be like that,” He said.
“Be like what? Angry, upset, hurt?” I wiped tears from my eyes. “You expect me to be happy for you after telling me you’ve been unfaithful?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Anna,” John said. “I felt I owed you an explanation before I involve a lawyer.”
“You want a divorce?” I said confused. “I thought we were happy. I thought you didn’t care about AR – we didn’t care about AR.”
“I changed my mind,” He responded. “Celia changed my mind.” John smiled at the cartoon woman again and I felt sick.
“Why should I grant you a divorce?” I asked.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Difficult?” I chuckled, “You just ruined my life and you expect me to just roll over and be happy for you. Go fuck yourself.”
John stood up, angry, “I’m leaving you, Anna. There is nothing you can do to change this. I love Celia and I thought you deserved to know.”
“She’s not real,” I said. “None of it is real!”
John slammed his hand on the table, starting his fake girlfriend and myself. “I thought you, of all people, would have been mature enough to understand.”
“You know how I feel about this AR bullshit,” I told him. “And I thought you were mature enough to not fall into its trap. I guess I was wrong.”
John turned to Celia, “Let’s go, Doll. I’m done here.”
“Are you sure, Baby,” Celia said in a tiny voice. She sounded fake as if she was making herself sound more childlike. “She’s pretty upset.”
“Don’t worry about it, Doll. She’ll get over it.” John said as if I wasn’t even there.
“This is not real,” I repeated, quietly, more to myself than to John or his fake mistress.
John pulled Celia to her tiny feet. “The world is changing Anna, You just refuse to see it.”
As they walked past me to leave, their combined smell of body odor and decay wafted over. Like everyone else with enhanced bodies and faces, John and Celia neglected their hygiene. The whole world was beginning to stink.
“No, I see it,” I muttered as the apartment door closed behind them. “I see it more than some.”
The apartment was quiet and empty. I didn’t know what was real anymore. John and I were going to start a family. We were going to be happy. I wanted that dream to be a reality more than any other. But all I could smell was their stink.
I walked to the kitchen window and stepped out onto the fire escape. The stench of the city hit me like a wave of sewage and neglect. I hated the smell and feared I was the only one who noticed it. Down below, John and Celia trotted out onto the city street. Their new bodies blending in with the rest of the garbage.
“This is not real,” I thought as I stepped off the fire escape.
“On the News at Six. Yet another death from Augmented Reality sickness. Following this tragedy, we’ll be speaking with leading experts in the field about how to combat AR depression and discussing tips to help you transition to your new AR lifestyle.
Don’t blend in, stand apart with AR!”
Notes from author:
I wrote this short story a few years ago when the first google glasses were being made. And now we have meta glasses, VR headsets, and AR glasses. I attemped to have this published at the time (under a different pen name) with zero success. So I decided to post it here. Enjoy!