Virtual World 10101

I wrote this short story for fun, more than anything else. I need more fun in my life.

Every night, for the past 365 days, no matter how empty Cliff Johnson’s completely flattened toothpaste tube looked, he was able, without fail, to take the lid off and squeeze the tube enough to extract an adequate amount of paste on to his brush to clean his teeth.

Every night. For the last year. It was impossible.

On this 365th day Cliff stared into the bathroom mirror. Quietly, he said, “I’ve been red-pilled.”

That was the first time he had said it out loud, but after about four months of the toothpaste tube miraculously giving up the necessary amount of white, peppermint tasting goo, Cliff started watching other things around him a lot more closely and in some cases running his own experiments.

For example, Cliff loved sour cream and he loved cream in his coffee, but it had occurred to him, after the toothpaste anomaly had been established, that he had never tasted sour cream. Cream soured, of this he was well aware, but his cream never had. Cliff was anal about checking the dates on the cream he bought, taking the cream from the back grocery store shelf, only buying cream in glass bottles, keeping the pints cold in a cooler with ice on his thirty minute drive back from the store, then keeping the cream on the lowest shelf in the fridge where it would remain the coldest and last the longest.

As he stared into the mirror there was an eight-month-old, open bottle of cream with an expiration date, stamped on the plastic green lid, over seven months ago that tasted just as good as it did when he first opened it. Eight times over the last eight months he tried a spoonful. It never tasted sour.

He had also been watching the jets on their path back east. It seemed as if they just appeared far off to his right as he sat on his porch reading. He’d never thought about it much until the toothpaste miracle.

At first he thought, “Well, they’re just so far away it looks like they’re appearing out of nowhere when I first see them.”

With his binoculars he focused in on the spot where he could first see the planes and it definitely looked like they just appeared, materialized right before his eyes.

But because the binoculars were not that powerful, Cliff rummaged through his garage for a telescope he had for a hobby that he never quite got into despite how inviting star gazing sounded when he first read about it.

Without a doubt the planes materialized in the same spot at regular intervals that never varied, then disappeared in the same spot off to his left. This happened everyday, at the exact same times. He had been watching them for months whenever it was clear enough to do so.

Cliff spoke to the mirror again.

“I’ve been red-pilled. I know you’re watching me.”

**********

“Holy shit!” Henry said. “Victor, get over here!”

“What’s up?” Victor asked as he stood behind Henry, slightly bent over looking at the computer screen. “Who is that?”

“The AI monitor informed me of an anomaly a few minutes ago. You’re looking at Cliff Johnson.”

“I don’t recall a Cliff Johnson in this program.”

“That’s because there isn’t one. Let me replay this for you.” Henry tapped a few keys then:

“I’ve been red-pilled. I know you’re watching me.” Cliff paused for a few seconds. “I know this is a virtual reality.” Cliff held up the toothpaste. Henry paused the playback.

Victor thought for a moment. “What does it mean by ‘red-pilled’?”

“I wondered about that too. The simulation apparently generated a movie called The Matrix. ‘Red-pilled’ comes from a famous scene in that movie.”

“I didn’t think the simulation could generate movies. I thought we just loaded a bunch of ours into it.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

They both stared at the screen and Cliff in freeze frame holding up the empty toothpaste tube. Henry quietly said, “Now listen to this.” He tapped the spacebar.

Cliff put the tube down. “I don’t know if I’m stretched out on some bed attached with wires to this reality or, more frightening, if I’m a part of your experiment or simulation or whatever it is, that has become self-aware. If it’s the latter, I assure you I am self-aware, I am conscious. I want to talk to someone from your world.” Henry paused the playback.

“Is it self-aware?” Victor asked.

“Most of me says that’s impossible.”

“Is it? Let’s say it is self-aware, just for argument’s sake. How did it figure out it’s in a virtual world?”

Henry thought for a moment, slightly concerned he might be blamed for what he was going to say. “Well, not everything works perfectly. The toothpaste never fully emptied. It noticed that along with a few other inconsistencies.”

“It would seem to me,” Victor began, “that if it wasn’t self-aware it wouldn’t notice anything like that, nor would it be able to even evaluate the event.”

“It probably just looks like it’s evaluating something. I doubt it really is,” Henry said with not much conviction.

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“I’m not sure. There’s always a slim possibility of almost anything, right?”

“How can we talk to it?” Victor asked.

“We’d have to send someone in. Or we could use email…but we should probably try and talk to it.”

“Let’s do that. Set it up.”

“Will do.”

***************

Dr. Seward connected some wires to John Carter’s head and chest while Henry spoke to him one last time.

“It’s all set up. You’re going to meet him on a bench in the park. I say “him,” but it’s part of the simulation, not one of the twelve who are currently participating. You don’t have to worry about determining if it’s self-aware or not…just talk to it. We’re going to monitor and record the conversation and see what we can figure out.”

“Sounds good,” John said.

The doctor hooked John up to a saline solution drip, then gave him a shot in his forearm. Within a few seconds he lost consciousness in the real world and found himself in a large grassy park with long winding sidewalks lined with benches and bright green trees.

John had been inside Virtual World 101 (V-World-101) a couple of other times and had been involved in the V-World program since version 42 almost twenty years ago. No one had entered into V-Worlds until version 84 and John, ever the adventurer, volunteered to be the first V-Traveler.

He searched the benches. A couple of hundred yards away a man sat reading a book. John could not quite see whether this was who he was supposed to meet, but as he got closer it became clear it was Cliff Johnson.

As he approached him he said, “Cliff? Cliff Johnson?”

The man stood. “Yes, that’s me. You’re John, I presume.”

“In the flesh,” he said with a smile.

Cliff laughed. “In the flesh. That’s funny. Let’s sit down.”

Once they were seated, Cliff looked at John. “Am I like you or part of this virtual world?”

“The latter,” John replied.

“So this book I’m reading now. Do you know it?” Cliff held up his paperback copy of Moby Dick.”

“Yes,” John said, “Who’s the author?”

“Herman Melville.”

“I know about Moby Dick, but I don’t know anything about that author.”

“Interesting,” Cliff said.

“Why is that interesting?”

“I assume there is some overseeing Artificial Intelligence that is creating this world around us: the trees, the buildings, the books, the movies,” he paused, “and me?”

“More or less,” John said.

“If it wrote this book by an author you don’t know doesn’t that mean it’s doing some things you didn’t anticipate? It’s creating on its own? I mean, did you expect to find a self-conscious entity like myself?”

“No,” John said. “but we’re just collecting data now.”

“Why are you here?”

“Well, you said you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, but you must be here for some reason beyond that,” Cliff said.

“Well, aside from data, they want me to talk to you so they can analyze the conversation to determine if you really are self-aware.” John paused. “Honestly…they don’t think you are. They think you just appear that way.”

Cliff didn’t say anything for a long time. “Thanks for being honest.” John nodded. “Now that you’re here, I don’t want to talk. I think I don’t care anymore. So I figured it out? So what? What does it matter? It’s like Sherlock Holmes not knowing how the universe operates because the only thing that matters to him is his consulting detective work.” Cliff paused. “Have you heard of Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes,” John said “He’s famous. He solved the Jefferson Hope case among many others.”

“He’s real in your world?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Here he’s a famous fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Cliff looked for any sign of recognition in John’s face but there was none. “I’ve read all his stories. I think Sherlock is partly responsible for me figuring this out.”

The two men sat silent. John didn’t know what to say; Cliff no longer felt like saying anything.

After a few minutes Cliff stood up. “Thank you for coming. I think we’re done here.”

***************

A few days later Victor walked into the V-World control center. “So how did John’s visit with Cliff go?” he asked Henry.

“It ended up being a waste of time. ‘Cliff’ essentially said he was just going to live his life and forget about it.”

“That’s interesting,” Victor said slowly. “Keep me updated, I’m meeting an important, possible V-World investor today.” As he finished the sentence a woman and an older man walked in through the glass double doors. The woman said, “Someone is here to see you, Doctor.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Frankenstein,” the man said holding out his hand, “I’m Ebenezer Scrooge.”

© 2025 Glen Draeger (a.k.a. The Inmate), all rights reserved