Perspective: Elias Vandar
Setting: Seattle streets, Day 2 post-message – March 12, 2025 – 2:37 PM PST
The synthetic voice of [The System] cut off at 2:37 PM, exactly 24 hours after it seized every screen in the Nexlify office with its cryptic “Greetings and welcome to [The System]”. Elias slumped at his desk, his wiry frame lost in an oversized MIT hoodie, glasses fogged from the heat of a laptop now blinking back to a stalled neural net debug. His fingers hovered over the keys, craving the ghost signal’s trace. Nothing. No packets, no handshake, just silence. Bostrom’s simulation argument states that one in three realities is coded. Yesterday says ours is 100%, but where’s the proof? The office hummed faintly—AC droning, coffee machine gurgling, a foosball table gathering dust in the corner.
No one went home that first night. Sleeping in cubicles and privacy offices, the group stayed together, discussing the coming apocalypse with varying degrees of seriousness. As the evening waned on, each fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of a world yet to come.
That afternoon, the sun lighting the office in bands of gold and orange, Dennis Nguyen leaned back, flannel taut over his broad shoulders, the faint tang of venison jerky drifting from an open tupperware bowl. “World didn’t end, no aliens dropping in,” he said, twirling his knife with a grin.
Alicia Wilson stretched near her cubicle, yoga mat peeking from her bag, her lithe silhouette framed by the rays of the sun. “It’s strange though, 24 hours of that voice, and now it’s just gone, like a dream you can’t place,” she murmured, her soft tone tugging at Elias.
Marcus Reyes stood up, stretching loudly, “Let’s hit the streets, see if Seattle’s freaking out or just sleepwalking,” he said, voice steady.
They stepped onto 4th Avenue, Seattle’s damp Tuesday wrapping them in drizzle and diesel fumes. Buses rumbled, a barista commented over the espresso hiss, “Heard it in Spanish too, that’ll be five bucks”.
Elias saw a man with a sign, “System truther” scrawled in red marker, tattered coat snapping against the wind, screaming “System equals NWO! Don’t listen to the devils!” His shouts faded underneath “Come as you are” blasting from a car waiting at the intersection. Elias turned back, watching his group separate from him rapidly. He trotted forward, skinny legs stiff in tight jeans, phone dim with rebooted normalcy.
Dennis led the group into a coffee shop next to the office, nudging Marcus after he ordered everyone’s coffees. “People can’t just not care, right? Yesterday was all ‘Planet Conversion,’ ‘Mana cores’, end of the world! Now, it’s just more coffee and commuters.”
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“X is quiet,” Marcus replied, scrolling through his phone, “except for some topics around Mana core memes and debates about finally getting better 5G. Business news is nearly identical, stocks dipped 2%, and Vegas set odds on ‘Apocalypse survival’ at 3:1. Everyone owes me three bucks for the coffees.”
Alicia drifted closer, cup steaming, scanning over Marcus’s shoulder, “That’s the sad part, we're all just numb. Wars, recession, yesterday’s message, and we’re sipping lattes?”
TJ scoffed, opening the third pack of six sugars she laced her coffee with, “Numb’s generous, stupid’s closer. This country has gone soft, no one believes it will happen to them. Until it does.” Grimacing as she tested her coffee, she opened a seventh package and stirred it in. “No invasion is needed if everyone is a sheep. Sheep always get eaten, it’s just a question of which wolf.”
Elias saw the Coke flying at his head before Marcus yelled, “Hydrate, kid”. Catching the carbonated hand grenade, he tapped the top, hoping it wouldn’t explode when he popped the cap. “They’re rolling with it, traffic’s fine, shops open, police are out and the homeless are still everywhere. It really is just another day. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Seriously guys, three bucks each.”
Alicia nodded, “That’s it! There was this one time, in yoga, where this lady got a call from her doctor. He told her she had cancer. Lady hung up and kept posing. We went out for drinks after too!! I mean, look at everyone, walking around doing regular stuff. The world’s too prickly and jaded to flinch, like Elias said, God’s code or not, we’re deaf.”
Later, as they walked around Pike Place, the fishy tang hit them, a vendor hollering, “Fresh, System-approved!”, with a wink that fell flat. Tourists snapped pics, oblivious. Alicia eyed a newsstand, newspapers flapping in the wind, “Mystery Broadcast Stumps Experts,” “Recession Fears”, “Latest blockbuster flop”.
“This could be some kind of mass hallucination.” Elias murmured, “A simulacrum. A Virtual world, so realistic that no one can prove otherwise. Yet paradoxically, we all know its ‘not real’. Think about all the mass casualty events, what was the reaction? The Lusitania, 1200 dead, and the country shrugged until 1917. World war 1 and 2, the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki. We don’t have the best reaction to mass deaths and looming wars. This feels a lot like that.”
TJ leaned on a lamppost, “Doesn’t mean it’s fake, just means we’re dumb. Yesterday was a warning, but here?” She waved at the crowd, “They’d cheer a devil if they promised a tax break.”
Looping back to Nexlify, late afternoon drizzle soaking Elias’s hoodie, a truther cornered them, “Illuminati coded it! 33rd parallel proof!”, and TJ shoved past,
“Tin hat clown,” Dennis laughed, shooing the man away.
“Bet he’s got a podcast.” Alicia sighed.
Inside, the office hummed, AC whirring, keyboards clacking. Elias sank into his chair, Dennis’s jerky stench wafting as he typed a log: Day 2—world’s a hedge, neutrality’s our drug.
