Radiohead Live from the Cloud
A sci-fi short story
“Hey, dude,” said a black and white modified bear floating in the dark red void. “How many Radiohead concerts have you been to?”
“Here or back in PR?” I asked.
“Either.”
“I’ve been to PR simulcasts in VR, but this will be my first true live experience. I could never afford tickets to see Radiohead in physical reality—too expensive.”
“Luckily you don’t have to worry about the price of anything in the Cloud.” The Modified Bear waved his animated paws at the massive crowd floating 360-degrees around us as far as the virtual eye could see. There were millions of avatars in all shapes and sizes. Like most people, my VR avatar looked like my body from PR—or a fitter, happier version of myself that never actually existed. The veneer of Instagram filters became veracity in the Cloud.
“This will be my twelfth Radiohead concert,” the Modified Bear said. “Though technically, I didn’t go to the last four—my original body went in PR then uploaded the memory to Cloud-sync with me.”
“You’ve still got a body in PR? Lucky. I’ve been digitally-exclusive for three years now.”
“Did you die unexpectedly, or—”
“No, it was a voluntary upload,” I said. “I sold my body to cover the Cloud hosting fees for the rest of my virtual life.” Which was essentially forever.
“I was thinking of doing the same thing,” the Modified Bear said. “It costs so much money to maintain a body in PR. Then again, one of the main reasons I kept my physical form was to go to Radiohead concerts. But now that Thom has uploaded…”
“Yeah, he was a holdout for a while, but he finally gave in to join us in virtual immortality.”