Your Clothing is Still Downloading

By Huckleberry Hax

Did the internet, I asked myself, really expose hidden, but pre-existing identity? Or did it create brand new identity that would never have happened without it? Or was its ultimate function just to take whatever identity you'd managed to build and to tear it into tiny, unexaminable pieces? Was Benjamin Burton just an evolution of his younger self – the guy I'd met at university who'd once told me he regarded marital fidelity as one of the most important pillars to the meaning of life – or was that man no longer in existence, replaced by a new human being who only happened to share a few of his memories?

What's a guy to do when his best friend asks him to impersonate him for an evening in Second Life? What if the person he wants fooling is his wife? And what if the impersonator has fallen in love with her before the week is over?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Huckleberry Hax
• Release date: Jan 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466016200

Huckleberry Hax

Huckleberry Hax writes novels set in and around virtual worlds. His best-known titles are the books of the AFK series set in Second Life®.A resident of Second Life since 2007, Huck also writes regularly on his blog about the metaverse and was a columnist for the acclaimed AVENUE magazine for over two years. His book, Second Life is a place we visit, collects together 42 of these articles.Huck is also an experienced voice performer in SL and has read aloud from his and other titles at a wide range of venues, including Milkwood, The Blue Angel, Bookstacks, Cookie, Nordan Art and Basilique.Huck's other interests include poetry (he has published a volume of his own poems called Old friend, learn to look behind you in the coffee queue and co-edited issue one of the poetry journal, 'Blue Angel Landing'), photography and machinima.

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Your Clothing is Still Downloading

By Huckleberry Hax

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Huckleberry Hax

Huckleberry Hax is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover design by Huckleberry Hax

The terms 'Second Life,' and 'Linden' are copyright © Linden Research Inc.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to the memory of Nancy Redgrave.

[2007/12/20 16:19]  Nancy Redgrave wonders what she has to do to get a part in the next book....

So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 1

I was sitting in Persky's with my sixth coffee of the day and the first two lines of an ad for a price comparison website scratched out across the back of a napkin, when Benjamin Burton – aka Maximus Manchester – fell into the seat opposite me as though dropped through a trapdoor in the ceiling.  I need you to log on as me tonight, he said urgently.  I can't talk now, I have a train to catch in five minutes.  Did you touch your coffee yet?  I've not drunk a thing since eight-thirty.

What? I said.  What do you mean, log on as you?

I have to get the train, he said again.  I'm on a course tomorrow.  He took a long gulp from the other side of my cup.  Something to do with management.  I told Cath I'd stay in at the hotel tonight.  Do this for me, will you?  It would really help me out.

You want me to log in as you? I said, aware of the fact that I was effectively only repeating my previous utterance, but not yet in a state of familiarity with this proposition where I could ask something more meaningful.

My password's 'spritzer', he said.  Don't nose around in my inventory too much.  There's a folder called 'sycamore' in particular you're forbidden to enter.  He held out his right index finger pointed upwards in the three feet of air between us, as though to freeze a moment of time.  Don't ask.  More importantly, don't look.  He stood up, draining my cup as he did so.  He looked like he was about to launch himself into the air.

Oh, and I need your coat, he said.

What?  What do you want with my coat?

I forgot to bring mine.  It's going to be freezing up there.  I'll get it back to you as soon as I get back.

I wear this all the time, I protested, emptying the pockets all the same.

I owe you one, Gerry.  He grabbed the coat and made for the door.

Wait! I said.  I don't understand.

Call me, he said.  But not in the next five minutes.  I still have to get my ticket.  And he was gone.

"You want me to impersonate you to your wife?" I said into my phone exactly five minutes later.

You'll probably go the whole evening and not hear a word from her, he replied.  "Is this seat taken?  We belong to completely different communities: she doesn't go to my events and I don't go to hers.  I mean, she's interested in virtual wrestling, for fuck's sake.  Is this seat taken?  Sometimes I actually hear her shouting some sort of chant crap at the screen.  Some sort of fighter catchphrase bollocks.  'Fist!  Fist!  Fist!' she cries.  I think it's some sort of catharsis for her.  You'd never guess she's a librarian.  Is this seat taken?  She'll be way too busy to want to spend time with you.  All she needs is to see my name come up online.  She'll might ask you how my trip was and whether I ate something.  Is this seat taken?  Just tell her everything's fine.  Tell her you had a Panini at the station café.  You do realise 'taken' doesn't include your bags, right?  So someone's actually sitting here as opposed to you just want easy access to your shopping?  Fine.  But make it something like cheese and ham, nothing fancy.  She knows I'm allergic to tuna.  Tell her the taxi driver wouldn't stop moaning about the petrol prices.  I'm going to Manchester, by the way.  I'll text you when I get there so you know my arrival time.  Is this seat taken?  It's not?  Excellent.  I'm not going to be in the hotel tonight.  Not initially, at least.  You know, she'll probably not even say hello.  Can I just...?  Thanks.  You've got a fast PC, right?  You can run two viewers.  Just log on as me in the background and be Harold as per normal.  Make sure you log into my home, or there'll be people around.  Quite probably naked people.  Try not to talk to them.  No business transactions, please.  But log me in at home.  And no poking around in my inventory – especially the Sycamore folder.  We're moving.  The tunnel will cut us off.  Don't log on until you've had my text plus an hour for taxi and checking in.  Actually, I'll probably phone her from the station.  Wait until you've had my text.  Oh – if she comes over make sure I'm wearing something.  Put on the outfit with the-"

And the line went dead.

Repeated attempts to re-establish contact failed.  The most I got was thirty seconds of intermittent reception a half hour later, through which the universe chose to mock me by cutting out almost everything except the swear words: ...this fucking... bastard of a... bullshit... [long pause] cocksucker... I'm telling you, they think I'm going to stand and... fuck that... jumped-up ticket inspector... until Manchester... I'll ring you when...  Beep beep beep.

And then I could stretch my working lunch no further and had to head back to the office.  I stormed up the stairs in a red fury.  He hadn't even asked me if I'd been planning on staying in that evening.  I was, of course; but that wasn't the point.  I resolved to book myself a table for one at Largo's just to spite him.  Then I remembered how much I hated eating alone and resolved instead to book the table anyway, but not turn up and get a cancellation fee that I could wave in his shameless face.  I had no idea if restaurants charged cancellation fees if you didn't turn up.  Technically, I supposed, it wasn't a cancellation if you didn't actually cancel.  I resolved to make the booking and then cancel at a minute before I was due: even if I didn't get a cancellation fee, I could still quote their disapproving words at him.  Then I remembered how much I hate it when people express disapproval towards me – it actually brings me out in a rash behind my ear.  In any case, it was just conceivable I might one day take someone to Largo's, in which case any previously expressed disapproval would hang in the air like tear gas, inhibiting any initiation moves on my part because I'd be worried they'd recognised me from all those weeks/months/years ago and had spat in my food – or, worse, hers (because then I wouldn't be able to kiss her).  I resolved to not make any booking, but tell Ben that I had and had to cancel, and make up outraged insults hurled at me down the phone.  Except that Ben ate quite a bit at Largo's and had a habit of confronting people he had issues with.  I shelved my booking/cancellation plans.

I fumed at my desk for a full four minutes and then Nigel called me into his office to talk about the FairyGirl contract.  Ten minutes after that I was back at my desk with just twenty-four hours to come up with a new idea, my existing pitch rejected completely by the client on the grounds it wasn't girl enough.  I did my best at feigning incredulity, but I can't say I was that surprised.  I hate my job.  Our business is stereotype and cliché.  For some unfathomable reason, I'd spent days putting the FairyGirl brand together, hoping against hope that maybe this would be the product that defined a new age in children's advertising.  I'd spent hours researching Celtic mythology and fantasy literature.  I even interviewed six online fantasy roleplayers – which, I might add, I had to do in role myself.  It wouldn't have been so bad except the only position they had open was the village idiot.

But what the client wanted was " pretty and delicate and tea parties on mushrooms and tree stumps in a woodland fucking clearing."  They gave us two days to come up with something new and Nigel reduced that to one on the grounds that then he'd still have a day remaining in case I fucked it up again.

Ben sent me a text at eight to say he'd arrived in Manchester and reminded me to leave an hour before I logged on in his identity.  I replied, saying I'd been killed in a road traffic accident.  He didn't send condolences.  I logged on as Harold at eight-thirty and took my avatar to The Bitten Thumb where a bunch of the regulars were hanging out in their usual place on the big, circular sofa.  As usual, they were discussing an absent group member.  I stuck a curry for one in the microwave and took in five minute's worth of the conversation whilst I waited for the ding.

Silver Remmington: So Franklin has an issue with me.

Harlequin: Oh?

Goliath Watergate: What sort of an issue?

Silver Remmington: Apparently, I'm using the wrong sort of greeting with him.

Goliath Watergate: What sort of greeting are you using?

Harlequin: There are categories of greeting?

Mystic Tulip: Of course there are different categories of greeting, Har.

Silver Remmington: He said to me, 'So what's with the smileless hi?'

Harlequin: What the heck's a 'smileless hi'?

Silver Remmington: It's a hi without a smiley.

Silver Remmington: Apparently.

Harlequin: And that's bad because...?

Silver Remmington: He asserts that I add smileys to all my other people greetings.

Goliath Watergate: hmmmmm... Let's see now...

Goliath Watergate: He's been coming here for – what – four weeks now?

Goliath Watergate: That's still a bit early to qualify for smiley privileges.

Mystic Tulip: Smiley privileges are not issued according only to length of acquaintance, you oath.

Silver Remmington: In any case, he's talking bollocks.

Silver Remmington: I don't *do* smiley privileges.

Mystic Tulip: Sure you do, Silver.

Mystic Tulip: Everyone does smiley privileges.

Mystic Tulip: You just don't do it *consciously,* is all.

Silver Remmington: I really don't, you know.

Silver Remmington: I allocate smileys randomly.

Silver Remmington: It's a conscious effort.

Silver Remmington: The alternatives are to use them constantly, in which case I look like some sort of inane grinning idiot...

Silver Remmington: ...or to never use them, in which case I look like a miserable cow all the time...

Silver Remmington: ...or engage in smiley allocation, which – as the current anecdote ably demonstrates – is fraught with social peril.

Mystic Tulip: Silver, random smiley allocation is something you should never admit to.

Mystic Tulip: It's inhuman.

Mystic Tulip: It implies that no friend is more close to you than any other friend.

Mystic Tulip: Which is against the fabric of normal social intercourse.

Goliath Watergate: There's a fabric to social intercourse?

Mystic Tulip: Yes Goliath.

Mystic Tulip: And no – I'm not talking about bed sheets.

The microwave dinged.  I tipped cherry tomatoes and spring onions onto a side dish and took the whole lot back in front of the computer.  In these three minutes of my absence, Silver had teleported out.  Scrolling back up through the chat log, I saw her excuse that she'd had a call to shoe shopping from a friend.

Mystic Tulip: She *so* doesn't randomly allocate.

Goliath Watergate: This is all so confusing.

Goliath Watergate: I'm trying to work out what I do now.

Mystic Tulip: Just because it isn't conscious that doesn't mean you don't do it.

Harlequin: Isn't that a little unfalsifiable?

Goliath Watergate: How can something be only 'a little' unfalsifiable?

Harlequin: Fine.  Then just unfalsifiable.

Mystic Tulip: The subconscious never did lend itself well to empirical analysis.  No reason to not study it, though.

Harlequin: Sounds like a get-out to me.

Mystic Tulip: Nope.  Just the way things are.

Harlequin: What the hell does any of it matter anyway?

Harlequin: Who thinks themselves so self-important that they have some sort of right to a smiley greeting?

Harlequin: Who's so insecure that the absence of a smiley greeting – perceived or otherwise – is cause enough for confrontation?

Harlequin: Isn't that what we should be asking?

Mystic Tulip: Oh Har.  You're so sweet.

Mystic Tulip: Absence of smileys is a key non-verbal indicator in here.

Mystic Tulip: That's just the way things are.

Goliath Watergate: Yeah, I guess that's true.

Goliath Watergate: When Sonya greets me without a smiley, I know I'm in the shit.

Harlequin: But for God's sake, Goliath, she's your girlfriend.  Of *course* you're more finely tuned to her.

Harlequin: This is just someone Silver vaguely knew – and then only for a few weeks.

Mystic Tulip: You're attempting to defy insecurity with logic, honey.

Mystic Tulip: Insecurity and logic do not sleep well together.  That's pretty much the whole point of insecurity.

Harlequin: Well that's what I'm saying!

Harlequin: This is to do with Franklin's insecurity, not Silver's pattern of smiley allocation.

Harlequin: Maybe he has a thing for her!

Mystic Tulip: Right.  And having an argument with her about her smiley withholding would be a really great way of advancing that agenda.

Harlequin: Who's arguing logic *now*?

Goliath Watergate: Yeah.  I was just about to say.

Mystic Tulip: Oh dear.  Men and their bitterness.  I will never understand it.

There are moments in SL conversations I'm on the periphery to when I want to jump in and lecture.  My God, I wanted to cry.  "Is it so utterly beyond belief that the endless conditioning we go through in the concealment of our emotions results in the slightest leak from the just the thought of a lover – never mind the actual lovers who actually succeed in seeing us from the inside out and then 'move on' once they've looked into our core – being something that sickens our security and evokes our resentment?  I mean, there's no point in presenting this as a just state of being – there's no truth whatsoever in the assertion that women are evil for wanting to pull these things out of us and the Lord only knows it would be a better place for all if men growing up didn't work that way – and of course this is something we just have to 'get over' and learn from, but for God's sake don't try to make out that the existence of male romantic insecurity is in any way puzzling."

But I didn't.  I let it lie.

I let it lie because they would say things back and then I'd have to make up new things to say that in some way