Olympia
It
is the year 112 aE (after Earth) and I live in a perfect world. Today
this world seems to me even more perfect because everywhere I go my
friends and family have this expectant look on their faces.
 
We
all prepare for my Fulfillment-Day. This day is the most important
day in our lives. When we become 18 Olympia-turns old, as I will
tomorrow, our avatars come to life and I will finally get my name. In
the moment I am only a number in the system of Olympia. I am 53028.
Everything
here has a number. Whether the places our beds are standing or the
pills we take to stay healthy, everything that is used by us or our
avatars is numbered. But back to my most important day and when I say
“my” then I mean “my“, because it is only me who’s
Fulfillment-Day is tomorrow. No one else’s. Well this is what my
mother says, Athene. She says they want to keep the number of people
living here low. Only one child per day may be born. Back to our
ancestor’s days, when humanity lived on a far away and long ago
planet called Earth - which I only know from 5D-pictures - there
lived too many humans, my mother said, so that this long ago world
collapsed and just a few survived. Only by luck and the knowledge of
the Big our ancestors were rescued and brought to Olympia. Those Big
are the only ones with two avatars for themselves. One they got like
normal on their Fulfillment-Day but the other one they earned for
their competencies and inventions as greatest possible honor by their
masters. The old masters pass along their second avatars to their
trainees, so that the trainee can pass along his own avatar to his
trainee, when he is an old master himself.
My
father Poseidon earned this honor and my older brother Hercules is a
trainee for three Olympia-turns now. If you are one of the Big you
get the right to do whatever you intent to, but you also have
burdensome duties. They are the only ones to protect the Rome and the
only to legislate. Nobody ever doubts the laws because our avatars
only have the purest of our personality natures. Negative feelings
and thoughts are as strange to them, as breathing is for a fish.
I
hope the avatar I get tomorrow is alike my brothers because it has
always been a dream to me, to become a master of my own. But I also
think that is the dream of all Olympian children as we all want to
have two avatars for ourselves. Even the look of our avatar is a
mirror of our best attributes. A kind of perfect copy our self’s…This
way I am puzzling over my new me since days. I hope my new avatar has
straight hair and not the shaggy brown locks I own. And I really hope
he is a little taller than my not-so-perfect self.
I
jolt myself out of my thoughts, as I stub my toe against the metal
gate of Morpheus’ island. Without knowing it my legs had let me in
direction of the dream-places, where we put our bodies to sleep and
refill our avatar’s energy. Like every Olympian I have a permanent
dream-place with the number 53PA33112K2. The PA stands for Poseidon
and Athene, K2 for their second child and 53 is the beginning of my
number and 33112 the date of my Fulfillment-Day.
Meanwhile
I have found my chip in the deep of my trousers’ pocket and press
it at the sensor. The gate opens and I enter. Just a blink of an eye
later Hermes approaches with his avatar. Nearly one Olympia-turn ago
he had his Fulfillment-Day and since then he was the watcher of the
gate. I don’t like him because he thinks that makes him worth more
than me. After explaining him for ages what I did and why I arrived
so late –only 25 units of time after the days begin – I am
allowed to pass through a second gate and finally I enter the
entrance hall of Morpheus’ island.
The
entrance hall is a breathtaking sight and every day I pause for a
moment. All of the hall’s four sides are made of glass and due to
the fact that Morpheus‘island is an actual island, I can see
nothing else than never ending emptiness and the supernal light of
the six moons, that circle around Olympia. Four of the six moons I
already visited with my brother and I could spend infinite time to
watch the eternity of space.
I turn away from this sight and walk
to the Air Board Station to fly to my dream-place which is located in
the seventh High. On my way up I see many people already dreaming,
who look like they would randomly hover in the air. Arrived upstairs
I park the Air Board directly in front of my dream-place, a magnetic
field hidden in the level.
While
my thoughts turn back to the upcoming Fulfillment-Day I feel that
everywhere around me the sleeping gas is sprayed and I drift off to
my first dream.
In
the morning I wake up from my dreams earlier than I normally do and
feel strengthened and recuperated. Finally I am ready for my Avatar
and a thrill of anticipation hits me. I fly my Air Board down to the
entrance hall where my whole family and all of their avatars are
waiting for me already. It is a big honor that my physical parents
have come in person. Normally only the avatars appear to communicate
with me, while my family members stay in their dream-places. The
avatars then act as autonomous human beings in the names of their
owners while their corporeal bodies stay permanently dreaming through
the help of the sleeping gas. The gas also gives them anything they
need to stay alive. Only with their lives and thoughts avatar and
human are connected but this prospect does not frighten me. My avatar
will be a part of me.
But
today, on this day of mine, everything is different. Together we
leave Morpheus' island and muster up at the Olymp again, the place of
Fulfillment.
As
the ceremony starts I am a little disappointed: without any pomp I
get placed in front of a scanner which seems to register everything
of me, even my thoughts and feelings. Afterwards a test is following
which shall determine the maximum of my brainpower. Finally the part
everyone fears the most on his or her Fulfillment Day expects me.
Another appliance, the avatarisator, bottles me up with his cold
metal arms and comes up with another metal item to removes a piece of
skin of my forehead quickly and painfully. I make an odd noise
because I have never been hurt before. Then I observe the red liquid
running down between my eyes. I am fascinated. Never in my life have
I seen blood before because injuries or violence do not exist in
Olympia. Our world is the most secure world ever known, my father
always says. Someone hands me a piece of cloth to stop the bleeding
and I press it on the wound. Of course we also have a lot more
efficient medicament which would make the wound disappear after a few
seconds, but this scar shall become permanent to sign me as a human
being with an avatar.
Now,
the high speed computer starts to work, to calculate and to create an
avatar fitting me. Normally this takes six to eight units of time and
therefore the celebration already begins. To honor me we eat real
food today instead of our casual tablets. Only because of my family’s
prestige we are able to afford such a luxury and everyone is in best
mood, while they eat pie, fresh vegetables and small cakes. More and
more units of time are passing and I start to be anxiously. I have
heard of cases where the generation of the avatar had taken longer
than unusual. This sometimes happened when the person’s talents are
very unevenly spread or certain characteristics are not present
enough to become a good member of our community later in time. Never
in history had a Fulfillment-Day taken longer than ten units of time.
In
the eleventh unit of time my nerves are quite frayed. Meanwhile my
parents have left to watch the computer’s work while Hercules
speculates, which of my characteristics could be too low developed.
In
the twelfth unit of time even Hercules keeps quiet and my parents
return with an inscrutable look on their faces. They all stare at me
for long. Then the time has come. Accompanied by my immediate family
I walk to a separate area and keep pressing the piece of cloth on my
forehead. Even if my parents have seen the calculation process, they
know as little as I do about what my avatar will be like. In front of
the 5D-printer a sensor is installed, on which I shall now hold my
chip to get to know the result. All follow my doing with their eyes,
either with an expectant or concerned look on their faces and I need
a moment to collect my thoughts. Then I press my wrist against the
sensor and we all hold our breath and wait taut on the 5D-product
that will live my life from now on.
The
result chokes, blurs in front of my eyes and sharpens again; blurs
one more time and I still can’t breathe. I hear the others make
confused and a little anxious noises and my own mother backs away
from me. There is no avatar, no perfect self of me. Only one
sentence, black on red written on the monitor: “No matching avatar
found.”