“And today, at a clinic from Rochester USA, the first bodiless autonomous transition, or BAT, is going to be performed on a patient with terminal bone cancer. Doctors have high hopes for the operation, which has been in development for the past fifty years. Reports suggest that a good majority of people are willing and ready to-”.

“What a load of shit,” a man by the name of Adam Euler was watching as the world would go into a different age, and the human and machine would become one. “Do they think this is safe? It’s companies who control these things, wake up people!”.

“You’re saying you’re not willing to try it?” his friend asked him. They were both watching from a couch, inside a rent free apartment, made due to over population and assigned to those which worked in low pay industries. The place was barely held together by planks of wood and poorly placed bricks. “Most people will go through with it once it’s free.”.

“Once it’s free?! Ain’t no way those greedy ass corps will make any of this free! And if they do, it will cost you something else. They will probably use your organs to do some shady stuff, like a clone of yourself, ya know?”. He took a sip of his cheap beer, it tasted like dirty water and reused chemicals.

“What do you care for your organs? Aren’t they, like, all messed up and shit?” his friend was the more optimistic kind. He was willing to look the other way, if it meant he could be a bit happier. “Besides,” he took a smoke of his cigar, made from artificial plants, “once you’re inside the virtual thing, you can make whatever you want. You will not have this shitty body, or this shitty apartment. You can live the life we envy so much from all these other rich people.”.

“It’s not about the organs, Phelipe, it’s about the principle. Why should I hand my consciousness to these corps? Once you’re inside, you have no way of communicating with the outside world, even if they say you do. They can control everything you say, think and want,” he took another sip, then got up from his couch and went to take one more from the fridge.

“Bring me one too, and sure, you can think that way. But you’re still living for the corps, you’re working for them, living where they want you to and who knows, maybe they’re spying on us from somewhere within the walls,” Philipe looked at the wall behind them, a brick out of place. “I know they are, it is why I must agree with their product.”.

“Shut up Philipe, they can’t hear shit. If they did, my hot boss lady would’ve fired my ass the first month when I moved in, took a picture of her and-” the TV flashed for a moment. They were showing the surgery being performed, and something went wrong. “What the-see?! I told you! They cannot be-” people were cheering inside the operation room. Even though the machinery went up in flames, the consciousness was successfully uploaded to the network.

“Woah, ain’t that something?” the whole world could see it, as trillions of bits of information were processed each second in actual information, until the body of the person was being arranged to an almost molecular degree, with the brain as the construction block for the rest of the body. It looked weird and distorted, it was the view of the person of their body inside their mind. “Apparently we can talk with the guy if we send some messages from the internet.”.

“Agh, blasted be them corps, now everyone will want to do it. Screw the fact that they almost burned his mind while sending him through, everyone will flock to it like mad sheep.”. Adam was looking on his phone, searching for the procedure himself. “I might do it myself though, if everyone else is going to.”.

“I was hoping you would become a better liar, since you’re in the corp business and all. But you’re still an idiot,” Philipe punched Adam in the shoulder, which Adam ignored, as he saw that the only price for the surgery was to offer his brain and other functional organs to the corporation. “Hm, what is that? Oh, only the brain and other organs? That’s basically free, since you know, we ain’t gonna need our bodies afterwards.”.

“Okay, but what if I want to return? What if I want to see the world and walk once more?”. Philipe looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Have you not seen the movies Philipe? Once you’re inside, you get that burning sensation, that you seek real human connection. What was it, the Matrix I think?”.

“Have you even watched the Matrix? By the end even the main guy wanted back in, the world was just that shitty and full of death,” Philipe started to look for ways he could get ahead and get the surgery. Apparently, the healthier someone was, the closer to the front they could get. “Isn’t this shit or what? They’re basically leaving all these kids with cancer and old people dying, while the healthy ones go first.”.

“That’s corps for ya. I just hope now that my body will hold on for long enough, until the list clears up. My belly might drag me into the grave too early, which would be a shame.”.

“They should’ve created a method so you can also preserve your brain in the meanwhile,” Philipe searched for exactly that, as he was a heavy smoker and didn’t know how long the list would take, maybe some thirty or fourty years, which would make him seventy or eighty, and with his lungs being used heavily for smoking, lung cancer could end him before he would get the chance to even get close to the clinic. He took a smoke from his shitty made cigar, “Hm, maybe they have some special waiting list. There seems to be news of some outrage about the clinic making the list with the healthier ones first, then the lesser ones. ‘We need healthier subjects, so we can ensure that everything goes well,’ says that to the guy with terminal cancer that just got inside, you assholes.”.

“Listen Philipe, screw all this, we ain’t getting inside. Let’s just ensure we can do our jobs properly. If all the good folk are going inside, then we the bad ones are going to have to take care of it, don’t ya think?”. Philipe looked at him for a moment, then back at his phone. He has followed the BAT procedure since its initial announcement so long ago, and has dreamt of finally being free from all the work and to live a happy life. Even if it was fake, it was better than living in their world. “I know you’ve been looking forward to this, but I have a feeling it will get better, since again, the good folk will go inside, and we’ll be able to enjoy the outside.”.

“Weren’t you talking of corps just a moment ago? If the world is going to be someone’s, it’s not going to be ours Adam. We’re still going to be treated like shit, and we’ll still live in crappy apartments. Even if our lives will be slightly better, we will never be happy,” Philipe kept scrolling on his phone.

“I was just trying to cheer you up,” Adam placed a hand on his shoulder, which Philipe shrugged off. “It’s not good to hold onto false belief. Before you know it, you’ll end up dead because of stress and depression,” Adam looked at the TV, a distorted image was being formed, overlapping the actual image on the TV, he saw his father being killed in an intentional car crash. “I’m telling you because I was there, saw it happen, when someone loses faith and hope.”.

Philipe stopped scrolling, and looked at Adam. He would often see him staring blankly at the TV, then shutting it off. “Adam,” Adam stood fixated on the TV. “Promise me that if possible, and if I die, that you’ll get me in there, somehow.”.

Adam took his eyes off the TV, looked Adam in the eyes and said “I will promise you. Even if my belly disagrees with you that you’ll die first, I will put you into that false world of theirs, so you may experience happiness,” the he looked back at the TV.

“Thank you Adam, maybe you’re part of the good folk as well,” and Philipe kept scrolling on his phone.

10 years later

“As the BAT procedures have been upscaled and more and more people are joining the virtual space, there are less people who can take care of the planet, and feed the populations. Governments are trying to stop this increasing transition into virtual space, but riots and votes from the majority of people, steer the governments into having to obey. The numbers have risen by another twenty percent, today marking the first billi-”.

“Can you believe this shit Philipe? A billion people, and we still can’t make it,” Adam was surrounded by trash and the sun was able to get in, as the buildings next to him have been demolished, more and more people moving into better places, while waiting for their BAT procedure. “I bet they’re having a good laugh at us from inside there. We’re still rotting away, in this shitty world. The air is barely breathable, and I hear in there, you can simulate the smell of fresh air and grass, how wonderful must that be, even though I never had the chance to smell either.”.

Philipe wasn’t in the room, Adam talking to a fridge at his left side. He stood up, opened the fridge, and inside, the brain of his friend inside a jar. He took the jar out, looked at it and the brown-green juices inside. “You’re a bit silent today, has something happened to you?”. Adam shook the jar a little, and a few lights from the inside started to glow. “There you go, don’t scare me like that,” the brain was being conserved in nutritious juices, helping the brain stay alive while inside the jar. In order to prevent the neurons from dying out, Adam had to either constantly speak or provide it with signals from the outside, electrical ones. To some degree, this was torture, as the brain could interpret these signals in a vast variety of things and ranges. Philipe was aware of it when he underwent the operation, yet Adam couldn’t know what was right and what was good. He took the glow of the lights as signs that Philipe was enjoying himself, the glowing of them sending back a message on Adam’s phone alerting him.

“Can you wait a little bit longer? Apparently after another billion or so, we might get inside. And since they’re making the operations more available, we might be able to get into it in the next five or so years,” he was feeding his almost dead friend hope. The lights were glowing inside strongly, and Adam was glad for it. “The doctors said I shouldn’t keep you out, but I will let you enjoy this day with me. It’s been three years since you went inside a jar, and I suppose this is my way of celebrating it with you, by taking you out, he he.”. Adam watched the news with the volume raised, so Philipe’s receptors could get some of the sounds. “You like it? They say some morons in the government tried to shut some of this down, but obviously people weren’t happy, especially the rich ones. They really want inside so they don’t die and shit.”.

Adam coughed a little, some blood on his hand. “Hm, well, shit. Maybe I’ll join you in the jar before anything, he-cough-he-cough-cough” Adam then fell on his face, his lungs filling with fluid and his heart stopping. Inside the room, Adam died while Philipe’s brain was exposed to the warmth. Given the need for the juices to stay cold, so that the proteins and such wouldn’t spoil, Philipe died slowly over the course of two days. No one found their bodies, as the building they were in was simply destroyed, without notice or warning, since the company that made it went bankrupt, and the paperwork was too much.