Arriving at Burning Man, Meadow saw immediately how different the population here was from people in the malls of W.2. Many of the avatars she spoke to had arrived by paths other than the one she’d taken: frustrated with their jobs. Or lives. Many—it was surprising how many of these she came across in W.2—many were sure the Earth was dying and had come to mourn. Some to celebrate the end of the parasites that had killed it: humans. Some reminded her of 19th-century walkers—out for a Sunday stroll in a cemetery for the melancholy it evoked. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die—the battle cry of every pandemic—driving others to hole up in their temporary hermit cells. Many were too stoned to talk—not the avatars, of course, for avatars could only drop virtual X-tacy; but their real-world counterparts got high at home, while their avatars sat around in a circle together, their conversations slurred, because the words of those operating them were slurred. Watching them try to dance was like watching robots too drunk to dance dance.

Several avatars, though, had arrived in ways that were very similar to the path she’d taken: shunted off to the side, lured into one of the few dead zones of commerce.

Thinking back over the last weeks, Meadow saw that after she had stopped buying things, more and more of the avatars she met online made suggestions to her that would shunt her further from the business of W.2, acting as though they were trying to help. But really, she could now see from the avatars around her, all they’d been doing was to help her get out of the way of profits: the kind of help store owners gave the homeless, or those Neo-Amish NGers who refused to use any technology invented after 1995, insisting on dumb phones, or using cash, slowing down the wheels of commerce.

Following her ‘helpers’ advice, she increasingly found herself at sites where there was not only nothing for sale, but no one was trying to buy anything. Spiritual, her helpers called it—the Mayan Temples, the Caves of Lesbos—‘Spiritual’ being their code for ‘Loser,’ ‘Loser’ meaning someone who didn’t shop.

​

Meadow walked over to a group sitting in a circle, still dressed in the clothes newbies were issued. If any of them had spent money to alter these standard-issue clothes, it was to add holes in the knees, or maybe an NG appliqué. There wasn’t much profit in virtual, ass-pocket appliqués, though. And most hadn’t even bothered with that.
One got up and came over to Meadow’s avatar. A reed-thin woman with long, pale blonde hair, and pale blue eyes. “You didn’t come here for the Burning Man, did you?”

Meadow shook her head, looking down.

“You’re getting closer,” the woman said. She took a toke on her joint, then offered it to Meadow.

Meadow shook her head. “To what?”

“Out there,” she said, nodding toward the vast wasteland. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Everyone like you.”

“Who?”

“The Book People.”