Chapter 3: Personal Issues

In another Galaxy entirely, on an inhabited planet, a new breakthrough was achieved. Mind uploading technology was perfected.

Now the inhabitants of this planet which are your average humanoid being, can enter the cyberspace without a hitch while being effectively immortal, able to do anything, the imagination is the only limit.

This new technology spread extremely quickly, and was eventually used by almost every citizen on this uprising planet.

200 years later:

With the perfection of the mind uploading, there comes good and bad consequences.

The good is that world peace might be possible now there is nothing to fight on. World hunger is a thing of the past. Crime rate has almost hit zero. Disease has completely disappeared.

The bad however might be enough to make it completely obsolete.

Viruses.

No matter how good the world is, there are always cynical people who believe that they deserve better, and end up inflicting pain on others. And in this current era of cyberspace, the most dangerous people are hackers.

And the most infamous of them is a hacker who calls herself 'Cikè'. No one knows who exactly she is, but she always leaves her mark wherever she goes on purpose to 'play with the authorities' as she put it once.

And for some odd reason, she's been laying low for the past few months. And soon, everyone would find out why.

The entirety of this society's population just got the biggest scare of their existence. One that could threaten all of their lives.

On every street, hologram, site, and even pages of every book, in the cyberspace, you would see the same message everywhere you looked.

''This an official message from the Cyberspace Security Organization (CSO), we encourage every citizen of the cyberspace to exit it. Infamous hacker Cikè has created a virus that can and will kill anyone it comes into contact with, the virus is completely invisible to us and it doesn't give any signs of presence, the best deterrent is to exit the cyberspace.''

The CSO was a branch of the government centered around making the cyberspace as secure as possible, and they've been focusing on Cikè in the time she's been gone. They've been suspecting that she's been planning something big ever since she left. And their efforts were almost worth it if only for one caveat.

No one knew what to do, they entered the for the literal reason of escaping reality. They didn't want to go back to their lackluster lives and would prefer to test their luck. Of course there are exceptions who did get out, only to watch the news, seeing that nothing was happening and going back in.

The CSO didn't know what to do, they couldn't force the people to exit the cyberspace, as it would go against one of the collectivist rights established in the last 200 years. The only thing they could do was warn the cyber-citizens and hope they would listen.

And seeing as this didn't work, they could only speak to the main government and hope they would give them more power over the cyberspace to protect the cyber-citizens.

And the CEO of the CSO called Jacob was currently waiting and preparing for the President and his executives to enter and begin the meeting.

''Hello gentlemen.'' Jacob welcomed everyone as they entered. Everyone gave him a nod as to signal him to continue.

''I am here to appeal all of you to help us against the urgent threat of the Cikè virus.'' he paused to see if anyone had anything to say.

''We have already warned all of the cyber-citizens about the dangers of staying in the cyberspace, yet they refuse to cooperate. And as of now, it is impossible for us to force them out for their own protection. I wish for you to give me the power to do so.'' Jacob spoke in a very sincere manner.

The President and his executives stayed silent, thinking deeply about this matter, as it could potentially danger more than 97% of their race. But even if they were to do so, the people would be mad as that they don't believe in it's existence, and from their perspective, they would be thrown out of their dream world for no apparent reason.

The first to speak was the president himself. "How fast does it spread? And how long does it need to kill?" He went straight to the point.

"It takes about 2 seconds to transfer from one person to another, and it kills instantly, it does so by..." He was cut off by the President.

"Make them wait for two weeks, then they'll start leaving on their own." After finishing that sentence, the President got up, followed by his executives.

They didn't even give Jacob room to argue. And after they left, you could hear from under his breath "Orders are orders". A tear slid down his cheek.

Jacob gathered himself and gave a call to his secretary.

"How can I.." she was cut off by Jacob.

"No time for small talk. Tell everyone to prepare for something big. In two weeks..." He continued to explain the situation, and once he finished his secretary asked him.

"Why wait? Why not force them out? Why..." She was cut off once again.

"Orders are orders" Jacob then immediately hung up, and started thinking to himself "I wonder if this is the right choice..."

After a few rounds of questioning himself "What good does it bring? It's not like I can do anything about it." He said in a dry tone, trying to not believe what he said.

Two weeks later:

Within two weeks, an exact number of 330.726.449 cyber-citizens died. And as the President expected, the people started to leave as as they didn't want to become another one in that statistic. And so now, seeing as how the CSA was right from the beginning, people started placing even more trust in them.

But after everyone left the cyberspace, something unexpected happened. The cyberspace was shut down!

The people were understandably frustrated.

You wanted us to exit we didn't, shame on us.

But after we got out now you do this?!?

And the most confused of all was Jacob himself. "Why?! Why wasn't I informed of this?!" Jacob shouted at his secretary.

"I deeply apologize for keeping this away from you, but the executives themselves told me personally to keep this away from you specifically. They said that they wanted to avoid complications from your side." While the secretary did respect Jacob, it was a different matter when the internal government was involved.

"Smart as always." Jacob said in a calm tone. The secretary was surprised by how calm he was about the President practically betraying his trust.

Jacob got up from his seat and walked towards the ceiling-to-floor windows until he was inches away, looking down at the empty streets, not a single person or vehicle was on the road.

"You know, the President is really clever. He really does deserve his position." said Jacob in the most relaxed manner possible.

And once he finished that phrase, the secretary immediately understood what he was going to do. She started running towards him trying to stop him from jumping. "Don't jump!".

"What? are you crazy? I'm not stupid enough as to do that." Jacob reassured.

Jacob then pulled out a gun and pointed it at his head. "This is much less scary." He then pulled a trigger. His body fell floppily onto the floor.

A few days later he was announced dead to the public, not that they cared.