Being a "Larpie", as they called themselves, was a great gig. Fun people, fun costumes, good benefits. Until corporate went broke, the visitors stopped coming, and nobody ever bothered to tell the staff what was going on. Or come get them.
- Start -
Arcadia - a marvel of human engineering. The first commercially viable application of Pocket Universes. Of course, when given the opportunity to play God, Humanity chose to make a theme park.
"Live-in Immersive Fantasy Experience", as they called it. But we all knew that was just a fancy new word for theme park. There was some initial backlash against the technology - there always is. The existential dread caused by having to accept that we could now create whole new universes - albeit very small ones - was a hard pill to swallow. As is always the case, however, the masses couldn't help themselves and Arcadia was soon booming.
The park itself was broken up into what they called "Instances." Each one a pocket universe, devoted to a specific genre or flavor of fantasy world. There were the Classics: Land of Magic, Cyber Punk Future, Gunslinger's Western. After those came the more niche: Crime Noir, Hack3rL4nd. Eventually, for a large sum of money you could even have a private Instance spun up just for your specific desire. This was a popular option for business lunches, birthday parties, and sometimes more deviant activities. The public was in love with this new attraction. Finally, the world you had always dreamt of living in was a reality. You could visit for a day, a week - hell even a year if you had the funds.
If the public was in love, the employees were enthralled. Arcadia attracted the kind of folks who didn't have much a life in the "real" world. The kind who struggled to find work, the ones with ideas a little far ahead of the pack - or a brain stuck in a bygone era. All of these folks now had a place that would accept them.
The risks were obvious, but unimportant. Yes, it might be dangerous to live permanently inside of a pocket universe, but you could also get hit by a bus. These people we finally happy, and they weren't going to let anyone take that from them.
The "Larpies" - an older term from role-playing circles - assimilated into the worlds that they chose. They played up whatever genre they lived in, pulling out all of the stereotypes they grew up falling in love with. Even during closing hours, many would stay in character. Putting on the show for each other.
Central didn't seemed to mind. These outcasts were half the reason the draw to the park was so big, and as long as Monitoring kept reporting increasing profits who were they to stop the fun? They even made some of the performers Admins - giving them access to Root-level commands that could make changes to an Instance if needed. They called themselves "Wytches" after a few of them realized it sounded like they were casting spells when the accessed a Terminal.
That's not to say there wasn't some division between Central and the other Instances. Being a part of the largest commercial venture in the history of mankind was a very stressful job, coupled with all of the same risks as living in one of the fantasy worlds but without any of the delusion, lead to a lot of jealousy towards those who worked the "front-end".
It certainly didn't help that the corporation that owned Arcadia insisted on referring to its employees by their position and ID number, and constantly described their workforce with terms like "Machines" and "Cogs". After some complaints, they did add "Intelligence Engines" but that felt more like a slap in the face more than anything else.
Despite these problems, things at the park were good. Numbers were high, accidents were small and minimal - and moral within the workforce was high on average.
And then they lost an Instance. One minute, filled with happy park-goers and employees. The next, gone. Worse yet, Central couldn't accurately say whether it had collapsed or they simply had lost the ability to access it. Imagine having to tell families that their loved ones might be trapped forever, maybe not even realizing it.
The public outcry was sharp and furious. Some wanted heads to roll, others wanted the park to shut down in its entirety. Arcadia attempted to recover, implementing a prototype "Smart" AI that would monitor for anomalies and fix them when they occurred, but that just fueled the anti-technology sentiment that was building.
Corporate had a call to make. Go down with what was obviously a sinking ship, or pivot into a new industry. In all but a few weeks all presence of Arcadia was removed from public eye. After a few months, the outraged moved on to a new nefarious organization, and the tragedy of Arcadia was forgotten.
It would have been great if someone told the employees.
But now? a thousand years later? Not even they remembered, and they liked it that way.
- End -
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