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Design Fiction – LIS 201 The adhesive suctioning the device to Winston’s head melted as beads of sweat shot down his temples. He hadn’t made it this far before. Ever since June and Pop-Pop caught him in their antique room, he’d been kept under close surveillance. He thought back to that night.

June, Pop-Pop and Winston looked downward into glitching piles of mashed potatoes. Winston wondered what good it did to waste time sitting around the dinner table. Here, food wasn’t NECESSARY. The machine took care of that. But June admired the time that it allowed them all to spend together, and Pop-Pop couldn’t object.

Forks clinked against tarnished plates. Pop-Pop cleared his throat.

“DON’T SAY A WORD TO ANYONE ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAW IN THERE. Understand?” said Pop-Pop. June froze. Winston put down his fork.

“I don’t get it, Pop,” said Winston, “Y’all have ALWAYS hidden the antiques from me. I’m not stupid, Y’KNOW. I’ve heard stories about them. Stella from algebra told me about something called the iPod Touch–” June gasped. Pop-Pop narrowed his gaze.

“WATCH YOUR MOUTH,” Pop-Pop snapped. He paused, then continued. “WHAT DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WOULD SAY IF THEY KNEW WHAT WE KEPT HERE? Huh?! We could lose our jobs, Winston.”

Pop-Pop shook his head, then wagged his fork between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re too worried about matters that don’t concern YOU. ALWAYS have been,” he said to Winston.

The table remained quiet for a few moments.

“If YOU’RE SO WORRIED ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE WILL THINK ABOUT THE ANTIQUES, THEN WHY DO YOU KEEP THEM AROUND?” Winston blurted out. A mixture of frustration and inquisitiveness decorated his face.

Pop-Pop looked Winston up and down. June remained still as ever.

“Listen, kid,” Pop-Pop’s voice softened a bit. “Sometimes, it feels nice to reminisce. Those gadgets in there bring me back to a simpler time. Remind me where I’m from, despite this new world we live in now.”

His voice hardened again, and he snapped out of his tender state.

“A world that doesn’t approve of our artifacts. So, we hide them. Now, eat those potatoes. June worked hard on em’,” Pop-Pop said, motioning to Winston’s plate with his fork still stuck between his thumb and forefinger. June scoffed. The potatoes glitched some more.

A week later, Winston left home. He waited until June and Pop-Pop put themselves on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode and snuck out the back door. That’s how he ended up where he was now; in an unknown recliner, sweating like a sinner in church with a feeding tube up his nose and a device suctioned to his head.

Winston ripped the tube from his nose and the suction cups from his temples, scrambling to his feet and looking around. Where the hell am I? He thought. On either side of him were neat rows of chairs identical to the one he had just leapt out of. And in those chairs were people with feeding tubes and suction-cupped devices, too.

Horrified, Winston stumbled across the room to an opening that looked like a door–except, in place of the facial recognition touchpad that he was used to, there protruded a small, round hunk of metal. While he was looking around the room for alternative exit points, Winston failed to notice how the small hunk of metal spun and shifted. He was caught once again.

It took three LifeVR technicians to strap Winston back down to his chair and reattach his VR device. This was the first time in a decade that a LifeVR minor in the permanent sector had tried to escape. Last time, it was a PR nightmare; the lead technician, Carrie–who had worked there longer than all of her colleagues–remembered it well, and she saw to it that such a fiasco did not repeat itself. As Winston succumbed to sedative dreams, he listened to the technicians chat like old pals.

“You ever think VR would come to this point?” said Carrie.

“I don’t know. I could never afford it,” said her colleague, Jeanne. The two of them chuckled.

“I feel bad for them sometimes,” Carrie said after a moment. She looked down the row of quiet bodies, Winstons’ now included. She focused on his wrist because she couldn’t look at his face.

“What good is their dough if their life is intangible?”

“I don’t feel bad, for them” Jeanne said as she stood up to leave, beckoning for Carrie to follow her. “They’re rich. They’ve chosen this. With dough like that, I’m sure their realities would be just as out of touch in this realm.” Carrie smirked and exited the room with Jeanne, shutting the door behind her.

Closed Doors

By Hailey Griffin

The story begins With...

Winston

Pop-Pop

June

Scene 1: Dinner Antiques = Technological artifacts in this virtual reality

Scene 2: running Away Winston leaves home to Search For an Unaugmented reality

Scene 3: The Other Realm Winston Wakes Up on The “Other Side” With Others Like Him

Scene 4: ThE Technicians Chat Technicians Export Winston Back to his virtual World

RELATION TO COURSE CONTENT

Sociotechnical Gap What people want vs. what tech can provide

Social Construction of Tech In this narrative, social class differences led to higher demand for a more omnipotent version of VR