From J.M. Lee, a bestselling phenomenon in Korea, comes a haunting and mind-bending novel about the revolutionary possibilities of AI and the infinite mysteries of what it means to be human.
In the virtual city of Alegria, fantasies are made real, innumerable lifetimes are lived, and even death itself is a survivable experience. An escape from reality that changed the landscape of artificial intelligence, it is home to more than one hundred million people. Though it’s been six years since Alegria’s creator—revolutionary tech genius KC Kim—died of cancer, his legacy is alive in the pinnacle of KC’s genius: an AI named Allen who surges with KC’s memories.
As hard as KC’s widow, Minju, and her new husband, Junmo, try to move on, Minju can’t shake the unnerving feeling that someone is watching her. In the real world, she sees a stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to KC. A pair of KC’s custom-made shoes arrive at her doorstep. And someone has booked a Tokyo hotel room where she and KC shared happier times. Minju’s fears about who – or what – is toying with her memories increase with each new encounter.
Certain of nothing except KC’s mad innovation, Minju can only imagine what he is accomplishing without even existing. How can she hope to escape KC’s unwavering control? And whose plans are they, really? The possibilities are frightening.
Chapter 3
MINJU
I rarely entered Alegria anymore. Yet the things I’d experienced there remained unnaturally vivid, as though I’d experienced them only yesterday. I didn’t believe it was meaningful to distinguish between virtual and real memories. Both “happened” in some sense of the word, and if either was missing, I would have felt incomplete. In specific cases, my memories of Alegria felt more real than life on the outside.
Imagine a small peninsula with a pair of vast freshwater lakes and five rivers. A 150-story super skyscraper, around which was a square park. In the distance, connected to this skyscraper by a network of radial roads and highways, was a suburban plantation; 328 million people lived in the virtual city. Like one collective dream, but not really. A world where fanciful delusions came to life. And, most importantly, the place where a poor aspiring actress sealed her fate as the inheritor of the world’s most powerful tech empire.
The experiences that Alegria offered to its residents were more intense and novel than what reality could offer. In the early days, people had to wear large goggles and attach sensors to their fingers to access this poor imitation of reality. But those devices had advanced into thin contact lenses and sensory implants; now the city could offer a life more real than reality itself, a life that had transcended the physical constraints of time and space.
Immigrants once chased the American dream. Now they flocked to Alegria in search of opportunities. They dug in virtual oil fields and invested in virtual derivatives. They erected virtual factories, sold virtual products, fought in virtual combat sports for virtual prize money and belts. Couples could take long walks around giant skyscrapers while enjoying impossible landscapes. They could explore alleyways that could be hundreds of years old, shop in mega department stores while sampling expensive wines and whiskeys, and access the latest luxury merchandise before it was released into the real world.
Those who got in early used their fortunes to buy Alegria’s best real estate. The rush to own a piece of Alegria only caused prices to skyrocket. Even the Luddites who’d been skeptical of the concept of owning virtual properties eventually caved when they realized they were going to be left behind.
Just as in the real world, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Spending time inside virtual reality was essential to reaping its benefits. And because virtual age equaled power, like levels in an old-fashioned video game, buying and selling time was a major pillar of the economy. People with wealth outside Alegria converted their assets into Alegria’s digital currency, magnum, because it allowed them to purchase more time and thus gain more influence in a virtual city. And for those who didn’t have real cash to spend in Alegria, there was always the option of sharing an ID with several people. That way they could log on in shifts and rack up hours, aging and reaching elder status faster than by themselves. Many became addicted and would neglect their real job and relationships. On the other hand, those who preferred normal reality could make real-world money by accumulating time in virtual reality and then selling their lifespans.
People could become whoever they wanted, and if it turned out the role didn’t fit their tastes, changing identities was as simple as putting on a new mask. An average housewife in the real world could secretly be the owner of a famous brothel in Alegria. Some people even lived meta-double lives within virtual reality. A virtual orphan might escape their circumstances by entering another, deeper virtual reality where they were a space explorer in the Hook Nebula.
I remember the headlines when the identity of the ringleader of Gomorrah, the largest criminal organization in Alegria, was revealed to be a certain Mario Fellini, a street cleaner in the back alleys of New York. He’d used his time in the Mafia as a troubled youth to grow Gomorrah into the most feared gang in virtual reality. He wasn’t arrested, of course. The hand of the law didn’t extend inside virtual reality, so long as the crime didn’t cross into the real world. That’s not to say there wasn’t a legal system within Alegria itself. Police, courts, and prisons—it was all there, more or less. They even had the death penalty. But all these things did little to deter crime. After all, convicted criminals could just choose suicide over completing their sentences, as they would immediately be reborn as a new character.
Death, rebirth, death, rebirth. Again and again and again. People quickly became used to the idea that they could live out their wildest fantasies through an endless cycle of life and death. This led to an increase in the murder and suicide rates in the real world, but the bigger problem was that virtual reality, the thing that had been created to mimic reality, was now reality’s single biggest threat.
Critics warned of the dangers of virtual reality, but no one listened, and the little legislation that was passed was too slow to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape. Of course, part of the problem was that most lawmakers were also shareholders in Terraverse, Alegria’s parent company. The other factor was that voters themselves wanted to protect virtual reality from regulation, which they saw as the Wild West of opportunities. There were even some people who foolishly believed that virtual escapism was the cure for a collapsing society.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. M. Lee’s books have sold millions of copies in Korea, where he was born and raised. He is the author of Broken Summer, currently in production for a television series; Painter of the Wind, which was adapted into an award-winning South Korean television series; The Boy Who Escaped Paradise; and The Investigation, which was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and was the winner of Italy’s prestigious Premio Selezione Bancarella award.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: Sean Lin Halbert holds an MA in Korean literature from Seoul National University. He is the recipient of the LTI Korea Translation Award for Aspiring Translators, the Korea Times Modern Korean Literature Translation Award, and the GKL Translation Award. Artificial Truth is his seventh book in translation. Sean lives in Seoul with his wife and daughter and teaches at LTI Korea Translation Academy.
Author bio
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
