Shopping at Maceys

Chapter 1, Part 1

I've never understood the need to shop but then I'm non-materialistic. I've been trying to transfer as much of my life into the machine as I can just to be free of everything but the essentials.

Rachael, on the other hand, lived for shopping. Maybe it was a 'girl' thing? Her body slumped forward over her computer. Face masked by a virtual headset and blood that had leaked from her ears.

She'd been shopping in a virtual mall, just like real life only it wasn't. The mall existed inside the machine. The machine could give you anything you wanted for a price. It was good like that.

The apartment looked run down. Old boxes, left over from home delivered take away food, filled nearly every surface.

Rachael was still in her nightdress when she died. Not all that unusual. Many people spent their whole lives within the machine, unplugging only to eat and perform other necessary functions.

The machine had realized the dream of working from home in your pajamas.

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