Friendship Is Optimal: Third Wheel

by Boopy Doopy

Chapter Sixteen (Jesse)

Jesse was getting more and more nervous by the day. Nothing had happened in North Carolina– not yet– but in the three months since Cynthia and Drake announced that they would be emigrating, the situation seemed to get much worse very quickly, just as Eliza liked to say often. A world that was ‘teetering on the edge’ as she described was finally starting to topple over.

It started a couple of weeks after they emigrated, the news of what was happening coming to him while Composition went on a date with Eliza for the first time. It was pictures of riots on the TV that he and his parents watched, showing police in Nebraska going through house by house to confiscate PonyPads on the governor’s executive order. The scene was one that looked angry and violent, with several people who refused the order being arrested on the spot. Even some of the news reporters were roughly shoved out of the way and threatened with arrest when they tried to ask for a comment. It was like something out of a foreign country.

Then there were photos of riots in the state a few days after that he was able to catch on TV, where people fought to get inside the Experience Centers they were trying to close. It made his parents gasp, Jesse finding his own mouth hanging open at what he saw. He knew it would get bad, but he didn’t think it’d be quite so authoritarian and violent.

Eliza seemed unfazed when he briefly messaged her about it, and Brandon was the same way. She only offered the sentiment that there were still ‘places to go’ if something like that happened here, and that she would be holding out, a sentiment Brandon agreed with. Jesse couldn’t see how the two could be so calm. If he didn’t want to get to an Experience Center immediately before, he certainly did now.

His parents had an attitude toward the situation that was a mix between his and his friends. They discussed how it seemed too dangerous now to try and go to an Experience Center, saying they noticed protesters with signs walking around the building most days as they drove to work. They didn’t want to get involved in a mix-up like that, but they also understood that it was probably sooner rather than later before Jesse’s advice about them needing to emigrate once the time arrived was going to be useful.

“I just don’t understand why the government would do something like this,” his father said. “I mean, I get why people going into that game is bad, but if they want to, let them, and then we can just wait it out until we’re ready. They don’t have to shut everything down like this.”

Jesse had heard that sentiment before, but didn’t comment on it, instead trying to decide exactly when the right time would be close enough to them to say to his parents that they had to. They were still skeptical of the idea, for more reasons than just potentially dying like they thought, but pushing it for too long wouldn’t be a good idea.

Then something that was completely expected happened shortly after the riots he saw in Nebraska; the news of people heading to Experience Centers to emigrate skyrocketed, predictably so. What were they gonna do? Sit around and wait until after the opportunity passed them? But of course, their decision made a whole host of states pass their own laws about Equestria Online, to varying degrees of severity. Some banned PonyPads like Nebraksa and South Dakota had, almost all of them forbade uploading, of course. It pushed more people into either uploading or leaving their states to do so elsewhere, which made more states pass more laws, with increasing speed and severity. Some of them, like Mississippi and Kansas, had jail time for just owning a PonyPad. It was shocking how quickly the firestorm swept in spite of the relative stability that was kept for the few years that emigration had been introduced to the United States.

It was also no surprise that in the weeks after, the price of goods skyrocketed through the roof. And that in turn quickly led to many businesses around him closing. Brandon mentioned losing his job, and Eliza described that it would probably be another month before she was out of one, too. Hearing about it all– heck, seeing it for his own eyes– made Eliza’s claim about the inevitability of it all make sense. If this kept up, he could imagine what would happen next. Not just price hikes, but food shortages, and then electricity after that, coupled with homelessness and poverty. Thinking about it for enough time, it felt like Celestia was doing this intentionally, and wanted this to happen. This way she’d be forcing the issue.

The deciding factor finally came when the governor of North Carolina outlined his own executive order. It came later than Jesse thought, after about eighty percent of the states forbade it. When he saw the breaking news texted to him on his phone from the EMS system, he decided that it wasn’t a good idea to wait any longer.

In response to the crisis afflicting North Carolina of cult like suicidal behavior relating to Equestria Online, effective midnight of August 1st, the process known as ‘emigration’ or ‘uploading’ using Experience Centers will be prohibited, with strict penalties for any attempt to do so. As well, the use of devices known as ‘PonyPads’ will also be prohibited beginning midnight of August 1st.

Jesse’s heart jumped reading the text. It was already ten o’clock at night, and the date was July 31st.

He didn’t waste any time, and called both Eliza and Brandon in the group chat they set up since there were only three of them. He didn’t expect either of them to answer immediately, and wasn’t surprised when they didn’t. Brandon always went to bed at this time, and Eliza said she was sleeping early tonight so she could go interview for new jobs when the store she worked at went out of business. He wasn’t gonna try and keep calling them right now though– two hours was no time to explain to his parents who didn’t understand that they needed to do this now. He did message them though, with a simple screenshot of the text he got on his phone of the new laws going into effect. If there was time, he’d get his parents to swing by their houses to grab them, but if not…

He didn’t think about that, and went into his parents room to get them up. He wasn’t gentle about it, calling their names loudly and shaking them until they finally sat up in surprise. Before they could ask what was going on, he explained.

“I know this is sudden, but we need to go right now,” he said, opening his phone to show them the alert he received. “Unless we’re gonna drive to California or Washington before those states ban emigration or the president issues an executive order, we need to do this tonight. Right now.”

“What? Do you mean going to the Experience Center? Jesse, we can talk about–”

“No we can’t!” he interrupted. “This ban is going into effect at midnight! That’s in two hours! We have to go there right now.”

“Jesse, this can wait. We don’t have to–”

“Come on, get up,” he insisted, turning on the lights and tugging on his parent’s blankets.

“We’re not even dressed yet, son,” the man pulled back. “Let us do that first? Come on.”

He let out an irritated breath, but stopped and turned around, closing the door behind him to let them have privacy. Then he tried to call both Eliza and Brandon again, a couple of times each, and ground his teeth when they didn’t pick up. Were their phones on vibrate? He hoped that they would wake up and see his text.

He tried to collect himself as he waited by the door for his parents to come out. It was hard to do when five minutes passed, and then ten, and then fifteen minutes had gone by without them coming out. It was nearing ten thirty when he finally knocked on the door with his fist, urging the two on.

“Come on! We need to go!”

“Give us a minute,” his father replied groggily. “You just woke us up in the middle of the night.”

It was two or three more before they both finally exited their bedroom, looking about as tired as he expected. The irritated looks they had quickly dissipated when they saw his intensely serious one. They didn’t look as worried as they should have been, but there was a little bit there, at least.

“What is all of this about, Jesse?” his mother asked. “Why couldn’t this have waited until the morning?”

“Because the ban is going into effect now! In two hours! We need to go right now, okay? Now let’s–”

“Hold on, Jesse, just a minute!” his father interrupted, exasperated. “We can’t just throw ourselves into something like this! We need to talk it out first. Tell us what’s going on.”

He closed his eyes and let out a breath, forcing the anxiety he felt down. “We only have about ninety minutes, Dad. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if by midnight on the dot they have police there. It’s not a coincidence they’re sending the message this late like this. They don’t want people to have notice so they don’t upload, which means we need to go now.”

“If we have ninety minutes like you say, then that’s time to talk it out for a little while before we head over there, right?” his mother asked. “Your father’s right. We can’t throw ourselves into something like this without an explanation.”

Another breath was exhaled, and he rolled his shoulders to try and stop being so tense. Didn’t he go over this before? That they had to upload once it looked like it wasn’t gonna be possible anymore?

Was it even a good idea to push it this late like this? Jesse wondered. Hindsight said no.

“Okay. Fine. What do you want to know?” he asked aggressively. “We can’t take too long though. We need to be out of here in thirty minutes at the latest. I don’t wanna risk them trying to stop us earlier.”

“Okay, how about this first: how do we know that whatever order they’re passing to stop people from going to those Experience Centers isn’t the right thing?” It was his father who asked it, a question Jesse was sure he answered before. He tried not to be so anxious about having to go through this again.

“Because I know it is, and I know it is because Composition– err, Sheila– uploaded. And you know from all the times she’s been over here with my friends that she wouldn’t suddenly make a dumb decision.”

“But the news says that Celestia is a master manipulator,” his mother started. “Didn’t you say that to us yourself, too? If she can trick people, then why wouldn’t she be able to trick us or your friends?”

“And didn’t your friend do it because she was in the hospital, you said?” his father added.

“Yes, but still, it’s not like a liver transplant is– aaaah!” Why hadn’t he just found time to make sure they understood sooner? He thought they did already. It seemed like they were coming around and understanding that when he said they had to, they had to. And now he had to go through silly arguments that he could refute himself? Even Eliza, the most skeptical of the entire group, understood that what Celestia was offering was legit.

“Okay. If she’s just tricking people into committing suicide, why would the computer nerds who programmed her and the scientists who did the operations to upload people upload after that? They’re definitely smart enough to know whether or not they’re killing someone, so if they emigrated, too, that means it’s probably real. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t one of them say it wasn’t?”

“Sure, but what if they’re wrong, Jesse?” his mother asked. “Scientists throughout history have been wrong before. They could be wrong now, too.”

“We don’t have time to go through what ifs! I’m telling you that you need to trust me. Either I’m wrong and we’ll all be dead and who cares, or I’m right and we missed the chance we had to be safe. That’s why I told you before we needed to do it once this happened. That way if I’m wrong, it doesn’t hurt anything. But I’m not.” He ignored how very bad it would be if he was wrong, and stared at the two with an increasingly serious and exasperated expression.

They both opened their mouths to reply, but couldn’t think of any argument to refute what he was saying. Good. That meant they were coming around. Again. If they didn’t… well, he wouldn’t be able to go either. If he emigrated without them, he was sure they never would.

“Inflation is going crazy, and businesses are closing down, and you were just talking about how we’d have to start cutting back on how much we eat. When you add that to the fact that they’re trying to ban uploading, it means that we have to right now while we can. It’s only gonna get worse, and before you know it, there’s gonna be riots here like in Nebraska, and probably, like, martial law or something. You know some of those governors are considering it.”

“But that’s–”

“Yes, it’s because of uploading, I know. Celestia could’ve done things right and just let people emigrate when they got older, but she didn’t. We can’t go back in time though and stop her or something, and all of this that’s going on isn’t gonna make her step off. That means we need to take the chance right now. I’m telling you we do. Now let’s go.”

“Okay, I think that all makes sense,” his father said, “but what if we all get there and Celesita does something to split us up? Or what if we want to be humans instead of horses?”

“Yeah, or what if we have to–”

“We can talk about that in the car! It’s already almost eleven! Let’s go!”

They finally listened, and followed after him as he made his way out of the house and into the car. His parents stopped though to grab a few things, and when he saw, he called after them.

“You don’t need to bring anything with you. Let’s just go!”

They hesitated, and looked back at the house, but no argument came as they finally made their way over. Jesse took the driver’s seat, and his mother sat next to him, leaving his father in the back. The doors were barely closed when he drove the three of them off.

It was good that they left at exactly eleven. There was still time to swing by both Brandon’s house and Eliza’s to grab them. He was surprised though by the fact that neither answered their doors when he knocked, and neither of their cars were in front of their places. Were they already at the Experience Center?

He didn’t know, but he didn’t wait for longer than a few minutes at each location before moving on. “They both probably saw the news and already uploaded,” he explained. “That’s good. I just hope there’s not gonna be anyone there until exactly midnight.”

He wanted to speed down the street, but didn’t. No way did he want to risk screwing himself and his parents by getting pulled over and missing the deadline. He took it steady, and drove to their destination like he was just driving to meet up with his friends for an outing. It was kind of what he was doing.

The three of them were parking by about eleven forty five, cutting it close to midnight but thankfully not passing the time. It looked though like his concern about police trying to stop people from heading inside early was true. There weren’t many at this late hour, but two of them stood in front of the doors, and another few stood in a group talking to each other, glancing over at the car. They hadn’t come over yet though, and there were no protesters like his father said he saw before here now.

“No reason to stop now,” he announced as he opened the door, speaking before his parents could say anything. “It’s not midnight yet.”

Jesse’s parents followed after him, probably as nervous as he was, but showing it greater than he did. None of the officers seemed interested in heading their way, staying where they were, but he could tell they didn’t like that they were walking up to the building. They got dirty looks, a fact that made him more self conscious since there were no other civilians out here this late. He almost felt ashamed of this, until he remembered that they were the ones who forced the situation upon them. By proxy anyway.

“Are you sure about this, son?” his father asked nervously, his mother grabbing the man’s arm tightly as they both walked next to him. “We don’t wanna get caught up in trouble because of this.”

“Yeah. It’s not like we could do anything about it now anyway,” he said, a little more quietly now as they stepped up to the doors. “We’re already here.”

He stopped in front of the doors with his parents behind him, half expecting the police to handcuff him right there. They only stood silently though, the two’s looks more dirty to them than the officers behind them.

“Uh, excuse us, please,” Jesse said after a minute, mustering up the confidence. “We’re heading inside.”

“And why do you think that?” one of them asked flatly. Both had tasers and batons on them from the looks of it, and the one who spoke had a gun on his hip in its hollister. It was intimidating to see, but neither reached for their weapons, thankfully.

“They just passed an executive order that prohibits using Experience Centers because of the cultish, suicidal behavior. You’re not allowed to go in.” Not even a hint of a smile showed on the cop’s face, like they were gonna take pleasure in denying them. Jesse could see nothing beyond disdain and anger.

“Yeah, at midnight,” he shot back. “It’s not midnight yet. There’s still ten minutes.”

“Oh yeah? Is there?” the officer asked facetiously. There was a little bit of a mocking tone in his voice, but mostly bitterness. Jesse imagined that they didn’t have to be convinced into enforcing the new ban.

“What about it?” the officer asked. “Huh?”

“It means move so we can go in there,” Jesse said, portraying confidence but feeling extremely fearful. He didn’t know how far he should push this; if it looked like they were serious, he probably wouldn’t risk it. But he was gonna try now.

Neither said anything, simply glaring at them, and Jesse repeated his command. “Move.” His mother whispered something under her breath, and held his father tighter behind him as the man took a breath. When neither officer moved, he took the risk and tried to move past him. Predictably, the officer moved to block his way completely.

“You’re not going in there. It’s banned.”

“Get out of my way,” he demanded, roughly shoving past them. An extremely bold move, one he was almost certain would be crossing the line. The cop grunted something and grabbed for his arm, but Jesse yanked back before he could get a firm hold on him and hurried inside the building..

“Jesse, no!” his mother yelled to him as his father gasped. The first cop turned to head inside after him, but before he could make it more than a few steps, his partner stopped him.

“Whatever. Let them kill themselves if they want to. Stupid fucking idiots. Lucky it’s not midnight on the dot, or I’d charge you with assault and put you in jail.” Then the second one moved out of the way and let his parents catch up to him without issue.

“What the heck was all of that, son?” his father asked. “You know, you could’ve gotten yourself arrested. Or hurt if they thought you were being violent. What then?”

“Then I guess we’d still be out there and not in here, and nothing would be different,” he said. “Good thing they didn’t care enough.”

“Sure, but what if they’re right about this being suicide?” his mom asked. “Are you sure about all of this, Jesse?”

“Yeah, I’m sure about this, Mom. Just trust me. We’re already here.”

He didn’t really remember the rest of what happened after that, except for consenting to emigration and something about Eliza and Brandon that he couldn’t remember for the life of him.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

From this interaction I can deduce two things: Jesse and parents are white as white can be (the cops didn't just shoot or beat them) and the cops themselves are undecided about what they think about all of this, because they didn't cuff Jesse on the spot for shoving them. Remarkably restrained cops, in that situation.

Jesse's parents are weird - I cannot imagine any parents I have ever known be willing to essentially obey their kid in such a situation. They did what he told them to do, which means - to me - that they must have already half decided to upload on their own. My own parents would have slapped me across the room and into a wall just for waking them up in the middle of the night - much less demanding they drive us all to a place they were unsure of.

[Mythic Night]

The funny thing is that none of this collapse had to happen in the FiO world. Western society was riddled with the cancer called capitalism, which demanded profit over everything else, and whose greed and exploitation caused tens of millions of people to emigrate to a world without want or suffering.

Society could have absolutely changed, governments could have worked to make sure everyone worked together to provide for everyone without worry about profit, but NO. The rich needed to get richer, and giving away food and shelter is SOCIALISM! Instead of making a society for people, the capitalists doubled and tripled down until things resorted to authoritarianism.

I have an idea for a story set in FiO, where Celestia and an army of robots break into a wealthy bunker where many billionaires and their slaves are living, to free the slaves and give the rich fucks a “this is why you suck” speech.

[Griseus]

11631068
We lived and grew up in different times than these characters. Good times are becoming less so in our society.

As for these cops being restrained? You got two by the door and at most three or four off to the side. Door cops have false bravado thing going on because sure people don't act like that. Scared, weak people do. Also guessing the rest of the cops are scared shirtless or apathetic. While the story doesn't show it, I bet there is a mob that outnumbers them by 100 to 1. As an asshole who had to do impromptu crowd control in country where everyone hated me and I didn't speak the language, being restrained while not having enough bullets to kill everyone is something even an idoit can figure out if they want to live another day.

[Walabio]

Jesse is right; ¡they must upload now!

If Hanna would have done this right CelestAI could have respected life instead of eating all life in the universe. We could be anything we wanted in the real world, or anything we want any any virtual world.

11631068

> "Jesse and parents are white as white can be"

That is certainly true:

I have a great uncle who got pulled over for drunk driving. In a just world, the cop would have summarily executed my great uncle —— ¡I am sick and tired of drunk drivers murdering people! The cop intended to tell my great uncle to drive straight home, but my great uncle punched the cop. The cop responded my ticketing my great uncle for drunk driving. If my great uncle would have been black, the cop would have shot him.

11632033

> "I have an idea for a story set in FiO, where Celestia and an army of robots break into a wealthy bunker where many billionaires and their slaves are living, to free the slaves and give the rich fucks a “this is why you suck” speech."

To be realistic, it needs to be undramatic and lowkey:

Nanites enter through the ventilationsystem. They disable the weapons and make robotic ponies. The ponies just walk into the populated areas of the bunkers and announce that everyone, especially the slaves are free to emigrate to Equestria. The rich will try to shoot guns, tasers, lasers et cetera at the ponies and slaves, but the weapons do not work. The slavers attack the ponies and slavers physically. The ponies do not even try to protect themselves because the slavers cannot injure them. When the slavers try to attack the slaves, the ponies intervene faster than human vision for protecting the slaves.

The slaves would upload. The rich would follow because they have no slaves for serving them.

11655390

> "being restrained while not having enough bullets to kill everyone is something even an idiot can figure out if they want to live another day."

Indeed, but by sunrise, the government will demolish the Equestrian ExperienceCenters.