Alt + Me Connect – 404 User Not Found
A quick glance on his phone’s display told him everything he needed to know, leaving him with a heavy sigh. If Finnity Parrell had known his online friend would appear this late with a delay of approximately fifteen minutes, he wouldn’t have bothered to take the earliest self-driving car to metropolis’ center. Waiting in the middle of the plaza, surrounded by masses of people and neon skyscrapers towering above him, he became aware what a silly idea this really was. His excitement had gotten the better of him. Who wouldn’t if they were to meet the person they had been chatting with for over a year for the first time in the real world? Meeting in the virtual realm was less nerve-racking and it didn’t quite as much when the other party happened to turn up late.
Finnity nervously fished his phone out of his coat pocket. Automatically, his finger swiped across the display and hovered above a small icon. Whoever designed the icon, seemed to love simplicity. Two circles or perhaps planets overlapped and in the middle synthetic blue waves connected them with each other, only for the name “Ghostline” to fade into vision. For an app as popular as Ghostline, Finnity thought it may have been a tad bit too plain. He pressed the icon without giving it more thought.
Checking the dialogue screen, his eyes searched for a specific name. His online friend had picked a strange moniker – Vyr M.E. Finnity had no clue what the M. and E. stood for. He only knew his birth name was just as strange as his online alias. Alton N. Self. Finnity remembered the first time he heard it and how he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Alton? Whose parents name their kid something as old fashioned as Alton nowadays?” Finnity had asked, cocky as he was when he got close to someone. A trait many considered to be attributed to arrogance but in reality, he just loved be a tease.
“Better than to be called Finnity. Yours sounds like a girl’s name”, his friend had retorted. It seemed Alton shared his sentiment to talk shit. At this point it had become clear they’d form a beautiful friendship full of witty banter.
Apart from his real name, Finnity knew Alton’s interests were similar to his own. Augmented Reality Gaming, the same type of music taste, cyberwaves in particular, a virtual dog robot as a pet with the same name and aerial sport were just a few of the things they had in common. Eerily enough, they even had wounded up in the same type of accident when they were kids. For both, an adventurous session with their flying hoverboard had landed them in hospital with a broken arm, proving that Ghostline really had done a good job connecting the two of them.
What made Ghostline so special was its high matching rate. Tinder, Bumble and Lovoo were old news of the last century – not that Finnity would use Ghostline for dating anyway. He used it to work on his hermit lifestyle and as chance would have it, one summer evening he had stumbled upon the perfect app to fight his problems. When it came to Ghostline, it didn’t matter if you were looking for friends or a romantic relationship. Its founders promised otherworldly compatibility with the person they’d connect you with. “The person you will meet will be like your doppelganger” was something the founders would say to advertise. Unlike previous apps, the users wouldn’t have a chance to swipe themselves and choose their matches. Phantom Port, the company behind the app, advertised that their scientifically trained artificial intelligence named Sync would do the job for its users. It claimed it was able to connect people from across all borders of the world with a success rate of about 95%. All you had to do was to allow the app to scan your fingerprint and let it measure your brain activity via sensors – a resonance test for soul connection.
Finnity began to doubt the last part. Just like him, Alton hated tardiness. So why wasn’t he showing up on time? He doubted that Ghostline didn’t take impatience into account when matching the two of them together. When the tenth self-driving car stopped in front of him to let out its passengers, Finnity decided he had enough. Alton was fifteen minutes overdue, which was enough reason to nag about.
Finnity pressed Ghostline’s blue call button and put his phone to his ear. When his opposite picked up, he didn’t hesitate to complain.
“Alton, I just want to remind you you’re late.”
On the other end of the line, he could hear Alton scoff. “I’m the one who is late? I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes!”
Finnity furrowed his brows and took a look around. People roamed the street of metropolis, scrambling to get to the nearest shops and self-driving cars. Some young teens raced around with their flying hoverboards, circling the buildings and competing with each other for the self-proclaimed first place. Wherever he looked, there was no trace of his online friend.
“You’re kidding. I’m the one who has already waited for fifteen minutes! We must have missed each other.” He concluded. “Where exactly are you?”
“Where we promised to meet each other. In front of the Crystal Skyscraper.”
Finnity turned around. Said Crystal Skyscraper, a common place to look down on metropolis city light’s for young and old alike, towered above him into the sky, so high to the point the clouds blocked his vision from looking at its crystalline built beauty. Now he was even more confused.
“No way. I’m there too!”
Once again, he looked around, suddenly aware that he didn’t even know who to look for. It only now crossed Finnity’s mind that he had never seen Alton’s face before. Not that it mattered, but it would have been smarter to exchange pictures beforehand for recognition purposes.
“Facetime me and I’ll spot where you are. That should be easier.” Finnity suggested.
“Sure thing.”
Right after, Finnity’s display changed. When he saw Alton, he almost dropped his phone. Only a quiet gasp managed to escape his mouth. For someone as snappy as Finnity, this was probably one of the few times he had been genuinely rendered speechless. Alton seemed equally shocked because he too, did not manage to utter a single word, but rather an amalgamation of continuous stutters.
The same shape of the eyes. Same eye and hair colour. Facial features, down to the sharp nose and strong chin. Everything. Even the small scar right below the left eye, which made it seem droopy. Finnity recognized all of these features. He recognized them because they were his own down to the smallest detail. And worse, Finnity recognized right behind Alton the same Crystal Skyscraper he himself stood in front of right now.
As if he had been zapped with electricity, Phantom Port’s slogan came to mind. The person you will meet will be like your doppelganger. But if Alton really was a doppelganger, why was no one standing next to him? How could two people, who could be considered doppelgangers on top of it all, stand in the same spot in front of the same building without seeing each other in reality?
Before one of them could even put their confused thoughts into words, the connection snapped shut as if a third-party forcefully intervened their encounter. When Finnity took another look at Ghostline, a single message popped up.
404 User Not Found.
Despite how much he tried to call or send a text, he could never contact Alton again. Ghostline was shut down the day after. Its mysterious emergence and sudden disappearance made headlines even several weeks later.
“POPULAR APP GHOSTLINE GOES OFFLINE - WAS IT JUST A HOAX OR WAS A MYSTERIOUS HACKER THE CAUSE OF ITS DOWNFALL?”
“NEWS FLASH: PHANTOM PORT FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY DUE TO APP MALFUNCTIONS AND MASSIVE SHUTDOWNS”
“USERS REPORT STRANGE PHENOMENA ON THE DAY OF SHUTDOWN: WHAT IS PHANTOM PORT TRYING TO HIDE?”
Like all news, the topic died down eventually, only to be replaced with the next more lucrative scandal. But Finnity Parrell knew what he had seen. There was only one possible solution. A solution not a single soul would believe him if he told them. He had seen himself – himself in another world. He had glimpsed behind the truth of Alton N. Self. An alternative self. Finally, he had figured out the possible meaning of Vyr M.E which had been so painfully obvious the whole time. A Virtual Me.
