I saunter down the street in awkward gait, holding my arm up to guard my eyes from the sun that failed to warm the brisk autumns that envelop this city from time to time. The professor’s estate towers in the distance. Getting closer, I begin to feel like I’m being looked down upon by a tall man with a crooked smile, his silence sending off invisible threats.
As I approach the front gate of the mansion, a thought occurs to me. How am I going to get in? Would I have to break into his pavilion just to talk with the man?
As if the Professor could hear my thoughts, he appears, walking towards the gate with 3 bodyguards covering his sides and back.
“Hello there, sir!” Chimes the Professor, fumbling with the latch. “Are you going out for an afternoon stroll as well?”
His words are surprisingly clear, despite the obvious F.U.N. drive protruding from the back of his neck. Rumor has it that those who have been under the F.U.N.’s influence for a good while can begin to sense what is going on in real life. And since the Professor has most likely been using the F.U.N. since it’s birth, he has mastered the art of experiencing two realities at once.
“Afternoon stroll.” Repeat the guards. They most likely are trained to perform real-world actions under the influence of the F.U.N., using his words as a way to tether themselves to reality and prove to the professor that they are doing so. The professor would be a hypocrite if he forced his guards to unplug if they wanted to go to work, and this must be the way he lets his workers enjoy both worlds.
“Uh… Sort of.” I manage.
The Professor stands silent, running his hand through his hair to prevent awkwardness from settling in.
“You see… Uh…”
What am I going to tell him? Even if I do manage to get all the correct words out without stuttering or making myself look like a fool, it’s not like he’s just going to realize all my points and immediately shut down the F.U.N. project.
“Well?” Says the Professor, looking down at his watch.
“Okay. How do I say this… Your philosophy is wrong. I’ve waited long enough… Four years? Okay, yeah, four years, I’ve waited that long to say this to you…”
The Professor frowns, and the rest of his body frowns too. His eyebrows draw into a line, his feet began to awkwardly shuffle, and he crosses his arms. His guards tense up.
“Anyway, what you don’t understand is that suffering is part of human nature. Humans have existed since the stone ages because of a careful balance between suffering and-”
“Fun.” Says the Professor, keeping his distasteful look.
“Yes, fun… Humanity has always existed because ‘bad’ emotions: Fear, disgust, and anger, were kept in check by happiness. Or as you like to call it: Fun. You are presenting humanity with an option to experience only fun, so by default actual reality becomes inferior. Giving back the ability to suffer is the only way-”
“So you’re telling me you want to suffer- No, you like to suffer.” The Professor spits out the word “like” as if it were poison.
“No, I want to bring back the balance-”
“Be honest with yourself, boy.” He looks me straight in the eye. “You want the ability to suffer again.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but you’re failing to understand-”
“Hah!” The Professor cuts me off with a single-noted, trumpet-like laugh.
“Hah!” His guards repeat.
“Look, young man. I think you’ve been suffering too much lately. Just loosen up and have some fun.”
One of his guards snaps from his trance and produces a drive from his pocket.
I turn to run but the guard snatches my trailing arm. He tries to put the drive into my neck but misses, as he’s still seeing another reality, barely aware of this one. He tries a few times more, the cold metal of the drive hitting the surrounding flesh of my neck.
“Don’t forget.” Says the Professor, putting a hand on my shoulder as his guard attempts to jab the drive in. “If you really don’t like it, you can stop it at any time by simply saying ‘Stop the Fun’”.
“Stop the fun.” Mock the guards, but not before the Professor’s eyes bulge open in fear, realizing what he just did.
I smile.
Now seeing the real world in it’s mind-numbing grey, without the constant dopamine flow that the F.U.N. grants, the Professor can’t do anything but scream. He wails for a good while, sinking to his knees. His guards follow, crumpling to the ground and covering their eyes and ears.
It occurs to me that the Professor and his guards haven’t seen the real world for a good time now. Since they still have a slight perception of reality, there simply hasn’t been a need.
While the Professor and his service struggle to turn their F.U.N.’s back on, I pick up one of the guard’s ID cards and walk right past them, sprinting for the still-open door of the mansion, hope lingering in my heart that those were the only guards the Professor had.

I manage to find my way into the main server room without getting seen, but the door was locked due to the technicians being on a lunch break. Sliding the guard’s ID through its sensor, I slip inside.
After the World-Fi plan was put in place, which gave every square mile of the earth fast and accessible internet, everything was given an internet functionality, including most body drives. The F.U.N. was no different, using the internet to share your fantasies with your friends, among other things, and the two supercomputers in the regulation room are meant to update and supply information to F.U.N.s everywhere.
“Heh.” I mutter to myself, alone in the dimly lit area. “I thought that technology major was going to be useless.”
Within the spacious workroom are the two hulking processors: The script receiver and command prompter. The script receiver, a giant screen connected to an even bigger processor with lines of code constantly running down it, quickly and efficiently pings every single F.U.N. in the world to make sure everything is running fine, along with supplying information to F.U.N.s that request it. The command prompter’s screen was much smaller, but it’s processor was about the same size. It’s job was to allow the technician behind the screen to update and edit pieces of code, allowing for constant maintenance of the program. With the microphone next to the prompter, one could also tell announcements to the user’s F.U.N.s directly through the feed.
Excited to end it all, I rush up to the microphone, write a script call into the command prompter to allow for a direct recording to all users, and say into the microphone:
“Stop the fun.”
My head quickly spins to the script receiver, but nothing changes. Regular status scripts continue to pour down the many lines it’s receiving. Nothing happened.
A few moments later, I have a startling revelation. To shut down all F.U.N.s around the world, I needed the words to be said in the user’s own voice. And I needed to make the shutdown permanent.
The voice data was stored somewhere in the individual scripts for each F.U.N.. I eventually find the script storage line for the user’s voice, used for recognition if for shutdown. Copying the script into the recording portion of the command prompt, I modify the input for the microphone voice to change to a simple “text-to-speech” program, taking a deep breath and reminding myself that this is the right thing to do. Like little ants, the white lines of text dash about the receiver screen, taunting me to make them all stop.
Within the text-to-speech command prompt, I type:
“Stop the fun.”
And hit enter.
The script receiver begins to slow down due to all the signals it’s getting.
“user_111002 has shut down”
“user_111003 has shut down”
I madly search the script for a certain line. Within seconds, I find it:
“Initialize program on bootup after shutdown_true”
I hastily erase “true” and change the script line to:
“Initialize program on bootup after shutdown_false”
But my job isn’t done yet. I hold down “ctrl” and “a”, selecting all script lines. I then press delete, and both screens go completely blank. Just to make sure, I delete the program from both the revision history and the cloud, and lean back, relieved, as the door bursts open from the pound of a battering ram.
“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!” Bellows an armed man standing in the threshold, a squad of identical-looking operatives right behind him.
I simply shake my head. He can’t stop me from feeling how I am now, having something I haven’t in four years:
Fun.