Not every confession has to be mine, does it? I can offer you someone else’s confessions, right? Prism City has a lot of candidates with juicy confessions. Sins pave the pristine streets, and the banners of debauchery wave in the broken ghettos. Most of all, those who live in the ivory towers, otherwise known as those who helm the corporate ships that war across the urban lands – those CEOs have plenty of skeletons to line their closets. Some keep them hidden better than others.

The hologram technology that quickly inundated our city, from waiters to bank tellers to entertainment, didn’t happen by accident or overnight. It didn’t even happen for many of the professions it came to utilize. It had a darker, deeper ulterior motive that spread like wildfire until it was all-consuming, and the corporate titans were in charge of that catalyst. They say that technology doubles every two years, but the technology that produced viable, almost invisible holograms in everyday life was more than a leap. It crossed a chasm of our societal development.

People like Langston Romaijn and Deirdre Bader, people who were the visible one percent of the city that warred over its fate from behind a desk in a boardroom, they were the reason that the hologram technology was expedited and given the funds needed to make that leap. This was before the Star Dog technology became center stage, but those who knew how to move their pawns across the urban board knew the steps needed to take the queen. Then it was only a matter of time until they reached the king. One of the pawns was the hologram technology.

They knew it had to be good. They knew the holograms had to be imperceptible, especially to those who were trained to be fooled by it. There wasn’t room for any mistakes, and they had limited time to perfect it in. It was just a side effect that the entire city would adopt holograms into their routines and lives. Its first purpose had a long calculated history tied up in the corporate giants that ruled Prism City. Its devastating denouement wasn’t obvious until after the Star Dog technology went into motion, at least to me. I watched from afar as they built the house that would act like a puppet show. I saw the machinery brought in and hard-wired into the very walls to make it as elaborate and fulfilling as they could.

I might have been fooled, if I didn’t know any better. He had just left behind the veil of a computer-induced fog and leapt into his own being, and I may never know what that’s like. The closest I can relate is the prior version of myself that was unenlightened to D-MISE’s main plan. I don’t know how I would have reacted, had I been on that side of things. I feel a little remorse, but I knew it was necessary. It made him stronger. Early on, I thought his strength would be instrumental in propelling us to After, but fate intervened – the one he chose – and the cards played out differently. We were left alone in Prism City, and I still don’t blame him.

Not one single iota.