Secret Identity by Carolyn Keene

Author:Carolyn Keene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2008-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

“So as you can see,” Robert Sung was explaining two hours later, after he and Jack had shared with us every detail of their childhoods, adolescence, and early adulthood years. “BetterLife has revolutionized the gaming industry, Internet networking, and, indeed, the way people socialize in general.”

“Robert and I are a little uncomfortable with the term genius,” Jack broke in, trying to look humble, “but we do recognize the importance of what we’ve done here. Without BetterLife, we would all be limited by the scope of our offline—some would say real, but we don’t believe interactions in BetterLife are any less real—lives.”

The duo was quiet for just a moment, and for what seemed like the thousandth time that night, applause swept through the auditorium. I caught Ned’s eye.

“You would think they were rock stars!” I muttered.

Ned nodded. “Or they just announced that we’re skipping midterms this year,” he whispered back.

I turned to my other side, and saw that Ibrahim and Arij were watching the programmers with starry-eyed expressions.

“It sounds like they have really changed the world, Nancy!” Ibrahim said eagerly, when he caught my glance. “I can’t wait to get home to create my character.”

“Me too!” Arij agreed.

“You two just be careful on there,” I whispered. “In this game, you can’t be sure anything is what it seems.”

Finally the applause died down, and Robert moved toward the microphone again. “Are there any questions?”

I threw my hand in the air. I certainly had a few questions for these two. After listening to two hours of how brilliant and dedicated and revolutionary BetterLife was, I wanted to hear what they had to say about a few of its flaws.

Unfortunately for me, many other members of the audience had questions, too. They ranged from, “How can you tell when someone’s hitting on you in BetterLife?” to “In the university community, in the science building cafeteria, what is the code to get two drumsticks instead of one? My friend did it once, and I’ve never been able to figure out how.”

Robert and Jack seemed flattered, and were patient with everybody. Many of the questions from the audience ended with, “…and I just think you two are brilliant,” so I don’t exactly think the Q & A was hard on their already-healthy egos.

“You there, in the yellow sweater,” Jack said finally, pointing in my direction. “With the reddish hair. What was your question?”

I stood up. “What is your feeling on the lack of background checks in BetterLife?” I asked.

The two young men just stared at each other blankly, as though I’d asked my question in Martian. “Background checks?” asked Robert. “I’m not sure what you mean. People are playing a game here, not running for political office.”

A chuckle ran through the crowd.

“I mean,” I replied, “that it’s very easy to misrepresent yourself on BetterLife. You can change your age, your gender, even your appearance. I could log on right now as a sixty-year-old square dancer from Philadelphia, and you would never know I was anything different.”

Jack actually looked annoyed at my comment.

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