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The year is 2050. The sun’s still rising, the waves are still breaking, but the game’s changed. Surfing, once a simple glide on the ocean, has morphed into something more… something wild and wired. Strap in and ride with me through this technocratic surf scene.
Morning Surf Check
The morning starts not with coffee, but with data streaming straight into my brain. My neural implant, a silent whisperer of the digital age, spills the secrets of tides and waves before I even roll out of bed. Offshore breeze, shoulder high runners. It’s a mix of old-school surf stoke and cutting-edge tech – a cocktail of tradition, neurochemicals and transistors.
Water Quality Assessment
Before I choose my playground – ocean or wave pool – I get the lowdown on water quality. The seas aren’t what they used to be; we’ve got to dodge the invisible bullets of pollution. My implant does the dirty work, serving up the cold, hard facts of our human footprint.
Despite cleanup efforts, the local desalination plant releases a cascade of brine that not only desecrates our local marine ecosystem but irritates eyes and skin. Who would’ve thought that creating clean drinking water would ruin the surf experience. I guess it’s for the greater good – of humanity.
Ocean vs. Wave Pool
The eternal surfer’s dilemma. Do I crave the unpredictable embrace of Mother Ocean, toxic brine suds and all, or the manicured perfection of the local wave pool? I have a choice. Free will. Why would I select one over the other? Yet I feel the raw, untamed call of the sea. There’s still magic in its madness. I’ve never been a true pooler even though I have earned the required credentials for entry. Pool access requires a level 7 Social Credit score or above – and such people tend to be somewhat snobby for my liking.
Dressing in Second Skin
Gone are the days of neoprene. I slip into my Second Skin, a sheath of nanotech that shields me from the harsh glare of the sun and insulates me from the cold. It clings like a lover and guards like a sentinel. Second Skin calibrates as it expands over my body and limbs, rippling in waves until it settles in place. A thin, protective tinted film covers my face, protecting me from UVA and UVB. I read about zinc oxide and other stuff humans used to plaster on themselves before going surfing. Nowadays you get issued a Second Skin and it’s your fashion, your sports apparel and adaptive environmental shield. With a Social Credit score of 8, I get the penultimate model. It’s the SS 9.7 made from Graphene, Carbon Nanotubes, Shape Memory Alloys and Self Healing Photovoltaic Nanomaterials.
People used to wear “fast fashion” – a concept that astounds me. Different clothes – rags – for different occasions, manufactured by strangers a world away. Now you need only a Second Skin and you’re ready for life.
Adaptive Surfboard
My board, a sleek beast of morphing technology, tunes itself to the quality of the waves. It’s a shapeshifter, a chameleon of the sea, reading the ocean’s mood and adapting its form to match.
It’s super light and can shrink down to a 5’6” nugget or extend out to a 9’0” log – in real-time. It also boasts a silent jet propulsion system for a boost and magnetic traction for those wanting to get airborne.
Augmented Reality Surfing
I paddle out with a virtual version of a legendary surfer streaming directly through my neural implant. Overlaid upon my reality I see ghost lines showing where to paddle, take off and aim. It’s a digital dance, a tangle of pixels and possibilities, inputs and outputs, and almost impossible to fail. Back foot pressure, it says, and I project off the lip like my Dad’s favorite surfer, John Florence, who is loaded into my sim.
I love the old school guys who surfed without tech. JJF was so radical – and it was all natural wetware and human passion.
OWG Monitoring
In this brave new world of 2050, where the waves continue to crash against a backdrop of controlled chaos, the One World Government (OWG) looms large, like a hawk circling its prey. It’s a strange dance of freedom and control, a paradox wrapped in the salty air.
Here, in the surf scene, the OWG’s iron fist is sheathed in a velvet glove of environmental stewardship and societal welfare. They’re the omnipresent overlords, the watchful guardians of our seas, sands, and souls. Every wave ridden, every moment spent under the sun, is tallied, monitored, rationed with a precision that would make Big Brother blush.
“Surfing,” they say, “is your right, but remember – the ocean is our responsibility.” So, we ride these waves on borrowed time, in allotted slots doled out by algorithms that claim to know the rhythm of the tides better than Gaia herself.
But it’s not all Orwellian doom and gloom. There’s method to this madness. The OWG, with their eyes in the sky and ears in the sea, use surfers as sensors, tapping into data feeds from our boards and suits, collecting information that will help with future environmental initiatives. We’re eco-warriors, in a way. Going places others dare not venture.
And yet, there’s a longing for the days when the ocean was wild and free, and surfing was an unregulated lifestyle. Some of us yearn for the taste of unbridled freedom, even as we gulp down the sanitized, safety-first surf sessions prescribed by the OWG.
My friend and I were talking (virtually of course) about “the search” for unsurfed, remote waves and we agreed that we should go on an adventure someday. Strangely, I never heard from him again. His user profile dimmed out three weeks ago. Must be important business.
In the shadow of this benevolent government (my friend called it tyranny), we ride the waves, a tribe of digitally connected yet physically disconnected surfers, chasing the ghost of a subculture that once represented rebellion and adventure.
My dad said that in his day, surfers descended on places like Bali and Fiji in droves, dropping down in planes that dumped plastic plates and disposable cutlery into landfill, before surfing perfect waves – with no AR assistance. I can’t imagine it. Sunburn, barbarian days, party nights, reef cuts, holiday romance, boat trips, petrol fumes, sharks, tropical fish, coconut water from coconuts. He told me all about it when I was a kid.
He gave me my first board, an old hexa fin Firewire (non adaptive) with single jet thrust. We surfed together through my teens, then I moved to the city and didn’t realize it would mean goodbye. Even after he died I couldn’t get a pass to leave the city – safety first, there was a pandemic raging out there.
Health Passport and Post-Surf Refuel
My every breath, every heartbeat, is streamed to the cloud, traded for a ticket to nourishment. After my surf a warning flashes up on my inner display. I’m low on essential nutrients and slightly dehydrated. A map directs me to the nearest take out – an upmarket juice bar for those with a Social Credit score of 7 and above. It’ll be nice.
The juice bar knows what my body craves, a tailor-made elixir to soothe the fire in my muscles. I sip the thick brown fluid and relax for a moment, summoning a video recording of my surf session on my inner display. A nanodrone filmed the whole session in holographic 256K. My air was rad, especially the landing which I stuck with precision.
I feel a rush of dopamine as I replay the maneuver and then share it with my followers.
Chance Encounter on a Train
On the train, amidst the sea of souls with blank stares, she stands out. A spark in the digital fog. Our implants fire up in the ether, setting up a virtual rendezvous. Romance, rebooted for the digital age. We may never meet in person but the AR realm allows for some fiery prenuptial action. If all goes well, maybe we could meet someday. That’s the OWG promise – everyone will find a soul mate (Social Credit score 6 and above).
What is a soul? I searched that once and was told it’s an essence. A blueprint that makes each of us unique. The ancient meditators apparently found it and so did psychedelic explorers. Now I can just fire up an AR DMT simulation and seek out insights amongst the patterns, on demand.
It’s cool but ultimately unfulfilling, prescribed, contrived. What I’d give for a magic mushroom IRL. My dad told me it’d transform my life.
Returning to My Cube
Home is a cube, a literal box amidst the urban sprawl. I await my dinner, delivered by unseen hands, a perfect algorithmic match to my culinary desires and bodily needs. I drink the brown liquid and chew the crunchy greens. They’re high protein replicas of old school veggies, designed to build my muscles, guaranteed organic from the ‘hopper farm. My dad didn’t like the idea of eating insects but I don’t see the difference between a cow and a grasshopper.
Anyway, this is surfing in 2050 – a blend of flesh and circuits, waves and wires. The heart of surfing beats on, but it’s wrapped in a new skin, pulsing with electricity. I wonder if out there in the wild, beyond the boundaries of our walled city, the primitives still go surfing. I have no idea what goes on out there. I chose OWG but there are places where OWG doesn’t rule.
The wild zones sound dangerous but alive. I ask for info about the wilderness via neural search, asking, “Where do the primitives still exist? How do they live – and what about healthcare?”
The search results appear for a moment then glitch and I’m shown the nauseating load wheel. It spins incessantly indicating I’ve transgressed in some way. The search session closes and my social feed pops up. Seems my surfing exploits are getting some love. 45 likes and counting! A message pops up from train girl.
Life’s better when you keep busy. There’s no point thinking outside of the box (literally). I own nothing except for my Social Credit score, which enables me to use things and places – and I am happy.
