That was a stupid idea. No. Wrong. His most stupid idea ever. By far. If only he could recant. Or at least kick his own posterior, to keep his mind off those three bullet points. Instead of getting ready to comply. What the hell got into him, back in 2018?

Jackson vaguely recalls a lot of laughter. A solid dose of ethanolic beverages, procured by a friendly twenty-something. Combined with some freshly legalized recreational marijuana, from the same source. Virtual Reality was still in its infancy, you needed substance intake to get high.

His eighteenth birthday. Celebrated in uncle Edgar’s cellar. The weird nerd uncle. His place a safe haven in a forbiddingly middle class neighborhood. Full of servers. High speed everything, too. And uncle Edgar didn’t mind a teen downloading anything. Not pretty much anything. Full anything. Jackson used to love uncle Edgar. The bloody bastard. May he Rest In Peace.

Back in 2018, Uncle Edgar was in process of striking it big. Had just founded Etertract.

Yes, the Etertract. Jackson is nephew to a billionaire. Stupid as straw, fat as blob, utterly miserable right now, but a celeb in the family. Such a bane.

Etertract, as in “eternal” and “contract”. Never a natural at branding, uncle Edgar.

All his earlier ventures had flopped. The debt sent him right back into the industry jobs he was so desperate to leave behind. His wife, not to be called aunt Bridget because that suggested her true age, begged uncle Edgar to stay with the bank. His was doing well, developing some electronic cash transfer validation tool. But he had to quit and found Etertract.

As if the world had been waiting for one more blockchain startup. Everybody who was anybody was doing blockchain moneys. And everybody else was betting real money on it. Them. Or whatever. It didn’t last and any details are long forgotten by now.

Uncle Edgar wasn’t into money. Kept muttering about banks always having the last laugh. Bit of an anti-capitalist, uncle Edgar. Recurring insolvency does that, to a certain kind of nerd. Having come close to a conviction for fraud, for one of his more creative venture capital access plots that involved a virtual Nigerian prince with an equally virtual oil well, uncle Edgar had a better idea.

His home state was going bust. Too many prisons holding far too many felons. Especially the old inmates were as expensive to keep locked up as age had rendered them harmless. Time for a high tech alternative. A virtual prison. Use the blockchain technology to identify the felons, define their parole conditions and track compliance.

Jackson tries to recall what the ambiance was like, back in the age of terrorismania.

People were brave enough to drive cars, on public roads swarming with human drivers. Casual heroism, with often deadly consequences. A majority of those same brave people were terrified to get bombed or raped. None of this would happen to most of them, according to statistics. But they didn’t trust numbers. Very suspicious, of statistics. And of the vaguely defined portion of the population called aliens. A majority of the brave people wanted a wall, to keep out aliens. And perhaps also statistics. Or statisticians. Jackson struggles to recall, thirty two years later.

Which reminds him, of his most stupid idea ever. What being young did to him.

Etertract looked like the usual flop. The virtual prison concept didn’t fly. But SilverLining, a private security company uncle Edgar had contacted to learn about jails, came up with a twist that proved a winner. Change of scale. Etertract would deliver the wall. A virtual wall.

The brave people would never have trusted any government agency with too many data. But distributed, publicly accessible ledgers tracking everyone’s residency and work permit status, as well as eventual criminal records, were an obviously safe solution.

The new Etertract immediately trended on social media, under the hashtag #OurPower. People registered in droves. The trend quickly went offline, too. Jackson recalls the neighborhood recruitement drive. Some old lady, weird dress and bad hair, would come knocking: “Sorry, not finding you on Etertract yet. Would you please hurry to sign up? No offense intended. Just want to  make sure the neighborhood isn’t infested with pedophiles. For the kids, to keep them safe, you know?” At the mall, there was a stand. It soon became a point of pride, to display your Etertract identifier. To tell everyone how legal and law abiding you were.

Many resident aliens joined the rush. Being no less law abiding, except for that missing tick in the greendcard section, they didn’t fail to grasp the potential. Officialdom might not see their worth, but quite a lot of the people had better, first hand understanding.

A farm hand can use Etertract to promise only to stay for the harvesting season, delivering an agreed quota that will of course also be monitored. A personal assistant can link her stay to the lifespan of the granny she’s caring for. As long as this granny, or more often her next of kin, provide weekly confirmation of quality care, it’s more than obvious the carer can’t be deported. Whereas the former marijuana trafficker, his services no longer needed thanks to legalization, won’t find no counterpart to vouch for his utility.

A beautiful virtual wall. And cheap, too.

Uncle Edgar resisted the concept, at first. Mumbled about libertarian pride and dignity. Until the roof photovoltaics needed replacing. And his wife a new car. And he himself a birthday present for his favorite nephew Jackson. Which is a bit of an irony really. Or would that be sarcasm?

On the night of Jackson’s birthday party, Etertract was in the very early roll-out stage. None of his equally juvenile guests had heard of it yet, and he enjoyed showing off. Bragged how his uncle Edgar was in process of changing the world. Jackson knew this venture would flop. Like all the others. Why should this one be any different? But he didn’t mention that detail.

When Sophia taunted him to log in and do a demo, he didn’t think twice.

Hard to define who deserves the blame for his misfortune. The ethanolic beverages? The marijuana? The twenty something who had procured both? Uncle Edgar? His maths teacher, for failing to make him understand how past form doesn’t tell you about future form? Sophia’s cheerleader looks? His own stupidity?

Probably the latter. Most probably. Jackson would really love to kick his ass.

It could still have ended well. He could have come up with something harmless. But foolish young him was so damn sure not to want to live longer than forty years, at most. And that uncle Edgar’s venture was anyway bound to flop. Zero risk. As close to zero as it gets. Ha ha.

He had to write into his ledger that come age fifty he would:

1. Walk around the block naked. A bit undignified. He’s also going to freeze his butt off, on March 8. But on the feasible side, overall. The time of the day wasn’t defined, his one lucky streak. Around three in the morning the streets should be mostly empty. Except for all the friends, neighbors and acquaintances aware of his misfortune and eager to display compassion. By watching.
2. Eat his sneakers, without ketchup. This is disgusting. And more tricky than the stripwalk. Jackson did some research. If he cut the damn size 13 beasts into tiny, tiny pieces, they should pass his digestive system without causing harm. He also assumes washing them down, with some strongly flavored tea to cover the original taste, will be permissible. Not exactly what you’d be wishing for, as birthday meal. But he’ll get this done, down, somehow.
3. Loose any weight he might have gained since his eighteenth birthday. Horror. Misery. Doom. Gloom. Disaster. Despair. The end of a life worth living, as far as Jackson is concerned. So formidably stupid. He will have to loose a full sixty pounds.

Jackson has always been prone to gaining weight. Dieted hard, ahead of his eighteenth birthday. To fit into his favorite jeans. To impress Sophia. She proved immune to his charm. Within the following year, he settled for Olivia. No cheerleader, but a good match.

The two of them happily agreed to ignore the mainstream body shape obsession. Until now.

You don’t recant, from an Etertract. It’s just not possible. No access to the fridge, without your identifier. And don’t even dream to buy anything, edible or not, without it. That’s the beauty, of Etertract and #OurPower. It’s all over our life, but not a government and hence not totalitarian.

Etertract will put Jackson on a diet. And perhaps set him up for bariatric surgery, if the weight loss takes too long to materialize. He’s never going to eat nice again. Horror. Misery. Doom. Gloom. Disaster. Despair. Jackson would love to kick his fat ass.

“Darling? Are you down there, darling? Jackson, answer me. Are you in the cellar?”

The last thing Jackson needs right now, on his last day of a life worth living, is company. But fail to answer a call from your wife at your own peril: “Yes sweetheart. Down here. What’s up?”

And here she comes, the full two hundred lovely pounds of her bouncing down the stairs with amazing grace. The wonderful wife he’s going to betray by no longer feeding himself properly.

“Jackson, what are you up to, down here? I’ve been thinking. We really are getting too fat. The kids agree, too. We will go on that diet together. And to make sure I don’t fail you, I just signed an Etertract. Same date as you, same target. Isn’t that wonderful? Us together, going lean?

Horror. Misery. Doom. Gloom. Disaster. Despair.

If only Jackson could go back in time, to an era without Etertract. The simple joys of failing your commitments. The ancients, did they have any idea how good they had it?