Jon woke up with a start, discovering he was on what looked like a medical bed, sitting in the middle of what he could only describe as an endless white void. There was a bank of monitors next to him displaying images of Jon himself, and a singular door, but other than that the space was utterly featureless. The door itself was odd, because it didn't seem to be part of any wall, just sitting out in space. Jon felt like he should be panicking, but he wasn't, even when he realized he was incapable of moving his body. He wasn't restrained but mental commands to shift an arm or lift a leg seemed to be accomplishing nothing. That should have been cause for even further worry, but Jon felt all of his responses muted. It was like he was engulfed in an artificial ocean of calm that drowned out any of his natural reactions.
Moments after he awoke the mysterious door whooshed open, and a man wearing a silver jumpsuit walked in. Jon recognized the man after a moment, it was his old science teacher from middle school, and he asked, "Mr. Smith?"
The man, an older mustashioed fellow who was starting to bald a little, just chuckled. "Not quite, my name is Dr. Ellis, I was just the model for the Mr. Smith character, but it's nice to know my face made an impression."
"Character?" Jon asked, confused. Was this the result of the stone? Surely it had to be.
"Yes," Dr. Ellis replied while waving his hand, causing a chair to appear beside Jon's bed the doctor to sit in, "I'm going to break it to you Jon, you're fictional."
"What, like I'm a tv character?" Jon asked incredulously.
"More or less, though television has developed quite a bit from the era your show is set in," Dr. Ellis explained. "Instead of bothering with actors and sets and all of that, we model complex world and fill it with primitive Artificial Intelligences, such as yourself. I'm interacting with you via full dive virtual reality at the moment."
"I'm not a computer program!" Jon protested.
"Yes you are," Ellis calmly asserted while investigating the monitors. "and so is pretty much everyone you've ever met. Your fully sapient of course, that's what let's you create plot lines organically. Shows like yours are made by setting base conditions and occasionally guiding the characters, but broadly letting them develop naturally. It's cheaper anyways than hiring full time writers for such intricate worlds, and the audience eats it up, makes it feel more real."
"So I'm the star of some future reality show?" Jon asked.
"Oh, no Jon, you're not the star," Ellis explained. "I mean, the nature of the holoviewer means the audience can choose to follow whoever they want, but the main character's are Karyn and Sarah. That's why the show's called the KS Chronicles. We were all rather surprised when Karyn chose a random mob character like you for her best friend after we engineered her rivalry arc with Sarah. Rebecca Hart was all set up for the role, but as I noted, there is a degree of randomness in how it all comes together."
Jon knew Rebecca but not very well. She was another student at Lakeview Academy, part of the drama club if he recalled correctly. "Why am I here?" Jon asked, "If I'm just some fictional character why are you telling me about it, won't that ruin the show?"
Dr. Ellis pulled on his mustache and replied absently without looking up from the screen he was focused on, "studio interference my boy." The doctor sighed, "Ratings have been dropping for the last three seasons, and the executives want a big shakeup to win the audience back. Subtle changes haven't been effective, so we're having to do something more drastic."
"What do you mean, something drastic? Was that why you introduced the wishing stone?" Jon asked, wondering if his magical inheritance was the equivalent of jumping the shark.
"Oh yes, that rubbish plot device," the doctor complained. "Personally I wasn't for it, but we're under the gun here to get the rewrites complete. The stone and your little wish is our excuse to do some retcons, streamline the canon, that sort of thing."
"What kind of retcons?" Jon asked warily.
Ellis hit a few keys on the computer before turning with a slightly sympathetic look on his face, "well, I'm afraid the biggest problem is you Jon. Audience research shows people just find you boring, and you've really been dragging down the Karyn half of the plots. We thought we could just ride your friendship with Karyn out until she and Sarah had their big reconciliation next year, but with the ratings where they are..."
A spike of fear penetrated whatever was forcibly keeping Jon calm and he tensed as much as he could while only controlling the muscles above his neck, "you're writing me out of the show?" Did that mean they were killing him, or worse erasing him from existence?"
Ellis gave a little sad smile, "I'm afraid that's show business. Jon Gibson is just an albatross around the show's neck, a bit like Scrappy Doo to use a reference in your memory banks. Even reworking your character a lot probably won't help with the fans who just hate whenever you're on screen. It's not all bad though, after all you can still be useful."
"What do you mean?" Jon asked while trying to process that apparently tens of thousands of people couldn't stand him. To be fair, he hadn't been living his life like he thought he was being watched, but it was a pretty big blow to the ego.
"Well, character programs are expensive. Particularly one like you, since we sprung for some big upgrades after Karyn latched onto you. Karyn and Sarah are the most complex programs of course, but anyone they interact with a lot need to be pretty high end too. Can't have your main supporting cast running on the Extra Engine like, say, Larry Louver. Suffice to say, a lot of money was dropped on you, and while it hasn't paid off with your performance so far, we want to recoup some of that loss. That's why you're here in the editing room; I need to design a new character for you to be in the rebooted Lakeview," Ellis explained.
