Not With A Bang

With the final enhancements brought online, the Autonomous Neural Interface Network (ANIN) was born. Physical attendance at public venues was no longer necessary and quickly came to be accepted as both risky and gauche. Why subject oneself to the annoyances of transportation, admission lines, and the very real possibility that the patron next to you might be carrying one of a host of nasty and particularly virulent pathogens currently plaguing society, when viable technological alternatives existed?

From a secure bunker in an unspecified location, Ekaterina Yaroslava, child prodigy and piano virtuoso, took her place to begin the first virtual concert of her much-anticipated ANIN World Tour. Transmitted directly to the cerebral cortices of her millions of adoring fans, the music was infinitely preferable to the total, all-consuming silence that had become the world outside of their own minds.