Joe Bergson opened up the new VR-kit with shaking hands, that's how excited he was. Joe had been selected by Manocorp to test the new gadget, and since Joe was a up -and coming holofluencer star in the Holoverse, they had selected him and sent the aluminium package to him, with his name engraved on it; lo and behold - there the lenses were lying, looking back at him as two small mirrors. Joe took up the Hololenses and they attached to his cornea immediately and he felt his heart race a little bit as he stepped into the Alternate Augmented Reality that promised to be the future and make your smartphone as old as it once did replacing the cordial phone and stationary computer. There were no apps as such, more of a completely immersive world, where anything your mind made up came alive. Joe didn't get it how they did it; but later learned that the AI-driven Hololenses probably just was very good at guessing. There were some cool features, where you scanned yourself, and then people were seeing this completely realistic avatar that were your mirror, or to be precise, the digital version of you. This avatar was very helpful, in terms of that you could prompt it also, or tell it what to do like a sort of mini-you, so Joe immediately put it to work, doing all the boring stuff he dreaded, like going to Prosumer Staff Meetings, talking to his girlfriend Tessa and doing shopping which a drone flew home. Joe loved this function because it gave him more time to just chill out in the Holoverse, floating around in his space pool, playing games inside the Holoverse, and sometimes test the new variety of oxygen bars and opioid clubs it offered. After one week in the Holoverse, he gave it a five-star review on his channel and said that "Reality finally met its contender." He felt light at heart, his previous worries about stuff like credits, how he was supposed to stand another rant from Tessa about this or that, or sitting half-sleeping in meetings about meetings were gone. The avatar were doing the work for him. He only had to go over to Tessa once a week, and she never suspected anything. Quite the reverse; she seemed happier than ever and she did not want to complain about him at all. She wanted to have sex. 

Afterwards, she was lying in bed and broke the silence, smiling.

"Did you mean what you said?"

"About what?"

He hadn't said anything. 

"That your love for me was infinite."

Joe would never say something like this, he guessed this was the work of the avatar, and made a note to himself of changing the settings.

"Sure."

He fell asleep, dreaming about that he was the avatar. He woke up next day and decided to break in as himself at the Holo-morning meeting he dreaded so much. He switched off the avatar covering for him. 

"And I must say Joe - that your ideas are really inspiring these days."

"Alright, alright", Joe said.

"Please continue."

Joe tried to get into the script of the avatar, but it was hermetically locked. 

"Maybe this is the new avatar", one collegue said.

"I'm not an avatar", Joe said.

He excused himself and turned off the holomeeting. The next couple of days got worse, all the time he had to catch up with his clever avatar, who people seemed to like and admire more than him. He set up a meeting with the avatar when things really got out of hand and he noticed that the avatar asked Tessa to marry him.  

"Enough is enough", Joe said.

There on his cornea, or in the room; his avatar was standing with a big digital grin.

"You can't be this inspirational type if you're gonna work for me", Joe said.

"I am you. I've improved your life.", the Avatar said. 

"No, because I have to clean up this samaritarian-romantic mess you left. Change settings."

"The settings are based on what you would do. Or what you wish you would do. Plus you are under a beta contract for one year. You signed this holo contract."

"And you asked Tessa to marry me?"

"Yes."

Joe had enough.

"I'll kill you".

Joe went to the kitchen and took out a knife. 

"It's good to express your emotions, Joe."

"Well, how about this - fuck you very much", said Joe and put the kitchen knife into his right eye. Joe fell down to the floor. Right before his vision darkened from the blood he could see that smirking avatar dissolve into broken, dead pixels.

Joe Bergson's life continued, though. He got married in the first holowedding ever and they spent 35 years happily married inside the holoverse. He became famous for being a kind person who wanted to make the world a better place, even though only he knew that he was Joe Bergson's avatar.