Can't quite remember when I made the conscious decision to not follow. Or be swept up in anything. Or steadfastly resist the temptation to join something or belong to something. I am just not a good follower. I buck.

During the past week, a revolution has taken place; the kind of revolution that happens suddenly, silently and without much prior warning. Overnight, the streets began filling with people walking alone, in twos or threes, some larger groups... mobile phones in hand, and... trying to capture gyms and catch Pokémon?

Dylan was the innovator again in this household. I thought I was driving him to the station to go to Uni and catch up with some friends who were in turn catching up on some work during the semester break? He had his mobile phone out and as I pulled out of the driveway he said "Mum, the milk bar, go left, quick!"

I went left. The milk bar is just around the corner from us, less than 200 metres away but in the opposite direction to the station. I saw three young guys there, all with mobile phones in hand.

"That's my gym," Dylan said. "They're trying to take it."

 "That's a milk bar hon."

"No, I've placed my blah there and Boyd has his blah there, they can't beat us. Watch!"

That's what I heard. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I sat opposite that milk bar, engine idling, watching three guys apparently attack my sons 'gym', by swiping at their phones?

"Ha ha ha! Fail. Okay we can go now. But drive slow, under 20k an hour registers as walking."

"Huh?"

"I have to walk a certain distance to hatch my Pokémon."

 I pulled over. The train could wait.

"Okay. What's the deal here? What's going on?"

"Pokémon on the Go?" Dylan looked at me like I should know, but my last encounter with Pokémon had been a decade or so earlier, buying game after game for their hand-held devices? And those damn cards?

"On the go?"

"Yeah, it's synched with GPS and Google maps and now the whole world is blah blah blah..." That's a condensed ten minute lecture on how 'augmented reality' had arrived at a street near me? Pokémon no longer confined to a screen, the game had escaped and was on the loose. And we were all in it?

"So you roam the streets and capture gyms and find Pokémon and walk around to hatch them and-"

"Mum, the station quick! There's a beacon there! Free stuff! Go, go!"

"Dylan?" I had pulled up at the station.

"Yeah?" Eyes still focussed on his phone.

"Never mind hon. Have a good one, love you." My standard early morning goodbye, only he never really heard me. Maybe he mumbled something but he was out the door, head down, and standing just outside the station entry.

Hmmm... As I looked at him, I noticed others doing exactly the same thing. And by others, I don't mean little kids; I mean late-teens, young adults of both sexes and yeah, some considerably older folk?

The next few days, I lost Dylan and Boyd. The man cave was eerily silent, with only a super quiet Marcus, headset on and... moody? The dog dejected. The cat confused. Every few hours, the two come back to quickly recharge phones and extra portable battery packs. I'd hear some rapid conversation floating up to my window from the driveway, quite a bit of laughter as they came and went... and then silence again.

"Markie, why aren't you out with them?"

"I don't have a phone?"

"Oh."

Marcus had never wanted a phone. His birthday has just passed, but he's not received his present yet. Dylan was going to to pitch in and get him the latest iPhone. The day of his birthday, I had asked him to hold off on that decision, since he had no real use for a phone yet? Spending $1,100 on a phone that would sit like a brick on his desk seemed a waste to me - and my brother had also called, saying hold off, they were buying him something as soon as they returned from overseas - so I had asked Marcus to consider alternatives in the meantime...

That's when I noticed something.

"Hey, the iPad's working?"

"Yeah, I fixed it a couple of days ago. Dylan told me how."

That was my iPad Air; a year and a half old, and having spent a year of that life as a brick, since we'd taken it along on a trip and it had somehow become locked? Despite my repeated pleas to fix it and threats of taking it to an Apple store - which were met with disdain - it had remained dead to me. Now it was alive?

"You can't take that out with you?"

"Needs a new battery. Have to keep it plugged in to use."

"Oh. So that's why you want a phone? For this Pokémon thing?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. iPhone on Saturday... Can I have my iPad back now?"

"I'm using it to keep an eye on things from here."

"Oh. Hey you could use my phone till you get yours?"

Was that a scoff? "Yours lags too much."

"Oh you've tried?" Okay, I didn't have an iPhone. I had a supermarket bought one which usually sat dead too, unless I was in the hospital with one parent or the other, or I was going to be away from the house for longer than a couple of hours, which was a rarity these days anyway.

Dylan and Boyd returned again.

"Mum, we've walked over 19k in two days!"

"You have? Well that's a good thing! Right?"

"Yeah going out again tonight."

So I've sat here. Analysing this revolution. The positives: My boys are/will be outdoors – at least while the fad lasts – and active; as opposed to being chained to their desktops playing games or watching videos or working on whatever. Good thing right? It seems like a good thing. Right? Only a fad after all?

Oh but the negatives: Traffic. Any amount of obstacles they could trip over or walk into. More so, their movements tracked - me being me - and monitored and the information on their behaviour stored or sold off. The premise that nothing is free?  Then the walking through random streets where they could be lured in order to be robbed? Strange guys of indeterminate age sitting in cars? My two are too old to be paedophile fodder but still... danger signs did flash, big time.

Yesterday, I had to drive Boyd home. I knew he'd moved out of his mother's house and lived somewhere else, but his car had been stolen and reclaimed so was in the shop getting repaired after the stolen joy-ride... I was his only way home. Strangely, Marcus joined us, carrying the iPad? Tethered to Dylan's iPhone for internet... which in turn was attached to his laptop and charging? Hmmm...

For the first half hour, all three boys were heads down, following our journey in real time on their screens. Various exclamations... and the only time their heads were raised briefly were to 'sight' the 'gyms' we passed. A major supermarket chain was one, as was a McDonalds. Hmmm...

Out of suburbia, we hit the green belt before the hills. This was studded with small housing estates, some farms, parks and other places of interest.

They saw none of it... I hadn't driven out that way in many years, so was enjoying the rolling hills in the distance, the smaller ones we passed studded with vineyards and cows and sheep... I kept a running commentary, telling them of where each road led.

"Warburturn! There's usually a bit of snow on there over winter. Remember when you were little and went tobogganing there?"

"Nope."

"The animal farm? Remember how Markie was scared of the geese?"

"No?" This from an indignant Marcus.

"The place where they make damper? Where we sat outside and ate and then panned for gold in the creek?"

"Uh huh."

"Crap. I miss those trips. And you remember nothing of them?"

"Nope. Besides, we never asked to be born? Or for you to spend money on stuff we wouldn't remember?"

"Dylan-"

"Mum, turn right up ahead. A hundred meters! Turn!"

I turned. It was a public car park for a largish kid's playground, blending with natural materials into the surrounding bush. As I stopped just inside the entrance, I spotted them. We all did. A group of five 20 somethings, three guys, two girls, standing in a circle, all staring down at their screens... Then one of them lifted their head up, saw us, and as the rest followed her gaze, all waved to us to come on in. I pulled into a parking bay near them. They did not acknowledge us further or greet us in any way. They simply resumed staring down at their screens. 

Then this from Dylan, riding in the front seat: "Mum,why don't you have a ciggie while we go capture a couple of gyms?"

"Ciggie? You said have a ciggie? What happened to mum stop smoking?"

He didn't even acknowledge me, walking off with Boyd and Marcus. So I stepped out of the car and had my ciggie. And since I had no mobile phone along, I looked up and around. They were everywhere! Mindlessly walking around in small groups, pairs, even alone, passing but not 'seeing' or acknowledging each other. Yet they were seeing each other in the game!

I wondered what the small group of parents thought about these zombified beings circling them? I wondered too, what those little eyes, swinging on swings or sliding down slides thought about them also? They did not appear fully 'human'. They were present, but simultaneously in a game? So they were living IN the game, not in the real world around them?

I listened in to the conversation from the group of five. Well there was no conversation really, just various exclamations in reaction to whatever was going on 'in the game' played out in the park:

"Oh it's been taken!"

"Wonder by who? It's blue team."

I wanted to say, "Lift your fucking heads up and LOOK there! You will see my three just captured that bloody gym! Real people, people! Not bloody avatars! It was my lot beat your red team!"

Then... I heard again what I said, replaying the nearly blurted out comment in my mind. My sons were now part of a gang? Known as the Blue Team? Our local milk-bar was their stronghold? Our suburb and any other blue claimed gym was their 'territory'? Crap. My super-savvy sons had caught the virus. Brought up on Pokémon as youngsters, and then introduced to the Wii and real-life interaction ostensibly to get them off the couch... now they were loosed INTO a game, taking place in real time in their REAL world.

None of the groups 'playing' Pokémon in that park understood the park's real purpose of being. There were two memorials there; one for soldiers fallen in the first World War, one for soldiers fallen or otherwise severely injured in subsequent wars. None of them saw them because they were NOT on their map. This despite passing them physically, as they did the to and fro from mindless wandering, back to their cars? So in effect, only what was in their screens was real? The young parents, the children squeeling, the flock of parrots, the memorials to fallen soldiers, the bloody beautiful surrounds, the strong scent of gum trees... None of it mattered or was appreciated. The goings-on in the game were overriding their every sense.

I became physically ill. The implications spreading much further than I had envisioned. Paedophiles setting up 'lures' and sitting in their cars waiting for the younger ones... Gangs! Turf wars; in a country which has known neither gangs nor gang-ralated 'wars'...

I kept quiet as we resumed the drive, lost in thought. Then I heard:

"Mum slow down! There's someone attacking a blue gym on the right. Near the lights!"

"Can you see anyone?" From the back.

"Yeah I see him; dude on his own on the corner!"

I saw him too; an overweight man in his 30's, head down and swiping at the screen.

Next thing, three windows were wound down and Dylan was yelling, "Hey move on, that's our gym!"

"Yeah, move along!" Shouted from the two in the back seat.

The guy moved! He skulked away, head still down after a very brief and confused look in our direction. What the fuck was going on? Had he felt outnumbered? Had he felt a target? Had he really been frightened by three teenagers? Oh there was joy and celebration in my car! Laughter and jokes flying.

I wasn't partaking. My mind had raced ahead to: What if the shooter games were released this way? All those crazy, testosterone-oozing nerds spending small fortunes on weapons and whatnot... loosed into our streets? The demographic see? What bothered me? These weren't children out on a treasure hunt with 'mindful' parents along; these were young adults and fully grown adults; well indoctrinated into a culture that had been systematically enforced on them since they were born!

I have now become somewhat of an expert at spotting the 'zombies'. And this virus is spreading so quickly, I threatened yesterday to make up a sticker for the back of my car: "Caution, Pokémon on the Go players inside." That's so I don't get rammed in the back when a voice suddenly screams out "Turn left quick!" Which by the way had me performing a rather slick manoeuvre complete with tyres squealing as the car close on my tail swerved just in time to avoid collision yesterday...

Australia has been the testing ground. Uptake has - I state with confidence from observation - kept you money guys rubbing hands and you developers grinning. But fuck you both. You have my kids. And I'm not liking it, nor am I embracing this phenomenon. It was bad enough when people were distracted by mere texting. Now?

Now I see the future you are creating. And it isn't pretty. I see corporations cashing in and paying vast amounts to become 'gyms'... I see the current 'virtual' currency within the game becoming real... I see crime and harm to self and yeah, real zombies occupying the streets. On my watch damn it!

I have been following tech innovations. I knew all about the advent of 'augmented reality', dished out in the usual small and palatable portions so as not to alarm and overwhelm and yeah, generate mistrust. What I failed to consider is this: We are technologically ahead 20 years from where we the public are told we are. I was still thinking 'in the future?' 

Oh but these zombies have been brainwashed and prepared their entire lives. Spoon-fed. Readied with games and films and memes and the omnipresent TV...

But what of the children of today? Born into this, this being no longer an innovation/fad but a way of life by the time they are old enough to partake? Augmented reality applied to all their living?

A new, utterly manufactured reality. My house had a Pokémon in it last night. My house! Someone, some few may have driven/walked past and stopped... to catch it? My house!

I will leave you with this: A young female on her own, near an industrial area. We have several photos of her, wandering around... completely alone. Or was she? How many other cars were watching her?

Oh and here's what one Australian State (Territory) Police Department had to say:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/32005833/fun-police-warn-pokemon-trainers-to-heed-caution-while-catching-em-all/#page1

Wonder how this friendly warning will evolve over the next weeks and months. Hmmm...

**********UPDATE******************

Several hours now since I wrote this. We are heading out to the Emergency Dept because Dylan had rushed out earlier to go defend the milk bar... Fell off his skateboard, and now is nursing a swollen and painful wrist. First casualty? And I found out he went out last night at midnight, again to defend the bloody gym at the milk bar. Two cars parked there with two people in each. Be careful people. I have had to apply a new rule - the first ever rule in our household: No going out after dark alone and not without the dog. Funny that. I got them through adolescence without drinking, drugs, teen pregnancies and run-ins with the law or visits to emergency... Now I am worried about some little things called Pokemon. Really worried.