Because all calls to anywhere are free, people roam aimlessly from city to city, country to country, continent to continent, constantly on the phone to the folks back home, waiting for their brains to somehow suddenly "kick in" and meld back into some kind of refurbished reality also, simultaneously, itself, just now "kicking in."

The only things anyone needs are batteries, cigarettes, water, and vitamin E. Food had been shown to be superfluous in 2015, as had sleep and warmth in 2016. And proof that sex and defecation were likewise superfluous had ostensibly been destroyed in the Great MIT Fire of 2017, but everybody knew the rumors.
2021