Full Catch Diorama

by Nick Salomon

  “Humm,” I mumble again. Between being halfway starved to death, dizzy from my own body odor due to not having showered in what feels has been a month and the confusion over just what the fuck is going on, I don’t have the energy to figure out what this asshole is going on about. I just sit there in silence.

  “Stupid numb skull doesn’t even know this is his lucky day,” says Mr. Hancock. Mr. Jefferson chuckles behind him. “No Mr. Davis, I’m here to tell you we’re going to make all these charges go away.”

  The shock from hearing this wakes me out of the haze of malnutrition.

  “Yeah, you liked hearing that, didn’t you?”

  “No, it’s just,” I say, voice trembling from weakness. “How can you do that? Why would you do that?”

  “Oh, let’s just say we have the right friends in the right places,” Mr. Hancock explains himself, smug smile on his face. “Some of these friends believe there is certain value to these full catch dioramas of yours. Do you want to be our friend too?”

  “Yeah,” I say without giving it much thought. I can go back to my life. I can take a shower again.

  “As to why, well, it will become apparent soon.”

  For a few minutes I consider the fact I may be signing a deal with the devil. Maybe I died from heroin overdose and this is the actual devil fucking with me. I mean, ‘El Talegas’? Come on. I then ask “what about Topher Bass’ death? That’s pretty high profile.”

  Without an answer, Mr. Hancock pulls out a smartphone from his jacket, unlocks then fiddles with it for a while. Eventually, he presents the screen to me. I know this, it’s the administrator portal to Lucy’s… errr, my Tor showcase website. He browses to the statistics page where I see there have been 2.6 billion unique downloads worldwide. ToBogan’s diorama has gone insanely viral. At 99 cents per download…

  “I’m a billionaire,” I say stupidly.

  “Indeed,” says Mr. Hancock, then pockets back his smartphone. I choose not to ask how he knows the login password to my highly encrypted Tor website. “the idiot masses out there are more concerned with reliving Mr. Bass’ teenage raping adventures than asking themselves how he died. He’s been marked as an undesirable so now no one gives a single fuck about the circumstances of his death.”

  “I see,” I say. “So, I get to keep that money?”

  “Pocket change in the grand scheme of things, it is of no consequence to us,” replies Mr. Hancock.

  “What about the Dreamax… thing? What about the homeless dude?”

  “You still don’t seem to understand we have the resources to sweep such minor things under the rug,” Mr. Hancock answers, now more arrogantly than ever. “Besides, we have a scapegoat.” It appears the suits decide this is the end of the conversation. Mr. Hancock gets up and adjusts his expensive-looking suit. “Go home, Mr. Davis. Take a shower, jerk off, sleep, do whatever the hell you normally do. We’ll be in touch.”

  I can’t believe this. I’m free. I’m a billionaire. It’s all good except for a small detail. “Who’s the scapegoat?” I ask.

  Mr. Hancock answers as he walks to the same door they came in. “Why Lucia Cortez, of course.”

  “What? No!” I exclaim, standing up.

  The suits stop and Mr. Hancock turns, as he sighs in annoyance, having to explain things. “Let’s just say Ms. Cortez lacks the entrepreneurial spirit required to lead the diorama empire we envision.”

  Diorama empire. I like those two words being that close together. Lucy overreacted and called the cops on me and she’s the one going to jail? I’ll get over it.

  Without further explanation, the two suits exit the room and I’m left there by myself. I look around but don’t see anyone. Fuck it, I’m too hungry. I go scavenging for food at the tables by the microwave ovens and find several popcorn packets. I prepare one. Usually, I hate this salty crap, kernel pieces sticking between my teeth but I’m too hungry to care about being picky. The packet finishes cooking, I get it out of the over, open it and eat. Jesus Christ, sweet holy nectar of the gods.

  I’m munching tongue-burning popcorn when I see the two cartel soldiers approach. They talk to each other, pointing at me. I understand ‘gringo’ and ‘puto’. One of them gets closer, rudely grabs the popcorn bag from my hand and throws it aside.

  “Hey,” I say, as best as one can with a mouthful of popcorn. “I was eating that.”

  “Orale, pinche gringo,” says snakeskin boots cowboy number 2. “Vamonos, a la verga.”

  A la verga it is and so I’m led to the staircase up the next sublevel of the hell on earth that is the Pershing Square tent city. I climb staircases up 4 stories laboriously. I note how the higher I get, the less hellish the former subterranean parking lot gets.

  Finally, I make it outside. I hadn’t seen sunlight in… a month? Where before driving by with windows down was a gag-inducing experience, now the air feels clean, compared to the concentrated cocktail of festering bodily wastes underground. I take a step off the broken-down escalator and look around, I see the business of homelessness go about as usual. The mentally fucked up laughing or yelling incoherently. The well-meaning NGO and non-profit employees go around distributing food, clean needles and used clothes to the residents of the tent city. Portable diorama visors too, the cheap stuff, paid for with tax money.

  And I’m a billionaire.

  A technology entrepreneur. A trailblazer. A captain of industry.

  Captain of Industry

  Six months later.

  “You imbecile sack of shit,” says Mr. Hancock over speakerphone. Good thing the glass doors to the office of the CEO, my office, are well insulated for noise. Wouldn’t want the troops outside hear how the suits talk to me.

  “Excuse me,” I say, in a likely vain attempt to regain a sliver of dignity. “Can you go one sentence without calling me something horrible?”

  I hear Mr. Hancock scoff then he continues, “like I said, you retarded waste of oxygen, we have friends who will make sure the bill passes in Texas. After that, California will follow suit. Before you know it, the whole god damn thing will go national.”

  “I still think it’s a bit unethical to catch full dioramas off death row inmates,” I say.

  “Oh boo-hoo, cry me a river. Look at all the money only two ramas have made you in the last 6 months. Once you are legally allowed to start catching the really fucked up shit from murderers and other scum of the earth like you, then you’ll have your empire.”

  “Yeah… I guess,” I say. Should be wiping my tears of social justice outrage with $100 bills.

  “How’s the content injection project working out?”

  “The technical problems can be worked around,” I say. Again, something inside pushes to come out, against all self-preservation and profit-making instincts. “It’s just that… we’ll be basically injecting err… subliminal messages? I’m not comfortable with my dioramas having what is basically mind control code.”

  “Oh for fucks sakes, they’re advertisements. Everyone does a native ad every now and then why shouldn’t you?”

  I don’t have a counter argument. He’s right, it wouldn’t be any different from TV show commercial breaks back in the day. But we’re better than that. Here at Full Catch Diorama, the hottest new technology startup, we inject the ad directly in the content, so there are no commercial breaks, which would interrupt the immersion of the experience. Yeah, we’re pioneering technology here. We’re trailblazers. Innovators. And we’re going to change the world.

  “Keep an eye out for the Texas vote tomorrow,” Mr. Hancock continues his list of tasks assigned to me. “As soon as you hear of a yay majority, get your ass down there. I’ll build a list of upcoming executions while you travel.”

  Catching a dreamer-killing full diorama will still be illegal in the rest of the country but distributing it will not. Mr. Hancock’s friends in Congress are very persuasive indeed.

  “Will do,” I say. Without any further comments, he hangs up. We’re about to make hi
story. Music, videogames, VR, traditional dioramas. All things of the past.

  My computer screen displays the news for the day. Lucy’s trial is scheduled six months from now. Somehow Mr. Hancock and his friends in powerful places got the attorney general to shift the two manslaughter charges on her. After all, she was the one who wrote the code that killed the two unfortunate test subjects. I was an accessory to crimes I was not aware of at the time. She’s facing life in prison while I sit here, in the CEO office of a technology startup valued at 282 billion dollars. Why did she have to call 911? We could be celebrating together right now.

  I grab my bottle of Hetap Reserve from the desk and take a sip. $1000 a bottle, huh? Fuck, I fell for the native ad. Doesn’t even taste anything special.

  About the Author

  Nick Salomon is a nobody. He is not a celebrity, nor a friend or family of anyone in the entertainment industries. Nick is not connected to anyone who matters in the book publishing world. He did not kiss the right asses in college. Hell, his major was not even English.

  In so many words, Nick Salomon is an outsider who does not belong to any of the tight nepotistic milieus that matter for one to get their written work published.

  Nick never underwent any formal training in fiction writing, nor did he earn any accolades or favorable critic reviews.

  Nick is more of a random guy who observes the world around him through a very cynical lens, then writes down whatever comes to mind as a hobby. Occasionally, this produces a short story, or if lucky, a novel.

  Nick lives in Los Angeles, California, which explains his hopeless contempt for humanity.

  nick.salomon@blueben.ch

  * * *

  [1] Editor’s note: MMORPG stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. A type of fantasy second life online game with a large player population and its own self-contained economy. Some players engage in RMT (Real Money Trading), exchanging real world and in-game currency outside of the game.