VEG

by Zachery Nims

  Chapter 2: What Future

  Source: Journal

  Name: Mark Boggs

  I felt claustrophobic in the confines of my room. The bed, washed with neglect, had a thick layer of grey dust on the comforter. I began removing them, along with the pillow covers, hoping that I could sleep through the night without some airborne bacteria taking me. Most hotels in the district had been abandoned when the economic crisis hit. I'm sure the investors in this dump had promising futures that vanished when the markets crashed.

  The economic crises changed the fate of many of the restoration city projects. Cash was dumped into slums with hopes of gentrification. When the money train stopped, these cities imploded upon themselves, letting the ghetto swallow them whole. There were still thriving cities in the United States, which is where we focused our development to ensure the economic security of the nation but at the cost of letting some cities die. These abandoned cities were reborn with the funds of black markets and governed by street law. An urban jungle predicated upon the idea that only the fittest would survive.

  It was easy for a man like me to find a place to squat when I traveled. VEG had started out as a blessing. No one saw any problems, and get this, even doctors recommended it. I loathed computers. I had always believed that they would be the downfall of mankind. If that damn Charles Sanders would have stayed out of it, I would have been right. VEG changed the world and broke down my preconceived notions of technology.

  My daughter got me VEG for my 30th birthday, bless her heart. I might belong in hell for a lot of reasons but being a father isn’t one of them. Walking around with my Sally in the recreated version of the city of Atlantis was what did it for me. I became a true believer again. Suddenly there was a light at the end of that bottomless abyss. It was like the hand of God at play, using technology to bring broken relationships crashing back together. VEG gave people purpose; it gave our poor excuse for humanity something it was lacking, hope. I snapped out of thought, finishing the mundane task of stripping the bed.

  Ghostels is what they called these hollow shells of former hotels on the street. The higher you climbed the more likely you found a peaceful stay. The homeless and heroin addicts fought like rats over the bottom 5 floors. Without working elevators the climb to the 50th floor would kill them, which is where my room sat. Working water or electricity was something I had come to live without. Sally ran in from the other room and tugged at the sleeve of my wrinkly duffle coat. She loved to play horsy all day and night. If only I had the strength to let her ride forever. I sat down on the bed softly and shook my knee, watching her laugh and scream with joy. I missed these simple moments. It's funny what tasks your body and mind miss.

  I was on the case of a rogue user named Gothamsreckoning. A rogue user was one who had pirated a Jacker and jail broke or hacked the software into allowing them free access into VEG. It wasn't unusual and actually more common than one might think. People that freeloaded off the government and my tax bills sickened me. I lit up a cigarette to calm my nerves, blowing clouds of toxic smoke toward the alarm that lay dead upon the cobwebbed ceiling. Sally covered her mouth and began coughing as she made her cute little hand gesture that her mother used to. She covered her nose and wafted her hand in front of it saying,"pee yew Daddy." I had quit seven years ago but recently I got the itch. I prayed for cancer to take me every day but no luck. For some reason the lord torments me on this earth and tells me that I'm not done here. Soon though. I'm sure he'll need me soon. I put the cigarette out, creating a mushroom cloud of smoke that engulfed my fist.

  The sun was setting in the distance and the light in the room was getting dim. Purples and soft oranges battled on the horizon in a beautiful display. It reminded me of the day my wife left me. I had been drinking again because I couldn't bear the pain. Lindsay was crying in the other room holding a picture in her hands as she quivered, rocking back and forth, back and forth. My vision blurred as I approached, I smelt of anger but I didn't bother to cool. I grabbed the frame as I stumbled into her, seeing the picture sent me into a fury. I smashed it against the wall sending beautiful shards of glass shattering in every direction. I wanted to destroy beauty. I wanted to be an atomic bomb, desolating all life in my wake, letting my void fill with rage. My empty lifeless soul felt something in those moments. I don't remember the rest of the night but I remember that when I woke she was gone. My knuckles bloodied and throbbing. I couldn't have hit her but I wasn't sure.

  Sally is now in bed begging for me to read her a story, asking if we can go ride ponies in the morning. I pull out an old beaten up book from her backpack called "The Heroes in My Closet" it’s her favorite. It’s a scary story of monsters and darkness but every time I read it she tells me bravely that she isn't scared of anything because she has me. By the final page she was sleeping like a baby, leaving me time to do my work.

  I slipped on my pads and Jacker and walked out into the hollow screams of the night. I always logged onto VEG while hunting a rogue user because a lot of the time they left hints to their whereabouts in hacked architectural creations. Breadcrumbs so to speak. Police never went that route, which is why they never found rogue users. They believed that if they kicked in enough doors, eventually they would come across one.

  The night was colder than most, freezing my eyes in place and drying my throat so that each cough came with spasms of pain. I enjoyed the colder nights. Trashcans filling the alleys, bright with fire, always put a smile on my face. People from all walks of life would gather around them like family to enjoy the warmth. Even the worst turned human for brief fleeting moments helping to stock the fire when it got dim. They all huddled together making sure everyone was close enough to retain the heat.

  Street dwellers knew the ins and outs of the slums and were safe among its alleys. I was an outsider, but an armed outsider, so I was equally as safe. The cold muzzle of my Glock 17 rested snuggly on my thigh. I remember how nervous I used to feel when a handgun was holstered on my side. Something in the back of my mind told me that the gun was manufactured wrong and would fire at any moment, sending a bullet piercing through the top of my leg, exiting my foot, crippling me for life. Now I felt I wasn’t complete without it. As I walked it shifted back and forth, nuzzling my skin to comfort me on my mission.

  The screams increased at midnight, dressing the abandoned alleys with a zombie apocalypse like neglect. The cries were the calls of dead souls grown sick in this decaying wasteland. The gig was simple, wait until an innocent man or woman with a good heart came along to aid the screaming child and reap the spoils. It took advantage of the pure souls left in the world and it usually paid off quite well. I wished this part of the world were a game like VEG but the darkness in life always finds a way to light.

  My body stopped dead in its tracks, my ears catching something that sent an alert to my brain. My mind was numb to almost everything so it confused me that it would perk up now. Then I heard it again. This wasn’t the scream to trap someone. It was an actual scream of desperation. My legs trembled as I tried to force them to move on and forget it but something inside me had already decided to help. I cursed the gods and turned hard on my heels. I began running in and out of alleyways toward the faint screams echoing from a distant alley.

  The stench of alcohol singed the hairs in my nostrils, bringing back memories of pain that danced devilishly in my mind. I had given up drinking a long time ago but now I’d give anything for a swig. Vodka bottles littered the entrance to the alleyway and deep laughter consumed my calm. I could hear the faint whimpers of a little girl. She would be dead if she were any younger than seven... where were her parents? I cringed at the thought of them lying disfigured and lifeless at their daughter’s side. I grabbed a broken piece of glass from the vodka bottle next to me and peered around the corner.

  Five men were taking turns shoving each other and taking shots of Vodka. All of th
em had knives except for one, which was waving a chrome snub nose six-shooter in the air wildly in front of a little girl with bruises on both sides of her face. She had been crying for quite some time but her senses seemed like they had begun to dull because she now looked at the man blankly as he yanked her by a clump of her hair. “Tell me where he is and I promise I won’t kill you. Look I just want to talk with him.” He slapped her coldly across the face with the steel of his six-shooter.

  I didn’t need to see anything else. I turned the corner and time slowed down. I don’t remember pulling my Glock out but it was in my hand perfectly poised and ready to unload when I saw the first one. I took no chances like the action heroes did in movies. My first bullet caved in the head of the only man carrying a gun, probably their leader. His hand stayed locked, grasping the girl’s hair as he fell to the ground. I proceeded to shoot two of the others in the chest before I took my first breath. The other two were frozen in place their eyes twitching with fear. I hadn’t given their brains time to process the last few actions and now they sat lifeless, replaying the events in their minds like old VCR players. I released two rounds in each of their legs crippling them at the knees.

  I approached as death, wrapping the entirety of my hands around the front of their faces, they tried to scream but nothing escaped. Their bodies were weightless in the moment, and I dragged them around the corner. “If you were loved, someone will save you. If not then the streets will claim you.” I said coldly as I walked away, heading back toward the limp little girl. I grabbed her underneath the arms and legs and hoisted her up firmly against my chest as I did to Sally when she was a baby. Vomit shot over my shoulder as life sprung back into her. She wept and struggled but I just kept holding her tight. I knew of a safe house not far from my location that had equipment I had hidden incase of emergency. I wouldn’t have enough time to track down the rogue user tonight but I had no deadline so this hiccup would only set me back a day or two.

  The room was quiet and locked from the inside with decent enough ventilation. Deep fryers, grills, and sinks surrounded where I laid her down. I started a makeshift fire in the oven and rubbed her tiny hands gently between my own blowing life back into them. She looked around thirteen to me with the bruises but then again scars aged anyone. Dark curly black hair tangled and twisted across her caramel colored skin. After a closer look I figured she was eight but I told myself older to make me feel better about her dire situation. She had been sleeping ever since I stuck her with a hit of painkillers. I was lucky a fever hadn’t broken out yet.

  She wasn’t of the streets because she didn’t appear sickly like the rest of the abandoned children. She wasn’t from upstate because she didn’t look plump and pampered. Her muscles were developed and if it weren’t for the bruising she would be in good health, a warrior so to speak. She was a little mystery. I began feeling her bones for breaks, checking her up and down meticulously. Her body lay perfectly intact but her cheekbone felt fractured. It gave way a bit when I prodded at it. The symmetry of her face looked fine enough so I decided to bandage it and let it heal naturally.

  A lot of people in the US were capable of healing their own wounds because of VEG. The scholastics that Sanders incorporated taught more life skills and survival techniques. If you were a healing class you learned real methods to mend wounds. We learned to work in harmony with the environment around us again. For such a long time we had grown so distant from nature to the point that we feared it. Now we embraced it, even preferred it to staying indoors. Nature used to be a chaos that we couldn’t control, its temperature wasn’t constant, and therefore it had no order in our minds. We were so use to climate control in our pod environments, having everything ready for us upon arrival. Nature was just a vacation we took, just a couple hours doing something to prove our dominance over it.

  The warmth of the fire had now spread through the girl’s body, blood flushing back to her face, brightening her cheeks to a rosy red. She nudged her head against my chest just like Sally used to when she was little. “SALLY!” my mind screamed at me. This little episode had left my only daughter alone for half the night. The girl’s sleep was so deep that she didn’t miss a beat in her soft snoring when I picked her up off the ground. After a short walk and a hellish set of stairs I was back to my room on the 50th floor. To my surprise, Sally was sleeping just as deeply as I left her. I placed the injured girl on the other side of the bed, and in no time their chests began to rise and fall in unison. After tucking them in with sanitized sheets from my bag I whispered a lullaby to them that my mother used to sing to me,

  “Sleep deep and long my children

  Without worry of work or time

  Keep and cherish innocence

  And always be sublime.

  Sleep deep and long my children

  Sleep past the darkest day

  Keep blind to pain and heartache

  Sleep troubled times away.

  Sleep deep and long my children

  Sleep through all of your regret

  Right now sleep for all of us

  Have dreams you never forget.”

  My eyelids fought to stay open, twitching from their battle against sleep. I crawled into bed between them on top of the sheets and fell asleep with their little heads nuzzling against my sides.