VEG

by Zachery Nims

  Chapter 30: Home

  Source: Journal

  Name: Mark Boggs

  I came to in a comfy bed with flowers in the window, it looked familiar but recalling the memory made my head throb. The room reeked of sterilization. It smelt like a hospital from the fifties. Bell was sitting beside my bed playing with little figurines, while Silvia was sleeping in a chair in the corner. Whatever meds they had me on made my mind feel numb and I was happy for it. Bits and pieces of the prior night flashed back to me, but mostly Sally.

  It took me four days to get on my feet. On the second night being bedridden, Silvia and Bell both fell asleep cuddled up next to me. I didn’t say much and they didn’t seem to expect me to. They had taken me to the cabin in the middle of nowhere to nurse me back to health. Hospitals were out of the question for fugitives, and I liked the seclusion. The dreams were still haunting me but the longer I spent around Bell and Silvia the less the night terrors took me.

  Saying goodbye to your daughter is something no man should ever have to do. I’ve been broken for so long that I couldn’t come to terms with the comfort that now filled my life. It made me edgy, like something was waiting around the corner to bite me. A little cabin in the woods is what I managed to end with. A little log cabin filled with a new beginning, laughter, and a woman and child that loved me. It was a feeling that had been long gone and almost forgotten, a family.

  Epilogue: The Quest

  Source: Personal Computer Log

  User: Evo

  The smoke cleared, a daunting dark and narrow staircase beckoned our group below. I was the first to enter, it was reminiscent to Knightcr@wler’s basement, and smelt musty. There were pixel graphic art pieces lining the walls, glorifying all of the old classic console games. We descended past Mario, Zelda, Dragon Warrior, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, UN Squadron, Contra, Golden Eye, Gauntlet, and the list went on and on. The deeper we got, the further we moved through the history of video games. It was like Disney World for gamers, going through some sort of hall of fame.

  We must have tripped a wire or activated weight sensors because torches burst into flame like dominoes lighting our way. The bottom of the stairwell came up before we knew it. Lockers lined the walls of the dungeon like basement. Each one was equipped with a robotic suit, some kind of cybernetic exoskeleton meant for reinforcement. The top of the lockers had advanced Jackers that looked more like the days of Oculus Rift virtual reality visors, covering the entirety of your head. Their nicknames were Cycs after Cyclops, the X-men mutant.

  Knightcr@wler was the only one not fascinated by the gear. On the far side of the room was a door with a submarine hatch wheel. It was brutishly intimidating. Knightcr@wler was attempting to open it. “It won’t budge, give me some help.” We all wandered over and tried to manhandle the steel. It wouldn’t move an inch.

  “We’ve got to use the suits,” Knightcr@wler said. I walked back to one of the awaiting armors. It appeared as though I could sit down into it. I turned to face Kira who was visibly nervous. She watched me with bewildered eyes. I breathed in deep and sat down sinking into the metallic skeleton. My eyes stayed closed hoping that the machine wouldn’t crush my body, yet nothing happened. I was sitting in powerless metal that wanted nothing to do with me.

  “Guess she doesn’t want you inside her... no surprise there,” Phantom said smirking. He ran over to the one closest to him and tried to sit down, but was met with the same result. “I’ve seen this happen once before. From my extensive experience, I believe the robotics are most likely lesbian. Kira give her a try.”

  Kira gave a little smile and sat in one on the far side of the room closest to the door. Again the metal lay dead to the world. We all started laughing hysterically in the frames of lifeless machines. The only one that was silent and standing was Knightcr@wler. He was still observing the exoskeleton that he stood in front of. “It can’t be,” he said taking his Jackers off of his head. He folded in the arms of the glasses and placed them face forward in a cubby just above the Cycs. A bar on top of the locker energized and started to upload information as though it was reading them. The dimensions of the cybernetic exoskeleton began shifting on their own. Then a voice spoke, “Brett Henderson alias Knightcr@wler, enter player one when ready.”

  Knightcr@wler sat down inside the machine and it twirled around his legs and torso. A tentacle grabbed the Cycs and placed them on his head while a metallic spinal cord latched to his back, securing his helmet in place. His hands were covered in cybernetic gauntlets that he now squeezed, watching them in astonishment. It was the closest thing I had ever seen to a real life Robocop. He must have realized the same thing because he said, “Dead or Alive you’re coming with me!” He jumped up, the force of his movements being magnified almost made him crash into the ceiling. It took him a second, but he was able to stabilize, getting used to his own power, “jump on in guys, the water is just right,” he said.

  Within an instant we all had our Jackers linked to the lockers and our machines activated welcoming us. My movements were still fluid but amplified. The Cycs were just like Jackers except the overlays were flawless. I had no ability to turn VEG off and I couldn’t distinguish between virtual augmentation and reality. The one relieving aspect of the reality was that I could still see my friend’s faces. The overlay showed their suits but not their helmets.

  The suits took a little getting used to. It was Knightcr@wler who approached the door first turning the submarine style wheel with ease. Steam jets shot off from the metallic gap and the door hissed, swinging open to reveal a beautiful underground paradise.

  It was recognizable to everyone the moment we stepped through. It was the realm of free play from Enders Game. In front of us, lay the giant’s corpse, now covered in overgrowth. It was just like it was described in the book. “I don’t get it,” Phantom said looking out over the lush green hill that was once the living giant. “Why bring us here? It’s that stupid free play crap that helps Ender not be so noob. What does this have to do with our quest?”

  Knightcr@wler was silent; he sat observing the environment for a bit. “There’s got to be something different... something that doesn’t belong. It’s a game, some kind of puzzle, but why? I figured that the staircase was the equivalent to Ender passing through the end of the world door... but for some reason it seems that we are back to square one,” Knightcr@wler said confused.

  We walked for a minute around the environment before Knightcr@wler noticed it, “Up there on the giant’s chest,” he said, pointing at two large cups resting side by side on top of the hill. A gold trimmed placard rested on the ground in front of the two drinks that read: “CHOOSE.” Both cups were identical in shape and size. One contained a bubbling green liquid and the other a bright purple substance with streaks of white lights swirling within. Phantom jumped up without hesitation and picked up the cup on the right, which was filled with the bubbling green liquid. He drank deep until the acids burned through his core spilling his dissolving intestines on the ground in front of us. His exoskeleton reacted forcing him to shake as if he were convulsing. It was pleasurable watching Phantom die and I think we all smiled a bit.

  Upon his death he had to exit the area, he was allowed to come back but was banned from a second attempt. “Noob,” Kira said smiling as he approached.

  “What? You knew one of us had to do it,” Phantom said to rebuttal.

  “Alright look, let’s analyze this. The giant gives every kid at battle school two drinks and whichever one you choose is death,” Knightcr@wler said pacing around the cups. “The giant is dead though but yet the choice remains.”

  “I don’t get that anyways, why did free play have the giant’s drink game for every child?” Phantom asked. Knightcr@wler walked up to the purple drink and stared into the swirling lights lost in a trance. “The game was designed to manipulate the children. My g
uess is that the giant represents the children’s superiors. Colonel Graff and so on, the puppeteers so to speak that are controlling the games. They are giving the children two choices that they think will prepare them for winning the war, yet AI is the one that creates free play with its own intentions,” Knightcr@wler said walking over toward the giant’s skull. He stopped at the eye. “Ender beat the giant by clawing through his eye to kill him. Choosing the path that the structured system couldn’t predict. The giant may represent the Generals that took advantage of Ender but the giant was still created by artificial intelligence that understood maybe more than they did. An AI that understood more than Ender did about himself, the first ghost in the shell.” Knightcr@wler walked back to stand in front of the cups. “If the two drinks represent choices made by the system, then they were destined to lead to Earth’s destruction, and ultimately death. The elders think inside the box and try to mold the youth, to optimize their performance within the guidelines of their strategies, which were wrong. They don’t factor in the idea of evolution and how quick it occurs. What was good for the youth in their day is never what is good for the youth of the future. You must adapt with change or it will overtake you...”

  “Jesus Knightcr@wler, get to the point. If you know what to do, then do it,” Phantom said annoyed.

  “That’s just it, the giant is dead. I don’t know what to do. If we choose, we still choose an outdated strategy for the game and we die as you did,” Knightcr@wler said.

  “Well, regardless, one of us is going to have to try the other drink,” Kira said, stepping up to the glowing purple cup. She picked it up with both hands. Knightcr@wler looked like he wanted to object but then decided not to intervene. She gulped down a good portion of the liquid and then dropped the cup back to its resting place. Her insides didn’t melt which was a good sign. “I can’t move,” she said with a strange look on her face. Then her body began to expand. She started blowing up like a balloon, doubling in size until she exploded.

  “Well great. Two down,” I said. Kira reset and made it back up to the top of the hill in no time.

  “Kira, that was the biggest I think I have ever seen your breasts,” Phantom said smiling. Kira charged at him, knocking him down to the ground. “Relax, Jesus, it was just a joke.” Phantom said fighting her off.

  “I liked you better when you were dead,” she said shooting him a nasty look.

  “Shut up guys, let me think,” Knightcr@wler said.

  “Well there is only one thing left we can do,” I said. “I’ll try mixing them?” I said looking at Knightcr@wler.

  “I thought about that, I don’t know if it will work and if we lose you then we only have one more life left,” Knightcr@wler said. “If we all die then who knows if we will ever be allowed back in.”

  “There has got to be some kind of reset. I’m sure we could try tomorrow. Charles wouldn’t let you come this far to lock you out just because you didn’t get his quest right the first time,” Kira said.

  “Alright then, here it goes,” I said stepping up between the two drinks. I picked up the purple drink and poured it into the green drink and it began boiling with an eerie glow. The boiling subsided and I was left with brown thick goo. “Bottoms up,” I said taking down as much as I could stomach. I then proceeded to vomit out all of my insides until my character was as flat as paper, bones and all. We had one life left. I made my way back to the starting point and hustled back up the hill to meet the others. Kira and Phantom were lying on the ground taking a nap while Knightcr@wler was pondering over the drinks. “Maybe try and mix them the other way?” I said trying to help but Knightcr@wler brushed the comment aside.

  Knightcr@wler sat in thought for a good thirty minutes dismissing any ideas that we gave him. Then he stood up, “I don’t know if this will work but it’s worth a try. At least it won’t result in my death. Evo, give me a hand. Pick up the purple drink and come over here.” Knightcr@wler picked up the green drink and headed over toward the mouth of the giant. I followed with the purple one. “On three pour it inside.” He counted down and then we both poured the entirety of our drinks down the giant’s throat.

  The ground began to rumble, and tissue started to form on the giant’s face. Teeth started to sprout and a tongue manifested. We all ran down the body to clear away from the reviving beast. He gagged, grasping for air, shaking in pain as the tissue darted down his body. Veins twirled around bone mass and muscles formed. Skin bubbled and took shape as he sat upright coughing out shrubs that once inhabited his carcass only moments ago. He clawed at his eye and screamed as he felt the void that Ender had caused before his death, reliving his final moments. Then he stopped, he sat motionless and regained his calm. His head hung low and he bellowed, “Who has revived me?”

  Knightcr@wler stepped up and spoke, “I have.”

  The giant crawled toward us on all fours and looked directly at Knightcr@wler with his one good eye. “Why have you revived me?” he asked.

  “Because, you weren’t meant to die, you were built to enforce a failing system. You were a means to an end. Ender didn’t mean to kill you; he meant to kill the system. He chose to survive,” Knightcr@wler said.

  The giant seemed satisfied and continued, “Answer these two questions and you may proceed. Answer incorrectly and you will perish.” Knightcr@wler nodded. “In Ender’s Game, who is the enemy?” the giant asked.

  “That’s easy, the Buggers.” Phantom said.

  Knightcr@wler gave Phantom a death stare. Then he looked back at the giant. He appeared calm and collective. “We are... I mean... human beings,” Knightcr@wler said.

  The giant nodded and asked another, “Who is Ender trying to save?”

  Knightcr@wler didn’t even take time to think, he spoke without question. “Humanity.”

  The giant smiled and then opened his mouth. We all shielded ourselves from the attack but it never came. A loud thunderous crash shook the ground. When we looked, the giant’s mouth was contorted open. It was wide and gaping, his tongue extended outwards, revealing an entrance into his body. Knightcr@wler stepped forward and we all followed him into the depths of the giant.

  There was a stink to the bowels of the giant that hung upon my nostrils. It encouraged the gag reflexes. The body was void of organs, eerie and hollow with just the foul breeze of breath whisking by. The lining of the rib cage was visible. It pulsed to life with the rhythmic inhale and exhale of giant.

  Resting near where I imagined the pelvis might have been was a cloaked figure in all black holding a sword with both hands. Its head was tilted down slightly, allowing the hood to cover its face. Its blade’s tip rested firmly on the ground. Behind the cloaked figure was a chest. I could see the excitement in everyone’s eyes. We all knew it was there but tried to act cool about it. The end was within our grasps.

  When we stepped closer, the mysterious figure spoke, “only one may approach.” The voice startled, and struck a chord of fear inside. I wasn’t going to be the first to volunteer but I also didn’t want to appear a coward in front of Kira. While the debate ensued, Knightcr@wler stepped up and saved me from my dilemma.

  He ran at the figure and as he approached the exoskeleton suit armed. Armor shot out locking in place over his entire body so that he was covered from head to toe in steel. It scaled his body like a dragon. Knightcr@wler jumped at the figure, his fists both extended outwards as he dove into a twirling attack. The enemy slipped right at an incredible speed, slashing downwards with his sword into the center of Knightcr@wler’s chest. The blow sent him bouncing off the ground head first into the treasure chest. He screamed out in pain, real pain. The figure grabbed him by the leg and tossed his body back to us. “Brett!” Phantom screamed. Phantom grabbed him by the arms and shook him.

  “I’m alright,” he coughed a bit. “The suit took a lot of the blow but damn this is no joke. Wha
t kind of game is this?” When we looked up the figure was in its resting position again with his hands gripping the butt end of the sword and the tip resting once again on the ground in front of him. “I saw his face, he said in a whisper. It was someone I knew,” he managed to say between coughs. “Someone I hated... how could it... how could it know...?”

  “He’s mine,” Phantom said, taking a different approach. He broke one of the bones from the giant’s rib cage and wielded it like a weapon. Phantom was cautious. He approached slow, tiptoeing forward till he saw a reaction. When he got close, close enough to taste battle, he became enraged and struck wildly. The bone shattered to pieces when it collided with the sharpened steel sword. Phantom threw the remaining fragment in his hand at the figures face. It was meant to distract as he slid at its ankles. The dark one danced around him with ease, smacking his chest with the butt end of its sword. Then it swiped its sword low along the ground taking Phantom’s legs out from under him. He was on the floor in an instant. Before he could regain his footing the figure tossed him like a rag doll, sending him back out to join Knightcr@wler.

  Phantom was in a daze when we approached. His eyes were locked upon a distant memory. He was broken, not physically but mentally. “My father... right over there was my father. Five feet from me and in the flesh... Five feet from me and I couldn’t touch him... couldn’t cut him... couldn’t slit his throat, couldn’t...” he trailed off into a loop of psychotic fantasy.

  We only knew bits and pieces of Phantom’s past but we did know that his father wasn’t the best of men. He was abusive to both he and his mother. He left before Phantom was ever able to repay the pain he had caused him. How could this thing know? I looked up at Kira. She returned my gaze and knew right away saying, “Don’t.”

  I looked at the figure that was a statue once again. I didn’t turn back to Kira, “I have to,” I said, and walked toward the dark one.

  Courage escaped my limbs, but curiosity drove me forward. The cloaked figure’s hood trapped shadows in its depths. They swirled around its face like dark dreams as its head rose to my approach. Chaos ensued, dark blots bounced and collided at random, but near the eyes and spreading fast like cancer was order. It was subtle at first; almost unrecognizable but facial features began manifesting. The body doubled in size. I knew before the transformation completed. I was pitted against myself ages ago. The loser: the worthless, good for nothing gamer. “All you do is sit around all day on that damn computer,” my father’s words echoed in my head. Too scared to fight my own battles, too fat to take control of my life, too disgusting to make friends.

  I swung my fist without thought, a concoction of hatred and force boiled in my knuckles. The absence of contact ignited an even deeper rage within. Something struck me from the back and sent me head first into a wall. The pain was distant, and the rage consumed on, devouring the entirety of my being. I struck the wall with my fists, slamming them against it repeatedly until the pain and rage brewed into one.

  As a child, all I wanted was to gain acceptance, but I was “too fat and too stupid.” I was too fat and too stupid to please anyone. Gaming became my escape, the first place I made friends. Reality slipped away as I indulged in fantasy. Relationships crumbled as I climbed in virtual rank. I was too fat and too stupid to see it. I felt the shame. The same shame my parents must have felt toward me.

  “I can’t get up,” the figure said taunting me in that whimpering weak voice that I knew all too well. Rage clouded my vision, invading my mind. The voice was close enough to taste the metallic breath. A backwards lunge was expected. I pushed with all of my might toward the wall, finding footing to leap off of. The figure’s sword missed by inches, as I flipped backwards over its head. There was my chance. I let the fury build from my core. Turning all the shame, doubt, and pain into a weapon as I struck. My fist collided with nothing, missing my mirrored self by close to a foot. My ancient twin was faster than any enemy I had ever faced. It attacked me from the rear. This time the blow came to my head, it rattled my thoughts and flooded my senses. “EVO!” someone screamed. Someone distant.

  I knew that voice though, that sweet voice, that caring voice, that voice that loved me as I had never loved myself. Kira... her fear for me coated my name’s sound. That one word bullied its way into my core, extinguishing my fire, cooling me to an eerie calm. Thought turned inside my mind once more, and focus filled my senses.

  I was deep in strategy, rummaging through everything that had happened. It is just a game. There is a way to win. This is the free play game. Ender chooses love. Ender chooses love, I repeated to myself as I turned back toward the figure. It looked up, peering into my soul. His hands rested firmly on his blade in his original position. They began to rise as I stepped forward. I wasn’t focused on the blade, I was focused on the boy... The boy I hated. The boy that I could never forgive for what he had done with his life. The boy I had been ashamed of. That was it though; I was just a boy. A boy that didn’t relate. There was nothing wrong with me. This wasn’t about defeat. It was about acceptance.

  “I love you...” I whispered, barely able to stomach the words. I couldn’t look into my own eyes and say it. That is all I wanted to hear. All those years it was all I craved. For some reason it was all I wanted to say. I looked up into my own eyes. A scared lost boy stared back. He wasn’t pathetic, he wasn’t too fat or too stupid, he was just a boy. A boy looking to belong. “I love you,” I said hugging the cloaked figure. It sat motionless for a second and then turned. Its arms were still raised to strike but facing away from me. They came down with an incredible speed, crashing into the top of the treasure chest. It shattered into a million pieces. Then the figure turned back toward me and froze back into his ominous pose.

  The chest had an eerie blue glow resonating from within. The fables were true; a blue tinted sword lay within. Silver thread rose from hilt to cross-guard in an intricate fashion. The blade was almost sapphire in nature but strong like steel. It had the entire universe spanning its length. I grabbed it with both hands and felt the power of it pulsing within. Whether it was my imagination or not I knew that this blade was unique, for it was not just a blade. It represented the friendship and the love that had flourished from our gangs first meeting. It was an item that united us. We had completed something that no one else could and in doing so I had completed myself.

  About the Author

  My intentions were to dazzle, to amaze, even to entice the reader with tales of grandeur in my bio. But it's a cup of coffee past sunrise and I need sleep. The idea of defining myself on a page sickens me. It curdles in my creative cortex. I'm not a writer. I'm a storyteller. I enjoy losing myself in that place where you're walking with the story. It's leading, an infinite wonder lies just beyond. You can't see it yet but you trust that it's there. Maybe it's the illusive ADD that I was diagnosed with as a child that allowed for me to lose myself in stories. I just thought it was called being creative in the good old days. One constant is clear to me; I want to read my story as much as you do. Somewhere, hidden in those pages you will find pieces of me. Read on, I know I will.

  That is who I am, a man attempting to enjoy the endless exploration of his mind. Facebook or Google searches will answer any other questions you have about me. Maybe even an old profile on match.com, but don't tell my wife if you discover it. Or, we could leave a little mystery, a little whisper of magic to entice fantasy and make believe into filling that ancient void. We are all curious children somewhere; my stories are attempts at awakening yours.