Reality
August 25th, 2075, 03:45:
Slayer awoke from a peaceful night of sleep as always to the frantic cries of his alarm clock. He groaned, contemplating if he could afford to hit the snooze button just once, but knew it would throw off his entire morning. Still, the temptation tormented him until with great strength of will he turned off the alarm before sitting up and scooting to the the edge of his bed.
His ankles and knees popped as he rose from his small twin bed. Once he was on his feet he paused, standing stock still as he listed to ensure his alarm clock and crackling joints had not woken his sleeping siblings. Once he was sure his younger sister Cassie, and younger brother Arron were undisturbed by his morning noises in their shared full-sized bed. Slayer snuck his way across the room, careful to avoid the creakier floorboards until he was outside the room.
He closed the bedroom door as quietly as he could, then made his way into the bathroom, wincing as he saw his own reflection in the cracked mirror. His hair was getting long and tangled, his eyes were bloodshot with deep bags under them, he had neglected shaving this week to save on water, and it had been 3 days since he had last been able to bathe. Without a shirt on he could see how much tanner his forearms and upper face were from near constant exposure, while the rest of his body was as pale as a ghost. On the plus side since he could no longer count each individual rib since his new job provided them with enough money for all three of them to eat every day.
He took a small swig of the blue ‘mouth-rinse’ and sloshed it around as his face scrunched in disgust. The alcohol tasting liquid had been the replacement for toothpaste since the late 50s and made up for its vile flavor by cleaned both his teeth and gums nearly instantly. After a few seconds he spat it out and while he wanted to wet his hair to try and comb out the knots, he knew he needed to save the water for later.
He left the bathroom, walking into their kitchen slash living room to start making them all some breakfast. Their 1 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment was messy, had no windows, and had lights which only operated between 8am and 8pm, but it was home, and had been since even before their parents had passed 4 years earlier due to the 71-Bonnie virus.
Since the early 30s overpopulation had begun to cause new diseases to start cropping up at such an alarming rate that they started naming them like hurricanes with the year then an alphabetical name for when their outbreak began. The near constant outbreak of new diseases caused a massive economic collapse in the late 30s, which was directly followed by an attempted Chinese invasion of southern Asia that had to be called off when 3/4 of their army fell to the 38-Dean virus just as they started invading India. The United States annexed Canada and Mexico to establish the United States of North America to attempt to stabilize the economy, which might have actually been successful had the first of the Global Warming heatwaves not eviscerated global crops and livestock resulting in the great famine of the early 40s.
2045-2052 was known as the Age of Fear. After the depression, famine, and rampant disease people became too afraid to leave their homes to go to work, forcing businesses to convert to a fully cyber work force. The already crippled economy was thrown into shambles. 90 percent of family owned businesses closed down, and only 50 percent of the world’s corporations were able to survive. The mixture of skyrocketing heat and inability to safety meet in groups even killed Hollywood. The human population still continued to rise though, forcing the government to convert corporate buildings and warehouses into housing projects to help stabilize the housing market.
The heat waves made it impossible to grow food by conventional means. Forcing scientist to genetically engineer new livestock and plants which could survive in the new harsh environment we had created.
Scientists genetically engineered new livestock and plants that could survive the heat and combat the famines, but progress was slow. People were starving, and world governments started exercising more and more radical policies in an attempt to get things back on track. The EU truly unified into one Europe, Russia annexed China, and the African League began to unite the countries of Africa under one banner. But the more the governments stepped in, the louder the shouts of oppression became. Before long people began revolting all across the globe. With the police unable to mobilize traditional forces against the rioters they were forced to resort to mechanical means.
Ironically, with all the world’s foremost robotics developers being located in the USNA, the revolts ended up helping to stabilize their economy as governments across the globe scrambled to upgrade their police forces. By 2053 all of the world’s police forces and militaries were staffed by mechanical soldiers.
Slayer pulled out 2 eggs, leaving them with 6 more for the rest month. I could have sworn I saved enough for the rest of the month, he thought with a small shake of his head as he set the eggs to the side and pulled out the tin can labeled meat along with a plastic container labeled greens. He turned on the stove and set a frying pan on the electric burner. Once it heated up he scooped two spoonful’s of the nutritious meat into the pan and pulled out a spatula to stir the sizzling meat. Once it was starting to brown he cracked the two eggs over it and tossed in a handful of the greens before scrambling it all together.
“You’re not supposed to be up yet,” said a tired Cassie as she stumbled into the kitchen.
He looked over his shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow. “I think that’s my line. What are you doing up so early.”
She reached her arms above her head in a big stretch as she climbed into one of their three chairs in the living room. “I smelled food.”
“Fatty,” Slayer teased as he rationed out the food onto three plates.
“AM NOT!” she shouted back.
“Shh! You’ll wake Arron,” he chastised her.
“So,” she pulled her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over them. “Meanie.”
“Am not,” he said as he offered her a plate. As she reached for it though he suddenly pulled it back out of her reach. “Did you rinse your mouth?” She groaned in response. “Cassie Lynn you know you have to rinse your mouth before breakfast. I spent good money on that mouth-rinse, and you will use it.”
“It tastes funny.”
“I don’t care, it’ll keep you from getting sick, now go rinse your mouth.”
She let out another groaned but slid out of the chair and stomped off to the bathroom as Arron emerged from the room, rubbing his eyes sleepily as he dragged his feet like a zombie after his older sister into the bathroom.
He set their plates on their chairs before plopping down in his own seat and began chowing down on his food. Despite the warm plate in his lap, he found himself barely able to keep his eyes open as he sat alone in the dark room, nearly losing consciousness losing consciousness until his younger siblings joined him.
“You said you were going to take off today,” Cassie said accusingly before she took her first bite of food.
He winced. He did not remember telling her that, but she was not one to lie about such things. “I was, but Hector and I got off to a good start this week and we’ll only have to work a few hours today to get everything done so I thought I’d save the day off for later on this year.”
Jobs that could help him support his two siblings were hard to come by at Slayer’s age. Getting a job in the virtual workplace normally required hundreds of hours of classes that cost a fortune, but Slayer had managed to snag one of the few “essential” jobs that were still out there. The building he and his siblings lived in was once a corporate office buildings, and he along with his partner Hector were the building’s “window washers”. Their job was simple. They tied off to the top of the building and worked their way down the building cleaning away and debris and adding a fresh layer of sealant to every window on the exterior of the building. Without the sealant, the extreme weather outside would start to erode the windows, most likely resulting in a break which would take weeks to fix. The job paid well and awarded him and his siblings with extra food, and would let all sorts of contaminants into the building. The only issue was that every day he had to expose himself to those same contaminants. Harsh winds, up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit of heat, and if that was not enough there was always the chance of him falling 50 stories the concrete below.
Cassie did not seem pleased with his answer, mumbling into her food before stuffing her face with another bite.
Arron looked up at him as he swallowed a bite of food. “You promise you’ll be back early right?”
Slayer smiled at him. “Of course. I’ll probably even be back in time to bring you guy’s lunch.”
That caught Cassie’s attention as she looked up excitedly.
“Good. Because you promised to read to me today after you didn’t come home early last week.”
“Right,” he said sadly. “I’ll be quick today, promise.”
“Cross your heart?” Arron asked waving his finger in an X across his chest.
“And hope to fly.” Slayer smiled as he reached forward and ruffled his brother’s hair. The smile faded though when he looked over and saw that the clock already read 04:05. “Crap,” he said shoveling the rest of his food down his throat as he walked it over to the kitchen. “Cassie I’m running late, mind cleaning that for me?”
“How are you always running late?” she asked rolling her eyes.
“Well maybe if you had rinsed your mouth like you’re supposed to I wouldn’t have had to waste time reminding you! Don’t forget to finish your classwork.”
“Bye!” Arron shouted after him, waving as Slayer slipped on his gloves and breathing apparatus before waving back as he left the apartment.
Hector looked up from his newspaper as Slayer entered the locker room. He was both the oldest and the largest man Slayer knew. They were both required to shave regularly so that their masks fit properly, Hector though had a thick neck beard which started just below his mask line that matched his wild salt and pepper afro that barely fit in his helmet. His eyebrows raised in mock surprise as he looked from Slayer to the clock.
“Well look at you getting here early,” he said as he folded up his newspaper, his voice slightly distorted by the mask. “Here I was thinking I’d be able to get my crossword done before you got here.”
“Ha ha very funny,” Slayer said with a roll of his eyes as he unlocked his locker and pulled out his personal protective suit. The suit was a simple system, the pants locked and sealed with the jacket, which had a hood with goggles that wrapped over his head and sealed to his mask. Once everything was sealed together the suite regulated its internal temperature, so he was not cooked by the scorching heat. The only part of him that was exposed were his forearms which remained uncovered so that if his suit was punctured he could feel for any escaping air and patch it up.
“Aren’t I?” Hector said as he tossed the newspaper into his locker and pulled on his jacket. The two were silent as they both locked and sealed their suits. Once they double checked each other’s seals, they started a system check. “You hear me good, kid?” Hector asked over their suits microphone.
“Read you loud and clear Hector.”
“Good. Let’s get this done. I wanna be home in time for lunch.”
They took a small staircase up to the roof as the clock reached 04:25. A blast of warm air strong enough to take you off your feet if you were not ready for it greeted them as they opened the door. They wasted no time as they inspected their fall protection, hooked up, double checked each other, and began to lower themselves down the building.
The former corporate building was fifty-seven stories tall, with floor to ceiling windows that covered the exterior down to the sixth floor. Over the course of a fifteen-hour day with a thirty-minute lunch break the team normally managed to cover about ten to twelve floors. Meaning they could normally take weekends off so long as they worked hard and there were no unforeseen complications. This week had been a good one and they only had three floors to do before they could call it a week and head back home.
“Your eyes were looking pretty red this morning, kid,” Hector said as they came up to their first floor. “Plus those bags under your eyes are getting deeper. I thought I told you to get some sleep last night.”
“I slept,” Slayer said defensively. “… A bit. I slept enough.”
“I knew it,” Hector said triumphantly. “You were playing that fantasy game again weren’t you?!”
“So? I can do what I want with my free time.”
“You can, but kid you gotta get more shut eye. I don’t want you passing out up here on me.”
“I get enough sleep Hector. The Babylon system just makes my eyes red when I use it in the dark.”
Hector let out a long sigh and shook his head as they began cleaning the first windows. “You kids today and your ‘full dive’ video games. You know back in my day, when you were done with work you used to just come home, grab a beer and watch some TV.”
“Yea back when the dinosaurs still walked the earth,” Slayer mumbled to himself.
“What was that kiddo? Didn’t quite catch that one? Was it, ‘thanks for the advice, I’ll put the games down more often so that I don’t turn my brain into jelly’?”
“Yea sure, something like that.” Slayer flipped his scrubber around and began applying the sealant to the window.
It was not like he had a lot of choices for entertainment. The entertainment industry had been crippled by the loss of Hollywood and live sports. However, in the power vacuum left by them, animation studios had flourished, and video games had stepped in to fill the void left by sports. There were many who were quick to point out the shortcomings of video games at first, but when it became clear that sports were not coming back any time soon, even its most staunch detractors eventually accepted the new paradigm.
Much like how flight technology went from the Wright Brothers first twelve-second, hundred-foot flight in 1903 to the launch of Sputnik in 1957, in its new position of prominence video game technology rapidly evolved. Between the twenties and the sixties the technology went from simple counsels that attached to a televisions, to relatively small headsets, like the Babylon, which were able to take your conscious mind and place it in a virtual world.
The technology had gotten to the point that things in games were even starting to feel real. You could feel the kick of a rifle, or the impact of sword on shield. You could even feel some of the impact of a bullet, or the crushing smash of a gargantuan monster so long as you had the pain nullification setting off. Food, while not filling to your body in reality, tasted as though it was real. This made virtual reality the only place you could experience some of the many now extinct foods.
Normally a system like the Babylon would have been far too expensive for the average citizen to afford, however since the end of the Age of Fear the government had started issuing virtual reality systems to every civilian on their sixteenth birthday. Everyone knew they did so to keep the general populous in line, but no one really cared since it was what most people used for work, and everyone used for entertainment and some much needed distraction.
“Hey! You still in there kiddo?” Hector yelled over the radio, bringing him back from his daydreams.
“Yea? What’s up?”
“Nothing, you’re just moving slow as a slug.”
“Still moving faster than you.”
“Ha! Not even if I was fifty years older would you be faster than me, son.”
August 25th, 2075, 11:30
Once they finished going through decontamination they walked down a floor to the owner’s suite. The owner was a sweet elderly woman named Meredith Von Sant, who apparently had been around since the early nineteen-nineties. She had made a small fortune in the robotics industry and had been a major contributor to the housing projects, spending nearly half her fortune to jumpstart the projects in several major cities. Although with the distribution of wealth completely out of whack now a days, she likely still had more money than all of the occupants of the building combined. Which Slayer was immediately reminded of as even through his mask he could smell of fresh baked bread and sweets made from real synthetic flour, and even sugar. She did not do much baking for herself though, almost all of what she made she gave to the essential workers. Not only that, but on days like today where they got done early she would always offer to make them and their families some lunch. After a short conversation it did not take her long to prepare both Hector and Slayer a large baskets filled to the brim with sandwiches, and small treats.
“Do take care you two,” she said, her quiet voice muffled further by her mask as they left. “It so warms my heart when you two get done with enough time to enjoy your weekend.”
“Thank you missus Sant,” they both said in unison.
“Have a good day. And keep up the good work,” she said, closing the door.
Hector lived eight floors above Slayer with his wife and their three children. “I’ll see you on Monday kiddo,” he said as he opened the door to his floor. “Make sure you get some real shut eye Sunday night, alright?”
“Yes, sir,” Slayer said as he continued down the stairs.
When he got to his apartment he opened the door to find the room in complete darkness, and eerily quiet. He slowly stepped through the door and scanned the apartment. They never left during the day. It was too dangerous to go outside, and they were not supposed to be running around on the floors. Maybe they went down to the fitness center? Or they’re just taking a nap? He tip-toed as quietly as he could just in case they were asleep, but as soon as he closed the door behind him the lights flashed on, blinding him for a moment.
“SURPRISE!!!” Cassie and Arron shouted as his half blind eyes registered the blurry images of the two of them leaping out of hiding places to either side of him. He blinked hard to clear his vision, his eyes quickly adjusting to reveal their smiling faces, and a small cupcake with an electric candle in Cassie’s hands. “Happy birthday!”
Slayer would not have been able to keep the smile from his face even if he wanted to. “How did you two manage this?” he asked as he pulled off his mask.
“The old lady up high showed us how,” said Arron excitedly.
“You’re not supposed to call her old, dummy,” scolded Cassie.
“But she is,” said Arron innocently.
“She’s our boss now Arron! You’re only supposed to say nice things about your boss.”
“Unless they are a jerk,” added Slayer. “What do you mean she’s your boss now?”
Cassie’s face was suddenly filled with guilt. “Dang it Arron you made me ruin the surprise!”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
Cassie huffed and handed Slayer the cupcake, bringing a smile to his face. “Well the cats out of the bag,” she said resignedly. “A few weeks ago we went up to talk to Missus Sant to ask her for a job and she said that if we walk her doggy at the fitness center track once a day she will lower the rent.”
“That way you won’t have to work so hard all the time,” added Arron, smiling happily up at Slayer.
“Then 2 days ago when we went to get the doggy she said that we should make you something, but she was out of eggs,” said Cassie. “So I ran back down here fast as I could and got some of our eggs and we made you a cupcake!”
“That explains the missing eggs,” said Slayer the smile still plastered on his face.
“Try it!” said Aaron impatiently.
Slayer pulled the paper wrapping off the cupcake but just as he went for a bite there was a knock at the door. Slayer sighed and set the cupcake gently down on the table as Cassie and Arron ran to get their masks. Slayer slipped his back on as he cracked the door open slightly to reveal Hector, his wife and their kids, the oldest of whom was the same age as Cassie.
“Happy birthday!” they all said in unison as he opened the door for them.
“Thanks guys,” Slayer said as Cassie and Aaron rejoined them.
“I would have said something earlier,” said Hector. “But the little ones came by and told me not to say anything so they could surprise you.”
“Your fine Hector,” Slayer said with a small wave of his hand. “Honestly I had totally forgotten until these 2 decided to blind me.” Slayer reached down and ruffled both of their hair, causing Cassie to glare up at him while Arron laughed.
“Hi Cassie,” said Hector’s oldest son.
“Hi Angel,” she said as she fixed her hair.
“Well we don’t want to take up too much of your time. But we did bring you a gift,” Hector said as he held out a brand-new pair of gloves. “You’ve been complaining about how yours heat up too fast. These ones have a temperature regulator in them. It’s not as good as the suites but it’s better than nothing.”
“Also,” added Hector’s wife, Mercedes. “We heard that they used some of your eggs to make you a birthday treat, so we thought we should share since we have a few extra for the month.” She handed him a container of 6 eggs.
Slayer looked at the gifts in awe. This was definitely the best birthday he had had in a long time. “Thank you guys,” he said appreciatively. “This seriously means a lot. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it kid,” he said giving his shoulder a hard pat. “Well, we’ll leave you to your treats. Make sure you relax a bit this weekend. See you on Monday.”
“See you Hector.”
When he turned around Arron was standing behind him, holding the now unwrapped cupcake while bouncing back and forth from foot to foot impatiently. As soon as Slayer looked down at him he thrust it up towards him. “Try it!” the young man demanded.
Slayer chuckled and accepted the cupcake then took a big bite out of it. It was, quite possibly, the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
WAMM 