A decade of AR ruined the look of this town. Every building was whitewashed in cheap high-contrast, punctuated by brown streaks of neglect. Vince passed the storefronts with disinterest, their identical facades barely registering. Most people had lenses, and those losers were treated to an animated inanity around every door.
He rounded a corner, tossed a spent cigarette into the street, and jammed his hand back into the pocket of his faded yellow jacket. It wasn’t raining yet, but just barely. The air choked with urban vapors and grit. Millions of lives jammed like sardines had an inevitable odor.
Vince crossed the cracked street and pushed into a bar. Inside, his nose was accosted by the smell of old beer and stale air. The regular bouncer’s eyes snapped to focus behind his lenses as Vince stepped between the pylons of a detector. It yelped like a kicked puppy. Vince had a lot of metal on him.
“You’re good, V,” Carl said, eyes regaining an unfocused glaze.
“Yup,” Vince replied without looking back. The bar was narrow and deep, and mostly empty. The bartender was a string of grimy touchscreens along the countertop opposite a dingy high-contrast wall.
Past the bar was a table with three chairs, only one populated. The occupant was a snide-looking man with an angular face. His bulky muscles were clearly a product of the roid clinics and a poor match for his small head. He shuffled a deck of cards between two meaty hands while staring at the bare table. Occasionally his eyes would twitch, giving a command to the lenses he wore. It was early, and he was probably taking in the day’s feeds.
Vince slid into one of the empty chairs and pulled his laptop from his bag. It was old, vintage, and classic. No one used a dinosaur like this anymore. That’s why he cherished it. It had all the power he needed, and none of that wearable sleeze that was hip these days. Rigs were for zombies; this laptop was for an artist.
“V,” the man started, “you’re a bit later than usual. I almost finished slagging through my stories here.”
“Yeah, took the scenic route today.” Vince booted his gear and started cruising his usual sites. “What’s the word, Tag?”
“Same old shit,” Tag said, continuing to shuffle. “People are making crypto, but it sure as fuck ain’t us. I’ve got your morning cases, when you’re ready.”
“Whenever you are,” Vince replied. His screen lit with an arrived list of assignments. He got cracking.
Vince worked for Tag. More accurately, Vince was owned by Tag. There was crypto owed between them, and it was enough to define their relationship. Tag knew Vince was good for it, but he required interest. That meant work. Tag always had work needing done.
Lots of people owed Tag crypto, and Vince’s job was to remind them of it. At first, that meant a lot of simple and polite messages to their accounts. This never worked, and was followed by sterner words. When that didn’t work, accounts were broken, blackmail fodder was found, and threats were made. This last was Vince’s main charge. It was his art. He was damn good at it.
If even the blackmail failed, well, Tag had a reputation. Vince would let him know, and Tag would take care of the rest. The debtor’s information would vanish from Vince’s account and it was no longer his problem.
This didn’t scare Vince much. Sure he owed crypto, but he was useful to the old shark. Sometimes, it was like Tag actually liked him, and Tag didn’t like anybody.
“V, you see this liner crash?” Tag said, startling Vince out of his zone while he was breaking apart the life of a data clerk.
“Nope. Airliner?”
“Yeah, hit a building and burned down an entire block. Three hundred schmoes dead. It’s pathetic.”
“Three hundred? That’s it?” Vince asked as he got back to work.
“You sound disappointed,” Tag said.
Vince sighed. “I am; with the whole species. It’s depressing. How long ago did doctors solve the whole dying thing? Finally give old age the shaft?”
“About fifty years ago, kid. Way before you showed up.”
“Yeah, fifty years. And do you know what that did to the average lifespan?”
“I assume it got longer.”
“Of course it did, but by how much?” Vince asked.
“Hell, V, I don’t know.” Tag stopped shuffling his cards. He separated one from the pile and began scribbling on it. The cards were old library catalog cards, at least eighty years old. Tag had boxes of the things, and he used them for all of his in-person transactions. Bits left a trail; cardstock could be burned.
“Twenty years, Tag. Just twenty years. Do you understand what that means? Do you get how depressing that is?” Vince stopped typing, letting one of his scripts take over for the final stretch. It was always info embezzlement with data clerks, and they always did a shitty job hiding it. He met Tag’s gaze and shrugged.
“I guess I don’t, no,” Tag admitted as he set down his pen and pulled a cryptostick from his pocket.
“Look, modern medicine is a miracle of science. Cancer? Gone. Aging? Gone. Hell, curing anything is over-the-counter now. And what has humanity done with immortality? Lived another twenty years. Think about it, Tag. A twenty year increase in lifespan means that every single person who was alive when we discovered the fountain of youth was, generally speaking, dead within twenty years. That means, statistically, no matter where you are in life, you’re probably going to die in twenty years. That’s fucking depressing.”
A man and woman came up to the table, and Tag slid them the card and the cryptostick. Once they had left, he said, “Man, V, that’s pretty damn morbid. Is this what keeps you up at night?”
“Shit, Tag, I don’t sleep anyways. This is just what keeps me watching out for my wellbeing. You’ve got twenty years, man, statistically speaking, so you better live it up.”
“Yeah? And how should I do that?”
“Well, start by ditching those lenses. People today, they blow off reality for bullshit AR, or worse, VR. A waste of their twenty years. Why spend your bonus time just downloading more bits?”
“Reality sucks, kid,” Tag replied.
“Yeah, but it’s a real suck.” Vince grabbed the output of his script and crafted a sufficiently threatening message to the clerk. This one was just an unlucky bit-pusher, and would probably pay Tag within the hour. Better a bit of crypto spent now than a career lost in two weeks. The irony was that the clerk’s embezzling was so meaningless outside of his little professional world. To Tag, none of this data would be worth the memory used to store it.
Several more people came to visit Tag as the morning drained into afternoon. Each left with a card and a cryptostick; an assignment and compensation. Tag always paid up front, and knew that he wouldn’t get stiffed. It only ever happened once, and an example was made. One didn’t stiff Tag.
Once the afternoon had firmly set in, and the bar had filled to a peak of social detritus, Vince began crunching on his homestretch for the day. However, as he was firing up another script, his assignment list cleared itself. Vince looked up to see Tag holding out a card and cryptostick to him.
“Uh, Tag? You okay man? I don’t go on runs for you.”
“Yeah, I know, V, but someone didn’t show and this one’s important. Like, real important. Like, do this for me and it’ll square us.”
Vince’s mouth hung open at that, and his hands slumped from his keyboard. That couldn’t be right. He did the math last week, and he owed Tag enough crypto that he’d be working like this for at least five more years. Could his freedom really be that close? Debt was all Vince knew. The thought of squaring it left his mouth moist and made his fingers twitch. Vince took the proffered card and cryptostick, and stuck them in his jacket pocket.
“Take your gear,” Tag said.
“Right,” Vince said, and stashed his laptop, looping the bag’s strap over his neck. “Thanks, Tag. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Tag grunted in acknowledgement and resumed shuffling. Vince found Tag’s expression oddly restrained. That look told Vince more than anything Tag could have said. This job was important. It was important enough to lose a useful lackey to do it. Maybe Vince could keep working for Tag and actually make some money, at least for a little while.
Outside, Vince lit a cigarette under the bar’s overhang and pulled out the card. Tag’s scrawl read, “Vine street. Prince’s Parlor. Ask for Ricky. No rush.” That surprised him. Vine Street wasn’t a terrible neighborhood. Sure, it wasn’t exactly glitzy, but it was certainly better than the usual rathole streets Vince found himself on.
He pulled up the collars of his jacket against the rain that had finally started. Vine street was a bit of a haul, but Tag’s card said no rush. It’d be an hour on foot, but it would be quality time with his thoughts. Freedom meant actually earning some crypto, maybe buying new gear. The laptop was fine, but his phone was old and tired. Maybe he’d even pick up some lenses.
No, he would never stoop to that. Being neck deep in tech was a requirement for his skill set, but that didn’t mean he had to become a zombie. He didn’t need to live in perpetual AR. Reality was a shitshow, no doubt, but at least it was real. He needed reality. It kept him grounded, alive, and focused. He spent all day slinging bits and processing crypto. All the more reason to spend the off time taking in a heavy dose of real. Vince dragged his cigarette dry and lit another. The rain picked up.
Vine street was not a bad lane, and therefore more crowded. Dull forms huddled against the rain shuffled up and down the street. Bare spots on the walk revealed the location of AR barkers as the lensed crowd unconsciously avoided them. Vince purposely strode through these barren islands of pavement, feeling satisfied as the nearby zombies flinched whenever he did. Their digitized delusion was fragile, and it was unnerving to have it broken so brazenly. Vince lingered in one of these spots as he tossed his cigarette and dug out his phone. He returned the uncomfortable glances from passersby with bold eye contact. To them he was the asshole standing on top of the digital display. To him, they were a symptom of the world’s problems.
His phone, a simple sandwich of glass with data displayed between the panes, flashed to life and provided a small window into the AR around him. It felt dirty and desperate to have to use it, but he needed to find Prince’s Parlor, and any token gesture at having non-AR signs here faded years ago from disinterest.
It didn’t take long to find. It had the typical over exuberance of digital facade. Vince flipped off the phone and pocketed it as he crossed the busy street. He paid no heed to the cars. Their brains wouldn’t hit him.
Of course the place was a VR den. AR wasn’t real enough, and reality was too real, so humanity needed a step in between. Vince used VR in his business occasionally, but always a small personal setup, and only as sparingly as possible. VR was fun, sure, but it only served as a contrast to how shitty life was. Some people needed that fix. They needed the assurance that at least someone could think of a better, more exciting existence. If the option to download into a permanent digital reality were available, most of these drones would embrace it eagerly and leave their lonely meat behind forever. Vince was queasy at the thought, and pushed it aside as he entered the Parlor.
Inside, a suited tough with dark lenses sat in a posh foyer. On one side were several touchscreens proclaiming the day’s specials, while the other held a simple set of double doors.
“Here to see Ricky,” Vince said, keeping his hands in his pockets as he dripped rainwater onto the carpet.
“I figured. You ain’t exactly up to snuff with our usual clientele. Head straight back, last bay on the left.”
“Right,” was all Vince said as he pushed through the doors. Behind was a corridor flanked on either side with numbered bays. The only sound was the steady thrum of cooling fans and most of the bays had lit occupancy lights.
The last door on the left, 23, was one of those lit and had a single headset dangling from a charging cradle. Vince grabbed it and walked into the bay.
Inside, a woman sat on a plain chair, with an empty chair facing her. The room was an otherwise featureless box with rounded edges and corners. The wall panels were still a factory gray. Paint, here, was a complete waste of crypto. Vince shut the door behind him and pulled on the headset.
As the earpieces slid over his ears, a wash of busy noises filled his head. His eyes, sealed in by the headset, were shown a bustling office done in a late twentieth-century style. Gray cubicle walls festooned with inane bits of paper stretched into the infinite distance as the sounds of ringing phones, clicking keyboards, and muffled laughter surrounded him. He was in a small lounging area in the intersection of two cubicle hallways. Aside from the woman seated in front of him, Vince could see no one else. The “staff” of the office seemed to be limited to just voices and typing.
“You must be V,” the woman said, after setting down a folio she was intently perusing. “Welcome to my office. I’m Ricky, and Tag has sent you to me to help me with a problem. Please have a seat, we’re still waiting for one more.” She was dressed in a simple, but stylish suit just like in reality. However, at her breast was a fresh flower broach, a green rose contrasting her dark blouse, which only existed in bits.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vince said as he sat in the chair, dropping his bag to the floor. “This seems like kind of a waste,” he said, gesturing around.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Well, you can do anything you want in VR, so why just make everything the same gray as the actual room, but noisier?”
The woman chuckled and said, “A fair point. However, I find this environment is very good for focus. The droning of surrounding activity helps to quiet the distracting thoughts. Did Tag tell you why you’re here?”
“Nah, he just told me to come here and ask for you. Said it was important, though.”
“Yes, quite. Tell me, what do you do for Tag? You seem pretty valuable to him.”
“Paperwork,” Vince said, staying succinct. He knew Tag wouldn’t want him talking much about the work, though it wasn’t a huge secret. Everyone knew Tag operated in threats and blackmail. That’s why no one crossed him.
“Oh surely there’s more to it than that. He seems very interested in you,” the woman said, leaning forward slightly. She seemed eager, almost anxious to Vince. That didn’t make sense. He was just a lackey. Her lackey, at the moment.
“Look, can we get down to business? What am I doing for you?” Vince heard the door behind him click open, but he held the woman’s gaze. She still seemed uncertain.
“Yes, yes we can,” she said with a small sigh. She sat up a bit straighter and nodded curtly.
The world flew upwards at a jarring pace as Vince’s headset was ripped off, the sounds of the busy office cutting dramatically to silence punctuated by the heavy breathing of the man behind him and the startled gasp he himself had uttered.
Before he could get up, powerful hands grabbed his arms. The tension of plastic restraint cuffs tightened on his wrists. Vince’s scream of panic was cut off by a gag forced into place by another pair of hands. Two men, then.
The woman stood up and removed her headset, looking at Vince with a mild amusement. “You’re worth a lot of money dead, it seems. In my experience, people are always worth more alive.” She nodded to the men again, who dragged Vince from the room and down a set of stairs nestled between the bay and back wall of the parlor.
A life as a key tapper had not prepared Vince to provide much physical resistance. The two toughs seemed unaffected by even his strongest attempts as they slammed him through the door at the bottom of the stairs.
Underground, the Prince’s Parlor lost all finish and relied instead on utilitarian grime. A server stack behind a padlocked cage winked bland green-and-blue illumination into the dirty space, which had a much smaller footprint than the ground level. Across the room, a circle of light pooled beneath a poorly exposed bulb on the wall. This was where Vince was roughly deposited, his head scraping the unfinished concrete and splashing against the rusty moisture of a pipe leak.
It took a few moments of struggle for Vince to figure out how to turn around with his hands bound. He was eventually seated with his back against the wall, and looked up to see the two men standing over him, one with a pistol in his hand. He wasn’t pointing it at Vince. He didn’t need to. He didn’t need to prove anything. If Vince was uncooperative, he’d be dead.
The other man, the bouncer from the foyer, checked Vince’s pockets. He tossed the phone down an exposed floor drain nearby and pocketed the cigarettes. He handed the cyptostick to his accomplice and headed back upstairs, passing Ricky as she came down to join the scene.
“No screaming,” Ricky said as she tugged out the gag and let it hang from Vince’s neck. “Now, why does anyone want a worthless shit like you dead? You must be able to get something good outta Tag for me.”
Vince worked his jaw, which was sore from the gag. “I’m just a monkey, man. I don’t have access to shit for Tag. Who wants me dead?”
“Not important, and don’t play the idiot with me, kid. I’ve dealt with enough gutter trash in forty years to see through your crap. Give me access to Tag’s accounts.”
“You think Tag trusts me with his accounts?” Vince was getting nervous. She wanted what he didn’t have, and his death was already on the table.
“A punk like you? Probably not, but you have to know something useful. Let’s plastic up your mood a bit, kid.” Ricky held out a hand, and the tough pulled out a combat knife and handed it to her. Of course he had a knife. He was that kind of tough.
Ricky knelt down and unceremoniously jammed the knife into Vince’s thigh. Searing pain ran up his leg and torso as he screamed, his face compressed in agony. His vision swam through watered eyes as he looked down to see a dark blemish swell around a knife buried through the faded denim.
“Jesus Christ,” was all he managed to utter after his scream cut off. His throat was dry and his teeth hurt from clenching them. The pain did not subside, but he was starting to block it out, at least to some extent.
“Better now?” Ricky asked, still squatting in front of him. Her face wavered through Vince’s still blurred vision. “Now, what can you tell me? How about a list of Tag’s customers? His contacts? Anything useful to keep your heart beating?”
“I don’t know shit, man,” Vince said as he started to sob. “Who put you up to this? Call Tag, he’ll tell you I don’t know shit.”
“If you don’t know anything, then why does he trust you with his online work? Why does he go to you?”
“I owe him crypto, same as everyone else.” With each word, Vince tasted the briny mixture of his tears and snot. His chest heaved with the sobs and his leg’s complaint had subdued to a pounding throb. The knife was still there, standing upright and quivering with every movement he made.
Ricky let out a long sigh and stood upright. “I guess I’ll get Ping to work his rig over and see what we can get from that. Off him here and dump him out back, but do it quietly.”
“Tag’s not gonna let this fly, man! He’ll fucking kill you for this!” Vince managed to shout.
“Somehow, I doubt that. You ain’t worth it, kid,” she said, almost pitiably. She gave Vince one last smile before heading upstairs.
After Ricky had gone, the tough tucked the pistol into the side of his waistband, leaned down, and pulled the knife out. The pain heaved back through Vince and his vision blackened and pixelated around the edges. This was the moment, the end of his last twenty years. This was the exact second that Vince stopped being Vince and started being another data point for the lifespan figures.
Vince wanted real, and here it was in all its glory. This was how reality ended: at the point of a knife reddened with his own blood while sitting in a dirty brown puddle. It was pathetic. It was depressing. It was unacceptable.
Vince was going to give reality one last round. He managed to gather his legs beneath him and, favoring the unwounded leg, sprang up into the surprised tough as he was bringing the knife to bear. Vince collided with a wall of thick torso and managed to topple it with all the effort he could muster.
There was an audible thud as the tough’s head hit the concrete floor, and he laid still with Vince sprawled on top. Vince scrambled awkwardly to his feet, the pain in his leg flaring. The knife had, during the collision, taken a chunk from his flank, judging by the wet rip in his shirt. It didn’t hurt much, or at least the pain didn’t beat out his stabbed leg, so he ignored it.
The tough was breathing, but he wasn’t doing much more. His eyes were open and unfocused behind some lightweight lenses, and one of his pupils was blown.
Vince managed to get through the plastic cuffs with the knife. His wrists were bloodied by it, but they were free. He grabbed back his card, cryptostick, and the pistol. He’d never actually pulled a trigger before, but it wasn’t designed to be difficult.
Vince carefully went upstairs, pistol in one hand, the other hand held firmly against his wounded side. He had to take the stairs one at a time, dragging his injured leg up each step. He braced himself along the hallway of VR bays, leaving bloody streaks along their doors.
“Shit, kid,” the dark-lensed bouncer said as Vince staggered into the foyer. Vince’s limp made the pistol flail about before him, and the tough flinched at each unsteady pass of the firearm’s aim. He gave Vince no trouble.
Once outside, Vince stashed the pistol in his pocket as he limped down the walk. The rain had stopped, for the moment, and the sunlight was dwindling behind the overcast sky. He needed to get back to Tag. He needed to get back to life. Tag would get this sorted out. He would deal with Ricky and find out who wanted to disrupt business. Tag would make them pay. Just another example made.
Vince left a few bloody smudges on the public touchscreen he used to call an autocab. He had crypto in his pocket, and he couldn’t make it back to Tag with this limp. He needed a ride, and was in enough pain to be willing to pay for it. The touchscreen told him two minutes for the car to arrive, and docked a couple digits from the cryptostick he had slotted. The street was crowded, more so than before. He leaned against the kiosk, hands in his pockets, and took stock.
In the left pocket, his cryptostick and the catalog card. In the right, the pistol and the catalog card.
Vince started. He had a card in both pockets. He took out the right one, and read, “Vine street. Prince’s Parlor. Ask for Ricky. No rush.”
He took out the left card, and read, “Disposal. Coming to you. Vince, goes by V.”
Vince felt like he had been gut-punched. He fell to his knees, cards pinned between fingers and wet pavement, and vomited into the street. He stayed there, staring at the cards in his hands, until the wheel of a car rolled to a stop in his ejected lunch.
He climbed to his feet and into the waiting autocab, which already knew where he was going. Vince watched the city go by, the autocab’s glass providing the colorful AR overlay for the dirty world. Reality was lost behind a glossy layer of flare and animation. He flipped off the AR display. He needed to see reality now more than ever. He had to get back to Tag.
Ten minutes later, the autocab deposited him outside the bar. The rain had started up again, and a red streak ran from his boot into the gutter as he stepped from the cab and limped in through the door.
“Jesus, V, what the fuck happened?” Carl asked, getting up from his stool to try to help.
“Nothing, man, I’m fine,” Vince said. “Tag still in?”
“Yeah, man. Shit, don’t bleed on too much in there. Where’s your bag?”
“Gone,” Vince replied as he limped through the detector, which let out the usual yelp.
Tag looked surprised when Vince slammed down into the chair across from him.
“V? You’re back,” Tag said. “You look like shit.”
Vince tossed the two cards onto the tabletop, both heavily marred by red streaks.
Tag glanced down at them, then back up at Vince. “You owed me, and I was done waiting. I knew you didn’t have it. It’s business, kid,” he said. He picked up a pile of cards and started to shuffle them. He added, “That’s the way it goes, V. Sorry.”
“I don’t get it, man. I was useful. I thought you liked me.”
“That’s the problem, kid,” Tag sighed. “I do like you.”
The pistol was far louder than he had been expecting.