Mom, if you can read this, I’m sorry. I know you hate bad words, but I’m trapped in a computer game with a bunch of teenage boys who love d*ck jokes, sh*tposting, and yelling “f*ck” like it’s punctuation. Okay, maybe it’s not just the teenagers. Maybe just put this book down, pick up Deuteronomy, and pretend I became a youth pastor.
Love you,
Dave
“6.66 MILLION DOLLARS,” the accountant pushes up his hologlasses to hide his piggy little eyes. “That’s how much you owe us, David.”
My hospital bed beeps and sighs, reacting for me. My air-tube huffs another dose of oxygen into my nose, and my heart rate monitor quickens. Radioactive poison seeps into my veins as the chemotherapy increases to match my heart rate. Anyone watching (there is always someone watching from that tiny HumanAsset camera in the corner of the room) would think I’m triggered by the size of my debt.
I’m not triggered.
I’m pissed.
“I don’t have 6 million on me right now.” My voice rasps. “Check my other pants.”
When I was a kid, back in the thrilling days of yesteryear called the ‘80s, a million dollars was Rockefeller money, Bill Gates money. A million dollars was something you might dream about, maybe even aspire to, the tippy-top of the American dream. But it was out of reach for real people like me.
These days, it’s a requirement.
These days, if you don’t have a million dollars, they tell you you’re doing something wrong.
“Three years of chemotherapy.” Mr. O’Cavity, the accountant, drones on with the compassion of a Jetsons robot. “Nine rounds. Hundreds of hours of treatment. Injections, drugs—very expensive drugs…”
My very expensive drugs are manufactured by HumanAsset Pharma, administered in HumanAsset hospitals, and paid for by HumanAsset Health Insurance, which runs the whole scheme. And (just because you might be in the same boat), I got HumanAsset Health Insurance thanks to HumanAsset lobbyists, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy HumanAsset politicians, who made sure we had no other choice.
Here’s the joke: Last year HumanAsset bought a chain of crematoriums so they can keep their hands in our wallets even after we’re dead. And they’re not shy about taking every penny.
666 seems like an appropriate number for these shitheels.
“Liquid nutrients, vitamin supplements, oxygen supplements,” O’Cavity drones on. “Doctors, nurses, psychological counseling—“
“Psychological counseling?” I manage to laugh although it hurts. “That eleven-year-old who comes in here twice a day to ask me how I’m feeling? That psychologist?”
“She interviews you bi-daily to track your emotional health.”
“I’m dying of cornhole cancer.” I force a grin. “And she wants to know if I’m sad?”
Colon cancer. Go ahead and laugh, I do.
Buttholes are funny no matter how old you get, or how riddled with cancer. Buttholes stay funny whether you’re eight or eighty, built-in human jokes that remind you God has a sense of humor. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, right? Buttholes are hilarious.
I’m looking at one right now.
O’Cavity’s mouth puckers. “We’ve been over this, David. HumanAsset requires emotional support for all our guests.” HumanAsset employees always call us guests, never patients, not even here on the Butt-Cancer Death Ward. “Mental therapy is a benefit of your service...”
“At nine hundred dollars an hour.” I snort. “Why not save time and charge $450 per question?” I try to laugh, but I'm too weak. “Your intern shrink covers the entire 13th floor before lunch, and HumanAsset earns an extra $27,000 a day. That’s a new car.”
O'Cavity sneers under his breath. “Maybe your car.”
I start to say ‘Excuse me?’ like Mom used to when I was a child and said something utterly inexcusable like ‘You’re stupid’ or ‘This meatloaf sucks’, but my throat catches and all I can manage is a cough that jams my respirator.
O'Cavity adjusts his hologlasses and I see his beady eyes aren’t on me, they’re assessing a set of cycling numbers reflected in his spectacles. Son of a bitch has me on a timer. 120 seconds and counting. He presents me with a handheld tablet with a font too small to read. “This is an order from a federal judge ordering the seizure of all your remaining assets, David. The house, the motorcycle, the vending machines, the card collection…”
O’Cavity’s voice fades away. I knew they were going to take the house and the motorcycle. What really gets me is the baseball cards.
I doubt you remember Topps baseball cards. Maybe there’s a digital version now, but when I was young, you could buy a wax pack of a dozen baseball cards and get a free stick of gum. I chewed over two thousand sticks, if my collection is any measure. I never got any of the really valuable ones like an Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr., but I have a 1985 Olympic card of Don Mattingly that I’m pretty proud of.
HumanAsset just stole all of them.
“$191k in your IRA, $31k in investments, 27 vending machines, and $847.58 in your bank account, for a total value of…” O’Cavity checks his glasses. “$241,805… and 58 cents.”
There it is. Fifty years of my life, all summed up.
Seems pretty weak when you boil it down like that. $241,805.58
All those memories, all those good times. A wife who gave me the best eight years of her life. That trip to Alaska. All those years of teaching high school, all those students that filled the gap Mary and I couldn’t fill with a child of our own. The picnics, the date nights, the Easter brunches with mom, the poker nights with the guys, the baseball games, the Cubbies winning the pennant.
Just a number. 24180558.
“So I guess I only owe $6.4 million now.” I cough and smile. “Will you take a check?”
“$6.6 million after seizure. As of now, you’re worth… less than nothing.”
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I’m just an average guy, I knew I was never going to get rich. But for someone to say I’m worth less than nothing…
Not even the chemo makes me feel like that kind of shit.
50 years old probably sounds super-ancient to you. I know it did to me when I was young. Anything over 40 sounded like something you could just wad up and throw away without missing much, like the credits at the end of a movie. Who cares if a 50-year-old dies? They had their run.
Molly died ten years ago, and most of me went with her. I gave up teaching. Bought the vending machines, stopped seeing people, became a social hermit. Like I went into the locker room at halftime and never came back out.
But let me tell you a secret: even now, alone, broke, and riddled with cancer, most of my days are pretty good. And I want every one of them.
I want my second half.
“Maybe I can work it off.” I force a grin. “Need a shoe shine, boss?”
“Mr. McClain, at your current income, it would take…” O’Cavity checks his glasses and stifles a laugh. “133 years for you to pay us what you owe.“
“Right.” I snort. “Better pull the plug now, eliminate the overhead.”
“Unfortunately that’s not a legal option.”
Unfortunately. I realize O’Cavity would gladly just throw my corpse in a dumpster now that my wallet is empty. On his P&L statement, I’m just a number in the red that needs to be eliminated. I wonder for a brief moment if I could take him, just beat the hell out of him. But the first thing the chemo does is take your strength, and I don’t know that I’ve got that much left for anything other than fighting the cancer.
Still, it’d be nice to put a black eye behind those hollow specs.
O’Cavity’s glasses beep as his timer hits 180 seconds since this conversation began. Time is money; enough friendly chit chat. “You have two options in front of you. Mr. McClain. First: medical test subject.”
Now I laugh. “Volunteer as a human lab rat? Hard pass.”
“We don’t need you to volunteer.” O’Cavity smiles thin lips. “Tomorrow morning, you will be placed in a clinical cancer study HumanAsset is conducting. Part of the Placebo Protocols, the control group.”
Placebos. No more chemo for Dave. “So, Option 1: you treat my cancer with Kool-Aid until I die.”
“The second ... is this,” O’Cavity reveals a tiny jewel box. Inside is a small metal disc about the size of a quarter. For some reason, I get a flashback of me as a little seventh-grade kid staring at a shiny arcade token in Aladdin's Castle. Back when they used to have Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Asteroids alongside Centipede, Joust, and (my favorite) Frogger. So many great memories from one little token. “What is that?”
“A game.” O’Cavity plucks the arcade token from the jewel box. “Full immersion. Neural haptics. Cerebral interface. Cutting edge.” O’Cavity rolls the token between his fingers and I see three tiny dots light up on the side of the metal. “HumanAsset owns 66% of the company that created it, one of our diversification investments. This company needs players who can train the AI to seem more human. Players who have plenty of free time. Players who can keep going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Players...” He flicks the token into the air and snatches it in his fist. “Like you.”
I stare at him, not quite believing it. “You want me to live inside a video game?”
“Very good.” He sighs, relieved.. “I was worried a man of your age would struggle with the concept.”
“I saw it in 1981, you putz. It was called Tron.”
That shuts him up for a second. I have to admit, being stuffed in a video game sounds a hell of a lot more appealing than the Placebo Protocols. “And HumanAsset will make sure I stay breathing... because I’m not worthless anymore, right?”
“Chemotherapy, nutrients, and a guaranteed place in HumanAsset’s portfolio.” O’Cavity nods. “You work off your debt, we keep you alive.”
I consider him and his stupid weasel face. “No thanks.”
O’Cavity looks like he just swallowed a pincushion. He loosens the collar of his monkey suit. “Ahem. Mr. McClain…”
“The hospital can’t just let me die.” I cough and shake my head. “There are laws. That Hippocratic oath comes in handy when you wanna stay alive.” Which I do. I truly do.
“We will not pay for your treatment,” O’Cavity says flatly. “No hospital will.”
“I’ll go on Medicare.”
“Medicare rejected you yesterday. You failed to follow the proper billing and reporting rules.”
“HumanAsset filled out those forms for me!”
The beancounter smiles. “You should have hired an attorney.”
Now I really have to laugh. When we’re depending on ambulance chasers for healthcare, we’re in trouble.
“So…” I sit up in my hospital bed. “You’ve figured out a way to kill me... legally.”
O’Cavity reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a contract as thick as my thumb. Real paper. I haven’t seen HumanAsset use real paper since I set foot in the hospital. O’Cavity’s bosses must think this is important enough to waste money on printing. He places a heavy Montblanc pen on the contract. “You can sign here and be kept alive as a game tester. Or we can enter you into the Placebo Protocols.” I get ready to tell him what he can do with his protocols, but he holds up a hand. “If, however, you choose not to cooperate, we will be forced to perform a fiscal clawback, beginning with your family assets.”
“What family?” I wheeze a laugh. “My sister? She’s broker than I am.”
“Your mother.” O’Cavity smiles. “$234k in her account, plus the condo. It’s not six million, but every little bit helps.”
I feel my fists turn into knots as I imagine choking O’Cavity’s pencil neck.
I know you kids like to make fun of Boomers. Hell, I do too. But HumanAsset is talking about bankrupting my mom.
That’s it. There’s no point fighting anymore. They’ve got me over a barrel.
I pick up the pen.
As I move to sign, O’Cavity shakes his head and chuckles. “No one ever reads the Terms of Service.”
I sign the contract and throw the Montblanc in the trash.
“That will be added to your bill.” O’Cavity places the arcade token in the jewel box and hands it to a waiting nurse. “Good day, Mr. McClain. And thank you for choosing HumanAsset.”
“Hey, O’Cavity. You know my ‘85 Mattingly?”
“The baseball card?” He shifts his glasses. “Yes.”
“Choke on it.”
An hour later, the nurse wheels me into an operating room that’s lit up like Fenway Park. I’ve had plenty of surgeries back when they were trying to remove the cancer from my ass. But this time is different. This time, a gallery of shadowy faces looks down on me from the upper level of the surgical theater, where the med students usually watch. But these guys are all corporate suits, HumanAsset brass come to watch the fun. They stare silently down at me like I’m a cockroach.
Nobody gives me any warning before they shave off my hair. It’s not like I have a ton left anyway; the chemo took most of it, but I still have a few strands of my pride left. They take that.
A blonde doctor opens the jewel box and plucks out the arcade token like it’s a holy relic. “All right, Mr. McClain, this is a neural interface that will bond with your neocortex and give you full access to the RiftBorn system. Once inside, you will be given a full tutorial. At this time, I am legally obligated to inform you that this is an experimental procedure and may involve side effects, including but not limited to nausea, dizziness, headache, dry mouth, fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, weight gain, erectile dysfunction, and anal leakage. Please consult a physician if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours.”
“If it lasts more than five, I’ll call everyone I ever met.”
She produces a wicked-looking pneumo-drill and inserts the arcade token into the tip. I hear a faint hum as the device powers up. She tests the drill, which rattles with a chainsaw whirr.
Hell’s bells. She’s going to drill that thing into my skull. What the hell did I sign up for?
You probably don’t remember the part in Tron where Jeff Bridges gets erased by lasers bit by bit and transported into the MCP computer. It scared the hell out of me as a kid. But I’m not scared now. I’m just pissed off.
I feel a sharp stab of pain in the side of my head as the drill digs in. I scream and—
I’m on a tropical desert island. Lush coconut palms waft in the breeze as puffy white clouds drift lazily across a Caribbean blue sky.
What the hell?
I played a couple of hours of Resident Evil and Call of Duty with my nephew ten years ago. I thought those games looked real, but this... this is a whole new level.
I can smell the salt in the ocean air, feel the tropical breeze on my skin. I feel golden sand between my toes, just as real as if I were standing on a beach in Cancún.
This is one hell of a long way past Frogger.
In the distance, I see a ship headed in my direction. I put my hand over my eyes to get a better look, and see it’s an old-fashioned sailing ship, big, with a giant dragon head on the front of it and a bunch of people in weird costumes running along the rails. One of them, a guy who looks like a six-foot iguana wearing a pink birthday party hat, points at me and shouts. “There’s one! Get the crusty old fart!”
Twenty iron cannons snap out of the gunports and fire at me.
I have half a second to realize I’m going to die as cannonballs thud into the sand, all with lit fuses hissing like snakes.
Definitely not Frogger, I think, as the cannonballs explode and rip me into a million pieces.
You Are Dead.