I guided her back into a kitchen chair, using the bat to keep distance between us.
“Keep enough in your wallet next time.”
She grabbed a vape from the table and pulled deep, blowing a cloud at me as I walked past. I looked down a hallway that appeared longer now. They knew better, better than the rest of us ever did, the consequence of debt. Before the Currency Wars, their kind watched as the rest of us pulled at our bootstraps, while spreading the American Myth that we’re all equal, separated by work ethic. They refused to cry for us when children starved, calling poverty a class weakness, declaring the poor undeserving. They knew better and still wagered their kids’ happiness on some imaginary grace period, on self-respecting Coursers, but instead they got me.
The messy room at the end of the hall was decorated with superheroes and sports teams, like my room when I was their age. Both were near ten and sat on the floor in the middle of the mess. One wearing VR glasses with glove controllers and the other watching a tablet screen displaying the action, both pretending a stranger hadn’t entered the room. I stood quiet, watching, giving them extra time before I stole their Christmas. They only had it a little over a month, still in that sweet spot before the novelty wore off. I hid the bat as best I could and flipped open my phone, showing them the badge, hoping to be mistaken for the police. At least then their parents could spin this into a story about “cooperating with an investigation”, as there was honor in policing again. But Coursers were opportunists. Bounty-hunters of the worst kind. A necessity in the new world.
“My name’s Logan. What’s yours?”
“Felix,” said the boy with the tablet.
“Arlo,” said the other.
“Well Felix and Arlo, I need you to put that VR rig back in the case. Gloves and all. We’ll ship it back to you as soon as we’re finished with it, okay?”
The boys stared up at me, appraising the lie. This probably wasn’t the first time a stranger walked into their home and left with something that once was theirs. Felix began packing the headset like he knew he’d never see it again. Arlo wiped at his eyes. I grabbed the case and turned back to the hallway, the sound of sniffles ringing in my ears. My frustration at their parents turned to self-loathing. I remembered being their age, watching the rent-to-own movers enter our shotgun house every few months to reclaim the television, gaming consoles, or furniture. I remembered the depression that hung over my parents until the process began again, their attempt to buy a sliver of the American Dream. Lying to those boys eased the feeling of moral bankruptcy, as someone would have taken the job eventually, but they will grow up as I did, hating people like me, surrounded by their parents’ hopelessness.
I placed the carry case on the table amongst the haze hovering around the woman.
“You’re a piece of shit,” she spit.
I opened the case, held the rear-facing camera of my phone over the microscopic QR-code, laser-etched on the glasses’ frame. My phone had the easy job, taking only seconds to link the item with its token ID. In that brief few seconds, ownership of the VR rig was traced from its manufacturer, to the retailer who then sold it on contract to Felicity Anderson. Contained in the metadata was all of this, along with the date of purchase, the time she ordered it, the monthly amount due. Anything that could be used to validate the asset transfer. Imagine if your old leather wallet or designer purse tracked, completed, and recorded every purchase you ever made with every card it ever housed. Now imagine all of those wallets and purses were linked, their transactions publicly listed in an ever-expanding ledger. That was our new reality thanks to the Naxos Foundation and the Rho currency. The exterior screen on the phone lit green with the message “Ownership Confirmed” and like that, the digital token she possessed signifying her ownership rights to the physical item disappeared, only to reappear in my wallet. I was the new owner of a gently used VR gaming rig. The facilitator of this was a company-approved pickpocket software installed on the phone, allowing access to anything on the network, including smart locks on apartment doors and crypto wallets. Because the unauthorized transfer of digital assets violated a guiding principle of the Naxos Foundation, the architects of our new economy ensured the tech was heavily regulated, available only to Coursers. Anyone using it outside the performance of legally authorized duties faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison for betraying the public trust and civilian use of black-market pickpockets was rare due to their complexity and the penalty being nearly as harsh, a mandatory minimum of twenty years.
“Yeah…maybe…but at least I’m not delusional.”
Without the fear of attack, I surveyed the space. The apartment was sparsely furnished with worn, mismatched items. A makeshift home office in the corner of the living room looked unused since their luck changed. An old Mac with peripherals was on the floor near the desk with a printer that likely contained dried up ink cartridges, everything thick with dust. On the desk sat three GPU racks and a laptop, making the room warmer than the rest. I took the bat from under my arm and tossed it at the diploma hanging above the former office. The diploma fell to the floor with the other useless items, while the bat bounced around the tech. She stumbled running to it, touching and patting the GPU racks, showing them more concern than she did her children who encountered a bat-wielding stranger in their bedroom. Her curses carried me out the door and into a bitter wind that threw snow flurries like shards of glass.
I read both chapters. Can't say I understood everything, but what I DID understand was C.R.E.E.P.Y! I will most likely be dead when it gets this bad...whew! Nice writing, Mr Smith