Joshua looked at the view the camera showed of the outside world, the burned out wreckage of radiation and blast waves had turned the landscape into a bizarre picture of tortured buildings and ghost like shadows playing across the ground.
He smiled to himself when he thought about how it had started, not over oil or land or even religion, but human error. A simple rocket launch of a commercial satellite had been misread by a Chinese military commander, who had also failed to identify the launch point. His first action was to launch a counter attack against another country that also had its own deterrent who had in turn launch their missiles.
This was followed by a free for all of launches from one country to another until the big boy the U.S. became involved and launched massive strikes at the Middle East, and ultimately China, Russia also attacked both the U.S. and China as well as some pesky neighbors.
Joshua had been an engineer and a very good one, his income and resources had been such that he had contracted to have an extensive and even luxurious fallout shelter built. He had lived at the edge of a large Midwestern city, one that had no fault lines, ample limestone that was easily excavated. The design had been his own, it was his crowning engineering feet, and everything was redundant and would easily support him to the end of his life.
At 52 feet underground, with a foot of lead, capped with 4 feet of concrete no radiation no matter how intense would ever reach into the shelter, designed to hold 125,000 of diesel fuel that fed 3 air cooled slow speed 20 KVA generators and a battery bank of close to 300,000 watts without any outside energy source of any kind he could run all of his electronics in the shelter for 22 years.
He had augmented this setup with a bicycle based human pedal generator that when he rode it for 45 minutes produces almost 3 KVA of power, he also had solar panels that once nuclear winter past he could add additional supplemental power.
His food supply was a 25 year supply of mountain house dehydrated food, plus a freezer that held prime steaks and seafood with small grows trays that would allow him to supplement his diet with fresh fruits and vegetables. The air filtration was a commercial unit with 3 replacement units that would filter radiation, virus and bacterial matter from his air. His water came from a well nearly a mile deep and was not part of the normal aquifer and would stay pure for centuries.
He had thought of everything, basic medical needs, entertainment, weapons for protection, supplies to build structures once it was to go outside, it was a testament to his skills that would outlast him and several hundred years beyond that. He had one problem that he had not counted on and he had no idea how to address it. He was bored, not just bored as in he did not know what to do but the kind of boredom that eventually led someone to stick a gun in their mouth to escape it.
It wasn’t bad at first; the spotty broadcasts he received via the Internet were interesting and somewhat exciting, as the crisis escalated though it became clear that the species, the human species at least might not survive this. The internet or pieces of it lasted longer than he expected and the news he got about the death toll that was almost beyond belief, after that he received random ham radio broadcasts, always looking for help or medical supplies, anything. Over time those faded he had silence now for almost 9 months, he had not spoken to another human in over a year.
He had tried everything to stay engaged, he had more movies than Netflix and tried to develop a routine, wake, exercise then have a light meal, study a subject for 2 hours, then a quick nap, listen to self-hypnosis tapes for 15 minutes then watch movies for 4 to 6 hours.
It became mind numbing after a month and he abandon it; he tried drinking himself into a stupor for about a week and hated it as much as the self-imposed schedule he had tried to maintain. He had one thing he had not tried yet and he hesitated to do so because it was addictive and there was the very real possibility that once he started using it he would lose himself in it.
Designed for virtual reality training of pilots and military personnel it had been adapted for private use, but only the very wealthy and those who had the connections could afford such an illegal luxury. It was a type of virtual reality that connected directly to the synapse of the brain. He had been ported by a Swiss doctor a year before and had experienced it once, it provided a type of reality that was every bit as real as the physical world with one major catch, and there were no rules of behavior.
In the 1970’s Stanford University conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment on a group of college students in order to learn the psychology of prison life. Some students were given the role as prison guards, while the others are given the role of prisoners. After only six days, the proposed two-week study has to end because of its psychological effects on the participants. The “guards” had begun to act sadistic, while the “prisoners” started to show signs of depression and severe psychological stress
In VR no rules applied of any kind, you could be a monster or a saint without any consequences, and therein lay the danger. It was in fact illegal to own such a unit because of the dangers of VR presented; when it was first introduced it was hailed as a new frontier, one that improved in technological leaps and bounds.
That was until people became addicted to it, it was better than the real world in every way. If you wanted love just program it, wanted to beat the shit of that bully from High School no problem add a subroutine and you could torture your tormenter. Felt like being kinky, no problem butt-plugs and ball gags galore could abound in VR.
People started spending more time in VR that in the real world, some actually died because they failed to come out of VR, people didn’t want to go to work in the real world; it was in a word a better place without any restraint or control. Of course by the time it was discovered it was additive and harmful it was too late. Laws were passed and a whole new black market popped up overnight.
Joshua had been very careful in his purchase of his VR system, only the best and with ample replacement parts, the interface had been done by a professional not by a kid in a garage hoping to turn a buck.
He had been given a written guarantee by the seller that this was the top of the line VR unit that one could program any desired experience all with a few simple yet masterful key strokes. Of course that contract meant very little now, he carefully considered the scenario he wanted to play out and set a specific time limit on it. He would only stay in VR for about 2 hours and no longer, this was a simple escape no meant to provide some light hearted fun, nothing more.
As he sat back in the chair he smiled nervously to himself, a quick trip nothing more. He pushed the metal probe into the small jack in the back of his head, so small he had to feel around for a moment when he did the world suddenly changed.
He was standing in front of Hooters in Boca Raton, FL he knew it well; he had after all specified the location. It was perfect in every way; he examined it for many minutes and was unable to discern anything that didn’t appear to be real and original.
The parking lot had a few cars in it, and the traffic noise from Glades Road was totally authentic, a few customers sat at the outside bar, and the heat and humidity were totally real and believable. He walked slowly toward the front door, and it was opened for him by a twenty something blonde in white shorts and a tight T-shirt.
As he walked by her he had a subconscious thought that her tits needed to be bigger, and within a microsecond that grew out to DD size. He tried not to smile at the result of the random thought; the hostess did not seem to notice her sudden enhancement.
“Take a seat anywhere you like” she said in a pleasant Boca bitch sort of way, typical of South Florida.
He sat at the bar inside and ordered wings and fries he chatted with the young ladies for a while, watched a pretend football game and generally enjoyed himself enough that he relaxed and allowed the experience flow over him.
He came out of VR and was pleasantly surprised, he did not feel altered in any way and it was certainly better than any form of entertainment he had available to him. He checked the unit and its status, the power drain for two hours had been more than he had expected and he rode the bicycle for almost 90 minutes to make up for the energy he had drained from his shelters system.
He did a few more sessions in VR, each time expanding what he allowed himself to do, but never more than two hours and only three days a week. He had dinner in his favorite restaurant in NY, wandered thru the Vatican; he took a camel ride to the pyramids.
He realized that these small jaunts in VR were saving his life, he felt normal again, he could interact with the characters in VR and it made the isolation and loneliness bearable.
After many months he decided he wanted a return trip to Hooters, when you ate in VR you actually felt full at least for a little while and he loved the wings and fries. He smiled slightly at the irony of finding fake food filling and then for second he hesitated, his last trip into VR he had noticed something odd.
There had been a man who seemed to be shadowing him; he was in fact positive that is what the man had been doing. And as he thought it thru he was sure he had seen him in Paris as well, as he walked toward the tower he had seen the man looking at him from the line waiting to climb the stairs.
There was something familiar about the man but he couldn’t quite place it. He examined the setup of his VR machine he could find no reoccurring characters other than the randomly generated ones. He decided he would spend more time investigating it after his Hooters run and with that he plugged in.
How odd, the restaurant was totally empty, no Hooters girls, no cars in the parking lot, no cars in fact anywhere. He walked inside the flat screens had a fake football game on, everything looked just as it should just no fake people.
He turned just in time to see the man standing at the front entrance with a backpack mounted mini-gun. Joshua dove out of instinct as the rounds streamed over his head in a deadly hail of bullets.
“WTF”, he yelled.
“Hi Joshua, thought you’d be back here soon”. He heard a familiar voice say.
He didn’t look above the table but instead he dove behind another one, but that voice he knew that voice.
“Still haven’t figured it out yet genius, really you still don’t know what this is about”. The voice taunted. “You never even recognized me when I sold you the VR unit did you”?
Another hail of bullets, streamed around the bar, tables were hit, and glasses shattered, chairs were disintegrated. Then it stopped suddenly, he dared to look up and he could see the man dropping the chain gun, it was empty.
“Great thing about VR Josh, weapons and bullets are easy to get”. The man looked familiar but he couldn’t place him.
He pulled an assault rifle out of a small bag, totally impossible in the real world but not in VR.
“What the fuck do you want”? Joshua screamed as he ran for an exit on the opposite side of the restaurant.
“I want to shoot your ass, you moron, and by the way the safety protocols on your unit have been disabled, when I cap your ass you really die.” The man laughed like a maniac and fired again.
The rounds passed close enough that he caught shrapnel from their impact in the wood around him; the pain was intense and real. He had to move and move quickly, the program would not let me out for almost 2 full hours.
He did the only thing he could do, he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. More rounds landed close to him, he ran faster, swerving left and right, ducking behind a building then heading toward the Glades Mall a few blocks away.
He had to think, he had to stay away from guy for at least 2 hours unless that too had been removed, if it was set to an infinite loop then he would never wake up, he would starve to death in VR.
He made it to the Mall without being fired on again, he headed to the Apple store he knew would be on the first floor they had secure room he could hide in, he walked into the entrance and froze. The man was standing directly in front of him, dressed as an Apple employee and pointing an ugly looking assault shotgun at his midsection.
“I am sorry sir, but you’re dead”. The shotgun was only a few feet from him and he knew he couldn’t escape it he covered his face and turned his head violently trying to protect his face.
He was on the floor in his shelter; he had actually jerked the lead from the back of his head trying to escape his VR assassin.
“I sold you this unit hoping to kill you slowly and very painfully, it’s what you deserve after what you did to my sister”. He could hear the voice saying, he looked at the plasma screen on his VR unit and the face of the same man who had attacked him was speaking.
“You cocksucker she never got over what you did to her, she almost killed herself when you dumped her for that cunt at Hooters. I wanted to make sure you paid for what you did to her she loved you more than anything or anyone.
He sneered on the screen, “By the way the VR unit is designed to generate me on a random basis until I kill you, and it’s hard coded in the unit so you can’t pull the program out. You will never know when I’ll show up again, maybe next week, next month maybe next year, but I will show up and hunt you in VR till I kill you”.
The face froze on the screen and then faded, and the main menu appeared.
Helen Johnson had been a woman he had dated one time, when he had lived in South Florida while at dinner that night she had told Joshua that she wanted children and she thought he would be a perfect father. With that being said Joshua was sure she was insane or desperate or both and had stayed far away from her.
She had called him time and again, even followed him to the Hooters in Boca he had finally told her to leave him alone he wanted nothing to do with her. She had become hysterical and claimed he was destroying her life, that he wanted some slut from Hooters. She never bothered him after that and he forgot about her soon afterwards, thinking she was just a nut job.
He did not realize how disturbed she really was, or that her brother would go to such lengths as selling him an infected unit for revenge to some perceived wrong. Joshua shook his head slowly how sad this happened, his only life line was now a death sentence.
That night he fixed himself a very fine meal, a NY strip, with a fresh salad from his small garden, drank a glass of very fine wine and then sat in front of his VR unit. He had repaired the jack early in the day and he smiled to himself.
“Better to dance with the devil you know”, and pushed the lead into his skull.
If you enjoyed this short story check out my book
http://outskirtspress.com/webpage.php?ISBN=9781432772598