Damian is on the road from Paradise. Once Tala’s crew bounced him from Stewart Street he used a hacked keyfob to get to the Paradise Casino. So awesome to walk through a door and be thousands of miles away. Damian’s “improvements” to the door system unlocked destinations so he didn’t need to be at a specific door or headed to a limited number of destinations. He just needed a bathroom, closet or other lightly used space with known GPS coordintes. Where to go, though?
Paradise Valley, NV–The casino is there. Old mining cabin AirBnB’s are available. There is one bar/casino/restaurant in town besides the casino. It’s where locals and casino employees gather for some downtime, generous drinks and good food. Right now, Damian needs that and a way to satisfy the hunger of his Twitch Streaming fans. One of the cabins is a little north of town and has free, fast WiFi. Damian books it with a credit card he stole from Inger. Time for some downtime.
He went for one of the wedding suites. Inger wouldn’t mind treating her boyfriend, right? The room came with a meal and drink package. Awesome! Pricey but he wasn’t paying. Inger loved him so it’s only right. Dinner was a Charlie style gluttonous feast. Red Bull and Velvet Chocolate cake! So Good!
It’s the Driver’s Fault
Damian’s phone rings. It’s his DoorDash driver, did he have another card? Inger’s card isn’t working. WTF? Inger could pay cash for this dump. No way the card’s limit is exceeded. It sucks to have to pay his own way. That’s what women are for.
Some things are necessary. So Damian gave the driver his card. Now the AirBnB app alerts. They can’t complete payment for the bungalo. Why!?
Because Inger’s card is cancelled for suspected fraud. It’s NOT FRAUD, shouts Damian. She’s my girfriend! I have permission to use it! Well shit. He can afford this for about an hour. Honeymoon over.
Shunned
It got worse. His flight was cancelled. Fly? Why not use the door network? The keyfob he had for access to the door network was unreliable. Resource access comprimised. Lovely.
Living in Paradise
Damian called the Air BnB owner. With 92°F weather roughing it without shelter is life shortening. Using the door network was too risky for a couple reasons. One, his journey to Paradise via the network bounced him through a few legs to places he didn’t want to be. Like, the janitorial closet of a federal prison and a dirty public restroom in Carson City, NV
It’s 2125. He’s got skills he can barter. They worked a deal for a week. Damian has better things to do. But a room with meals uncomplicates a few things. What skills? Like, some hive-mind hack? Funny. But no.
So . . . what was it? Yard work. Get rid of the Canada thistle in the lawn of the Air BnB. All praise to Grok for its search results on this nasty plant. Damian’s area of expertise is network security. But Canada Thistle causes flair-ups of his excema. So killing the plant is a crusade of his.
She Loves Me
Damian loves Inger. He is obsessed with her. Like a desperate puppy chasing the affection of its owner. Inger’s family tried to set her up with that Boogaloo Couch Slug Charlie. Waste of air, that one.
Mush Mind NETWORK is a testimony to the itch for control by government. Damian hates it. He hates that a technology so capable comes at the price of deep intrusion into our lives. Oh for the days of 2025 when the Mush Mind just shipped packets and didn’t report violations of authorized menu policies.
He saw her at White Hand Coffee in the summer of 2125 during Free the Signal riots on Monument Avenue. Richmond built a garish monument to the now ubiquitous National Enhanced Telepathic Web Operational Resource Kernel that many call Mush Mind. She was dressed in a Retro-Groove haltar top, miniskirt and platform shoes. Her black hair was styled in a feather cut. She wore AR holographic lensed glasses. You couldn’t see her eyes. The lenses glowed giving her face a luminous quality. Damian was smitten.
Riding East to His Girl
It took a week to landscape the Air BnB. That work, plus some consulting for a casino in Winnemucca gave him the cash he needed to get a salvage title car. It was a Cadillac Escalade tagged as a biohazard. Whatever. It ran and drove. The air conditioning worked. Everything worked, actually, even the OnStar service.
He stuck around long enough to get it titled, registered and insured. No big because everything was available through Holographic AR glasses. He checked out of the AirBnB, fueld up at Maverik, and hit the road.
37 hours, 2500 miles to put the world right and prove to Inger that she was his woman. She was hot, obvi, shared his dislike of modernity and intrusive tech, and liked White Hand Coffee. How much more clear could it be? Oh, yeah, she blocked him and ghosted him. But that’s only because she’s an overly emo girl. If she understood she’d pick him.
She Loves Me Not
She didn’t pick Damian. The DoorDash guy is not what he thinks. She hasn’t picked anyone. Daimain picked her and that’s all that matters. On the road in the Escalade and headed to RVA. Some things about this reality need fixing. One of them is Inger’s DoorDash driver still has a pulse.
Damian carries a relic of a pocket knife from 1975. It belonged to his Dad when his father was a Boy Scout leader. It’s always with him as a reminder of his father. The knife is in his pocket as he leaves I80 East for 29S and I70East. It’s a knife that has never tasted blood. It will, soon enough.
Another 300 miles and he’d be home. Friends coo with excitement at the mention of a road trip. TBH, they suck. Countless hours forced to stay seated in a car while watching the world roll by. Punctuated by meals in chain restaurants an nights in cheap hotels. Conversation dulls into silence after the first day.
Solo Down I-70 East
Eyelids heavy, Damian’s focus waning, the next truck stop was a half-hour away. Nothing was keeping him awake. Not Red Bull, not Monster Energy, not even 5-Hour energy could keep him awake. Just 25 minutes more is all he needed. Through Mush Mind Damian booked a room at the Comfort Suites. The road trip binge is done for the day. He made it to the hotel, checked in and after showering, hit the sack.
He woke up at 4am. Another shower. The night desk was closed. No worries, he left his room key on the desk and headed for Bob Evans. Mush Mind could check him out of his room. Breakfast before sunrise then on the road to Louisville.
It’s twelve hours from his hotel to home. Not long ago he’d load up on energy drinks and grind it out. As much as he needed to give Jace some unnatural leaks he also needed to get there in one piece. So this leg was six hours ending in Kentucky. He was in coal country. Endless corn fields were in his rear view mirror. The radio stations featured more bluegrass. Good, but SiriusXM was locked on to Liquid Metal.
Ms. Fan
We All Need Friends
One of his fans was in stunned excitement. Damian needed a place to crash and could he stay with her? It’s not cheating on Inger! The fan was fugly and annoying. But she’d let him crash in her extra bedroom. Good enough.
1408 Decatur Street. He’s here after a three-day road trip. The fan has an ok tech stack. Not as good as Damians but it’ll work. After a meal and a night’s sleep he’s back streaming. His miseries get him subs and donations that are much needed. The fan is kind of annoying with her clinginess. Free isn’t free.
Whatever. She made breakfast, had Monster Energy in the fridge, and her net connection was good enough to Twitch stream. Ms. Fan was like a needy kitten. It’s almost worth it to buy a debit card on the Dark Net. Almost. He gave her a cameo on his stream and that calmed her down.
Deadly Door Dash
Damian stayed chill for a day. Ms. Fan doted on him. Kind of annoying but desperate times . . . Then it became time to work. Mush Mind gave him Jace’s driver account so he could request him to deliver Chinese takeout. He placed the order for delivery to 1107 East 16th. The lights were on in the house.
Right on time the driver knocked on the cottage front door. Inger opened her door and greeted Jace Varo, a regular delivery driver to her cottage. They exchanged pleasantries then a short conversation which didn’t quite reach Damian’s ears. The gist of it was that Inger didn’t order anything. Not all bad, the order was a favorite of Inger’s—steamed broccoli over brown rice with braised tofu and spring rolls as a side. Jace couldn’t return it so Inger accepted the delivery.
Damian was waiting in the shotgun seat of the Tesla Cybertruck XE-D. Jace got in and didn’t have time to defend himself. He was stabbed in the back of his neck, severing the spinal cord between C1 and C2. Damian wanted the emotional charge of this moment to be more. When he defeats an enemy in Genshin Impact he gets a rush. It should come with a classical music sound track or something.
The Sound of Mortal Silence
Damian kept stabbing Jace with the pocket knife, searching for that dopamine hit he imagined would come with violence. Instead, he felt nothing. It was no more dramatic than taking a piss. He hit the spinal cord and that turned Jace into meat. Then hit the carotid artery. Blood spurted from the artery and splashed onto Damian’s t-shirt. Fuck!
Time to get out of here. Damian sprinted to where he had parked the Escalade. Inside it was his travel bag with a clean sweatshirt. He changed into the clean sweatshirt then went inside Ms. Fan’s house.
Ms. Fan was shocked, “what’s going on!?” Damian didn’t answer. He gathered his laptop and other stuff and left without saying anything more to Ms. Fan. Two lives changed on June 25th, 2125. Damian’s hope of a life with Inger was murdered as Jace’s blood left its mark on the Cyber Truck upholstery.