Chapter 1

The day I moved from my childhood to adulthood, I was just 9 years old. My parents died when I was a bit over 3, at least that's what I was told, and the only memory that I had left about them was a hazy image of their faces that showed up in my dreams once in a while. My heart shivered every time in an unconscious desire to hug them, but every time I tried to hug them, they dissolved like a chalk picture under the rain. Eventually, whenever they showed up in my dreams, I just kept watching them, with a strong desire to add some focus to these blurred pictures. And then I stopped seeing them at all. But at night right before the day, I wanted to start my story with, they showed up in my dreams and told me "It's time to move on". I was lying in my bed and struggling with an awful hunger. Our foster home hasn't received any food deliveries for a couple of months already, and in a desire to prolong the kids' existence, we were given tiny portions of food, drawn from our emergency storage that was thinning over days. We didn't have much time left, maybe a week or two. Our older sister Christie, she was just 13, she was running the place, as all adults left us more than a year ago, but there was no way She could earn some money, and the problem was not in lack of jobs, She was a young beautiful girl, I saw how older men looked at her, she could start selling her body on the streets, and she would do it for us, she would do anything for us, but she couldn't leave us, we had 2 baby twins a bit under a year, as we assumed. Someone left them in front of the doors, a couple of months after the adults left. They were our smallest ones, but there were 13 of us in total. I was the second oldest kid in our family, coming right after my older sister, and the time came to take care of them.

After I woke up that night, I was trying to fall asleep for couple hour with no luck, my heart was jumping out of my chest because of fear and a bit of anticipation at the same time, I was cared of my future, of the future of my Family, of Christie, but I was looking forward to what will come next, I was curious about today, tomorrow, and days to come. I decided to act and a decision is the first step to action. It was still dark when I put my cleanest clothes on, my pants had lots of patches but no holes. Christie was always taking care of my clothes. The time came to pay back.

The Streets were filthy, I heard stories that our city was beautiful a while ago before the virus took over the world and killed 30% of humanity, It was the worst in China, factories stopped working, and from all countries in the world, USA got affected the most. People lost their jobs, companies started closing, I don't know what happened in detail, as I was too small at that time, but that's what I heard from adults when they were still running the foster home.

I was sneaking through the streets to avoid conflicts, no-one would touch a foster home, local gangs were still afraid of APDs (Automated Police Drones) and cameras in the neighborhoods, that would report all suspicious activities to the Control Center and summon APDs to the reported location, but I believe the system went down the same time we stopped receiving deliveries.

So the home was safe for now, but on the streets, I was at risk, some gangs could cut me on organs or just sell me as a slave. A lot of kids disappeared over the years and none of them ever got back.

My path was mostly easy, I noticed several gang members lurking around, but thankfully the city didn't fully wake up yet and there were not enough of them to spot a small guy sneaking through dark alleys. the sun didn't show up yet, but the sky started lighting up. For a small kid like me, it was a time to get off the streets, and at that precise moment I reached "Joe's".

I heard about him many times, couple guys close to the home were bragging that they worked for him. They sounded like it is something special like they were made for life. If I could get a tiny piece of that than I will be able to feed my family. If only I cloud earn some money to buy the food that could last a week or even a day. Just something to keep them alive.

I open the big wooden door, and the smell of cigarette smoke, mixed with alcohol fumes, men sweat, and puke hit my nose.

"What we have here? A baby boy?",

I heard a low creaking voice, the old man was huge. He could grab my skull with one hand and smash it, he probably could tear me apart with his fingers like I'm a fly or a bug, I felt myself so meaningless close to him, but instead of crawling to the corner like some kind of creep I straightened my back a looked at him right into the eyes.

"I need a job!",

My voice was trembling as my body was pumping adrenaline in my blood to help me get over this uncontrollable fear. My hands were shaking, damn my whole body was shaking, but I was looking straight at him.

"Ha, Ha, Ha! This little boy already has some balls", I didn't like his grin, he looked like he is going to have some fun now, but that likely meant no fun for me.

"I need a job", I repeated firmly.

"Alright baby boy, let's see how much of a sissy you are. To do the work you need to be strong, you look no strong to me. You look weak", he was still grinning, this huge monster was having fun.

"I am strong enough. I will prove you!", I yelled at him.

"Hey, Joe! What are you doing?", a guy was sitting at the corner table, sipping some dark liquid from a high dirty glass, he looked at me -"this boy is what? Like 7, 8 years old?"

"I'm nine!" I yelled at him. My birthday was more than a month ago, and he dares comparing me with those small kids? - "I'm nine already!"

"Whatever, boy. Joe! In the old times, you would get to jail for hiring a kid. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me Swen? What's wrong with you!!?? Do you see old times around? Have you seen kids starving to death in old times? Or maybe you wanna work for him, so he could buy some food? Do you want to work instead of this boy Swen?", the guy in the corner just shook his head in neglect. - "Then shut the fuck up and drink that piss from your fucking glass". He turned to me.

"I will give you a simple test. You pass it, I will give you one chance to try", I just nodded, what else I could do? A test, a chance! It is already something.

Joe went to the back of the room, behind the bar, and took a plank out of the box.

"You break it with your fist, you get a chance to try"

Sounds easy, break some piece of wood with a fist. I saw such stuff in movies, looked easy enough for me. I slowly approached two tables, that Joe used as a plank stand, I squeezed my fingers in a firm fist, moved my hand as far back as I could, and pushed it forward as fast as I can. I will do it, I must do it. I need this job.

My fist squashed against the wood. My fingers opened, and drops of blood from injured knuckles flew in many directions, some of them landing on my shirt. And I was standing there, staring at my hands with my eyes opened. I couldn't believe that I didn't make it.

"Sorry, baby boy. No luck today, but you can come back in a couple of months and try one more time."

Couple months? We all will be dead by that time. We all will be dead in a week. My fingers collapsed in a fist by themselves. I will break this piece of wood. I hit one more time, with no luck, then one more, and more. I kept hitting and hitting until I heard a cracking sound. The plank was broken, my fist looked like a mess. Blood all over the place, pieces of skin. But I did it. I did it! I DID IT! I look at Joe. And he looked at me, he seemed to be concerned.

"I did it, I passed the test. I want to try".

"The test didn't suppose to be passed like that. You kid shouldn't have passed it at all", Joe took two pieces of the broken wood, and looked carefully on the break line, shaking his head in disbelief.

"You told me - Break it with my fist, And you will let me try. I broke it with my fist. I passed the test. I want to try."

"Shit boy, your balls are made of steel, talking to me like that. Alright, no-one in this city can tell that I don't hold my word. I'll let you try. You'll fail, don't show up here anymore, understood? But don't even dare breaking the avatar! I will fucking sell you in pieces to Edenians. Do you copy, baby boy?"

"I do." I nodded, my fist hurt like shit, but I wouldn't show that to anyone. I needed to get some money today. My family needed that. My sis needed that. I couldn't let them down.

Joe walked me to the back of the room, he looked around one more time, and than pressed a tile on the wall. I was planning to ask, what he is doing when I heard a cracking noise and a hatch opened in the floor. He crawled down the vertical stairs, and while I was still standing there, shocked, a hand showed up from the hatch waving at me.

"Are you coming baby boy? I thought you needed a job, or I was wrong?"

It was like a huge hangar underneath this unpleasant bar. All over the place were avatar pods. Most of them were occupied by people, some of them were empty. Joe guided me to one of the pods

"this one is yours for half a shift. Swen will swap you out on the next half if you will hold that long. But don't fuck it up, baby boy. You can put all of us at risk" he pointed his hand towards the center of the underground hangar. - "A lot of people worked hard to make this place possible. Edenians believe we are all trained legal workers, so don't even try talking to them. Just move the shit around as you will be told." I looked at the pod, It looked like a shell with a human form, hanging on a crane in the air. A lot of cables and wires hanging from that thing, LEDs blinking here and there. It looked like a robot shell, or maybe an exoskeleton of a kind. And then it struck me, the size of this shell was made for an adult, but I was a kid, how the hell I would control it?

"Wait, this thing is too big for me, I won't be able to control the avatar. Is there a way to adjust it for me?", Joe started laughing out loud.

"Adjust it for you? Are you kidding? It will take around a week to adjust a pod for an owner. A nonoperational week! The pod won't be working. How much money it will cost me? Will you pay me for that? If you could, I would adjust it, but if you could, you wouldn't be here. Right baby boy?", How I will use this thing then? Was this whole thing a joke? But he wouldn't spend so much time with me just for a joke, there should be a way. Joe was looking at me for several seconds, and satisfied with my silence, took some mess of steel and plastic parts and throw them to me.

"Put this stuff on, we call them `Extenders`. You will lose precision and will get some extra control delay, on top of a bad ping we already have, but at least you will be able to use the pod."

I put the extenders on and crawled up the reach ladder to get to the pod. As soon as I settled, I tested how the controllers worked. Extenders created a solid delay, and I lost most of the senses from my hands, but the thing was moving. I could control it.