Chapter 13: Grime And Punishment

Ash wandered through the streets of Invernstead. He pushed through the crowd with his left hand. He did not care about politeness. He ignored the rude comments and the reactive shouts. He pushed forward with a singular desire: to escape this virtual reality.

He walked through the town, letting his mind wander. He had no plan. Instead, he thought about possible escapes from this false world. He could, of course, let his avatar die and see what happened, but Ash worried about permanent death. Sander might be right. Ash needed a proper plan.

He could try walking in a single direction for as long as he could. Most likely, he would bump into an invisible wall, or he would find out that this world stretched endless before him, or that it looped back like a globe. Ash dismissed the idea as impractical.

He could try digging straight down and figuring out the limits of the system that way. Again, Ash dismissed the idea. He would either find a virtual or natural limit to the exercise.

He needed something concrete. He needed to find a way to break the game. Maybe, he could discover a glitch. He could keep his ears open to rumours, waiting for someone to mention something strange. The people around him looked real, but, in all probability, they were non-human, non-player characters -- NPCs. When they spoke, these NPCs would either speak from experience or pre-programmed lines. Still, if Ash believed Sander, these NPCs had at least five years of interactions and experiences. New events populated the world, new reactions to these events, new reactions to these reactions.

There needed to be a way to get out of this system and back into the real world. If there was, Ash promised himself that he would find it. It was only a matter of time.

He pushed into the next plaza, shoving aside an elderly woman. The old woman cursed him as she stumbled on the uneven ground. Ash did not look backward. The woman didn’t exist. At most, she was a collection of electrical signals, a fiction.

Ash strolled through the rounded plaza, keeping his eyes and ears alert. He saw stores of all shapes and sizes fill the open space. Some of the sellers displayed their wares on elegant rugs. Others operated their shops with plastic tarps shielding them from the fading sun. Among the crowd, there were even men wrapped in rags calling out to bystanders to visit their shops in another plaza, promising an assortment of goods. The crowd leisurely bustled through the plaza, looking for end of the day sales. Evening approached, and merchants sought for last moment sales. They hoped to get rid of as much merchandise as they could. It would be less to carry back to their homes, hovels, or caravans.

Ash smelt roasted meat. The smell floated across his nose and enticed his appetite. Ash’s stomach grumbled in want.

He reached for the few loose bullets in his jacket pocket. Almost all of them were standard rounds for his rifle or his submachine gun. To spend them would be to waste valuable ammunition.

Ash thought about his stomach, wishing he had taken some of the yucca and rabbit at the Blackguard Inn. As it stood, he didn’t have enough disposable funds to shell out for a meal. Then, Ash realized that he didn’t need funds. This was a game after all. What would it matter if he stole something? What could the consequences be?

He moved along the edges of the food stalls. His eyes danced between the various options, between hungry customers and excited sellers. Exotic meats continued to fill his nose. He saw shanks of roasted bighorn sheep and skewers of ground squirrel. An adjacent shop, operating from a residential building, promised large helpings of green rattlesnake stew. A shrivelled woman stirred the pot, while her equally weathered husband called out to crowd.

“One ladle for one junk.” The man smiled with toothless innocence. “If you have your own bowl.”

Ash ignored the offer.

The next stall had different forms of sausage hanging from its crossbeam. The seller, a heavily moustached man, kept eyeing Ash’s movements.

“Welcome, friend!” the man said. His voice had no sign of friendship in it. “All good sausage. You want? This, right here, blood sausage. For you, three junk rounds for one link.”

“Three junk! That’s robbery,” said a man behind Ash. “I give you one junk.”

“One junk? You insult me! I would not settle for less than two!”

“Too much for your wares, Rolando. I’ll give you three junk for two sausage links.”

Ash sidestepped the conversation. The man behind him pushed forward to the edge of the stall. Ash saw the man take his bullet-pouch and place it on the stall counter.

“I cannot do three junk for two links. Give me two and a standard, and I will consider your offer.”

The man reached into his poach and rummaged for a standard round. “Every week I come here and I am reminded how much of a scoundrel you are!”

“Joel, you insult me with your words. Either pay, or leave. Come, pick your selection here.”

Joel followed Rolando to the edge of the stall, leaving his bullet-pouch on the counter.

Ash’s heart skipped a beat. The temptation of theft roared within him. For all of his life, Ash had been a good child, a good teenager. He had always done what his father had asked of him. He had always helped his mother with the house-work. He studied hard for his exams. He tried to be patient with his brother. He did everything he was supposed to. He was a model citizen in every single way. He believed in the benefit of the community.

Now, in this virtual world, a world fallen and broken in the aftermath of the apocalypse, those morals slipped from him. He would have to break his compunction. He would commit his first crime.

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Ash felt his fingers twitch with a craven hesitance.

He would do it. What did it matter?

Ash snatched the purse from the counter and disappeared into the flowing stream of market-goers. He blended into the crowd, stuffing the bullet-purse into his jacket pocket. He kept his head down. He moved to the other end of the plaza, his hand burning with the wickedness of his action.

‘It isn’t real,’ he told himself.

He moved between the two buildings at the mouth of the plaza. These structures came a little later in the city’s design, using a mixture of cheap concrete bricks to reinforce the scavenged skeleton of the building. In the shadows of these buildings, Ash pulled out of the bullet-purse and poured out his ill-gotten goods. Inside, were five rounds: four junk and one standard. Ash brought the standard closer to his face -- 5.56x45mm. It could have fed Sander’s rifle.

Ash moved the bullets into his chest pocket.

He looked up from the shadows and into the main street. People continued to wend through the streets, shifting from plaza to plaza through a network of urban arteries. Ash looked at the empty bullet-purse slumped lifelessly against his flat palms. Ash’s chest tightened with a pinch of anxiety. He felt like this useless little bag: empty and purposeless. He knew he did something wrong, but these things don’t matter in the virtual world. He had to keep telling himself this fact.

Ash reintegrated himself into the crowd and moved into a corridor of shabbier stalls that operated alongside a few shanties. The first store on the corner had a number of burly men sitting around a table. The sign indicated that these men could be hired as mercenaries. One of the men flashed a nasty look.

Ash shuttered. The man seemed to know the facts of his crime. He must see right through him. Ash’s conscience pricked him. There was no way this man could know. Ash hurried away from their presence.

He passed more pitiful shops until he stopped at one operated by a young woman. She wore a dull coloured headscarf that pronounced her poverty. She leaned onto the simple wooden box that served as her shop counter. Several small loafs of bread lay upon the table cloth she had set out.

“Mesquite bun. One junk.”

Ash looked at the bullet-purse.

“Would you accept this as a trade?”

The woman picked the bullet-purse with her forefingers. She examined it and returned it to him.

“No. One junk.”

Ash felt insulted by the woman’s rejection.

“It’s not worth one junk,” Ash said rudely. He took one of the buns in his hand and started to knock it against the corner. “Look at these loafs. Hard as a rock.”

“It’s the end of the day. If you want fresh bread, come in the morning.”

“No,” Ash said. “I’m taking this loaf for this pouch.” He threw the bullet-pouch into her lap.

The woman scrambled to her feet, grabbing the loaf that Ash held in his hand.

“No, please! I can’t accept. I can’t accept!”

Ash shoved the woman onto her bottom.

His heart rippled with guilt. Everything he was doing made him feel filthy, disgusting. He hated the feeling, but it didn’t matter. None of this mattered.

‘She isn’t real,’ Ash thought to himself. He kept repeating these words in his mind.

He looked back to the young woman, whose eyes welled with tears. Her dark eyes pleaded for his mercy.

“Please,” she sobbed.

Ash stood paralyzed. He felt unclean. He knew the right thing to do was to return the bun, say sorry, and move on as quickly as he could. As it was, he just stood there looking at the crying woman. Tears dribbled down her face.

“Myra, what is wrong?”

A large shirtless man walked from the house behind the stall. He held an apple in one of his massive hands. The fruit seemed tiny by comparison. He took the apple with his other hand and snapped it in two equal parts. He scarfed one half, while sizing Ash. His eyes dropped to see the mesquite bun in Ash’s hand. The large man shifted his weight from the doorframe and walked beside the crying woman. He crouched beside her and tilted her head. He saw the tears trailing her face, and, using one of his fingers, brushed away a teardrop.

“What did you do?” the man asked Ash.

Ash could do nothing but gawk at the size of the man. He had never seen anyone so large. Ash’s body warned him to run, every muscle preparing to flee, but he remained transfixed to where he stood.

The man stretched himself to full height. He towered over Ash.

“Did you pay for this bun?”

“Uh…”

“Sister, did this man pay for this bun?”

The woman shook her head in the negative.

“Surely, you are not trying to steal from us, are you?”

“No,” Ash said with a stutter. “Of course not. I offered her that pouch as a fair trade.”

The man looked to his sister, who barely contained her sobbing. He picked up the bullet-pouch in his hands. He let it hang by its drawstring from his finger.

“And where did you get this pouch?”

“I found it,” replied Ash.

“Found it, eh? We do not accept this as payment. One bun, at this hour, is one junk. Either pay, or leave.”

Ash could feel sweat pour from his palms. The flour upon the mesquite bun congealed into a dough from his sweat.

“You know what,” Ash said with a growing sense of self. “I apologize for this misunderstanding. Here you can have the bun back.” He placed the bun onto the table cloth beside the others. “You can keep the pouch for the misunderstanding.”

“We do not want the pouch,” the large man said. He threw the thin leather bag at Ash’s chest.

“Oh, uh, well, I am sorry,” Ash said, bending down to pick up the pouch.

“You are not sorry for what you did,” said the man. “You are sorry that you got caught.”

“No, that’s not true!”

“It is true. I know scoundrels like you. Low-life scum. Bullies.” The large man cracked his neck by rolling his head. The muscles on his chest and arm flexed subtly. He prepared for hand-to-hand combat.

“No, I’m not like that!” Ash said. His words stumbled over themselves. “Please!”

“Please? Is that not what my sister said? Where was your mercy then? Where should my mercy be now?”

Ash needed to escape. As he took his first step to run, the large man swung his open-hand into Ash’s chest. With a loud thwack, Ash fell onto his back. Ash felt his spine strike the bolt-action rifle that hung upon his back. Pain flooded into his limbs.

Ash tried to reach for the submachine gun that tumbled from his hand, but the large man stepped on Ash’s hand with his sandaled feet. Ash cried out in pain. With the other foot, the large man kicked away the submachine from reach. At this point in time, a small crowd of passerbys gathered to witness the nascent conflict.

“No weapons in this match,” the large man laughed. He lifted his foot from Ash’s hand and lifted his arms to the cheer of the crowd.

“Come, boy! Come meet your opposer!” The large man slapped his chest twice. He grinned like a gladiator entering into battle. He began to pace a wide circle egging on the growing crowd. He used the toe of his sandal to draw a circle on the dirt that caked the ground. The crowd stumbled behind the line and watched with bated breath.

“Enter into my arena and face me!” He raised his arms again to the crowd. “I am Micah, the Baker’s Son. Behold the Champion of the Wastes, the Hand of God, the Solar Man.”

Ash propped himself from the ground.

“Stand up!”

Micah reached down and lifted Ash. With his other hand, the man pulled the bolt-action rifle from Ash’s shoulder, giving the gun to a bystander.

“Watch as I break his bones! I shall grind them for my flour! Watch as I snap his sinews! I shall string them upon my lyre!” Micah kept walking the circle he made. His voice rising above the murmuring excitement of the crowd.

Ash looked to the man, whose countenance seemed to be that of a lion’s. The man’s honey-brown hair touched his shoulders. Micah mane had been held back with a thin strip of coarse leather. His beard, full and mighty, descended to the pit of his throat. His strength evident by the flesh that clung to his massive frame.

“Enough talking!” a voice shouted from the crowd.

“Hear them?” Micah laughed to Ash. “They are ready for the fight. Shall you face me? Or will you cower?”

Ash whimpered in fear.