“Mooooom!! Please!! I wanna gooo to SAM!!” Rick exclaimed.
That phrase had been repeated over and over again during the last couple of hours in some way or another, with some minor changes, but asking for the same thing multiple times.
Rick and his mom had gone to Monterrey over the weekend for a shopping trip and to visit some relatives, and of course a visit to the San Bronco Shopping Mall was a must.
Rick didn’t find the whole shopping thing too exciting, same as any twelve year old, Rick had one thing in his mind: Games, more specifically S.elf. He had been pestering his mom all day, “Mooooom! I wanna go to SAM!”, he said the first time, “There are no SAMs in Nuevo Laredo, I wanna goooo!”, he told her just five minutes after his first begging cry, “Mooooom! C’mon!! I wanna goooo!”.
After the umpteenth attempt Rick had finally managed to convince his mom, “Ok, Rick, you win!” She transferred some Bitcoin to his BTC address, “This should be enough, right?”
Rick checked the deposited BTC, “Thanks mom!! I’ll see you in an hour or so!” Rick smiled and left without a second thought.
“Wait! Rick!!”, he didn’t stop, “Sigh… Rick, Rick, Rick…” Anna activated her S.elf with a quick hand gesture, “Can you keep an eye on Rick, Resiz?”
A beautiful, tall, young looking man appeared, he was wearing a black tuxedo, black glasses and with a smirk he said, “The babysitting quest, ma’am?” It was Rezis, Anna’s main S.elf that had already done this a handful of times and was already used to what he had deemed “The babysitting quest”, a name Rick hated since he was not a baby anymore.
“Yes, Resiz, you know what to do.” Anna responded.
“Sure thing, ma’am, I will keep an eye on Rick, and if there is any problem I shall immediately let you know. I will keep the first person view direct camera feed activated at every time so you can check for yourself.”
The first person view, one of the features that had first been implemented in the S.elf project -mostly for military uses in drones and other weaponry- had become available for worldwide use quite a while ago, and one of its main uses -non military uses, that is- was to keep an eye on minors.
Almost every person in the world was connected to the S.elf network by default since birth, a DNA modification had been mandatory in 98% of the countries for the past five decades, this not only implanted a S.elf chip into the body of the user, but also a Zucaberg chip, a Bezs chip and a TenTen chip, and had been the standard bio-chip implementation worldwide.
All these changes to the human body had been wildly fought over and criticized half a century before, but now people were not only expecting to get chipped but actually wanted more and more body modifications to be made.
In short, the first person view was a nice little feature made available by the beloved S.elf project which for the low, low cost of the equivalent of $5 USD a month, could keep track of your -or your kids- every movement and record the footage, which was now the sole property of the S.elf project forever and ever and they were able to, but not limited to, edit the footage for use in commercials, among many other things.
Rick had finally arrived to the Super Arcade MAGNUM -SAM for short-, a chain of VR theme parks
scattered throughout the world. This particular one was inside San Bronco Shopping Mall, the biggest mall in Monterrey.
Rick went to the counter and eagerly said, “One ticket, please!”
“It’s $50 pesos, or the equivalent in any of these payment methods.”
A huge screen with all the available forms of payment appeared in front of Rick, he chose his preferred method just by thinking about it and quickly paid the admission fee.
“Thanks for choosing Super Arcade MAGNUM, have fun!”, the VR cashier said.
“You are welcome!”, Rick replied and then headed over to the S.elf area.
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These VR utopias ranged from resort-sized to house-sized paradises for the Virtual Reality enthusiasts of all sizes and ages. Being inside a mall, the size of this SAM was in the lower side, but it was way bigger than anything even remotely close to what was available in Rick’s city, Nuevo Laredo.
SAM of course had tons of different games to choose from, but there was always a huge area -in most cases the biggest one- dedicated to the best selling game in the entire planet: S.elf.
It had exclusive S.elf merchandise, in fact some of these items were only available at certain stores and in some occasions were seasonal exclusives, so Rick and Chumina went to see if there was anything that caught their attention.
Rick had connected to the SAM digital S.elf area, and was looking thru their catalog of new “skins”, basically cosmetic changes to the default appearance of different S.elfs.
After a bit of searching Rick had found something that he liked, “Look at this Chumina”, Chumina wasn’t too excited but Rick applied the new skin on it anyway.
“Gaahh! You look supeeeeer cool!” Screamed Rick, unable to contain his excitement for what he was witnessing.
“Umm.. I don’t think so, I much prefer my green cloak, thank you.. So, can you just return me to what I always wear, please?” Replied Chumina who was dressed in a new promotional skin available only in that SAM.
The skin was a cloak with the Super Arcade MAGNUM logo all over it, “But it’s probably gonna be available just for a short time! Plus I really think it looks good on you!” Rick emphasized.
“Hahaha! I agree! Totally!” Said Rezis, who had just arrived there, mocking Chumina.
“What are you doing here!?” Yelled Rick and Chumina in unison.
“I am taking care of you, this is a babysit-”
“Don’t you dare say babysitting quest, I have told you already I’m not a baby!”
While Rick and Rezis were arguing over whether or not he was a baby, a little boy passed them by running and crying, “I.. I wadda see by b-bommy!!” Said the kid, weeping uncontrollably.
Rick was quick to act and ran towards the kid, and grabbed him by the arm stopping him. “Ey kid, what’s up?”
The kid didn’t reply, Rick yet again tried to console the kid, “Dude, just tell me what happened, maybe I can help you..”
The kid, who was younger than Rick by at least a couple of years timidly said, “I..It’s nothing...”
A digital message that only Rick could see appeared in front of him, {Request of communication received}. That message was always received when someone wanted to engage with you in the S.elf network, Rick accepted it and was now able to talk with the sender.
“It’s not nothing! And I’m coming there already, honey!” A voice of a woman yelled, then a S.elf appeared out of nowhere, it was Enxam, a S.elf who was basically doing the same function of Rezis, that is babysitting a kid while his mom was shopping.
Enxam had been keeping eye on the little boy in incognito mode, which meant no one but the little boy was able to see, or hear it. Enxam’s controller, had let Rick see Enxam as well as communicate with them.
Rick heard in the distance the sound of high heels, someone was fast approaching. It was a tall woman, she had been running, in high heels, and fast, very fast, it took her no more than a minute between the conversation with Rick and her arrival there.
When she arrived she thanked Rick for trying to help her son, “Thanks for helping Oliver, young man, I really appreciate it!”, she then grabbed her son and started walking towards the entrance. While walking the woman angrily shouted, “Where is that damn kid that stole your skins?!”
Oliver begrudgingly replied, “N-No, mom!! I.. I lost fair and square..”, though he definitively didn’t look happy.
Oliver’s mom wasn’t having any of that, “That kid bullied you into betting your skins, Oliver! Where is the manager of this thing!? I’m gonna find them and then…!!!”
Oliver and his mom continued the back-and-forth, he didn’t want to go with the person that had taken his Skins, and she was angry at him, at management, at the kid who had stolen the skins, basically she just wanted to direct her anger at someone… Anyone would do, probably.
Rick didn’t mean to eavesdrop but the conversation had practically been in front of him and he had got the grasp of it, Oliver had been somehow grifted out of his skins. Though initially he was kind of scared to offer help, mostly because of Oliver’s mom anger, [I really don’t want her to start yelling at me too!]. Still a little scared of the possibility of getting yelled at by the angry mother Rick offered his help after hesitating for a little bit.
“Ma’am, Oliver, if I understand correctly… You bet your skins in an ante match, right?” Rick put his hands in the little kid’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes, “Oliver, just tell me who forced you to do it and I’ll get your skins back, I promise!”