Land of the Living, Land of the Lost

✧₊⁺

“What’s with the disagreeable look on your face, Jiro-kun?” Director Connor Barnes sat with his hands tented at his desk. The monitors behind him blinking in rapid succession gave him a strangely villainous aura. “Certainly you have nothing but admiration and respect for your boss and friend. So, why so glum?”

“I don’t know where you went and got a funny idea like that, but you’re no friend of mine. Or the boss of me, just a temporary overseer if anything.” I said. “Why call me here?”

“Oh, I get it!” The Director appeared to understand something. “I’m cutting into your free time. In that case, I’ll make our little meeting quick, I do hate things that can be handled with an email, myself.”

That’s more like it.

“So tell me, Jiro-kun, what did you think of your first little foray into our digital paradise?”

“What do I think?” I scoffed.

“Yes, yes, I’d love to hear your honest feelings on the whole experience.” The Director smiled widely. “Did it move you? How was the music composition? Did you find realistic travel options inconvenient? I quite liked the train, personally…”

“Listen, I don’t give a damn about any of that.” I spat. “You called the place a paradise, well that was a hellscape. You don’t know what I just had to go through in there, and the things you’re putting those… people through...”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend.” The Director replied without a hint of irony. “Take a closer look at the monitors behind me, and tell me what you see.”

Begrudgingly, I did what he asked and glanced over the various monitors and what was showing on them. My eyes widened at the realization that it was footage of areas all across the Digiscape, many of which I hadn’t yet seen. The purple sky was unmistakable.

“This isn’t just for display, mind you, this is real-time footage of the goings on within the Digiscape.” The Director grabbed a remote and flipped through the feeds until the closest monitor to him flashed a familiar location. Placita. “In other words, I saw everything you just experienced from my control tower within the experience. You’ve seen the giant crystal spire, yes?”

Wait a minute, so that means…

“You saw what was going on, and did nothing!?” I noted incredulously.

“And just what would you have had me do?”

“You could have summoned more hunters to the area or rotated our shifts so that every Hunter wasn’t summoned away at once. Something!” I shouted. “It’s because of you that… that—!”

“That what, Jiro-kun?” The Director smirked. “In the end, it was you who didn’t have the guts to finish the job, and broke your promise to that young boy. Isn’t that right?”

I was rendered speechless. I thought back to the moment when I heard my revolver fire a shot. The moment Tsubaki, the young woman, lunged forward and grabbed my weapon, using her last moment to pull the trigger on herself.

“Noooow you get it. Shifting the blame to me is all too convenient when it was your lack of decisive action that led to her death, well her second death.” Director Barnes chuckled to himself. “I’m sure glad she signed that waiver though, but the subscription cost her husband is paying will be cut in half…”

“You bastard!” I stepped toward Director Barnes, but the security guards grabbed me firmly. “How can you be so nonchalant about this!?”

“Try to take some responsibility. I mean, Jesus, dude. I knew you were a piece of work, but this is just sad. But still…” He eyed me curiously, rubbing his chin. “I hardly expected a cynic like you to care so much about the Eternals. Tell me Jiro-kun, do you believe in God?”

“Can’t say I do, no. But I don’t see how that has to do with anything.”

“I used to be quite the believer myself when I lived back in the States. Every day I’d get on my knees and pray that the smog-covered skies would clear, and the world would go back to how it was before the war. Oh, the stories my grandfather used to tell about how blue everything was…”

“Your point?”

“Right, of course.”

This guy…

“So one day, I realized something. If I spent every day wishing for a miracle that wouldn’t come, I’d waste the potential I have to make a true difference in the world.” The Director had a nostalgic look in his eyes. “So... I decided on my course of action, my purpose. I would become my own god.”

“Become… a god? You’re insane.”

“Insanity and genius share the same bed, my cynical friend.” He glanced over at the real-time footage of the Digiscape. “God created the world and so many great things, just as he created suffering. It's endless and blind to privilege.”

On the monitor, the townsfolk of Placita returned, their mayor having been slain and to things in utter disarray.

“It’s a trade-off, you see. With the help of the previous directors before me, we’ve finally given these people a second chance at life. When you think about it that way, is it really such a bad thing, what we’re doing?” Director Barnes reasoned. “Of course, it’s not perfect yet. But you get to be a part of making it even better, thanks to the dying wish of someone we share in common...”

“…”

“The previous director of Project Memoria, and granddaughter to the founding man Ueda Akito-sama himself, Ueda Aki-san. Your ex-wife.”

I knew she was involved in something important, but I never asked much about my late ex-wife’s job. Maybe I didn’t care for the finer details, and perhaps that was one of the reasons our marriage fell apart before her death. I still wasn't sure, but it seemed like my entrance into the Digiscape was a planned event in some capacity. However…

“You can share your dystopian nightmare with someone else for all I care, I ain’t going back in there,” I said, turning towards the exit.

“Jiro-kun, I would highly advise you not to do that. Unless, of course, you want to—you know—rot in a jail cell for the double manslaughter charge hanging over you, or did you forget?”

“Careful…”

“Not to mention the medical bills you’ve accumulated here, and the shame it would bring your aging mother and sister, who already want nothing to do with you, a murderer.”

“I said watch your fucking mouth!”

“The only reason you’re not locked up, or dead from your wounds after that car accident is because Aki-san was gracious enough to include you in her will, and I made a special exception for you in her honor.” Director Barnes lost his smile for the first time. “As long as you work for me, I’ll help you pay off those medical bills and pull some strings to keep the law off your back, and the press away from your family. I’m a kind man, after all.”

“You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, you make me sick.”

“Awww, don’t get a big head and think you’re some tragic case. I own you, Jiro-kun. And you have no one to blame but yourself.” The smile returned to the man’s face. “Now go enjoy your free time, you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

“This is extortion, you won’t get away with this!” I glared in the Director’s direction as he put his feet up at his desk, and the security guards pushed me out of the room.

“Happy hunting!”

The automatic door slammed in my face and I punched it in frustration.

“Damn it all…”

Yamamoto-sensei strolled up to greet me as I stood in the hallway for a time, unable to move forward.

“Oh, you’re done. You didn’t say anything uncouth to the Director, did you? He sent me a strongly worded text to my phone, and I’m certain it was a carryover from his discussion with—”

“—You got a smoke, doc?” I interrupted.

“Um, yes, I suppose I do.” The man reached into his lab coat and pulled out a carton of cigarettes, and a lighter. “Though, as a medical professional, I would caution against smoking as your last medical scans showed some rather concerning signs.”

“Who cares, I’m damned anyway.” I grabbed a cigarette and the lighter, pushing my way past Yamamoto-sensei towards the west exit to the building.

“Lights-out is in two hours, make sure you’re back in your room by then!”

I stepped out into the red haze onto the outdoor mezzanine, the heavy, polluted air causing me to cough before I had even lit my cigarette. Flying cars soared by monumentally huge buildings, and neon lights were just bright enough to cut through the smog. For all the brightness and vibrancy of the Digiscape, the real world—and its perpetually polluted skies—were the perfect antithesis.

After the nuclear fallout, environmental initiatives had all but ceased. The world went into full industrial overload, just to find the means to keep society running. We gained technology that nobody had thought possible, but it was at the expense of the world itself. Life expectancy was halved in just a generation, and the quality of life was poor for the working class and elites alike. In a way, the war was the great equalizer.

I lit my cigarette, and looked down to the ground several floors below, to my freedom. If I actually wanted to, nothing was stopping me from exiting through the fire escape, but Director Barnes was right. I was trapped here for now, whether I liked it or not.

The rest of my free time flashed by in an instant. I ate the cubed slop we were all given for dinner, a mixture of vitamins, proteins, and minerals with the texture of tofu. Culinary ingenuity was a thing of the past with outdoor agriculture being a non-starter. Meals were only meant to sustain ourselves, and rarely for flavor, unless you include artificial sweeteners.

On my way back to my room I passed by a young woman with frizzy black hair and deep circles under her eyes, much like Yamamoto-sensei. She looked to be as exhausted as I felt. We briefly made eye contact, and she peered down at my name tag, which we all had attached to our royal blue and white uniforms. She looked like she had something to say, but continued on, muttering to herself as she did.

I finally made it to my room, and I heard Archie speak up for the first time in a while.

“What do you plan to do, Jiro?”

“For now, I’m gonna lay down and get some sleep. I’d appreciate it if you don’t talk in my head when I do.”

“But beyond that? I heard the Director and your conversation, but your file seemed to indicate you were never one to take abuse lying down. So I ask again… What do you plan to do, Jiro?”

“I’ll play their stupid game for now,” I said as I flopped onto my bed. As little as I wanted to go on another hunt, my options were limited. “But the moment I see my way out, I’m gonna take it. I have things I still need to do on the outside, but more importantly…”

I frowned.

Director Barnes is gonna regret the day threatened me.