004 – Virtual Technology
This world is my place of rest, for the first time since aeons passed I can close my eye from time to time and enjoy my sleep, in my old world some called me ancient, but there were few who never forgot to add that I was young, ancient but young, it was the paradox of the sloth.
Since the day I asked my mother to teach me how to read and write, years had passed.
I didn't notice it at first but since that day my mother spent a lot more time at home only going in to work if necessary.
And it came with a price, the dream of my parents slowly dwindled, our chain of 15 restaurants started to fall in quality, and my mom started to sell some of them off until the load became bearable.
Another problem came from my father's family, after his passing, they were angered to find that my dad left them nothing in the will, the restaurants were a product of his work along with my mothers' so naturally he left all his shares to his life partner.
As for all his valuables and personal accounts, they were left to me and the amount was absurd almost a hundred million dollars, most of it was tied up in long-term investments but that didn't matter just the annual dividends would be more than I could use in this life.
Naturally it left my father's family ridiculously envious, and more than a few tried to worm their way into my life, lucky for me I'm not really a child otherwise I would have been screwed, those bastards were sneaky.
It's a pity though mom never allowed me to 'take-action' against them, 'They might be assholes, but they are still your father's family,' she would always remind me.
I suppose it was for the best, when I think of the things I planned to do to them, I find myself feeling disgust for myself.
At least my mom's family was still in the picture and we were pretty close.
When I turned six I started school, but problems quickly arose, in my first week I was kidnapped, by a relative of my father who took the opportunity to pick me up 'early' from school.
Then he tried to take me for a ransom, long story short he died and the suburban town where my family lived got its very own freaky story about a child who committed murder.
I find this world's sense of justice, strange and convoluted at best, I try comparing it to my old world, but I can't seem to recall any of its laws anymore.
Though I'm quite certain that is the way it is everywhere you go, all laws start off with great intent, a pity that all it takes is a drop of poison, even if accidental, to poison the entire barrel.
My mom tried to keep me in school and hired a protection detail for me, but another variable came into play, since I was a child I was sickly and fragile, time didn't take that away, this world had no cultivation that I could use to stabilise myself so with time it only grew worse.
So, I grew up being home-schooled, not that I'm complaining, dang I miss the days of being a toddler when all my needs were taken care of by others, I might have started to talk when I was very small, but all the others firsts I dragged them out, I was 1 when I started to crawl and I waited till I turned 4 to walk.
I was able to use my ill condition to drag out the process.
Then came the potty training which my mom and all the caretakers cheered about, I guess they were tired of cleaning up after me.
Since the day I went to the hospital my diet had changed quite a bit, from milk and baby food, I was given yogurts and a wide variety of soft foods.
Whenever I ate them I found little bits of something inside, I assumed it was meat from the protein taste, but whenever I ate the things with the little bits inside them I always caught my mother staring at me with a mischievous grin.
She would cover her mouth with her hand and give a creepy chuckle that would send shivers down my little spine, I swear that grin reminded me of my dad, the first time he looked at me he wore a similar grin even the cold shivers that ran down my little spine were the same.
I could only sigh and hope that one day I would learn the source of the joke and the sense of impending doom I felt… but that's a story for another time.
As the years went by I turned 12, by which point I completed the school syllabise, I could have done it faster but I was busy writing, trying to remember important parts of my past, putting it on paper, that's where the opening extract you read as the closing extract came from.
But as time passed more things slipped away, mid-sentence I would forget what I was writing, and it continued like that for years.
I say that I was writing important pieces of my past because that's what my memory tells me, but when I look at those writings now, I find myself lost in thought for hours trying to decipher single sentences.
I swear I don't understand how I was ever able to write such things when I was younger, just looking at it makes me feel like I'm going to go mad, like I've regressed as a person, how could I have been smarter as a child than I currently am? It certainly makes no sense, but it is an unfortunate truth.
At least I still have a sense of my true identity, I wonder how long it will be before that disappears as well.
Since my completion of the school syllabise I found myself with a lot of free time, time I gladly spent doing nothing, just lying around.
Mom kept telling me that if I want to further my studies she could pull a few strings to get me into pretty much any institution, and it wouldn't take much considering my young age, and the fact that I finished school so young, I could be compared to the geniuses of the world.
In fact, there were schools meant just for children like me.
But really I had no interest, I finished school so fast because it was horrendously easy, and it was just wasting my time, time I could better spend doing nothing in my meditation room.
This world was my world of rest, I only wanted peace and serenity, I have no doubt that entering those programs would have gotten me involved in some kind of work, and I'm not about working a job where each day is the same as the last.
If I were to make it interesting I'm pretty sure I'll either get dragged into dangerous projects or be branded as some type of terrorist, neither of which would grant me my desire.
Besides I was rich enough to have to never work a day in my life.
It was the year 2055 and technology was pretty advanced, some of the most recent advancements came in the form of these gaming capsules, capable of transferring a person's mind into the virtual world.
It was something that made every headline in the world and was on the tongue of everyone for years to come, even I heard about it and I barely ever pay attention to the world around me.
For a brief time, I entertained the idea of playing it but after I had a chat with Dr. Frantz, he completely forbade me.
The capsule would put an elevated level of stress on the body, and for my already restless body, this was a bad idea, normal people could handle it, but it was off-limits to me.
I suppose it was for the best, this world is my world of rest, and from what I heard the game world was very violent, and work was required to get through every stage of the game.
So, I stopped paying attention entirely and continued with my life.
Unfortunately, I only got to maintain my lazy life for four years before my mother's concerns were sky-high and she worried that I would waste my life away.
She started to get me involved in the family business, from fifteen restaurants we dropped to seven, on the bright side we still retained both our 2-star restaurants with the other 5 all being 1-star.
The work was so easy and boring that I quickly started to dread the future, I just had to oversee the management of the staff, ensure that their rotations were locked in, and look for capable replacements should the need arise.
Most of my work could be done from home, and scouting involved me going to fancy restaurants ordering the food, and assessing the quality of the food and the service, if people performed well they made the list.
Naturally, it was boring, but nothing that inviting a couple of my cousins couldn't fix.
I guess that since I never went to school I didn't make any friends, but at least my mother had a large family, she was one of 7 children, which gave me an impressive net of cousins to call upon, a means to make otherwise boring activities much more fun, at the very least bearable.
But the work was quickly becoming far too boring and I was a little too successful in my scouting, in the year that I joined I recruited some serious talents, by replacing the kitchen staff and waiter lineups in two of the restaurants we suddenly gained an additional 2 two-star restaurants and one of the two-stars restaurants was bumped up to three stars.
My mother never failed to remind me how vital I was in that, and I guess it was to be expected cold logic works wonders in improving management and quality, and I applied it to every aspect of the recruitment process, and management affairs.
But my mothers' compliments only made me shudder, because I recognised what it entailed, more work and more responsibility.
I had to skip out on that work, and I needed to do it quickly.