Hey readers! Here's a short written about a couple of side characters from my series Cybersaurus. Kenneth appeared in Episode One as a small role in only a single scene, and I had so much fun writing him, I decided to give him his own scene, as well as a potential, minor subplot that could develop in future shorts, or even find its way into the main series! Enjoy!
Kenneth entered his apartment and changed out of his McDonald's work uniform, tossing the neo-leather shirt and pants onto his bed, and putting on a set of neo-leather shorts and a traditional t-shirt. His shorts were bright blue in color, from the last time he used them, and so with a thought he changed the hue to a darker shade. He then walked out into the small living room, cluttered with left-over food and soda cans from the night before, and picked up the silver spark drive on the coffee table. It had the words Future Shooter VII etched onto its surface, and the small logo of a bullet warping through the air, but he didn't pay any attention to the level of detail inscribed on the drive. He simply slid the drive into the spark port on the back of his head as he sat down on the old, beaten couch, and accessed the video game's menu, which was a series of boxes hovering over his vision.
With a thought, he selected 'Omninet Multiplayer' and his vision darkened to a blank, black view as the game launched his mind into its Omninet lobby, where he would join millions of other players in virtual warfare. As the game connected to the lobby, he reached for the nearby coffee table carefully, until his fingers brushed the edge of his McDonald's cup from work that day. Leaning back in his seat, he sipped the soda from the cup's straw as his eyes found a game to join.
Within minutes, while his body was sitting in his old, dirty apartment building, his mind was running through Cambodian jungle, armed with an assault rifle, and working with his team to eliminate the opposing team.
Kenneth barely heard the door to the apartment open and close, but recognized it to be his roommate, Reggie. "Hey Redge," he said while still playing.
"Hi. FS7?" Reggie asked as he sat down on the nearby chair, relaxing after his own day at work.
"Yeah."
"Cool." Reggie turned and looked at their TV pane on the wall, and with a thought he accessed it and flicked it on. He blinked his way through the channels until he found a show that would suit him for the time being, and then kicked off his shoes. He gave them a little flick with his feet, the first one landing a few feet away, and the second one hitting a small bin of spark drives, Kenneth's collection of video games.
"Did you just hit my games?" Kenneth asked without pulling his attention away from his online match.
"Nope," Reggie said.
Thick silence filled the room for several minutes as Kenneth played his game and Reggie zoned out in front of the television. After a few moments, Kenneth broke the silence with a question he would have asked sooner, had he not been distracted.
"Did you ever get those boosters?" Kenneth asked.
"No," Reggie responded.
"It's your turn."
"Yeah, but it's hard to get boosters when your dealer's gone."
"Trent's gone?" Kenneth asked, mildly surprised.
"Yeah, and nobody will say where he went. I'll bet his apartment was being investigated."
They were silent for a moment, then Kenneth offered his assessment of the situation. "Shit."
"Yeah," Reggie said. "And I don't know where else to go."
"Well, Bulldog won't sell to me after we got busted for carrying," Kenneth said.
"To hell with Bulldog," Reggie said. "You don't know anyone else?"
"Nope," Kenneth said.
"What about your old dealer?"
"What?"
"The guy you used to talk about," Reggie said. "The BurgerNow guy."
"Eddie?" Kenneth asked. "I haven't bought from him since I moved out."
"Does he still sell?"
"I don't know. He used to be all the way across town, though."
"Do you still have his ID?"
Kenneth nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I do."
"Give him a call."
"I will after this game," Kenneth said.
"How much longer do you have?"
Kenneth checked the ticking clock in the upper-left corner of his view. "Seventeen minutes."
"Damn," Reggie said. "Alright, call him when you're done. And then wake me up and let me know what he said."
"Okay."
And with that, Reggie laid his head back and turned on his Omninet sound-dampener app, muting the noises from the apartment while he tried to sleep. Kenneth sat mostly still, occasionally sipping on his soda, his eyes staring absently ahead while he played his video game, and all the while the television played a documentary on the process by which nano-machines are manufactured and mass produced.
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