Shades of Wolves

Chapter 1: The Game of WIC

November, 10th, 2100.

This is the first time we came here. They took us to a couple of rooms. Among a bunch of personal items, there was a small notebook, a diary. Each and every one of us has known it clearly, that this would be a terribly dire fight. Some would die. Some would lose their memories. It definitely is not a bad idea to take some time and write down these journeys to keep it as a memory.

I know nobody here. This is pretty much the very first time in my life that I am away from my mother. I do hope to have a chance to see her again. I must be the winner. After all, I have a promise to keep, a promise to open her bakery shop again.

P/s: The food sucks. But I do like those candy and sweet cakes.

Barol

Year 2100, 80 years after Covid pandemic occurred in 2020.

Hoa was sitting in front of her computer. Her finger was scrolling down the news with photos, numbers, and all death statistics all around the world.

Ten years ago, there had been another respiratory pandemic. Even when the medical development had made great strides over the past 80 years, the virus’ wave of strike and vaccine-resistant strains had yet been unable to be stopped.

Hoa couldn’t take her eyes off the number. 20% of global population was dead. It had been occurring constantly for 10 years already. The other day, it had been said that another new variant had showed up in China and wiped off a one-thousand-people-village of theirs.

There was not a single country, from the most powerful to a developed one, could ever stop it. That soon became a fact. It happened due to many factors. The aviation industry had been boomed. There was no boundaries or distance or whatsoever. It took only ten minutes to fly from New York to Tokyo. In addition, humans’ reliance on their brilliant medical system had gradually become their bottomless grave.

Hoa was now living in the US. Her family had moved to here due to the call of the chocolate box from Forest Gump, the over a-hundred-year-old but never out of date movie. The United States of America had been nothing but surely Heaven. However, it had only been that before the pandemic.

Now, what do we have? The street of Hoa’s place looked exactly like an abandoned bombed battlefield. Those left-behind houses were all collapsed thanks to the storm just happened not long before. It was not like anybody could even bother to care about it anymore. They had too many things to carry on their shoulders already. Everyone got their personal debts. The country got its public debt. The medical industry was more and more staggered, enough to find that there was no way it could escape from its own hole. The Great United States of America was definitely obsolete. Or, to be more exact, not a single country was not obsolete. However, all countries never meant the same with all individuals. The fact that some of them individuals were getting wealthier and wealthier was as clear as the daylight.

WIC, a genetics and artificial technology company had beaten the previous top companies such as sss or Telsa. And no, it was not an o***************g kind of company, if you wonder. It had been 80 years since the medical revolution. Growing and transplanting artificial organs was now easier. Of course, the price wouldn’t be cheap for those works either. However, the bright side was killing people to get their organs from poor countries was no longer or less to be seen in the picture nowadays.

WIC focused on another aspect. They paid attention on more on people’s feelings and spirits. Others might find it strange. However, if you look at the cruel reality, you will see that WIC was actually really brilliant. The pandemic, to them, was the lucky card to help them change their own fortune.

20 years ago, WIC had successfully developed brain transplant technique from Alzheimer's disease research. It allowed scientists to extract pieces of memories from people who had passed away or wanted to sell it. Then, they manipulated a couple of images from those memories before transplanting them into the buyers or people who needed them. The more people died, the less fortunes they wanted to possess. They had been losing too much and on top of all, their beloved ones. Therefore, what they actually needed now was those beautiful memories.

Those who were in need come to find WIC. They asked to buy the beautiful memories from other people. Of course, they were adjusted to suit with the buyers. A little bit of touch here and there to put the image of the buyers into those mentioned memories. It was almost the same with playing with photoshop. Or, to be more of voodoo kind of saying, it was nothing different from brainwashing each other. Those images may help the buyers to live in their own chosen positive feelings, or to die with happiness made from them.

Last week, on the news that Hoa had read, there was a billionaire asking WIC to find him a piece of memories of a mother and a son, the deeper the better. He was going to die soon. And the feeling of nostalgia had been striking. He’d miss his mom who had been wandering in the oblivion in a corner of his mind for 30 years. At the end, he’d gotten what’s worth with the fortune he had been paying. Finally, he’s slowly dying in the smell of the dinner made by his mom and in the warm, full of love arms of hers. Wasn’t it touching?

That was pretty much the life of the earth in the past 80 years. Running, dying, hurting, darkening, and advancing.

Hoa put on her jacket. She went to a dome station where the mini trains were about to start running. Those were the solar-powered public buses. It was the energy that blew away the fossil energy that had been a hit two centuries ago. Those buses split their wagons into those smaller ones. It was a way to prevent the spread of the virus in the last 10 years.

Hoa got off the train. It took her ten minutes of walking to get her to the hospital. She could still see the spectacle that had happened five years ago. Alarm bells were everywhere, loud and clear as if they were asking for people’s lives. Doctors, nurses, even smart robots had been all drained and drowned and exhausted of moving patients constantly. Prayers had been all over the place in front of the hospital. Or, to be more correct, they had hoped to see their beloved family for the last time. The only thing had been there to answer those prayers and hope had been the sad eyes of a female doctor. Her eyes had been dead red and maybe lost their feelings for how much she had been crying. Couple days after that, Hoa had been at the same place, waiting for her mom. But the other doctor had not been there to inform her. For what she had known, that doctor had committed suicide before she could have learned what had happened.

Hoa walked through the door. Her head kept down as she walked. Through the glass door, her eyes kept their sight towards a hospital bed. There was a man there, all happy and talkative and full of joy. He made some kind of jokes. People around him were laughing at those as a response. Everyone, except for her. She was too exhausted to force a smile on her face.

Hoa stepped in a doctor’s office. His face was so much older than what he should look like. Old and tired and emaciate. The whole pandemic thing had been pretty much taking almost all of his emotions away. She had met him a few times, but she found that his expressions were quite limited. He only could show three or four of his emotional expression. To be honest, a smart-programmed robot could even do better.

“My father’s case is severe, you’re saying?”

Hoa looked at the doctor in front of her. He seemed uneasy, not really happy with the result. That meant the result was not as expected.

“"His liver is already almost unrecoverable. He surely needs a better liver."

Hoa was not really worried about the supplies. In 2020, they had already been successful in replacing artificial kidney for human body. From there, slowly and gradually, step by step, animal organ transplantation had been become very popular.

“And the price?”

“A million dollars for the whole thing, the liver, the surgery, and recovery”

It was really difficult for her to continue. A few years ago, when her mother had been dying, they had had a lung transplant for her. But the virus came back again and she could not have gone on. They had used the very last penny to save her mother. Now, Hoa’s family was completely broke. Every month, they received a subsidy from the government. The pandemic was like a sharp knife. It cut through our heart and made us bleed. But the pandemic was only temporary. The damage deep inside their flesh and the scars that would not go away was the real scary thing here.

Turning her head away, she walked out. Now, she had no idea what she should say to her father. She was not sure if she could ever ease him with her words. Or would her words make a way for him to go to the edge of life and just commit suicide. Hoa did not take the bus this time. She walked by feet now. She tried her best to take a deep breath, tried to enjoy the air for a bit. A piece of paper laying on the street was stepped by her foot, got her attention. She picked up the flyer. There was dust all over it. There was an image of a strong woman raising a cup on it. It’s Stacy Larson, the winner of WIC’s game two times ago.

Hoa put on a soft smile. She could not believe that a girl like Stacy could have beaten a hundred people including those big guys, literally big guys, in the challenge. There was even a reality television show about this survival game where the players bet their lives on it. It was believed that the government would stop this a long time ago. But well, sadly, no. Not only it was not stopped, but also more and more famous and popular these days with all the tricks to avoid violating. Hoa had never seen any law sue or anything like that ever on the news or anywhere.

Or maybe, just maybe, that was because WIC was too strong to be sued. Their bar association was powerful. The political forces behind were huge. Not to mention that the players all signed the agreements. Most of the players were from the lower class of society. They were those who were willing to do anything to change their lives with that $100 million. And if they did not read before signing, it was not a surprise either.

There was something on the flyer that caught Hoa’s eyes. $100 million reward for the winner as well as an access card to their high-level library. The time for the game was only over twenty days. The slogan was quite catching the ears, “If not now, then when?” It was a light hit, almost a slap, to twist the fist into the ambitions of the poor, those who had nothing, but sickness, diseases, debts. Those who were like Hoa.

There was only three days left to sign up. But it was not like she could get in the moment she signed up for it. She had to convince the interviewer in order to get in that one versus one hundred players kind of fight. She needed to give them something they liked, something that was valuable enough to be the bet item. The more valuable it was, the more they loved. The more they loved, the easier for her to get in.

A wind flew by. It took the paper on Hoa’s hand to fly away, towards the 4D advertising panels. WIC again. The sound of their advertisement for their online supermarket was always all around the city. But maybe, at least, in this whole awful, sad and terrible atmosphere, those sounds from the giant of the technology world was positive and energetic. It was not so bad, after all.