Violetta Durand

Back to Where It All Began

'Vanilla ice-cream cone, Mr. Rabbit. Vanilla ice-cream cone.' Violetta was talking excitedly to the drone. However, the drone seemed to be stuck in a loop, repeating a high pitched irasshaimase, and rotating from left to right as if trying to find a customer. Her mother let out a sigh.

'Come on Violetta, we'll just order inside. Looks like Mr. Rabbit is a bit tired today.'

'Okay. Bye bye Mr. Rabbit!' Violetta waved at the drone as she stepped inside. Her mother sat her down at a table, and a few moments later came back with a vanilla ice-cream cone.

'Here you go, sweety,' her mother said with a loving smile.

                    Violetta's mother did not come home early for the rest of that week. After they had gotten ice-cream in the mall her mother had received a phone call, and rushed them back home. Soon after, the nanny came and her mother had then left for work. Violetta was bored. She liked her nanny, but she missed her mother. She looked outside of the window of the luxurious apartment tower in the Azabu-Minami district. Large, high-rise buildings were being built all around the horizon. They all looked the same; dark steel monoliths. Lately, there were experiments with flying cars, navigating between all the buildings, too. There had been a few accidents with them, but the government and manufacturer had insisted it was still safe to trial in the city. It started raining, adding to the increasingly dark, depressing skyline. Violetta turned away from the window. She hoped her mother would take her on vacation to the tropical beaches of Okinawa soon. She had promised to do so.

                    Violetta stood up and walked towards the kitchen where her nanny was busy making dinner. 'Ayuka-san, I'm bored. Can we play together?' Her nanny looked over her shoulder.

'Actually, I might have a little job for you. I forgot to get some eggs earlier in the store, could you run down to the convenience store for me to get them? Please?'

'Sure, Ayuka-san! I can do that.'

'Alright,' said her nanny as she walked over to her bag, 'here is some cash. That should be enough for eggs. But eggs, okay? No ice-cream!'

Violetta laughed. 'I promise, no ice-cream. Just eggs.' Her nanny laughed too and tossed her hair.

'You're a sweet girl. I'll let the doorman downstairs know you're on your way down. He'll walk you to the convenience store next door.'

Violetta took the elevator down. As she reached the ground floor, the doors opened up to a stylish lobby; marble floors, sitting areas with leather sofas, chandeliers, and large tropical plants decorating the corners and sides. Violetta walked towards the exit, looking out for the doorman. When she got to the door there was still no sign of him. She knew she wasn't allowed to go outside without the doorman with her, so she waited for another minute. As the doorman still did not come, she walked through the revolving doors to see if he was outside. Stepping outside she looked to the right, and then the left. There was still no sign of the doorman anywhere, but she did see the entrance to the convenience store right there. It was only a few meters away. She could quickly go in, buy the eggs, and be back. Violetta started walking towards the convenience store.

'Violetta!'

Violetta turned around to see who had screamed her name. 'Ayuka-san?' Violetta started to walk back towards her nanny, who came running towards her. At that moment she heard a loud bang right next to her. She did not have time to turn around and see the car crashing onto the pavement.

                    A loud ringing noise in her ear. She opened her eyes. Her nanny was lying face down on the pavement. Something did not look right about the way her neck was folded. She tried to walk over there, but realized she could not move as something pinned her to the wall of her apartment building. She looked down, but her chin hit something hard. She glanced to her left side and saw a car. The windshield was so close it almost touched her cheek. That's strange, Violetta thought as her vision got blurry. A moment later there was nothing but darkness.

                    It required pulling a lot of strings to have her daughter moved from the hospital to her research facility. The doctors had insisted Violetta would not survive any transfer and needed to remain in a medicated coma indefinitely. She would not just sit by and let her daughter turn into a vegetable. She knew what she had to do, and had convinced management at Mox Corp. of the same. Somehow, she had managed to stay clinical without getting emotional when presenting the business case to the higher-ups. They had made it difficult for her, tested her. Asking questions that no mother should ever have to answer about her own child. But she had remained strong. In the end they had seen the potential economic benefit this could generate for them, and it happened to please them that there was little downside in terms of potential lawsuits as it was the researcher experimenting on her own daughter.

'Dr. Durand,' a young man wearing thin glasses and a lab coat interrupted her thoughts, 'we're ready for you in the meeting room.'

'I'll be right over there, Donald,' Dr. Durand responded without turning around to face the man. She glanced one last time over the schematics. It showed the future state of the body of her daughter, Violetta. Sweet little Violetta. Tears shot to her eyes thinking how they had to design the body for an adult, whilst Violetta was still so young. She wouldn't be young, however, by the time they would be done with her. They had to plan ahead. Satisfied with the schematics, she turned around and started walking towards the meeting room. I will save you Violetta, no matter what, I will find a way to save you. Pausing in front of the door of the meeting room she clenched her fists. Then she stepped through the door. 'Team,' she said glancing over the faces of research assistants, engineers, and medical professionals who filled the room, 'welcome to Project Deus. Who is ready to take on God Himself?'

                    Vee got out of the air taxi. She had spent the night in the vehicle, having it on a loop through the main arteries of the city. She had wanted to be vigilant considering the NFT she was holding. But it was time now. She had arrived at the air pier of a dark black building. Its exterior was inconspicuous. For good purpose, as it hosted the members of the Guild. A fully decentralized autonomous organization, originally set up by one person, or a collective, no one really knew, to organize a black-market aimed at circumventing the systems imposed by governments and large corporations. The building itself was impossible to get into, unless you had the required soulbound token; something only to be obtained through a series of tests that ensured anonymity while at the same time tested a certain skill set and filtered out any potential spies. Naturally, law enforcement desperately sought to track those tokens, but the DAO issued the tokens in such a way that each was unique and undescriptive.

                    Vee walked up to the unmanned entrance on top of the building. As she got to the door, she held up her wrist in front of what looked to be a peephole. Her chip implant lit up and the interface activated. She was prompted to sign a transaction allowing the protocol to confirm she was holding the right soulbound token. Upon signing the transaction, the doors opened up a moment later, giving entrance to a dark hallway. She stepped through and the doors promptly closed behind her. She walked through the hall to another entrance where she had to repeat the process. This time, the doors opened up to a brightly lit elevator hall. Six different elevators that served the floors that were under the control of the DAO. She got into one of the elevators and pressed the button to go to 'The Club'. The solitude of the earlier room and the elevator was contrasted starkly as the elevator doors opened up to something that resembled a combination between a bar and a gaming convention. Guild members gathered at The Club to do business in person. Vee made her way through the crowd and got to the VIP area. She could feel the eyes of the crowd on her back. It was not every day that someone was able to enter the VIP area.

'Well, well...' a low voice behind her started, 'so you're finally ready to play with the big boys?'

Vee looked over her shoulder. A bald man wearing golden sunglasses was smiling at her. He was shirtless, revealing a dragon tattoo sleeve.

'It's about time,' he continued, 'I've been waging money with the boys about when you'd finally join us.'

Vee turned back and lifted up her wrist in front of a similar peephole as earlier. Her chip implant lit up again and the interface popped up. It asked permission to burn the rare NFT she had obtained in Tengoku Club the night before. Vee paused for a moment.

'You're gonna chicken out?' the bald man behind her said mockingly.

Vee signed the transaction. A moment later the doors to the VIP area opened up.

'See you on the otherside, sexy,' the bald man laughed after her, as she stepped through into the next room.