Kill Switch: Chapter 51
Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Vibekill
The home theater has, like, so many fucking screens. Like, hundreds of screens, probably at least sixty or seventy on each wall. Vonn Senior picks up a remote and presses down on the buttons. One by one, the screens alight. Vonn Senior spins around, clicking until every screen is alive with dNet – feeds and gazes galore, all kinds of livestreams, concert footage, muck bangs, screenshares. I notice Derrick 9 gameplay, pharma adverts, an influencer advocating for the cryptonomic genius of Cad Man. I see an active shooter in a Vonn store, pixelated blood slapping against the latest model of the Vonn jumpsuit. I see Taco and Ginger’s podcast, Taco still in the malWard, Ginger in her persyPod. I approach the screen. The headline reads Former colleagues Turn Into Hella vibekills…Were the Signs There All Along? Vonn Senior, seeing where my attention is, turns up the volume on the podcast, and I hear Taco’s synth for the first time in days.
“I mean, like, look,” he’s saying, “it all started that night at The Underworld. Vonn 19 kept talking about unGlassing. And we were all, like, what? Huh? What are you talking about, simul? I mean, like, who says that?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ginger says. “Oh my Efficiency, like, so true. And then, like, I guess he, like, brainwashed Yide and X or whatever. What a vibekill.”
“Hashtag vibekill,” Taco laughs. And then, his face curling down: “so, like, what do we think happens next, Ginger?”
Ginger sticks herself with an injector pin. “It’s a good question, Taco. I mean, like, Vonn 19 did kill The Withouter Hunter, and then, like, he and X and Yide all totally shut down dNet for, like, more than an hour. Plus, they killed some security guards. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to see the three of them escaping the deathbeam.” Ginger brings her hand to her chest and laughs.
“So crazy,” Taco says. “I never thought I would know someone who got sent to the deathbeam. And now, it turns out, I might know three!” He seems rather excited at the prospect.
“So totally crazy,” Ginger says. “Everyone has been, like, blowing up my DMs, dying for the deets. But don’t you worry, subscribers, my social media team is working very hard on our upcoming content schedule, so stay tuned all my lovely followers! And don’t forget to like and subscribe!”
“I can’t watch this,” I say. “Turn it off.”
Vonn Senior smiles. He mashes down a single button, shutting off all the screens. Then he sits down in a swivelling plastic chair, courtesy of Vonn Industries. He spins around, as if this massive screen collection wasn’t dizzying enough, and when the chair stops spinning, he leans back and crosses his legs.
“Lesson number one,” he says. “The vast majority of people don’t care about ideals.” He makes a face, as if he’s just swallowed a bug. “Hell, most people, they don’t even care about the truth. They only care about being entertained. Keep the people entertained, Vonn 19, and they will show you loyalty until the day they die.”
My stomach is hollow, and not just because I’m hungry, but because Operation Digital Disruption had no effect. Despite all the footage, all the damning evidence of violence and abuse and corruption, The Within is still bustling.
“When Cosmo came to us last night with his offer,” Vonn Senior says, “my first inclination was to stymie Operation Digital Disruption before it got off the ground, but then I asked myself the question: what if I didn’t stop Operation Digital Disruption? What if I effectively allowed you and your goons to inject dNet with mal? What would the result be?” Vonn Senior stands and starts pacing the home theater with his hands behind his back. “The answer was obvious: nobody would care. I mean, sure, there might be a small part of everyone’s brain that would temporarily feel guilty, but that guilt would quickly be subsumed by the need for distraction. People have a hard time believing they’re the bad guy, Vonn 19, so they make up all kinds of stories, come up with all kinds of reasons to justify their actions, to maintain their sense of comfort and normalcy. And, of course, that’s exactly what happened. You saw the headlines –” he waves his hands at the screens – “‘Derrick 9 Sales Explode In Wake of Revelation…Gamers Excited To Aid in the Fight Against Withouter Terrorism…Withiners Call For The Death of Vonn 19!’ Don’t you see? You did me a favor, Vonn 19. You gave me an enemy of the state, a cause to bring people together. The Withiners are rallying around their hatred of you. You took away their toys, and they’re fucking pissed, and they’re out for blood.”
Vonn Senior sits down, leans back, and puts his hands behind his head.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “If Withiners hate me so much, what are they going to think when you name me the CEO of Vonnville?”
Vonn Senior removes his hands from his head and starts tapping his fingers. “Oh, that’s easy. You see, Vonn 19, memory spans are short these days, and they’re also rather susceptible to illogical claims. There’s too much distraction, too much entertainment, too many dings and likes to give much thought to anything, which means, if you couple a claim with the promise of exciting things to come, people will follow you into hell. They’ve done it since time immemorial on planet earth, and you can bet your bottom coin that they’ll do it on the moon too. So what do you say? Would you rather be the CEO of Vonnville or die beneath the shameful glare of the deathbeam? If the former, I can get my PR team to start working on a press release. It’ll be rather simple. There’s evidence of you overdosing on Jaz. We’ll say that one of the side-effects is pure idiocy or something like that. You’ll issue a formal apology, and then we’ll start on the rebranding campaign, building up your brand reputation one entertaining post at a time. We’ll also hire a horde of brand ambassadors to sing your praises. We can start with those colleagues of yours, Taco and Ginger.” Vonn Senior tosses his head back, grinning. “Can you believe all these brilliant ideas I’m coming up with? Straight off the dome, truly. You’re going to enjoy being in my presence, Vonn 19, seeing how I work, how I think, and learning as you go. I mean, I absolutely love the idea of Taco and Ginger becoming your brand ambassadors. They can attest to your character before your awful Jaz addiction. It’ll be a comeback story. People love a comeback story. And then, once your brand integrity is intact, we’ll make the announcement, and you, my son, will be Vonn Junior, first CEO of Vonnville. How does that sound?”
It doesn’t sound terrible, if I’m being honest. I mean, going to the moon would be hella tight, whereas going to the deathbeam would be, like, the opposite of hella tight.
“What about my colleagues?” I ask. “Yide and Bunnfield and X and Claudette. Hell, even Cosmo. I mean, I think Cosmo deserves another chance. You just sent him out in the wilderness with a bunch of Jaz. That’s not going to turn out well for him. He needs to go to rehab. He needs to get off that junk.”
Vonn Senior waves his hand. “I gave Cosmo a lifetime supply of Jaz. Thousands of pills. He’ll be fine.”
“No,” I say. “He’ll die out there. You know what Jaz does to you, right?”
“Yeah,” Vonn Senior says. “It produces pure idiocy. Or maybe we should come up with, like, something more scientific sounding. Something Greek, maybe. I’ll get my marketing team on it. They’ll come up with something good. And then we’ll hire some doctors to conduct an independently peer reviewed study that concludes what we expected. Bam, boom, pow.” Vonn Senior inexplicably draws his glock and starts mock shooting the screens. “That’s how we do it, Vonn Junior. Just spitballing here. Just a couple spitballers in the home theater. I’m feeling it. The juices are flowing.” He spins the glock, which sputters out of his hand and goes off, sending a bullet blasting through a screen.
Smitty bursts into the room.
Vonn Senior spins around. “Are these screens not bulletproof!” he yells. “Why are you even still here Smitty? I swear, if you don’t make yourself redundant, like, yesterday, I’m going to fire your ass. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir,” Smitty says, walking across the home theater, toward the shards of glass. He picks up the glock.
“Clean it up!” Vonn Senior shouts. “Why do I even have to tell you this!”
I watch Smitty clean up the mess, wondering why he doesn’t turn around and shoot Vonn Senior with the glock.