Oneshot: Knees Bent, Arms Spaghetti

Hi there! I'm Vainglory 2KW8Ω! You may remember me as the author of such celebrated literary masterpieces as "Avatar: The Book of Screaming Vengeance", "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 2: Resident Evil 8: Superhazard", and "Look What's REALLY Happened to Rosemary's Baby!" and I'm here to talk to you about bit coin mining.

A lot of people assume that mining for bit coins involves propping up a bunch of computers to run at the same time and magically create this infamous cryptocurrency as though this stuff grows on trees and is just being picked at an arbitrarily slow rate for no real good reason.

Believe me, you would be surprised to learn how much of a resemblance bit coin mining bears to actual mining. Just like with mining for real coal or diamonds: you need a prospector to find a suitable site for the extraction of bit coin, surveyors to mark the boundaries of your mine, and a labor force to extract the material itself. I, of all people, should know all of this because I am to bit coin as De Beers is to Diamonds and I have my own personal South Africa for the harvesting of bit coin.

The denizens of my South Africa, that is, my bit coin mines, work for 16 hours a day, go home to languish in insomnia for 6 hours, get a 2 hour power nap in, wake up to smell the acidic black coffee I provide for them like Quail and Manna for the wandering Israelites, and they get back to work to start the cycle all over again. They do not turn against me because these stupid, primitive savages worship me as though I were a god and they gather my bit coin as a tribute to me in exchange for an empty promise of my favor, often just a fake expression of my love. But it's not enough that they should worship me lest they should gather together and rise up against me like a mob of angry villagers from a Frankenstein movie and climb my spire to defenestrate me as if I was Jezebel because they need light to pluck the fruits of their labor as well as Ultraviolet radiation to prevent Rickets so they need to give their unquestioning and absolute fealty and obedience to me or else things will get dark and ugly for them like Ving Rhames chasing them through a back alley in Baltimore.

Of course, I provide that light; It's deducted from their wages just like Social Security, but I provide it nevertheless. I have a specially-designed light bulb in my spire, a monolithic structure that's taller than Trump Tower in New York City and serves better steaks in the restaurant on the 47th floor. It shines its nurturing, guiding light of inspiration onto its populace, who are so awe-struck by it that they prostrate themselves on the ground and do this sort of grovel-gallop as though it were the Holy Kaaba of Mecca.

To them, this is their sun. And, just like our sun, it will not last forever. Even now, our sun is in the autumn of its life and its bones (or, in this case, its cauldron of super-heated hydrogen molecules) are growing weary. Someday, maybe not tomorrow or even a year from now but probably more like a hundred, we will have to build some tough-as-all-fuck bomb shelters to shield ourselves from the coming supernova and cross our fingers that it becomes a neutron star rather than a black hole and hope even further that the crops can photosynthesize with it just as well as they could with a regular star lest they should either wither away or become carnivorous and turn on mankind as retribution for thousands of years of systematic, institutionalized slavery.

Unlike our sun, however, the sun of my world did not have the excuse of having to take on a lot of work, what with fostering countless epochs worth of crustaceans, dinosaurs, and mammals to be good stewards of the planet that took an entire supereon to get right and whatnot, so it does not deserve to be given any leniency for shorting out about a year after I got it screwed in. I was told that that thing was guaranteed to last 10 years and was custom fitted and designed by skilled artisans who had doctorates in nuclear engineering and shit and got paid assloads of money by Megaman (a/n: not that Megaman, you dumbasses, the light bulb company based in Germany) to make the best light bulbs on the market. A lot of good that did me. But the worst part was that they were unable to make another bulb with the same specifications because the blueprints got irreparably soaked by some ignorant klutz tripping on his own shoelaces and spilling coffee wherever the hell he damn well pleased while all of the designers who worked on the bulb retired or got spirited away by headhunters who promised them jobs with bigger salaries at General Electric but got sold on the Akodessewa Fetish Market for their troubles.

Needless to say, the locals who depended on me to provide their sun got desperate and sought my guidance...

"Oh, Lord Jesús Martíne," A rather fruity man by the name of Rachis Something-or-Other (I forgot what his last name was so I'mma say it was Canseco) who was wearing a bright teal Quetzalcoatl costume bellowed, "we beseech thee to answer our prayers!"

He was trying to call me by my real name but it's actually "Jesús Martínez." I suppose that little 'zed' at the end was one too many letters for a feeble mind such as his to keep track of. The only reference these savages had to my identity was my Microsoft account and Rachis kept forgetting that I prefered to be called Vainglory 2KW8Ω or just Vainglory for short (and yes, I am always pissed off that won't allow you to put Greek letters in your handle).

He was talking into a Blue Yeti mic hooked up to a General Electric TAJ-19, an antique WWII-era transmitter the size of a goddamn Coke machine; a massive hulk of obsolete military hardware that was imposing enough for my peons to fashion into an altar dedicated to yours truly, complete with war paint, skulls, bones, and refrigerator drawings. By the way, Rachis' kids drew those pictures as tributes to me. They also made the skulls and bones with play-doh; how adorable. I just wish they would use the Crayola washable paint I got for them rather than THE FUCKING PRIMER! THOSE LITTLE SHITS!

But, anyway, I bought this machine at the Indiana Flea Market and I gave it to the workers as the only means by which to talk to me. I taught ol' Señor Canseco how to operate it and I also bought some USB adapters for it so it would be compatible with that previously mentioned Blue Yeti mic and a set of Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones. The difficulty in starting up this machine pretty much gave him the exclusive privilege to have an audience with me and the really great thing about this guy was that he was slavishly devoted to me so I made him the high priest of my cult and everybody believes everything he says. His congregation stood by, an uncouth crowd of backwards-ass mutants and robots cloaked in hooded robes, waiting for their priest to give them my answer.

"Lord Jesús Martíne! I beseech thee once more," this cocksucker was really getting on my nerves because I was trying to enjoy a bag of beer-flavored kettle chips while watching Gilmore Girls episodes that I got off of PirateBay before it became an FBI honeypot, "Please, answer our prayers for this is our most desperate Hour of Darkness."

I decided to humor him. I got on my Uniden Bearcat 980 CB radio, set the frequency to 47.3358 MHz, and prepared my best James Earl Jones impression, "VAINGLORY SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONE!" I spoke in an intimidating baritone, "WHY DO YOU INSIST ON DISTURBING ME!"

"I'm very sorry, my Lord," Rachis Canseco prostrated himself before my altar, "But the workers have raised their concerns about the inadequate light in this world."

"WHAT IS THINE BIG DEAL?" I asked, "ARE THEY NOT PROVIDED WITH ENOUGH LIGHT FROM THE PHOSPHOR SHRIMP?"

"I'm afraid to inform you that the phosphor shrimp have been less than ideal for their work." Rachis nervously shifted his weight, worried about getting on my bad side if he did not exercise due caution in talking to me, "You see, the light from the phosphor shrimp does not provide UV radiation and there have been sharp increases in the rates of suicide and Rickets cases because of this. Not only that, but the phosphor shrimp are our only source of sustenance and they don't reproduce fast enough to outpace our hunger."

"SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT YOU'RE GOING TO RUN OUT OF LIGHT, HUH?"

"Precisely."

"SO HOW, PRAY TELL, IS THAT SUPPOSED TO AFFECT ME?"

"Well, you see, have you not noticed that the Spire has stopped rotating?"

"NOW THAT THOU MENTIONETH IT: YEAH, IT IS MOST PECULIAR."

"That Spire acts as a gyroscope for our world. If it does not spin: it could mean catastrophe. The earth will break apart and swallow us whole into oblivion."

What he was essentially saying was that my bit coin rig was going to crap out on me and I would lose a shitload of money if I didn't get that light bulb fixed.

"VERY WELL," I said, "I SHALL BRING YOU SALVATION FROM YOUR WOES," I gave a moment's pause as something delightfully fiendish popped into my head, "IN THE MEANTIME, YOU MUST PERFORM A TASK FOR ME."

"And, what would that be, my Lord?" Rachis seemed to be ill-at-ease. Sometimes, you can get a bad feeling that somebody else is getting a bad feeling; my theory as to how that's possible is that every lifeform on Earth emits an electrical field and subtle changes in one's voltage or ohm level can be subconsciously detected by some people, almost like telepathy. Alternatively, I could be an empath.

"OH, NOT MUCH," I said, "I'M ONLY BESTOWING UPON YOU THE GREATEST OF RESPONSIBILITIES A MAN SUCH AS YOURSELF COULD POSSIBLY ASK FOR. TO SHIRK THIS WOULD BE TO ENSURE UTTER RUIN FOR YOUR WORLD."

Rachis' bad feeling seemed to subside, "Please, tell me! I live to serve you and to fail you would bring me great sorrow, my Lord!"

Now, that was the kind of attitude I liked in a man, "AT THE SIXTH HOUR OF EVERY MORNING, YOU MUST BRING ONE CHILD, MALE OR FEMALE, TO THIS ALTAR AND THRUST A DAGGER INTO HIS BOWELS AND DRAW THE INCISION JUST SHORT OF HIS RIBS. THEN, YOU MUST PUNCTURE HIS LEFT LUNG AND THE BREATH OF LIFE SHALL ESCAPE FROM HIS RIGHT LUNG AND ASCEND TO THE HEAVENS AND PRECIPITATE AS NOURISHING RAIN FOR YOUR CROPS."

"My Lord, to ask this of me is too much to bear! Surely, my soul would be forsaken!"

"YOU DARE QUESTION MY COMMANDS, MORTAL! WAS IT SOMEONE ELSE WHO SAID THAT TO FAIL ME WOULD BRING HIM GREAT SORROW? YEA, AND GREAT SORROW SHALL BEFALL HIM! BEHOLD, I BRING YOUR SISTER HERE!"

I used my godly powers to teleport his sister, a prophetess dressed like a Brazilian Samba dancer whose name escapes me, even though I ought to know because she was really cute, so I'll just say her name was Tiffy, next to Rachis. He threw his headphones off and started screaming like a bitch. I levitated Tiffy into the air and Rachis made a feeble attempt to jump up and snatch her by the ankles but that resulted in a face plant that knocked out one of his teeth. It was hilarious. The congregation that had gathered knew what would come next and they were compelled to stare at it. The parents learned long ago that they were obligated to hold their children above their heads to witness my miracles and the children, in turn, learned to stay still and keep quiet as they looked on. My raucous laughter went uninterrupted until I noticed Tiffy's hysterical crying and incoherent babbling as she was tumbling around like a hamster in a ball. I struck her with a thunderbolt and her terror reached a crescendo with a shriek that must have ripped her vocal cords apart like a frenzy of microscopic sharks rubbing up against them and leaving behind a million tiny paper cuts with their denticles before her body erupted in an explosion of chum and feathers like a can of unopened Van Camp's pork and beans cooking over an open fire for too long. It was arousing.

Rachis fell to his knees, covered in his sister's guts, and wept. I watched as he picked up one of her feathers and sniffed it like a line of coke on a pair of unwashed panties before he stuffed it in his pocket.

I got on my Bearcat and beckoned him to put his headphones back on. He lurched over to them, like William H. Macy in Fargo traipsing to his car to scrape the ice off of his windshield, and rested them on his head.

"DO YOU KNOW NOW TO, NEVER AGAIN, DEFYETH ME!"

"Yes, Lord Vainglory. Never again shall I question you."

"GOOD. DO AS I HAVE COMMANDED YE AND USE THIS WHEN YOU DO IT," I conjured a wavy dagger and sent it down to him from the heavens. Rachis grabbed the dagger and ran one of his fingers along the blade as though he were taking it for a ride on a roller coaster of despair. "AND YOU WILL DO IT," I smirked, "OR ELSE, YOUR CHILDREN WILL SUFFER A SIMILAR FATE."

"I understand, Lord Vainglory."

"GOOD. MAKE CERTAIN THAT EVERY SOUL WAKES UP TO WITNESS THE SACRIFICES. THE MEN AND THE WOMEN. THE LIVING AND THE ROBOTIC. THE ELDERLY AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN. BE SURE TO MAKE THEM ALL SEE IT."

"My Master, not to question your wisdom but…" he gulped, "might we make an exception for women with small children?"

"NOW, WHY THE HELL WOULD WE DO THAT?"

"To see a child being murdered would do grievous harm to a little one's heart. It would just be too much for him to bear for the rest of his life."

"OHOHOHO, RACHIS, BUDDY! YOU'RE NOT SAYING THAT YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR INNOCENCE, ARE YOU? IT CAN TRAUMATIZE THEM, SURE, BUT THAT'S A GOOD THING; THE WORLD IS A TERRIBLE PLACE AND CHILDREN NEED TO BE EXPOSED TO THESE SORTS OF EXPERIENCES TO BUILD A TOLERANCE FOR THE STRESSES OF LIFE. IF WE WERE TO MOLLYCODDLE OUR CHILDREN AND CONSTANTLY HOVER OVER THEIR SHOULDERS, READY TO SHIELD THEM FROM THE SLIGHTEST THREAT OF DANGER: THEY WOULD GROW UP TO BE SHALLOW AND MANIC. SEEING THE BLOOD SACRIFICE OF A CHILD WILL GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A REAL EXPERIENCE IN GROWING UP AND MAKE THEM MORE THOUGHTFUL AND INTELLIGENT; I KNOW IT DID WONDERS FOR ME WHEN I WAS BEING RAISED IN A COMMUNE THAT BELONGED TO A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION THAT I AM LEGALLY PRECLUDED FROM IDENTIFYING BY NAME."

Rachis said nothing. His face was frozen in a look of utter amazement.

I figured he must have been confused, "LET ME PUT IT THIS WAY: INNOCENCE IS LIKE A HYMEN: THE SOONER IT'S OFF, THE BETTER."

"I see," Rachis said, "I will do as you command, my Lord."

"EXCELLENT! JUST ADHERE TO YOUR SACRED DUTY AND I SHALL BRING TO YOU A MESSIAH. HE WILL BRING YOU SALVATION AND LIGHT THE SKY ONCE MORE!"

I turned off my Bearcat and opened a window in Tor so I could torrent some discographies in FLAC format without seeding…

In the weeks that followed, I sporadically searched through some parallel universes with an Inter-Universal Warper/Ripper that I bought off of Ebay (it cost an assload) to find the perfect candidate to be my messiah but, for the most part, I procrastinated and vegged out watching videos of snow leopards and cheetahs meowing like house cats. However, I did get around to opening a rift to another universe where the light bulb that I needed could be bought off of Ebay and I managed to snipe two auctions for them and one more auction for the blueprints so I would never have to worry about running out of light bulbs again.

While my search for the Messiah continued, Rachis did as I commanded and brought a child to his altar to plunge the wavy dagger I gave him into the kidneys and then drag the blade towards the heart and punctured the left lung as he chanted his uvulations. His congregation was deathly silent as he performed his ritual. In retrospect, I probably should have told them that they needed to sing hymns while he did it. I'm not inclined to write those, especially not in praise of myself because I'm a pretty modest guy, but I would have trusted Rachis to come up with a good one.

A few weeks into the search, I still had no luck finding the Messiah but I did find a program that would allow me to materialize myself as a physical presence in my virtual bit coin mine, sort of like in the Matrix except I could completely digitize my real world physical self into the virtual mine and that would allow me to materialize in any real world safehouses after I made that killing in the bit coin market and set up a private cloud that could be covertly maintained by dozens of servers that it would piggyback from, like the ones at Bank of America's headquarters or the CIA's (they wouldn't notice because they're a bunch of retards who hire Indian script kiddies who can't solve the simplest and most common software bugs without googling them), so it would never really go away or be extinguished unless humanity destroyed itself with a global nuclear war. The only catch to it was that it needed a lot of power to sustain my virtual presence and that meant getting the spire to work again.

After a couple of months, however, I found my perfect messiah in a parallel universe where a race of hideous freaks of nature which looked like a cross between cats and people, called the Nekomata, were the dominant race on their version of Mars rather than Earth as their planetary system was almost identical to ours and the Nekomata lived on the fourth planet from the sun while the second and third ones were desolate, acidic hellholes.

His name was Niko, and he was being tucked into bed by what I assumed was his legal guardian. It was easy to assume she was his mother, she resembled him in a lot of ways except she was taller and had a nice pair of big ol' titties and a wide set of hips. Her face was quite nice to look at too, she didn't look haggard or mean but quite happy and charitable. However, when you're dealing with extra-dimensional creatures: it's prudent not to go with your initial impressions.

The boy who would screw in my light bulb wasn't bad to look at, either. He was young, cute, vulnerable… Just the way I liked them. I wished at that moment that I could have been the one tucking him into bed instead of his guardian.

That's why I abducted him from his home. I did him a favor, really. He was being raised by a single woman and would probably have grown up to be a lowlife without a strong father figure like myself in his life.

I teleported him into a new house I had constructed for him. The contractors who built it all died because a quarter of them were handling rusty nails and I refused to pay for their tetanus shots and the rest of them died because they were working in the dead of winter and would frequently slip on thick sheets of ice and proceed to fall from the second story, eviscerate themselves with their power tools, lose control of their own telescopic handlers and impale their fellow workmen, or they would go over to the nearby hydrogen sulfide geysers for a smoke break and light themselves on fire.

For a time, this house was haunted by the vengeful ghosts of the construction workers who had their lives snuffed out by my negligence but I exorcised them to a dimension of eternal suffering exactly like the one in Event Horizon so Niko would not be molested by any spirits. Just by me.

I placed him in the bedroom and made sure to lock the door in case he woke up too soon. Rachis' job was obsolete and I was about to lay him off, eternally and irrevocably, lest he were to pose a threat to me.

I got on my Bearcat and called his transmitter. When he heard its tone beckon him to the altar, he wasted no time in scrambling for the mic, "What news do you bring for us, my Lord?"

"Your peoples' salvation is nigh," my reassuring tones deceived him into betraying a smile. "However, I regret to inform you that your services are no longer required."

His smile turned to a look of confusion, "What?"

"I SAID YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED!"

"Forgive me, my Lord, I heard what you have said. I just can't say that I understand why you seek to rid of my services. Have I not been loyal to you?"

"To a fault, Rachis, Dearest of Friends. However, since we already have a Messiah, your role as High Priest is effectively redundant. I have also discovered a means by which I can manifest myself in your world as a physical presence so, with me around, it will be especially apparent that your function is vestigial."

"Then I shall devote my life to being a good father to my children and seek to atone for the children I have sacrificed in your name for they have brought no rain."

"I lied to you. They weren't meant to bring rain. I just hate children. The only redeeming thing about them is that they make me horny when they get a knife stuck into them like the way you did it," My heart fluttered to see Rachis tense up, grind his teeth, and let tears stream down his face like the pussy he was, "And now, you see, that I have told you too much so, not only are you vestigial, but you're a liability as well. That's why I'm going kill you."

Rachis "You're a monster, Jesús!"

"HAHAHAHA! THAT'S RIGHT, BABY! BETTER TELL YOUR KIDS TO CHECK UNDER THEIR BEDS FOR ME, TONIGHT!"

"I curse you, demon! May your Messiah turn against you and run you through with his sword!"

"WHO ARE YOU TO CURSE YOUR GOD, PUNY MORTAL! MY WORD IS INCONTROVERTIBLE AND MY WILL IS JUST. FOR YOUR INSOLENCE, I SHALL SUMMON YOUR CHILDREN TO WATCH AS I SMITE YOU!"

And so, I used my godly powers to bring his children to the altar and watch as I hurled a thunderbolt at his sorry ass and made him convulse into a delightfully gruesome jig until his limbs popped off of his torso, his head exploded like a bomb, his eyes and teeth flew through the air like shrapnel, and blood sprayed like fountains from the empty sockets in an orgiastic climax of carnage.

His children's horror was my delight. They wailed. I laughed.

"¡AHAHAHA! ¡PARA CITAR AL GRAN GUSTAVO CERATI: NADA PERSONAL, NIÑOS!"

Rachis' body erupted in an orgasmic cherry pop like Bill Murray's zit in Osmosis Jones and his guts sprayed all over his hysterically screaming children. After I sodomized them with a couple of titanium poles that I greased with their father's own blood, fat, and insulin and rubbed one out to it: I teleported them to their bedroom and watched as they mustered the feeble strength to pull the rods out of each other's gaping assholes and apply rubbing alcohol to their bleeding rectums so they wouldn't get infected before going to bed to have fitful, restless slumbers that I exacerbated with my godlike power of dream manipulation. They had been so traumatized by my treatment of them that Alulu, the little girl, reverted to an infantile state while Calamus, her older brother, suppressed his memory of these incidents and became a nervous wreck. Of course, if they were my kids, they wouldn't be such sheltered little pansies and wouldn't freak out like that if I did that to them because they wouldn't have the misfortune of being sired by a pathetic loser like Rachis Canseco.

Satisfied with how I tied those loose ends, I turned my attention to Niko, who was just stirring himself out of his sleep…

I shall continue this story soon but, right now, I'm feeling a bit light-headed so I'll need to take a power nap for a few hours or days or whatever. Please stand by.