Written: April 7, 2012
Players - Chapter One
December 12, 2012
Vincent Zeh looked out of his office window. He could see a full moon rising.
"Jeez, already," he said to himself. He was working a little late again this December night. He looked at his watch. 6:50 p.m. He started closing out all of his programs on his desktop computer and packed his leather messenger bag. He grabbed a report he thought he might look over at home. Maybe. He then got up and pulled the bag's strap over his shoulder.
He shut off his lights, walked out of his office, and headed out of the firm's main door. The receptionist had already left for the day. Many of the other lights throughout the floor were already dimmed. The cleaning staff had started emptying the trash baskets.
"Good night, Mr. Zeh," said one of the security guards as he walked out of his building.
"Good night," he replied.
It only took him a few minutes to walk home. Some of his friends joked that Vincent's vertical commute was probably farther than his horizontal commute. They might be right. Since his firm was on the 68th floor of the city's tallest skyscraper, and he lived only one and a half blocks from where he worked, it was very possible indeed.
"Why doesn't daddy have to drink it?" asked Sophia Zeh, in the typical way a four year old would ask why the world was so unfair.
"Daddy does have to drink it," stated Carissa Longworth-Zeh, matter-of-factly.
"You little rat," said Vincent, making a face at one of his daughters. Although Vincent was about to turn thirty-two years old, everyone knew he behaved like a seven year old; especially around his kids.
Vincent and Carissa had three adorable children. They were triplets; two girls and one boy. The two girls were identical twins with each other, while fraternal triplet with their brother.
Vincent then held up his glass of think gooey green paste so his children could see, and then chugged it all down in one continuous gulp, lasting about 10 seconds.
"Yum yum," he said. His kids laughed.
"Drink it slowly," insisted their mother. She didn't want them to choke.
Vincent then chased it down with a little bit of Mountain Dew. His wife smacked him lightly on the back side of his head.
"What?"
"You just neutralized the entire shake."
Vincent smiled.
"Well, if you made the shakes taste better. Maybe put more sugar in it," he said.
"Do you know how toxic sugar is for you?" Carissa started to lecture.
Vincent rolled his eyes. Jeezus. This again.
"Soda please?" begged his son Lucas.
"Sorry, you're not allowed," said Vincent, feeling a little bit sympathetic.
"Whyyyyy?" Lucas asked.
"Because it will mess with your growth," said Vincent. "You're still little. When you grow taller, you can drink soda."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Vincent felt a little bad, so he went over to the sink and poured out the rest of his can of Mountain Dew. He poured himself some spring water.
Vincent and Carissa were the most opposite pairing anyone had ever met. Carissa was a bit of a health nut, and Vincent, well, he was whatever the opposite of a health nut would be. Though, they managed to compromise. Carissa would serve healthy vegetable/grass shakes only two out days out of the week. The rest of the days, would be filled with healthy, but more typical children's drinks like milk or orange juice. Sometimes apple juice. Soda was a once-in-a-while thing for the kids. Only for birthday parties and maybe Thanksgiving.
After their dinner, the kids went into the family room to play. The married couple stood at the twin sinks to deal with the dishes. Carissa was always on wash duty.
"We have a dishwasher," Vincent used to say.
"Yea, but it's never as good," replied Carissa.
Vincent never knew what Carissa was talking about. The dishwasher was plenty effective. But he relented, and every night, they washed the dishes. At first, he let her deal with the dishes all by herself. She could have washed them and then place them in the drying rack. But she never just let the dishes dry themselves off. It would leave streaks. Or something. He watched as she washed a dish, and then dried it with a towel. Then went to wash another dish, and then dried it. One day, he stood next to her and had her pass the wet dishes to him and he dried them with a towel. It would save her some time, he guessed. Anyway, he discovered that he liked standing next to her, even if it was doing something mundane.
After the dishes, the married couple went and played with their kids a little. Sometimes they would watch a cartoon on tv, but tonight, they played a board game. After the game, the kids had their baths, and then were tucked into bed.
The alarm sounded. Vincent woke up. It always amazed him how his wife could wake up without the help of an alarm. Then again, he sometimes woke up without an alarm too. But it was too spotty. He could do it maybe half the days of the week at most.
This morning, Carissa had woken up a little extra early to dye her hair. Carissa was the only natural blonde that Vincent ever met who would dye her hair darker.
"It helps the students and other professors take me more seriously," she once explained.
Carissa Longworth-Zeh was an assistant professor of mathematics at a nearby elite university. She was still fighting for tenure, but enjoyed her job a lot. Vincent used to tease her and call her a professor of "mathemagics."
At breakfast, he was greeted with yet another green gooey shake.
"Again?" he said. "We just had this yesterday."
"It's leftover," said Carissa.
"I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning," he said.
"Was it because you hoping to stay in bed with a beautiful lady?" she asked.
"Something like that."
He wrapped her arms around her waist as she was dropping juice boxes into the triplet's lunch bags.
Vincent stared at his healthy morning shake. It was only a third of a glass, and he chugged the thing down. He then drank half a glass of apple juice.
He sat down with his kids at the breakfast table.
"Daddy, what do you do at work?" asked his youngest triplet, Maria.
"Boring stuff," he said.
"I want to be like you when I grow up," said Maria. She was playing with a small toy airplane.
"No you don't," he said. "You want to do something fun. Like hunt dinosaurs!" As he said that, he brought his hands up like the claws of a T-Rex and then started clawing at Maria.
Maria giggled.
"Everyone knows dinosaurs aren't real, daddy!"
Vincent wasn't sure what to make of that. Of course, dinosaurs don't exist in modern times. But at one point, they were real. Or so the scientists keep saying.
Although his kids were only four years old, they had considered what they would want to be when they grew up. Vincent didn't expect them to stick to their ideas, of course. This month, his son Lucas wanted to be an astronaut. His daughter Sophia wanted to be a police officer. And his daughter Maria apparently wanted to be "just like him."
Carissa had encouraged their kids to work hard in pre-school. They recently started to learn to read and work with numbers. Soon, they would be getting homework. Homework for four year olds. What has this world come to?
Vincent was the polar opposite. He encouraged his kids to play.
"Use your imagination and have fun," he often said. "Having fun is the most important thing you can do."
One time, Sophia had said she wanted to be a scientist when she grew up.
"Forget about all that stuff," said Vincent. "Math and science will all be done by robots when you guys grow up. Robots! You guys need to play, and play well. Play a musical instrument. Play a sport. Act in a play. Do things that will entertain people. It'll make them happy and it'll make you happy."
Carissa pinched Vincent's arm. Hard.
"Oww!"
"Don't listen to your daddy, kids," said Carissa. "School is very important."
"Hey, I didn't tell them to do bad in school."
After hanging out with his children for a brief 10 minutes, Vincent got up from the breakfast table and walked over to his wife.
"I'm gonna run. Have an enjoyable day, carebear."
He got up slightly on his tiptoes, balanced on the balls of feet, and gave her a quick kiss on her lips. When barefoot, Carissa was only about half an inch taller than Vincent. But now, she was in heels and she was at least 3 inches taller than him.
"You too, bunny."
His kids giggled at what their mom called their dad. It was a new nickname. Vincent didn't seem to mind it.
"Be good, kids," he said.
"Bye daddy!" the three of them said in unison.
Vincent arrived at his office promptly at 9 o'clock. He wasn't the type to come in early. He settled down at his desk and read through the several e-mails he received overnight or early morning. He also wasn't the type to answer e-mails on his iPad while with his kids at breakfast. To his immediate superior's half satisfaction, Vincent at least checked his e-mail once before he went to bed.
Although his office wasn't that big, there was enough space for a small refrigerator. Most of his colleagues kept beer or some type of alcohol in their mini-fridge. Not Vincent. He didn't drink much. From one of his cabinets, he brought out a small plastic bowl and a box of cereal. As he was about to pour the cereal into the bowl, an old friend from law school walked by and knocked on his open door.
"Breakfast of champions?" asked Jarett Gronski. Jarett was an associate at Franklin Rome, one of the large corporate law firms in town. His office was several floors above Vincent's and the firm took up 4 floors. Vincent worked for a small-sized boutique which took up only half a floor. He liked his firm.
"They're magically delicious!" said Vincent as he shook his box of Lucky Charms. He loved that cereal since he was a child. The cereal was really just marshmallows for breakfast. He then brought out some milk from his fridge and doused it onto the cereal he just poured into the bowl.
"Organic soy milk with Lucky Charms. That's an interesting contrast," said Jarett. "Does Carissa know you sneak in some treats at the office?"
"Oh, she knows," said Vincent. "Anyway, I promised her I'd only eat this stuff twice a week. It balances out my vegetable goo."
Jarett laughed. "I can't believe she still makes that for you."
Vincent shrugged as he put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
"I also can't believe you aren't an obese and lethargic human being."
Vincent shrugged again. For someone who ate and drank so much sugar, he was actually quite skinny. It was almost scary. He figured it was part genetics, and part because he drank so much water throughout the day.
After he swallowed his mouthful of cereal, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and turned his attention back to his friend.
"So what brings you to the good ol' 68th floor?" Vincent asked.
"Deposition. This will be a fun one," said Jarett.
"Hmm…."
Jarett was dressed in a sleek gray suit, with a nice-looking tie. But then again, he was dressed up every day. His firm required it. So it wasn't easy to tell whether he was meeting with a client that day, or just dressed up as a matter of course. Vincent, on the other hand, almost never wore a suit. He liked to wear nice dress shirts, and maybe a tie once in a blue moon, but that was it. He hated suits. Though, he had two suits in his office in case of emergencies.
"Gotta run," said Jarett. "Enjoy your breakfast."
"Hey let's do lunch sometime," said Vincent. He looked down at his desk and started whipping through his calendar. "I'm free all of next week except Wednesday."
"I'll have my secretary call you," said Jarett. "I think I can do Tuesday."
"Cool," said Vincent. "I'll pencil that in. When you confirm, I'll ballpoint it. You know you're important when I ballpoint you in." It had been a few months since they last had lunch together.
"Important people get magic markers," joked Jarett.
"It would bleed onto the next page!" said Vincent.
Jarett waved goodbye and started walking toward the larger of the two conference rooms.
Lunchtime came, and Vincent tried to decide what he would be getting. Probably something with chicken in it. A chicken burrito, perhaps. He had been reviewing engineering documents for the past 3 and a half hours, and his eyes were beginning to protest.
Vincent was a staff attorney at a boutique patent firm. His firm's main office was in Silicon Valley, but since his branch was out in a slightly less expensive city, some of the work was farmed out to his branch to keep costs lower. He was well aware of all the geeks and their inventions. The computers were just getting so damn smart. While he was usually an optimistic and happy-go-lucky person, part of him worried about his kids. How would they compete with robots that could do almost anything?
He often thought about robots. But just then, he thought about his wife's new nickname for him. Bunny. He chuckled. A few months ago, his wife was typing out a text to one of her friends, who often referred to Vincent as "Vinny." When his wife texted her friend, she called him that too just to keep the names in sync. After Carissa sent her text, she noticed that her phone auto-corrected her text and replaced Vinny with "bunny." Because the b key and the u key were next to the v key and the i key, the computer in the phone had presumed there was a typing error. Maybe computers weren't that smart after all. In reality, the computers would probably get better at such things.
September 22, 2013
"Soccer?" asked Vincent. "On top of the music lessons?"
"Hey, you're the one who wanted them to play stuff," said Carissa.
She had handed Vincent a couple of brochures about little soccer camps for five year olds.
"But their lives are already so… busy," said Vincent. He was worried that his children would be overloaded. They recently started introductory piano and violin lessons, and took Chinese language classes on Saturdays.
"It's only once a week," said Carissa. "And anyway, they want to do it."
Vincent was tempted to un-enroll his kids from the music lessons. After all, they still had tiny hands. They weren't fit to play the piano.
To his surprise, Vincent's children loved their Chinese classes. Maybe they'd change their minds when things actually got tough though. For now, they were learning to write the simplest characters. They treated it as drawing class. Sometimes, when they were with their Grandma Lorrie, they would point out to random characters they recognized as she was reading a Chinese newspaper.
"That means fire!"
"That means sky!"
Lorrie, Vincent's mother, always encouraged her grandkids. They would soon be able to read more Chinese than her own sons! Though, she never corrected her grandkids. Maybe when they were older. It was too complicated to understand, because while they were right about the individual characters, the words sometimes shifted meaning when in compound words. When the two Chinese characters for "fire" and "car" came together, it meant train. Sometimes the character that meant sky was used to mean day, as in the Chinese phrase for every day read like every sky. She remembered that her own sons took a while to figure these things out.
December 12, 2018
"But that's not fair," said Sophia. Maria and Lucas nodded in agreement.
"We like different things," insisted Maria.
Vincent looked at his kids. Ten years old. Wow, time flies. The four of them were at a Toys 'R Us, looking through the video game section. Thus far, Vincent and Carissa had deprived their kids of the advanced video gaming systems. Only the educational systems that involved reading and math. But he finally relented, and decided to buy the family the newest Nintendo game system. Part of it was because he wanted a gaming system too. And he figured playing games together with his kids would help them bond. He couldn't play hide and seek with them forever.
"You know, maybe you guys just won't get any Christmas presents at all this year," Vincent bluffed. "We're not even Christians."
His kids were horrified.
"But… but…" said Lucas. "You were named after a saaiint!"
Vincent chuckled. Before they walked into the giant toy store, Vincent had told his kids that he would get the game system, but only one video game. He wouldn't get a second video game until they completed the first one. In truth, he wasn't sure he would do that, but he always liked to set expectations low and then beat them. This way, he could get them a game for Christmas and their birthday, and then they'd be thrilled with the two games. He remembered that one of his younger brother's friends experienced the "no other games before you complete the first one" rule when she was very young. She learned every facet and hidden level of her first game. It was funny and sad at the same time.
"Okay, okay," relented Vincent. "You guys get to pick one game each. But this counts also as presents from your Uncle Wit and Aunt Angie."
"Yay!" they shouted and started to browse the game selection.
Vincent picked up a Nintendo WiiSphere 3000. He wondered what the 3000 meant. It must mean something. Or else, why not 5000? Or 10,000? The new gaming technology was quite different from when he was a child. No more hand controllers. There were sensors that sensed what each person's hands and body were doing. Vincent had always been impressed by these technologies. He feared the robots, but he loved his entertainment systems.
His three children picked their games pretty quickly, as if they had already planned such an option. They probably did. Lucas picked a cartoon character football game. It featured Disney characters which were drafted into various positions like quarterback or linebacker. Ironically, Lucas wasn't considered the "athletic one" out of the triplets. The athletic one was Sophia. She picked a kart racing game, featuring various legacy Nintendo characters. Of course, Mario was the star. Maria picked the adventure game, also starring "Super" Mario. What made him so super?
"The kids said you fed them chicken McNuggets for lunch," said Carissa. Vincent could tell she wasn't too happy.
"I bought them what they asked for. They fed it to themselves."
"You are a horrible father," said Carissa.
"I am a horrible father," said Vincent. His kids hadn't had fast food for months. It wouldn't kill them. "If it helps, they got milk instead of soda; and apple slices instead of the fries."
It helped a little. Not much.
"Chocolate milk?" asked Carissa.
"Is there another type of milk?" joked Vincent.
She stared at him for a second.
"Two percent," he answered.
For the longest time, Vincent never understood what two percent meant. On one of his earlier dates with Carissa, a waitress had asked him if he wanted 2% milk.
"Can I get 100% milk please?" asked Vincent.
The waitress had laughed. She knew to give him regular milk. Eventually, Vincent's default milk was the reduced fat 2%. It turns out regular milk was probably just 3 or 4 percent anyway.
"Anyway, how is everything in the magical world of math?" asked Vincent as he changed the subject.
"We're all being destroyed by robots," joked Carissa.
"I knew it!" responded Vincent.
The two of them could go from bickering to joking around at the drop of a hat. It was one of the couple's more endearing qualities. Of course, going the other way was also just as sudden sometimes.
December 28, 2018
Vincent watched his children plug the video game system into the flat screen tv.
Maria was the first one to get to chose what the family played. She picked the racing game.
"Bamboozled," thought Vincent. Those little devils. She just picked "Sophia's" game. While he knew that each of his kids had different preferences, he should have known that they were all similar enough to like the same thing. If he had gotten them only one game, they all would have been fine with it. But he was okay. It was probably the right thing to do to get three games.
Vincent sat down with his triplets and the four of them picked different racing karts. With one lap left to go, Vincent was in the lead by half a kart. He slowed down a tiny bit, and Maria edged him out by a bumper and won the race.
"You let me win, daddy!" she said. She was happy and unhappy at the same time.
"Nuh-uh," said Vincent. "You won fair and square."
His wife was nearby. She watched her family while she was grading the papers of her freshman class. They were okay. But she was a little alarmed by the fact that a good portion of her class missed an exam question that was basically an exact duplicate of a practice question she gave earlier. Kids these days.
In between races, Vincent walked up and grabbed his wife.
"Come, come," he insisted. "Just one race."
Usually, she would not be interested in such nonsense. She was a no-nonsense type person! But she wanted a break from grading. And she wanted to play with her kids. She hoped they wouldn't be too addicted to the WiiSphere. Vincent brought her over to the couch and she sat on his lap. Before wrapping his arms around her waist, Vincent picked a pink kart for her.
"Why? Because I'm a girl?" she asked.
"That's exactly right," he said.
After three and a half laps of the five lap race, Carissa was trailing badly. However, she found herself having fun. At least, she did after she got used to controlling her kart, which took the first lap to figure out fully.
"You're pretty bad, mom," teased Lucas. He was in the lead at this point.
"Oh yea?" said Vincent. He put his hands over his wife's and started to help her control her kart. By the end, she crushed the other three karts by a quarter lap.
"High five, high five," he said to his wife. She shook her head but smiled, and then gave him a high five.
Lucas looked back at his father in disbelief.
"Teamwork makes the dream work," said Vincent.
November 5, 2019
"The tests came back positive again," said Dr. Fuller.
Vincent and Carissa were sitting on a leather sofa in Fuller's large office. He held her left hand with his right hand. She had tears dripping from her eyes.
Fuller remained silent, and let the couple digest the news.
After a minute, Carissa asked "How much time?"
"We're not sure. This is a new syndrome. Maybe six or seven months," replied Fuller.
This new disease was first discovered 4 years ago but was thought to be relatively contained. It became a full-blown epidemic over the summer. The most at risk populations were children and the elderly.
"Cryogenics is the only solution?" asked Vincent.
"Right now, it appears so," said Fuller. "The guys at CDC and labs all over the world are working on this 24/7."
There was hope that after freezing the patients in stasis, they could be revived after a cure was discovered. Cryo-sleep wasn't without risks. There was a chance the patient would never wake out of it. Vincent and Carissa decided it would be the best option.
December 1, 2019
The triplets prepared for their deep sleep. They hadn't felt any of the symptoms of the infection yet. They felt strong. Energetic. Capable.
Their parents tried to hide their fear as best as they could.
"Everything will be okay, you'll see," said Vincent. "It's just going to take them a few years to figure this out. But they'll do it."
Vincent and Carissa hugged each of their children, told them they loved them, and kissed them on the top of their heads before each went into the cryogenic chambers. The triplets themselves were more afraid of never again seeing their parents than they were of dying. What would happen if it took the scientists 100 years to figure it out, but eventually they did? The triplets would come out as orphans. They were only eleven years old. They would be lost in an unknown world.
While Vincent had tried to be optimistic and convincing that a cure would be found within years, Carissa wanted to be prepare her children for another possibility. Her last words to her children were "take care of each other." It was understood that she meant that as her goodbye.
Author's note: Thank you for reading this. If after you have read chapter 2, you feel this story does not belong in fanfic and instead belongs in original fic, please feel free to let me know via messaging or otherwise. If multiple people make that comment, I will remove it to the FictionPress webite for originals. This story was very gray and kind of hard for me to decide. Thanks again!