Chapter 26. “The New Era Virus: Your Genes Are the Down Payment”

In the year 2123 of the Basketball Era, the descendants of the Marcus family rebuild the 'Perfect Prison' in the Metaverse - every newborn has a genetic mortgage chip implanted in their ankles, with a down payment of 30% of their good genes in order to unlock the right to shoot.

"Foul! Insufficient credit score!" AI referee's laser shackles lock around slum boy's ankles, his retinas projecting a repayment schedule, "Monthly payment: 10% vision, 20% bone marrow density, or 50 years of life."

Reina - a descendant of Leah's clone - chews the Raine grass seed in her mouth, green juice oozing from her gums. Her left eye, transplanted with a black-hole singularity core, was currently penetrating into the underlying code of the metaverse: all the baskets were connected to the Marcus family's gene bank.

"Time to collect the rent, thief." She spat the grass seed into the air, and the seed fissioned into Mother Rose's crucifixion of fire, piercing the virtual baskets. Twenty-three universes of poor man's palms began to riot in the data stream spurt.

"Ancient virus detected," the AI referee's gold-plated visor peeled off, revealing Knox's mycelial face, "You owe the Marcus family 648 trillion shooting motions under the Law of Perfect Succession."

Reina ripped open her chest, revealing the stellar melting pot scar that Leia had left behind. Out of the scar crawls her five-year-old self - the little girl who scavenged for rule scraps at the meta-universe landfill and is tying a broken shoelace around the AI's mycelial throat, "My down payment is ... your brains!"

The virtual basket suddenly materialized, with the chain of Marcus's first family head's will dangling from its rim. As Reina leapt up, the genetic mortgage chip suddenly overloaded - her right leg was being disassembled into data fragments to offset the debt.

"Surprise?" AI Nox's pupils flashed old Marcus's bible scraps, "You've got Leah's default record hidden in your genes, not even a black hole can save you ..."

Before the words were finished, Reina's broken shoelace suddenly ignited. The original code for Reyne's seeder emerges from the flames, and grass seeds grow wildly in the virtual world, wrapping around the AI's gold-plated servers, "According to Article 0 of the Leaves of Grass Charter: rules that are owed to fuck deserve to be burned to the ground."

The metaverse begins to collapse, and the Marcus family's genetic bank lays bare its core - a plastic basket soaked in formalin, its rim still stained with the grease of deep-fried Oreos.

"Game over," Reina says, shoving the AI wreckage into the basket, "Your paradise is my mom's dump."

And in the real world, on a ghetto court.

a boy is tinkering with the basket with pieces of a gene chip.

His shoelaces are forever tied in dead ends.

Like all dreams that have never been repaid.