Saturday, 4/13/2216, Part 4

By the time Ontivia showed up, my carefully laid plan to drink as little as possible had sadly gone astray. I didn’t regret it though. I had more ‘human interactions’ in those thirty minutes than I had had in the last 3 years put together. The bartender, Olive, was a sweetheart, and they recommended a weird beer for me to try. The man who happened to be sitting next to me when I made my way to the bar, Tyse, was a sweetheart, and made idle conversation with me about what beers he liked and the corporate actions downtown. Add in Grygor and that’s three people!

I sat on the stool next to Tyse but facing the door so I would know the moment Ontivia walked in. When she did I almost scanned her to double check, but I wouldn’t disrespect Grygor’s bar like that.

Instead I yelled “T is that you?!”

Initially she had looked shocked, perhaps she wasn’t expecting me to have made some cool friends of my own. I couldn’t help it. This was my popular phase. She smiled with recognition and walked over.

“Hey Kriiiiss,” She said, stretching out my name in the middle, “so good to finally meet you!”

She looked how I knew she would from calls. She had dark skin and slanted grey-blue eyes and her hair was an explosion of multicolored locks that slowly changed colors in a rotating pattern. She was wearing glowing blue overalls over a white t-shirt.

I stood up, went for the hug, only to think better of it once it was too late, resulting in a falling side hug. I was worried I might hurt her with my shoulder, but she caught me first and righted me. She was much stronger than she looked.

“Woah, easy there!” She said, “I see you’ve been hitting the devil’s juice.”

“He’s had two beers,” said Tyse, laughing.

“Two and a half,” I insist, suddenly feeling hurt. I hold up my (nearly) half drunk glass as evidence before saying, “You’ve gotta catch up!”

“I will.” She replied, nodding at Olive.

She did. Rather quickly in fact. It turned out she knew all my cool new bar friends already too. I briefly considered feeling upset about the disparity in our social prowess, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Ontivia, Tyse, and I moved to a table. Every now and then Olive would yell something or Grygor would stop by before they went about the mysterious tasks required for running a bar with human labor. There was something quite novel about meeting and talking in person. These top tier human interactions would be overwhelming if everyone wasn’t so nice and accommodating. It was something I could see myself doing more of now that I was popular.

We talked about this and that as we drank, nothing of importance, just the news and the going ons around town. I was surprised how engaging it could be to talk about everyday life. Ontivia was as level headed as I had known her to be online, perhaps a little anti corporate but who wasn’t? Tyse, on the other hand, turned out to be quite the conspiracy theorist. He believed Xu’s suicide was an assassination, that politicians were actually alien lizards from the moon, and that Edison worked for EarthGov and the wars were intentional. When I brought up the standoff between Plex and Orange that shut down my subway station he said, “All that shit is just corporate theater, they’re all on the same page.”

That took me aback “Yeah fucking right. Why’wa they do some dumb shit like’at? It’s a waste for them… too, and it sh-ucks for me.” I said, slurring my words a little in my excitement.

He leaned over. “It’s because if they show their armed conflicts in public, in well populated cities, you won’t notice they’re not fighting for profits. If there’s some property damage and a few security folks die, we all think ‘damn, they’re serious’ when we should know they don’t give a fuck about people. Less people the better actually, that’s why this war—“

“Ok, that’s enough for now.” Ontivia said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “don’t scare him Tyse.”

He sat back in his chair and shrugged, “I’m just saying.”

“You, would’a loved my friend Donnelle.” I said, truthfully. Well, I don’t know if I can truthfully say he was a friend, but he wasn’t around to dispute it anymore.

“Sounds like a smart guy.” Tyse said, nodding and sipping his beer.

“Yeah, my guy was all ‘bout corporate shiesty doomerness. I’m not scared of none’a that shit though.” I said. They laughed at that and, after a second, I did too. A group laugh. A shared laugh. It was magical.

A woman walked up to our group and I didn’t even think to scan her. Good job me. She was tall and muscular with a headband that had text constantly streaming across it in neon lettering wrapped around her shaved head. I managed to read ‘…without constantly revolutionizing the instruments…’ before getting distracted.

“Hey T, good to see you again,” she said.

“You too.” Ontivia said, smiling.

“How are you doing after… all that?”

“I’m good, really.” Ontivia nodded at me. “This is my friend I told you about, Kriss, Kriss this is Maria.”

“Nice to meet you Kriss! I’ve heard about you.” Maria said, turning to tower over me with a wide smile on her face. Her teeth were all gold fangs. Scary.

“Hi.” I manage, weakly.

“I’m gonna borrow Tyse for a minute,” she said, putting a hand on Tyse’s shoulder. As she did, I noticed that her pinky and ring finger were prosthetic. Years of use had worn down the fake skin until bits of machinery were visible through the scratches and tears. Creepy.

“Enjoy your night!” She said, waving over her shoulder as she walked away. Tyse mumbled something that was probably a goodbye under his breath as he got up to follow her.

“She’s… scary.” I said, suddenly feeling slightly more sober.

Ontivia laughed. “She really isn’t! She’s just a gigantic sweetheart. Don’t get me wrong, she could beat your ass, but she wouldn’t.”

“How do you know her?”

“She’s uhhhh, I guess she’s a coworker.”

“From the human spot?”

“Yeah, ex-coworker I guess.”

Ontivia sipped her beer. I almost did the same but thought better of it, it was my 4th one, plus a shot! I didn’t know how much more I could handle. Instead I just awkwardly laid my hand on the table. Ontivia glanced at my hand and, feeling embarrassed, I reached out to sip my beer after all.

“Anyway,” she broke the silence, “can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I need to a place to stay in a few days, probably starting Wednesday. Do you think I could stay with you?” She looked up, looking embarrassed herself before continuing, “Only for a day or two and if not it’s totally cool, I just had to leave the spot I was staying at and—“

“Yeah!” I cut her off rather than leave her suffering. “That would be so much fun! I’m assuming you haven’t played much Camp Terror 3 yet right?”

“Yeah!” She answered, relief plain on her face. “I heard it was good but I haven’t had much of a chance to play games recently.”

“Oh, you were in Queens right? Was it those terrorists that kicked you out.”

“Sort of, yeah”

“Ooooh those fuckers. The human association or whatever? Why do a few tweakers have to ruin things for everyone else?”

She paused and looked at something over my shoulder before saying, “Well, I would say the police are the real problem in this case.”

“For taking out a terrorist cell? Come on, you and Tyse and the lizards!” I laughed at my own joke.

“They murdered 34 unarmed people.” She said, quietly. She really wasn’t letting this go.

“No, I heard the news they had tons of riot weapons.”

“They had flyers, hologram projectors, and spray paint.”

“Spray paint… Very retro, very cool.” I said, grasping at anything to change the subject. Grygor, had just walked up and I turned to him to save me.

“I noticed you painted your door!” I said to him.

“Thanks you like it?”

“Definitely, I want to paint something, where do you get paint?”

“It’s hard these days.” He replied, and for a moment, despite his smile, he seemed sad.

Yikes. I pick up my beer and drink deeply, killing it.

Ontivia saved me. “I have some actually. We could paint at your house if you want.”

“Oh, cool!” I said, starting to feel wobbly again.

She looked down at my beer and then up at Grygor. “Two more glasses of fermented wheat juice my good man!” She exclaimed, raising her empty glass at him.

He laughed, the ghost of sadness gone. “Yeah, yeah, coming right up” he said, taking our glasses and walking back over to the bar.

“Bring one for yourself too! Drink with us!” Ontivia yelled after him. I guess I have to drink another. 

Turns out popularity is hard work.