Switcheroo Sunday

It didn’t matter to Val if Bread was an NPC or not. He was just a kid. Like her lil’ bro who she’d left behind. She never even learned his name…

“Do you really think I’m real?” Bread stared into the ground.

“Again?” Was he having an identity crisis? Existential? She couldn’t completely understand it, but she thought she could relate. Whenever her life didn’t go the way she had planned, she always thought back to what her purpose was. “If I were you,” she started, “I wouldn’t care what I was. You can be whoever you want to be. I was a thief before. But now I’m—”

Coach returned. He signaled to Bread, gave him a few words of advice and a device that looked all too foreign. Then he left. As hastily as he had appeared.

Way to cut me off. She turned back to Bread. “Okay.” She pulled him close. “I’ll be honest. I have no clue how this works, but listen to me. Just stay cool. I’ll be on the other side, waiting.”

Bread nodded. There was no more hesitation in his eyes.

Wasn’t he scared? Anxious? She gently knelt down beside him and caressed his rough hands. The skin on his knuckles were torn, and the bleeding had only just ebbed. It looked worse than any of her own injuries she’d had after fights. Didn’t it hurt? He had slammed those hospital walls with such force. Without a single care. Did he really want to leave that badly?

Suddenly, Bread’s entire body started to glow.

His arms and torso outlined in white; he started to shine uncontrollably. A shrill, robotic screech blared in the background, raising the hairs on her neck. Whatever procedure Coach had started, it was working. She couldn’t otherwise come up with a better reason for this growing, sensory intensity.

Bread started to glow brighter and brighter. His small hands squirmed. She saw him open his mouth but couldn’t make out what he was trying to say.

She nodded in understanding. She reassured his unheard words.

He smiled. He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear. And she heard it clearly this time—

“Thank you.”

And then he was gone.

Val gazed over at the now empty shoreline. The shape of his feet were still there, imprinted deeply into the sand.

…

“You back, lass?”

“Coach?” She pulled off her simulaset. After a few days inside Simular, she was finally back in the real world. Her joints were stiff; her body ached all over. “What happened to Bread?”

“The lad?” He gestured behind him. “He’s downloading.”

There was a body behind Coach. It was roughly stitched together, welded and soldered like some sort of off-brand modification doll. She could see parts of his collection in there—a steampunk-styled arm, an old, skin-colored prosthetic leg, and a bunch of other parts she had seen displayed around the backroom walls. The artificial head was also missing a face. It almost looked downright creepy without the synthetic skin that was usually supposed to be there.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“How should I know? I’m not a programmer.”

“Geez. Why’re you so grouchy?”

“Val, we got tangled up in this corpo mess with some android child in our hands. And we can’t even go back to Simular to make more bucks. How is that a good deal?” He marched towards her. His footsteps creaked across the floor. “Now, I’ll tell you what. I’m doing this for you. This here’s your responsibility. Remember that.”

“Okay, okay. I got it. Sheesh.”

The ceiling lights suddenly flickered.

“What was that?”

Coach hustled back to his computer. “We can’t have this turning off. That’s the last thing we want.” He motioned for her to move. “Get that cable over there and plug it into the power brick.”

She walked over and picked up a thick, black cable. “Whoa.” It was heavier than she had imagined. “What is this? Why’s it so heavy-duty?”

“It’s from the transmission lines.” He smirked. “They don’t even know I’m stealing their electricity.”

“Wow. You’re more of a thief than I am.” She inserted the cable into an empty socket of the power supply. It was an enormously large, metal box that was almost the full length of her arm.

“I had a business to run, lass. Can’t mod cyber-ups without running energy through all these power-hungry tools.”

The lights dimmed again. This time, the power supply made a loud beeping noise.

“What in god’s name?” He smacked the black box. “There should be plenty of power. Is there a blackout?” He pulled out an old-fashioned strobephone from the 90s. It looked like he was searching something up. “No, the grid’s fine. What is it then? The download? Is it corrupted?” He scratched his head. “That’s not even possible. It’s just a simple data transfer.”

The lights flickered again. This time, with more frequency.

“Val, check outside. Any of the lights out?”

She glanced out the window. “No, they’re fine.” The neighboring buildings were brightly illuminated under all that artificial glare. She turned around. “Is the kid going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.”

The flickering intensified again—as if somebody were toying with the lights.

“Is there nothing we can do? Like adding more power?” she asked. “There another cable we can connect?”

“I don’t know!” Coach paced in circles. “I’m no programmer, lass. There’s nothing more I can do.”

The eyes of the lifeless, mechanical body briefly sputtered to life. Its fingers started to twitch.

“Coach! The body!” She rushed over and examined the eyes. They were drifting back and forth, on and off. “Bread! Can you hear me? Are you there?” She shook the body. “Bread?”

“Don’t shake it too much! It’s fragile!”

“Bread!” The body didn’t budge. The ceiling lights were still blinking; the fingers danced with the erratic flickers. That meant electricity was flowing through. But what about the data? “Please work. You can’t just leave after saying, ‘thank you.’ C’mon!” And as she kept shaking the uninhabited body—

Everything shut down. The lights shut off. The computer went dark. There was only silence… As if night had finally returned to the city…

“Coach?”

“I’m here.”

She looked outside. All the lights were out. An inky darkness washed in, reminiscent of the blackjack tournament. There were no cars, no street lamps or any obscure, flashing ad boards. Not even a single spark… 

Then there was a flicker. It was coming from Coach’s Frankensteinian creation.

“Bread?” she called out.

The steampunk arm moved slightly more, beaming warm red through the seams. A voice finally crackled through, scratchy and slightly static—

“H-hello?”