Thursday, 4/18/2216, Part 3

“You do know I love you for real right?” Seitaro said, sitting across from me.

“I do.” I said back.

I had woken up in a dingy room with a single light overhead. The walls were dark grey concrete and the only furnishings were two chairs, one for me and one for him. “I’m gonna load some shit to keep you dull,” was the first thing I remembered him saying when I woke up. He wasn’t lying. If anything, dull was an understatement. I remembered everything, ChingWei’s execution, Ontivia’s suspension, Seitaro’s betrayal… I just couldn’t muster any emotion about any of it.

“I did say I’d protect you and I didn’t lie.”

“You didn’t.” He didn’t. I should be dead too and I knew it. He did too.

“You should be dead,” he said, “or at the very least getting every memory you have shown to a panel of detectives. But there’s a few unflattering ones of me in there.”

“There are.” A few came to mind. I suppose this is the benefit of having friends in high places.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He said, the expression on his face was not unsympathetic. “She was using you.”

“I know she was.” I did know. I just made peace with that.

“Are you really that thirsty that you would… Sorry, this isn’t the time for jokes.”

“It isn’t.” I agreed.

“Come on, lighten up. I’ve got a job for you.” He injected me with something through the cord in my neck port and some of the feeling slowly started to return to me. I suddenly realized that I had questions.

“Why not me?”

“Why not you, what?”

“Why not kill me too… why am I not dead?”

“Cause you’re my friend.” He said, looking genuinely hurt by the question.

“So?”

“I saved you.”

“Why?”

He stared wistfully at the grimy concrete wall with a half smile on his face.

“I’ll come clean. I was always meant to spy on your family. Think about it, I never had any parents. This isn’t a meritocracy, how did an orphan get here?” He paused as if I was actually meant to answer, then thought better of it and continued. “When they scooped me from the orphanage and assigned me to you, it saved me. You saved me.”

“You spied on my dad?” I asked, although I had known the answer for a long time.

“And your mom, and I’m really sorry about it.” He explained, real pain in his voice, “You know I love them, for real for real.”

“I do.”

“I couldn’t help it,” he kept explaining, “I was basically a walking camera. But that’s how I met you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

We sat in silence for a full minute. I couldn’t tell if he wanted my forgiveness or what. I didn’t really care.

“Don’t I know too much?”

“Thats what this is for.” He sent something through the chord into my NAC and there was a flash as something big was installed and started running without my permission.

“It's called an NDP, for Non-Disclosure Program. This is the last time you’ll be able to talk about any of this so you might as well get it all off your chest.” He explained, leaning back in his chair. “Ask away.”

“Are you really working for the government?”

“Yep, but bigger picture this is approved by the Big Four. Five if you count Edison. I gotta say it’s the least government infighting I’ve seen in my whole career.”

“Did I lead you to them?”

“You’re underselling yourself, you collaborated in their plot. I’m jealous you got to be a freedom fighter, for a day at least.”

I said nothing, just kept looking at him expectantly. He sighed.

“I knew you were in contact with the HU since before you did buddy. I’m sorry, they seemed like decent people.”

On some level I registered that his answer implied that they were all suspended or dead, but in this dulled state I hardly cared.

“So you’ve been watching?”

“I’ve been watching everything. Your contacts, your search history, your shock habits too. My bad bro. Apologies.” I felt a small twinge of worry about K alongside a small pang of guilt about Donnelle. Neither were large enough to give me pause.

“Isn’t that illegal? I’m still a Plex employee.”

“Subcontractor.” He corrected me.

“Subcontractor.” I agreed.

“They say the corporations protect their own but that’s a lie. There’s not a thing in the solar system they wouldn’t exchange to maintain the status quo. They collect data on all their employees in case we request it. Sometimes we don’t even request it.”

None of this was very surprising. What did I even want to know?

“What about the war?”

“What about it?”

“That it’s an act?”

“Everything’s an act.”

Seitaro’s games were particularly uninteresting to me right now. All I wanted were answers.

“Is it true?”

“Are you kidding me, of course it is.”

“Why?”

“Why? Have you been listening to me at all? To maintain this system, every now and then it gets a little too rowdy—”

I didn’t care about the explanation. I cut him off with a more important question.

“Did my dad write the book?”

“What?”

“The fight for human rights.”

“I don’t know bro, I’m not much of a reader.”

Even in my dulled state I felt the ghost of anger welling up inside me. I cut to the chase.

“Did they kill him for it?”

Seitaro sighed and clapped his hands. The dingy concrete walls and harsh hanging florescent light faded and were replaced by the familiar interior of my living room. He stood up and moved towards the door.

“No bud, I remember, he was troubled by the end. Whatever these HU people were trying to tell you about him is just more of their sick bullshit. Now get some sleep, please. You need it.”