Sunday, 5/19/2216, Part 1

The first missile hit Jakarta. Then one hit Tokyo. Then Manilla. Then Guangzhuo. Millions died as the earth's rotation brought more and more people into their staggered paths. The most recent one hit Mumbai, which gave me about 9 and a half hours before New York got hit. Not that I cared. I didn’t care about much these days.

“Ami!”

“Yeah?”

“K’s coming over.” It seemed she was staying until the last possible moment as well. It’s always good to take pride in your work. Today, I would ask her where she was going, and if there was any way to contact her without a NAC. There had to be. Whether she would tell me was to be determined. I had tried to ask when she was here two days ago but the words didn’t come out right.

Ami popped out of the bedroom, pouting.

“Does that mean you want me to hide?”

“No, she likes you, I think. It’s all good.”

“I think she likes me more than you.” She said with a smile.

“Probably. I like you more than me too.”

“You’re so sweet.” She said, semi-sarcastically. She wasn’t the biggest fan of my self deprecation.

“Not as sweet as you.”

The news was nothing but angry refugees vowing their vengeance and crowds cheering at grainy images of martian domes shattering taken by spy satellites. It didn’t interest me, but it passed the time.

I was in the kitchen eating salted yeast crackers (bland, but super cheap) when I got a notification.

Autonomous Apartment Management: JB:2189:U:947776328 requesting entry. Allow this action?

“Shit, who’s this guy?” I muttered to myself.

I immediately thought of the disaster aid workers coming to black bag me. Was EarthGov evacuating employees? They did detect narcotic drugs in my system, and had been notifying me for a while now. Why did I think they would give me a choice? They didn’t give me one about anything else.

After that admittedly irrational thought, I noticed that the person was young and unemployed. Definitely not an aid worker. I knew where he was from.

Select yes.

I waited a couple minutes for him to get to my unit. The door slid open. A young man with dark brown skin and curly dirty blonde hair walked in.

“Blaze?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, who are you?”

‘Fuck!’ I thought to myself, ‘fuck fuck fuck! You fucked it up you creepy old man. Of course she didn’t want to stay in contact.’

The man smiled. “Hey brah! My name’s Joe. You Kriss?”

“Yeah, uh, what… what happened to K?”

“Oh, uh, she got suspended. Her contacts were passed to me. I’ve making the rounds all day! Nothing drives business like knowing we’re all gonna die. Haha!”

Yeah, right. K wouldn’t get suspended, how could she? She never agreed to the terms of service in the first place. This was definitely my fault. I should have played it cool until she was my friend. Donelle became my friend, sort of. Fuck! I fucked up!!! I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled.

“You, uh, you copped the 20 gigs?” Joe was asking.

“Yeah, uh, thanks.” I mumbled as he handed me the drive. I didn’t need this. I needed K. I needed what she had.

“No problem brah!” he said with a big smile. “Peace!”

The door slid shut behind him. I stood there for a minute, reviewing my memories. Did she say anything before she left? Ugh. I was definitely awkward and disgusting but wasn’t I always?

I threw the drive. The small plastic rectangle ricocheted off the door and skidded across the floor towards the entrance to the kitchen.

I stumbled over to my room and collapsed onto my bed. I felt like crying. Ok, ok, chill out. I didn’t even know her like that. Nothing would have happened anyway. But fuck. I always did this. I always drove people away. Damn.

“You ok?” Ami asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just leave me alone for a bit.”

“Ok…” she said, voice brimming with concern, “but let me know if you need anything.”

I didn’t respond.

“Fuck you, Joe.” I whispered to myself instead. Why would K do this? I thought about going to see if TV Party was still open. If they were I’d ask if the bartender had seen her. If not I’d ask if he knew where to get more of that stuff. But it wouldn’t come to that, K couldn’t be suspended. How would they even find…

A terrible thought occurred to me. Seitaro. It had to be. He couldn’t let me live. Hadn’t he said he didn’t want me doing that? Lord knows what EarthGov would do to an unbound person like her. I led him right to her. Just like Ontivia. Just like ChingWei.

Just like dad.

Fuck.

Select main menu, select neural network, select dreams.

I opened up the most recent saved dream file and 1.5x speeded through what I had already seen.

You watch through the journey at your old school with young Seitaro. You see your mother again. You feel a little better. Mom always had that effect. You’re in the mall, sitting on the red car, and suddenly you’re driving it through a classic American city.

Ok, this is where I left off. 1x speed.

You see Donnelle walking down the block in a top hat and a coat with tails. He hops in the car and you drive to the top of a red snowcapped mountain where Aarin Chapeau is blinking out in front of television cameras. Then you go over the top of the mountain and are flying. The earth shatters beneath you, only to reform above. You look to the passenger seat, and sitting there, licking her teeth, is K with a black rectangular drive stuck in her arm. The car begins to fall upward towards the earth and that feeling jolts you into nothingness.

The alarm must have gone off there, I realized as the real world came back blurry. I was crying. Dreams weren’t enough. It wasn’t the same.

I stood up and grabbed the unused drive Kathy brought the other day. I walked, as if in a trance, to the kitchen entrance and picked up the drive Joe just brought over. Tears streaming down my face I plugged one into each shoulder port and crouched down, leaning against the kitchen door. I knew on some level that I was being stupid and overdramatic but I was too far past caring.

“Kriss!” Ami yelled. I ignored her.

The files pop up, one labeled Action Bronson, the other labeled 19th Century European Imperialism. I select them both at the same time.

Run multiple programs? Select yes.

It was way too much shock, but I knew what I was doing. In the split second it takes for them to load, I noticed the sleep aid plug-in, unused on top of my desk.

‘FUCK!’ Was my first thought.

‘Fuck it.’ Was my second.

You’re sitting on your parent’s bed with a bright blue cloudless sky above you. You’re crying. K has her arms around you. The bed is soft, her hair is soft, her arms are warm. “shhhh, shhh, it’s all going to be ok,” she whispers. Across from you sits Seitaro in your father’s favorite arm chair. “I’m proud of you Kriss, and I’m sorry…”

I came back. NO! NO! WHEN HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED!? That couldn’t be it! Send me back.

“I… I’m sorry” Ami said with a sharp exhale.

I looked up from my lap and stared in disbelief. She was crying. I sniffed and wiped my eyes. She was crying.

“W-whats wrong?”

Her shining blue eyes squinted as pioneer tears broke from their corners, carving canals down her cheeks to direct the flow of followers that poured down her contorted face.

Why?

“H-hey, it’s ok.” I reached up to try and touch her face. My hand passed through, leaving her tears undisturbed.

“I’m…”

No.

“I’m sorry…”

Stop!

“I couldn’t take away your pain,” she sobbed.

For a moment I just sat there staring at her beautiful face, awestruck by her unprecedented display of despair.

Suddenly I heard a loud crack and my head was pounding, sending deep piercing waves of pain through my entire body.

INTERNAL EMERGENCY: Rear right bio-chip failing. Please seek technical assistance immediately.

I slipped away again.

You’re in the bathroom of your childhood home. K is flopping around and babbling. “In 1807…” her left leg goes limp “… Lawyer on retainer like a teenage girl.” She falls to the tiles. “I’m sorry,” you say pleading. “I’m so sorry.” “You did this,” she mumbles from the floor. “You…” You see yourself from K’s perspective. You look much older and you have a big dumb happy smile. The scene changes and you’re on a Martian mountain, K still on the ground. You see yourself stabbing her with a connecting plug. It pierces her perfect un-ported flesh over and over and over again. Blood spurts out and pools on the ground, slowly soaking into the red earth. Ontivia and ChingWei are also on the ground, dead, stabbed, bloody. You step back and lick your teeth, laughing hysterically. They all stand up in unison and applaud. “SUSPENDED, SUSPENDED, SUSPENDED!” EarthGod is yelling from behind them. You take a bow.

I came back into a world of throbbing, pulsing pain. I shook my head to clear it and opened my eyes to see Ami, crouching in front of me, tears still streaming.

“I hope you can be happy.” I said to Ami, cool as hell. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry.” She replied.

“I love you. Forever.”

“I know,” she said as her face reset to factory default and a wide smile stretched out beneath her empty unfeeling eyes.

EarthGov: Due to your knowing possession and use of a controlled program, your account will be sus…

You’re sitting in your work chair at your desk staring deeply into your physical screen. It is displaying a large picture of the tree in the backyard of your childhood home. You notice that the first branch is so much closer to the ground than you remember it to be. “I love you.” You say. You feel a hand on your shoulder but do not turn around. You know who it is. “You’re free,” your dad whispers into your ear, electricity jumping off his skin. “You’re free.”

Shutdown.