by A A Woods
“Yes, Miss Abergel.”
“You are dismissed.”
She doesn’t turn from the window as you bob your head and navigate the bulk of your body through the door, disappearing into infinite, gossamer halls before the memory goes blank.
Tora
Thursday, September 20th, 2195
11:02 A.M. EST
I’m nothing more than a hollow shell as I stumble up to our apartment’s rusty door, the industrial walls around me barely concealed by a thin layer of chipped paint. The money is gone—given to Mr. Consalos, who demanded an extra fifty virts as interest. Luckily, my father loaded more than I’d asked for. But now his PAP is dying and my knees are shaking and I can barely muster the energy to lift my hand to the apartment’s command console.
The door opens under my fingerprint (less secure than a memory lock, but at least it’s something) and a pungent wave of rot fills the hallway. Leaning against the entrance and breathing through my mouth, I fight the treacherous sobs that threaten to bubble out of me, knowing that if I let the dam break I’ll never be able to stop.
I’m just tired, I tell myself sternly, tumbling through the door and letting it slide shut behind me. I collapse against it and fold to the floor. Just exhausted. After a Cheetah Bar, this will all seem much more manageable. I’ll get back to the Tunnels in no time.
The words ring hollow in my head.
Through the flickering PAP camera, I see that the trash has overflowed. Take-out containers form a wobbling tower of white folding boxes and clear containers, scraps of food clinging to their sides like lichen. I can’t tell which smell is worse: the litterbox or the putrid sink full of half-washed dishes.
The motion-sensor light goes on and I see my mother.
It’s like she hasn’t even moved. She’s sleeping—finally—one elbow hooked over her eyes, the other dangling close to the Central Access Port in the middle of the floor. The red light is pulsing, inviting someone to sign on, even though her IRIS cable is still plugged into one of the six ports.
Her exhausted brain must have failed, forcing her to sleep halfway through a memory.
Something bumps into my shins, interrupting my numb observation.
“Hello, Pixel,” I say. Even to my own ears, my voice is empty.
The cat’s meow is reproachful as he rubs against my knees and then begins to walk into the kitchen, tail held high, glancing back to see if I’m following.
My breath comes out as a half-laugh. I shake my head. “Little tyrant.”
With a guttering blink, my father’s PAP dies at last.
I want to curl into a ball right there and let the overwhelming fatigue consume me. What would it feel like to just fall asleep, to ignore the smell and the mess and the hungry cat and let my responsibilities wash away? Escape into dreams, into memories….
Like my mother.
That thought is enough to get me moving.
With shaking arms, I shove myself upright, wait for my head to stop spinning, and follow Pixel into the kitchen. I find the handle of a cupboard with fumbling, clumsy fingers and let my hand trail over the contents. A few cans of soup, a crinkling package of pasta. There. A Cheetah Bar. I shove it into the pocket of Zhu’s jacket, using the other hand to feel my way toward the pantry, hunting for cat food. I follow the line of the counter, sliding my fingers along the square edge until it stops. Picturing where the shelves are, I let the now-free hand drift up, settle on the shelf, inch toward the back.
It takes longer than it should to find something. Neither of us has been shopping in weeks and our supplies are running critically low.
“You’re lucky today,” I say to Pixel in a dull voice, trying to ignore my mother’s delicate snores as they drift in through the opening in the kitchen wall. I hold the can up as if to show him, as if he might understand. “Last one.”
He meows and weaves between my legs, threatening to send me sprawling.
It’s a balancing act made more difficult by the eager animal at my feet. Toeing along the edge of the kitchen, I manage to find the empty cat bowl and place it on a tiny unclaimed patch of counter. Using the overflowing sink as an anchor, I find the silverware drawer. Empty, of course, but I dig toward the back where clean things sometimes hide.
A sharp point jabs into my thumb and I yank my hand back with a gasp. “Shit!”
Warm blood dribbles into the pad of my hand. The wound throbs. I clench my fist, focusing on the pain. It’s fuel, stoking my rage, bringing back my energy.
“One second,” I tell Pixel as my fingers walk along the counter, looking for the stove handle. I grab a dishtowel and wrap it around my thumb. With my right hand made bulky by the makeshift bandage, I use my left to open the can of food. Pixel meows as I struggle with the lid, yanking the top with jerky, frustrated movements. It breaks free suddenly, without warning, and I stumble back a step. The reek of canned beef and gravy joins the stench of the kitchen.
My empty stomach roils.
Swallowing bile, I use the counter to re-center myself, but I have no idea where I put the bowl. I grope for it, but in the mess of dishes and containers it’s like trying to find an image in static. My uninjured hand plunges into something soft and squishy. I snarl and reel back, shaking off the mess.
“Fuck it.”
Holding onto the smooth acrylic edge of the sink for balance, I bend over and dump the food all over the floor.
Pixel purrs and I lean against the counter, forcing my tired mind to catalogue the next steps as I wipe the muck off on the bloody towel.
I have to find Damien. Or get Khali to help. Simple enough. But then, winning a key to the tournament should have been simple. Frantic terror claws at my intestines as I think of time running out, dribbling through my fingers like the blood from my thumb. The ProRec tournament is in two days. Two days to get a key. Two days to figure out how to walk into the super-scraper without being recognized, break into their labs, hack my own cable.
Two days to solve this puzzle and find my brother.
There won’t be another opportunity like this one, at least not anytime soon. I know because I’ve spent the last six months waiting, hunting for a way in. ProRec is a stronghold, held together by secrecy and blackmail and insidious power.
And this is the only weakness I’ve managed to find.
I rip into my Cheetah Bar as Pixel makes slurping noises, no doubt searching for the morsels he’d missed. From the other room, my mother mutters something in her sleep. There’s the whooshing, dusty sound of a body flipping over on the couch.
I grimace, thinking of Dad’s offer. I could be at his place right now, sleeping in a clean bed, breathing clean air, listening to the taxies as they carry rich passengers between high-town and mid-town. Instead, I’m here. Breathing through my mouth. Planning a secretive return to the illegal gaming circle that will probably get me killed and panicking that I can’t do it faster.
The temptation to abandon Zhu is more revolting than the smell.
I shove the last bite of Cheetah Bar into my mouth. The flavors barely register. I’m already pushing off the counter, feeling my way along the wall, over the entrance, toward my bedroom.
Pixel’s head bumps against my aching calf, making me wince.
“Go away,” I mutter as my door slides open
He only purrs in response as he slips past me, snaking into my bedroom before I can stop him.
Damn cat.
Tora
Thursday, September 20th, 2195
11:20 A.M. EST
Crumpling into my chair feels like coming home.
I plug into my personal system with a deep, glorious breath. Code spills over my eyes and I dance through it like a child in the rain, relishing the power and freedom. At least I still have this. Kitzima might know that my cable’s hardware is unaltered, and Khali might know how I use it, but neither of them understand the full story. The way I’ve stretched Zhu’s simple update into something far more.
I may be a tiny
fish against the heaving freighter of ProRec, but at least I have sharp teeth.
I give myself several long breaths to enjoy the silence, the landscape behind the VERAN’s façade. Each one burns away the fog of my disappointment and frustration a little more. Even Pixel’s purring feels like a revving engine on my lap.
My lips crook into a lopsided grin. For the first time since Kitzima dragged me into her den, I feel strong.
Code spools in my avatar’s fingers, congealing over my cupped hands like light made solid. Usually, when I step behind the waterfall of the VERAN like this, I take the shape of my Yokai. It’s good practice, to hold that form, breathe through its lungs, feel its power. But this time, I let the veneer drop. I am shaped in binary, a shadow made of numbers. Ones and zeroes scroll on the stretched skin of my palms and my clothing billows with the breeze of invisible information whooshing past.
I don’t know what I look like, but I imagine it must be a fearsome sight.
A lattice begins to take shape, my mental commands molding the light into something sharp and harsh. A search algorithm, something to be thrown into the ocean of public memories and draw back what I need. I place my memory of Damien’s face in the middle, weaving a single instruction around it in a thousand permutations.
Find him. Fast.
When I’m done, I throw the net wide. It splits, breaks open, and disappears into the VERAN like scurrying rats. Watching it fade, I think of Damien and all the MemHeads who’ve gone missing, all the faces who stopped coming to matches or appearing in Gaming Houses. And the way no one ever tried to find them.
After all, topside citizens don’t care if the dregs of society vanish. If the friends of outcasts don’t come home. It’s a story as old as humanity that those on the bottom are eventually forgotten, abandoned, left in the dust as civilization rolls on above them. And the poor souls living in that layer of grime are too preoccupied with staying afloat, with maintaining their own strange, alternative, desperate lifestyles to take care of each other.
Looking for lost souls has never been a priority for those who are lost themselves.
Well someone’s looking now, I think ferociously, turning away.
Time to find Khali.
I rake through the SubNet, hunting for Anubis with reckless abandon. Most people would be terrified to reach into the unregulated network beneath the VERAN, afraid that any search could bring back a lethal foreign virus or yank them into an illegal black market. We’ve all heard horror stories from countries where Neurowiring is open source, of the guerrilla warfare and terrorism that can spread like wildfire through innocent populations. Just last week, Yuri Gamen announced a cyber-attack carried on an indie game from Sweden that could fry the deep-tissue wires and leave a person paralyzed, a prisoner in their own body.
ProRec, of course, protects us from that. Keeps us safe by keeping us in line. Keeping us controlled.
I snort.
The SubNet might be risky, but I’ll take it over the VERAN any day.
Results for Anubis pile in front of me, clamoring for attention, all of them wrong. The Egyptian god of the underworld. A goth café in the western sector. A theme park in Connecticut boasting the world’s highest maglev roller coaster.
I shake my head and sweep the results away, picking through the little I know about her. Tall, thick hair, tan skin, eyes so dark they’re almost black. In my mind, her wide lips quirk and her expression dances with mischief, with challenge.
My name’s Khalidah. Call me Khali.
I search the name.
Hundreds of options come up, many of them locked behind firewalls so thick even I can’t step behind them, but I find the one I’m looking for in moments. An ancient profile on an old “telephone book” website, before the Kinder Program, before young people could communicate by memories and without words.
On the profile is a SubNet IP address.
I frown.
Most Gamers have a presence down here. It’s the best way to communicate without being seen by ProRec. But she couldn’t have been more than thirteen when she started this page, probably still typing out commands on a real, physical screen. So she wasn’t a Gamer when she entered the SubNet.
Which means she’s hiding more than just her banded cable.
Who are you?
Thoughts churning, I pull up the profile. The picture attached is shadowed and younger, barely recognizable. Darkness coats her face like make-up and her head is tilted away from the camera. But one foot is resting on a desk—is that real wood? —and I want to smile as I see the six-inch, shimmering gold heel, catching my eye like the tip of a sword.
I begin my message.
Nice picture. You look like a real artist. Next lesson will be different, since you’re so eager for a challenge. Meet me in tonight at Warehouse 15 beneath the Skyline super-scraper. Door will be locked. Memory key attached. Don’t be late.
I clip a key to the message and send it off, watching it recede, praying that Khali still checks her old profiles.
A thrill of nervousness fills my chest as I think of sharing my favorite training-ground with her. It’s a risk, sure. She might steal it, or tell Kitzima, or compromise it enough that the owners lock the factory down for good this time.
But sometimes to get something, you have to give something first.
This is my peace offering. If I trust her, maybe she’ll relax. Let me in. Give me something I can use against her. The idea of blackmailing Khali makes my stomach clench, but I ignore it.
I don’t have time to second-guess.
My thoughts are shattered by the sound of a fist hammering frantically on my door.
“Mei? Mei, are you in there?”
My mother’s voice is so tangled with emotion that it takes me a moment to recognize it as hers. I yank out of the system and spin in my chair, hardly daring to believe…
“Mei, you let me in right now! I know you’re in there!”
Pixel’s meows harmonize with her frenzied voice and the result is like a fever dream, filling a space that has become so accustomed to unbroken silence.
I rise and navigate my room, tripping over a restless Pixel, tucking my IRIS cord into my hair before opening the door.
“Mom?” I ask tentatively. “What is it?”
Her arms grab me and haul me into a vice-grip hug. “Mei, where the hell have you been? I’ve been so worried, I almost called the police!”
My stomach drops at the thought of police coming here. I struggle to stay on my feet as Mom presses me against her washboard ribs, sharp arms curling tight as vines around my shoulders.
“Sorry, had to deal with some stuff.” I gasp as she squeezes tighter. “Hey, you’re choking me.” I shove against her protruding collarbones, trying to free myself.
“Why didn’t you check in? You could at least have let me know you’d be gone for so long!”
My fists clench and I tighten like a bowstring at the unfairness of it.
“I didn’t think you’d be so worried,” I spit, finally extracting myself from her grip.
The words hang in the air. Fill the space. Pixel meows.
And then, without warning, Mom is weeping into my shoulder and I’m supporting her and everything flips again.
“I’m so s-sorry, Mei,” she gasps through shuddering sobs. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know h-how to stop. I wish I c-could be the mother you remember, but I just can’t. I don’t k-know how. I don’t e-even know who I a-am anymore.”
“It’s okay,” I say, running my hand along the mountain range of her spine. “I know.”
The platitudes feel like ash in my mouth. Again, I wonder what it would be like to live with Dad. To have someone comfort me for a change.
“Maybe you can try that new channel, the one that’s supposed to wean you off?”
She shakes her head, her cheek brushing mine, spreading her tears between us. “I can’t just give up on him, Mei. I can’t let him go. That feels like killing him all over again.”
>
“He’s not dead,” I snap.
“Then where is he?” A fresh wave of tears crashes over her and she sags against me. Together, we lean into the doorframe and sink to the floor, me stroking her back, her leaning into my chest, letting me hold her up as I’ve done for so many months. “Where is he, Mei? Where’s my b-baby boy?”
I wish I could control it, but I can’t help the resentment that bubbles through my veins, the poison. How can someone who isn’t even here take up so much space? Zhu always seemed larger than life. He was a person who drew the eye, as my Dad liked to say. He used to fill every room he entered, loud and cheerful and present. Much as I adored him, even I was envious of oxygen he hogged.
But now?
If his presence was breathtaking, his absence is suffocating. The star of his life has collapsed into a black hole that sucks in light, happiness, warmth, love, leaving nothing behind. Where before, I lived in his shadow, now I live in the void he left, the vast expanse of nothing where our family once was. And worse than that, I’m trapped in the maze he created without ever giving me a choice, tethered by the last thing he said.
Never let them find you.
I can’t help but hate those words and everything they stand for. My mother’s desperate question circles me, cutting into my skin like the rope of a hangman’s noose.
Where is he?
Memory File of Zhu Sidana
Subject 00798
Time Stamp: Thursday, September 20th, 2195
4:13 P.M. EST
You’re in a beautiful mid-rise apartment, warmed by the fiery glow of evening light. The room is pleasantly cluttered, half-finished paintings and glass beads scattered in haphazard stacks, shoved in the corners, crowding the tiny side-tables. It looks like a space for artists, like the product of a chaotic mind, but there’s no one here.