by Dena Nicotra
My vision was blurry and I had to close one eye to focus on setting the auto-pilot. Next, I pushed the com light to contact Giz. I needed to at least…say goodbye. It barely flashed once before his face came up. “Thank God, Lee, where are you? Tell me you haven’t done anything stupid!”
“Too late for that,” I managed. He leaned in closer and furrowed his brow. “You look like shit. Where are you?” I shook my head. “I’m just outside Silicon Valley,” I said, shifting in my seat and wiping my upper lip.
“You didn’t take any pills with you, did you?” I shook my head. “How long has it been since you took your last dosage?” I thought through the fog in my brain. “I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter anymore,” I said.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Of course, it matters, you idiot!” I flinched at his high-pitched voice. Leave it to Giz to piss me off as I was dying. I would have cut the communication if I had the strength to lean forward. “Is the autopilot set?” he demanded. I rolled my eyes at the screen. “I’m an idiot, but I’m not stupid,” I grunted. Giz turned to say something to someone behind him and then looked back at me. “I’m going to give you the coordinates to I.D.E., and I want you to enter those by voice command. Then I want you to lean back and stay as still as you can,” he instructed. I didn’t want to pass out and end up crashing in the ocean, so I followed his advice. “Stay with me, Lee,” I heard his voice, but it sounded like a million miles away.
I must have passed out because the next thing I knew I was squinting against the sun and Giz was squawking at me from the com. “I’m awake,” I hissed. How does Alice stand that voice? I wondered. “How do any of us stand you!” he argued. I guess I’d wondered out loud. “If there was ever a more annoying woman on the face of the planet…” he trailed off as I leaned forward and promptly puked all over the floor. The pain in my head and lower back was excruciating. “Hang in there, Lee. Help is coming.”
I wanted to argue that I didn’t need help, but I didn’t have the strength. Once again, Mic was at the root of my frustration. I wanted to destroy the headquarters of hell and all I could do was sit there slumped over with the smell of vomit fumes wafting in the air and Giz’ whiny voice. I tried to lean forward to shut off the com, but my body wouldn’t obey me. Maybe I had already died, and this was hell. I questioned this as Giz prattled on until the sound of a hovcar landed beside me.
“You’re gonna be okay, Lee. You’re one stubborn bitch,” Giz proclaimed. The lightness of his voice told me he was telling the truth. A part of me wished he weren’t, but I’d never been happier to see Two. She raised the driver door and smiled down at me. “And they call me volatile,” she said. Grabbing my arm, she promptly stuck me with a hypodermic needle. “Crisis averted, Giz,” she said to the monitor. “Good job, Two.” She spoke to him briefly before ending the communication.
“I’m going to assume that tech-boy managed to restore you and that you’re not going to flip out and kill me.”
“You’re partially right,” she replied.
A fresh wave of adrenaline pulsed through my veins and I swallowed hard. I wasn’t strong enough to move yet, let alone fight. She stared at me, her expression blank. Then a slow smile spread across her face.
“It wasn’t Giz that restored me, it was Isaiah.” I rested my head against the seat and smiled. It was good to have my friend back. “I guess I owe you again, Two,” I said. She squeezed my hand. “How about you call me, BayLee from now on?”
Epilogue
I didn’t end up blowing up the headquarters of I.D.E. that day. I guess fate has a way of stepping in, like it or not. Giz took his family along with Deraline and Isaiah and moved back to the Bay area so that he could continue his work and use the resources of the I.D.E. facility as needed. He spends his time making sure that no other simps come online aside from ours. Alice says he mostly tinkers because Isaiah does most the work.
They had their second child, a boy they chose to name Benjamin. His thick tufts of flaming red hair make him look like a tiny Giz. I call him Chicken and he calls me, “We.” It’s close enough.
I feel safer than I ever have knowing Giz is out there, and it is reassuring to know that nothing has come online in over three years now. The people of Redburg have moved on, and although the scars of technology still haunt many of us, no one speaks on it much.
The circuit judge sentenced Mic’s Aunt Maude to life without the possibility of parole for the murder of a peace officer. Although I wasn’t there to see it, they say she didn’t go quietly. She’d never accept responsibility for the crimes she’d committed, let alone the role she’d played in creating the monster she viewed as her brilliant, beloved nephew.
Idella Gannett died in the summer of the same year Chicken was born. I still miss her, but I’ve kept my promise to look after Dallas. He and I share memories over a mason jar now and again. He’s doing all right, all things considered.
BayLee kept her own place, but we spend a lot of time together playing cards or working on the vegetable garden we share with everyone in town. To her credit, she’s earned a place in the community as the resident medical practitioner. She won’t accept any form of payment from anyone because she insists it is her way of giving back to humanity. I must admit, she makes me proud (if not a little jealous, if I’m being honest). She inspires me and makes me want to be a better person.
There’s nothing out there lurking in the night anymore, but every now and then I walk the perimeter with BayLee just to be sure. I’d say I live a simple life these days, but there’s no such thing, really. The winters are brutally cold and the summers are hot enough to make you forget and beg for winter to return. Still, I wouldn’t be happy living anywhere else. Like Idella would say, “we live the life we’re given and we do the best we can.” Besides, nothing simple is real.