by Eliza Tilton
She’s in trouble. Serious trouble.
The entire session I was a mess, fearful Ivy was going to die; fear so constricting, it stole the breath from my chest with overwhelming panic that my own life was in danger. To be fair, my emotions were all over the place, partly because of my weird make-out session with Astrid, and partly because I’m stressing over a girl who isn’t real.
It’s the vid. Meshing too much.
If I stop, give myself a few days to clear my head, I’ll be fine.
I don’t want to stop.
I need to know if she makes it out of this story alive.
It’s weird to use BORAS in a vid, especially when you make them out to be the villain. Most of the vids BORAS produce span the thriller, romance, and mystery genres. They have a few kid vids, but they’re way too PG for my taste.
I put the visor away and stretch, feeling the ache in my trap muscles like I did a hundred pull-ups in my sleep. The sensory applicators in this vid must be going into overdrive with the bios acting up. With that much brain stimulation, my body actually thinks it did that many pull-ups.
The sun comes blazing into the room as the automatic shades rise. I’ve slept well into late afternoon, but I’m not ready to leave the sanctity of my room just yet. After the turmoil of seeing Astrid last night, I need time alone to think and relax. I think about meshing a different vid, one a little less intense, something fun, something to get me back to normal.
Under my bed is a metal storage case filled with vids I’ve collected over the past two years. I have a few favorites, one of which is called ‘Electric Fly’. It takes place in a wild nightclub—nothing dark or heavy like Disturbia—and centers around a DJ. I’ll admit there’s not much meat to the story, but it’s one hell of a ride.
My mother knocks on the door. “Damion?” she calls out softly.
“Yeah?” I answer as I grab the vid and reach for my visor.
“I’m heading to the Pantry now. Meet me there later, okay?”
I sigh and slide the vid back into the case. “Okay,” I answer, trying not to let her hear my total lack of enthusiasm. I forgot I promised to help her at the Food Pantry. If I slip into Electric Fly, I’m not coming out for hours, especially when that blonde-haired vixen starts dancing.
By the time I stumble into the living room, Mom’s already gone. The TV is on, flashing a breaking news bulletin, and the invigorating scent of fresh espresso calls me to the kitchen. I shuffle to the counter and take one of the brown mugs from the holder, then put it under the espresso maker and watch it fill. My ears pick out the news anchor from the living room.
“Last night, a fire claimed the lives of two people in the brownstone district. Officials are saying the cause is unknown, but they believe the fire started in the kitchen. Channel seven reporter Tim Robbins is on the scene now.”
Sipping from my cup, I watch the screen, leaning against the counter. The brownstone district is in Midtown. It’s one of the original districts of the city with classic brick buildings that have been part of the city’s design since the beginning.
“I’m live on the scene in the brownstone district where last night, a husband and wife died in a horrific fire that destroyed their home. Officials say the blaze started in the kitchen, but there is no information yet on why the couple wasn’t able to make it out.”
The screen flashes a picture of the obliterated house, alongside a recent picture of the couple and their names . . . Rob and Sally Whitman.
The coffee turns to sludge in my mouth as the pictures sink in to my sleep-addled brain. “How is this possible?” I speak out loud, my mind unable to process what I’m seeing.
Rob and Sally Whitman, the people I watched die last night in the vid. Does this mean it really happened? How? Does that mean Ivy is real, too? There’s no way any of this can be real, right?
The sides of my head ache. I take a few aspirin before heading outside to hail a cabbie. The sun’s out, not a cloud to overshadow my own dark thoughts. A black and yellow cab zips over to the curb, hovering slightly above the road. The door slides open and I jump into the black leather seat in the back.
“Thirty-fourth and third,” I say, and swipe a chip card through the reader on the console in front of me.
The driver zooms off without a word, flying above the road in the cabbie lane. Personal vehicles and trucks are allowed on the paved road, but any car service vehicle rides fifty feet above in the air lanes.
What is going on?
My head pounds. I think back to what Roger and Jims have both warned me about. Mesh too much and my brain won’t be able to tell reality from fiction. Is that what’s happening? Am I having delusions? My stomach twists and for a moment. I consider getting a brain scan, although part of me is afraid of what that would reveal. What if I am losing my mind?
The cabbie stops at the corner and I head outside, back into the bright of day. A homeless man pushes a cart of stuffed bags to the side and walks into the Pantry. The city has always had a homeless problem. Before the storm surge, hundreds lived in the tunnels under the city. When the storm surge flooded Downtown and the subways, they had nowhere to go but up. The rats, any and every insect, rodents of every kind, and the homeless, all moved here.
There are several soup kitchens in the city, but Mom’s has the best potato chowder in fifty blocks. I walk through the front door and head into the back, where Mom is talking to the head cook and kneading bread.
“It would be much faster if you used frozen loafs,” I offer by way of greeting. It’s a conversation we’ve had many times before.
She pounds the dough with her fists without looking up. “Yes,” she chides, “but then it wouldn’t be fresh bread.”
I shake my head and smile. My mom is an old soul. She doesn’t belong in this era with her old-fashioned heart. “What do you need me to do?” I offer.
She points her chin at the apron rack, and I nod and slip a taupe apron over my head. I make my way to the serving line where one soup kitchen volunteer is already dishing out food.
“Morning, Mable.” I step next to her and take my place.
“Morning’s come and gone, sweetie,” Mable retorts cheekily. “How are you?” She maneuvers a metal spoon into an industrial-sized bin of mashed potatoes and plops a pile onto a paper plate held by a hungry patron.
“Good. You?”
“Peachy as ever.”
I pick up a matching spoon, and the next woman standing in line points to the green beans. I scoop some on her plate.
“Thank you,” she remarks, keeping her eyes downcast as she shuffles down the line.
Mom and I designed this place together. I was only twelve, but she wanted me to help. I suggested we bring some of the beauty of the lake to the city. Instead of plain metal tables, the cornflower blue room is lined with cherry wood picnic tables. White tablecloths hang over each one with potted mini-sunflowers in the center next to a classic holder of old fashioned ketchup and mustard bottles, the plastic squeeze kinds they show in old movies.
My favorite part of the Pantry is the far-left wall with the words ‘We are all family’ hand painted in black script—Mom’s handiwork. She wanted anyone who came in to feel part of the community, and it worked. We didn’t only have homeless people come to eat. Every so often, someone who just wanted to be around other people came and sat. Mom even made a No-Tech Allowed sign on the storefront window. Books, old board games, and puzzles were the only activities you’d find here or anywhere. Most people tossed those items, but there were a lot more who craved a piece of nature, a piece of the past.
The day passes by in a fog of dirty faces and thank yous. The patrons are always nice. Occasionally, you have a grump who requests a specific cut of meat or wants pecan pie instead of apple, but mostly they’re all happy to have a safe, warm place to eat.
Serving food to people in need req
uires little to no thought. I use the time to help clear my head. I haven’t yet processed the Whitmans’ real-life deaths featured in a vid. None of this makes sense. I’m not sure if I’m hallucinating, or if the vid is somehow connected real-time to what’s happening in the news. Tech changes fast. It’s possible the vid simply features cutting-edge technology that imports real-time data into the story, but that would mean putting an AI in the vid as opposed to real actors.
Possible, but not likely. In any event, there were too many questions about the entire situation to figure out on my own.
Surely, Jims knows more about the vid. For a split second, I think about telling my dad and getting his take on things. The guy’s IQ is over one-hundred-fifty, and besides being an engineering genius, he’s always warning me about the dangers of meshing, saying optogenetics is a dangerous science with ill intent. If BORAS had a hate club, he’d be its number one fan.
After standing in the same spot for hours, I’m seriously considering taking a break when I see a flash of blonde hair and an eerily familiar face. Covertly, I watch her step into line, her gaze darting back and forth as she scrutinizes everyone in the room.
My heart beats a staccato rhythm and the blood rushes in my ears. I can’t keep my eyes off her.
The line moves at a mercilessly slow pace, but finally, she’s standing in front of me. From this close, I can see that her brown eyes have a touch of amber around the iris, and her lips are perfectly shaped into a voluptuous heart.
When her gaze meets mine, electricity hums beneath my skin.
“Green beans?” I croak, my throat suddenly dry as dirt.
“Yes, please.”
It’s her.
Her voice ambles through the crevices of my mind. Most avatars I know of are professional actors, rich and inaccessible. I certainly never expected to find one in a soup kitchen. My mind races through all the options, discarding most in a flurry of images. If this is really ‘Ivy’, it’s possible she got mixed up with drugs and spent all her money, which would explain why she’s in a soup kitchen. Or, it’s conceivable this doppelganger girl merely looks exactly like my avatar. Blonde and pretty isn’t exactly uncommon, but that voice is hard to forget. The vid only showed her face twice, and the more I think about it, the more I second-guess my initial assumption. Is it her?
The paper plate clenched in her hands shakes, and I realize I’ve been staring without speaking for several long moments, and now she’s spooked.
I plaster on what I hope is a charming smile and give her a big helping of beans, all the while attempting to act cool.
“Thank you,” she responds quietly while almost glaring at me. I’m not sure if she’s mad for me staring or something else.
It’s her. I know it.
Do I tell her about the vid?
It’s strange to see avatars in real life. I met one at Disturbia, but she wasn’t an avatar in any of the vids I watched. All week long, I’ve been itching to see Ivy’s face. Now that she’s here …
But she’s an avatar, and the vid I’m watching was just another job to her. If I ask her about it, she’ll think I’m a twitch; one of those freaks who’s meshed so much, they can’t differentiate between reality and fiction.
Ivy tightens the grip on her plate and finds an empty spot by a family. She sits, turning her head left and right as if searching for someone.
She’s just an avatar, I tell myself, and try to channel all my energy into feeding another hungry mouth.
Another three people pass.
And then it clicks into place.
I blurt, “Mable, I need a break.”
Without waiting for her to acknowledge my request, I dash into the back, rip off the apron, and run back into the dining area.
But I’m too late. Ivy’s gone. I bolt outside and scan the sidewalk, but there are too many people, too many faces, and too many blondes walking the ave.
It can’t be! I continue to argue with myself.
But it is. I have a photographic memory when it comes to this stuff, and I remember her clothes: the same red jumpsuit she wore last night.
The minutes tick by slower than normal, and when it’s finally time to close, I rush Mom out the door and back home. In the cab, she outlines an idea she has for expanding the dining area to have a coffee nook. In my distracted state, all I can give her are short responses. I don’t want to be rude, but my mind is elsewhere.
When we’re in the elevator on the way up to our suite, she touches my shoulder. “Damion?”
I snap out of my reverie and turn, and her brows narrow in a concerned expression.
“What?”
“I asked if everything is all right.”
For a split second, I think of telling her about Ivy, but quickly discard the idea because it would be too much to explain. Besides being thoroughly un-tech savvy, she’s never meshed and wouldn’t understand that this vid is far more than just a movie for the senses. Instead, I offer a short, “I’m fine,” and a distracted smile.
She doesn’t ask me again, and we ascend the rest of the way in silence until the elevator opens to our penthouse. Soft jazz music clicks on as we enter the foyer, followed by lights throughout the main living areas. After removing our coats, Mom heads to the bathroom and I retreat to the sanctity of my room. I lock the door behind me, my fingers fumbling on the latch, and slip back into the vid to search for Ivy.
FOURTEEN
~Ivy~
Where do I go?
I think I’m somewhere in the mid-section of the city. Commercial images flash across metal buildings, covering every corner of space with advertisements for body enhancers. Vivid, bright colors, advertising dreams and fantasies. The large screen across from where I stand displays the word LUCID with BORAS’ logo, Making the World a Better Place, beneath it.
“Absalom, the place where you create fantasy,” the voice in the ad projects into the crowd. The newest, cutting edge visor model spins on the display, LUCID written on the side in purple. The greedy, affluent people of this city will snap up the latest invention like sheep, but what no one knows is that BORAS is planning to steal those dreams. Every secret desire, fervent wish, or desperate hope—all of it captured and held captive once you enter Absalom—the city of lies.
Seeing BORAS openly boast about their latest product, the device responsible for Bethany’s death, sends a surge of fear and sadness through me. Eric promised me his brother would find me, but in the event he didn’t, he instructed me to go to a place called Disturbia.
My eyes are heavy, wanting nothing more than to shut them and sleep away the pain. I’m so tired, it overwhelms me to the point of tears.
I can’t do this.
“Everything all right, Miss?”
In my despair, I didn’t realize someone had walked up beside me. Standing in front of me is a medium-built man with brown, curly hair, a warm face and the same wide dimples as Eric dressed in a black clergy polo shirt and jacket.
Words are lost to me, and I stare stupidly at him with wet-rimmed eyes.
“It’s cold outside, and without a jacket, you’ll freeze. Do you want to come in for a moment?” he suggests with a kind smile.
He gestures to the left and that’s when I see the glorious structure; impossibly tall, grey gothic steeples, and intricate stained-glass windows. Numb, I gaze at the large cathedral doors, admiring the beautiful carpentry and masonry work that must have taken decades to complete.
Only for a moment, then I go, I promise myself. With a nod, I follow the stranger into the church.
He opens the heavy door and gestures for me to go in front of him. I oblige but jump as the church door closes behind us with a thunderous boom.
At the hospital, there was one room that was designated as a church. It was just big enough to hold six pews, three on each side, and the only ornamentation was a wooden
cross bolted on the wall. A far cry from the masterpiece I stood in now.
“Make yourself at home,” he proposes. “Do you want some tea?”
At my small nod, he disappears through a side door with whisper-quiet steps.
Honestly, I don’t know how to make myself at home in a church. All I know about God comes from the stories the nurses used to tell us in the orphanage many years ago, stories I never thought of until now. I sit in one of the red upholstered pews, staring at the empty podium and the ornate wooden cross behind it. The cross is larger than the one in the hospital, and far more elegant with stained glass in the center of the wood.
Silence is eerie in an empty space, but even more so in an empty church. Saints painted on glass stare at me at every turn, and each breath is loud and ominous in the weighty stillness. Instinctively I hug myself, trying to rub the cold out of my shoulders.
“Here,” the man offers. “I wasn’t sure how you took it.” He hands me a steaming ceramic mug with a cartoon priest on it.
“Thank you.”
We had a priest that came to visit the orphanage. While my memories are old and foggy, I remember the warmth that seemed to radiate from his smile.
“My name is Pastor Luke.”
There’s a breath of silence as he waits for me to give him my name, but the moment passes, and I take a sip of tea instead. The hot liquid soothes my throat, enticing me to relax. “What are you doing here so late?”
Pastor Luke smiles. “I live here.”
“In a church?” My forehead scrunches at the thought of living in such a large, quiet building.
He holds his own mug between both hands, warming his frozen fingers. “Lost souls tend to show up at night,” Pastor Luke adds simply.
I eye him, wondering if he’s telling the truth. “Seems lonely.”
Undaunted, he replies, “God makes for good company.”