I got off at Sunset and made the short walk to Tent City. That was what those of us who lived there called the refugee camp run by the PRC to house what were euphemistically known as the "war displaced." We'd once had homes and lives in Los Angeles. Then the Pacific Rim Coalition invaded and destroyed everything we knew, forcing us to live in tents that the UN had fought to provide for us. Echo Park was one of a dozen camps scattered across California.
I passed through a series of security clouds on my way to the check-in gate. The clouds were a thin fog of biometric analytic nanites designed to sniff out chemical traces and toxins indicating I either carried or had handled explosives. At the gate, the guard asked where I had gone and what I had done. We knew each other and had a certain understanding, thanks to a mutual acquaintance, Alice Xie. He didn't ask me questions about the DRMR unit or the memory chips in my possession.
He swiped my identity card and logged my return to the camp. I saw my record appear on the air display between us, listing my daily movements into and out of the camp, guard notes, and my photograph--which was the same as the one on my ident card. At the top of it all, my name, Jonah Everitt, was written in all caps.
"Why did you go into the city?" he asked.
"I was meeting friends at a restaurant in Century City."
"Refugees?"
"No," I said. "They live in Chinatown."
The guard nodded to me, and I nodded back, smartly deferential.
"Take off your shoes and socks. Go to Line Five for reentry."
I did as instructed. Line Five was long and slow moving. After twenty minutes, I passed through a metal arch and a denser cloud of security sniffers. Shoes and socks in hand, I walked barefoot to my tent.
Once there, I shrugged out of my coat and fell onto my cot. The day's work was catching up with me. I got up again, long enough to grab a nearly empty bottle of honey whiskey from my footlocker. It had been payment from the last job I had done for Jaime. Then I fished the DRMR unit from my coat pocket. I uncoiled the wire and plugged it into the data port behind my ear. I untwisted the bottle cap and took a quick hit. The thick, warm whiskey's heat was familiar and offered a bit of a bite against the taste of aged oak.
I remembered the jolt of adrenaline as I had walked into the motel room. My heart rate had spiked; my mouth had gone dry. I could have left, and a little remnant of instinct, of that fight-or-flight reflex, kicked in. But I had ignored it, clamped it down. The chiang, though--his emotions had been palatable, intense. I was excited to feel the moment of death from his perspective.
I took another slug of whiskey and held it in my mouth for a moment, savoring it. Then I swallowed and the let the odd chill and heat soak deep into my chest.
I hit play.
A grotesque electrical charge jolted through me, sparking neurons in my brain. A white light blasted through my cerebral cortex and optic nerves. Everything went blindingly bright for moments buried atop moments. An eternity of moments. This is how death feels. Invigorating. As my heart raced and pulse skyrocketed, my brain fought against the violent, foreign memory, against the shock, not knowing if it was alive or dying. A massive chemical dump, a deep, long aching undercut a sudden throbbing that stitched its way from my forehead to the crown of my skull. I could feel my hippocampus burning, like a ram's horn on fire in the center of my skull, feeling the flames, seeing the flames. Everything was amped way the fuck up. A building pressure spread a joyful ache through my groin, and I barely felt or heard the groan that escaped me before the sudden splash of wetness. This was death. This was life. Such beautiful pain, a cracking shot of noise and deafness. The whiteness slowly dissolved, then the walls of my tent snapped back into focus. My chest heaving, unable to catch my breath, I gasped for air. My winded lungs were sore.
Felt good. Felt so good.
Do it again. Hit play. The blast of white. My head throbbed under the searing heat and pain of shattered bone. My chest caught fire, heart racing so hard it felt ready to tear itself apart at the seams. My lungs were burning; each breath was agony. Beautiful pain. I screamed silently, my shouts lost to the buckling inside my skull. Throbbing and cracking, my bones shattered under the weight of memory.
This was death.
Cold eyes watching me.
A stranger's eyes.
My eyes.
"Please," I said. "Please don't."
Then the pitch tunnel staring coldly, as the gun is raised before me. A flash of light. Pain. Shock. Brutal. Short. Infinite.
I sat very still for a long time, trying to collect myself. I could finally breathe again, but I struggled to get my thoughts straight. I debated taking another hit and decided not to.
My arm was heavy as I reached behind my ear and unplugged the DRMR.
I was cold with flop-sweat chills. I couldn't shake the image of the hooker's fat, bruised lips, the trail of tears that had run down her face, or the impressions of fingers and nails on her neck and breasts. I raised the bottle to my lips and finished it.
I had to meet with Alice Xie the next day. The sun had set already. I was spent and hungry, but going to the mess hall, or to Jaime's for dinner, meant moving, and moving was too much work. I had noodles, but no fresh water. Both were too much work. I slipped the DRMR under my cot, then pushed my arms under the pillow as I rolled onto my side. I slept, and later, I woke up haunted.
Preservation (A DRMR Short Story) Page 6