"You are louder than you think," a voice whispered, startling Eri out of her thoughts.
Eri shivered, his company making her nervous.
"Bodhi? Where are you?"
He appeared in front of her, a faint outline in the dark.
"Your second time outside and you are just going to wander around? Seems like you would have a plan." He shrugged as he smiled at her.
Her relief was visible. "I don't need a plan to go outside. Sometimes you just go outside."
"Not here you don't." He turned to jog up the alley towards her road. "You coming?"
She jogged after him and as his speed increased, so did hers. He deftly maneuvered potholes and cracks, crumbling road and heaved sidewalks. She sprinted to keep up, the hot air in her lungs weighing her down.
Finally, he stopped and turned towards her. A small slice of moonlight illuminated his face, revealing a countenance brimming with uncertainty and excitement. He reached out towards her and she paused, looking at his hand. It was strong, strangely tan, and much bigger than hers. It shook slightly, and dropped a fraction of an inch when she hesitated.
She took a deep breath and put her hand in his, a small, but monumental gesture. Eri tried not to react to the small blur of energy she felt at his touch. She had never touched another real person other than her family. It felt familiar, yet odd at the same time. Her cheeks grew warm just as Bodhi turned to walk into another, narrower alley, tugging her after him.
The rain from earlier in the day had turned the alley into a damp, puddle-filled maze of old asphalt and mud. After walking for several minutes, he stopped. Eri, concentrating on keeping her balance, stumbled into his back. Her nose smashed between his shoulder blades.
"Ow," she mumbled, rubbing her nose. She heard him exhale a quiet laugh.
"There," he said, pointing. The buildings opened up enough above them to let in light from the night sky. The faint outline of a series of metal rungs appeared. They climbed the three stories of the building, disappearing as they reached the top.
"Going up that ladder seems worse than jumping out my window," she whispered.
Rather than answer her, Bodhi just looked at her. His fingers uncurled from her hand, releasing her slowly, deliberately. He saw a sprint of questions manipulate the expressions on her face. In deciding to trust him once, she would continue to trust him until he gave her reason not to. She reached up for the bottom rung, which hung several feet above her head. He looped his hands together and she placed a foot on his hands and a hand on his shoulder while he boosted her up. She grabbed the bar with both hands and pulled herself up. And then she began to climb.
She didn't look back at him. Dense clouds meandered above her, stealing any moments of moonlight she might have hoped for. She reached the top of the ladder, several feet below the top of the building. Bodhi climbed until his chest was at her waist, caging her in against the building.
"Okay, this is the tricky part," he said. She shut her eyes, feeling sweat spring anew on her hands. She wished he had told her of this tricky part before she had agreed to ascend thirty feet.
"You have to climb until your feet are on the top rung. You won't have anything for your hands to hold onto, so you have to lean towards the building. But once you get there, you can grab the top of the building and pull yourself up. I will climb with you to help brace you against the building." As he spoke, he climbed one more rung, so his feet were one rung below hers and his hands were on the same rung as hers. The heat from his skin accompanied the softness of his breath against her cheek, immobilizing her.
Shaking off her sense-saturated paralysis, Eri climbed one rung, leaning forward with her upper body. She wavered in a strange limbo state, with nothing pushing her forward or backward. Her upper body floated away from the building and she felt Bodhi's hand on her lower back. She leaned against him slightly, feeling him return the pressure, and she climbed another rung, searching upwards with her hands. She felt dizzy; her mouth was dry.
Certain she was going to throw up if she didn't regain some control of her upper body, she stretched with her hands until she felt the lip of the building. She climbed one more rung, the last one. She reached her arms over the lip of the roof and felt a metal bar on the inside. She pulled her stomach to the top of the roof edge while Bodhi pushed her feet. She tumbled over the edge and lay on the roof, sweating and gasping.
Bodhi hopped up and over, pausing to look at her. He smirked at her pale, sweaty face.
"So," Eri panted, "you have done this a couple times, then?"
Bodhi laughed and reached down to help her up. "Yes, a couple times. I wasn't sure you were going to make it. I'm impressed with your dogged determination."
"Yeah," she muttered. "Some people might call that stupidity."
Bodhi walked to the middle of the building and climbed a structure that Eri guessed was related to the ventilation system. She watched him carefully. Everything he did, he did with confidence and grace. He stood above her on a large metal construction. He looked down at her and she up at him. She could tell she baffled him as much as he perplexed her. She just wasn't sure why.
He cleared his throat. "We should probably not scream, but I don't think we need to whisper up here."
Eri nodded and looked around. She tried to remember how he'd gotten up there and began climbing in hopes of reaching the same destination.
Finally, Eri sat next to him, a strong, warm wind blowing moist air around her. She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise at how beautiful the view was. Below them, the city stretched in all directions. Dark buildings lined narrow roads. Factories glowed in the distance. Hundreds of housing units sat in neat rows between here and the factories, their silhouettes faint in the random spits of moonlight. To her right, in the far distance, was an expanse of overgrown fields that disappeared into blackness. To her left, beyond the housing units and beyond the light of the factory lay a dark abyss.
"What's over there?" She pointed to her left, her arm brushing his. She tried not to react, keeping her attention on the darkness in the distance.
"The lake. It seems closer than it really is," he said.
She let her eyes linger on the unfamiliarity of his face. "It's so dark," Eri said. "Everything is dark, even with the light of the moon."
He nodded. "The rain today washed away some of the smog. It is a perfect night to be up here. The breeze is nice, the sky is clear. Not bad for a first date." A corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile.
She shook her head. "Most boys just ask me to a movie or something through the Sims."
"I am definitely not most boys." He shrugged. "So... What do you want to know?"
Eri straightened in interest. Dating was awkward, but asking questions was not. "Everything," she answered. "About everything."
Bodhi laughed. "I figured as much. Okay, I will tell you a few key things you need to know and you just interrupt with questions when you have the urge." He took a deep breath. "I'll start with me since I have kind of asked you to trust me a lot up until this point. I guess it would make sense if you knew something about me?"
Eri nodded. She turned to see him better.
Bodhi scrunched up his face in thought. "Okay, my parents work for The People. They are considered in the class, 'scientist,' but I can't know any more about what they do than that. They have always valued questions and curiosity, which may have impacted their parenting." He gave her a sideways smile. "I am an only child and have been encouraged to explore as much as I want. My parents wrote me messages as soon as I could read, hidden from the view of the cameras in our house. The messages told me to be careful I didn't sound judgmental in my questions at school, to know that I was being recorded visually and audibly most of the time. They told me about the keypad and the rules about minors leaving the house. They likened it to a permanent curfew for anyone of Sims age. They also pointed subtly at my bedroom window as they sternly told me never to leave the house."
Eri looked at him
in disbelief. "When was the first time you went outside?"
"Mmmm…I must have been 7."
Eri's eyes opened wider. "Why? What do you do outside? Why aren't you sunburned or suffering from lung damage?"
"I don't want you thinking my parents were negligent." He smiled at her panic. "My parents laid down rules about when I could go and what I could do outside. I am only supposed to go out at night when I'm less likely to get caught and I can only go out for a couple hours at a time. If I want to go out during the day, they gave me a lotion to put on my skin to prevent the sun from damaging it. And when I go back in, sometimes I have to breathe through a machine for a few minutes."
"As far as what I do outside…I try to answer the questions I have. I try to figure out how things work. I am interested in how we got where we are. In humanity, in people." His eyes searched the view below, as if the answers lay amongst the darkness.
"But can't you just get those questions answered at school?" Eri pulled her legs up and crossed them in front of her, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in one of her hands. She stared at him. She couldn't believe he'd been going outside for years.
Bodhi laughed an easy laugh, one that reminded her of how Ezra laughed when he watched TV. "I find this interesting about you. You are both critical and faithful at the same time."
Eri wrinkled her nose. "I am not sure if that is a compliment."
"I think it is."
Eri felt herself uncurl a little from the careful, emotional cocoon that encased her. She wasn't sure what it was like to make a friend, but maybe it started this way. Maybe you felt like you knew each other a little bit, right from the start.
"Did you…Did you know, like, that I…" Eri fumbled for words. She broke eye contact with him and took a deep breath. "How come you were outside the day I went outside?"
"Being there," he said as he turned his eyes to the sky, "was just dumb luck. Recognizing you, on the other hand, was not. I know your log-on persona on the Sims because we have had classes together."
Eri cast her eyes downward, feeling guilty that she had never noticed him.
Bodhi continued, "And your persona over the last school year changed. Your hair color changed, your stature changed…and I realized I had changed mine, too…to look more like me. It's like, I would want someone to recognize the real me if we were ever to meet in the real world. Or, say I were to put in to get married. What if the person they paired me with was someone I had met at school, but didn't recognize? Looking different seemed superficial. I noticed you changed, too, and wondered if maybe you were thinking some of the same things I was. This was, of course, before I met you. I didn't know for certain if you were changing your persona to look more like you. It was just a hunch."
Eri took a deep breath. She hadn't really thought about why she had changed her persona, just that she had. "I think maybe…on a subconscious level…it did feel kind of like lying, to have my persona look so different from me. Do you think it matters?"
Bodhi shrugged. "I don't know. The researcher in me wants to know if other people do this too, if there is a mind-set that reality is better than simulation. I have watched for people whose personas are changing away from being traditionally attractive to looking more normal as they get older. There are more than just you and me, but not many. Some even go in the opposite direction, their personas getting more and more cartoon-like."
"So, it was just luck you saw me outside. But you recognized me because you had noticed my changing persona?"
Bodhi blushed. His normally confident posture wavered and he avoided her eyes. "Well, I… I know you. I noticed you, in school, not just because of your persona. You have this amazing habit of asking really innocent questions that fluster our teachers. I loved the one you asked at the beginning of this session in social studies class was: So, how did you decide what person's history to tell us? Like, who gets to tell their story? And will we ever learn the story from the view of other people?' It was spectacular, watching Ms. Fritz squirm. You know, most people think history is just facts to be regurgitated. It never occurs to them that events get spun and manipulated all the time."
He smiled to himself as he remembered that question, the way Eri had asked it so innocently, and how the teacher had stammered through an answer before walking to her desk to put a tic mark next to Eri's name. Bodhi had tried to figure out what the tic mark meant. He still didn't know.
She looked up at him and smiled. "So… you've kinda known me for a while? I am not sure if I am flattered or if you're creepy."
Bodhi shrugged. "I've been called worse. To continue the story, today I was outside looking for a plant I wanted to use to make lunch-"
"You were what?" Eri interrupted.
Bodhi shook his head. "I forget, that would make no sense to you. Today, when I saw you. I was looking for something called basil. It's an herb. A seasoning." She shook her head. "Based on growing conditions and places I have seen it before, it would make sense for there to be some on this side of town, on the south side of the building. I had collected a few specimens when I heard your door open and saw your head pop out. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe how easily I recognized you. And then, as curiosity got the best of you and you came outside, I realized you were getting yourself in trouble. I wasn't sure if I should try to talk to you or not-you might not have believed anything I said-but then I heard the street cleaners…and, well, you know the rest."
Eri leaned her arm into his. "And I am thankful you were there."
Bodhi smiled. "My parents are hopeful I can test into the college prep track and move into a position similar to theirs. I think they are optimistic that they may get to at least see me at work after our placements. But I overheard them talking the other night. My dad thinks I have a sensitive side, one that is too concerned with humanity and the circumstances of others to objectively work in the capacity they do. He wonders if maybe I won't score highly on a certain part of the Achievement Exam."
Bodhi nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. Eri could tell this troubled him deeply, the thought that his compassion for others was a flaw he could not shed. She decided to change the subject. "So, street cleaners?"
"Right. Street cleaners. They are kind of like the city's security guards, but they aren't paid by the city. Mostly, from what I have gathered, they are kind of like a black market for medicine and food, and the city looks the other way so long as they work as spies for them. I am not sure what they would have done if they had found us, but I get the distinct impression it wouldn't have been pleasant."
She read a thread of fear in his gaze. "So," Eri summarized, "they exist to keep people like you from exploring?"
"Yup. And to keep people happy. Sometimes, it seems like, people get bored or frustrated and I can hear yelling or stuff being thrown in a townhouse. Then I see the street cleaners show up and suddenly everyone is happy again. I don't know what exactly they do, whether it is deliver cupcakes or heroin or a threat, but it seems to keep the threat of the masses in the streets at bay."
"Do you think the masses are a threat? Like, are there more people like us, who are…curious?"
"I don't know. I am trying to figure that out. Sometimes I think I hear something, or see an unexpected shadow in the moonlight, and I wonder if there are other people outside, too. Maybe they aren't doing what I am doing, but they are outside and I think how ironic it would be that we are hiding from everyone, including each other. Maybe we pass, like ships in the night. It's just a feeling I have. I could be wrong." He stared down at his hands, thinking rapidly of all the times he got the feeling he wasn't alone outside. "You know, sometimes I think I could exist in this life, with things as they are supposed to be, neatly organized by The People. But part of me wonders, if I had the liberty to talk to anyone and say anything…might something better come of me?"
"I hadn't thought about it that way," Eri said, although that wasn't completely true. "Okay, another question. Why are we up here? Besides the fabulou
s view, of course."
"Because there is only one real way for us to get caught at night. There are night street cleaners who have heat-sensing cameras built into their dashboards. Take tonight, for instance. It is close to ninety-five degrees outside. We, being three to four degrees warmer than that, would stand out clearly on their cameras. But, up here?" Bodhi raised his hands to gesture at the world around them. "Safe."
"So, it's dangerous to be out here. Why continue doing it, then? It sounds like you have figured most things out already. What more is there?"
"Eri," he said, shaking his head, "there is more out here than you could even guess."
Bodhi reached over, taking her hand into his. She looked at their hands as her heart rate picked up. She could feel him looking at her, gauging if this physical contact was permissible. She stretched her hand and he loosened his grip as she intertwined her fingers between his. His hand felt different from anything she had ever touched. In her peripheral vision, she saw him look at their hands for a long moment before turning his attention back to the world.
"Have you ever been caught?" she asked.
"Yeah. Once. My parents had to pretend they knew nothing about me going outside. I was only eleven, so I pretended I wanted to go out and play, not knowing how dangerous it was. I got cut off from the Sims for three weeks. My parents also kept me inside for six months, since the street cleaners and cameras were trained on our house. But they moved on. I am not so sure they would be as lenient the second time."
Eri shivered in the heat, and Bodhi let go of her hand to put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her towards him. He smelled like soap and boy, unfamiliar to her nose. "Why does it feel different when you touch me than when someone touches me in the Sims?"
"Does it?" Bodhi frowned. "I haven't done much…simulated touching, I guess. What is different?" She tried not to roll her eyes at the way he asked, as if he needed a lab coat and a clipboard to record her answer.
"I don't know," she said, laughing uncomfortably. "I can't explain it. A real touch feels…warmer and stronger? No…I can't say exactly, other than in the Sims, I always knew it wasn't real and I could just turn off the machine and make it go away. No one was actually present with me. This is much more…permanent…like my brain knows it's happening to me, really happening, so I feel it and remember it with a different emotional attachment." She was certain she sounded like an idiot.
Empty Streets Page 4