by DeVere, Taya
“Or who were worthless to Solomon’s agenda,” Kaarina says and stops by one of the tables with water and crispbread. She reaches for a bottle, opens the cap, and sniffs the water inside.
Why… Markus starts but falls silent when Margaret pauses her background coding and refocuses on her companions.
And you. Accuse. Me. Of being. Untrusting and. Skeptical.
Shrugging her shoulders, Kaarina flips the bottle upside down and lets the water pour out onto the ground. “Wouldn’t be the first time Solomon poisoned people, just because they were a minor inconvenience for her vision.”
A movement at the corner of her eye sends Kaarina spinning around on her heels. Four tents down the row, a blanket flaps shut, covering the entryway into a low, one-person tent. Frowning, Kaarina opens her mouth to ask Margaret what kind of a being could still move around in the Egg’s coding, when most of the people they’ve witnessed are frozen and lifeless.
She’ll just give you a snarky riddle of some sort, Markus whispers, knowing very well that Margaret can hear anything he says with ease. Let’s go see for ourselves.
While Margaret continues to do light data sweeping around the hub, Kaarina and Markus head to the tent with the flapping door. Confused, Kaarina reaches out to the blanket, her knuckles gently brushing against it. She rolls her eyes at herself, then clears her throat. “Um… knock, knock?”
Inside, a harsh fabric of some sort ruffles shortly. Then it’s silent again.
Ask if we can come in, Markus suggests.
“But this is my consciousness,” Kaarina whispers back. She rolls her eyes again. Whatever creature hides inside the tent must think that Kaarina’s a maniac for arguing with herself. “I should have access wherever.”
It’s still polite to ask, Markus says carefully, his voice more nervous than annoyed. Although how do we know they speak English?
Her fingers reaching for the blanket’s edge, Kaarina clears her throat again. “You speak English?”
The fabric inside the tent rustles again. The tent sways sideways a bit as the creature presses against the tent’s corner. Whoever, whatever, they are, Kaarina doesn’t feel like they’re going to attack her.
“I’m coming in,” she says. Somewhere in the background of her mind, Margaret chuckles faintly, then continues to hum some sort of a lullaby. Kaarina refuses to acknowledge her. “On the count of three, okay?” Kaarina looks up at the mountain tops, waiting for Markus to disagree with her. But he stays quiet as can be. “One… two… three.”
She pushes the blanket aside, kneeling down to see what’s inside. In the corner of the tent, a woman in her twenties is eating what looks like a chunk of… cake. Her long, light brown hair rests on the side of her sunburned face. Inside a thick army-green sleeping bag, she stares at a tablet computer, focusing on whatever sounds the headphones on her ears are playing. It’s not until Kaarina gets down on all fours and crawls to sit right in front of the woman that she snaps out of whatever entertainment she’s watching on her tablet.
Staring at Kaarina, curiosity flickering in her eyes, the woman takes another bite of cake. Her jaw moving slowly, she stares at Kaarina without a word. Her piercing gaze is starting to make Kaarina uncomfortable. The fact that Kaarina doesn’t know who the woman is or why she’s here in her consciousness is only making her unease grow.
Wiping off a few cake crumbs from the side of her mouth, the woman sits up taller and reaches for her headphones. She nudges them off to rest around her neck. “Who the fuck are you?”
Kaarina’s head jerks back in surprise. “Me?!” A short, nervous laugh escapes her lips. “Who the fuck are you? And why are you in my… headspace?”
She lowers the tablet in her hands, then tilts her head. “This thing,” she pokes the tent’s fabric twice, “is called a tent. And last I checked, I never invited you in.”
She doesn’t know where she is, Markus whispers. Right, Margaret? She has no idea she’s dead.
You two. Are too. Morbid. Margaret says. Despite the boredom in her voice, she moves closer to take a look at the tent woman. Who ever said. She’s dead?
Kaarina wets her lips to speak, but her words fail her. Instead of talking back to the refugee ghost, she waits for Markus and Margaret to make sense of this absurd situation.
Should we tell her she’s dead? Why is she awake while everyone else is not?
Good. Questions. If only we. Had an AI. Who isn’t. Up to her. Neck. In work. To search for. Answers.
“Where are you from?” Kaarina asks the woman. “What’s your name?”
Instead of answering Kaarina’s question, the woman glances at an electric gadget at the side of the tent’s doorway, then stares back at Kaarina, her gaze traveling from her face to her bare feet. “Where the hell are your socks, woman? I know we’re not at the North Pole anymore, but this is not exactly a tropical valley, either.”
Kaarina gets up and reaches for the gadget. With her head bent down in the low tent, she taps at the screen. A box with a filled-out form appears.
Refugee name: Jessika Valtonen
Relocation hub: 887SW
Occupation: Taxi driver
Relocation plan: to be confirmed
“You’re from Finland?” Kaarina says, still reading the information on the screen. It feels like she’s violating Jessika’s privacy, but at the same time… isn’t she the one who entered Kaarina’s cyberspace without permission?
“Jep,” she answers in their native Finnish, nodding once. “Or I was. Until they told me to get the hell out of Dodge and relocate to New Zealand.”
Frowning, Kaarina looks over her shoulder, peeking through the gap between the blanket and the tent. “Is that where we are?”
Jessika laughs briefly. “No, you ding-dong. This is the relocation hub in Switzerland. Are you off your meds or something?” She gestures at Kaarina’s bare feet. “Is that why you haven’t asked them for a fresh pair of socks?”
Blinking, she stares at Jessika. Markus fidgets closer, also unsure what to say.
She’s not. Dead. She’s stuck. In a. Stasis loop.
More blinking. Jessica’s unnerving stare. Margaret’s incomprehensible words. Markus’s fidgeting. Suddenly the hacks don’t feel like the most overwhelming thing that could happen to Kaarina in this strange place.
“Did they…” Kaarina pauses to close her eyes and to breathe. Once she opens her eyes again, she has a hard time meeting Jessika’s sharp gaze. “Did they put you in a stasis capsule? After the chipping procedure?”
Jessika laughs again, this time longer. She interrupts herself to scoff in disbelief. “Chipping procedure? What the hell are you talking about?”
She can’t. Recall. Those things, Margaret explains. This loop takes. Place. Before the stasis. Capsule and the. Chipping.
Kaarina’s silence makes Jessika’s face to grow serious. “So it is true.” She shakes the sleeping bag off her shoulders, gets up, snatches the tablet from Kaarina’s hands, and takes a few strides to reach the doorway. After placing the tablet back in its slot, she shoves the blanket door aside and walks out. In her cargo pants and matching long-sleeve T-shirt, she stretches her slim body and looks around the hub. But instead of being alarmed by her lifeless companions, or the Egg’s strange blue-green glimmer, she sighs and heads over to a van parked behind a row of tents. “You’re one of those people.”
Kaarina takes a step, then pauses to find out whether Markus or Margaret will help her out. Neither of the AIs makes a peep. “What people?” she asks as she follows Jessika to the van.
“The conspiracy theory loonies. I heard there were a few among us.” Jessika opens the van door and reaches for a metal tray with cake on it. Next to the cake, a mountain of dirty bowls and kitchenware sits in a cloud of small black flies. Jessica takes a slice of cake, leans on the van’s side. She picks out small crumbs of chocolate, popping them in her mouth. “You firmly believe the Big Four is after your money, status, and freedom. That the corporations are ta
king over the world, slowly but surely making us their slaves.” She shrugs, her short fingernails searching for the next chocolaty bite. As she brings the treat to her lips, she looks up at Kaarina and raises her eyebrows. “You’re a looney.”
Takes one. To know. One.
Are you serious right now? Markus’s fidgeting is getting out of hand. We need to help her, not mock her! What does it mean in practice to be in a stasis loop? Is she still alive? In one of the Server-Centers?
If only. We had. An AI…
Enough of that! Just spit it out, you… you… evil geek!
“Do you mind?!” Kaarina snaps, then waves her hand by the side of her ear.
She instantly regrets her reaction. Jessika’s hand freezes in midair, a small piece of cake falling to the ground. “Mind… what?” She slowly brings her hands together as if to protect what cake is left in her hand. “Mind sharing my food?” She shakes her head but keeps her eyes on Kaarina. “I ain’t giving you any cake. Go find your own abandoned vehicle with goodies inside. I waited for Mister Rogers to leave for months so I could claim whatever bakery goods he had left.”
Tell her what’s going on.
Not a. Good idea.
Tell her, Kaarina. It’s the right thing to do.
Says. Who?
Says any decent person left on the pla…
Markus gasps and falls silent as Kaarina slaps both sides of her head repeatedly. She squints her eyes shut, focusing all her strength on not yelling at the ranting AIs, hoping that her flustered outburst will be enough to silence the voices in her head. It works.
For a fleeting moment.
Well. Done, Markus. Now she’s. The town. Crazy.
Which town, Margaret?! This place isn’t real! This person isn’t real. Jessika shouldn’t even be here. If she’s stuck in a stasis capsule, shouldn’t she be… asleep?
Another. Good. Search for you. How does stasis. Work.
Let’s just… let’s just take a moment, okay?
Once the AIs have fallen quiet, Kaarina gasps for air, then forces a smile. “Sorry. I haven’t gotten a lot of… peace of mind lately. This place keeps me up at night. I think the fatigue is finally taking its toll. I’m not crazy. Nor do I want any of your cake.”
“Okay…” Jessika finally pops another chunk of cake in her mouth. Her jaw works as she continues chewing. “If not cake… What do you want?”
Kaarina rubs the bridge of her nose, waiting for Margaret or Markus to tell her what the right question to ask would be. She’s not even sure what the problem is. She’s not even sure if there is a problem. “Are you… I don’t know.” Kaarina lets her hands fall limp at her sides. She tries a smile. It turns out to be a grimace. “Happy?”
After shoving the rest of the cake in her mouth, Jessika wipes her hands together. She crosses her arms and gives a low chuckle. “Am I… happy? Wow, you really are a looney.”
“No, but I mean.” Kaarina shifts her weight from one foot to another. “Are you suffering?”
Jessica scratches her forehead and grins shortly. “I mean, this conversation is a bit painful. Yeah.”
“Can you just answer me?”
With a more serious look on her face, Jessika considers the question for a few seconds more. She turns around and slams the van door shut, checking that it’s locked. “Everyone here is suffering, looney,” she says, turning to face Kaarina again. “This is not what we signed up for when they told us we’d get a second chance in life. We’re just sitting here. Feeling… off. Those poor bastards outside even more than me. It’s a real treat, being stuck here with a bunch of drooling, braindead empty-heads. No one tells us anything. No one knows what’s going to happen next. If anything is going to happen at all. Once or twice a month, a black limo comes in, picks up one or two of us, and takes off into the mountains. We never hear from them again, never learn if they were relocated as was promised, or if they ended up in a ditch somewhere. So yeah…” Jessika narrows her eyes. “Yeah, I’m suffering. This is no life. No second chance.”
Kaarina looks around, carefully nodding at the closest frozen man who is arranging second-hand winter coats and sweaters to hang on a pole a few tents away. Jessika seems oblivious to his lifeless state. Why is she moving around, talking, living in this space while everyone else is not?
Because. Only some. End up in. The stasis. Loop. Margaret’s voice is more serious than usual.
How can it be these people aren’t rioting and demanding for justice?
Ask her about. The pills.
Clearing her throat, Kaarina turns back to Jessika, giving her a careful smile. “Do they give you something? You know, for the suffering?”
“You mean the pills?” Jessika investigates her thumbnail, gnaws on it for a few seconds, then spits on the ground. “Yeah, I don’t take that shit. Conspiracy or no conspiracy, I don’t like to pump foreign chemicals into my body. Back home, I didn’t even drink or use dope stickers… none of that crap.”
Markus fidgets closer to Kaarina. It’s not antidepressants they use to control people here. It’s not the Happiness-Pills, either.
Look at. You. Researching. Stuff.
Kaarina’s right, Markus says, ignoring Margaret. Everyone in the hubs was drugged. That’s why Jessika feels off. Even if she doesn’t take the pills, they are likely to put it in their food, water, everything. But the rest of them are pumped full of sedatives.
Kaarina blinks a few times, trying to stay on top of things and still remain calm. All this information has started to make her dizzy. She wants to understand the situation better, but an uneasy sensation somewhere deep within tells her that what she’s about to learn about Jessika’s fate isn’t something that’ll make her any less lightheaded.
“You okay, man?” Jessika frowns and nods at Kaarina. “You look a bit pale. Have you had your two liters today?”
“My… what?”
Jessika grabs a long brown men’s coat from the hanger. Hastily, she puts the coat on, then heads to the closest water and crispbread table. She takes two plastic bottles and tosses the one to Kaarina. To Kaarina’s surprise, her reflexes work better than they ever did while she was still alive; she catches the bottle with ease. Jessika nods at the bottle. “Drink up. People think that just because it’s chilly, dehydration isn’t something they have to worry about. Like they are about most things, they are wrong.”
Opening the cap, Kaarina tries to think of a way to tell Jessika why the people around her are so terribly off without sending Jessika off the rails. Learning that you’re in a coma for what could be an eternity, stuck in a make-believe loop in cyberspace among ghost people… Kaarina shakes her head. “So you never take those pills?”
Jessika cocks her head, her lips pressing into a line.
“Did I stutter?” Jessika scoffs.
Kaarina tries another smile. This time, it doesn’t turn into a grimace. “I don’t take them either. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone should.”
“No shit, looney. What am I to do about it? How am I to stop them?”
Scratching the back of her ear, Kaarina has a hard time knowing where to look. This person is smart. Jessika knows something’s going on. And the more senseless questions Kaarina asks, the closer to the devastating truth she’s leading Jessika. Kaarina wants to make this person’s forever-life in the loop at least a bit more pleasant, but telling Jessika about the coma would surely shatter what’s left of her sanity.
We could try. Deleting. Her. Code.
Kaarina shakes her head at Margaret, knowing very well how crazy it makes her look.
Okay. So we just. Leave. Her here.
“No!” Kaarina snaps at Margaret.
Jessika stands taller, a hint of fear flashing in her eyes. “Okay, hey,” she says with a slightly softer voice. “I can see you’re troubled. I can also tell that you’re not ready to tell me what’s going on with you. I get that. I can respect that. We all have our inner demons to wrestle with. It’s hard enough to d
eal with them without strangers judging and interrogating you.” She stops to investigate Kaarina’s face. “You want to help?” Jessica gestures for Kaarina to follow her back to her tent.
Hear that. Markus. We’re. Demons.
Seriously, Margaret. We need to help her. We need to do something. Can we release her from the stasis? Can you hack into her capsule and let her out?
Sure. I. Can. But what good. Will that. Do?
Markus pauses. Right… Because her mind is permanently gone.
Afraid so. She’s stuck here. In the. Egg. For good.
Kaarina curses under her breath, standing by the tent’s door. She looks at Jessika, rummaging through her cardboard boxes. Soon, Jessika fishes out a small fabric bag with a decorative elephant on its side. Rattling the bag briefly, she nods, turns around, and smiles at Kaarina. When she tosses the bag over, Kaarina effortlessly catches it.
“Sweeteners. Courtesy of me and my brand-new bakery van. Feed these to the zombies. We’ll see if we’re actually being drugged.”
You. Are.
“Me?” Kaarina blinks. “But… how?”
She gives a small smile. “The service tent will have a medical box in it. Fuckers are too lazy to haul this stuff in and out of the center. And the moron who fills the box never changes the code. Took me all of three times to spy on him to figure it out. The code’s 6-6-5-6. Just replace the white pills with the sugar ones and save the day. Or at least a bunch of empty-heads.”
“Okay…” Kaarina says, unable to look into Jessika’s eyes. Would this help? A tiny bit? This way, Jessika would at least have someone in the loop to share intelligent conversations with. “Okay, I will.”
“Good. Just don’t get caught by the moron of a guard. Beats me why, but they gave this asshole a real gun. Not that I’ve ever seen him use it. If he did, he’d probably just end up shooting his nuts off, maybe a few toes.” She shrugs. “But who knows? Maybe he’s a great shot. So be careful...” Jessika drops the brown coat on the tent’s floor, sits down in her corner, and dives back into her sleeping bag. Sitting up, she reaches for the tablet and her headphones. Before she returns to her show, she mumbles, “Because the last thing I need is your death on my conscience.”