Dechipped: The Download

by DeVere, Taya

  “Hey, hey, look at me!” Kaarina reaches for the boy’s chin but hesitates to touch him. “Do you want to hear another secret?”

  Maybe you. Should get. Out of there.

  Ignoring Margaret, Kaarina waits until the boy looks at her again. He gives her a serious nod. Kaarina leans closer and whispers, “I’m visiting you from the future.”

  Wide eyes blinking, he stares at Kaarina for a good while. “Not from the past?”

  She shakes her head no.

  “Oh. Well, good.”

  “Why is that good? Is your past something you don’t like to talk about?” And that’s when it hits her, sending a wave of guilt through Kaarina’s mind. The cat is the only thing she knows about Markus’s past. His teenage years. His childhood. Anything before he became a server for the Happiness-Program—blank. She didn’t even know that Markus grew up in an orphanage.

  I’ll slow down. The hack. But not. For long. The bed seems to float on the floor. But you do. Need to. Leave him. Soon.

  Suddenly, the young Markus blurts out, “I don’t remember.” His wide eyes stare at Kaarina again.

  “What don’t you remember? You don’t remember what you did before you moved in here? Do you remember what happened to your parents? Markus, do you remember what your mom looks like?”

  The boy’s gaze lowers, his eyes moving from side to side as he thinks hard, trying to remember. Did he grow up in the children’s home? What happened to his parents?

  “The string helmet… It…” he pauses to squint. “It made me forget.”

  “Hey, hey…” Kaarina reaches for the boy’s hand. “It’s okay. It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me anything. Do you want to talk about something else?”

  To Kaarina’s surprise, he crawls closer to her and presses against Kaarina’s chest. His baseball cap is knocked off, falling first on the bed’s frame and then down onto the floor. “Have you worn a string helmet, Kaarina?” Markus asks, his voice just a murmur.

  Stroking the boy’s long hair, Kaarina thinks hard, but she has a hard time following.

  The chipping. Helmet. They use it for. Experiments. Such as. Mind mapping.

  When the boy leans back to look into Kaarina’s eyes, she does her best to shake off the racing thoughts in her mind. She gives him a small smile. “Yes, I’ve worn the helmet as well. But I think for a different purpose.”

  “Did your parents also give you away?”

  “My…” Kaarina has to pause and take a breath. “Yes, Markus. They did. My father left me a long time ago. And my mom… She’s also gone.”

  The boy nods, then leans his head against Kaarina again. His breaths soft and steady, he stays quiet for a long time. Kaarina appreciates the pause Margaret is taking from the hack.

  “Did your mom and dad give you stickers?”

  Kaarina winces at the boy’s strange question. “Stickers?”

  “Mhm. The ones that make you feel all funny inside.”

  Her heart misses a beat. She leans back but doesn’t let go of the boy. “You mean… like drugs?”

  He nods. “I used to get half a sticker every morning and another at night. It made me feel really good at first, like I was an airplane, or a hawk, flying around my room. But then, the feeling went away.” The boy sighs. “It always went away and then I felt really, really bad.”

  “Were you locked up in your room for this?”

  He shakes his head no. “Why would mom and dad lock me up? Then I wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital or health house when the bad feeling came.”

  “You went to the hospital a lot?”

  “Mhm, every night. I had a treasure map of seven different hospitals and health houses nearby. I could walk to most, but sometimes I needed my bike. The one I had to bike twenty minutes to was my favorite. The doctor there would always give me a lollipop with the vending machine token.”

  “And what did you get from the vending machine?”

  “Pills.”

  “What kind of…” Kaarina inhales deeply. “What did these pills make you feel like? Did they take away the bad feelings after you flew around your room?”

  Another shake of his head. “I never took any of the pills. That was part of the game. I would tell the doctors they were for me, but once I got home, I always gave them to mom or dad.”

  “Why didn’t your mom or dad go get the pills themselves?”

  For a moment, he doesn’t say anything but stays deep in thought. “But who would have gotten the stickers if mom and dad did the treasure map instead of me? The doctors don’t like giving grown-ups the pills. Just like the street people don’t let me buy stickers.” He leans back and reaches for the fallen baseball cap. After putting it on and adjusting the cap briefly, he drops his hands and peeks at Kaarina. “You wouldn’t be a great treasure hunter at all, I think. You don’t seem to know any of the rules.”

  She forces a smile and ignores her need to scream. Though this place isn’t real—not anymore—she knows what the young Markus has told her to be true. She can feel it. Markus’s parents used him to buy pills that helped them with drug withdrawal. They drugged the boy, so when the doctors tested for the drugs, he’d always test positive and get a token for the vending machine. It all happened in real life. And the fact that Markus the AI refuses to be here right now only confirms this bitter truth.

  “You’re right,” she says and hugs her knees against her chest, now that the boy’s moved away from her embrace. “I’ve always sucked at reading maps of any kind.”

  You don’t. Say.

  Her gaze follows the glimmering seam of the ceiling. Shaking her head at Margaret, Kaarina wonders if she could bring the young Markus with them. If she could save the boy who’s been so terribly neglected since his early years. First by his parents, then by this facility where they experimented on his already damaged mind.

  You can’t. Bring him. The data doesn’t. Move. That way.

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” Kaarina says to the boy while scowling at the ceiling. She quickly forces a happier look on her face and gets up from the bed, extending her hand. “Come with me. Let’s get you out of here.”

  After a second of hesitation, the boy nods and jumps off the bed. He grabs her hand, and Kaarina starts leading him toward the doorway. A faint vibration starts to shake the floor. Soon, the pictures of airplanes and helicopters clack in their frames against the white walls. The floor turns into what looks like lava.

  I told you. You can’t. Bring him.

  “Watch me…” she mumbles.

  I can’t. Let you.

  The boy stops and pulls his hand back. Horror in his eyes, he stands in the middle of the floor, watching the frames fall off their hooks and the furniture jump.

  “Markus, we need to keep moving.”

  “I’m…” His wide eyes find Kaarina’s. Even when filled with horror, his eyes remain soft and friendly. “I’m scared.”

  Kaarina strides over to Markus and offers her hand again. “It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared too. Just hold my hand, and it’ll all be okay.” The boy takes her hand but doesn’t move. Kaarina kneels down and gives him a quick smile. The room has started to spin, the walls cracking and the ceiling about to give in. Kaarina can’t see her feet, sunk in the swarming floor. “Do you trust me?”

  He blinks twice, then shakes his head. “You said you’re terrible with maps. How can I trust you to lead us out of here?”

  Without letting go of the boy’s hand, Kaarina swings her backpack onto the floor, ignoring the fake lava. She opens the zipper with a quick hand movement. Inside, she fishes out the map and shows it to the boy. “See this?”

  The boy nods.

  Kaarina does as well. “It’s an extraordinary map, one in a million. And someone gave it to me specifically. I’m this close,” she shows a small gap between her index finger and thumb, “to finding the final treasure. A treasure that can save the whole world. Now would anyone give a map this important to someone like me if the
y didn’t trust that I could make it?”

  Markus gasps as a piece of plaster falls off the roof and lands in the roiling floor right next to him. He looks up at Kaarina and nods at the door. Together they run toward it, the frame cracking but not giving in. Just as Kaarina reaches the doorstep, something pulls the boy back, tossing him backward. He falls on his rear onto the room’s floor. His hand is still extended, reaching for Kaarina. She turns around and is about to storm back into the collapsing room to pick up the slowly sinking boy when the door shuts on her face. Pieces of dust and plaster and paint rain on Kaarina as she rattles the door’s handle fiercely, then bangs it with both fists, repeating Markus’s name.

  The floorboard underneath Kaarina’s feet creaks, then gives in with a loud snap. She falls down, one floor after another, watching picture frames with helicopters, elephants, ponies, butterflies, and bunny-rabbits fall with her.

  “Markus!” she yells, not knowing if it’s the young boy or the AI she’s frantically trying to reach. “Markus, I will not leave you!”

  The fall seems never-ending. All sound is muffled, but the picture frames keep reappearing in front of her eyes. Kaarina closes her eyes, panic and fear filling her whole being. Markus’s eyes flash in and out of her mind, the young Markus’s as well as the older one she met on a blue tile road. Then the eyes change. She sees a woman’s eyes—her mother’s. Filled with kindness but also sorrow, she stares at Kaarina, never saying a word.

  The eyes keep appearing. Kaarina recognizes all of them while desperately trying to hold onto their gaze as she keeps falling into rattling nothingness.

  Markus.

  Her mother.

  Bill.

  Sanna.

  Kristian.

  Luna.

  Maria.

  Then, the eyes change into animal eyes, still softly and lovingly gazing at Kaarina.

  Ässä.

  Mister Bun-Bun.

  The mare she once loved.

  A gelding.

  The pony at the barn where she learned to ride.

  Just as she’s ready to let go of it all—accept that she’s lost everyone she ever loved and cared for—her body lands in darkness with a thud. The rattling sound stops. The picture frames and eyes are nowhere to be seen. Kaarina looks around, but all she can see is a glimmering white dot in the distance. Inch by inch, the dot travels closer, silently creeping forward in the pitch black nothingness. Narrowing her eyes, Kaarina tries to see the silhouette better, to recognize the shape of what’s coming for her.

  And finally, she does.

  It’s a girl—a familiar-looking girl with serious eyes. Wearing a shining white pajama suit, she stops in front of Kaarina, blinking at her as if to figure out why she’s lying in the middle of the floor without even trying to get up. But all Kaarina can do is stare. Stare and hold her breath, her mind ready to explode.

  The girl is familiar because… she’s Kaarina herself.

  ***

  “This isn’t real,” she mumbles, unable to stop staring at her younger self. The girl’s lips are parted slightly. Her ponytail sways to the side as she tilts her head slowly, trying to figure out who or what Kaarina is. “Margaret, this is not funny.”

  I’m almost. Done. With the hack.

  “No,” Kaarina whispers, her voice raspy. She closes her eyes. “I’m through with this. I can’t do this anymore. Make her go away.”

  I’m not the one. Controlling. The girl. That is all. You.

  “But I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to be here with her.”

  Five more. Egg. Minutes.

  Kaarina’s eyes snap open. “That’s not a fucking thing, and you know it!” she hisses angrily at Margaret. The girl—Kaarina’s younger self—gasps, then takes a step back. Kaarina glances at her, annoyed that the girl’s afraid of Kaarina. Who in their right mind would be afraid of themselves?

  The girl catches the change in Kaarina’s demeanor, her annoyance. With her chin set high, she takes a step closer and crosses her arms. “I’m not afraid of you. Not really.”

  “Oh really?” Kaarina says, “You just gasped at me, just because I said a bad word.”

  The girl’s chin rises an inch more. “I’m not a coward. You are.”

  A brief laugh rolls off Kaarina’s lips. “That only means you are as well.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Just give it a rest,” Kaarina says, waving the girl off. “You’re, what, five or six? A kid that age is supposed to be afraid of things like cursing strangers falling down from the sky. Nothing to be ashamed of here. You can whimper and tremble as much as you want.”

  “I’m not ashamed.” The girl pouts. Her brow creases. “You are.”

  Adjusting herself on the floor, Kaarina sits on her knees. She looks at the girl, irritably spreads her hands, and gazes up to the black nothingness above. “Anytime now, Margaret. I’m so fucking ready to get the hell out of here.”

  “Don’t say bad words like that,” the girl says and starts walking around Kaarina in semi-circles, changing direction frequently, as if she’s stuck inside the letter C with no way out. “Not in front of me.”

  Talk to her.

  Kaarina rolls her eyes at Margaret. “It’s like talking to a wall,” she murmurs.

  I think. We need her.

  “For what?”

  The data shows. She’s part of. The weak link.

  “She’s in the Egg?” Kaarina shakes her head once. “But… she’s me.”

  The breach is. What the Egg. Doesn’t know.

  “Which is…” Kaarina keeps murmuring to Margaret while her eyes follow the pacing girl, “what exactly?”

  What makes. An Unchipped person. An Unchipped person.

  Kaarina jumps up from her seat and starts pacing around her own letter C, her steps mirroring the younger Kaarina’s. “This again?!” she hisses at Margaret. “I thought it was one of the universe’s great mysteries and that’s that.”

  “What is?” the girl says, stopping to stare at Kaarina. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Mind your own business,” Kaarina says and glances at the girl, then looks up at the ceiling again. “Why are you bringing this up again?”

  Because it’s not just. You. Being hyper-sensitive. Not HSP alone that. Makes a person. Unchipped.

  “Yeah?” Kaarina stomps on the floor. “Well I don’t give a fuck what made me such an invalid compared to the rest of the world! Maybe it was all the Chipped people who were damaged. There was nothing wrong with me before the program rolled in, making everyone mindless robots, addicted to things that have no value to me. Besides, everyone is now dechipping to get rid of that damn gadget in their heads!”

  I know, Margaret says patiently. I came up. With the. Dechipping.

  “Then why are we even discussing this?”

  The girl tilts her head. Then her face clears in understanding. “Do you have an imaginary friend?”

  Kaarina can’t help it; she laughs mockingly. “Yes, kid,” she says, “Plenty of them. And my imaginary friends are such a treat I can’t wait for you to meet them. Just so you can see how much fun it is to have all-knowing, stubborn as fuck AIs inside your skull, leaving you no mental space for thinking straight or having a fucking break…”

  “Stop that!” the girl says, stomping her foot. “I don’t like those words!”

  “But you will.”

  “Daddy uses those words. They make me scared!”

  Kaarina's argument gets stuck in her throat. She has no idea what the young Kaarina is talking about. A rising lump in her throat tells her she doesn’t want to find out, either.

  “If you don’t stop, I will tell momma. And she will be very upset. Just like she is when she finds the bottles.”

  “The… bottles?”

  The girl nods. “Sometimes, I’m not fast enough. Sometimes I’m asleep, and momma finds them before I have time to hide them.”

  “Dad’s bottles?” Kaarina still can’t remember. “But he wasn’t
ever home,” she says hurriedly, trying to ignore a nasty feeling in her stomach.

  “Yeah, he was. He would say bad words, tell me I’m going to end up just as tasteless, colorless, and useless as momma. And then he stomps out and gets in the purple Volvo.”

  Kaarina can’t help it; she needs to sit back down. Holding her head, Kaarina stares at the black surface she’s sitting on, completely shattered. “What Volvo?”

  “The Volvo, the Volvo!”

  “Okay, okay, fine. I believe you! I just…” Kaarina pinches the bridge of her nose. “I just don’t remember any of this.”

  Ask. Her.

  Kaarina presses her lips into a thin line. She doesn’t reply to Margaret.

  Ask her. To show. You.

  Kaarina tosses her hands in the air, gesturing that she gives up. She turns to look at the serious, angry-looking girl. “Can you show me?”

  “Show you what?

  “The meaning of life,” Kaarina snaps and rolls her eyes. When the girl’s expression turns even angrier, Kaarina lifts her hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. My bad. It was a lousy joke.” She pauses to take a deep breath, then tries a small smile. “Could you show me the Volvo… Kaarina?”

  She shakes her head no.

  Kaarina closes her eyes, counts to three, then opens again. “Please?”

  Pouting, the girl looks away from Kaarina. After a moment of thinking, she nods, Margaret moves and leans in, suffocating Kaarina with her sudden intruding. “Hey!” she says, eyes snapping at the ceiling. “Rude!”

  I’m starting. The hack. Now. Keep her. Going.

  “Doing what?”

  Doesn’t. Matter. Just stay. In the moment.

  Unsure how she’s doing it, Kaarina watches the girl turn her back on her and stare into space. The black nothingness starts to vibrate, slowly taking new shapes. And just like that, Kaarina’s in her childhood home again. She’s kneeling down, staring into the small gap between a doorframe and the door to her parent’s bedroom. Inside, her mother and father hiss at each other, both leaning toward one another in a hostile way.