by Taya DeVere
“Yeah, because that’ll solve it all,” Ava huffs, but takes a sip from her cup, eying the pillow on the bed. They would change their drunken minds if she told them about Margaret’s text message. But then they’d also take the phone from her. What if Margaret needs their help and can’t tap her? How is she supposed to connect with them if the phone is shut off?
Margaret told them to wait. To not fight against the Chipped. And now these crazy people are digging into files, hacking super computers, rushing to conclusions… Doing exactly what Margaret told them not to do.
Before she can think, Ava reaches for the CS-key and snatches it from Luna. She throws the computer across the room. It hits the bathroom door hard, then clatters to the floor. Eyes wide, Luna stares at the device on the floor. “Ti si jebeni kreten!”
Bill freezes on the gaming chair. “Whatever she said, I don’t think it was a compliment, Ava, but I agree with Luna. What the fuck?”
Luna glares at Ava. Her eyes are filled with rage. If Ava didn’t know her better, she’d be scared Luna would punch her on the nose. Shit. She shouldn’t have done that.
Luna storms over and scoops up the CS-key from the floor. “I had the connection open! You could have killed everything I’ve—”
The CS-key starts vibrating. A purple light appears, and the screen seems to come to pieces in front of them. Luna holds the computer, looking up as the hologram appears and fills the center of the room.
“Shit, shit, shit…” Luna taps frantically at the computer, but the hologram keeps getting clearer.
Bill looks at the half empty bottle in his hand, reading the label. “What the hell is in this shit?”
Kaarina walks over and holds up her hand. “Hold on… I know who this is.”
The hologram-woman looks up, listening to them. She’s clearly trying to figure out who she’s connected with. Ava sits back on the bed and hugs her legs against her chest, rocking her body back and forth.
Luna sets the computer down on the floor. Kaarina circles the hologram. The image sways slightly, still not saying a word. She presses her index finger to her lips, gesturing for the others to stay quiet. Yeti and Markus join her, all staring at the pale woman with her pointy nose and high forehead.
Luna nods at the computer, staring at Kaarina with eyes wide. Kaarina gestures for her to wait. They all gape at the woman in the hologram. Then the woman speaks.
“Iris? Is that you? I don’t have time for your prank calls.”
Ava looks at the hologram woman, then at her friends. Yeti and Kaarina glare at the woman, frowning deeply. They clearly know who this is.
“Jovan? Is it you then?”
Luna gasps for air. “Who are you? And what have you done with Jovan?”
The whole room stares at Luna in shock. The alcohol makes the room spin around her, but Ava stands anyway and joins Luna. “Yeah, and while we’re at it… Where’s Margaret Lewis?”
The hologram-woman stares into space for a few seconds. Then she scoffs. A slight smile appears on her face. “Look at that. Kaarina’s crew, finally coming out to play.” Kaarina’s hands clench into fists, her knuckles whitening. Seeing this woman seems to have sobered her right up. “See, I told Laura you’d be stupid enough to get caught eventually. But never in a million years did I think you’d be stupid enough to call us. Do you even know how easy it is to trace this call?”
Yeti’s places his hand on Kaarina’s shoulder to stop her from stepping forward and kicking the computer.
Markus circles around, his soft and friendly eyes investigating the hologram. “And how are you this evening, Nurse Saarinen?”
Her head cocks. “Mister Nyman. Is that you?”
“Sure is.”
“Had a change of heart then?”
Markus eyes her, calmly circling the hologram. “What’s that?”
“Well, it’s obvious. You want to come home.”
Kaarina scoffs and steps away from Yeti. “And why the fuck would he want to do that?”
Nurse Saarinen half-smiles, raising her eyebrows. “Poor Markus. The only one with a functioning chip in your brain. The only one fully capable of great things. And you still let that scavenger talk for you.”
This time Yeti has to wrap his arms around Kaarina to stop her from attacking the woman—even though she isn’t really in the room.
“Kaarina’s not a scavenger. None of us are. And with all due respect, I’m not the only Chipped who decided to leave the program. The city was a bad place for many of us.”
A static silence fills the room as they wait for Nurse Saarinen to reply. Finally, she nods and reaches for something next to her. Soon, a set of AR-glasses appears on her face.
“So that’s it then? You just wanted to call me and wag your finger at me? How adorable. And also—a total waste of my precious time.”
They all look at each other. Kaarina spreads her hands. Ava leans in to whisper into Luna’s ear. “Can they really track us, like she says?”
With wide eyes, Luna stares back at her and shakes her head for a no. “They can see that the device belongs to City of Serbia,” Luna whispers back. “But that’s it.”
“Ask her about the capsules.”
“Are you crazy?”
Bill steps closer to the hologram, Micky right behind him. “Now that we have you here, Good Nurse… Why don’t you entertain us by telling us why you’ve stuffed people into small tubes underground? I mean, I get that these are hard times and all. But I’m sure you have enough space for everyone. Everyone you haven’t gunned down or poisoned to death since The Great Affliction.”
Nurse Saarinen takes off the AR-glasses. “Why would I waste my breath explaining anything to you fools?”
Micky shrugs and says, “No se. Why the hell not?”
“Make us understand,” Markus adds. “Change our minds about the city. If the Happiness-Program is really for our own good, why were so many people unhappy living in your alternate reality?”
With a disinterested look on her face, Nurse Saarinen takes a deep breath. For the longest time, Ava’s sure she will break the connection without answering Markus’ question. But then her slightly nasal voice fills the room again.
“Convenience,” she says. “Humanity’s thirst for it has never changed, not even during The Great Affliction. When you think about it, not much has changed since the time before the cities. Smartphones and video games. Social media and alternate realities. Never leaving the house, total isolation, and no real human contact. People couldn’t see each other as real beings anymore. It was too easy to tell someone off, fire them, even threaten them when it all took place online.”
Ava sits down on the bed. Her eyes flicker to the pillow. She’s forgotten to turn the smartphone off.
“There’s nothing simpler than the human mind. I can put it in three words for you. One, incivility. Two, insecurity. Three, isolation. People have always been afraid of those who they don’t understand. So, what does technology do? It gives these fearful monkeys unlimited access to see and say anything, to misunderstand everything. It wasn’t too long until the apes felt as if they could do anything as well. And what is the most reactive animal of them all? Spoiler alert, it isn’t the dog.”
“I’m either more shit-faced than I thought I was,” Bill says, “Or you’re just pulling words out of your ass. What does any of this have to do with the capsules?”
“Why is everyone always so endlessly fascinated with the stasis capsules? It’s just mediocre science. Nothing that we haven’t known or been able to do for decades. How about the rest of it? Hm? Why won’t you ask about the science that put an end to humanity driving itself to extinction? Ask about the chip that can restore sight to a blind man and give a deaf woman her hearing back. What about the fact that there is hardly any mental illness left in the AR-cities? People lack for nothing. They have companions, homes, jobs, entertainment, fulfillment. They have absolutely all they need, and then some. Nobody’s homeless, or starving, lacking
clothes. I mean, people even get to have risk-free sex whenever they desire. So no loneliness, either.”
“Yeah, sex with a bunch of fucking pixels,” Yeti says. “It’s just an illusion. None of it is real.”
“Have it your way. More STD’s and unwanted pregnancies for you. Go for it. It’s not surprising, really. All those years, living in the woods like rabid skunks. Humping and killing whatever you could get your hands on.”
“Fuck you, you piece of shit.”
Nurse Saarinen shrugs and puts on her AR-glasses. “Perfect example of a vocabulary that only a feral animal would use. Now if you’ll excuse me. We can pick up this enlightening conversation once Doctor Solomon’s men pick you up and put you in time out.”
Nurse Saarinen is about to turn off the call. Ava can tell. “Wait!” Ava ignores the pleading looks around her. “We know how to ruin you. And you can’t track this call.”
“Oh, how cute. Your little hacker friend helped you. Invincible, yeah? That’s what you believe?”
“We used Margaret’s code—”
Yeti’s enormous palm covers Ava’s mouth. He’s moved from Kaarina’s side to sit with Ava on the bed. Kaarina paces back and forth next to the hologram.
“Maybe we’re not invincible, no,” Kaarina says. “But we do know a thing or two.”
Nurse Saarinen moves the glasses up on her forehead. “Oh, this should be good. What is it you know, Kaarina? Hmm? Other than shoveling shit and running away from smart decisions?”
Ava studies Kaarina, seeing her rage and her need for revenge. No one says a word out loud, but the Unchipped voices echo in Ava’s head as they tap for Kaarina and everyone else in the room.
“No. Don’t do it.”
“Cállate, Kaarina.”
“Don’t tell this bitch shit. You’re drunk and she’s provoking you, Kay, it’s a—”
“I know how to turn off your city. All of it. I know how to destroy the Happiness-Program. Tell Doctor Solomon that I’m coming for her.”
The room falls silent after Kaarina’s words. Everyone holds their breath, waiting for Nurse Saarinen’s reaction. For a moment, she stares into space, blinking. Then high-pitched laughter pierces the silence. She shakes her head and tucks the AR-glasses back on.
“A bunch of rabid dogs,” she says. “That’s what you are. A frantic pack of pathetic animals that has no idea what it’s doing.”
The purple light dims to gray as the hologram disappears.
CHAPTER 4 — LUNA
Argument. Hostile words. Bill pulling his hair. Ava screaming for everyone to get the fuck out of her room. It all echoes in Luna’s mind, over and over, like a bad scene from one of the Serbian soap operas her mother used to watch on Sunday mornings. The CS-key shoved under her arm, she storms out of the room and runs down the corridor, all the way to the yellow staircase.
The pills rattle in the bottle she’s holding. Sitting on the metal counter in the dead-silent basement, Luna tosses two painkillers into her mouth. She flips the CS-key around and fires it up.
Whatever program or access key Ava triggered when she threw the computer against the wall, it’s missing now and Luna can’t find it. Not even in the recently accessed files and apps.
“How did you do that…” she murmurs and jumps off the counter. Her hiking shoes tap against the yellow tiles as she starts toward the end of the room.
The basement doesn’t give her the creeps the way it does Bill and Markus. Even Kaarina seems uncomfortable here. They find the dim light and the low hum of the capsules unnerving. But not Luna. There’s something soothing about being surrounded by machines. They’re very unlike humans: controllable, easy to understand. Each result was initiated by a command. Each command has a consequence. There’s no guessing, no wild cards. The code works according to rules that can’t be changed.
She stops by the four occupied stasis capsules. Placing her shoe on the concrete base of the old woman’s capsule, Luna jumps up to get to an eye-level look at Mrs. Salonen: Doctor Solomon’s mother. Switched off. Forgotten. But why?
Luna feels as if she knows this woman. Reading her history, her logs on the Happiness-Program when it was only an idea in a white paper on her pharmaceutical company’s website, gives Luna the impression that this woman was a visionary. A leader. But—unlike her daughter—a humanitarian.
A tranquil face with deep lines encircling closed eyes.
Fine, almost baby-like hair under the chipping helmet.
Pale, hairless arms and a chest covered with dozens of moles.
“Why did she leave you here?” Luna whispers. “What did you do?”
She steps down from the capsule base and reaches for the object hidden in her hoodie pocket. Not once has she turned the device on. No matter how lonely her nights. No matter how desperately she wants to be seen again, to be more than the digital mastermind behind their fight against the Chipped.
The AR glasses seem to melt into her face. They feel as though they’re made of silk, not plastic.
“Now what?”
The soldier never gave Luna instructions on how to use these things. There had been no time. What a mindfuck, the whole concept of time. In the farmhouse, tucked away from City of Serbia, she used to have nothing but. Time. Leisure. Reading. Rescuing dogs. Then, she had met him. Another person, so perfectly imperfect, flawed like Luna. And just like that—boom. Time ran out. She had to leave the city, the country, everything familiar and safe. She had to leave him, too.
Luna stares at the capsule’s silhouette through the dim lens of the AR-glasses. She stands up taller, lifts her chin.
“Call Jovan.”
Three white dots appear in front of her eyes. A soft, robotic voice echoes in her ears.
CALL INITIATED. JOVAN. CITY OF SERBIA.
***
Luna circles the capsules, running her hand over one tinted glass door after another. She can see Jovan and everything around him. The purple tiles outside the window. The familiar Chip-Center office space, its screens and gadgets. The way the AR-glasses twist Luna’s senses and her reality fascinates her. It’s like living inside a computer. After she had assured Jovan that she’s okay, and that her random call to him was exactly that—random—they’ve chitchatted about everything but the war that’s going on and the Unchipped’s existence that is in danger to collapse under its crushing weight.
“I feel like I’m in a video game.”
“A video game?” he says. “Not a fast-burn murder mystery? Who are you, and what have you done with Luna?”
She can’t help but laugh. “This is too corny to be a book,” she says. “No, this is a task. Earn three extra lives by crashing at least a hundred capsules. This is World of War-tubes.”
Jovan’s soft chuckle sends warm waves through Luna’s body. She had forgotten just how much she enjoys his company. His sense of humor. The way he’s not afraid to make fun of himself—or of Luna either.
“And Tiny. How is my good girl? I hope you’re not letting Wacko bully her.”
Just when she thought she couldn’t like the man more, he asks about her dogs.
“Ah, I see. You fell for it.”
“Fell for what?”
“Tiny’s little act of innocence. Trust me, my friend. She’s nothing of the sort.”
“No?”
“M-mm. She can be the devil himself, if she feels like it. Mischievous as fuck.”
Jovan fake-gasps at the end of the line. “You take that back. How dare you talk about my queen like that?”
“Your queen, huh? Tell me now, what kind of a queen licks her own behind and then runs around giving kisses to whoever tries to escape the slowest?”
Another gasp. “I’m warning you. Spreading this false information is a violation of the royal privacy policy. I’m sorry to say, but I need to report you to the authorities immediately.”
Luna’s smile fades. She lifts the glasses an inch and stares at the rows of capsules in front of her. Prison cells. Four lives, t
heir dignity and freedom of will wiped away.
“Luna? You still there?”
Breath wheezing, she pats her pockets for the inhaler. She’s left it by the metal counter she uses as her office. After fast-walking over, she takes a puff and holds the medicine in her lungs.
“Shit,” Jovan says. “That was a stupid comment. About authorities and reporting. I got lost in our Queen Tiny story. I’m sorry.”
Luna stares at the stack of unused CS-keys on the shelves, counts them from bottom to top. She exhales, then feels the air flowing into her lungs again.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Jovan continues. “It’s never a good topic between us.”
“Why?” she asks. “Because you’re Chipped and I’m Unchipped? I thought you of all people would be above labeling others like that.”
Jovan’s lips press into a thin line as he considers his words. Luna stares at his face, investigating, wondering if she could have misjudged the man. Maybe he’s not on her side.
“Those labels. Like it or not, they’re a matter of life and death now. We live in a world where our whole future is based on whether or not we have a functioning chip installed.”
“So, you’re what? Better than me?”
“Your words, not mine. No, Luna. We all play our own part in this. I became a Chipped soldier to save my own life. Now I’ve become the Facilities Manager. I have access everywhere around the city.”
“Whoop-de-doo. Congrats, Chief.”
“No. You don’t understand. I’m doing this for a reason. Not to keep me alive, but to protect those who are still out there. Including you. What the Solomon Foundation is doing might be terrible, but us going around improvising is a grave mistake.”
He might as well have slapped her in the face. Sloboda. The capsule. Had Luna’s need to save her ended in her death? Were they all just flying blind?
“Lu? What is it?”
She clears her throat, unsure if she really wants to hear the answer. “Back home… That day when we escaped…” Her voice cracks and she’s forced to pause.
“Right. I was there. I remember. Go on.”