M inah struck a command on her terminal, and the floor peeled open behind me. A brain infuser chair rose through the center of the room on a low podium. Every resident received a VR chamber complete with neural links. Infusers were a step up and more carefully guarded throughout High Earth, having to be delivered by med-bots for use.
They could upload information directly into your brain, like schematics or a language, or they could rip memories out, knowledge with them. Outside of medical uses to help residents forget harmful memories, only shows with viewership levels compared to Ignis: Live were ever granted approval for them to be used on volunteers.
Minah’s was a dated piece of equipment. A soft seat with tears along every part of it; rusty armrests with manual restraints built into them. The headrest was a dented bowl of neural transmitters that would cover my temples; bundled wires from Minah’s terminal connected to the top of it.
Considering how the rest of her shop appeared, I’d half-expected her to use equipment out of an ancient psychiatric asylum, complete with needles and scalpels. All things considered, the chair appeared somewhat comfortable, so long as I didn’t catch some manner of Outskirts flesh disease from it.
“Please sit,” she said. She limped around the infuser and spun the chair so it faced me. Then she smacked a crank on the base with her artificial hand, and it lowered with a hair-raising squeal.
“Already?” I asked. “Don’t we need to discuss the issue first? Or, I don’t know, sign a contract?”
Not only was it my first time with a delisted infuser, but also my first time having memories removed at all. The process was supposed to be essentially painless minus a bout of headaches for a few days after. However, without a skillful operator, it could leave the patient dissociated and depressed, like a piece of them was missing and could never be returned—which was exactly what it was—even if the memory was no more vital to their existence than eating a meal. I’d heard of delisted folk sometimes taking their own lives from the frustration. At least, that was the way certain shows depicted it.
Minah chortled. “No contracts here, resie. Honesty and trust come with comfort.” She removed my rain poncho, revealing my resident-issue, color-shifting tunic beneath. With its graceful lapel and elegant tones, it was finer than any outfit I’d seen worn by the rabble of the Outskirts.
She tossed the poncho onto the floor. “Sit, sit, sit,” she repeated, ushering me toward the chair. Before I knew it, I was lounging, legs stretched out and head in a deactivated neuro-basket.
Minah leaned over me, presumably to make sure I was centered or something. Once I met whatever requirements, she put on a big toothy grin. Her breath reeked of smoke and liquor, and not the appetizing kinds.
“There you are,” she said, cranking the chair again. I rose about a foot closer to the low ceiling. “Loosen up. You don’t need a working lifeband for me to see how nervous you are. It will make it more difficult to get a reading.”
“Is it that obvious?” I tittered.
“I’ve seen worse.” She started to shuffle over to her terminal, stopped. Standing on the balls of her fake feet, she poked the ceiling, and a portion of it folded open, revealing a monitor built into the nook. I could immediately tell by the multiple view panels and rock-strewn interior of the world depicted that it was already set to Ignis: Live , apparently also a favorite out here.
“Focus on that,” she said. “Try not to think much and just answer Minah’s questions. We’ll get you sorted out.”
The sight of Ignis: Live gave me goosebumps. In the seconds before I looked away to avoid seeing which inhabitants were being broadcast, I could tell by how grainy the feeds were that it was a sliced broadcast. It made me sick that people like her had the nerve to watch Mr. Helix’s painstaking labor without registering as viewers to help our ratings. After my brain was fixed, I hoped I’d remember to pass along an anonymous report about Minah’s shop so that High Earth Network firewalls would lock her out. Though I imagined she’d be smart enough to avoid me remembering.
“You know, this infuser is the same model Craig Helix used to reprogram the original delisted volunteers before loading them onto the Ignis ,” she said. “It’s an antique, but the thing works like a charm. You’ll walk out of here feeling like a new man.” Her ten-fingered hand started dancing across the manual keyboard of her terminal, moving so fast all I could hear was one steady stream of clacking. The other worked a touch pad.
“I didn’t agree to anything yet,” I said.
“They always do.”
The neurotransmitters and nodes around my head sparked to life. They released a pulsing hum, like the beating of a heart.
“Are you starting?” I asked.
“You’d know if it was. Minah is only booting up. Can’t do any work without knowing what you want and explaining how things work. So tell me, Mr. Fancy Resident Man, why are you here? Something awful happen in a VR that you just can’t live with? You resies can be so sensitive.”
“Not exactly.”
“You didn’t kill somebody, did you? Hid their body in the Great Lawn and now you’re trying to forget where?”
“That’s not… Do people do that? I—”
“No, you don’t seem like the type.” She cut me off like she was playing a guessing game I didn’t realize I was a part of. “Hasn’t been a recorded murder in High Earth probably ever… though, not like they’d rattle the happy residents and tell you.” She snorted in laughter. “It’s got to be over a girl, eh? Handsome fellow like you.”
I didn’t respond, but there was no way she didn’t hear me swallow the lump in my throat.
“Minah knew it!” she said. “Did she break your fragile little heart? Well, don’t you worry. Let Minah take care of it for you. We deal with these situations for resies more than anything else, believe it or not.” She grinned ear to ear. “Sometimes, the medical clearance never comes. Sometimes they’re embarrassed. All Minah says is… ‘Why remember when forgetting is so much better?’”
I grunted a nervous, incoherent response.
“So, before you ask,” she continued. “No, Minah can’t take away your feelings for her and leave the rest. It doesn’t work like that. Too many moving parts. She’s got to go, all of her. Like a hard reboot.”
“And it’s permanent?”
“It is. Once it’s over with, you won’t know the difference. If it makes you feel better, if Minah got hands on you, we would never let go. You resies usually all look similar, but there’s something special about you. Just a few clicks and Minah can try replacing her with Minah if you want.” She cackled so loud it echoed.
I almost choked on a mouthful of air.
“Only a joke. Minah runs a reputable establishment, Mr. Reinhart. So, who is the lucky lady? A name will make this quicker. A picture, even better.”
“A picture?”
“Unless you’d rather Minah start digging blindly. Might accidentally make you forget about someone else. Maybe some woman you saw on the skywalks up there that you don’t even remember wanting. Minah may be the best there is, but it’s your brain we’re opening up.”
I froze. I hadn’t even thought about having to show her Mission. I guess I hadn’t thought about much since I came up with the insane idea of running to some miscreant brain miner in the Outskirts to solve all my problems.
But erasing Mission seemed like the only possible option. After it was done, to me, she’d be another inhabitant on Ignis with a story worth recording. I’d be able to keep my position at Helix Productions after the anniversary events without losing my mind. I’d gotten too close. I couldn’t be the first camera operator for it to happen to. I wished I’d been open enough to talk with the other volunteers about things like that after they’d quit. Maybe I wasn’t alone.
“I don’t have a picture,” I said softly. “But her name is Mission.”
“Popular name these days. Last name?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is there anything you do know?” A hint of frustration edged into Minah’s tone. “Tell me about her at least.”
“She’s…” I sighed. I guess if there was any time to talk openly about what I’d been feeling, it was now. I only wished I were amongst better company. Even VORA.
“I’ve known her for nearly both our entire lives,” I said. “It wasn’t always this bad, but recently I can’t stop thinking about her. Every time I close my eyes, she’s there. Every time I open them, too. And I know I’m not supposed to only think about her. I… I can’t deal with it. Not unless I want to lose everything.”
“Ahh. So she didn’t break your heart. She just won’t offer you hers.”
“It’s not like that! She couldn’t even if she wanted to. And I couldn’t… Well, I could… It’s just—”
“She isn’t a resident?” Minah almost sounded insulted.
“Not technically. I don’t think.”
“Look.” She stopped clicking away at the keys of her terminal and limped over. “For what you’re offering, Minah will wipe whatever you want. You don’t want anybody to know details, fine, but this is a safe space. You’ve got to give Minah something. Now describe who this girl is or get the hell out and stop wasting my time.”
My gaze wandered past Minah’s tremendous head and knotted hair, back to the monitor in the ceiling playing the show I had so much invested in. On one of the live feeds, Mission sat, legs folded, on the same promontory within the hollow interior of the Ignis that I’d placed her in my unfinished recreation. She stared out at the farms, which arced away and over her in every direction.
“Her…” I whispered.
Minah looked up, and when she turned back, she wore the toothiest grin I’d seen on her yet. “That Mission!” She laughed and placed her hand over my chest. I could feel the sweat on her palm through my clothing. Maybe it was my own. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Minah sees that more than anything with you resies. Fallen for a character you can’t ever meet or even talk to, but can’t get clearance on a full wipe. Trust me, it happens. At least she isn’t digital like most times.”
I felt like a knot around my heart had been loosened. It wasn’t just getting the truth off my chest, but the acknowledgment that I wasn’t alone. The details of medical records in High Earth were private, so VORA could never have told me the same. Of course, Minah could be lying. It didn’t seem like it though.
“So you can get rid of my memories of her?” I asked.
“Minah won’t lie to you. This complicates things. Feelings aren’t a simple thing. They go far beyond memories, even if that is what they’re built upon. Perhaps those bots of yours back in High Earth know better how to dig out what sparks feelings, but it could be a single moment or an accumulation of a million. The possibilities are endless.”
“Can you do it?”
“Of course Minah can! But for your average relationship, causal experiences are easier to pinpoint. With this, it may take a second session to find all the related memories that might trigger emotional relapse.”
“I don’t have time for that!” I drew a long, beleaguered breath. “I need her out of my head before morning. If you can’t do it, then there must be other places out here I can go to.”
Her scowl made me sink back into the chair. “You want this done right, there’s only here,” she said sharply. She wrapped the restraints around my arms without asking.
“Hey!” I protested, pulling at them. I was far too weak to break free.
“Minah won’t force you, but that fine piece of machinery you offered is staying no matter what you decide. Consider it price of consultation.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.” She chuckled. “At least out here it isn’t. Now calm down and tell Minah, how often do you watch Mission’s live feed on the show? Or even when you aren’t focused on it, how often is it in the background?”
“Every day probably…” Stop lying, my mind scolded me. “Definitely.”
“Exactly as Minah suspected. Now do you comprehend how many relevant memories we’ll be sifting through?”
I nodded, even though the truth was, I couldn’t even imagine.
“Two sessions and Minah can keep the fatigue and disorientation to a minimum,” she said. “But if you’re intent on doing it all at once, it’s going to take all night, and by the time Minah’s finished with you, your head will be aching for days. That’s assuming everything goes smoothly.”
“I know the side effects. It must be tonight. I need to be back in High Earth, in my home, before 8:00 a.m.”
“You resies, always in a rush to be safe and sound in your beds. Minah will find out why soon enough, eh? Will you go on this adventure with me? Make an old woman’s day.”
Ever since Minah got me to look at Mission’s feed, I couldn’t stop watching. So many hours together since the day I was born and she found her world. Was I really willing to lose it all?
“Nobody can know,” I said. “Please.”
“Minah has peered into the minds of more resies than we’ve cared to count. Minah has seen the way shows were going to end and the genesis of new ideas. Minah doesn’t give a damn about you High Earthers or your shows and programs. They cause more trouble than anything around here. Plus, Minah will see plenty of you in your head to keep busy. Every inch of you.” She chortled and smacked her lips. “And you’re oh-so-real.”
The thought made my stomach turn over, but I was desperate enough to stay put. Not that I could break free. I was desperate and confused enough to trust a delisted witch with my mind and every secret I harbored about the Ignis .
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Minah asked.
“No. But I don’t think I have a choice,” I whispered. Mr. Helix depended on me getting my head right. The inhabitants deserved better for their sacrifice. They all deserved to have their lives recorded in the best, most entertaining way.
“Then lie back, relax, and let Minah take care of you.” She fastened my restraints tighter, stabbed a needle connected to a long tube into my neck out of nowhere, and then shambled back toward her terminal.
“What’s that?” I tried and failed to reach for my neck. “Minah?” My heart pounded. I could hear it in my eardrums. Then it started to slow.
“Minah will start by getting a read on your brain activity,” she said. “You’ll be conscious for now, but once we crack you open, the next time you wake up, you’ll be outside and on your way home alongside a bot that will know nothing of this.”
“Nobody can know,” I said, my words slurring slightly. I felt drowsy.
“Our. Little. Secret.” She poked my head once for every word. “And don’t you go falling for her all over again.”
The nodes and transmitters wrapping my head started to buzz even louder. A tingling sensation augmented around my ears, and the hairs all over my body stood on end.
“Here we go,” she said. “Enjoy your last few minutes with your beloved. Soon, Mission—beautiful, innocent Mission—will be another silly character on a silly show.”
Minah broke into laughter and set the feed recording Mission to fill the entire screen above. Then she raised the volume loud enough for me to hear nothing else.
[Ignis Feed Location]
Block B Promontory
<Camera 3>
“There you are!” Jacen said as he climbed up to the promontory where Mission sat. It was the upper portion of Living Block B, which protruded above the crops. As Mission watched him near, she couldn’t help but wonder if he knew why it was her favorite place in all Ignis , or if maybe he felt the same way.
Her first memory outside of the hell she grew up in took place in that very spot. She remembered it like it was yesterday. Tiny, straggly, little Jacen rocking back and forth, scared of the dark. She’d been scared all her life up until then. Frightened of every footstep that drew too near, of being forgotten in her hole.
Sitting with him that day, holding his hands and helping him stay calm… She could’ve been in the worst position, starving like they were days into the Great Blackout, but if she thought of that moment, she felt safe.
“I got in late yesterday from a repair,” he panted as he reached the top. “I hoped to find you before you started working.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I meant to come down, but have you ever been on a Mother’s bed? I don’t think I’ve slept like that in my whole life.”
“One day, I hope.” He snickered. “White looks good on you, by the way.”
Mission glanced down at her new outfit, bestowed upon her by Alora after their last conversation. “I’m guessing you heard it’s official?”
“Everyone’s heard. Youngest official Mother ever. I thought Alora would hold on a bit longer.”
“So did I…”
“Well, I’m proud of you, Mish.”
“Oh, shut it.” She rolled her eyes and slid over to make room for him. She gazed out at her sustainable world amongst the stars. Busy hydrofarmers were lost in rack after rack of greenery, and from their vantage, they could see the mass of grasshoppers leaping about one of their containers. Shadows of maintenance men occasionally scurried around the pits beneath them. The orange glow of the core’s reactor pulsed soothingly from above as it always did, like a beating heart pumping blood to limbs.
“Can you imagine looking up and seeing a starry night sky on Earth?” Mission said.
“You asked me that same thing the first time we sat up here during the blackout,” he replied.
“Well, I guess you still haven’t answered. Can you?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t make much sense to me how they describe Earth. I know we’ve seen pictures, but what would keep you from being sucked up into space like criminals through the airlock?”
“Same thing that keeps our feet grounded in here.”
“You think too much, Mish. People on Earth all killed each other, remember? It isn’t hard to imagine why with them surrounded by so much darkness.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“How do you know?”
“When I was younger, I once wandered too close to the airlock before it released someone. For half a second, as the outer seal opened and the inner one closed, I saw what they call space. It wasn’t just darkness, Jacen. The stars shined like… like someone had shattered a crystal on top of a black blanket.”
“Is that why you needed to leave the spacing the other day? Too tempted to jump out and join them?”
“Maybe.” She chuckled. “I don’t know, I’ve been so overwhelmed. Haven’t you ever wanted to see the outside with your own two eyes? Not just hear about it or look at grainy old pictures.”
“I never really think about it. We’ll be recycled long before Ignis is supposed to reach one of those star things. Seems crazy to find a new Earth anyway when we have everything we need right in here.”
“Not everything…”
Jacen placed his hand on Mission’s leg and edged a little closer to her. “Are you really up here to think about Earth, or is being the new Mother so overwhelming you’re trying to hide?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. If it was easy, any of the other girls in there would have had the honor, but Alora named you . I know you like to doubt yourself, but I don’t. Not for a second.”
Mission took his hand in hers. “You’re my best friend, Jacen. You know that?”
“Even now that you’re wearing white?”
“Always.”
“Well, you know you’re mine, too. And because of that, I can always tell when something’s bothering you. Leaving spacings, thinking you saw me when you didn’t, sitting here alone. I may be a lowly sewer jockey, but I know my Mission.”
Mission drew a deep breath. “The core has already selected me as one of the Birthmothers to carry a new inhabitant. And then I guess another after that, and another…”
Jacen’s hand fell away from hers. “Already? I… Is that normal? With whom?”
“Paul-10183.”
“Of the Collective?”
“Yeah.”
Jacen bit his lip and leaned back. “Well… no matter who it is, you should be honored, Mish. How many get to be a Birthmother, let alone an actual Mother?”
He said all the right things, but Mission could tell the news had caught him off guard. He wore the same thousand-meter gaze that she had been ever since she’d found out. Not that he shouldn’t have expected it, but she knew him. He rarely thought about anything until it happened. That was what she loved about him.
“I’m honored all right,” she said. “It’s what Alora always knew I’d be since I got out of—” She caught herself before revealing the only secret she kept from her closest friend. “Well, she always knew.”
“You used to want it, too, you know,” he said. “More than anything.”
“I did. And then I found something I want more.”
“If you really want to see the outside that bad, I’ll dangle you out there for a second. A Mother’s got to have that kind of pull.”
“That’d be a good start.” Mission laughed. “But what I really want is for the core to stop making decisions for me.”
She closed her eyes, and without taking the time to second-guess herself, she leaned over and kissed Jacen on the lips, just like she’d seen the couple in the galley do it. He pushed away at first, then gave in, squeezing her tight in arms made strong from scrubbing grunge out of pipes. By the time they released, both were completely breathless.
“I don’t want my first time to be with Paul,” Mission whispered. “Or to carry his child. I want to be with you.”
Jacen ran his hands through her hair and planted another kiss on her lips. He held them there for a few moments before his expression was wrecked by a grimace and he retreated. “We can’t.”
“We can,” Mission insisted.
“You’re fertile now. And if we… and I… The core will know whose it is. They’ll find out and we’ll be spaced just like the other Blackout Generation mess-ups.”
“At least we’ll be together.” Mission pulled him in for one more kiss, but he turned away.
“We’ll be dead.” He sprang to his feet. “You’re a Mother, Mish. And I’m maintenance. The core is never going to choose me for you, or me for anybody.”
“But I do.”
“It doesn’t—” He bit his quivering lower lip and sighed. Then he knelt back down and embraced her. “Please. You have to do what you’re meant to. I’ll still be here when you’re done. I’ll always be here.”
She squeezed him as hard as she could and buried her head in the cambers of his neck.
“Promise?” she whimpered.
“Always. Now, hey… I have a shift all morning, but I’ll find you as soon as it’s over. Take you to the Launch Day celebration at the airlock like I always do.” He held her at arm’s length. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she was forcing a frail smile.
“Sit with me until you have to leave? I’m supposed to relax today—Alora’s orders. I’d rather not be alone.”
“Only if you promise you’ll keep your mouth to yourself this time. I don’t know if I can hold back a second time.”
She chuckled, then sniveled. “I’ll try.”
“Deal.” He plopped back down beside her. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Happy birthday.” He removed a crudely fashioned necklace from his pocket and wrapped it around her neck. The string was made from the twined stems of a plant, and the pendant was a rough shard of metal. Countless tiny dots were inscribed on the surface in no real order.
“Like the stars you always talk about,” he said.
* * *
“He won’t be there,” I mumbled weakly. The steady hum of the nodes along with the drug Minah gave me had me feeling drowsy. A few more seconds and I would’ve been unconscious, but my tolerance was high thanks to all the recent stress. I blinked my tear-filled eyes hard and lifted my head as much as the infuser’s restraints would allow.
“Try to stay still, dear!” Minah shouted over the racket. “We’re about to get started.”
“What the hell am I doing?” Watching Mission enter her world, bulging green eyes bright with wonder despite being surrounded by so much chaos… it was my first real memory. Without that moment, I might never have been inspired to find Helix Studios and volunteer so young. I never would have discovered the only thing I was ever good at in my director’s chair.
Now I realized losing Mission meant losing everything.
I yanked at my arm restraints as hard as I could to break free, causing the bulky chair to tilt from side to side.
“Minah said relax!” Minah yelled.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed brown liquid running up the tube attached to the needle she’d stabbed into my neck. More pharma to keep me calm. I wrenched my arms up and ripped out the needle.
The infuser’s nodes amplified their power. For a moment, my head felt like it had been placed between two giant electromagnets. My eyelids grew heavy, tingling around the sockets. I yanked with all my might, and one of the shoddy restraints tore off the chair. The laws of inertia sent me rolling over the opposite armrest.
After tearing my head out of position and slipping, I was completely disoriented. I scrambled to find which way was up until my feet found the chair’s base. I pushed off as hard as I could. My other hand tore free and I flew back into the wall. Minah barked something, tried to run over to me, but she tripped and the room rumbled.
“I can’t do this!” I said. “I can save her.”
“Good for you, you damned resie idiot,” Minah groaned. “Now come help Minah up!”
My vision came into focus, and I saw her rotund body roll over. She sat, trying to quickly adjust her prosthetic leg.
“Thank you for all of your help, but I… I have to go.”
“Get the hell back here!”
I grabbed the crank of the vault and put all my weight on it until it unlocked. A new idea had popped into my head that could help me keep my position, ensure Ignis: Live would thrive like it was supposed to, and save Mission’s life. I don’t know how I hadn’t thought of it earlier. Probably the cloud of pharma and stress.
It would only require me to bend the rules a little more, but Mr. Helix would understand if he ever found out. He had to. After many years working under him, I’d learned enough to know that this one time, he was wrong. The show needed Mission now as much as I did. Whether or not my obsession was the reason she’d become so famous was irrelevant. All the ads plastered across High Earth and the Network depicted her face, nobody else’s. All the discussions, her name. The tale of her life kept viewers invested more than anything else.
The hatch swung a bit; then I panicked. I saw my OptiVisor shining on Minah’s desk. She was obviously a skilled slicer, and I didn’t want to leave any traces she could use against me. So I snatched it. She pawed for my foot as I rushed by. I stumbled into my bot, shoving it against the door, which swung open.
Minah’s bouncer was caught completely unawares as I busted through the lobby door. It smacked him in the face and knocked his newly lit cigarette free.
“Gree… tings…” the reception bot said as I raced by.
I was nearly through the exterior door when I heard the deafening crack of Minah’s guard firing off a round of an illegal firearm. It pierced the wall, just missing my head. Seconds later, I was out the door and back into the driving rain.
“Get back here, resie!” the guard yelled.
I dashed through the crowd, and he fired into the sky to scare me. None of the waiting tech junkies even flinched from the sound. My ears rang. I held my breath and ducked into a VR den. At least a dozen neurotransmission chairs lined one side of the room, their wires frayed, some sparking. No computer monitored them to make sure their users were fed. Half the people plugged in were so skinny their clothes barely fit.
A child, no older than twelve, occupied the one farthest from the door, drool dripping down his chapped lips. I had no idea how someone so young could’ve been exiled from High Earth already, but anything was possible. I knew that now.
“Another resident!” some haggard operator wearing yellow said, addressing me directly. He grabbed me by the shoulders, so strong I couldn’t fight him, and shoved me into an empty NT chair. I searched frantically from side to side and noticed that the resident who'd been inside donating data was gone now.
“The Nation got this VR slice working the other day,” the man said. “Test it? Is it good as yours?”
“Get your hands off me!” I demanded.
“Won’t take long.”
He pressed me down into the chair and lowered a basket of neural nodes over my head. I felt my mind begin to fray, my vision warped, and then I stood on a grassy plain. Chaos surrounded me. Men and women in shiny plated suits battled with blades and shields. I was wearing similarly bulky armor, although it had no weight to it.
A blade swung at my head, but the VR glitched and gave me time to dive out of the way. I hated these types of violent VRs without narratives, celebrating the basest parts of human history.
“Don’t run, knave!” the hulking person bellowed at me. He raised his sword again to strike me. Another warrior rode by on a great, hoofed beast—horse, my brain informed me—and sliced off his virtual head. An excessive wave of blood gushed out. His body glitched as he fell to his knees, suddenly skipping ahead through time to him lying facedown.
I scrambled to my feet, pulse pounding. An arrow zipped by my ear. I turned to run, and then another horse-riding resident enjoying the VR stabbed a spear through my chest. I flew backward, not in pain like it was real, but in shock. I knew it was fake; however, the mind sometimes had trouble distancing itself from the simulation of dying in these old machines. I hit the dirt, spear and blood rising from me, and then the world folded in on itself.
I gasped back to the present, knocking the NT chair’s neural nodes away as I jutted forward.
“Good, right?” the VR den operator asked eagerly, half his teeth missing. “Right?”
“There you are!” Minah’s guard threw someone aside at the shop’s entry.
He fired again. It missed, but the bang was enough to stir me from the shock of being dropped into a war zone VR. His bullet shattered a panel of the shop’s storefront. I leaped around the foul-smelling operator and out through the opening of his hellhole. My legs and chest stung from a level of exertion I’d never experienced. The great wall of High Earth rose before me, and I knew if I reached it, I might be safe. Weaving my way around the delisted, I tried to make sure the guard couldn’t get a clean shot.
I kept bracing for another bullet to whip by or, worse, hit me, but one never came. When I was around the corner of the wall, a security bot slammed down in front of me, cracking the street. I skidded to a stop.
“Resident Asher Reinhart, you have been located,” it said. “You are safe. A High Earth Network glitch caused this unit to briefly lose your signal. I would recommend returning to the lift at this time.”
I glanced back over my shoulder and found the guard stopped in his tracks. He stood glaring at me, as if there were an invisible barrier he couldn’t pass. He ran his finger across his throat, then stowed his weapon and vanished into the crowd.
I exhaled and collapsed against the wall. My legs felt like they were on fire. A few bulging-eyed men and women crawled toward me from the other side of the street.
“Stay away!” I yelled. My guardian bot stepped between us. If it only knew how much it had missed.
“Piss someone off, did you, resie?” someone beside me muttered.
I flinched, then turned. Slouched right beside me in the shadow of the wall was the bald Unplugged man I’d seen getting his eyes gouged out earlier that night. The first thing I noticed was the stench of fresh blood. Like… rusted metal, another smell I now knew. The rivers of red on his dark cheeks were dry despite the rain, but he hadn’t even been provided a bandage by the preacher who’d done it to him.
That unsettling sight was overshadowed only by the fact that now that I saw him up close, beyond the veil of rain, steam and glowing ads, I recognized him.
I got dizzy, opened my mouth to speak, and felt like the air could choke me.
“You,” I finally pronounced. “You tried to kill me.” I was too pumped up on adrenaline to be as terrified as I should’ve been, and too exhausted to run again.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You pushed me back in High Earth yesterday. I know your face. I wouldn’t forget. You’re… you’re real.”
“I’ll be damned.” He started chuckling, which turned into a dull cough. “And now you’re here? Guess you managed to pull yourself up, then. I’m surprised.”
“You almost killed me!”
“And this is my reward.” His bloody eyelids opened, revealing the two gory holes where his eyes had been. I saw the ridges of muscle and sinew within and had to look away. “Did you come all the way out here to get back at me?”
“No… I…” I was at a loss for words.
He groped through the air to touch me. I sidled out of the way, causing him to tip onto the sodden street, where he laughed like a madman.
I expected my bot to warn him against touching me without consent, but it silently watched. Maybe it registered how little of a threat he was. Still, I wanted to run, sprint away as fast as I could. I didn’t.
“Why?” I asked. How? seemed the more appropriate question, but I’d seen Minah’s capabilities at blocking out the Network. It hadn’t been a nightmare. An Unplugged man had snuck into High Earth without anyone seeing, and attempted to murder me. Suddenly, my crazy moods and actions all started to make sense.
He tapped his forehead and sneered. “To earn my brand. We all must.”
“No. Why me?”
He sloshed through the wet street and used a wall to stand. “I see. You think you’re special. You’re not. The Elder told me to get a resident to look me in the eyes, and then I’d be free of them. Unplugged for life.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I found a tower; I picked a home. That’s it. Special?” He scoffed. “We’re all the damn same, both sides of the wall.”
Again, he reached blindly and his finger brushed my OptiVisor-less face before I could evade it. The bot’s hand sprang out and gripped his wrist.
“Please remove your hand from the visiting resident, or this unit will apply force.”
The crazy man kept his hand on me. The bot continued to squeeze until I could almost hear the crunch of muscle and bone. The man smiled all the way through the pain; then finally, he gave in.
His arm thumped hard to the ground and he rolled over, curled into a fetal position like he was ready to go to sleep. “At least you managed to follow my advice. Good for you.”
Seeing the poor delisted soul in his own element, nightmare or not, he was hardly anything to be frightened of anymore. A deluded, blind lunatic in rags, rolling about in his own blood and filth. I felt sorry for him, sorry for the first person who’d ever tried to physically harm me. Who made VORA think that stress had me coming unhinged.
Whatever he claimed to want by attacking me, now he was harmless. Pathetic. At least if my ill-advised journey beyond the wall accomplished anything, it was helping me conquer my fear of monsters like him. If I could do that, I could do anything.
I regarded the pitiable man one last time, then headed for the High Earth lifts with my bot. I kept my head low, ignoring the pleas and extended hands of all the poor souls who’d never again know paradise.
I was the Chief Director of Content for the greatest show in High Earth, featuring its brightest star, and the time had come to make things right.
It was time to return home.