by DeVere, Taya
“What kind of whiskey is this?”
The bartender chuckles. “The exotic kind.” She throws a shimmering white towel on her shoulder and leans against the bar. “Go on, hon. Have a taste.”
Dennis takes a sip, ready to spit the fake drink back into the glass. But when the taste hits his tongue, it’s anything but disgusting. It seems to melt into his tongue, the inside of his cheeks, and finally his throat. It bubbles and tingles, like the crackling and popping candy Daniel loved when he was a knee-high little shit.
“Delicious, huh?”
“Mm. It’s… interesting.”
The purple woman stands tall again and winks at Dennis. “Why don’t you play us another song, hon?” Her purple toes flap against the tile floor as she walks away. Dennis looks down at the screen in front of him. Do they have any country music here? How do you use this thing anyway? He pokes and taps around, as icons and abbreviations he doesn’t understand pop up.
PLAY — DON’T DROP THE SOAP
“What?” he mumbles, poking the screen repeatedly. A new beat takes over the bar, a violin, and a woman moaning over it. “Stop music,” he says, but nothing happens. “Change song.” Nothing. “Cancel this fucking circus!” More moaning.
Dennis taps his glasses.
ENTERING — GAMES & ROLEPLAY
Still holding the magical whiskey in his hand, Dennis enters a bar that looks like an arcade. But instead of boys and girls blasting monsters or racing with self-driving mopeds, the space is filled with women and men chitchatting. Again, they’re all the same age. Again, they’re all perfect.
He taps his glasses.
ENTERING — REALISTIC & OLD TIMES (before TGA)
A bar with a sticky floor. A jukebox playing a pop song. A waving thirty-something-year-old woman with full lips and long eyelashes.
Tap tap.
ENTERING — LGBTQ+++
Disco music. A young man with perfect skin and a confident smile walks over. Dennis shakes his head and hands him the glittery drink in his hands.
“Umm, thank you?” the man says. An amused look in his eyes, he takes a sip.
“Yeah, I can’t stay,” Dennis says, spreading his hands. “You enjoy that drink, son.”
Tap tap tap.
ENTERING — AR-DRUGS & HALLUSIONATIONS (new)
Walls melting in all rainbow colors. Miniature people walking among animals five times their size. Puddles and waterfalls of beverages to drink from.
“Oh lordy. Too old for this.”
ENTERING — QUICK & DIRTY
The room is filled with naked people, kissing, touching, penetrating.
Dennis shakes his head. “Might as well change the name to 24/7 Orgy…”
Tap. Tap.
ENTERING — VIP ONLY
Smooth Jazz soothes his ears. A sigh escapes his lips. Dennis isn’t sure if it’s a sigh of relief or exhaustion. He walks over to a table covered with a white cloth and glances at the silverware and wine glasses. He doesn’t bother to look around. No strangers ever enter this room. He’d know everyone here, no matter what look they chose.
A red-headed woman with a bowtie walks over. “Good evening Mister Jenkins.”
“Evening, Pearl.”
“Same as usual?”
He gives her a smile and shrugs.
“Coming right up, Mister Jenkins.”
He watches her walk away, a woman in her twenties. In real life, Pearl is a hair over fifty. A handsome woman with short, prickly hair. She lives in Dennis’s building, three floors down from him. On lonely nights like this—when the rooms are anything but fruitful—Dennis plays with the thought of inviting her over for a nightcap. But then again, Pearl likes to spend her time working in VIP ONLY, sitting in her gaming chair, plugged into CS until sunrise.
Pearl returns with two drinks; a brown bottle of lager and a normal-sized glass of whiskey.
“Thank you, doll.”
“Sure thing, Mister Jenkins.”
He can’t help it. His eyes drill into Pearl’s swaying hips as the woman turns and heads to the booths at the end of the room. The perfect curve of her black dress, the long red hair reaching her ass… she does look tasty. Dennis tries to remember what Pearl looks like outside the simulation, but the image of her real face keeps dissolving into her AR face.
He gulps down half of the whiskey. The taste is uncharacteristically bitter and off, though it’s his favorite brand. “God damn glittery bullshit…” he mumbles and empties the glass with the second gulp.
Three white dots appear in front of him. A buzzing sound muffles the smooth jazz. His hand swiping to the left, Dennis rejects the call from his assistant Jenny.
Three white dots appear again.
Swipe to his left.
Buzz.
Dennis grunts and buries his head in his hands, careful not to push off his AR-glasses. Then he taps to answer the call. “What the hell, Jenny?”
“Sorry to bother you, Mister Jenkins, but someone called to tell you that—”
“Jenny. It’s two a.m. on a Wednesday night.”
The line stays quiet for a while. The girl hasn’t turned on her camera.
“Why does the day matter?”
“What?”
“Wednesday. Why does it matter what weekday it is?”
It doesn’t. Dennis is on early retirement. He thinks. Sort of. In a way, he’s never working and then again he’s always working. But he only takes jobs that fascinate him, like the Mansion project. But even back in the day, Wednesdays had always been his favorite days to go bar-hopping. Like a sacred tradition.
“Just forget it,” he mumbles, reaching his hand out for the beer. He brings the bottle close to his lips, and before taking a sip, he says, “I’m sure whatever you are calling to tell me can wait until the morning.”
“You mean midday?”
“What?”
“You never start working until noon, Dennis.”
This little shit.
“Jenny. Why are you harassing me right now?”
“You need to come back in. I mean out. I mean, you need to leave the rooms. Like I said, I was just informed that downstairs—”
Dennis laughs briefly. “Oh, I don’t need to do anything. Why would I? Just because you say so?”
“I don’t need you to.” She clicks her tongue—a sign of disapproval. Since the night Dennis met Jenny and decided against taking things further in the SIM bathroom—instead offering her a job—he’s become almost overly protective of her. And Jenny knows it, too; her arrogance seems to grow by the minute. “You know, you should be nicer to me. I could always jump ship and leave you.”
He scoffs. “And go where? Work at the Chip-Center?”
“I have options. Just because I haven’t made up my mind doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do it.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense, Jenny.”
“Not to you.”
The beer bottle clanks against the table. Head buried in his hands, Dennis rubs his temples and wonders how drunk he must have been when he promised this girl a job and an apartment in the green city’s VIP building.
“So, who needs me, then?”
“Huh?”
“Jenny, who needs me to come out of the SIM?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s kind of dark out there. And she’s wearing sunglasses and a hood. She seems to be in a lot of pain.”
Dennis looks up from his hands. “Where?”
“Downstairs. By the buzzers. I would have let her in, but she’s clearly one of those… you know. Unchipped.”
“Unchipped?”
“That’s what I just said.”
Dennis stands up and starts to pace around the table.
“What else did she say? What does she look like?”
“I already told you, she’s wearing a hood—”
“Okay, fine, Jenny. What did she say?”
“That she needs to talk to Texas.”
Dennis stops in place, his heart missing a bea
t.
“She said to tell you that Maria is here to see you.”
CHAPTER 2 — MARIA’S CHAIR
Curled up in a small bundle, the Unchipped woman sits by the front door of Dennis’s building. Green buildings and blinking billboards shine bright in the cloudless night. Jenny hovers behind Dennis, peeking over his shoulder as best she can.
“Can they talk?” she asks, whispering.
Dennis turns around slowly to look at his assistant. “Jenny, you’re the one who answered when she buzzed to come in. You spoke with her yourself.”
The girl’s eyes widen. “Right, right. Of course.”
Dennis turns his back on Jenny and stares at the woman behind the glass door. He’s turned off the building’s green light, but the tile road nearby—and the city beyond—would be enough to give Maria a raging headache. It’s fascinating. The way the Unchipped react to the city and all its glory. They are a completely different animal. Unique and vulnerable. Everything that is supposed to bring Dennis pleasure and satisfaction causes these people pain and suffering.
“Can you control her with your voice? Or with a CS-key? Like the limo?”
Dennis closes his eyes. This time he doesn’t turn to look at Jenny, but curses under his breath before answering. “She’s not a robot. Or a puppet.”
“Right… right. Just broken, then?”
Dennis nods slowly, keeping his eyes on Maria. She hasn’t noticed them coming out of the elevator or turning off the building’s glimmering green lights. She seems wounded and drained. Like a dying hummingbird on the mansion’s front porch. For a fleeting moment, Dennis remembers what it was like out there, in the rotting world where bees sting and people shoot. He remembers what it’s like to have adrenaline rush in your head, while you hunt for your next kill between the avocado trees.
“Dennis? She’s broken, right?”
He sighs and starts walking toward the CS-key, blinking against the front door.
“No, Jenny. She’s not broken.” He presses his hands into the screen. The door clicks open. “She’s just flawed.”
***
They sit in the living room. Maria, in the middle of the floor, wrapped in a satin sheet, and Texas sunk in his gaming chair, staring at her. The spacious penthouse apartment around them seems somehow off. Cold and hollow. Uninviting. He knows it’s because of the lack of AR, but finds himself troubled by it anyway.
For what seems like the hundredth time, Dennis reaches for his AR-glasses, tucked against the armrest of his chair, but then pulls his hand back. The green, blinking lights would hurt Maria, and she’s already in pain.
“I’m not sure how this turned out, to be honest.” Jenny walks into the room, holding a tray with three steaming mugs of hot chocolate. “We don’t really use the food printer that much, just the Grab-a-Cup stuff in the office.” She hands one of the hot chocolates to Maria, then steps over to Dennis and lowers the tray so he can grab one.
“Did you put a bit of something in mine?”
“What, like rat poison? Why would I do that?” She places the tray on a table and picks up her drink. “Where would I get stuff like that in the city, anyway? We don’t have any rats around here. Oh…” She pauses to take a careful sip. “Do you think I’m upset because the building is switched off? Well, I’m not! I find it refreshing and exciting, actually. But the tenants don’t agree with me, I must tell you. We’ll have quite a few complaints to deal with once our unexpected visitor here heads out. So maybe I wouldn’t accept any beverages from anyone else in the building, but why do you think I would ever—”
Dennis raises his hand and holds his breath. Then he exhales and waves Jenny off. “Never mind. Thank you, Jenny.”
The girl shrugs, then blows into her drink. Her gaze travels from Maria to Dennis. She looks like someone about to watch a game of Ping-Pong, excited to cheer for the winner.
“I said, thank you, Jenny.”
Still blowing into her mug, Jenny raises her eyebrows at Dennis.
“You may go now.”
After a long pause, Jenny pouts and turns on her heels. Instead of heading to the penthouse’s front door to return to her own apartment, she disappears back into Dennis’s kitchen. Eavesdropping. That’s her plan, and unless Dennis wants to take on another of their hour-long arguments, there’s nothing he can do to get rid of his nosey assistant.
Maria places the mug on the floor and crosses her arms against her stomach. The satin sheet won’t keep her warm, but it’s all Dennis could find in the apartment. It’s chilly inside, he knows. But the A/C is set according to his body temperature, and he can’t help it; he’s hotblooded. A thoroughbred. If he were younger, he could pick Maria up and carry her into his bedroom, charm her with his sweet nothings and warm her up right quick. Maybe some whiskey—
“I want to make a deal with you.”
Her voice doesn’t fit. Maria’s in a fragile state, but her voice is robust. Strong. Calm. The same voice he’s grown to love over the years.
“A deal?”
When she looks up, her dark eyes drill into Dennis. Something twitches inside his belly. Something he doesn’t get to feel too often these days.
“Yeah. A deal. When you drove me to the winery… when I killed…” she stops to clear her throat, “When Solomon killed Hawk and Marco. When I was full of malware or whatever shit they controlled me with. Something happened to my brain. To my chip. Something’s broken.”
“But you’re—”
“Yes, I’m Unchipped. But I still have a chip up there, you big piece of shit. How else could your people hijack me like that? Turn me into a killer robot?”
A gasp from the kitchen. Dennis drops his head, shaking it from side to side. “Jenny,” he hollers. “Time to go home, Jenny!”
The girl appears from the kitchen, flashing her perfect smile. “You sure you two don’t need anything? I could make another round of hot chocolate? Maybe look for that blanket—”
“Jenny. Go home.”
“Right, right. Okay then.” She starts backing up toward the front door. “Don’t forget, you have a board meeting in the morning, eleven-thirty.”
“I know, Jenny.”
“Yes, well, it’s just that it’s before noon.”
“That’s right, Jenny. You’re right. Eleven-thirty is before noon.”
“It’s just that you usually don’t get out of bed before—”
“Goodnight. Jenny.”
She bites her lower lip, Dennis’s harsh voice making her eyes blink rapidly. “Right. Yes. I’ll just…” Pointing at the door, Jenny sidesteps to it, clicks it open, and disappears into the hallway. But the CS-key doesn’t click and lock behind her.
“Jenny, I swear on my mother’s—”
Click. The apartment falls silent, just the A/C humming quietly. Dennis sits back in his chair and exhales. “I swear one of these days I’ll…”
“Turn her into a can opener?” Maria raises her eyebrows. “Make her murder innocent people?”
“Is that how you see me? What my work is about?”
Her laugh is dry and insincere. Dennis is surprised when Maria reaches for the hot chocolate and takes a careful sip. It would have surprised him less if the woman had taken the mug and thrown it at him. When she doesn’t answer Dennis’s question, he leans forward on his chair and gives her a careful smile.
“Anyway. You said there’s something wrong with your chip? That you want to make a deal?”
Maria scoffs and doesn’t look at Dennis. She stares at her drink, shivering slightly under the sheet. Dennis has an urge to wrap his arms around her. To keep her warm. But though the woman is in a weak condition, she would surely manage to give him a black eye for such an attempt. Or knowing Maria—two black eyes.
“Let me rephrase that,” he says. “You said something unusual is going on with your chip?”
Breaking her stare, she takes a long gulp of hot chocolate. Then she sets the mug back on the floor and smacks her lips. “Yup. You p
eople really fucked up some wiring up there.”
“What’s going on, then? Are your ears ringing or something?”
Her head twitches back. A surprised huff escapes her chapped lips. “Are my ears ringing?” She laughs and shakes her head. “Yes, Texas, my ears are ringing. That’s the problem. Oh, and also the fact that every time I try and fall asleep, I hear a loud bang inside my head and see my friends dead, bleeding on the ground. Oh, oh, but that’s not it! My headache, it’s out of this world. It radiates all over my body. I can barely walk. Every limb, every inch of it seems to be on fire.”
“But you’ve always had these symptoms, right? When you’re in the city? I thought all Unchipped people did.”
“So, no big deal then? We’re supposed to be in pain, is what you’re saying?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Outside the city. I’m in pain even when I’m miles away from this hellhole.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. Your precious Doctor Solomon did a real number on my brain,” Maria says. Then she adds, mumbling, “Like the fact that I killed two innocent people wasn’t enough.”
“And why isn’t Margaret Lewis helping you with this? As far as I know, she’s the one who overrode Solomon’s code and snapped you out of the, umm… state you were in.”
Dennis is not used to this. Talking about the Unchipped and people outside the city is usually like playing an AR-game or doing an experiment. Talking to Maria—here and now, face to face—doesn’t feel like either of those things. Not even close.
“Margaret is helping me. That’s why I’m here.”
“Lewis told you to come to me?”
“She did.”
Dennis frowns and folds his hands on top of his belly. “And why does Margaret think I would help you?” He raises his hand before Maria has a chance to lash out at him. “Not saying I won’t, no. But… what makes Lewis think that I would?”
It is worth asking. Because Margaret doesn’t know about Dennis’s fascination with Maria. Nobody knows about it. Or do they?
Maria rubs the back of her neck and closes her eyes. Maybe the pain medicine Jenny gave her is finally kicking in. Dennis was surprised to see Maria accept the pills and even more surprised to see her gulp them down with a glass of water.
