by DeVere, Taya
“I’m not going to kill her, Maria.”
“A stasis capsule is no better.”
“I’m not going to do that, either.”
“What, then?”
“I’m going to help her.”
***
The spoon clanks against the glass floor as Owena abandons it. With her bare hands, she continues to scoop what little ice cream is left in the bowl. Doctor Baldwin stands next to Dennis, staring at the assassin and the disappearing ice cream. Deep gashes decorate her arms and calves.
“And she has no recollection of who she was?” Baldwin asks. “Before she became this… clone?”
“Are you sure the shielding on this thing will keep her from messing with the locks?” Dennis asks, ignoring the doctor’s question. “I’m telling you, she hijacked my limo like a child catching a butterfly.”
“Am I sure?” Doctor Baldwin shakes his head. “After meeting your friend here, I’m not sure about anything. But the shielding is strong. It should hold. Besides…” He nods at the woman inside her see-through prison. “It doesn’t seem like she’s in a hurry to leave us.”
Dennis watches the woman, with her child-like face and beaming eyes. Legs spread, she sits in the middle of the Chip-Center’s glass box, now licking the bowl’s sides. Her whole face is smudged with raspberry licorice ice cream. The plastic bowl lands upside down next to the abandoned spoon.
The rule of perfection doesn’t apply to her either, he thinks. For some strange reason, this thought doesn’t make him anxious at all. If anything, it’s comforting.
“More,” she says, staring straight at Dennis and ignoring Doctor Baldwin as she has since they arrived. It had felt wrong, still does, shoving her into one of these glass rooms. But the girl doesn’t seem to mind. She seems happy and content with her surroundings, like she’s at home. As long as she has ice cream and appetite, she should be good. It seems the former will run out before the latter.
Owena gets up and walks to the glass wall. “More,” she repeats.
“Owena, that’s your fifth bowl,” Dennis says.
The girl just stares at him. Dennis sighs and turns to face Doctor Baldwin. “Is she going to throw up or have an upset stomach?”
The doctor shrugs. “It’s plant-based. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Dennis nods at the kitchen area behind the doctor. “In that case, do you mind? It’s in the break room freezer.”
Baldwin raises his eyebrows but doesn’t argue. Being the top surgeon and shrink in the green city, he’s not exactly used to fetching snacks for patients and test subjects. But then again, Dennis is now his boss. Dennis is everyone’s boss.
A few feet away, Baldwin stops and pats his pockets. He turns around and hands Dennis a set of AR-glasses. “Here, I have a spare set. You just need to activate your accounts. It’ll take some time for the team to recover yours from the accident scene.”
Dennis stares at the glasses in his hands, suddenly reluctant to put them on. “Thank you,” he mumbles, but Baldwin is already halfway across the basement.
He turns to look at the assassin in the glass box. “What are we going to do with you, Owena?” But his voice is too low for her to hear.
Eyes wide with curiosity, Owena walks around the glass box, investigating its modest contents. A bed, a desk, and a gaming chair, all welded to the floor. A screen in the ceiling, too high for the prisoner in the glass box to reach and break, but not too high for them to see whatever the Chip-Center wants them to see. It had been Nurse Saarinen’s invention, part of the mind augmentation project. A project that Owena is a product of.
“Did you watch any shows back in the blue city?” Dennis asks, taking a few steps closer to the glass wall that separates him from the girl who was supposed to be his death.
“Shows?”
“Yeah, shows. Do you have a favorite channel?”
Owena frowns. With a quick movement, she sits back down, now on her knees. Head tilted to the side, she stares at Dennis in confusion.
“Nurse Saarinen didn’t let you watch anything? Cartoons? Even the wellness channels?”
More staring. Her lips form the letter O.
Baldwin returns, carrying another plastic bowl filled with ice cream. He hands it to Dennis. “That’s all we’ve got. I’ll need to send Mary or Phil to get more from Vertical, if she keeps eating at this pace.”
“Thanks, doc.” Dennis walks to a metal hatch on the wall. He pulls out a plastic tray, places the ice cream on it, and twirls the tray around so that Owena has access to her treat. Like a cat, the girl jumps up, her eyes fixed on the bowl. Her smooth, silent steps bring her to the glass wall.
Dennis stares at her face. The deep wounds from Maria’s grenade have already started to heal. The nanobot injection Baldwin gave Owena while she was still unconscious would fix up her face, which would soon be as good as new. No scars, no spots of lighter-shaded pigment because of the attack. For a split second, Dennis wishes he had the guts to tell Baldwin not to treat her skin. Scar tissue would suit her. Make her look more human. Fragile.
While Owena backs away and sits down in the middle of her new room, the AR-glasses in Dennis’s hand buzz slightly. Baldwin nods at the glasses and then pats Dennis on his shoulder. “Better get back to it, Texas.” His long strides take him away and toward the basement lab.
With the glasses on his face, Dennis turns away from the ice cream-gobbling hit-man. Within five seconds, the device has scanned his eyes and integrated his accounts with Baldwin’s spare glasses.
CALL FROM LAURA SOLOMON. CITY OF FINLAND
He walks further away from Owena and answers the call.
“Shouldn’t it say, Call from Laura Solomon. Inside an egg?”
Her laughter soothes Dennis’s ears. It makes him feel safe, at ease.
“Wouldn’t make much of a secret, would it?”
“I guess it wouldn’t.” Dennis paces near an empty stasis capsule. “How are you, Laura?”
“Ahh, dear. The same. Still dead.”
“Is your mother there with you?”
Laura blows air through her lips. How can she do that without a real face? Dennis wants to ask, but it seems too insensitive. “Mother. Margaret. Iris. I’m telling you, dear. Being dead does not come with many perks. Here I thought I’d finally get some rest. Some real privacy. But no, no. If anything, it’s more drama, more issues in the world, more visitors wanting to pick your brain. I wish there was an on/off plug here, Texas. Or at least a five-minute snooze button.”
“You don’t sleep?”
She pauses to think. Or that’s what Dennis assumes she’s doing. Nothing about the egg makes sense to him. It’s strange to think of Laura as the living dead.
“Not so much sleeping, no. But I do pause and stay still, if that makes sense.”
It doesn’t.
“Can you still feel? Taste? See?”
“Of course I can. Being here is not much different from your beloved SIM-rooms, dear. I see and hear and feel whatever I’m connected to. I just don’t bother with people that much anymore. Not now that I have access to more important things.”
He clears his throat. He wants to ask her what could possibly be more important than life on Earth. What is it she cares about—more than her own flesh and bones? Asking personal questions of Doctor Solomon has never been a good idea. But here he goes, snooping. Inquiring. “And do you have emotions?”
“You mean love? Hate and passion?” She stops for a while, her smile evident. “Yes, dear. I still feel everything you feel. More than what you feel.”
“More?”
This time the pause is longer. “Let’s call it a sixth sense, for lack of a better phrase.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“What’s that, dear?”
“That none of it is real?”
Laughter. Is she mocking him?
“What is real, Texas? You think the VIP-room is real? That Pearl could really pull off that red hair? Are an
y of those middle-aged women you sit with real? The ones who look like they’re fresh out of high school?”
Maria is real. The rebels are real. Owena. His wife and son were too. Dennis leans his back against the stasis capsule. Oddly enough, he wishes that this was a face to face conversation. That he and Laura were meeting in the non-AR world.
“I don’t care about the world anymore, Dennis. The Happiness-Program. The stasis capsules and helmets. I don’t give a rat’s ass about humanity. None of it.”
“Okay, now I know it’s not really you.”
“Because I would never say that?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Dying does funny things to your mind. Makes you see what’s really important.”
“And what’s that?”
A knock against the glass wall interrupts their conversation. Dennis looks up and sees Owena, pointing at her empty ice cream bowl. Her lips form just one word, “More.”
Solomon laughs briefly. “I’d tell you more of what it’s like to have ultimate power and access to most things online… but I think you have your hands full.”
Dennis huffs and shakes his head. Lowering his voice, he whispers, “I know she’s not my kid. But I don’t think what’s happened to her is right.”
In the glass room, Owena drops the bowl and turns her back on Dennis. She walks to the table, running her fingers across its smooth surface. Then she turns and runs and jumps up on the bed, using the spring mattress as a trampoline. Dennis can’t help but smile.
“Maybe it is the rebels who matter the most. Unchipped and Chipless people. Helping those less fortunate.”
He doesn’t have to see Laura to know she’s rolling her virtual eyes. It’s like he’s with her, in whatever-the-hell egg she’s gotten into.
“Your words, dear. Not mine.”
“So, who then? Who matters the most?”
“You’re asking me? A dead woman who just told you she couldn’t care less about humanity? People don’t care about other people. The only person anyone cares about is the self-centered moron staring them back in the mirror. No one else is real.”
“People are real, Laura.” Is it wise to disagree with her? “They feel more real than the other stuff.”
The fabric of her make-believe lab coat rustles as Doctor Solomon shrugs her invisible shoulders. “So why are you here then, dear? Searching the egg for the meaning of life?” He senses her smile. It seems less mocking now. “Sounds to me like you already found your answer.”
***
The Chip-Center’s van glides toward the only lightless building in the green city. Hands cupped around his face, Dennis lets the tears flow and drop onto the floor next to the gurney he’s sitting on. The driver can’t hear him, no one can.
Doctor Baldwin’s spare AR-glasses lie unused next to Dennis. Laura won’t call again, not anytime soon. He’ll be alone with the rebels, but not leading them. Whoever it is standing on his penthouse balcony right now—eating his food, sleeping in his bed—that’s who will be taking over from here. Dennis is merely a face of the Happiness-Program, a legal obstacle in Nurse Saarinen’s way.
The gurney’s sheet feels soft in Dennis’s hands. The small travel pillow on it is inviting. An image of a wooden bowl of guacamole flashes through his mind. He winces, wanting to wrap himself in the sheet. To break down and refuse to get up—that’s all he’s willing to do. He wants to put himself down on this gurney and never get up again. Just as his orders have done to so many over the years. People who are now used as processing power, lighting up the AR-reality that he’s been stuck in for over ten years.
But he sits still, leaning against his hands, bawling, draining. Losing his mind. Or maybe finding it. Finding what’s real.
The van stops in front of the dark building. Without getting up, Dennis sits and peers through the side window, wishing he had chosen a self-driving car instead of a vehicle with a driver. He’s nearly had the time to dry his eyes when the side door slides open.
“We’re here, sir.”
“I can see that, Mark.”
The driver grins and lifts his AR-glasses. “Hey! You know my name!”
Dennis gets up from the gurney and steps on the green tile road. He looks at the man’s happy face in wonder. Does it really mean that much to him? Dennis remembering his name?
“Of course I know your name.” Dennis steps closer to his driver and awkwardly pats him on the shoulder. The gesture feels unnatural, but seeing the man’s grin grow even wider is worth it.
“Well, Mark,” Dennis clears his throat, “better get going. Time is CC’s and all that, right?”
“Have a great day, Mister Jenkins!”
Dennis straightens his tie, folds the suit coat on his arm, and starts toward the front door. Jenny’s already there, pacing outside the entryway.
“Mister Jenkins! Wait!”
Anxious to get upstairs, Dennis stops but doesn’t turn around. The driver fast-walks over and extends his hand, holding a pair of AR-glasses. “You forgot these.”
Dennis stares at the glasses that Doctor Baldwin gave him at the Chip-Center. “Keep them,” he says as he walks away. “They’re not real to me anymore.”
CHAPTER 5 — IN THE PENTHOUSE
Jenny walks in front of him, talking without pause. Having a hard time climbing the stairs in the dark staircase of his building, Dennis misses most of it. Names like Margaret and Maria he catches, but he misses the content entirely. He’s tired. Bruised up. Drained. He wants to be alone in his penthouse. Alone, but maybe with Maria in the next room. He needs time to think. Time to gather his thoughts.
“And so that’s where you’ll be staying. You and Maria. She’s afraid that the headquarters has already sent another assassin to the green city. They must have learned that this first one failed—”
“Owena,” Dennis says and stops between the floors to catch his breath. “Her name is Owena.”
Jenny stares at him in surprise. Without AR-glasses on, the girl looks more innocent. Somehow more human. Her shoulder-length blond hair has dark roots, and her two front teeth have a gap between them. Why hasn’t he noticed it before? Any of it?
“So Nurse Saarinen names her test subjects now?”
“Don’t call her that, Jenny.” Dennis places his hand on the metal railing and keeps climbing the stairs. He could ask Jenny to turn the power on, just so he could use the elevator, but for some reason that seems like the worst thing for him to do, with a building filled with Unchipped people. It’s incredible how something so strong can be hurt by something as simple as light. Ninja-like Maria. Rebel leader Kaarina. Sanna, daughter of the most powerful woman that ever existed. Even the goddamn Yeti is powerless in the green glow.
“Anyway…” Jenny says, side-eyeing Dennis. “Because the penthouse is no longer in use, you and Maria will be moving into the presidential suite at level—”
“Speaking of,” Dennis interrupts her. “Who is it that has taken over my apartment?” He knows it’s not Lewis. But who else would Doctor Solomon agree to put in charge? Her daughter is a preteen. Sanna’s old enough to take care of a rabbit, carrying it around the world, but she wouldn’t be able to rule what’s left of humanity.
Jenny looks around them to check that they’re alone. This is odd to Dennis, knowing that it was Jenny herself who told him all his tenants have moved out because of the blackout. “I heard that it’s the new Doctor Solomon up there,” she says, grinning and nodding. “Yeah, who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know, Jenny,” Dennis says slowly. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Oh.”
They continue up the stairs in the dim light. The gray walls and floor seem out of place to him. The rebel presence here has transformed his home from colorful lights and soothing sounds to a gray vampiric empire. But it’s not the rebels upstairs that have changed the way Dennis sees the building. It’s the lack of AR.
“Whoever it is, they eat a lot,” Jenny says, and
passes Dennis again on the stairs. She takes two stairs at a time, then turns and leans on the railing. “I’ve hauled five boxes of tacos and vegan key lime pie up there, and it’s only been a day.”
Dennis is too out of breath to ask Jenny how she’s been feeding their newfound leader, if they are not willing to open their apartment door. Dennis’s apartment door.
He stops and takes a few long breaths. “How did you get past my CS-key? To make all these changes?”
“Easy.” Jenny investigates her short but carefully filed fingernails. In AR, she keeps her nails long and orange. “I had access to your spare AR-glasses, and when you accepted the limo’s emergency override, you gave me access to everything.”
He huffs, then keeps climbing. “Well, of course I did. Silly me, for not asking what the emergency override included. I guess I was too busy hauling ass from the bullets and a mind-fucked five-year-old.”
Jenny giggles. She turns and skips up multiple stairs. They’re almost at the presidential suite now. One more flight of stairs to go.
“Did you bring all my stuff?”
“Mhm.”
“The good food printer?”
“Of course.”
“The real cocoa?”
“Yup.”
“How about my bed?”
“What about your bed?”
“Is this intruder sleeping in my bed, or did you have that brought downstairs as well?”
Jenny stops by the suite door and presses her hand on Dennis’s CS-key. “Just focus on the positive, Texas.” This is the first time she’s ever called him that. “We got the whole building to ourselves. No more complaints about happiness-pill deliveries gone missing.”
They walk into the suite. A warm yellow light flickers on as they make their way into the open kitchen area. Dennis nods at the CS-key. “I want my access to that thing restored, Jenny.” She grins at him and waves him off. Dennis rolls his eyes. “I’m not kidding. First thing in the morning.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Who knows what the world would look like,” he mumbles, “if Jenny Rowan was in charge of it for more than a day.”
