by Anthea Sharp
“You know, you should really check out the sky tonight. I heard there’s lots of solar activity lighting it up at midnight. We should totally go out and see what it looks like.”
“Like the aurora borealis lights?” Tat asked. She peered over and threw him a small smile. He had a way of redirecting her thoughts with a sentence. How did he do that?
“Yes! Just like those. You read about them, right? I wish we could travel to the poles and check them out.”
“You go there, and you’d die from radiation poisoning in two seconds.”
He winked. “It might be worth it.”
She flicked soapy water his way, and he dodged it, an arm flying up in defense.
“Hey! I just took a shower. No lasagna water baths tonight, eh?”
“It might make you smell better.”
“Oh, that’s savage.”
She laughed, shaking her head and feeling loads better. Jed was magical indeed, and once they’d finished up the evening’s chores, they headed back upstairs and made plans to meet on the balcony of her room later. She had the good room. She paid the bills more than anyone, so she got the one with a view and a balcony to the outside.
Unfortunately, that meant everyone came through her room at one point or another to lounge in the outdoor space twenty-eight floors above the city streets. It was the only paradise they got, and she didn’t mind the constant stream of the others coming through. It was probably the only reason everyone pretty much liked her. All except Janice.
“Did you see any of those lights yet?” she whispered as she rolled out onto the patio a few hours later. She had work to do but had logged off her computer to head onto the balcony. If Jed said there was a celestial event she shouldn’t miss, she wouldn’t miss it.
“Not yet, but I do see some odd glowing up above.”
“Do you think people in the past made lots of pilgrimages just to see the lights?” she asked.
“Oh, they did! I heard they would make special trips up to the poles and take brilliant pictures of it. It’s all online. At least, what was salvaged after the mass plague took out the net’s infrastructure. They managed to save a lot.”
Of course it was online, but she hadn’t thought to look up the Aurora Borealis lights on her own. Sometimes she became obsessed with her work online and forgot it could be used to view the world as it once was. But why live in the past? Most of the footage was of places long gone or destroyed, irradiated beyond use. People were stuck in the cities, bunched up like sardines to live and work out their pathetically simple lives. She preferred to live in virtual reality, or VR, where she could make money to support the group home. She sighed, shivering as the midnight air swept over them, rustling her thin blonde wisps.
“Are you cold?” Jed asked.
“I’m fine.” She turned to find he had left. He never listened to her, which was probably a good thing. He returned with one of her throw blankets, threadbare but still mighty warm. He draped it over her lap and arranged it around her frail legs, tucking it in around them. She looked like a mermaid, and she smiled at her friend. Jed was devastatingly handsome, with his gleaming blue eyes and obsidian hair. His deeply tanned skin made hers look pasty against the moonlight.
“There. See? Much better.” He wore his jacket and had been smart to think of bringing it from his room. He could always predict things like weather.
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling shy as her cheeks blushed a cool pink color. She never flushed red or felt overheated; her frail body would never be that sturdy. She was often anemic and tired, but she spent hours on her computer checking accounts and fixing things in her bubble, an island of her own making in the game called Red Herring. It was an artificial world where roleplaying was encouraged, but everyone could only have one avatar. That avatar represented a person in this pseudo-world which mirrored real life in so many ways. Everyone played Red Herring. Everyone had an avatar.
“When you’re done watching the aurora, come back and chat. I need to ask you something.”
Tat rolled the phrase through her mind. A user on Red Herring named Rose had written back to her on the game. She’d met Rose’s avatar a couple weeks earlier and had spent almost every day chatting online and playing games. The girl seemed as lonely and broken inside as Tatiana was, but from what Tat could gather, Rose had a perfectly unaffected body in real life. It was curious she wanted to talk to Tat at all.
An aurora appeared across the sky in brilliant colors of purple and green.
“Oh! Look!” She pointed up toward the lights, gasping at the sight. She’d never seen them before; they never came this far south. But the sun had been acting odd for several years, sending bursts of solar wind in Earth’s direction.
“It’s brilliant,” Jed answered. He sipped on a pouch of water filtered from the city’s supply. Each tenement was allotted so much per resident, and it was sent through filters to be purified. It still tasted faintly of chemicals, but it was as clean as it would ever get in a city like this.
“What do you think the lights look like in the unregulated lands?” Tat asked, sighing, her hooded eyes staring intently at the light show. She was unaware that Jed’s eyes were focused on her, not the lights.
“I’m sure they’re the same as here but brighter, and maybe even shifting in the atmosphere more.”
“Do you think it scorches the earth any?”
“Nah. The ozone is threadbare, but I think there’s enough of it to hold off the most dangerous rays of the sun.”
“I don’t think I could live out there in the unregulated lands. Too many savages.”
Jed continued to watch her, and she finally felt his eyes on her. She turned his way. His glistening eyes reflected the aurora, and Tat felt her face heat slightly, thankful the dim illumination was hiding her embarrassment.
“You could live anywhere you want,” Jed answered, his voice low and husky.
“Where are you going to live when you age out?” Tat cleared her throat and looked back at the sky. Flushed, she could still feel his eyes on her.
Lately, his gaze had lingered far longer than ever. He’d changed in the last year, but it was near impossible for her to point out what exactly had shifted. Physically, he wasn’t so lanky but had filled out, his shoulders wide, his arms stronger. The hair on his face grew thicker every day. The looks were one thing, but she had no idea how to answer any of his covert advances and would often change the subject when that happened. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Jed, but she knew she wasn’t what he needed. Stuck in a wheelchair with a death sentence was far from what she wanted for him. If only he would realize that.
Jed finally looked away, staring hard at the city below. They were far up enough that the city sounds faded to distant calls of ambulances, honking car horns, and unintelligible murmurs.
“I don’t know. Ian has a lead on a shared flat in the Hilo District. He’s waiting to see if he gets approved and will sublet half of it to me in a month when I come of age.”
“I see.” Tat felt her chest squeeze. The Hilo District was across Jonah, the main city of the Sion Government of the West. Hilo District was at least ten miles away from Helix District where they lived, and it’d be impossible to visit him even on a good day for her. She’d have to board three airbuses just to get there. She knew Jed would do just that to come see her, but transportation could get expensive if you had to cross the city multiple times a month. Most people worked where they lived or worked online. That’s what she did, and Jed as well, but he was aging out of the group home system and would have to leave within a week of turning eighteen, a fact threatening to break a dam of tears holed up inside her.
“I’ll come visit you often, Tat. I promise.”
“It’s too far.”
“I don’t care.”
She peered back at him, unshed tears filling her eyes. “No. I don’t want you to come see me. It’ll be easier that way.”
“You’re full of it, you know that? You�
�ll find a cure or win the body lottery any day now. You’ll see.”
“It’s never gonna happen. I was supposed to win today. I could feel something in the air. My intuition is rarely wrong, but I lost. It’s hopeless.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Tat.”
She shook her head and threw her hands up. She was done with the conversation, and this signaled Jed to not press the issue. He groaned but kept silent as they continued to watch the lights. After ten minutes, he quietly excused himself and disappeared back to his room on the other side of the tenement. His absence left the balcony feeling colder and emptier than ever before as Tat wept silently, her tears glistening beneath the glimmering lights hovering high above the city. She didn’t want to die, but there was no hope for her. She wasn’t dumb. Jed wanted more from her, but it was something she couldn’t give no matter how much she wanted the same thing.
Behind her, the computer beeped, calling out in the quiet night. A new message from the VR bubbles.
Rose.
3
Tatiana cleared the building, running around the corner to avoid the circumference of the demolition. The building came crashing down, sending a billowing cloud of dust and debris across the cramped city streets. She’d meant to clear out this section for ages. It was from her earlier years of building and customizing her bubble island. Time had done nothing but favor decay and corruption in the streets of her bubble island on the VR game she played every day. She really needed to check the neighborhoods more often. Without supervision, the programs ran amok.
Here in the virtual, she reigned as queen. Here, she could walk, run, and fight without problems. This was the only place she felt free. In her wheelchair back in the real world, or RW, that was the nightmare, the never-ending dream. If she could insert herself into the VR world forever, she thought she probably would.
She sighed, pressing a finger to her temple as a message came through. Her visor was notifying her of the location where her island would overlap with Rose’s in about five minutes, for their appointment. Island bubbles were individual worlds, or cities, or even planets that a RW user controlled and could either keep private or integrate into larger bubble cities, intertwined and connected while collaborating with others. She’d intermixed her world with others at times, but it always unraveled, and she’d had to eventually untangle herself from the other person’s world. Always the loner, Tat hadn’t found another person to mesh her virtual world with besides Jed, but he wasn’t on right now. His bubble was permanently fused to hers, but his VR self was nowhere to be found. More likely than not, he was working.
“Rose.” Her visor flashed, vibrating to remind her of the appointment they’d preset before coming online today. In VR, one could hallucinate the day away. Visor alerts helped keep the real world present. It was the only tether back to the RW. Turning it off was dangerous and could cause a user to wither in their chair in the real world.
Tat found the small park bench at the edge of her virtual city where it mixed into a common area simply known as Old Central Park. Like the real one that used to be in New York City before its destruction, it now only existed amid the VR realms. All avatars could anchor their bubbles to it to mingle.
The bench she sat on to wait would remain semi-private, accessible only by invitation, and Rose was the only one invited to Tat’s bubble realm today.
“Tatiana?”
Tat peered up and focused on a young, svelte brunette with long, straight hair tied half up. Sweat glistened on her forehead as though she had run here. Why would she do that? Maybe she’d been remodeling her bubble, just like Tat had been doing.
“Rose Haller?” It had to be Rose, but Tat wanted to be sure. This was the first time they were meeting as “normal” people as opposed to characters in a game.
The girl nodded.
Tat jumped to her feet and held out her hand. “Hi! It’s so good to meet you.”
Rose nodded, staring down at Tat’s hand with a barely hidden aversion. “It’s nice to meet you too. Sorry, but I don’t shake hands.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Sorry.”
“It’s nothing personal.”
“No problem.” Tat curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her arm. She waved the girl toward the bench. Peering out over the nearby pond, Tat fidgeted, wondering if she should speak first.
“I-I….” she stuttered.
“So….”
They both stopped before bursting out laughing.
“Sorry, go ahead,” Tat offered.
“Thanks for coming,” Rose began. “I wasn’t sure if you’d wanted to meet up again. People are so artificial sometimes. I was beginning to think you might be a bot and not a real person.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not big on getting around in the RW. I’m real. Trust me.” Tat motioned at her legs. “These don’t work in the RW, and I’m a bit skinnier and paler in person, but other than that, I’m pretty much me.”
Rose nodded as she picked at her nails. She had a healthy glow Tat envied, but the haunted look in her eyes couldn’t be hidden behind an avatar. With the facial motion capture devices on the visors, everything in VR revealed all the nervous twitches, subtle eye flickers, and any subconscious ticks people had in the RW. It was just as hard to lie in VR. Almost harder than in person.
“You told me that beforehand. I appreciate your honesty.”
“Thanks. You said you needed to ask me something?”
“Yes. You need a new body, don’t you?”
Tat straightened. “Yeah. I enter the lottery every month, but I never win.”
“I’m not talking about the lottery.”
“What are you talking about?” Tat felt her mouth turn dry. Was Rose suggesting something illegal? Body theft was a worldwide problem. Perfect people rarely ventured out alone due to the fact that body snatchers waited around every corner.
“I’m talking about you anchoring to my body. I told you before that my life isn’t exactly how I want it to be. I want to be free of this physical world. I want to roam in the VR forever.”
Tat’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible. Not yet.”
The corners of Rose’s lips lifted, a spark of life igniting in her darkened eyes. For a moment, Tat could see the girl Rose had once been, vivacious, vibrant, alive. What had happened to make her retreat into this artificial world so much? Had she lost touch with reality so much she didn’t want to live anymore?
“It’s possible. I made sure of it.”
Tat shook her head as they both turned back toward the pond, part of the common area anyone could walk around. A goose was honking at young girl and her mother, demanding the precious bread they were trying to toss out to the birds. The one goose was bullying the others out of the way, snapping at them. A moment later, the commotion ended as the mother swung her umbrella at the large, rogue goose. It had bitten her daughter. The girl was crying and bleeding from a finger. The mother chased the goose down the bank until it swam away, reluctant and grumpy but unaccustomed to fighting with an umbrella.
“How do you do it?” Tat turned back to Rose. “How do you remain in the VR forever?”
“It’s not the how that’s hard, getting away with it is. But I think I can pull it off. I’ve developed a way to upload my consciousness to a server which will be maintained forever since it piggybacks on the corporation running all the islands’ programs. I will be me in there, essentially, but unconnected to a body and without the nuisances of being alive. I will be alive in every other sense of the word.”
“You would really do that? Give up living for real?”
“If you knew what my life was like, you’d do it too.”
“My life isn’t worth much either.”
“It’s worth far more than mine.” Rose stood up and held out her arm. “Walk with me. I have a proposal for you.”
“Okay,” Tat answered, jumping to her feet. They hooked arms and moved slowly do
wn the path surrounding the pond. Every detail in this VR bubble was intimately scripted after the RW. It even smelled of murky pond water, damp grass, and duck feces. The worn path crunched beneath their feet.
“I propose you take my body when I go virtual. I will no longer need it, and I’ve been searching for a person worthy of taking it over. It was hard to find someone like you, Tat. I want you to take it. I was going to give it to the Society of Dejected Humanity, but I don’t think they’ll match it with a deserving soul. You know the lottery is rigged, right? You’d never win a body with the way it’s run.”
Tat halted in her steps. “What? How do you know it’s rigged?”
“Because I know. My father built the system, and it’s made to benefit the very rich and powerful. Haven’t you noticed the winners are always people who have better situations? If I sign it over to you, they will have no choice but to anchor you to my body.”
“You’d do that for me?”
Rose nodded. “Of course. You deserve this chance.”
“I don’t feel very deserving. I make money illegally. I’m lucky my group home director looks the other way, or I’d barely be getting any kind of medical treatments and enough food to eat. She lets me hack into systems if I’m careful. I steal from the rich.”
“And give it to the poor. Your group home benefits from your intelligence. You can still take care of them. In fact, with a functional body, you can make life for them far more bearable. What do you say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t make me give the Society my body. They’ll just give it to some spoiled user who’ll abuse it until they can pay for another.” Rose pressed her fingers into Tat’s, a look of desperation filling her eyes. “Please. I can’t let them take it.”
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
Rose’s eyes lit up. “You’ll do the anchoring?”
“Yes, but what if you change your mind?”
“I won’t change my mind.”
4
