Journeys of the Mind

by Sonny Whitelaw Sean Williams

  Nemo's spirits lifted instantly at the sound of his Inbox blipping. He hardly dared hope that it would be her. He edged his chair closer to the console and leaned towards it, sucking in his breath with anticipation.

  'Incoming from Shandy', said his chair.

  Nemo exhaled quickly, his heart racing.

  'Hi Shandy,’ he said.

  Of course Shandy might not be on realtime. Of course she might not really be interested in him, said a dark little voice in the depths of his mind, but he dismissed that nasty little whisper quickly. Nemo had several reasons for believing Shandy was genuine. Little things she'd said that signalled truth, like the time they'd been talking about their favourite programs. Shandy had said that she liked Great Barrier Reef adventure53 better than White Water Rapidz88. A dead giveaway—girls were serious about historical stuff, like coral and tropical fish. And then there was that other time when she'd asked him how he was feeling. It was a strange question, and really quite insightful. Nemo had just been fined for failing his Medcheck. That had been a really hard month, where he just couldn't bring himself to use the exercise programs in his chair at all. He knew he'd get fined, but he just couldn't move for hours and hours, despite the roar of the crowds in his ears, everyone screaming Nemo Nemo Nemo you're a winner.

  'Hi Nemo,’ said Shandy. ‘Can I come over?'

  Nemo closed his eyes. A voice dripping with honey and spices whispered his name as Shandy materialised. Of course it wasn't likely to be her real voice. Nemo always used a synth when he spoke to people, converting his thin consonants into something rich and masculine, with a hint of a mysterious foreign accent. So maybe Shandy's real voice wouldn't roll off the tongue quite like ambrosia.

  'Hi Shandy.’ Nemo took a deep breath and tried to still his racing pulse. There was so much he wanted to tell her, and even more that he wanted to ask. What do you look like? Of course, the projection that she sent him wouldn't be any more real than the avatars he posted of himself. Shandy wouldn't really have long, blonde hair tumbling down to her waist, indigo eyes and fulsome lips the colour of Cherry Coke. Of course she only made that picture up, just like he designed the tanned and well-muscled dark-haired Latino that stood before her now. But what did she look like really? Couldn't she be as beautiful in the flesh as she was in Nemo's heart? And if she weren't, would it matter? Sometimes this kind of thinking frightened him more than anything else in the world.

  'Nemo,’ said Shandy, ‘what are you doing right now?'

  See how much she cares about me, he thought, his chest flushing with warmth.

  'Working out,’ he replied. Shit, now he was going to have to find that crystal of his dark haired Latino self, pumping iron. It'd been a year or so since he'd used it. Hopefully his CAMO hadn't filed it in a stupid place. He keyed in search and retrieve instructions, while making small adjustments to his Latino self's voice modulator. Now he would sound as if he was speaking in breathy pauses, his rippling muscular torso glistening with sweat.

  'Hey Shandy,’ he said, ‘It's been awhile. Whatcha been doing?'

  'Nemo, I've been very busy. I'm a Grade6 now. My career is very important to me.'

  A 6? Since when had Shandy been upgraded to a 6? Nemo bit his lip. He'd been sure she was a 5 last week. She'd definitely been a 5 when they'd first met in a V-Bar last year. She must be a real hard worker to be pushing ahead like that. And smart. She'd always sounded smart. Anxiety flooded his senses. Would it make a difference that he was only a 4, and a lazy 4 at that?

  'Yeah, well, you know, I've had a lot of stuff on my mind lately,’ he said, hoping desperately that she wouldn't start asking for details. ‘But my career is very important to me too,’ he added for good measure.

  Nemo took a deep breath and felt the stirrings of resolve welling deep within his chest. When Shandy logged off he was gonna make some changes. He was gonna do a solid, 12 hour day, and then he was gonna exercise for a couple of hours, make the sweat glisten on his chest for real. He was gonna work the whole week solid to build up his credit reserve again, and then, in between bouts of working out, he was gonna look into applying for an upgrade exam. Maybe even set his sights on the Dome. Ordinary people made it to the Dome all the time. He'd seen it on the wall.

  'Shandy,’ he began, ‘Shandy, I got a lot of stuff happening right now...'

  'Attention Nemo,’ intruded a hard-edged, metallic voice from his console—definitely not Shandy's voice. ‘Local Council requests that you relocate your Car And Mobile Office from district 234 to one of the following regions: 348, 422, or 491. A map appeared before Nemo's eyes: the Casula fringe, just as he suspected.

  'Please select a region and move your Car And Mobile Office. You have 30 minutes to comply.'

  'Excuse me,’ said Nemo to the console, his voice flush with irritation, ‘I was right in the middle of a private conversation.'

  'Please indicate your willingness to comply. If you would like some more information on the Urban Fringe Expansion Project, please punch the following code into your chair: 73DUJJ77.'

  'Hey Shandy, can you believe these Local Council dicks...? Shandy?'

  'Please indicate your willingness to comply with Council regulations. If you don't respond to this request within 30 minutes, you will be towed, I repeat, you will be towed. Thank you for your co-operation.'

  Nemo slammed a balled fist on the console. ‘Fuck you, assholes,’ he screamed. ‘Of all the nerve. Hey Shandy?'

  Nemo checked all incoming data streams, but there was nobody there, nothing but the regular inbox data stream of advertising bumph. His first impulse was to go back to the beach, shoot some gulls and maybe take it out on Mariah. Instead he did some deep breathing and let his anger pass. ‘Don't let the bastards get to you,’ he whispered over and over in his head, like a mantra. So you've gotta move. Big deal. Shandy knows your GPS tag. She'll come back. But it really pissed him off how they'd just busted into his private conversation, like it didn't matter. Like Shandy didn't matter. The UFEP Local Councils did whatever they friggin’ well liked these days. All complaining ever did was get you pushed out further from the centre.

  Nemo closed his eyes and returned to the beach. His beach. He'd been hoping to show it to Shandy sometime soon. Rent a bit of Sharespace and take her there. Really get to know the girl. Really get to communicate. But the Grade6 factor had him worried. He needed some time to think things over. Why does everything have to happen at once? Nemo relaxed his sphincter, sending a warm stream of urine into his chair's commode. He always felt better with an empty bladder.

  A sudden, violent jolt shook his CAMO.

  'You have been cautioned,’ boomed a stern voice from his console. ‘Local Council requests your relocation from zone 234 to zone 348. You have ten minutes to comply. This has been a warning.'

  Nemo punched the console deck. ‘Excuuuuse me!’ he bellowed, ‘I was just minding my own business trying to have a conversation with my fucking girlfriend, when you jerks started hassling me!’ Let ‘em tow me, he thought. I'd like to see them try.

  'You know, Shandy, this neighbourhood really sucks,’ he said. ‘It's gotta be better than this where you live.'

  He'd come so close to inviting her on a date in Sharespace. So close, so often, but somehow he just couldn't quite bring himself to say the words. He'd never been on a date before, one on one with a real girl. What if she said no? He'd been gaming in Sharespace a million times—like who hadn't? But that was different. That was never personal. No, what he wanted for his date with Shandy was something really special. Something amazing that said a lot about himself—who he was inside.

  A second jolt shook the CAMO, followed by loud clanks and bangs. Shit, they were attaching grapples. They were going to tow him to Casula, no bull.

  'Hey!’ he cried out, grabbing on to his chair arms for support. A middle-aged woman with a kind face materialised beside him.

  'Nemo,’ she said softly, ‘what seems to be the problem? Why are you causing Local Council so much troub
le?’ She rested a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘Do you want to talk about it?'

  Nemo brushed the hand away. ‘I don't need counselling,’ he growled. ‘I just wanna talk to my girlfriend. I was just talking to her before when you guys interfered.'

  The counsellor nodded, understanding. ‘As you know, the Urban Fringe Expansion Project was started in order to make fairer use of the city's resources. You're being asked to move to Casula, a beautiful suburb currently being refitted with all the latest in Node technology. I just know that you'll be happy there. This free mental health consultation has been brought to you by Optimarq. Check your inbox for our latest catalogue.'

  Nemo gripped the arms of his chair and gritted his teeth. The CAMO was in transit. There was nothing he could do about it. He knew he was being marginalised. Casula was full of refugees and old folks, and heaps of them didn't even have CAMOs. He'd heard about gangs ripping CAMOs apart like sardine cans, selling all the pieces on the Black Market. That included human pieces. He needed to upgrade real fast. Grade6s didn't get towed to Casula.

  'Shandy,’ he wailed, ‘Shandy, are you out there?'

  'Hi Nemo, its Shandy. Can I come over?'

  Nemo smiled, relieved, as Shandy appeared before him. ‘Hey, Shandy, you'll never believe what's been happening to me. This old bag from Local Council dropped round to spin me all this bullshit about...'

  'Nemo, I've been very busy. I'm a Grade6 now. My career is very important to me.'

  Nemo froze at the sight of Shandy's glassy-eyed smile.

  'Shandy, we already had this conversation. You told me all this before.'

  'Nemo, I've been very busy. I'm a Grade6 now. My career is very important to me.'

  'Shandy,’ he whispered, his voice trailing off to a high-pitched whine. ‘Shandy, are you listening to me?'

  The CAMO lurched to a halt. Nemo's eyes widened in horror as Shandy's smile broadened and she began the whole spiel again, only this time she glitched on 6 every time.

  It was all bullshit. All bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit. Shandy wasn't real. She was a robot or a hologram, or a mental health program, or a punishment program maybe, because Nemo sure felt like he was being punished now. Everything was crap. Everything.

  Shandy stuttered, her image flickering as she began each electronic smile, until she finally disintegrated in a splatter of fragmented pixels.

  A single tear formed, arcing its way around the circumference of Nemo's pudgy cheek. The CAMO juddered to a halt. Nemo felt the towline detach, and then he was alone.

  * * * *

  After sitting in stunned silence for an indeterminate amount of time, Nemo sniffed and checked his GPS. He'd been deposited outside Casula, in a waiting zone beside a CAMO line-up that stretched for Ks in both directions. So this was what the Urban Fringe Expansion Project looked like at the edges. Relocation was going to take forever, and when Local Council finally did allocate him a spot, who knew how long it would be before another cruiserload of silverspoons offloaded themselves into the Dome and Local Council decided to move him on again?

  Nemo sniffed. Why didn't he ever stand up for his rights? CAMO dwellers were human too, no less so than the 9s and 10s, and all those foreigners in the CBDome. Why was he always being moved on, edged away from the centre? Immigration levels were supposed to be fixed, yet it seemed like he was being moved on every few months. Didn't those Domers ever die? His knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his chair. It was so unfair. It wasn't as though he ever asked for much—just a stretch of beach to go walking with his girl. His eyes welled with tears at the thought of Shandy's face fragmenting into pixel snow.

  Nemo wiped the wetness from his face. What would happen if he pulled out away from the waiting zone, aimed his CAMO at the west coast, and just kept going? And going, and going and going, all the way across the Nullarbor to the Indian Ocean?

  Nemo had seen this ‘Logue on the wall which said you could walk on real sand at Fremantle. Actual sand that hadn't been contaminated with biohazardous sludge like on the eastern side. How different to V-sand would that be? Would it be warm and sensual to the touch, slipping through his fingers like angel's hair? Or would it be dark and gritty and radioactive as dirt, like all those throwback bunny-hugging, pro-environmental fuckers claimed?

  Nemo was determined to find out for himself. A sudden quiver of excitement gripped his heart, and in one swift motion, he pulled his CAMO out of the waiting zone and aimed it at the thick, black road heading west. Strange, there were no fences or force barriers in his way. As his CAMO mounted the bitumen, Nemo jemmied his inbox panel from the console with a screwdriver. He didn't want holocops materialising in his face, informing him politely that he was headed the wrong way.

  'I'm going to see a real beach, real sand with real waves. I'm going to cross the Nullarbor. Be a traveller, an explorer, like back in the olden days.’ Nemo felt good talking out loud to himself about the future. At least he knew that he was real. Yeah, Nemo was a real man now, in charge of his own destiny, a pioneer en route to a new and better life.

  * * * *

  When the energy bolt hit, the world went white. Nemo was momentarily blinded. As his sight returned, he became aware that his electronics were fried, and his CAMO had stopped moving. So much for pioneering—he was dead on the road to freedom. Comsat Cops. Had to be. What else?

  Nemo sat still in the darkness thinking, watching brightly coloured sparks fizz and flicker across his ruined console. Local Council would come and get him. Eventually. All he could do was sit here in the darkness and wait. They'd get him and they'd tow him and there'd be nothing he could do about it. Unless...

  For the first time in all the time he could remember, Nemo decided to get out of his chair. It took a while, and it wasn't easy. There were so many tubes and connections to unhook and, in the case of the subdermals, deactivate. One by one he plucked them from his skin, casting them aside like the carcasses of limp snakes. The first thing that hit him was the unpleasant smell. The second was the stiffness and pain in his joints as he took his first clumsy steps in the blackness. He ignored all the separate alarms going off, ignored everything but the excruciating, exhilarating sense of freedom throbbing through his veins.

  It took him 15 minutes to find the door, and another 25 to squeeze his pallid, egg-shaped torso through its aluminium frame, and drop down onto the dirt outside.

  A film of sweat clung to his skin, stinging in some places, itching in others, but Nemo didn't care. So this was what the real world felt like. The only light came from his CAMO headlight's backup batteries, and from a small dull globe far up above his head. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking up at the moon. A small, pale unassuming eye staring down on him as he lay sprawled in the dirt. ‘This is all real,’ he told himself as he hauled his body onto all fours, and, slowly, slowly, up onto two legs. ‘It's all real,’ he repeated over and over as he took one step, and then another. Was this way west, he wondered? Because west was where he wanted to go; west towards the golden sands of Fremantle; west towards the sunset, where his aching heart belonged. As he stepped away from the CAMO's headlights, Nemo began to see stars—tiny, nondescript pinpoints of light. The longer he stared, the more of them there seemed to be. And they were twinkling and winking at him. Nemo smiled.

  He took one step and then another, heading towards the horizon. ‘'Cross the Nullarbor to the sea', he sang, ‘beneath a starry sky.’ Some old song he remembered from somewhere. When he made it to the other side, to the real golden beaches, perhaps the real Shandy would be waiting, naked and barefoot, her long golden hair blowing in the wind. He could wish for that. He could wish on a shooting star.

  Nemo stopped walking and wiped the salty mix of sweat and tears from his eyes. Looking up, he thought he spied a shooter, or was it just another satellite? He shaded his eyes, gasping for breath. Walking was so much harder than it looked, but it was worth it. It would all be worth it. Nemo took another step, stubbed his toe and laug
hed because the pain was real, and real things were worth it. There goes a shooter, no mistake this time. It seemed to be guiding his way. Make a wish, Nemo, he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut.

  'I'm coming for you, Shandy,’ he whispered as he staggered forward into the darkness.

  * * *

  TESLA'S SLIPPERS

  Sabine C Bauer

  Carpet slippers. Carpet slippers squeaking over marbled grey linoleum that failed to impersonate granite but hid the dirt. Carpet slippers gnawing on limp feet, skinny and purple-veined, sheathed in brittle parchment skin. Carpet slippers on his feet, too, numb and icy-toed. He shuffled a little, raising not quite a squeak. It was a whimper, if that. You couldn't squeak sitting at a table.

  'Coil.'

  He said it softly. Just loud enough for them to hear and assume he was like the other crazy old man who said spool a lot. Difference being, the other crazy old man wasn't real. His name was Krapp and he featured in a play. It probably was a measure of his own craziness to expect anyone here to know Krapp—other than the homophone with ‘c’ and only one ‘p', commonly found in somebody's bed or pyjamas. Just follow your nose. Miss Mehlworm who inhabited the balding armchair smelled ripe enough. Once upon a time, when film was still in use, she'd been a photographer. A mediocre one, if the dog-eared portfolio in her lap was anything to go by. These days she produced crap without the detour via celluloid, developer, and bromide paper.

  'Coil.'

  'That's nice,’ said the nurse, Busty Blonde #3; the model with the porcelain blue eyes.

  There were several blondes. Model #2 was bleached and wore fuchsia lipstick that bled into sharp little lines radiating from her mouth. The lines were the result of a constant pucker, caused by encroaching age and prickly misgivings at the prospect of becoming an inmate of this place or one very much like it. Model #4 suffered no such premonitions. Protected by a hurricane-proof beehive she remained agelessly caustic. Otherwise the Busty Blondes were interchangeable. No carpet slippers for them. Their ankles were welded into square white shoes, their bosoms decorated with upside-down dangly watches. Some reminded him of a time when he and Krapp had been young—or younger; at any rate back when their flaccid manhood hadn't been beyond the powers of Viagra. His wife had been blond. She was dead.