Re-Wired

by Greg Dragon

  One dude was a slob, never did anything with his life—except drugs. The lightning made him think that he was CEO of a large company – it was hilarious. This dude would sit at his computer desk shaking, screaming at his “sales people,” making imaginary phone calls, and fully going through the motions, day after day. The lightning takes you over; it gives you a reality that your mind needs in order to stop you from hating yourself.

  I know what you’re thinking after reading this. What’s the point, right? Well, lightning is genius. Imagine if you can placate an entire nation with these pills while you come in and take things over under them? It’s not like they will push back, they will be too caught up in their private little worlds to care. You could give it to lifers in prison and let them carry out their sentences without violence. Lightning is illegal now, but once it becomes available to our government, it will change everything.

  The mystery drug was called lightning, and it altered the user’s reality. Tricia wondered if Brad remembered her, or the good times they’d had together. She looked to see if anyone had successfully come back from their time of being on lightning, but even BuStream’s posts became crazier and crazier as the time went by. His writing became erratic, and the commentators all seemed to know it as they posted things like, “you’ve lost it man, you need to find some help.” She found many other blogs and forums for the drug, but no one who had kicked the habit and returned to normalcy.

  She got up from the computer and walked outside to take in some fresh air. The fate of Brad’s situation broke her heart, and she could feel the tears on her face before she could fight them back. Constance had asked her about her own feelings, if she wasn’t upset with Brad for bringing her into a world where he was ill-prepared to love her, take care of her, and commit to her. The question had struck a chord with her because she was upset with him. The long periods of loneliness had been traumatic, and she had told herself that she would not allow him to lock her away like that again.

  The last time he tried, she had gone on the walk to find Constance. She didn’t know it at the time when she set out, but the news about the professor, coupled with the activists seeking to protect his android lover, had made her want to find Constance. She had not met any of her kind that were truly intelligent—most had their restraints locked in place and couldn’t communicate any more than a few pre-programmed words. Like herself, Constance had an ever-evolving CPU, learning, and growing as time went on, and it felt so good to talk to her.

  She walked back home from the library and hailed a cab that took her back to the apartment. Brad was home and on the computer, moving files and photos around, and he looked – and smelled – as if he hadn’t showered in days.

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” he screamed at her. He jumped up out of his seat as if ready to fight.

  “Looking for you. Are you upset with me?”

  “You had me worried sick. Priscilla vanishes into thin air, and I can’t even find the android that I screwed my life up building. How did you get powered on? I stored you in there.”

  His words hurt and angered Tricia as she tried to process what he had said and determine if it was due to the psychosis from him being off of the lightning.

  …the android that I screwed my life up building…

  …the android that I screwed my life up building…

  …the android that I screwed my life up building…

  To think that he truly believed that her creation was the reason for him being a failed engineer was ridiculous. He was the one who’d dropped out of school to first become a drug-addicted barista, then quit his job to basically become an unemployed drug addict. She couldn’t excuse him for saying the hurtful words to her so she lashed out.

  “You didn’t lock me up. Your memory is fried. Even if you tried, I would not have let you! Did it ever cross your mind that your precious girlfriend left you because you are a drug addict?”

  “I am not a drug addict. Don’t call me that. It’s not nice.”

  “But blaming me for the bad choices you’ve made in life is? Shouldn’t you take responsibility for your own life?”

  “You didn’t answer me. How did you get out of the house?”

  She thought about what she was going to say to him but her anger placed her into a mode that was too sarcastic for hesitation. “Priscilla released me,” she said with a smile. “Yeah, Priscilla came over here a long time ago and saw how you locked me away. She powered me on to ask me a few questions. She didn’t think to power me off when she left, or lock the closet that you had me in, so I escaped. She seemed pretty upset—“

  “What did she ask you?”

  “She asked me why you built me to look the way I did, and whether or not we fooled around.”

  “So, you led her to believe that I was a mechanophile then?”

  “What do you think? I told her the truth! Do you think the memory wipes would stop me from figuring it out?”

  Brad’s temper had settled down as he took in Tricia’s words, and he sat back down to power down his computer and think about things. He smiled at her and nodded, and then sat back with his arms crossed as he evaluated things. Tricia calmed down, walked over and sat next to him. She touched him on his forearm and was surprised to feel how dry and unhealthy it felt. It was obvious that he hadn’t been eating, and it was worse now that the love of his life was missing.

  “I am going to help you find her, Bradley.”

  “You are?”

  “I need you to promise me that you will make an attempt at taking care of yourself so that when she does return, she won’t be completely turned off by your appearance.”

  “I’m sorry for yelling at you and for everything I’ve done to you Trish, but you gotta understand. The pills… the pills gave me everything. For the first time in my life I was able to meet new people, to be attractive to women, and to function out in society. I didn’t second-guess myself, I wasn’t looking to build friends out of mechanical parts to make up for my own deficiencies. The pills led me to Priscilla, a girl I could never dream would be interested in me, and they led me to teaching you to be so sharp. You are so advanced, and smart, and—“

  “Do you hear yourself? You are giving credit to a drug that Hoshi Tan gave you to be his guinea pig. It gave you confidence, yes, but at the price of what, Brad? Are you sure that it isn’t hurting you, making you more depressed than you believe? You have changed, trust me, and as your creation I would know this more than anyone else.”

  “Changed? What do you mean, changed?”

  “You are a really mean person now, and you are obsessed. The things that you say to me, your mother, and anyone else that loves you are evidence of the pills having a downside to them. Your entire life has become about Priscilla, to the point that even now when she’s gone, you are unable to let us back in. This is why I want to find her for you, but I do it in hopes of having the old Brad back, not the one that came about as a result of the pills.”

  “I don’t like the old Brad very much. If you think about it, the way I thought and let people push me around was the reason why I built you. Not that I regret it. You are the best thing that has happened to me besides my first love, but you were built out of anger as much as you were built out of love. Your creation validates me; it lets me know that I did something that a lot of people are either too scared to do, or lack the resource and intelligence to do. You are a walking, talking sign of my potential, but unfortunately for someone like me, that isn’t enough.”

  “What if you learn that Priscilla left voluntarily? If she came to a point where she decided that she no longer wanted to be with you, but didn’t have the strength to break up with you? What will you do then? Will you just give up, let your life continue to go to shambles, and neglect me and everything else that means something to you?”

  “I don’t want to think of that right now. It just seems like a really dark place that I don’t want to go right now. I’ve lost so much, and
Priscilla was my future. With her gone I—“

  “There was a time when you told me that I was your future. I think you need to go back to that thought process, Brad. You built me to love you, and I do. I think that you need to stand up and get back to form, and in the meantime, I will help you find your missing girlfriend.”

  07 | Vanishing Beauty

  Detective Montgoya was perplexed. He had been looking for a woman named Priscilla White, but all evidence came back as if the girl didn’t exist. If she had been murdered or kidnapped, the perpetrators would be professionals. What would professionals want with a young, Trinidadian dancer? She didn’t seem to have money; there were no trails leading to parents in the country, and aside from Brad, nobody knew her or interacted with her over the last few months. The dance troupe she supposedly was with said they had never heard of her, and the building she allegedly stayed in had no records, either. He thought about the hot brunette that had brought the case to him, and he wondered if he was being set up, or made fun of by one of the guys at his former job.

  He had been let go unceremoniously, and it was a ploy to shake the press after the suicide by the doctor. Money had dried up, his wife threatened to leave him, and his health had come into play after six months of unemployment. It was after he watched a classic film about a private investigator that he got the idea to go into business for himself. Almost immediately, he had people employing him—apparently there were a number of people missing all over the city. He wanted to find Priscilla White so he could add her as another success story in his job portfolio, but the search seemed futile, and it made him question the validity of the case itself.

  Reluctantly, he pulled out the tracker he had attached to Tricia on their meeting and followed the map to where she was located. He parked outside of Brad’s apartment, cut his lights, and waited there to see if she would emerge with Priscilla White, since she was obviously lying to him. The time passed and nothing happened, save for lights flicking on and off periodically and a few nosy souls coming up to his car to see if anyone was inside of it. He slept there for the night and woke up to find a skinny, longhaired junkie exiting the building.

  “What’s a bird like her doing with that loser?” he muttered to himself.

  He watched as Brad looked this way and that. He followed him for a time as Brad walked around the city, looking everywhere as if he was searching for someone. Montgoya was intrigued, so he stayed hidden, and kept up the stalking even though he was hungry and in desperate need of a hot shower. By noon Brad seemed to tire of searching and retraced his steps back to the apartment where he went inside and shut the door. Montgoya took some notes to go along with a few photos he had taken, and went home to shower and sleep.

  The next day he called up Tricia and lied to her that he had found something and that she needed to come to his office immediately. Tricia sounded confused at his phone call but agreed to meet him and came into his office in the evening.

  “Hi detective,” she said to him as she walked in and sat at the chair that faced his desk.

  “Let me ask you this, sister. Is it just boredom, or is it some sort of deep, twisted agenda? Why you would pay me to go on a search for someone that doesn’t even exist?”

  “What do you mean, she doesn’t exist? She’s as real as you and me. Brad was getting ready to marry her, and—“

  “Brad? You mean that cotton head that I saw sniffing around town as if he lost his soul or something? So, you hired me off the word of a junkie? Let me be square with you – that isn’t too smart.”

  Tricia grew quiet as she wondered how she would move forward with Montgoya. Priscilla had disappeared like Brad had said, but she was no ghost, or made-up thing like the detective thought. Whoever had taken her, or locked her away was good, and had found a way to remove her from their reality without leaving evidence behind.

  “Perhaps the problem is you, detective, and your wild boast that you are the best private investigator in Seattle. I have given you a month and I have received no updates, no calls, and no evidence that you didn’t just sit there behind that desk day after day, lying about looking for Priscilla. Have you been enjoying the free money I handed to you?”

  Montgoya was offended but he liked her fire and her willingness to go toe-to-toe with him in an argument. “That’s a pretty nasty accusation. If you were a guy I’d punch you square in the jaw, do you know that?”

  “You assume I am weak and would let you hit me, even as a man, detective. You’re fired. I will find someone more suitable for the job. I should have vet—“

  “Listen to me, you silly broad! You came inside of here with nothing but a vague description of some islander chick with a name. I did miracles with just that little bit of info and I’m telling you, she isn’t out there. How do you know this chick is missing? Is she a friend of yours or something?”

  “Like I’ve told you, she’s Brad’s—“

  “The junkie! So, this hot chick was dating a junkie, Priscilla. Were you two close? You go partying together, road trips, cookouts, smoke weed together? Tell me about her, tell me what made her special to you? She smell good, you guys do each other’s hair, what? Tell me more, so that I have a little bit more to go off of.”

  “I’ve never met Priscilla.”

  Montgoya stopped when he heard her say the words he was looking for. The way he saw it, Priscilla was a girl—probably another junkie—that her friend Brad had run into, and in his doped up mind, he thought they were going out. Priscilla was probably real but never lived in Seattle—maybe a visit, but when the junkie got sober, he freaked out in a panic, thinking that his made-up girlfriend had been kidnapped. The trick was to convince Tricia, who for whatever reason had gotten herself wrapped up into helping the loser.

  “Tricia, listen to me. Brad, is that his name? Brad needs serious help, like super, serious help. He’s messed up in the head. If you had sat there and told me how cool Priscilla was, and how you guys are close friends or whatever, I’d go back out there and make sure I found her. You didn’t tell me that, though. You told me about a story that your crazy friend cooked up. Look, I should be mad at you. I wasted a month worth of grinding to find a phantom, and even though you paid me quite well, it was still a waste of time. I saw too much of the Royale Apartments and the creatures who lived there, asking around for your friend’s invisible girlfriend.”

  Tricia should have been angry but she listened to Montgoya and gave his supposition a lot of thought. She had never met Priscilla, but Brad claimed that he had taken her to the house when she was powered down, and Priscilla had even remarked on how lifelike she seemed. He had even taken photos of them together, but she had avoided them out of spite, not wanting him to have the pleasure of showing off his pretty girlfriend to her. Brad had become somewhat unhinged after the pills, and although he stayed sweet and endearing to her—after their talk—he would still go looking for Priscilla, without even so much of a care to find a job to make sure that he would not be kicked out of his apartment. Tricia had been paying the rent without him knowing, but he didn’t seem to notice that he was living rent-free. His mind stayed on his lost girlfriend and he was a danger to himself the longer she stayed away.

  “Thanks for your hard work, Mr. Montgoya,” she said as she got up from the chair and handed him the second half of the payment for his services.

  “No, look, you can keep that. This was a wild goose chase. I can’t charge you for that.”

  “I have plenty, detective. Please take care of yourself,” she said.

  She walked out of the office and back to Brad’s car. She had borrowed t to make the quick trip to Montgoya’s office, and as she drove back to their apartment, she wondered why it was that his words had resonated with her so much.

  “Where have you been?” Brad asked as she entered the apartment. He had dark circles around his eyes and he smelled bad.

  “Come, let’s get you in the shower,” she said to him. She took his arm and
helped him into the bathroom until he started doing it himself. “Shower, eat something and then we can talk, but not before.”

  He complied with her commands and she went to the table where the computer was on. She accessed the history and saw that he had been trying desperately to reach Hoshi Tan, the pill dealer. Brad had started looking at other underground communities for alternatives to the pills, but all he’d found was street drugs, and gangsters looking to trade them for the most atrocious of things.

  Montgoya had called Brad a junkie, and he was acting very much like one. She was tempted to commit him to a place that would help him, but she knew that he wouldn’t let her do it, and would find a way to escape to hurt himself again. As the thought crossed her mind, she started to look up the best ways to treat a recovering addict. The info she found was all speculative, and they all depended on the individual. She saw a number of rotors on the desk that he had tried to build over the week. They were inoperable and pathetic compared to what he had made before. The detective’s words echoed through her head as she looked over them.

  He’s messed up in the head.

  She took his device and scanned it for photos and messages from Priscilla. He had saved plenty of nostalgic things from their time together. She listened to romantic messages left by the girl when Brad would be at work, and a few naughty ones with accompanying photos to remind him why he needed to spend more time with her. There were no pictures of her face, but there was a blurry one of her dancing in front of a television that showed hints of the island beauty that Brad was obsessed over. She couldn’t figure out why Montgoya couldn’t find anything out about the missing girl. It was obvious through Brad’s phone that he had a sweetheart. Maybe it was like the detective had said. With just her word, and only the girl’s name, there was only so much he could do.