by Jay Vogel
that was the first memory of her that I saw, but that would have been impossible, as just two nights ago I connected to her again, and she was no younger than I. Impossible. Her HelloWorld file would have dated to before even the beta of the Kalos was invented. The only explanation was that the name, Saura, was a placeholder, and the visions were always of a different girl. But then I saw the dolls again, the same ones from the first vision, sitting on a couch in this girl's apartment, a large bay window overlooking a very familiar, dilapidated brick apartment building. And a very familiar, lanky boy standing in one of the windows, looking out into the city.
Me.
It's been almost a year now since the incident. The next morning after the whole rat fiasco, I find myself sitting in this coffee shop reflecting on every day of this last year until I am no longer looking at my hands on the table in front of me, but rather I am looking up to face my own back, seeing myself sitting in the next table over from me. I move my right hand, and I watch myself move the same hand in the same manner from somewhere else in the restaurant. Every action I consciously perform I am seeing happen like an outer-body experience. Out of my body, and in that of another, sitting right behind me.
Hello. Message sent, only instead of seeing it turn to strands like bits in a computer, I feel like I am standing in a dark, empty room, the word echoing off the walls like I've just yelled it but no one else in the place seemed to hear. No one except one.
Hello, Stanley.
Saura.
I turn to see a girl probably my age sitting at the next table, a black coffee before her, an old, heavily damaged book in her hands, her face buried in it.
Is that you?
She closes the book and lays it down on the table, then looks up at me as I am just awkwardly staring at her. She stares back with her one eye, the other veiled by her long, dark purple hair over her face, the tank top matching in color, exposing her arms, one of them covered with ink.
The two of us talk yet we say absolutely no words. Almost a year and I am finally having a conversation in what is apparently absolute silence. But in my head the two of us are screaming at each other in joy. In my head, we are sharing our past, both of these already known by the other. In my head, we are laughing together. Smiling at each other. Sad together. All in an instant because that is all it takes for we both feel as though we have been together, hearing each other, feeling each other's pain throughout our whole lives. Even right now, I can feel her hands in mine without even touching her. And none of this can be seen. None of this is accessible to anyone else on the Kalos network. No aura interferes in our discussion. Somehow, we have the entire Kalos to ourselves.
This is incredible, Saura. I've never experienced the Kalos like this. I want this to last forever.
Saura smiles, stands and takes my hand in real life. Suddenly, upon actually touching her, all of the sampled events of her life I had witnessed over the past year meld together, connected by the millions of memories and emotions flooding into my mind from our physical contact.
She brings me through the streets of the city. I look around and periodically spot the Kalos towers, indicating we are still within reach of the network, fearing that our connection is unstable and will be lost forever if we venture too far. My anxiety rises as this is exactly what we do. An hour or so later we are across the water and are standing on the top of a large hill overlooking the skyline.
Don't worry. I hear her still.
How? How is this possible? We are out of the Kalos network. There is no way--
We are not part of the Kalos, now, Stanley. It is only you and me.
This...this is not the Kalos? But it has to be.
It cannot possibly be. I chose never to have the interface installed in my head. And one year ago, yours was shattered to pieces by your own brain.
How did you know?
I can feel you just the same way you can feel me. I feel a true aura emanating from you. One so powerful that the Kalos was unable to transmit its power, frying that chip in your brain. You're just like me. That is how we are able to do this. Scientists had to build machines to be able to capture the thoughts and emotions that are transported over the airwaves. But people like us, people with 'superpowers', a much stronger spirit, a much greater empathy for everything in the world around us, we can not only understand that energy without any machines at all, but we can even feel it!
At this, Saura pulls my head to hers for a kiss. Her hands touching me sent amplified pulses throughout my body, making it resonate to the point where I feel like I am lifting off the ground. But still locked in this kiss. My arms and legs begin to stretch out into infinity, then unwind as though they were comprised of a million threads, all of them glowing a radiant gold, as the girl in front me unravels just the same into strands of purple, the very essence of her human self mixing with the very essence of mine, spiraling around chaotically yet completely balanced and stable such that the two of us eventually became one. A pool of our memories and personalities, our knowledge and ideas and dreams and emotions, floating in space, glowing brighter than the most powerful of auras in all of the Kalos.
