by Reapers
Me: Hey, what are we going to do about new duds?
Frances Euphoria: What we always do – I’ve have a drone deliver everything we need.
Me: Why don’t we just wash some clothes and stick with them? I swear I used to do that back in the 2040s.
Frances Euphoria: Premium biodegradable fabrics cheaply produced in 3-D printing factories in South America have made clothes pretty disposable. Besides, they’re only good for up to thirty wears.
Me: Seriously? That doesn’t seem like something you’d do at all.
Frances Euphoria: Look at my life. I’m always on the go, always being pressed with change of plans and rescue missions and late nights. Maybe I’ll settle one day and start buying clothes that last, clothes that aren’t delivered by drones.
Me: A girl can dream, can’t she?
Frances Euphoria: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
“BRACE!” Doc yells, as the anti-collision alarm blares and he jumps on the brakes a split-second before the AI does.
An aeroSUV swoops into the space directly in front of us like a kamikaze at an aircraft carrier. It swerves left, right and then fishtails hard left into the next lane.
“SONUVABITCH!” Doc shouts, his face going red. “You call that driving!?”
Arnie, who sits behind me at the small dining table, unclenches the armrests and says, “Whyncha lemme drahv fur a whall, Doc. Getcherself some rest.”
“Arnie, I got this. I’m fully capable!” he shouts, still white-knuckling the wheel.
“Not sayin’ yur not, Hondo. You ain’t a bad driver, but this here’s the DC Urboplex, and even the DFW Mixmaster at rush hour on a three-day weekend ain’t a patch on these no-drahvin mofos.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll pull over at the next charging station,” he grumbles. “And don’t try to tell me a thing about Urboplex drivers – I survived those dimwitted dipshit truck-horny jihadis and I handled them just fine, thank you very much.”
“No argument there either, Bossman, but that was ten years and a coupla traumatic brain injuries ago, and you know the Bosslady said you wuz to lissen to me.”
“Humph.”
With Doc’s chelonian pace, it’s hard to watch the self-driving cars whip around us. Their license plates indicate they’re a mix of UberFord vehicles and aerostaxis. I catch an exit sign for Hagerston; One blink and Wikipedia gives a description of the city on the inside of my eyelids: Despite its semi-rural Western Maryland setting, Hagerstown is a center of transit and commerce. Interstate 81, 70, CSX, Norfolk Southern and the Winchester and Western light rail systems form an extensive transportation network in the heart of the Great Appalachian Valley.
My inbox blinks and I sigh audibly.
“What is it?” Doc asks, still looking for a charging station to pull over.
“The goddamn FDA Monitor assigned to me is also my PTSD counselor.”
“What’s he saying?” Frances asks.
I glance over my shoulder to find Frances sitting on the sidewall bench with her seatbelt on. Sophia is next to her, sleeping with her head leaned back and her mouth wide open.
“Damn, does she always fall asleep so quickly?”
“Always. She’s like a big kitty – if nothing’s going on, she goes right to sleep.” She gives me a kind, caring smile, a smile I know I shouldn’t take for granted. “So what’s it say?”
I open the message.
FDA Monitor/PTSD Counselor 1351885: Hi, Mr. Hughes. I’ve noticed that you greatly exceeded your recommended lunch caloric intake. I feel that this may be a coping method, so I am not escalating your case. I will contact you shortly to check on your progress. The ribs you ate are full of triglycerides and weigh in at 858 calories per serving when paired with Earl Campbell’s Sweet Barbeque Sauce. According to your iNet feed, you had one shish kebob, which was a good choice calorically at 315 calories. However, the beans and potato salad that you ate were a less-than-good choice with a combined total of 769 calories. Cobbler for desert puts your overall daily calorie count past 2500, more than your daily recommended allowance. The following links will be of great assistance to you: Click here to view meal ideas under 650 calories. Click here to read a great article about coping with PTSD using nature and meditative walks.
“Well?” Frances asks.
“He wants me to keep my dinner diet to under 650 calories and he wants me to read an article about using nature and meditative walks to help with my PTSD. What a load of horse shit.”
“Not true,” says Doc. “Being in nature is a great way to relax and take in the simple things. Just look at this place.” He waves his hand out the window. There are holo-ads with rotating advertisements and news tickers, people zipping by in self-driving vehicles while they participate in Proxima Worlds via NV Visors on their faces, motoglass buildings lining the highway reflecting the sun and fast food advertisements as far as the eye can see. “This is the future we’ve created for ourselves and if you ask me, it does have some good points, but most of it’s a load of crap. Hey, Arnie.”
“Yup?”
“I want you to disable Quantum’s iNet broadcast ability.”
“Ah, hell, I was afraid you’d ask me to do that.”
A message appears on my iNet screen.
Arnie: Do you consent to disabling your iNet broadcast ability? Doing so will prevent foreign entities from viewing your feed. It will also prevent you from using your feed to defend your actions in a court of law. You can still, of course, use other video feeds in the vicinity. There are no adverse side effects from the procedure, but re-enabling the feed will require lifechip replacement. Further, I can temporarily reset your chip, which will mask you from your FDA PTSD Monitor for the time being. To continuing masking will require other modifications.
Me: So you speak Texan but you iNet message in Humandroid?
Arnie: Precisely. It is not as much of a logical disconnect as it may seem. I open my mouth and a Southern dialect comes out. This comforts Doc, and I find it useful and amusing. Others tend to dismiss me as a knuckle-dragging, booger-eating moron, and thus underestimate my capabilities.
Me: You’re an impressive droid.
Arnie: True, but not as impressive as we will be several decades from now.
Me: Will you still be around then? How do they age you guys out?
Arnie: They retire us, but yes, I may still be around if someone replaces my parts. Do you consent to the small medical procedure to disable your iNet broadcasting ability?
Me: Yowza!
~*~
Doc pulls off the highway as soon as humanly possible, directly into an ExxonSaudi station attached to an In-N-Out in the Box franchise. Due to a decline in global oil supplies especially after the Frackin’ Twenties, as they’re now known, oil and gas conglomerates did what conglomerates do – they joined forces to increase profit and ‘turn a new leaf’ as they advertised in my youth. The result: electric charge stations which are powered by petrol and heavily subsidized by the FCG. This keeps everyone happy – it keeps the gas company fat cats well fed, it keeps the frackers employed, it keeps the Saudi royal family as oppressive as ever. They claim to be switching from oil to other sources, as global supplies have dwindled to about 15%, but they’ll suck every last drop out before they’ll necessitate the Mother of inventions, or something.
“Just find a place right here,” Doc says under his breath. He pulls up and a camera feed appears on the windshield broadcasting the parking spot behind him. A rectangular frame shifts into focus, presenting the vehicle’s parking trajectory. Doc eases her in and stops, waking Sophia.
“What happened?” she asks.
“You fell asleep,” Frances says.
“It’s the Asian in me,” she explains matter-of-factly. “I can sleep anywhere, on anything, in any position. I consider it a life skill. Moving vehicles especially make me drowsy, which is why I don’t drive. Why have we stopped?”
I unbuckle my seatbelt. “It seems like a perfect afternoon for a little nip and tuck.”
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“A facelift?” she asks. “You’re a bit too young for that, although some botox therapy could help.”
“That wasn’t what I had in mind.” I tap on my life chip. “It’s time to get the flies off my carcass.”
Arnie, who has already moved to the back of the RV, calls out, “He’s havin’ his iNet broadcastin’ ability turnt off, so his FDA Monitor cain’t see what he’s eatin’.”
Sophia shakes her head. “Just follow your proposed dietary plan – it’s easy.”
“I’m not trying to starve to death.”
“I don’t starve to death,” she says.
I give her the once over: frizzy-haired Sophia makes a stick look chubby. Her body fat percentage is probably in the negative numbers, and the muscles are visible on her neck and arms.
“What?” she asks, her eyes narrowing on me.
“I spent eight years eating digital food with no taste and being fed through a tube. For the rest of my life, I’m going to eat what I’d like and I’ll be damned if some FDA droid has a say in it.”
“Sounds like a poor life choice,” she says, harrumphing. “I’m going to dive. I’d like to check on Zedic’s progress in Polynya anyway.”
“Suit yourself,” says Doc, “literally. Your vat is the top bunk on the right, labeled A1.”
“Steak sauce?” I ask.
Doc licks his lips. “Steaks for dinner sounds like a plan. You ready back there, Arnie?”
~*~
“That’s it?”
It doesn’t take Doc’s droid a hot minute to do whatever he did to my life chip. I open my eyes to see him hovering over me with a thin needle attached to a small apparatus that looks like a glorified tattoo gun. This doesn’t look like something any Joe Blow could just buy on Ebaymazon; smart money says that Doc put the device together himself, but as long as it works, that’s fine by me. Arnie removes the needle from the device, places it in a single-use plastic tube and moves out of my pane of vision. I hear a trashcan spring open and the sound of something being deposited.
“You all right?” Frances stands just inside the door of Doc’s back bedroom with a concerned look on her face.
“Never been better, dollface,” I say. I pat my hand on the bed, indicating she should lie down.
Frances Euphoria: We can’t do that here.
Me: Says who?
Frances Euphoria: Did the procedure work?
Me: You tell me. Can you tap my feed?
“No, I can’t,” she says, coming closer.
Arnie glances from Frances to me and his eyes dilate slightly. “He’ll be fahn, trust me, darlin’. I’ve done this here procedure a dozen times. All of Doc’s friends git ‘er done. Hell, some of ‘em flah out to Texas just cuz they trust Doc. I guess you could say they trust me too. Dunno, never asked, but I do my damndest.”
He’s fishing for a compliment and I oblige. “You did great.”
“Thank ya, sir.”
“Quantum. Call me Quantum.”
“Thank ya, Quantum. You’ll be fine in about five. Don’t take long to recover from a life chip surgery, especially with Doc’s gear.”
Frances comes to the rescue. “We’re good to go, Doc!” she calls over her shoulder.
“Good!” comes his reply. The engine starts up and Arnie hurries away, saying something about how he thought he was going to be the one driving.
Rocket: Are you awake?
I look to Frances, seeing if she just got the same message as me.
“I got it,” she says.
Frances Euphoria: Yes, we are. What’s up, Rocket?
Rocket: Zedic and Veenure need your help! Sophia is already in.
Frances Euphoria: It will just take me a second to log in.
Rocket: Quantum too!
Frances Euphoria: What’s going on?
Rocket: Zedic and Veenure got jumped by Reapers! They tossed some kind of grenade and everyone just disappeared! DISAPPEARED! This is serious!
Me: Disappeared? What do you mean disappeared?
Rocket: You know, disappeared. Poof – gone; not there; no longer present; not registering onscreen; unaccounted for; unable to be view-
Me: Okay, got it.
Rocket: Zedic is still logged in, but I can’t find him!
Frances Euphoria: And his vitals?
Rocket: Within normal limits.
Frances Euphoria: Rocket, do not log in. We need someone on comms just in case any of us get stuck. Link with Doc, keep him up to date.
Rocket: I want to help!
Frances Euphoria: Relax, this has happened before. Just be ready to assist us if we have any problems. It could just be a glitch. We’ll get to the bottom of this.
Me: Looks like our afternoon just got interesting.
Chapter Nine
No time to wax nostalgic about the beauties of diving or the sensation of leaving the real world and entering a real-enough world. Safe to say, Doc’s small dive beds ain’t too shabby, and I almost prefer the one I’m lying in to being suspended in some sticky liquid. Sophia, Frances and I spawn in a densely wooded area, the closest checkpoint to Zedic’s last location. For his part, Doc is back on the road, saying just a few words to us before Arnie helped strap us in – Goose ‘em.
The Tritania world rules appear in front of me:
Welcome to Tritania, an MMORPG with a turn-based battling system. Our records indicate that this is your first visit. Please take a moment to remember some of the rules of this world:
1) Most outside firearms are not allowed in Tritania. Your life bar will be docked if you equip an unapproved outside firearm.
2) Rupees are the currency of Tritania. Similar to BitCoins, Tritanian Rupees have real world value and can be traded and spent in other Proxima Worlds.
3) Mutant Hacks are allowed, as long as they aren’t used as gun-like weapons.
4) Life bars can be refilled through potions, magic, logging out for two hours, or by sleeping at an inn.
5) You can select your class at the church in any village. To change classes you must pay money or make a new account.
6) The fighting system in Tritania is turn-based. To brush up on turn-based fighting, see the training module on the main menu.
7) Groups of four or more must form a guild. Forming a guild is optional for groups of three or less.
Hell yes I’m in my Tritanian best with my Buster Sword strapped to my back and my Golden Goosinator, item 571 already extending up my arm. No time to check out foliage or the way Frances’ gear tightly hugs her body – we’re about to break things and hurt people.
“Follow me,” says Sophia, already doing her David Blaine act. She floats away and we follow, Frances bringing up the rear.
“Do you have a mutant hack?” I ask Sophia.
She casts her hand behind her, showing me a set of claw rings that extend up her fingers.
“Catwoman much?” I ask.
“Doc made this one specially for me. It’s a spell modifier. I don’t like to clutter my inventory list with useless shit, like you.”
“Hey!” I say, stepping over a few tangled vines. “My shit isn’t useless.”
“You have a pizza in your inventory list.”
“That pizza is delicious!”
Frances snickers.
“Watch it!” I call over my shoulder.
“You also have a pot of coffee, an oversized fork, a selfie stick, a disco ball, a dashboard hula girl, a dozen roses – need I go on?”
“All of those things come in handy!”
I’m about to relay to her how often some of the unconventional items of my list have netted me some tail when I think otherwise – now’s not the time to think of Dolly and besides, methinks Frances could do without a description of my past sexual exploits.
“A bear trap?” she asks.
The nerve of this one. I swear, sometimes she really grinds my gears. “Ask Aiden about that one.”
“The bear trap is a controversial and effective weapon.”
We all turn, strike various combative poses. Sophia is all claws; Frances has two of her daggers in a ready position, one of which is clearly a mutant hack evident in the way it has partially spread up her arm; I’m geared up to slice and perforate with my Goosinator in one hand and my Buster Sword in the other.
“Aiden,” I say as I lower my weapons. “You shouldn’t sneak up on us like that.”
The number one assassin this side of Marcus J. Brutus steps out of the shadows cast by a tree.
“What’s going on here?” Frances asks. “Where are they?”
“The Reapers have new tech.”
Rocket: Clearly!
“We’re aware,” I tell Aiden.
“One of them tossed a grenade that transported the battle to the orthogonal matrix.”
Sophia slaps her hand against her forehead. “Of course! As I told you before,” she narrows her eyes and fixes me with what I’m sure she thinks is baleful glare, “all Proxima Worlds have an inverse world called the OMIB, orthogonal matrix inverse base.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Are you saying that this grenade they tossed took them all to bizarro world?”
Aiden nods. “Never seen anything like it before.”
“We need to go there.” Sophia raises her hand. Her mutant hack claw rings shudder, disappear.
“Now hold on a damn minute, how are we even going to find them?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about that. They’ll spawn within the vicinity of their original, Tritania-proper location,” says Aiden.
A light emits from the center of Sophia’s forehead. It pulsates as it forms a colossal red sphere around us.
“Here goes nothing,” I tell Frances. We lock hands, wait for the sphere to lift us into the air.
~*~
We spawn in a place that reminds me of a mash-up between Super Mario Brothers Star World and a Star Trek made for TV movie backdrop with a little Twilight Zone (the 2030s reboot) thrown in for good measure. Everything has a midnight blue tint to it aside from the distance blips of light. Twinkle twinkle little star as far as the eye can see. We’re standing on something solid, although it looks as if we’re floating. A step forward and a step backwards is all I need to confirm the solidity of the ground.
