Cold Reboot (Shadow Decade Book 1)

by Michael Coorlim

  Contents

  Cold Reboot

  Synopsis

  CHAPTER 1: COLD MORNING

  CHAPTER 2: A CUBE TO CALL YOUR OWN

  CHAPTER 3: TRUST AND CONSEQUENCES

  CHAPTER 4: BLIND AND HUNGRY

  CHAPTER 5: MANY HAPPY RETURNS

  CHAPTER 6: COMMUTE

  CHAPTER 7: JUST COFFEE

  CHAPTER 8: MORE THAN COFFEE

  CHAPTER 9: JUMP CUT

  CHAPTER 10: WALK OF SHAME

  CHAPTER 11: COFFEE DOES IT AGAIN

  CHAPTER 12: SON OF A BITCH

  CHAPTER 13: OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

  CHAPTER 14: A SHORT DROP

  CHAPTER 15: SUDDEN STOP

  CHAPTER 16: EVE

  CHAPTER 17: TRAUMA

  CHAPTER 18: HOOK UP

  CHAPTER 19: BEE AND EEE

  CHAPTER 20: HEMO POETIC JUSTICE

  CHAPTER 21: INFORMATION AT A PRICE

  CHAPTER 22: CLINIC HOURS

  CHAPTER 23: TURKISH STAKEOUT

  CHAPTER 24: AN EMPTY BOX

  CHAPTER 25: GOOD GIRL

  CHAPTER 26: KATE

  CHAPTER 27: GETTING YEONG

  CHAPTER 28: WHERE WE WANT HIM

  CHAPTER 29: LIKE YOU CAN DO BETTER

  CHAPTER 30: BLACK TIE

  CHAPTER 31: NEST KICKED

  CHAPTER 32: WEDNESDAY

  Now that she's settled in...

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  About the Author

  Cold Reboot

  Shadow Decade Book 1

  Michael Coorlim

  © 2016 Michael Coorlim

  Pomoconsumption Press

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Synopsis

  Erica had a career. A fiance. Friends. A life.

  One day she woke up and all of that was gone, along with the last ten years.

  This is her Shadow Decade.

  Erica wakes up in 2025 with no memory of the past decade, only unanswered questions, mysterious skills, and sharply-honed reflexes. Her attempts to assimilate into the future with no contacts, no work history, and no resources are complicated by a series of attempts on her life.

  Can she adapt to the harshness of a world with a permanent unemployed underclass and widespread environmental devastation long enough to uncover the mysteries of her own past, or will the attempts on her life succeed before she can learn the truth?

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  CHAPTER 1: COLD MORNING

  "Erica? Erica." Scott's voice was patient but insistent.

  I tore my eyes away from the violet and black polymer hand at the end of his left sleeve's cuff. His collared shirt, two shades lighter than the hand, was diaphanous enough that I could see that the prosthetic extended to mesh with his dark-brown flesh at the elbow. The replacement was more elegant than his right, all sweeping lines and smooth surfaces.

  I met the gaze of his light almost-golden amber eyes. "Sorry."

  He smiled slightly and gave a small shake of the head. "It's okay." He held the hand up, flexing its fingers. "Do you want to see it?"

  "Does it detach?" My hand involuntarily went to my neck and I tried clearing my throat. It wouldn't do any good, but I wasn't used to the way my voice sounded yet. Harsher. Like it had just been taken out of storage.

  His boyish smile widened slightly and he closed his right hand around his left elbow. "It can."

  I shook my head. "No, sorry, I'm just... I keep getting distracted."

  I shifted my focus from Scott Morris's artificial hand with a shake of the head, refocusing on my social worker himself. Professional attire hadn't changed much in the last decade, if anything growing more conservative, at least among government employees — subdued colors, high waisted trousers with narrow legs, paired with short broad-shouldered jackets. For the women, from what I'd seen, skirts were longer and hairstyles shorter.

  The powder-blue garments the hospital had given me upon my release felt cheap in comparison. Trashy. I think they were a rugged paper or some kind of plastic polymer, durable enough for casual use without tearing. Fortunate, given that they were all I'd had to wear for the week I'd been in the group home. It felt like I was wearing the future-equivalent of a dress made out of flour sacks, and I'm sure they sang "desperate poverty" just as loudly. The nearly shapeless garments were disposable, and they made me feel like I was disposable.

  Realizing I was staring, I forced my eyes away to roam over Scott's workspace. It held the little touches of home you'd expect to find. A few printed out comic strips pinned to one cubicle wall, motivational phrases and pictures on another. His desk was neat and organized, an angular stand with a nearly transparent screen serving as his computer, a framed photo of a smiling Latino laughing at the camera next to it.

  I tried to console myself with the idea that it was his brother-in-law or stepfather. It wasn't like I was in a place to be dating anyone anyway, and there was probably something very inappropriate about getting involved with your caseworker. Still, there was no harm in silently lusting after someone from afar, right?

  I looked away, gazing over the top of Scott's cubicle. I think the strangest part of the future was how normal so much of it looked. The Department of Human Services office would have fit into my own era, with its orange Berber carpet, cork-board cubical walls, open layout, and harsh fluorescent lighting. Hell, for all I knew, this place hadn't changed its look since the seventies. I'd never been there before. In my old life, I'd have been died before admitting that I needed this kind of help.

  In a way, that's exactly what had happened.

  "Are you okay?" Scott asked.

  "Sorry, what?" This kept happening. I'd be wrapped up in my thoughts and suddenly realize that someone had been talking to me. It was like I couldn't concentrate, like I couldn't focus, like the world was fog and only the inside of my head even approached being real. At the hospital they called it derealization. Or depersonalization. One of those two. I couldn't remember which, but I was suffering from both.

  Scott half-turned to his computer, a nearly transparent screen stretched out across an L-shaped stand sitting on his desk. It darkened as he dragged his fingers across its surface, and through its backside I could see a familiar looking desktop layout. He gave it a few swipes, bringing up what looked like my hospital admissions papers. "Just give me a second to go over the particulars of your case, so I can see where exactly we're at."

  "Thanks." I looked down at my hands, wishing my nails were cleaner, wishing they hadn't been cut so short. Had that happened at the hospital, or had they been that way when they found me?

  "Due to the complicated nature of your case, I'm going to go through it step by step. You tell me if I'm getting any of it wrong, okay?"

  "Okay." I shifted in my seat, and the crinkling of my paper garments vulgar in my ears.

  "Discharged from the hospital a week ago. Moved into a group home. How's that working out?"

  "Fine." I'd been sharing a bunk-room with three other wo
men, each in a situation as dire as my own, though perhaps less exotic. Lucy, the street kid recently out of juvie, kicked out of the house at 13 when her mom married a guy who didn't want to raise someone else's daughter. Fahira, an elderly refugee from Bangladesh whose husband had died when the country flooded. Ava, a girl in her twenties who acted like a teen, had taken her infant son and fled her drunken and abusive husband.

  It hadn't seemed real. Like the set up of a terrible reality show, like I was surrounded by actors all in on a plot that everybody had forgotten to tell me about. That was something that kept creeping up on me. Not that I was paranoid, like everyone was talking about me or out to get me, but just that everything was fake. A show.

  None of us had been terribly social and the accommodations had been bare-bones, but I'd moved out of the hospital as soon as they'd let me. Without insurance I was already deeper in debt than I'd ever thought possible and the solitude wasn't worth the expense.

  "It says here that you've declined the state's offer of therapy?"

  "I'm okay."

  "You've got no resources, support system, or recent job history, and you're exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder." He swiped again, returning his screen to transparency, and turned in his chair to face me. "That's not what I'd call okay."

  I looked down at my hands, how worn they looked, the lines they carried. They hardly seemed like they were my own. "I'm not crazy."

  "No, you're not." Scott's tone softened. "It just takes time for your brain to get back to its usual business after a coma. But please, consider the therapy. It'll help you adjust."

  My voice felt thick. "I'm not used to needing help."

  "It's not easy for anybody," he said. "But that's why I'm here. To make this process as painless as possible. We're going to do what we can for you. Okay?"

  They were possibly the kindest words I'd heard since I'd woken up in the hospital, the first words that felt like they were spoken to me instead of at me, but I felt nothing. No gratitude. No relief.

  He cleared his throat and turned back to his screen. "As we spoke about on the phone, we've found you some subsidized public housing. Your rent will be covered, and you'll be issued a monthly allowance of eight-hundred assistance credits. Your first disbursement comes at the end of this appointment."

  "I don't know how much that is. Is it a lot?"

  His eyes softened. "If you live frugally you can get by."

  "How frugally?"

  His lips drew taut. "It's more than most people get."

  "I'm not ungrateful, I just–"

  "You're not disabled, you're in good health, you don't have kids, you're not pregnant," he said. "You've been out of work for too long to qualify for unemployment. But one of the things we can do for you is to help you find a job and get back on your feet."

  My hands had been creeping up my arms towards my face, and I forced them down to my lap.

  "Have you been able to get in contact with any friends or family on your own?"

  "None of the numbers I remember are in service. Everything is over the Internet now."

  "Oh, right," Scott said. "You wouldn't remember the hacking thing."

  "What hacking thing?" I asked.

  "I'm not really a tech guy." He offered me a sheepish grin. "But there was a massive cyber-terrorism attack against the country's telecommunication network in 2020, and for about a year nobody had a number."

  "Jesus," I said.

  "It really wasn't as bad as it sounds. VoIP still worked."

  "What's a voip?"

  "Voice over Internet-something," he said. "These days there's really no difference between phone or Internet or cable or anything. What matters is that people never bothered to get a new phone number when they restored the system a year later, so they basically dismantled the dedicated phone systems."

  I frowned, biting my lip.

  His brow creased. "But don't worry. I can help you find contact information for the people you knew."

  That would change everything. If I could find my parents, I would have a place to live. If I could find some of my old business contacts, I could find a job. If I could find Baxter...

  My smile froze. Baxter. My old boyfriend had probably moved on with his life. Did he even remember me? How long had he looked for me before giving up? Was he married? Did he have kids?

  You can miss a lot in ten years. Of course he'd moved on. The world had moved on. Without me.

  Scott was watching me with concern. "Ms. Crawford?"

  "How long will it take to find my parents?"

  "There's no way to tell." He slid a notepad and pen over to me. "Write down the names, age or birth-date, and last remembered addresses for anybody you want me to try and find for you, and I'll do what I can."

  I scribbled down my parents' information, then after a brief hesitation, Baxter's. I added my old boss Mr. Matthews. He was probably retired by now, but he might have the resources to help me get back on my feet.

  Four names. There were more people I could add – other coworkers, friends, roommates – but I didn't know if they'd be able to help, and I figured that the fewer people Scott was looking for, the faster he'd find them. I slid the pad back over to him.

  "Okay, good." He took it, glanced at the names, then put it in my folder. "In the meantime, let's get you those assistance credits."

  "What do credits cover?" I asked. "There was a computer at the group housing, but I couldn't do anything online without an account."

  "Utility companies with a city contract will take credits. They're basically as good as cash, though they don't rollover month to month if you don't spend them," he said, handing me a small yellow envelope. "This is your ChicagoCard. I've written my email address on the envelope."

  "A bus pass?" I slid the semi-translucent thin blue card out of its sleeve.

  "Oh right, it used to just be a transit card," he said. "The ChicagoCard is a Personal Network Hub. You can link it to any accounts you set up, including the CTA and the DHS. Your credits will be tied to the card, so you can go shopping and get what you need. I'll have some groceries delivered to your place to tide you over until you can go shopping."

  I turned it over. It was smooth, without numbers or a magnetic strip on either side. "Does every city have a card like this?"

  "Big cities. State banks issue them too, and they're more-or-less compatible everywhere, but it's quicker to get you a ChicagoCard than an Illinois card."

  "Thanks," I said. The inconsistencies within the future's social services had my head spinning. On the one hand, they were offering very little material support. On the other, there were all these considerate smaller touches – looking up my friends and family, arranging for housing, sending me groceries.

  The present's. I had to stop thinking about it as the future, or I'd never adapt. This wasn't time travel. There wasn't any going back. For better or worse, I had to accept that I was living in 2025.

  ***

  Outside the cold winds buffeted against my thin jacket, and while I could feel the heat sapping from my body, it was more detail than discomfort. The knife-edged gusts were unpleasant, I knew that, and I knew I should turn against the wind, but the actual freeze, the pain... it was like something I was remembering, rather than something happening to me.

  Scott was feeling it worse, having left his jacket back inside while escorting me out. He was hunched against the cold, flesh hand tucked protectively under his arm; his prosthetic, like me, left to its own devices. And like me, it didn't seem to mind.

  Now the cab waiting for me, that was futuristic. It wasn't hovering, which was a disappointment about the future, but its chassis was all sloped angles and flat planes, low to the ground. I'd seen a few others like it on the streets, though of course there were plenty of late-model clunkers driving around that were more like the ones I remembered.

  As we drew nearer to the bright yellow taxi's checkered trim, I could make out through the tinted windows that there wasn't a driver
inside. The curbside door opened as we neared it.

  I slid in awkwardly, into a nearly supine recline. A flat-screen television was embedded into the roof above my head. "Driverless?"

  "Yep." Scott leaned over me and tapped the screen a few times. "Most public transit is. Don't worry, it's perfectly safe."

  "I'm not worried." I breathed in the scent of his after-shave, sweat, and deodorant. Maybe the picture on his desk was of a brother-in-law, or step-father.

  "All set." Scott withdrew. "I'll schedule you an appointment for next week so we can see where you're at, get you into the DHS's workforce placement program."

  "Sounds good."

  "Good luck, Erica." He slapped the hood and stepped back.

  The door slid closed, and the taxi pulled away from the curb so smoothly that I could barely tell that we were in motion. The flat screen built into the roof flickered to a television-like display almost as soon as the car started moving, playing a confusing barrage of five-to-ten second videos that blared obnoxious music and strange catch-phrases at me. There didn't seem to be any way to turn it off, but I managed to mute it by jabbing it with my fingers.

  I watched the screen as cartoon figures and actors yelled in silent fury about... well, I guess they were ads. Occasionally I'd see a corporate logo or the actor would hold up what I assumed they were selling, but they all blended into a mash of color and movement. I watched anyway, hoping that it would give me some kind of insight into the world I'd found myself in, but the spokespeople seemed to exist in monochromatic voids that flashed with different patterns, interacting with no one but me. It gave me a headache.

  Fortunately, the ride to my new apartment didn't take too long. The door slid open.

  "Thank you, please exit," said a quiet voice through the screen in front of me.

  "Thanks." I felt dumb as soon as the word left my mouth, thanking a recording.

  I found myself standing on the sidewalk in front of a massive concrete rectangle stained dark by exhaust and other pollutants. It spanned the entire length of the block, and looking down the street I could see that other nearby blocks held nearly identical structures, differing only in the address numbers carved over the entrances – 500 over the one near me – and the patterns of graffiti sprayed on the walls. The walls nearest me were graced by colorful almost tubular lettering and swirling smooth geometric patterns, oval-headed creatures with gemstone eyes and heart-shaped mouths, and surprisingly symmetrical designs, possibly Polynesian in origin.