Empty Streets

by Jessica Cotter

  As she watched through stray pieces of tall grass, an old, beat-up truck idled by. Its engine gurgled unnaturally. She held her breath, leaning as far back towards the building and porch as she could. Faint silhouettes were visible through the deeply tinted windows. A block down, the truck pulled over.

  "Shit," the boy whispered.

  "Who are they?" she asked, curiosity trumping her fear.

  "Street cleaners." His body tensed next to hers as several men got out of the truck. Looming figures stood in the near distance, their voices catching on the wind.

  "Someone saw him, they called it in," a bald, tall man said. His words were stunted, slurred and clipped. He walked along the periphery of the porch nearest to him, poking at the weeds. His tight white t-shirt muted the dark tattoos that covered his torso. A tattoo escaped the back of his shirt and ran its way up his neck to the back of his head.

  "Shit, they probably saw another truck. Ain't no one out here," a younger man answered. He crossed the street, examining collapsing entryways. The spikes of his black hair were exclamation points against his expressionless face.

  "We will look around." A third man emerged in a cloud of smoke from the car. He leaned causally against the truck, reading messages on his wireless device. The wrinkles in his grey suit fell away in the heat as the other two men spread out silently.

  Eri glanced at the boy. The tension in his face fascinated her, his intense eyes hyper-focused on the distance, his chin tilted up slightly as he looked over the low-lying grass. He watched the men as they moved away from Eri's town-house. Eri watched him.

  "C'mon," she whispered, grabbing his arm and rolling onto her porch without climbing the stairs. She pulled him into her house and shut the door.

  "Don't release the doorknob," he hissed.

  Eri squatted, with the boy next to her, on the inside of the door. She held the doorknob, preventing it from clicking back into place. He squatted next to her, leaning against the door, his knees lightly touching hers. They breathed heavily and stared at each other.

  "Did you go through this door when you went out?" he asked.

  She nodded. He studied her with the same intensity he had studied the street cleaners. The tilt of his chin and the probe of his eyes made her uncomfortable, but she couldn't pull her eyes from his. His eyes were a sea of colors, brown and green, with flecks of gold light radiating from the iris. Eyes like the sun, colors indistinguishable and loud.

  "I need to go so you can release that latch," he said softly.

  "Why?" Her terror blurred with the constant gnaw of curiosity.

  "There are timers. They know when a door opens and closes. They will call. You have to latch that door soon enough that you can say you were just getting the food crate. Make sure your parents know they are calling. Have your parents say they told you to get it. It is very, very important that you do not say you were curious. Got it?"

  She'd been staring at his mouth as he talked, intrigued by the movement of his lips and the shape of his teeth. They were even and neat, but shaped slightly different from one another. She wanted to look closer, to touch his nose and ears and hands, these things she had never really seen outside of her family. She nodded instead.

  "Why would I have hit you?" she whispered.

  He smiled. "I don't know, for throwing you to the ground?"

  She did not return his smile. "Did you just save my life?"

  "I don't know. But I think you saved mine." A muffled bang rang outside, signaling the departure of the street cleaners. Eri cracked open the door to make sure, opening it wider when she saw the truck fading into the distance.

  He exited behind her like wind against her back. She grabbed the crate of food, hauling it inside while pinning the door open with her leg.

  "Hey!" he whispered loudly.

  She poked her head around the doorframe, looking in his direction.

  "Find another way next time. And welcome to the outside." He held his arms out to the world around him and smiled before he turned and jumped onto another porch, disappearing on the other side.

  She shut the door and set the crate of food down, knowing with certainty that everything was different. She closed her eyes and saw nothing but his face.

  Chapter 3

  School

  Eri walked into the bathroom and touched the lamp to illuminate the mirror. She expected to see red, burned flesh from the exposure she'd experienced this morning. She looked closely. Her skin was unchanged.

  She rushed through the thirty seconds she had of water to brush her teeth and wash her face. She leaned toward the hazy mirror. Her dark eyebrows came too close together, her eyes were too big for her face, and her skin always looked washed out in this grey world. In her mind, girls her age looked beautiful, with firm, curved bodies and smooth, glossy hair. They wore lip-gloss and plucked their eyebrows. They wore bright clothes and had perfect, straight teeth. She imagined this to be true.

  Eri walked straight to the basement door. Her parents would be home at five-thirty. She wanted to be done with school when they got home so she could beg them to cover for her. She had already thought about her reasoning: she had been uncertain what there would be for dinner and wanted to get the food in the house. Perhaps she could explain she had heard at school that people's food rations had been stolen around town, even with the harsh consequences. She was pretty sure her parents would stand by her fallacy, so long as it was easier when The People called to ask about it.

  She went downstairs to the Sims machine and climbed in, already feeling her energy wane. Something about going to school through a machine wore on her.

  Once she had all the gear on, she reached forward to power on the machine. The electric hum of the building lulled slightly as her machine accessed the energy and information grid. The Sims used a lot of power. No one in her building could use much other electricity as long as their children were attending school. No air conditioning. Little electricity. Minimal hot water.

  Most of the people who lived in this complex worked at the factory. Their children were lucky to have Sims machines. Eri shuddered to think about the few children who were shuttled to public schools every day, met with unsavory conditions and dangerous external elements.

  Eri took a deep breath and stood outside of her first class, waiting for the usual wave of nausea. She was certain it was the Sims environment that made her feel both physically and emotionally unwell. When only a slight discomfort settled over her, she watched her hand reach out and pull the door handle open, vaguely aware that in "real life" she was pulling at nothing in her simulator. She walked into a sunny, well-lit room where she saw the twenty-five other people enrolled in the same class. They were all fabulously good looking. It was only when someone would participate in a class discussion that she got a sense of who they really were.

  "Hey…Eri?" A small, thin girl with bright pink hair and a pert nose smiled at her. "Is that you? Every time I see you, I think you look different."

  "Hi, Sal." Eri sat at a small desk and a laptop appeared in front of her. "It's weird isn't it, since in reality we all look the same every day?"

  Sal giggled. "Totally. I'm secretly really a six-foot-tall man!"

  Eri stared at Sal, waiting for Sal to say she was joking. Sal opened her laptop and made no move to take back the statement.

  Eri hated that she didn't really know what anyone looked like. All she knew for sure were people's voices, although you could buy software to alter that, too. Was Sal really a boy? "You can't trust anything," she murmured.

  "Hmmm?" Sal asked, eyes on her computer.

  "Nothing."

  Eri typed notes as her history teacher talked, one simulated person staring at another. Boredom crept into her mind.

  She raised her hand, forcing a pause in the lecture. "Will our tests all be multiple choice?"

  Ms. Fritz paused, not used to being interrupted. "No."

  The lecture continued.

  Eri raised her hand again. "Is this
material going to be on the Achievement Exam?"

  "Yes, Eri. Is there anything else?"

  Eri's faced burned with the use of her name. She shook her head, looking down to hide her embarrassment. The Achievement Exam was seven months away and would decide everyone's future career. Even though she had always done well in school, she knew her future at the factory or outside of town at the loading stations was pretty much guaranteed. Kids like her didn't end up in any other jobs.

  Ms. Fritz continued, uninterrupted this time.

  "Since the People's Constitution was written, replacing the original U.S. Constitution decades ago, the number of shooting deaths, acts of terrorism, kidnappings and rapes has dropped dramatically. People are safer than they have ever been. You students will be required to know the basic tenets and beliefs of the People's Constitution, as well as the basic political philosophies that existed prior to the rewriting of the Constitution and the structures put in place since. This includes a well-rounded understanding of the Patriot's War, out of which our constitution was written. Um, yes, Eri?" A small breath of irritation escaped Ms. Fritz's mouth.

  Eri had raised her hand inadvertently, caught up in imagining a world different from hers. She took a deep breath, struggling to turn her mental discomfort into a question.

  "Um, I…might a basic belief be that safety is more important than liberty?" Eri asked. She realized too late that her question could be construed as critical of The People and shrank back in her seat uncertainly. No one was critical of The People.

  Her heart raced as the room remained silent, Ms. Fritz standing at the front of the room with her mouth slightly open.

  "I'm sorry, I think what Eri was asking was-would it be correct to say our Constitution was written to guarantee the safety of all citizens?" A male voice emerged from the back of the classroom. Eri started at the sound of her name, and then remembered they could all access each other's log-on names through the Sims. Ms. Fritz exhaled with a large smile.

  "Of course! That is exactly the theme we will be exploring tomorrow." Ms. Fritz laughed a high, tense laugh. "I guess you are a quick group. You are already ahead of me." She laughed again before continuing the lecture.

  Eri stared hard at her desk, willing her fingers to type enough of the lesson to make it appear as though she were paying attention. The words of that other student, the boy, rang in her mind. Safety of all citizens. Safety…of all…citizens. Something about the way he said it made her shiver.

  The bell rang. Her laptop folded up and disappeared as she stood to walk out. She looked around the room, curious about the boy who had said her name. No one made eye contact with her.

  She absently tucked her hair behind her ear as she left the building. She sat down in a patch of bright sunlight, its delayed warmth pushing against her shirt. Grass poked at her legs, the blades all exactly the same shade of green and identical lengths. She imagined the sun was real, that it was the sun she had seen yesterday and this morning, the sun that energized her and left her feeling like she'd swallowed the rays and they had warmed her soul. This sun, this simulated sun, provided her with nothing.

  "Hey," a voice said, as a dark silhouette towered over her and stole her sunshine. She squinted up at him; he was tall and all shadows except for bright, impossibly blue eyes.

  "Hey?" She raised an eyebrow uncertainly.

  The boy sat down next to her, staring off into the distance as he picked at the grass. He held one blade between his fingers, running the tip of his index finger down its smooth sides absently.

  "Do I know you?" she asked. She hovered her hand over his face and saw the name Bodhi appear. His log-on. She blinked at him, his unfamiliar face juxtaposed with his comfortable disposition.

  "I don't know. Do you?" It was the same voice she had heard in the classroom, saying her name comfortably, rephrasing her question.

  "You are in my history class," she said, nodding with satisfaction.

  "Yes." He nodded, too, dropping the blade of grass and turning his head to look at her. A thick silence meandered between them, her thoughts and his swaying and mingling, unspoken.

  Eri cleared her throat. "You are the one who reworded my question for me, right?" He nodded. She continued, "Um, thank you. I realized after I asked it that it came out wrong."

  Bodhi smiled slightly. "Did it?" He let the question linger between them. "I guess that is what I do…Save people." His eyes flickered to hers.

  Eri's heart stopped before stuttering back to life. It all came together the way dreams and reality sometimes do. His voice, his mannerisms, even his stare-he was the boy from this morning. She'd met Bodhi. Outside.

  "Have you been in my class all semester?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. She knew it didn't matter how loudly they spoke, that everything they said was fair game for a million ears. How could she ask him about this morning without giving herself away?

  "Yes." He focused his attention on a tree near them. "Have you ever felt the bark of a tree? Like, really felt it? The hard twists and turns, its strong texture, the way it moves away from the core it protects as you push on it."

  She reached out and touched the bark. She could feel it, and smell it, and hear the leaves rustling above her. But it all felt distant, muffled somehow. She could almost enjoy the experience as her own but was too aware this was not a real tree.

  She looked at him, wanting to ask the million questions: how do you get outside and not get caught? Why is this so secretive? Who are street cleaners? What do they do? Why did I wake up yesterday feeling so frustrated by all of this? Who are you?

  Instead, she said, "The bark is strong, but easily broken at the same time. And here… it is not mine to feel."

  Eri saw him nod, just once. He knew she was the same girl he had seen this morning. His eyes narrowed as he searched for words.

  "I…wonder sometimes about the workers who cut down trees on the outskirts of town. I wonder if they ever feel bad when they cut down trees. Is that weird?" He looked at her, his mouth turned up in an impossibly perfect smile.

  "No, that isn't weird. Trees are alive." Some of them are alive. This one isn't.

  "I don't think the trees know they're alive, though, is the difference." He took a deep breath, standing up and reaching down for her hand. "Do you?"

  "Um, I'm not sure." He had worded his question intentionally…did he mean did she think the trees know they're alive? Or did he mean did she know she was alive? She let him help her up, her hand lingering in his before she put her hands in her pockets. She desperately wanted to touch him again. Talk to him more.

  She looked around at the people walking around them, some talking on devices, some eating lunch, some sitting on blankets. She watched a girl running to class, certain she would be late. She watched a boy appear out of thin air, having just logged on, jogging in shorts and a tank top, dark sunglasses covering his eyes.

  She turned to him, eyebrows raised. "So, what now?"

  "I have class," he said, as he turned to walk away. After several steps, he turned and walked back to her. "But, well…you can't really ask the trees, can you?"

  "No." She listened hard to his words, his inflection, for clues as to what he might be saying.

  "But, maybe, we could start by asking the flowers. But I have heard that flowers only tell their secrets at midnight, so unless you have a night class, we might be out of luck." He winked at her, one time, in the kind of charming, flirtatious way that a kid might wink. She furrowed her brow, her mind racing. Flowers. Midnight.

  "Yeah, I guess we are out of luck." She winked back at him, awkwardly. She wasn't sure if she had ever winked at someone before.

  "I am off to math three-seventeen. See you around?" Bodhi waited for her answer. Other than his unnaturally blue eyes, she thought his Sims persona looked a lot like he did in real life.

  "Math three-seventeen?" She thought math three-oh-one was the highest math someone could take at the high school level. He shrugged at her. "Jeez, you mus
t be a math genius," she muttered. More loudly she said, "Yeah, I will see you…later."

  He turned, walking quickly away from her.

  She walked to her next class, pushing away the potential plan she was hatching, allowing her subconscious to work on it while she focused on math, literature and organic chemistry. She didn't speak to anyone else for the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 4

  Lies

  Eri spent four hours and twenty-six minutes on the Sims machine. Afterwards, she laid her head back against the headrest, exhausted. She hadn't walked much today, and hadn't participated in any social events that required exercise. Why did she feel so exhausted? She toyed with the thought of a nap. Her lids drooped while she thought about what she might say to her parents based on Bodhi's warning. She felt wary of him. Perhaps he was tricking her, trapping her, seeking out teenagers who were too curious and too interested in things The People didn't want them to be curious about.

  Eri dozed, still strapped into the Sims. The sound of the front door opening jarred her out of her doze, and she quickly removed her gear. She slipped out of the Sims, powering it down and locking it in off-mode before scrambling up the stairs.

  Her parents stood by the front door, shaking water off of their clothes. A rainstorm had stumbled upon the city, a rare occurrence for this time of year. Her parents looked outside, eyes cast upward toward the dark clouds and whirling rain. They might have been smiling.

  "Remember the rain, when we were younger? It happened more frequently then. And we still could go outside in it," her mom said. Her dad reached out and touched her shoulder.

  Eri was uncertain if her parents liked each other. Those interested in having children and moving into family housing were allowed to apply for a mate, and you could even put in requests, if they had dated someone through the Sims network and The People found the match to be genetically favorable. As she saw a moment of tenderness pass between her parents, she wondered how it was they had been paired together. What question had they answered similarly? Had they gotten similar grades in school? Were they both from poor families, neither able to afford more schooling after the Achievement Exam?