Empty Streets

by Jessica Cotter

  "Hmmmm?" her mom answered her, not looking away from the cupboard she continued to peer into. Her dull brown hair was tied back at the nape of her neck, and her bulky, grey work uniform hung on her thin body. Eri didn't think her mom was pretty, necessarily, but wondered maybe if she could be if she were more joyful.

  "When you went to school…did you use the Sims machines, too? The whole time?"

  Her mother looked at her, letting go of the cupboard and turning her body. Eri tried not to shrink under the weight of her mother's scrutiny.

  "Yes. Why?" She pursed her lips.

  "I am doing a report on the history of education and I was trying to figure out how many generations ago it was that we switched from public schools that students attended to a voucher system with Sims machines and shuttles to small public buildings." Eri shrugged innocently.

  Her mother sighed with relief. "Oh, well, I think my parents were the first to actually use the Sims on a full time basis. Your great-grandparents were using computers, but not simulators, to attend some classes online, although most classes were still face to face, I think."

  Eri nodded. "So, do you get a check each year from the state government that you then can spend on software upgrades or course tuition for me and Ezra?"

  Her mother shook her head. "We enrolled you through the Sims and the money just goes directly to the software company. Why?"

  "No reason, I guess. Just for my report." Eri shrugged.

  "Well, find some sources about that stuff, don't quote me." Her mother went back to working on dinner.

  Eri heard a shuffle up the stairs and Ezra appeared, looking exhausted and vacant. His eyes drifted in her direction as he headed to the stairs.

  She hadn't even noticed him downstairs on the Sims machine. She peered after him as he trudged up the stairs.

  "Mom, does Ezra seem…weird to you?" Eri hesitated bringing his behavior to his mother's attention.

  "No, Eri, he is a teenage boy. They are designed to be weird."

  Eri walked across the kitchen and living room to look up the stairs, just as Ezra turned the corner into the hallway. She padded up the stairs behind him.

  When she got to his bedroom, he was already lying face down on the bed, sprawled out. Eri sat on the floor next to him and touched the hand that hung out over the side of the bed. His room was dark, the only light seeping in from the hallway.

  "Ez?" Eri whispered.

  He didn't answer.

  She raised up on her knees and leaned towards him, brushing his curly hair off his forehead. His eyes opened into tiny slits.

  "Hmmmm?" he mumbled.

  "Are you okay?" Eri whispered at him, trying to look him in the eyes.

  He didn't answer. Eri waited, putting a hand on his back.

  Finally, he shook his head, his eyes closed.

  "No? You aren't okay?" Eri's heart beat hard in her chest.

  Ezra opened his eyes and looked at her, and Eri shrunk back from him. His eyes were black circles in his head, with grey smudges all the way around them. His hair was plastered to his head in sweaty patches. He was too skinny, too frail.

  He reached his hand out to her and she grabbed it. He turned his hand in hers and she looked down at his hand, palm up. On his palm she saw the characters AWTEW11209. He looked at her one more time and then turned away, curling up on his side.

  Fighting tears of worry, Eri left the room. What were the characters on his hand? She bit her lip as she thought. Was he sick? It was almost impossible for them to get sick since they were never physically in contact with anyone and their parents had to go through a viral and bacterial screener before they left the factory. Maybe he was just tired.

  Eri joined her parents for a cold meal that no one looked very interested in. Her previous hunger had left her. She noticed her mother picked at her food without ever looking up. She caught her father looking at her a couple of times. He didn't speak to her.

  "If you are up when your brother gets up, make sure he eats some of this. I will leave it on the counter." Eri's mother took Ezra's plate and placed it on the counter.

  Eri nodded. "I have a study group that is meeting this evening, so I am going to go log-in."

  Once downstairs, rather than plugging into her own machine, she sat in Ezra's. Even though he was younger than her and late to puberty, he was still several inches taller than her. She sat in his seat, leaning forward, hoping the machine would not identify the differences in their stature. It was illegal to log on to a Sims as someone else.

  The Sims software did retinal scans randomly to verify who was signed into the machine. There was usually a small beep, then everything would freeze and she would see a red line before the software would confirm her identity and continue on. This had only happened to her once or twice a month in the last several years, but it was enough to make her hesitate before logging into Ezra's machine.

  Sometimes Ezra would write passwords on his hands with thick, black marker as a way to remember. He must have had to change his password today. She typed in his sign on (first initial, middle initial, last name) and then typed in what she had seen on his hand. She knew if she got it wrong there would be an immediate retinal scan, so she held her breath, ready to throw the head gear off and hope no one looked into it.

  But it worked.

  As Eri waited, she noticed how different Ezra's machine was. It wasn't as comfortable and it was less responsive to the movement of her hands and feet. She knew what it lacked in hardware, however, her brother had probably supplemented with illegal software.

  The world began to phase in and Eri was suddenly in a place she didn't recognize. Since Ezra had already put in his 4 hours of school for the day, the software had taken him to the last place he had been, using interpersonal time. It looked like she was in a park, although there was no playground equipment, just cement paths and a half pipe for skateboarding. She walked towards the half pipe and saw a boy who looked about her brother's age.

  "Hey, what up, Ez? I thought you would be toast after our last get." The boy laughed to himself, walking up to Ezra for a handshake.

  Eri wasn't sure what the handshake was supposed to look like. She tried to follow the boy's lead, but it was awkward. The boy laughed.

  "Man, are you still messed up? I told you that shit was tight." The boy laughed again.

  Awesome, Eri thought. Ezra is high. She thought she could play this to her advantage. "Yeah, man…I don't feel good…what's your name again?"

  The boy laughed hard, doubling over before wiping tears from his eyes. Eri tried to force herself to laugh, too.

  "You don't remember your friend, Seb? Come on, Ez! I knew you took a big hit, but shit." The boy stared hard at her for a minute. His short, buzzed hair spiked a little above his large forehead and he had tattoos all over his body. Eri thought tattoos were weird, since she doubted many people had them outside of the Sims. It seemed odd to pretend to have a permanent mark on your body that everyone knew wasn't really permanent. Then she saw Seb's expression harden as he stared at her. She felt a moment of fear; perhaps he recognized something was wrong, that it wasn't Ezra.

  "Hey, I been meanin' to come at you 'bout something," Seb said with a hard edge to his voice. "My sister says you and she hit it. I should bust your ass for that."

  "Uh, what?" Eri's innards went cold.

  "Oh, come on, I know you're high and shit, but I know you remember my sister. I told you to stay away from her, she's only thirteen. What you messin' with all these girls for anyways?" Seb raised a critical eyebrow at Ezra, with a look of disgust on his face.

  "What do you mean?" Eri wondered how long she could play dumb.

  Seb looked even more irritated. His chest puffed out against a tight, white t-shirt. "What do I mean? Ez, you startin' to piss me off. You just told me today you were able to scam that software that lets you have actual Sims sex, not just clothes on shit. You know, the software you can't legally get until you're sixteen? You said you were bangin' a differe
nt girl every day." Seb looked at Ezra like maybe he didn't believe him anyway. Eri hoped he was lying. She was pretty sure boys lied about stuff like that.

  "Even if I had it, none of the girls have it." Eri hoped this was true.

  Seb looked at Ezra with confusion. "Man, you must be higher than I thought. I wonder if something got crossed in your brain waves er somethin'. You know that software works like a virus. If you want to, you can pass it to someone else just through contact. You infect them."

  "But…my computer doesn't actually…link…," Eri trailed off, realizing her knowledge of how the software communicated in the Sims world was wildly limited. "Well, whatev. I'll stay away from your sister." Eri looked down, feeling shame burn on her cheeks.

  "Hey, man, I get it. Remember what you and I talked about the other day…how it's like ain't no one watchin' what we doin' or give a shit about us? Or how nothin' feels real to us, so we gotta push our physical experiences more and more in here? I feel that, man, I been thinkin' on it. If you still wanna be done with it all and take that other drug I told you about, lemme know. I'll do it, too." Seb's voice trailed off, and his expression softened in thought. Eri could read pain in his face; loneliness and uncertainty. "T said he could get us whatever we want." Seb looked down and walked away, careful not to make eye contact.

  Eri felt cold all over. What was happening? What was her brother doing? Who was T? She had heard of people doing Sims drugs, which tricked the brain into feeling high. She had read that they were just as addicting as real drugs and had avoided them. Some of that stuff could make the body feel like it had experienced several seizures. The result was a lack of appetite and sleeping for days on end. She couldn't make sense of the Sims sex though…she knew of it and had, at sixteen, gained access to legal Sims sex, but had not been very interested in accessing the software. She wondered what it meant, that Ezra was accessing and abusing the software illegally. He was still under age. Perhaps he was trying to not be lonely. Maybe he thought the physical act of sex would make him feel human connection. Which, if that was the case, it made a lot of sense that he would feel depressed and isolated. Everyone knew the point of Sims sex was to avoid human connection.

  Deep in thought, leaning against a rock, Eri heard the hum of a faint beep in the distance. She looked up and, realizing what it was, threw her hands up to jerk off the goggles on her face before the machine could do a retinal scan. The Sims machine automatically went into sleep mode.

  Eri climbed out of Ezra's Sims machine and crept up the stairs. In the living room, her parents sat watching TV. Her dad dozed, while her mom's glazed eyes did not seem particularly focused on the TV.

  "We have a thing at work. Tomorrow night," Eri's mom said absently.

  "Um, what?" Eri looked at her, confused.

  "An interpersonal event for all the grownups. We were even shipped nice clothes from the Company." Eri's mom smiled at her dad, even though he slept.

  "Oh, so…like a grownup date?" Eri remembered her parents doing this from time to time. Because there were so few places to safely travel for social events, the factories periodically held small dinners to allow the workers time to talk and visit. Eri thought this seemed awkward, this adult play date, but since they all perceived the outside world to be so dangerous, it made sense that they believed this to be a reasonable alternative.

  "Yes," her mother said as she nodded. "A date."

  Eri curled into a small, worn chair and allowed her mind to be numbed by the wash of light from the TV. Her body was exhausted from last night and the stress from today. She fell asleep quickly.

  When she awoke, the living room was completely dark. Her parents had gone to bed and left her in the chair. She was sweaty from sleeping in her clothes. The night time temperatures were supposed to drop into the lower eighties this week, signaling the transition to autumn, but for now their townhouse was hot and stuffy, even at night.

  Eri stumbled blearily into the kitchen. Eleven-fifteen.

  She crept up the stairs, her eyes heavy. She wanted to sleep. But she had a lot she wanted to talk about with Bodhi.

  In her bedroom, she swapped out the thick cotton shorts she had on for the black pants she had worn last night. She hoped for a cooler breeze, putting on a dark long-sleeved t-shirt.

  After helping her back into her room last night, Bodhi had thrown a rope up to her. She needed to do a better job of hiding the rope and re-taping the window upon reentry.

  She lay on her bed, dozing, waiting as the clock approached midnight. And then she fell asleep.

  Two hours later, Eri awoke with a start. Her internal clock told her it was after one in the morning. She tapped on her lamp and shook her head to wake herself up. She stood and tapped the lamp out, edging herself behind the tapestry. She affixed a hooked end of the rope to the frame of the window and placed the looped end around her waist, the heavy tapestry rubbing against her left side, irritating her skin. Finally, she pulled back the tarp around the window and peeked out into the world below. Silence and darkness. She wondered if she would be able to find Bodhi.

  She slithered out the bottom half of the window and, placing her feet against the townhouse, lowered herself to the ground. She left the rope dangling against the house. It was dark tonight, darker than last night, with no starlight to illuminate the house.

  Eri crept away towards the edge of the row of houses, as she had with Bodhi last night, in the direction of the alley. Maybe he was up on the roof. It was so dark she could only see a couple feet in front of her.

  "Hey," she heard a whispered voice. She peered into blackness.

  "Um, hey," she whispered back.

  "I'm across the street. Hurry. You're late." She scurried across the dark street, hoping she didn't fall in a pothole.

  It wasn't until she was two feet from him that she saw him. Before he could say anything, she threw her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. He froze, surprised by her actions.

  "Hey…are you okay?" He encircled his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. His hands, hot and strong, pressed against her back. She shook her head into him. Worry about Ezra expanded inside her.

  "Do you want to talk?" he whispered, walking backwards and pulling her with him until she could feel them hit a solid surface. Bodhi maneuvered them until they were hiding in a small space between two buildings.

  She shook her head against him again. She wasn't even sure what to say. She didn't want to cry.

  Bodhi loosened his hold on her and she let go of him in response. It was too dark to see much other than the faint outline of his bare arms and legs. She wondered if he could see her at all. His hands traced up her arms and found her face, pulling her towards him as he bent down to see her. She could see his face, a shadow in the blackness of the sleeping city. She shook her head slightly, unable to explain the growing fear she felt regarding her brother.

  He closed the distance between them to kiss her lightly before letting her go. Her heart stopped at the unexpected contact. She licked her lips instinctively, leaning up for more. Instead of kissing her again, he pulled her to him and placed his mouth near her ear.

  "I was only a little worried about you when you didn't show up at midnight," he said, his breath barely a whisper in her ear.

  She pulled his head down towards her ear and whispered, "I almost didn't come. But I need something and this seemed like it."

  He nodded, pulling her to him again and hugging her. Her inability to see anything heightened her physical awareness of him. The lankiness of his chest and stomach muscles against her thin t-shirt and the softness of his hair against the side of her face worked to reduce the tension in her shoulders. She felt peaceful, calm in this darkness in a way she wasn't elsewhere. She wanted to stay in this crevice until the sun came up, ignoring the sadness stealing into her mind.

  "Come on, I have something kinda cool to show you," he whispered as he pulled at her arm, keeping his body flat against the building until they reached
a garbage alley, where he pulled her after him and ran. She ran as fast as she could, the alley illuminated by a very faint, blue light. She ran to keep up with him. They both ran because it felt like freedom. The muscles in her legs screamed with delight at their use, stretching and pulling against her bones. Her lungs filled with night air and her chest hurt with the desire for more, purer oxygen.

  After several minutes of running, they reached the end of the alley and emerged into total darkness. Bodhi turned, pushing her back into the alley.

  "Okay, first, a couple of things," he whispered, panting quietly, small beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. She tried to take deep breaths as she bent over, hands on her knees. Running was wonderful. She looked at him, awaiting explanation.

  Bodhi continued. "We are a couple of blocks from the main rows of houses where people live. This area is pretty much completely deserted, which means less chance of running into the street cleaners. If you do hear a car coming: don't run. I need you to promise me."

  She was not sure she could stop herself from running. "What do we do if we don't run?"

  Bodhi smiled. "I was getting to that. We are going to look at something very large. If you hear a car coming, we can hide inside it. It is thick and made of metal. It will hide our body heat temporarily."

  Eri nodded. "Okay. I promise not to run."

  Bodhi pulled something small out of his pocket. "My parents loaned me this. It is a small blue light, like the E-savvies, but it fits over your hand so you can tap it on and then close your hand if you need it to go off instantly." She watched as he placed a stretchy band around his hand, positioning a rubbery ball in the palm of his hand. He closed his hand and then opened it. The small ball emitted a faint blue light. He closed his hand and instantly the light was gone.

  She smiled up at him. "That is pretty sweet. A modern, sneaky flashlight."

  "Totally," he nodded. "I'm not going to turn it on until we get where we are going, so stay close behind me and be quiet. P.S., you aren't as quiet as you think you are. I could hear you leaving your parents' house from a block away."