by A.K. Meek
***
“Good morning Tim. Sorry, no new messages today,” his LX said.
A commercial began as his profile faded away.
A new cereal, Longevity Flakes, claimed to extend the cereal eater’s life 10 years beyond the average life expectancy, guaranteed. A floating spoon with a smiling mouth zipped through his living room as it made this assertion, leaving a trail of sparkles that gradually fell to the floor. If the consumer died prematurely, the nearest relative would receive a refund, no questions asked.
Tim rubbed his head and continued stumbling into his kitchen. “Add Longevity Flakes to shopping list.”
He said this to his fridge, then pulled out a jar of orange juice and took a long, cooling drink. He clanked the empty bottle onto the counter.
Croak.
The toad, Glen!
He reached into the brown box and brought out his new forever friend. Glen’s gold flecked, alert eyes followed his hand.
“So I guess we’re connected now, somehow,” Tim said. “I don’t feel any different. How about you, Glen?”
Glen whispered something and Tim choked on air.
He coughed, punched his chest and turned red in the face. He ran to the sink and grabbed a cup of water. After 30 seconds or so, Tim caught his breath and was able to drink without hacking violently. He wiped slobber from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You said something. What did you say?” He lifted Glen and held him close to his head.
“I definitely feel different, Tim,” Glen said.
His voice mixed the best of raspy and grainy, the type of voice you would expect from a toad.
Corinthian technology, rapid transit tubes that spanned the city, architecture that reached the heavens, virtual parks that housed imitation animals. None of them foresaw this.
The Acme Corporation advanced Corinthian society 10 years with their simulacrum animals. Outdated were virtual animals in virtual parks.
Party Time
The L7 shot over Corinth. Tim sat on a molded grey seat in the capsule, headed to Babylon with a toad in his backpack. Several times throughout the day he thought of Mr. Toady. He chose the backpack as Glen’s carrier over his back pocket.
For the special occasion, Maine’s party, he forewent the fedoras and bought a stunning navy blue derby, the rounded crown rising over three inches above his head. The inside hat band rubbed against his head, but the benefit outweighed the discomfort of rubbed raw temples. Glen suggested the change of hats.
A few hours earlier Tim brought home a shirt and pant set he bought for the party. He scanned his hat wall, looking for the perfect match for his new clothes, and took a blue linen, textured Duckbill fedora from one peg and donned it.
Croak.
Tim picked up Glen from the couch. “What did you say?”
“No fedora,” Glen said, “something else.”
Tim pulled the hat from his head with his free hand. “You mean the hat? I should get something else?”
“Yes.”
Tim placed the Duckbill back on the labeled peg and stared at the hat wall, biting his lip.
“You know what, that’s a good idea. I’m going to buy a hat, a new hat. Not a fedora.” He pitched Glen back onto the couch and ran out his apartment.
The toad bounced three times on the couch cushion and rested on his side, short bow legs flailing.
The L7 stopped at Babylon Tower One, floor 300 and Tim exited the tube. An elevator would need to finish the last 53 floors up to Maine’s apartment.
In the elevator, Tim removed his derby and rubbed his sore temples. The hat now felt too tall, too heavy. Too much spare room. Glen could probably sit comfortably under the hat. Tim dispelled the cliché notion of a toad under a hat and lifted the backpack that draped over his shoulder.
The friendly elevator voice said the next stop was floor 353, and Tim put his hat back on.
The elevator led out to a wide receiving area with corridors that snaked in multiple directions. Virtual scenes flashed on the hallway walls, giving the impression of being outside. Oak and pine trees shuddered leaves and pine nettles as a light wind disturbed them. Wispy clouds moved leisurely along the ceiling, carried by the same light wind. Somewhere unseen a brook flowed, the sound of water cascading over worn rocks filled the hallways.
Tim gawked.
As a resident of the Palisades, he took pride in Evergreen Park, but here in Babylon, the parks didn’t end on a floor. They extended beyond. Even though the renderings displayed as two-dimensional objects, they contained a realism that surpassed Evergreen’s best algorithms.
He followed signs hanging on trees that led to apartment 353-85 and pressed the doorbell. The door slid open, and bass erupted from the apartment, drowning out the gentle brook.
A slight nausea washed over him and his face flushed as the booming beat pulsated through his body. He put his hand against the doorway and took a long breath.
Maine stood on the other side of the open doorway. Maine Two, glowing pink, sat on her shoulder.
“You okay?” she said.
“Me, yeah. The music is—”
“It’s fantastic, isn’t it? Come into my little place.” She stood aside, and Tim entered her little place.
Her apartment dwarfed his preconception.
The entryway widened to a large living room with walls that ascended over 20 feet. Her apartment must have been a corner unit, because two walls converged, both made of solid glass.
Tim had never seen Corinth from such a high floor. The nighttime panoramic backdrop simply dazzled.
The apartment ceiling arched upwards to the center of the room, terminating in a large stroboscope. The magnificent spinning machine showered colored lights and white strobe flashes across the ceiling, down the walls and onto the party.
About 30 people with their pets packed the makeshift discotheque. They jumped and gyrated to the throbbing music that set the tempo for the light show. Everything in the room vibrated with energy.
The song ended and the stroboscope stopped moving. Colored lights faded, replaced by white accent lights that flooded the dance floor but left the corners of the room dark. The party clapped and whistled, Menagerie screeching and howling.
After the applause, they loitered. Small groups chatted excitedly about animals, others found their drinks on the counter.
“Did you bring your Menagerie?” Maine said. “I don’t see it. Wait, I’ve got to introduce you.” She grabbed Tim’s hand and led him to the dance floor. She waved her hand in the air, and the accent lights shifted so that they intersected on her. “Guys, I’d like you to meet... Tommy. Say ‘hi’ Tommy.”
A few listened to Maine but most ignored her, wrapped in their own conversations. Two girls close to the dance floor giggled and pointed at Tim.
“Uh, my name is Tim,” he said.
“Hey, what’s up with that stupid hat?” a strong voice yelled from somewhere beyond the light.
He closed his eyes for an uncomfortable second. The blinding lights obscured the staring eyes, but that only heightened the sensation. A quick scan of the room showed no one else wore a hat, especially a navy blue derby.
“Ha. Dalton, you’re such a meanie,” Maine said. “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.”
One of the giggling girls ran up to Maine, speaking in expressive mumbles and motioning.
Tim moved so that he was out of the spotlight and hid in the darkness. He took off his derby and placed it under an end table.
“Tim,” Maine said. She pushed through the crowd, the giggling girl and a guy followed her path. “Tim. Sorry about the name thing. Anyway, you never did show me your Menagerie. Remember I said you needed to bring your Menagerie? This is a mena rave-in after all.”
The guy put his arm around Maine and pulled her close. He rose above Maine and Tim by at least a foot. Black, stringy hair fell to at least his pectorals. On his broad shoulders, a scraggly bird rested. The feathers were of such blackness they
looked purple under the light. The large bird flapped its wings and cawed. Maine’s pink squirrel ran up the guy’s muscular arm, skirting the bird to get to the stringy hair.
Tim didn’t need an introduction to know Dalton’s name.
“This is my special friend, Dalton,” Maine said, motioning to the tall guy, “and one of my bestest friends, Allison,” motioning to the girl.
Dalton whispered to his bird, and it flapped its wings again. Allison snickered and waved. In her hand, she held a squirrel. It was smaller than Maine’s squirrel and glowed blue.
“Heya Tim. Nice to meet you,” Allison said.
Even in the half light, Tim saw that Allison’s squeaky voice fit her small, timid body. She looked quite different from other Corinthian women.
She wore a loose blouse that bulged along the bottom as it gathered into her equally baggy pants. The beige pants reached down to her mid shins. This contrasted with the tight fitting spandex blouses and leggings of the other girls.
Allison kept her black hair short and slicked down, when the Corinthian fashion rage said to wear it long, curly, and blonde. She held her little squirrel to her head, and it playfully batted at the tips of her hair.
“This is Ally,” Allison said. “She’s also happy to meet you. She wants to meet your friend.”
Dalton said, “Yes Tommy, show us what you got.”
Tim gave a weak smile and took a long time wrestling with his backpack zipper.
Maine’s profile didn’t indicate she was in a relationship of any kind. The desire to visit her and her apartment on floor 353 disappeared a few minutes ago. Dalton helped see to that.
He dug his hand in his backpack and felt the plump body he searched for and pulled Glen from the pack. He held up the toad, hind legs dangling like a common frog.
Maine and Dalton laughed. Allison giggled then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Aww, he’s so ugly he’s cute,” she said.
“This is Glen,” Tim said.
Glen greeted the group with a loud croak.
Dalton turned to the dance floor dragging Maine along with him. “C’mon, let’s get this rave-in started.”
Maine laughed and broke from his grasp, sending his black bird fluttering to his other shoulder, and she ran through her guests into a hallway at the other end of the room. In a few seconds, she returned carrying a large bowl. The room erupted in applause and cheers. She sat the bowl on a counter that ran along one wall. Partiers ran and crowded around the counter.
The spotlights that centered in the room lowered and the stroboscope started spinning again, throwing kaleidoscopic patterns across the party. Music again filled the area, drowning the cheers. An odor, a scent of something foreign seeped through the room. It left a sweet residue in the nose and on the tongue.
Tim stepped closer to Allison so she could hear him over the clamor. “What is a mena rave-in?” he said.
“What? You’ve never been to one? You’re quite innocent. It’s fun. Here, I’ll show you.”
She took his hand and led him to the bowl on the counter. Most of the other guests were already under the flashing lights, dancing to the music that had started up again. Birds, snakes, varmints, critters of all sizes glowed vibrantly under the strobes and flashes. They danced on shoulders and in hands, keeping step with their owners.
Allison dipped her hand in the large bowl and scooped up silver glitter. It sparkled like magic as her fingers sifted it.
“Wait, is that Tonergic? That’s illegal,” Tim said.
“You’re such a bluenose. It’s illegal if you take it. Maine’s dad is a magistrate. He said it’s illegal to take, not own. We’re not going to take it.” She took a small amount and fed it to Ally. The squirrel eagerly licked the glitter from her fingertips. Allison leaned close and whispered in Tim’s ear. “Give some to Glen, you’ll love it.”
“I—uhm—what does it do?”
The tips of Ally’s fur became pinpoints of yellow light. The light traveled down her fur to her skin, which started glowing yellow. She climbed on Allison’s shoulders and hair, chattering wildly. She leaped onto Tim’s arm and scrambled to his head and whispered in his ear, her squeaky voice similar to Allison’s. “You have inhibitions. Glen takes it, you enjoy it. You keep your head right but enjoy the wild.”
“You talked to me?” Tim said. “I can understand you?” Glen kicked in his hand, croaking. Tim lifted him to his ear.
Glen said, “Let me taste. We enjoy without guilt.”
Ally jumped back to Allison’s shoulder.
Glen looked longingly at the bowl of glitter. It seemed impossible that a toad could give a look like that. But Tim now felt that desire, that longing. His hesitation gave way to desire.
Tim tried to put Glen on his shoulder, but the toad slid, scrambling to grab hold of Tim’s loose fitting shirt with his feet. So he kept the toad clutched in one hand and grabbed a pinch of glitter from the bowl.
Music swelled, sweet aroma blossomed, and psychedelic lights swayed as Tim put a pinch of dust in Glen’s open mouth, on his outstretched tongue. He swayed as he smacked his mouth long after the glitter dissolved.
Within seconds, his eyes dilated, and his skin turned dimly red. Another few seconds and he deepened in color, becoming a bright apple red.
Tim swayed. His eyes dilated then glazed over.
Dreamweaver
Tim’s tongue fizzled. The bubbly, popping sensation rapidly changed to burning. The fire that began on his tongue spread down his throat, to his torso, then through his limbs.
The music stretched out. Beats blended with harmonies, drums and guitars welded together in a long, continuous string. White noise resounded through the room.
Maine’s room faded away. Opaque walls became transparent, dissolving before his eyes. The floor and ceiling fell away, leaving the stroboscope spinning above. It spun faster and faster, throwing hazy colored lights across people dancing against a backdrop of dark and night.
A snake Menagerie opened its mouth wider than it ever should have and the tall guy that owned him fell into it. The snake’s body distorted as the man slid down its throat. The snake kept dancing to the white noise.
One by one, the Menagerie swallowed their forever friends. Maine, Dalton, Allison and the others disappeared.
Tim remained, suspended in nothingness, surrounded by floating, dancing Menagerie. He turned in the nothingness, searching for Glen. The toad body, as large as a couch, materialized above him.
Wires and tubes ran from Glen’s body. Tim followed the trail of tubes, and they went under his shirt. He lifted it, and the lines embedded into his stomach. The clear tubes rippled as colored fluids transferred from Glen to Tim and back. Wires provided life sustaining sparks.
He wrapped his hands around the mechanical umbilical cords and pulled but stopped when it felt like they would pull out his intestines.
“Glen, what’s this?” Tim said.
The toad croaked, licking his thin lips. His breath was a sweet aroma that left a bitter aftertaste in the mouth. “Did you read the instructions? We are one now. Biochemical neuromodulation, that’s what they call it. A big term,” Glen said.
“But you’re just a toy.”
“Am I?”
Glen’s red skin rolled, then stretched and fell away like the floor and ceiling of Maine’s apartment. Menagerie scattered away from the pieces of skin. Underneath, wires ran throughout a metal skeleton and various sized gears ground against other gears. Black, thick oil and grease slung from the wildly spinning cogs in the machine.
Glen continued in the gravelly voice. “There’s so much more to it all. You have no idea, but you’ll understand. This is just the beginning. Feed now and sleep.”
A stream of liquid flowed from Glen to Tim, whipping the tubes from his hands, but it didn’t matter now. The warm liquid that filled his stomach lulled him and he closed his eyes.
Hangover
“Hey buddy, wake up.” An old man’s voice woke him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the old voice said.
Eyelids shouldn’t be this heavy. They had never been this heavy, even after he stayed up all night working on a last minute project. Maybe the throbbing head had something to do with it.
The right side of his face pressed against something hard and cold, probably flooring of some type. After a few minutes of trying, he finally opened his left eye. Starbursts greeted him. He closed his left eye then opened both of them.
He was on a linoleum floor.
His derby sat upended on the dirty linoleum, one side of the rounded top now dented. A lowly croak escaped from inside the hat. He pulled it a little closer and saw Glen nestled on the inner lining.
“You’re lucky I found you, instead of a magistrate.”
Tim rolled to his back and saw the man standing over him. He was right, the voice was of an old man.
The unmistakable dull, canary yellow uniform of a public works employee hung like a sack on the old man. Scraggly white hair sporadically covered his jawline, matching the color of his thinning hair. He adjusted the flashlight in his hand so that the ball of illumination surrounding him softened. The label on his uniform showed his name as Chuck.
Tim rested on linoleum that stretched beyond his vision, disappearing into darkness. Similarly, the ceiling rose several floors above him, almost out of sight in darkness except for a few spots of ambient lighting that defined the ceiling contour.
For a moment, he thought he woke up outside, on a surface street, but the columns assured him otherwise. Every few feet, a thin support column climbed from the floor and disappeared into the blackness.
“Where am I?” he said.
“Where are you? You really had one crazy night. You’re in Evergreen Park,” Chuck said.
“Something must be wrong with you. This isn’t Evergreen. I know, I live in the building. I’m in Babylon.”
Chuck cackled and licked his old, dry lips. He offered Tim a hand. “Don’t know about Babylon, but you’re in the Palisades. Why do you think I’m here? Evergreen crashed. Some bad code got into the park, and we had to scan and reboot. Been happening a lot lately. You must’ve fallen asleep here before it crashed. Shouldn’t been here anyway, with the curfew.”
Evergreen Park covered floors 100 through 120 of the Palisades, a mile square and hundreds of yards high. The empty space stretched almost endlessly in the night.
“It should be back up in a few minutes,” a voice from the darkness resounded through the hollow vastness of Evergreen. “Turn on the exocrine.”
Chuck excused himself and went to the nearest wall. He rubbed his hands along it then found and removed an access panel. Inside the wall control, panel lights glowed and buttons hummed. He pressed a combination of buttons, and the lights blinked in acknowledgment. He put the panel back in place.
“What was that, Chuck,” Tim said. “What did you do?”
“That’s needed to help. Watch.”
On cue, the spots of ambient light spread across the ceiling so that in a few minutes the expansive room had the appearance of daytime. About an eighth of a mile farther down the wall, two more workers in canary uniforms placed panels back on the wall.
Translucent colors materialized around Tim. Grass and flowers formed on the linoleum. A wireframe bird fluttered from one shrub and disappeared among the clouds, materializing on the way. The supporting columns disappeared, replaced by familiar majestic trees with limbs hanging over jogging paths and reaching for the clouds.
But the images were washed, a cheap holographic rendering.
“Chuck, what’s wrong with Evergreen?” Tim said. “It doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to.”
“It’s missing the exocrine. You should smell it in a moment.”
A faint, sweet fragrance descended on the two. It smelled like bouquets of wild flowers with a hint of muskiness. It was similar to the aroma at Maine’s rave-in but stronger. As quickly as the fragrance began, it ended.
Chuck breathed in deeply and put his arms akimbo. “There you go, there’s the exocrine. Evergreen Park is up and running, open for business.”
Tim bent down and ran his hand over the grass he now rested on. It was wet with morning dew. A gentle zephyr stirred tree limbs, and a few loose leaves drifted onto the worn jogging path. Short shrubs along the path bloomed in bright reds and whites.
The room became the Evergreen Park he remembered.
“You’ve seen something few others have,” Chuck said. “Most people don’t realize that virtua is only part of it. The tricky part isn’t making you see things, it’s making you believe what you see. You should get home before a magistrate finds you.”
“Thanks Chuck,” Tim said.
He brushed off his clothes, but they were still a mess. At first he reached for his dented derby perched on a park bench but then stopped, turned and strode for the nearest park exit.
An intense pain shot through his stomach, making him halt his stride. He grabbed his side and pressed his ribs. One more step and the pain increased. Deep inside his being he understood why the pain came in such waves.
Tim turned back to the park, hobbled over to the bench, and scooped up the derby with Glen inside. The stabbing pain immediately faded.
He left Evergreen Park and grabbed the elevator to his apartment.
Mondays
Tim rubbed his head as he stumbled into the living room.
His LX-500 came to life. A commercial for life insurance floated in the air.
“Good morning Tim. You have five new messages waiting in your profile. Do you want me to take you there?”
“Sure.”
The commercial faded away, replaced by Tim’s social profile from the cloud. Beside the information stream that dominated the page, a star danced and wiggled, a red ‘5’ above it. The first three messages were various event reminders. The fourth, however, proved more intriguing. The notification opened and Allison’s face filled the screen, paused by the LX.
The clarity of the projector screen presented Allison as someone different from the one he remembered a few nights ago in Maine’s apartment.
She looked small and pallid. Her short hair ended before passing her jawline, giving her neck an exaggerated thinness. The elegant white cloche hat with a wide black band conformed perfectly to her head. From under each side of the hat, a large curl from her Eton crop protruded out like a horn, slicked to the sides of her face.
“Tim, do you want to add Allison’s social profile to your contacts?” his LX said.
“Uh, yeah.”
His contacts on the right side of the screen changed from 2382 to 2383. Allison’s recorded message began.
“Hiya Tim, hope you don’t mind me dropping in. Maine gave me your profile number. Sorry about the other night. I’m sure anybody would be embarrassed, but I think you probably wouldn’t be. After all, you have the jazziest Menagerie. I mean, who else has a toad like that?”
Embarrassing? The events of the weekend blended into one long surreal hallucination. Ever since the party, he hadn’t acknowledged Glen. Uneasiness and questions lingered about the party. Regardless, Glen sat silently, unattended, in the overturned derby on the counter.
Allison continued. “Anyway, Ally told me to say ‘hi’ to you and Glen. Oh yeah, she has her own profile. We set it up yesterday, and she already has over one-hundred contacts. She’s so jake. You need to do that for Glen. Ring me. See ya later.”
A 15 digit number popped up at the bottom of the screen with a thumbnail image of a squirrel next to it.
“Tim, do you want to add Ally’s social profile to your contacts?” his LX said.
“Sure.”
Ally popped up on screen, replacing Allison’s ghostly image. She jumped from Allison’s skinny shoulder to a table, fluffy tail shaking, chattering incomprehensibly. This went on for a minute, then somewhere off camera Allison giggled and the video ended.
The projecto
r screen switched back to regular programming, a life insurance commercial.
A rendered image of Tim walked along a busy market floor. He stopped at one of his favorite kiosks, Fred’s Fedoras, and admired the selection. Suddenly a large section of ceiling buckled and crashed down on him and several other shoppers. Dust and debris shook the camera image. A baritone voice filled the room.
Timothy Hollow, this could be you. Do not wait until misfortune happens. Accident protection insurance from Stately Farms is only five credits a month, the cost of a hamburger...
A phone number scrolled across the floating display along with an agent’s name. Tim continued to the fridge and told it to make a note for him to check into accident insurance after work.
