that I was exceptionally lucky, because Craig never broke any major bones, and the only organ he ever took from me was a kidney, and hell, I had an extra anyway.
I suppose I can’t entirely complain. The fridge used virtual classrooms to socialize us (although it was really popsicles sharing secondhand information on what it took to be people). I received pictures and journal updates from Craig. I lived so exclusively through him that I felt like I was Craig in High School. I remember wondering who I’d end up asking to my prom, and how, powerless I felt when Craig told me who he’d chosen- because it wasn't the same girl I'd developed a crush on.
Now Craig’s dead, and, it’s like they thawed me and gave me his name tag, and that’s it. But I don’t know his wife. I don’t know how to do his job. I wouldn’t know the first thing about trying to be a father to his kids. But I guess no one expects me to. I got a letter from Craig’s lawyer. Since he died at sea, his brain couldn’t be salvaged, and his family didn’t want a replacement Craig. The lawyer used a lot of different metaphors for freedom, but none of them felt any less like being abandoned; he gave me a check, a small portion of Craig’s life insurance, to start over, and wished me luck.
And walking the streets, I found I recognized things around town. I don’t know what it was about Craig; maybe because we were twins we had a bond, or maybe he just remembered how easily our roles could have reversed, and he felt bad; it could be that I was someone he could talk to who would never share his secrets; but he always kept his journal up. At first I felt like I was home, eating in restaurants, and finally tasting the food I would have swore I remembered from growing up.
Then I, I think I saw Craig’s wife, er, widow. No. I, I know I did. I recognized her. It was more than déjà vu, because it was like I should know her; I felt like I loved her, even though we’d never met, and even though the emotion was more of a painting in a gallery than tangible. And she recognized me, and I… I think I broke her heart. Her face collapsed in on itself, and she started to cry, then she ran. I realized I wasn’t home at all- just squatting in someone else’s house.
I bought a plane ticket. I was lousy in geography, but thankfully the board didn’t have state information on it, so picking a city at random was at least random. I wish I was the kind of person who found that kind of uncertainty exhilarating; I just hope Riverside is a nice place to start another life of my own.
Forget
“Detective, he’s, I don’t understand it, but he’s alive.”
“You don’t understand? It’s what happens when you combine anatomy with idiocy and the second amendment. He put an assault rifle to his chin and pulled the trigger. It definitely made him uglier, but it turns out you don’t need a face to survive. The loss of blood could eventually be a problem, but-”
“Shouldn’t we get a, one of the paramedics over here?”
“Yeah, kid; you do that.”
“Hey, look who’s still borderline conscious. That’s right, follow the sound of my voice back into the world of excruciating, faceless pain. You kids today, I swear I don’t fucking get it. I spoke to your mom, caretaker, whoever the woman you were living with was, on my way over here. She told me about the note- no, don’t try to talk yet, you’re missing big chunks of your face, and you’ll only end up spitting blood at me, and I don’t want that- she said you want to be famous, right?”
“Yess.”
“I gave you a yes/no question because I wanted you to shake your head, because, you see, you spit blood on my tie. Christ. Anyway. You killed what, five, six people-”
“Eight-”
“Whatever; that’s like a quarter of a suicide bombing- an inept one. You’re crappier than a nameless, faceless- sorry, couldn’t help myself- uninteresting Middle Eastern Jihadii in Kisufim-”
“What’s Kis-”
“It’s a crappy little town in Israel no one’s ever heard of, which is my point. You’re a teenager and all pissed off because you broke up with your girlfriend, and lost your Taco Bell job-”
“Not Tac-”
“It’s about time you started ‘not talking;’ you’ve already ruined my tie, and my girlfriend would kack me if you coughed blood on this shirt. But we aren’t talking about me, we’re talking about you, which is boring, but seeing as how you’re bleeding to death, I’m humoring you.”
“The, the paramedic says he’s busy helping someone who doesn’t deserve to be bleeding to death from a gunshot wound.”
“Splendid work, kid; don’t take it so harshly, this is rough work on all of us. Get yourself a cup of java; while you’re at it, bring me something black but sweet. Pardon the interruption; we were talking about your big plan to get famous-”
“I am fam-”
“Yeah; of course you are. You’re also an annoying little bastard with a penchant for interrupting me when you’re not even supposed to be talking. If you do it again I’m flicking your ear… See? That is the golden sound of silence uninterrupted by inanity. But you wanted to be famous. Now, I’m not one for regicide, but the President was in town, this morning. That would have made you famous; it would have saddled us with President Vader, but everyone would have remembered you for it. Hell, there would even be people who applauded you. But you didn’t have that kind of drive, vision; Hell, maybe you were just too fucking lazy to find out he was here.”
“Gakh-”
“Uh oh. No, I’m not going to flick your ear; involuntarily choking on your own blood doesn’t really count as an interruption. But let me get in closer, because I’m going to share a secret with you. You’re pathetic, and sad. The reason you failed in this is the same reason you failed in life- you never even tried to be special. We’re not going to remember you, David. We’re going to forget you ever existed.”
“That’s not… not my… my… name…”
Save As
My head’s ringing and I have to take a shit; those are my first two thoughts, in order. The third is that my legs don’t want to move, and I’m fairly certain I’m not a cripple (though I don’t know why I think that).
“You okay?” I recognize the voice, but there’s a gaping hole in my memory where the memory of its owner ought to be. My eyes open, and I see him, and the face at least brings back a name: Scott. He loops an arm under mine and pulls me up, and in reply I can only grunt.
“Now you see why we always make a back-up before we run unsigned warez?” He grins so I can nearly see the shit peeking out from between his teeth- like a cow’s cud. He lets go of me, and for an instant it feels like we’re standing on a bullet train, and my hands shoot out to grab hold before I go rolling off the back- then I realize it’s just me and we’re standing still on the corner of Markley and Kaine.
“Save your current system as a separate file, and you and I can run diagnostics on it to figure out of you’re just a dumbass and executed your high wrong, or if we bought stepped-on softwarez.” I’m barely moving, even in my own head, but I manage to call up a menu on my internal HUD, and drag down a list of options, and I try to select “save as.” But I’m jittery, and my mind’s eye twitches, from “save as” to “save” as I click. I swallow. I’m not sure what I’ve done… but I know it’s nothing good.
“Shit, you didn’t.” Scott’s staring into me; hiding behind my HUD it feels like I’m in a small little cave, and he’s peering inside. “You saved? You were supposed to be running a temporary, firewalled instance. Fucking moron.” He stares at the horizon, or at least where the street ends at the foot of a large bank that stretches into the clouds, then suddenly his eyes flick back to me, and he’s smiling again. “But you’ve got your morning back-up. We should be able to...”
He stops in the middle of his sentence. “Shit. You’ve been quarantined. You just dropped off the network. Looks like the IP police flagged you. Means we won’t be able to back you up remotely. But I know someone who can hack the memory towers and get us a physical copy you can use- I’m texting her right now.”
I know there’s another shoe
, hovering, and he’s trying to ignore it. “And?”
“And they’re going to come looking for you. Standard questions. Maybe arrest. If we can't get your OS flashed by the time they find you, hey, no worries. All they’ve got is a system anomaly they can’t explain, and, most importantly, can’t track back to you.”
“We should go, then.” I start to walk towards the crappier looking neighborhoods to the west; I figure visibility and cops would be less plentiful that way.
“What are we, cave men?” Scott asks, as a cab pulls up in front of him at the curb. I blink at him. “You forgot we could hail a cab through the network? Yeesh. Once we get those warez neutered I’ll be curious to see how much damage they did to you- I mean, once we’ve got you 100% and sorted.” Something about that didn’t sound pleasant to me.
Suddenly, there’s sirens. They whiz by us, back towards the spot on the concrete where we’d been standing. “Lucky thing them taking you off the network means they don’t know where you are.” One of them looks to the ground then at our cab, speeding away, and his lights go back on as his bike shoots towards us. It’s a funny little thing, shining and slim, like a liquid metal spider slicing through the air towards us; it’s impossible to know where the policeman and his bike begin and end.
“Apologies, citizen, but I must comply,” the