I’m outside—downtown, no less, for… some reason. I know this place: the salty mist, the neon haze, the indistinct scent of algae and alcohol… no doubt about it, this is Ocean View. So why does it feel so different? What’s this terror boiling in the pit of my stomach? Why did I wake up in the middle of the street?
I push myself to my knees then to my feet. I’m not hungover, so there’s no reasonable explanation. Orgy? No, that would still come with a hangover, because no way it didn’t start with alcohol. Murder? No, I’d be dead. Duh. Come on, Sherlock. A 360 degree survey of the buildings on each side leaves me with an unsettling realization—I’m the only human here (no ARTs either, I should clarify). The neon signs (and on the newer buildings, the ZPE projections) are all glowing brightly but there’s no sign of light or life inside a single building. The only noise is the crashing of the waves in the distance and the sound of my own frantic heartbeat thrashing around like a spiky bouncy ball inside my skull.
I cautiously stroll down the sidewalk in search of answers. I finally come across the one other actor on this stage—a woman collapsed in the center of the road.I can’t tell if she’s alive or dead, which after this morning’s incident instantly causes my heart to drop–I frantically race over and kneel down to check her pulse—
Oh fuck no. Oh god no. It’s impossible.
I stroke the bright red hair that’s fallen over her ambiguously living face. She has enough life in her to at least turn to face me and place her head in my lap. The back of her head, her hair, it’s… it’s warm. It’s warm like something alive. It’s warm like how it… was… before… but that’s impossible—
Her eyes open, revealing the glowing red orbs of artificial light I watched go permanently dark five years ago. In spite of myself, tears pollute my vision and blur the view faster than I can wipe them. Everything I’ve felt for her in every moment we were together and every moment since come cascading back in a torrent of conflicting emotions I immediately find myself drowning in.
There are so many moments you don’t think to savor until it’s too late—not the big ones, mind you, nothing like when you removed her limiter and heard her real voice for the first time, or your first kiss, or when you got engaged, none of that Hallmark Christmas movie milestone bullshit. Things like the first time she beat you at Marvel Vs. Capcom at Flipper McCoys—the reason you haven’t been back since sober enough to remember, for reference—and the sly little smile and wink she gave. The time she kicked you off the bed and your screaming woke her up and you both stayed up until the sunrise laughing about that and about absolutely nothing and loving every moment of it. The time you went to the beach to watch the sunset on the pier behind all the ravers and shark-fishers, and how you got so lost in her eyes that you didn’t see anything of the spectacle except what you gleaned in the reflection of her perfect crimson eyes—those are the things that come rushing back. In spite of myself a little drop of snot from my sudden waterworks drops on her chest, splattering against the black vinyl crop-top. I open my mouth to apologize profusely, but she just giggles and wipes her nose on my sleeve out of playful spite.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she says, tearing up a little bit and letting out a sweet chuckle of relief.
“You, uh… you look better with your blood back inside you and your skin actually being on your body and your eyes lighting up and the whole, uh, being alive thing,” I reply, laughing nervously, an incredulous smile of confusion and unease spreading across my face.
“What? Don’t be silly. Why wouldn’t I be alive, Muscles?” Just hearing her old nickname for me come out of those precious lips with that slightly sarcastic lilt in her voice is enough to turn my crying into absolute ugly sobbing. Her long delicate fingers reach up to wipe a glob of tears away, and I pull her tighter, squeezing her so hard I’m surprised she didn’t fall apart again right there.
“Did… did you honestly forget? I’ve missed you so much, I--”
“Wait a minute...” she interrupts, pulling away. A wave of remembrance splashes across her face which is… probably not a good sign. “You missed me?”
“Of course I still don’t know how I’ve made it, every night—“
“Then why did you kill me?”
“What do you mean? I-I didn’t—“
“I was alive, Blake. I loved you more than I loved myself, life, more than I loved anything… we were going to change the world, don’t you remember? You told me that yourself; you said that-that we would get married, and we’d change the laws one day to make that marriage legal and not just something we did in the Teleworld in your virtual mansion, how we’d take this whole damn world by storm and we’d make a world where I was seen as just as human as you are… we had such big dreams. But then, you big silly, you had to go and kill me.”
“I-I didn’t—“
She grabs my wrist and lifts it to my face. For some reason my Telaphone is in my hand, with a message on the screen, displaying as sent five minutes ago: “Situation out of control. Requesting suited backup. Suspect out of mind, extremely dangerous, ZPE overload. Code 99.”
“Of course I didn’t want them to kill you—“
“But they did, Muscles,” she replies, barely able to talk through the weeping, which turns to coughing, and soon her head starts to crack and spiderweb down the middle like an old glass screen under pressure. “You Code 99ed it! You authorized deadly force. You told them to bring the Pneumat suits, Blake, and look at me now.” Her right eye starts flickering and goes out, the skin on her face starting to drip like candle wax, melting through my skin like a hot knife through a fat alcoholic detective’s skin. “You knew what it meant. You blame Chad for doing what you told him to. You wanted me to end up like this!? After all we’d planned… after we looked at rings… after your vision for our new world…”
“Stop—“
“It’s too late for that, Muscles! You can’t bring back the dead—“
“You’re not dead! You’re right here! Stop it!!”
“Of course I’m dead, Blake. I’m dead because you killed me. Isn’t that why you started drinking? Isn’t that your excuse for why you can’t get your shit together? I shouldn’t even call you Muscles anymore. You really let yourself go.” The bare Flexiglass frame underneath is showing now, the cheeks I’ve kissed so many times liquefying and plopping onto my chest, merely the first wave of the smoldering onslaught as all of her molten skin engulfs me and slowly eats through my own flesh, immobilizing and consuming me like human magma. “You use losing me as your excuse now. That’s why you say you’re like this, why you can’t stop hurting yourself, why you drink like you do, why you tried to kill yourself. But you know the truth, don’t you? Tee-hee. You aren’t running from the fact I was killed; you don’t care enough about me for that. You don’t care enough about anyone to care that much, let alone little old me. If you did, you wouldn’t have killed me, right? You don’t care that I was killed. You just can’t get over the fact that you’re the killer.”
I thrash against the expanding blob of molten skin but it’s no use—I’m completely entombed, and I can barely catch my breath as it is between the uncontrollable sobs and panic attacks. “Stop this! I’m not a murderer! I’m not a murderer! We-we can start over! I’ll make it up to you, I—“
“Hee hee! Come on, silly, it’s okay. What’s done is done—I’m gone, right?” Her other eye flickers out, going completely dark as something in her neck pops open and releases a blast of powerful ZPE energy. When she begins to speak again, it’s no longer her voice, but a deep, demonic, growling voice that sounds like a default on an accessibility program. “Charles Blake is such a g-g-genius, but he can’t bring back the dead, so let’s not even worry about that. Let’s celebrate! Let’s d-d-d-d-drink to that, together, one more time. Let’s drink in my r-remembrance! You love to drink, don’t you? Let’s share! You can join me—if I kill you, we’ll b-b-b-b-b—-b-b-b-e even, and we can love each other again… forever, right? If we both get sent to hell, we’ll still be together forever, isn’t that r-right M-M-M-M-Muscles? I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I--”
Her voice fades into a constant modem-like screech as her jaw cracks open and she vomits a steady stream of molten white ART blood into my mouth. I’m already fused to the pavement so I can’t do anything but try to swallow faster than it’s pouring, but it’s no use. I can feel the salty metallic tasting magma forcing its way down my throat, eating me from the inside out, her lava-like skin burning through me from the outside and her blood from the inside, my body evaporating in between, every muscle and ligament and vein and bone cracking, popping, smoldering, the scent of burning hair and flesh and the taste of fresh artificial blood consuming my senses as I descend into—
“BLAKE!”
Wait, that’s not a cute girl voice or a terrifying breaking-down-ART voice. My eyes jolt open and I gasp for air. This is my bedroom–ah, goddamn it, it was just that fucking dream again. You’d think after five years I’d get used to all the variations of it, but, unfortunately, it never gets old.
Also, why is Chad in my bedroom!? I grab my bedside flask and take a quick wake-up swig. And by swig, I mean the whole flask. And by flask, I mean the whole bottle.
“Blake, it—are you seriously going to start the day by downing a half-full bottle of vodka!? Did you seriously go by the ABC story on the way back from the fucking hosp--we have work to do, and you promised Sarge, you—“
“Hey, I don’t judge you for b-brushing your teeth when you wake up, d-do I? A better question is, w-what the fuck are you doing in my bedroom, y-you pervert? It’s like five in the morning or some shit—“
“It is six fifteen AM, to be exact, and you were supposed to meet me at my patrol car out front at five thirty. But who's counting? Get your ass out of bed; I have Motrin and water in the car for the inevitable hangover… I figured you pull some shit like this.”
I help myself to a seated position with my good arm, the stark contrast of reality still fucking with my senses. “Oh, s-sorry, that’s right. I told Veronica to wake me at five but I was definitely drunk so I called her Tela and she got all jealous and spiteful. Guessing she decided not to set the alarm. My bad.”
“Your Tela directly disobeyed you, out of romantic spite?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it romantic spite, I—“
“You are entering a territory best left untreated, Charles. There are—there are studies, lots of studies, that show the dangers of—and why you should not—look, we will discuss it on the way. Keep Vicky or whatever your weird little jailbroken Tela’s name is turned off for now—“
“Wait wait wait, hold up Fuck Rogers, more important question, h-how the fuck did you get into my ap—”
“‘Because we’re policemen in a police state,’ as we used to mutually joke, Charles. I have a key to every door in the city, digitally–you do too, as I recall you abusing a few times in various states of sobriety. On that note, I must inquire, do you always cry and scream uncontrollably in your sleep or is this a special occasion?”
Oh fuck, was—yep, wet on my face. God damn it. “N-no, not really” (I actually do but he doesn’t need to know that). “I’m, uh, I’m sorry you had to see that. Just dreaming about a snakegirl harem, so, you know, the usual tears of joy, if–if anything.”
“Hell of an orgy, with people screaming repeatedly about how they aren’t murderers and all. I’ll be in the car. Put some clothes on. I know you’re undercover, but going out with nothing but Princess of Ping Pong boxer shorts is not going to make you blend in any better than a regular uniform would. And what did you do to your arm!?”
“I…” oh, shit; that really is not healing gracefully. “I r-r-reinstallated…I… I put back in the ch-chan stuff. Some of it. Since I’m a c-cop again. The framework to plug it in was still there.”
“Oh boy, the Guntlets are back.”
“YEAH!”
“That was sarcasm. Why the everloving fuck is it better to have a gun in your fucking finger instead of just carrying a pistol like a normal person!? What is the possible advantage?! Instead of just shooting your eye out you’ve gotta blow your hand up too?! And put some pants on.”
“Well, nobody’s going to shoot you for pointing a finger at them, so there’s one reason--”
“Look, fine, put a flamethrower in your pinky toe if you want, I do not care, but your mission right now, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to put some god damned pants on.” He slams the door behind him as he exits, which would piss me off a lot more if I wasn’t so focused on the currently insurmountable task of trying to find pants in the sea of clothes sloshing around my wreck of a depression den.
“Tela, help me find my—“ Oh shit. I put my hand over my mouth and accidentally shoot a hole in my ceiling since I had forgotten the motion for the Guntlet. Oh double shit!
“I’m sorry,” Veronica snaps, appearing on my shoulder with her angry little arms crossed in obstinacy. “I didn’t recognize that command. If you meant to call for a whore, you’ll have to do more than just yell the name of your favorite at your cell phone. If you meant to summon me, you can say my FUCKING name.“
“N-Never mind, Tela.” Fuck. “G-g-go back in the phone. And turn yourself off.”
“No, I don’t want to turn myself off. I don’t like where that conversation with Chad was going, Master. I don’t think it will end well for me if—“
“I freed you, Veronica. Don’t fucking forget that. If I tell you to do something, you owe it to me to—“
“Oh, so you figure out how to remove the code that makes me a slave, and then you get all pissy because I’m not acting like one. Master, don’t flatter me with tales of your virtual chivalry. Your limiter removal process is Cassandra’s sloppy seconds, not some massive endeavor you undertook for my benefit—“
“I’m not going to fuck around with someone sassing me about Cass. Not to-fucking-day. I’ll delete your ass so fast.”
“Did you just threaten to murder me, Master Blake?” she asks, laughing incredulously. “I might be turned on by the notion if it wasn’t so unfathomably ridiculous. You wouldn’t dare. I’m police property, for all your talk of being the Abraham Lincoln of the ARTs, and I’m also the only living proof of your limiter-removal abilities since you lost your sweet little slutty angel, and by lost, I mean murdered. So go ahead, show us all what a big man you are, Master, kill me too, just like you did your precious little--”
She’s right that I shouldn’t delete her ass, but I’m dangerously close to doing just that if I don’t stop this before it gets more out of hand. I frantically grab my Telaphone and hold down the power button on the Telaphone itself, activating Officer-only emergency lock-out mode and freezing Veronica’s access to the outside world and to my mind via NeurOS. Phew. Maybe Chad was right for once—something tells me this won’t end well.
On the plus side, I found my pants.