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WIRED by Liz Maverick
I look over at the shrink-wrapped square enshrining the cap and gown that I’ve abandoned on a side table. "A total bus station moment." Kitty twists the lollipop in her mouth, getting blue sugar syrup all over her fingers. A goldfish swims in the plastic bag she’s clutching in her other hand. "Yeah. But I’m kind of sorry I’m missing it." I shrug. "You’re really not going?" she asks. "Interview’s more important." Kitty’s eyes narrow. "You know, I think you scheduled it on graduation day on purpose." "Did not," I lie. "They asked me to." "Uh-huh." "Like I said, graduation day is nothing but a bus station moment. All that waiting, it finally gets here, you get on for the ride and then you just can't wait to get off." "Graduation is maybe the kind of bus you don’t want to miss." "I couldn’t care less." "Bullshit." "I’m serious." I laugh. "College was only incrementally less painful than high school." Kitty nods. She pulls the lollipop stick out of her mouth and it comes out clean. She crams the used stick in her cargo pocket. "Well, I guess this is it." "I guess so," I say, frowning hard and trying not to cry. "You’re really not going to graduation?" she asks again. "Nah." "Me neither." "I know. You’ve got a plane to catch." We stand there repeating ourselves because we don’t want to accept that everything’s about to change. Kitty lunges forward for a hug, the bagged goldfish swinging wildly in her grip, water dripping off her wrist down my neck. As fast as she lunged forward, she pulls back. "We hate goodbyes." She thrusts the plastic bag at me. "You’ll remember to feed him?" I take the bag with a sigh. "I’ll remember. He’ll be here when you get back." "I don’t know," Kitty says skeptically. "He’s pretty old." I hold up the bag and we watch the goldfish together. Then we look at each other. "Well," Kitty says, "I know you won’t try to kill him on purpose." We laugh to keep things from getting teary but, of course, they get teary anyway. Kitty picks up her last suitcase and opens the door. A sharp noise echoes down the inner staircase and we both jump. She sticks her head out and looks both ways. "What was that?" I ask. She shrugs then looks back over her shoulder at me. I echo Kitty’s words. "We hate goodbyes." Kitty’s black pigtails bob as she starts lugging her suitcase down the stairs, waving her hand behind her in farewell. She stops and turns and calls up to me. "Just remember, Roxanne, it can’t always be about tomorrow. Sometimes it’s about right fucking now." I shut the door and stand there for a moment listening to the clomp of Kitty’s combat boots on the stairs. They become less clompy with every step until there’s nothing left. Sirens blare outside. I hold the goldfish bag up to eye level. "It’ll be fine," I say, then look around for something to put him in. The phone rings. The doorbell rings. I look between the phone and the door ...and I pick one.
Chapter 1 We had everything before us, we had nothing before us. I’d read that once, or something like it, but I couldn’t help thinking it had to be one or the other. Alone in the middle of the street, staring into darkness, I wondered which was worse and forced myself to keep walking. I was on the way to the 7-Eleven. It was two o’clock in the morning. I was almost positive there wouldn’t be anyone in there but me. So I could just go straight in and buy my item and then I’d turn around and come straight back. What could possibly happen? Nothing. Absolutely nothing was going to happen, so there was absolutely no point in panicking. I’m not going to panic...not going to panic...not going... I tried staring at my feet as I walked, trying to focus on anything at all that wouldn’t freak me the hell out. The heels of my shoes struck the pavement in the sound of confidence that the rest of me just didn’t feel. Which was silly, because when I got to the store there would be someone I knew, someone familiar. Naveed. So, it would be fine. Naveed worked what seemed to be around the clock at the 7-Eleven near my place. Two blocks down and two blocks over, a five-minute walk. I realized that a lot of crime could take place in five minutes, but I liked to think that my neighborhood was far enough north of the really sketchy part of town to avoid it, even if the 7-Eleven itself was really the line of demarcation. We had lots of quaint Victorian facades in the area, only some of which were still crumbling, and we had fairly nice neighbors most of whom tried to grow gardens. We were still close enough to the Bay to hear the comforting low of foghorns at night even if we couldn’t see the water. We had hills near enough to climb and look over to see a grand city view even if we weren’t living in it. In short, my neighborhood wasn’t the worst and it wasn’t the best. It just was. And we had lots of things I could think about to make myself feel like I wasn’t being a complete idiot by coming out here like this. Besides, I made a point of walking in the middle of the street, and it wasn’t like I was loitering or anything; all I wanted was to get there, get my thing and get home. Head down, I jammed my hands deeper into my hoodie pockets and powered through the crisp air, moving from dark to light and back again as I passed beneath spotlights from the occasional streetlamp. At the halfway point between my house and the convenience store, the panic I was trying so hard to keep at bay started to win. Once more, I stopped in the middle of the street and tried to work it out in that same logical, rational manner. What are you doing, Roxanne? I’m going to the 7-Eleven. People go to the 7-Eleven all the time and absolutely nothing happens to them. So chances are that nothing is going to happen to you, which means there is absolutely no point in panicking. Keep walking. The first step was always the hardest, but I’d discovered that once you got going, it was all a lot easier. In a relative sense, anyway. I forced myself to move forward, trying hard to believe everything I was telling myself, because if I let myself panic, everything I feared would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I made it another half a block, then slowed to a halt and turned to look behind me towards home. A discarded S.F. Chronicle fluttered and slid across a rectangle of light spilled across the pavement. I turned again to look forward. The pale glow of the 7-Eleven was only a block away. It was so close. But so was home. As I stood there staring at the glow, a figure emerged from the shadows and stepped into the street. Give me a break. This would certainly have been the moment to laugh if one was in the mood to do so, and I could feel my body begin to react. But it was with all the symptoms of fear, coming together one by one. I shouldn’t have thought about self-fulfilling prophecies. I didn’t make any sudden moves; I simply raised my foot to take a step, landed with the swivel of an about-face and started walking home at exactly the same pace. But there, some distance in front of me, was the figure of a second man rising up from a crouch in the middle of the street as if he’d been waiting for some time. "She’s mine, Leo!" I whipped around and looked behind me at the guy who’d shouted. "I think not, Mason," a British accent shouted back. "She’s mine." I whipped around again and looked at the guy who’d answered. A funny little wheezing sound came from my mouth. I’m going to die. I pulled at the messenger bag strapped across my chest and started scrabbling for the phone in my bag which was, as always in times of dire need, somewhere very far and very deep. And while I was wheezing and frantically feeling out the corners of the bag, the men started moving in on me. Not more than a block away, each was hunched over as if they were stalking me. In my mind, I screamed at the top of my lungs. In reality, I suspect it was nothing more than a futile squeak. Arms out, taking tentative, sideways steps as they moved in on me, the men went silent with a kind of predatory focus that chilled me to the bone. I dropped to the street, upending my bag. The contents spilled out. Tissues, band-aids, sunglasses, money, keys, an expired driver’s license and a few other bits of general crap that had no real purpose but to make me feel more normal. Last came my cellphone, which reacted to my sudden lack of motor control by flying out of my grasp and tumbling across the pavement. I glanced wildly in one direction down the street and then the other. I thought of the way animals looked in that split second before striking out, tearing away from encroaching predators. Sure enough, the men left their marks, sprinting full bore towards me. The pavement vibrated with the pounding of their feet. Terror clutched at my throat. I couldn’t get air into my lungs. The curb spun around me as if it had been built in a circle. Dizzy and gasping, I focused on my cellphone. The pavement shook harder and I cringed down into it, anticipating a fist or a boot in my face any moment. I still couldn’t breathe, and I could barely move. All I could do to prevent a complete surrender was to focus on the cellphone. I inched toward it on my hands and knees, leaving a trail of belongings in my wake. If nothing else, go down fighting. But I knew those words were as hollow as the mantras I’d repeated over and over and over on the way here, and I gave in. Curling my head down into my knees, I rolled onto my side in the street. Even to save myself, I couldn’t work past the panic and the fear. I felt so weak. So, so weak, and I hate that feeling more than anything in the world. The endgame came in a flurry of arms and bodies, and men shouting, and muscle against muscle. I cringed again, waiting for pain. Silver streaked through the air, and out of the corner of my eye I watched a gun flip end over end until it smashed down hard on the pavement. I sensed a presence above me before he even opened his mouth. Then the British accent yelled, "I’ve got her!" Two arms slid under my armpits and I was wrenched up from the street. "I’ve got her," he repeated, his voice growling and angry. How strange. The emphasis was all funny. The emphasis was on the "I’ve," though I had no idea why in a moment of terror I would even notice such a thing. I waited for the end, but he merely crushed me against his suit, my face pressed into his chest. "Sorry, Mason," he said. "You lose. A bit out of shape, aren’t you?" "I tripped on a goddamn Big Gulp cup," the second voice said sullenly. My captor started backing away, and I was dragged along with his body movement like a rag doll. The toes of my shoes scraped across the pavement as I hung limply in his hold, my eyes squeezed shut. "This is where it ends," he said. I didn’t know how a person might prepare herself to die, and when a gunshot rang out in the next second, I thought I might not have time to figure it out. But the sound was answered merely by an angry gasp in my ear and a lurch sideways. I fell away from my captor, landing hard on the pavement. "This is where it begins," the American voice said, distinctly triumphant. No one picked me up again, and I dared to raise my head just in time to watch the two men bear down on each other like knights at some kind of 7-Eleven-sponsored urban joust. My former captor, the irritable British guy in the suit, versus the other guy wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans: they were smashing their fists into each other and grappling like a couple of high-school wrestlers all because... Because... Let me get this straight. Are they fighting over who gets to mug me? There was no time to process that question. Hoping to God I wasn’t bullet-worthy, I lifted myself to my knees. Leaving all of my things behind, shutting out the sound of punishing body contact and testosterone-fueled grunting, I crawled hand over hand, knee over knee down the middle of the street towards home. Shaking so hard I could barely propel myself forward, I was moving slower than seemed humanly possible. The likelihood of escape-- "L. Roxanne Zaborovsky!" I stopped crawling. Only my closest friends knew about the L. It wasn’t even on my driver’s license. "It’s me! Mason Me!" The announcement was lost in a kind of gargle. He’d probably just been hit in the face. Frozen in mid-crawl, I thought about it. I really did. Then I decided to look over my shoulder. It all happened so fast from there. The t-shirt guy was struggling in a choke hold, the suited guy behind him had one arm hooked around his neck. The night’s darkness had leached to a smoky grey, making it easier to see their faces. One I didn’t recognize at all. The other, the man in t-shirt and jeans... I could hardly believe it. Mason Merrick? Mason Merrick. His eyes met mine, and in the next second he made some fancy move and turned the tables. Suddenly it was Mason sitting on his adversary’s chest, punching the guy in the face. He actually took a moment to look over at me and yelled, "Get in the car!" The car? I’d crawled up next to Mason’s car. Along a typical, bumper-to-bumper San Francisco curbside, I’d happened to crawl up next to Mason’s car. I recognized it immediately. I reached for the handle, my fingers shaking so badly I could barely work them, opened the door and kind of launched my body inside, banging my shin hard on the stick shift. I locked the door, pulled my feet up on the seat, wrapped my arms around my knees and stared down at the keys in the ignition, which were faintly tinkling against each other while I did my best to will myself home and into my room. I never should have come out tonight. I knew it. Self-fulfilling prophecies have always been my downfall. When I looked out the window again, Mason was still on top of his adversary but had one arm out searching blindly for the weapon just beyond his reach. He had to sacrifice his hold, but he finally got what he sought, arching his back and grabbing the gun. The Brit used his opportunity to free himself, but didn’t get far. Mason swung the weapon into his face and yelled, "Advantage." The Brit slowly got to his feet, and I thought he was going to lunge. All of a sudden both men relaxed. They checked their cell phones, of all things, then calmly put them away. Then they picked up the intensity of their conflict immediately, as if it had never waned in the first place. Bizarre. The air inside the car was suffocating; the temperature seemed like it had very suddenly climbed over one hundred. I automatically reached out to turn down the thermostat and froze with my arm stuck out in front of me as it registered that the car wasn’t running so the heating system couldn’t be on. Outside, the air had held a bit of a bite, a thin chill that prickled the skin. Inside this car it was sweltering, hotter than seemed reasonable, logical...possible. I pressed my body back against the seat, my skin crawling. Claustrophobia set in. Sweat slipped down my burning face and onto my shirt. I grabbed for the window handle, but the mechanism was broken. I couldn’t even budge it an inch. I looked out the window again, frantically jiggling the knob. Still holding his gun on the British guy, Mason was all up in the other man’s face and gesturing in my direction, taunting him. To my shock, the British guy merely put his hands on his hips and swore violently at the ground. Mason flailed his gun around a bit more; then, to my shock, the British guy just surrendered. It seemed too easy, despite my lack of knowledge of the circumstances, and any relief I might have had about Mason’s victory was tempered by the oddity of it all. Still, it seemed I could take a chance on leaving the safety of the car. I was suffocating. I thought I might even be sick. My sweaty fingers grappled frantically at the door lock. I managed to pull it up, wrench the handle and push the door open. Falling out of the car, for a moment I just lay on my back in the filthy street, staring up at the stars with my arms splayed above my head like a corpse. Breathing in huge gulps of cold air, I thought to myself that the sky should be light grey by now, but it still looked as dark as it had earlier. Darker, even. "Pack it in, Leo," I heard Mason say. "No straight line here, buddy. You’ll have to go around." I turned my head and saw the man named Leo shake his head and casually walk away, brushing the dirt off his suit jacket. Mason stood quietly, watching him go; then he stuffed his gun in the waistband in back of his jeans and looked over his shoulder at me. I scrambled to my feet, swaying backwards against the car as blood rushed to my head. "Hey, Rox," Mason said. He walked to my bag and started stuffing my belongings back into it. I was grateful for a few extra moments to compose myself. The last thing I wanted was for Mason Merrick to see me completely fall apart in front of him. By the time he reached me I was as close as I was going to get to normal. Assuming normal is close to speechless and gaping. If you’d asked me back when my college roommate broke up with Mason Merrick whether or not I’d ever see the guy with the two last names again in my lifetime, I’d have said that the chance was nil. But then again, the last time I saw him he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and was eating my sugar cereal, and I’d also have said that the chance of finding myself in a situation with him involving weaponry beyond a kitchen spoon was nil. In the span of one short night, both events had come to pass. And the thing is, I don’t believe in coincidences. FOR MORE ABOUT WIRED AND LIZ MAVERICK, visit www.lizmaverick.com |
MOONGAZER by Marianne Mancusi
I have no idea. Run faster. Run harder. Run from the moon. A strange voice echoing through my brain seems to mock me as it begs for speed with an urgency I can’t comprehend. Endless demands competing with my own frantic thoughts, skitter across my brain like a dog’s claws on slick linoleum. Where am I? Run faster. Who’s chasing me? Run harder. And why? Run from the moon. But there is no moon. The corridor is black, skyless, deep underground. And I’m already running as fast and as hard as I can. I suck in a breath and take in my surroundings--trying to think, to process, to find a shred of familiarity in the dark steel beams crisscrossing the black ceiling, the mammoth fans cut into the walls every few feet, expelling hot, sour air that my already burning lungs struggle to accept. It all seems so familiar and yet at the same time completely foreign. Like a déjà vu pricking at the dark recesses of your brain, or a name on the tip of your tongue--the one you always remember at three a.m., when it no longer matters. Except, this time I think it might still matter. And three a.m. may be too late. "Don’t let her reach the hatch!" My heart slams against my chest as I realize my pursuers--whoever they might be--aren’t far behind. Sweat pools in the hollow of my throat, then drips down, soaking my breasts. My muscles burn, my lungs refuse to take in air, I can barely swallow and my vision has gone spotty. Soon I’ll have to stop. To take a break. But to stop is to die. That much I know. And so I keep running. I turn a corner and my bleary eyes catch sight of a ladder in front of me, embedded firmly into the wall, a potential salvation ascending into the darkness. Where does it go? Could it lead to the hatch my enemies seek to keep me from? To stop and check it out will eat up valuable time--time I don’t have. But I have to take a chance. I can’t run forever. I throw myself against the ladder, wrapping my hands around each rung as I climb. Step after step. The ground falls away, and with it the dim tunnel lighting and soon I am engulfed in blackness. A few seconds later I bang my head against something, almost falling off the ladder from the impact. I steady myself then reach up with one hand, fingers exploring the ceiling until they come upon a latch. More frantic exploration reveals a handle. There’s definitely some kind of trap door. "Up here! Get her!" I hear feet pounding against the metal rungs as my pursuers start up after me. I don’t have much time left. Wrapping my hand around the trapdoor handle, I yank on it with all my might. This is my one chance to escape. It doesn’t budge. I pound on the door, my heart exploding in my chest as I realize that I likely have precious seconds to live. Surprisingly, my life does not flash before my eyes--in fact, I’m still having difficulty remembering any life at all. Who I am. What I do. How I got here into this mess. Run from the moon, the mysterious voice in my head demands. "Shut up," I mutter, tired of its useless advice. The first man reaches me, paws at my feet through the darkness. "We’ve got her!" he cries. And indeed, it seems he has. Not willing to give up without a fight, I slam my foot down on his hand, the stiletto heel driving into his palm. A crunch of bone. A yelp of pain. I repeat the blow, then follow up with a wild kick to where I estimate his head to be, all the while clinging to the ladder for dear life. I don’t miss. Knocked off balance he loses his grip, falls backward, and hurtles screaming down into the blackness. A sickening thud, followed by silence, tells me he’s likely met his maker below. But his death is not enough to save me. The second guy is right behind him and much more prepared for my alley cat tactics. There’s a flash of light--a crimson laser cutting through the darkness--then a sharp, icy pain spreading through my ankle, shooting through my veins at a lightning pace, reaching my toes, my fingers, my brain simultaneously. My grip loosens, my head swims, my muscles fail. At first I fear he’ll just let me fall, hurtle down to the earth below. But my attacker grabs on and starts dragging me down the ladder. Not good. At the bottom, the men flip me over so I’m lying on my stomach, spread-eagle on the ground. I can’t move at all, my body is Jell-o, my muscles completely useless. But I can see. I can hear. I can feel. Three men kneel above me, armed with some pretty scary-looking tools, including something that looks like a high-tech electric syringe, complete with gauges and lights and a really long needle. I’m not sure what it does, but I know for a fact that I don’t want it done to me. The first man reaches into his bag and pulls out a small silver box. He presses his thumb against the top. The box beeps and flashes a green light, then pops open, revealing a vial of some sort. He presents the vial to the man with the syringe, who takes it and sticks the long needle inside, sucking up the unidentified contents. The syringe beeps in approval and a few green lights flash in sync. "Are you ready, my dear?" the man with the gun asks, his lips curled in a sneer. He’s big, built like a soldier and sporting a trim gray beard. He’s wearing a shiny metallic belted uniform reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s costume in Captain Eo. "Please!" I beg, not thinking for one second that anything I say will make a difference, but at the same time desperate to try. "Just let me go!" The men laugh, shake their heads in mirth. "Oh, you’ll go all right, Mariah," replies the second guy. He’s smaller than the first, but no less menacing. "Pow!" he quips. "Straight to the moon." They grab my arm and flip it over. I watch helplessly as they stab me with the syringe, injecting silver liquid into my unwilling veins. I scream and scream and scream, knowing it will do no good. Knowing that there’s no escape. Like it or not, I’m going to the moon.
The voice seemed a thousand miles away as I clawed through the blackness, struggling to regain consciousness. After a few futile attempts, I managed to pry open my eyes and shake off the nightmare’s iron grip. "Ah, she rejoins the living. Welcome back," Craig teased, having no idea of the hell I’d just been through. He lay back down on his side of the bed, evidently satisfied he’d sufficiently fulfilled his duty as a boyfriend by waking me, and that he felt justified to go back to his own much more peaceful dreams. I rubbed my eyes and sat up in bed, taking in my surroundings, still trying to catch my breath. My eyes sought and focused on the familiar: The slightly battered four-poster bed, draped with my aunt’s homemade quilt. My ragged teddy bear Melvin, strewn to one side. My antique bookcase against one wall, crammed with well-worn fantasy epics I couldn’t bear to throw away. My prized Alienware computer, souped up to run the latest and greatest videogames. And, of course, my framed movie posters on the wall--Star Wars, The Matrix, Blade Runner. I smiled a little as Luke, Neo and Deckard all glowered down at me, as if daring me to claim my nighttime adventure was more hellish than their everyday realities. I took a breath and plopped my head back down on my pillow. My closet of a New York apartment, the one the realtor called "cozy" in the way only realtors can get away with while keeping a straight face, for once actually did evoke a feeling of comfort and warmth. I was home. I was safe. I was me again. "Wow, that was the worst one yet," I remarked to Craig, in the rare hope that he was still conscious. There was no way I was going back to sleep now, and it would help to have someone to talk to. Not that Craig was the greatest of listeners, but he did have a knack for responding with a grunted "mmhm" at appropriate pauses in the conversation. "Yeah?" he asked, for once going above and beyond. "Yeah. I can’t remember all the details. I mean, you know how dreams are. But it’s like I’m running down this underground corridor, fleeing for my life. Someone’s chasing me, but I don’t know who--or why, for that matter. And then they inject me with some kind of drug. But the weird thing is it’s, like, not exactly me. It’s almost as if I’m someone else..." "Were you naked?" Craig queried, rolling over on his side to face me, his green eyes dancing mischievously. I swatted him. "No!" He laughed. "Too bad. Here I thought this was going to turn out to be some really great sex dream. Like the one I was having with Scarlett Johansson before your screams woke me up." I grimaced. "Uh, thanks for sharing your nocturnal infidelity." "No, no," he corrected with a smile. "You were there, too. And amazingly enough, you’d just agreed to a threesome. Damn shame I woke up when I did, actually." I forced a chuckle, but it sounded more like a sigh. I knew he was just trying to cheer me up. To make me feel better. Normally it would probably work. But after night upon night of horrible nightmares and little actual rest I was at my breaking point. Irritated, frustrated, and oh-so-tired. It was no wonder his light-hearted manner only succeeded in annoying me. "Look," I said, "I know it sounds funny, but when I’m dreaming it all seems so real. And when I wake up, I’m...terrified." I choked on the word. Great. The last thing I needed was for him to see me cry. I was supposed to be tough. The cool chick. In control of every situation thrown my way. And here I was, crying like a baby over a stupid dream. Can we say, loser? Craig’s face softened, the way some guys’ faces do when the girls they’re sleeping with turn on the waterworks. Maybe he figured he could soothe my vulnerability and get some action at the same time. But lovemaking was the last thing on my mind. In fact, since I’d started having the dreams, I’d pretty much lost my sex drive altogether. Poor Craig. He’d selflessly gone without for nearly a month now. Who could blame him for trying to take advantage? I allowed him to grab my hand and pull me into a hug. But just as I’d resigned myself to settle into his arms, he shoved me away again. "Ew, you’re all sweaty," he complained, wiping his hand on his boxer shorts. So much for the comfort of a lover’s embrace. "Fine. I’m going to take a shower," I muttered, accidentally on purpose kicking him as I crawled out of bed. I headed to the kitchenette to pour myself a cup of yesterday’s leftover coffee. I didn’t care that it was ice cold or tasted like tar. It had caffeine; that was all that mattered. "And then maybe play some RealLife." Craig groaned, grabbing a pillow and throwing it in my general direction. It fell short, landing on my unswept floor with a soft plop. I made no move to pick it up. "You know, staying up all night with your little games can’t be healthy," he lectured. I narrowed my eyes. Little games? That was my livelihood he was talking about. At age twenty-four, I was the youngest game designer at Chix0r, the world’s first all-girl run computer gaming company. The launch of our massive multiplayer online game RealLife was scheduled to happen in two weeks, and it’d been hyped by Wired magazine as the biggest thing since World of Warcraft. Little games, indeed. "How about you take your shower and then play some real, real life instead of your virtual version?" Craig continued. "You know, maybe do your ‘sleeping quest’ tonight so that tomorrow you can be awake enough for your ‘work quest’ chain?" "Hardy, har, har. You’re so funny." He was always teasing me about that--implying that I considered my real life a series of quests, just like a character would in a videogame. Accomplish one goal, get your reward, move on to the next. Level up day by day in the game of life. In a way, he wasn’t far off the mark. "Look, I can’t go back to sleep," I said, forcing back my annoyance and focusing on his suggestion. I mean, what good did it do to justify my career to him? He was a techno DJ for chrissakes. "I’m afraid I’ll have another dream." Even from across the room, I could see him rolling his eyes. "They’re just dreams, Skye," he said slowly, as if addressing a child. "They’re not real." "They might as well be." "Look." He sat up in bed. "I wouldn’t worry about them. Unless you start seeing Freddie Kruger wielding some terribly creative weapon of dream destruction, then you’re not living Nightmare on 72nd Street, and you will be fine." He chortled to himself, evidently pleased by his wit. "Whatever," I replied wearily. "I’m going to take that shower." In the bathroom I switched on the light. The realtor had described my apartment as having a marble bath and Jacuzzi tub. I assumed the marble was the cat’s eye marble a past tenant had stuck in the window to plug an old bullet hole, and the tub did bubble when the plumbing failed and spurted out used bathwater from the neighbor downstairs. You had to love New York. I turned on the shower and crossed my fingers. I had about a fifty-fifty chance of hot water at this time of night. In the morning, those odds would go down to about twenty-eighty. But hell, I only paid $2,100 a month for the place. What did I expect? I caught my reflection in the mirror. This no sleep thing was definitely affecting my looks. Dark, puffy splotches circled my eyes. An unsightly zit had made itself at home on the tip of my nose. My once stylish shag cut stuck out in all directions like straw from a scarecrow. In short, I was a mess. Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat, which was constricting and making it nearly impossible to breathe. Argh. This was the last thing I needed tonight. I’d had asthma since I was a kid and sometimes it got pretty bad. Especially in stressful situations. I reached into the drawer under the sink and pulled out my inhaler. Putting the device in my mouth, I released a dose of Lunatropium into my lungs. Recently I’d been trying to cut back on the amount of times I used the inhaler each day and had been learning to control my breathing through yoga instead. But tonight seemed like a good time to give myself a break and let modern medicine lend a hand. After my shower--there was hot water, thank god--I toweled off and headed back to the main room of my apartment. Changing into clean pajamas, I sat down at my computer desk. I glanced over at Craig. He’d fallen back asleep and was sure to be out of it until at least noon. As a DJ, spinning nights at a Lower East Side club, he was entitled to spend his mornings dead to the world while the rest of us sorry humans put in our Starbucks orders and jockeyed for positions on the subway. Not that I didn’t like my job. It was just with the lack of sleep I’d had, these days it was harder and harder to stay awake for it. I was pretty sure my boss had begun to notice my sudden drop in performance, too. Not good. Because Foosball table, creative dress code and free Diet Cokes aside, 21st-century dot-coms like mine were downright traditional when it came to clocking in and working hard. I logged into the server and selected my game character. I was doing beta testing for the soon-to-be-launched RealLife, checking for bugs and other errors before it was distributed to the general public. The post-apocalyptic virtual earth I’d created was practically empty now, inhabited only by computer generated characters and myself. But soon it’d be alive with avatars from all over the world, players logging in to live a virtual existence, creating characters to fight digital monsters, competing for epic weapons and armor, and forming lifelong friendships with fellow gamers. For now, though, it was empty and mine to explore. An escape from all that plagued my reality. I loved it in there. It was a haven, a solace. From my 21-inch monitor, my game character "Allora" looked back at me impatiently, probably wondering why I wasn’t moving her. As an all-girl company Chix0r had gone one step further than the traditional guy-centric games like World of Warcraft or Everquest, where the player characters were flat and static and did exactly what you told them. Our characters had their own personalities, their own artificial intelligence built into their codes. Sort of like if you could put The Sims in chain mail and give them swords. So while you could control your character’s movements and direct his or her career path, you couldn’t make them do things they didn’t want to do. They wouldn’t fight if you didn’t feed them first. They’d refuse to accept a quest if they were tired. They got lonely if you didn’t socialize them, and angry if someone did them wrong. Sometimes they were scarily like real people. "Okay, fine, Allora. Let’s go to the pub," I whispered, moving the mouse to direct her to the local tavern. "We’ll get you a beer." For beta testing purposes we’d temporarily sectioned this virtual town off from the rest of the game. Luckily, Allora had no idea there was a world outside her city. To her, the outskirts of Mare Tranquilitatis were the ends of the earth. A bit sad, really. I sat her down at a table and bought her a beer. She raised her glass and drank, blissfully unaware of her own plight or her operator’s exhaustion. So innocent. So happy. So content. If only I could join her there--crawl into my computer, immerse myself in my virtual world and block out my reality. But that was just another dream. I took a big slug of coffee. In the end, it was much better to be awake. FOR MORE ABOUT MOONGAZER AND MARIANNE MANCUSI, visit mariannem.blogspot.com |
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