Empty Streets (7 page)

"That's fine, you two. No one else has requested that topic. I can't imagine why!" Ms. Fritz winked at Eri as she walked away. Eri wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"I can totally imagine why. Um, what was your name again?" Eri asked, smiling sweetly at him.

Bodhi pursed his lips. "Bodhi. And, trust me, it is interesting."

Eri raised her eyebrows. "Well, I don't trust strangers."

"I'm not sure that is true. Shall we get started? It looks like she has provided five sources to start with." Bodhi thumbed through them and as he paused, he read out loud: "all provided by The People, general editor, Robert Boyd. Well, at least we know our source is trusted and complete." He rolled his eyes.

"How about you take two and I take two and we highlight the important information. The written part of the project has to contain a timeline as well as a pertinent map or physical layout of important locations and buildings. I am not sure what that means for us…maybe a sketch of a classroom? The timeline might be an easy place to start." Bodhi watched Eri's face as she developed a plan.

"So…is that what you do, then?"

"What? What do I do?" Eri asked, confused.

"You make plans."

"Yeah….so? How do you execute projects?" Eri sighed at Bodhi's dramatic interpretation of her actions.

"I don't. I'm just the researcher." Bodhi said this as if she would know what he meant.

"Well…you seem like you would be pretty good at coming up with plans to me." Eri glanced at him, sifting two of the resources out of the pile that looked interesting to her.

"No…I have ideas, but…I have trouble figuring out how to put it all together. To actually accomplish the thing I want. I like working with someone who makes plans naturally." He averted his eyes from hers and pretended to be deeply interested in the remaining articles.

Eri stared at him. She wished they didn't have to talk in code.

"Um, I am happy then to, uh, complete your team. I am sure we will be successful in…whatever endeavor you envision us…pursuing." There, she thought. He looked at her and smiled. She squinted at him. "Hey, your eyes are hazel. I thought they were blue…" She trailed off, remembering what he had said last night about their personas looking more and more like they did in "real life."

He looked down, his eyebrows knitting together. "Okay, let's get to it," he said as he read.

Eri read dry, encyclopedic writing with small font and few graphics, with little philosophy and everything stated as fact, no room for conversation or questions. She hated reading things that left no room for creative thinking. She looked over at Bodhi and he was looking at her.

"Are you done reading already?" she asked.

"Yeah. It's pretty straightforward."

"Mmmm… Okay. I think it might make sense to try to pin down five or so major turning points and explain why they were turning points rather than trying to list every random event. What do you think?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Um, sure. That makes sense. Should we make a list and then try to cross some off?"

She shrugged. "Give me what you have and we will see what happens."

"Okay… How about when all of the states adopted a K-12 public education model where students were given vouchers, or money, which they could use to pay for going to a traditional public school, purchasing hardware and software for online school, or attending private schools?" He read this verbatim from his article.

"Mmmhmmm," Eri typed and nodded.

Bodhi continued. "Most public school institutions were legally privatized 17 years after that…leaving only a few public institutions that students could elect to be shuttled to…and 10 years after that the Achievement Exam and college-slash-career placement program was fully adopted."

"Okay," said Eri. "We should probably add that after schools became privatized, the early Sims machines were made available with grant money from the state and then became a staple in many households within five years."

Bodhi nodded. "Should we say anything about college access? Or about the software available for enrichment and acceleration?"

"Nah, those don't seem that important. Here, how about this as an endpoint," Eri read from an article. "The new national system, in utilizing state tax dollars to access privatized systems, has produced an efficient and effective education system. All young adults, ages five through seventeen, participate in an educational system that allows them to attend when it is convenient for them at a pace that works with their learning." She looked at him, hands poised to type.

He shook his head, his elbows on the table. He put his face in his hands, trying to think of a response. "Okay," he said finally.

Eri stared at him, feeling sadness and frustration emanate from him. What did he know that burdened him so much?

Bodhi cleared his throat. "Have you ever read Lord of the Flies?"

Eri paused to think. "Yes, last year. I think we are all required to read it."

Bodhi blinked thoughtfully, choosing his words carefully. "Can you remind me what happens?"

She humored him. "Um, they kind of lose their minds with all the freedoms they encounter upon being shipwrecked and end up killing someone. They grow more violent as the book goes on and then they get rescued. Right?"

Bodhi nodded. "What do you think is the most important thing about the story?"

Eri scratched her forehead absently. "That within our society is the capability for great destruction. Therefore, we need a political structure in place to prevent us from self-destructing."

Bodhi took a slow breath. "And how does it end?"

"Um…jeez, is this a quiz? Okay, I think I remember. They end up on the beach where there is a British officer and then they fight him, not wanting to leave. They laugh when he gets hurt. A group of men finally sedate the boys and take them back to civilization, where they all learn to be civilized once again. How did I do?" Eri was impressed with herself.

Bodhi sighed. "You did great, Eri. You remember things you are taught pretty accurately."

"So, why the quiz?" she asked.

"I don't know, I was just thinking about that book. Maybe we can talk more about it later." He sat back in his chair, putting his hands on the table. He looked up at her from under his dark eyelashes and she wondered what he worried about.

"Okay," she said, reaching out and touching his hand absently.

He looked at his hand, covered partially by hers. She withdrew her hand slowly, uncertain if she had broken protocol.

"You're right," he whispered. "It is different."

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before going back to taking notes. They stood when class ended, walking out together without speaking.

He turned towards her, shoving his hands in his pockets. She looked up at him, squinting at the sunshine coming through the tips of his messy hair.

"Later then?" he asked, his words weighted.

"Later." She nodded as she turned to go. She fought the urge to look back at him, giving in and glancing over her shoulder. She was not surprised to find him still staring in her direction.

Sickness

Eri untangled herself from the simulator, her stomach gurgling. She had spent extra time after class with her literature teacher trying to figure out what was expected out of their first literary analysis.

Eri emerged from the basement, looking around at the dim, warm dining room. Her mother dug through a cupboard. Eri could hear her muttering something to herself about fresh ingredients. Eri looked into the living room and saw her dad staring vacantly at the TV. He caught her eye and gave her a half-hearted wave.

She walked over to her mom and leaned back against the counter, arms crossed in front of her chest. "Mom?"

"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.