Empty Streets (8 page)

"Man, are you still messed up? I told you that shit was tight." The boy laughed again.

Awesome, Eri thought. Ezra is high. She thought she could play this to her advantage. "Yeah, man…I don't feel good…what's your name again?"

The boy laughed hard, doubling over before wiping tears from his eyes. Eri tried to force herself to laugh, too.

"You don't remember your friend, Seb? Come on, Ez! I knew you took a big hit, but shit." The boy stared hard at her for a minute. His short, buzzed hair spiked a little above his large forehead and he had tattoos all over his body. Eri thought tattoos were weird, since she doubted many people had them outside of the Sims. It seemed odd to pretend to have a permanent mark on your body that everyone knew wasn't really permanent. Then she saw Seb's expression harden as he stared at her. She felt a moment of fear; perhaps he recognized something was wrong, that it wasn't Ezra.

"Hey, I been meanin' to come at you 'bout something," Seb said with a hard edge to his voice. "My sister says you and she hit it. I should bust your ass for that."

"Uh, what?" Eri's innards went cold.

"Oh, come on, I know you're high and shit, but I know you remember my sister. I told you to stay away from her, she's only thirteen. What you messin' with all these girls for anyways?" Seb raised a critical eyebrow at Ezra, with a look of disgust on his face.

"What do you mean?" Eri wondered how long she could play dumb.

Seb looked even more irritated. His chest puffed out against a tight, white t-shirt. "What do I mean? Ez, you startin' to piss me off. You just told me today you were able to scam that software that lets you have actual Sims sex, not just clothes on shit. You know, the software you can't legally get until you're sixteen? You said you were bangin' a different girl every day." Seb looked at Ezra like maybe he didn't believe him anyway. Eri hoped he was lying. She was pretty sure boys lied about stuff like that.

"Even if I had it, none of the girls have it." Eri hoped this was true.

Seb looked at Ezra with confusion. "Man, you must be higher than I thought. I wonder if something got crossed in your brain waves er somethin'. You know that software works like a virus. If you want to, you can pass it to someone else just through contact. You infect them."

"But…my computer doesn't actually…link…," Eri trailed off, realizing her knowledge of how the software communicated in the Sims world was wildly limited. "Well, whatev. I'll stay away from your sister." Eri looked down, feeling shame burn on her cheeks.

"Hey, man, I get it. Remember what you and I talked about the other day…how it's like ain't no one watchin' what we doin' or give a shit about us? Or how nothin' feels real to us, so we gotta push our physical experiences more and more in here? I feel that, man, I been thinkin' on it. If you still wanna be done with it all and take that other drug I told you about, lemme know. I'll do it, too." Seb's voice trailed off, and his expression softened in thought. Eri could read pain in his face; loneliness and uncertainty. "T said he could get us whatever we want." Seb looked down and walked away, careful not to make eye contact.

Eri felt cold all over. What was happening? What was her brother doing? Who was T? She had heard of people doing Sims drugs, which tricked the brain into feeling high. She had read that they were just as addicting as real drugs and had avoided them. Some of that stuff could make the body feel like it had experienced several seizures. The result was a lack of appetite and sleeping for days on end. She couldn't make sense of the Sims sex though…she knew of it and had, at sixteen, gained access to legal Sims sex, but had not been very interested in accessing the software. She wondered what it meant, that Ezra was accessing and abusing the software illegally. He was still under age. Perhaps he was trying to not be lonely. Maybe he thought the physical act of sex would make him feel human connection. Which, if that was the case, it made a lot of sense that he would feel depressed and isolated. Everyone knew the point of Sims sex was to avoid human connection.

Deep in thought, leaning against a rock, Eri heard the hum of a faint beep in the distance. She looked up and, realizing what it was, threw her hands up to jerk off the goggles on her face before the machine could do a retinal scan. The Sims machine automatically went into sleep mode.

Eri climbed out of Ezra's Sims machine and crept up the stairs. In the living room, her parents sat watching TV. Her dad dozed, while her mom's glazed eyes did not seem particularly focused on the TV.

"We have a thing at work. Tomorrow night," Eri's mom said absently.

"Um, what?" Eri looked at her, confused.

"An interpersonal event for all the grownups. We were even shipped nice clothes from the Company." Eri's mom smiled at her dad, even though he slept.

"Oh, so…like a grownup date?" Eri remembered her parents doing this from time to time. Because there were so few places to safely travel for social events, the factories periodically held small dinners to allow the workers time to talk and visit. Eri thought this seemed awkward, this adult play date, but since they all perceived the outside world to be so dangerous, it made sense that they believed this to be a reasonable alternative.

"Yes," her mother said as she nodded. "A date."

Eri curled into a small, worn chair and allowed her mind to be numbed by the wash of light from the TV. Her body was exhausted from last night and the stress from today. She fell asleep quickly.

When she awoke, the living room was completely dark. Her parents had gone to bed and left her in the chair. She was sweaty from sleeping in her clothes. The night time temperatures were supposed to drop into the lower eighties this week, signaling the transition to autumn, but for now their townhouse was hot and stuffy, even at night.

Eri stumbled blearily into the kitchen. Eleven-fifteen.

She crept up the stairs, her eyes heavy. She wanted to sleep. But she had a lot she wanted to talk about with Bodhi.

In her bedroom, she swapped out the thick cotton shorts she had on for the black pants she had worn last night. She hoped for a cooler breeze, putting on a dark long-sleeved t-shirt.

After helping her back into her room last night, Bodhi had thrown a rope up to her. She needed to do a better job of hiding the rope and re-taping the window upon reentry.

She lay on her bed, dozing, waiting as the clock approached midnight. And then she fell asleep.

Two hours later, Eri awoke with a start. Her internal clock told her it was after one in the morning. She tapped on her lamp and shook her head to wake herself up. She stood and tapped the lamp out, edging herself behind the tapestry. She affixed a hooked end of the rope to the frame of the window and placed the looped end around her waist, the heavy tapestry rubbing against her left side, irritating her skin. Finally, she pulled back the tarp around the window and peeked out into the world below. Silence and darkness. She wondered if she would be able to find Bodhi.

She slithered out the bottom half of the window and, placing her feet against the townhouse, lowered herself to the ground. She left the rope dangling against the house. It was dark tonight, darker than last night, with no starlight to illuminate the house.

Eri crept away towards the edge of the row of houses, as she had with Bodhi last night, in the direction of the alley. Maybe he was up on the roof. It was so dark she could only see a couple feet in front of her.

"Hey," she heard a whispered voice. She peered into blackness.

"Um, hey," she whispered back.

"I'm across the street. Hurry. You're late." She scurried across the dark street, hoping she didn't fall in a pothole.

It wasn't until she was two feet from him that she saw him. Before he could say anything, she threw her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. He froze, surprised by her actions.

"Hey…are you okay?" He encircled his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. His hands, hot and strong, pressed against her back. She shook her head into him. Worry about Ezra expanded inside her.

"Do you want to talk?" he whispered, walking backwards and pulling her with him until she could feel them hit a solid surface. Bodhi maneuvered them until they were hiding in a small space between two buildings.

She shook her head against him again. She wasn't even sure what to say. She didn't want to cry.

Bodhi loosened his hold on her and she let go of him in response. It was too dark to see much other than the faint outline of his bare arms and legs. She wondered if he could see her at all. His hands traced up her arms and found her face, pulling her towards him as he bent down to see her. She could see his face, a shadow in the blackness of the sleeping city. She shook her head slightly, unable to explain the growing fear she felt regarding her brother.

He closed the distance between them to kiss her lightly before letting her go. Her heart stopped at the unexpected contact. She licked her lips instinctively, leaning up for more. Instead of kissing her again, he pulled her to him and placed his mouth near her ear.

"I was only a little worried about you when you didn't show up at midnight," he said, his breath barely a whisper in her ear.

She pulled his head down towards her ear and whispered, "I almost didn't come. But I need something and this seemed like it."

He nodded, pulling her to him again and hugging her. Her inability to see anything heightened her physical awareness of him. The lankiness of his chest and stomach muscles against her thin t-shirt and the softness of his hair against the side of her face worked to reduce the tension in her shoulders. She felt peaceful, calm in this darkness in a way she wasn't elsewhere. She wanted to stay in this crevice until the sun came up, ignoring the sadness stealing into her mind.

"Come on, I have something kinda cool to show you," he whispered as he pulled at her arm, keeping his body flat against the building until they reached a garbage alley, where he pulled her after him and ran. She ran as fast as she could, the alley illuminated by a very faint, blue light. She ran to keep up with him. They both ran because it felt like freedom. The muscles in her legs screamed with delight at their use, stretching and pulling against her bones. Her lungs filled with night air and her chest hurt with the desire for more, purer oxygen.

After several minutes of running, they reached the end of the alley and emerged into total darkness. Bodhi turned, pushing her back into the alley.

"Okay, first, a couple of things," he whispered, panting quietly, small beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. She tried to take deep breaths as she bent over, hands on her knees. Running was wonderful. She looked at him, awaiting explanation.

Bodhi continued. "We are a couple of blocks from the main rows of houses where people live. This area is pretty much completely deserted, which means less chance of running into the street cleaners. If you do hear a car coming: don't run. I need you to promise me."

She was not sure she could stop herself from running. "What do we do if we don't run?"

Bodhi smiled. "I was getting to that. We are going to look at something very large. If you hear a car coming, we can hide inside it. It is thick and made of metal. It will hide our body heat temporarily."

Eri nodded. "Okay. I promise not to run."

Bodhi pulled something small out of his pocket. "My parents loaned me this. It is a small blue light, like the E-savvies, but it fits over your hand so you can tap it on and then close your hand if you need it to go off instantly." She watched as he placed a stretchy band around his hand, positioning a rubbery ball in the palm of his hand. He closed his hand and then opened it. The small ball emitted a faint blue light. He closed his hand and instantly the light was gone.

She smiled up at him. "That is pretty sweet. A modern, sneaky flashlight."

"Totally," he nodded. "I'm not going to turn it on until we get where we are going, so stay close behind me and be quiet. P.S., you aren't as quiet as you think you are. I could hear you leaving your parents' house from a block away."

Eri cringed. She vowed to do better.

Transportation

They walked several miles in the darkness. Eri held Bodhi's hand as they snaked through alleys and darted across parking lots. They reached the end of an alley and Bodhi stopped. Eri stopped short, this time avoiding a collision, and peered around his tall, thin frame. There was a severely neglected road in front of them and then a field of overgrown vegetation. She could see the remnants of old housing, some decimated to stone foundations. In front of one of the old stone piles was a large object, taller than Bodhi, and long. She furrowed her eyebrows and squinted, trying to see it clearly. She leaned forward, sticking her head out of the alley.

Bodhi laughed softly before tugging her by the arm back into the alley.

"Okay, let's review." He put on a serious face. The moonlight allowed her to see the gentle curve of his mouth and a small twitch at its corner.

"What? Are you laughing at me?" Eri crossed her arms over her chest.

"No," Bodhi whispered. "I am just waiting for the moment where something we do freaks you out or where you at least look nervous. You never seem scared."

"I don't feel scared. Should I be?" She was curious and excited when she was outside-not afraid. Her self-preservation instinct didn't seem very strong.

Bodhi didn't answer her question, just squeezed his lips together and looked at her hard. "Okay, so if you hear a noise? Street cleaners?"

"Don't run, they will see us, hide inside…whatever it is we are going to look at." She repeated his words from earlier in a bored whisper. Her eyes caught a gleam on the thing they were about to look at and she leaned slightly to her left to see around him.

He laughed. "I can see your curiosity is piqued. Let's go." He walked ahead of her and she jogged a little to catch his hand. He looked down at her and smiled an almost unnoticeable smile.

"Is this your typical second date?" she whispered.