Empty Streets (9 page)

"So far, nothing relating to you turns out to be typical." He winked at her.

She smiled inadvertently. Being atypical strangely satisfied her.

Eri looked up just as Bodhi halted, only several feet from the large mass they were coming to examine. Up close, it looked even stranger to Eri. It was a vehicle, like a truck or the shuttles she had seen before, but larger, squarer and solid in a way she didn't know vehicles could be. It was on its side, its four tires sticking out like the legs of an animal, dead on the side of the road. The tires were shredded and sagging. She reached out and touched a tire, the muted moonlight illuminating its grey pattern. The tire disintegrated at her touch. She walked around the machine, impressed by the complex map of pipes and cables on its exposed underbelly. At the short end of the vehicle was a door, which read "Emergency Exit." This seemed odd to Eri. Why would you need to exit a large vehicle like this so quickly? What possible emergency could there be?

She circled more, staring for a long time at the smooth, solid roof of the vehicle, interrupted only in the middle by what looked like a hatch door. The vehicle was filthy, with a thick layer of dirt and debris clinging to all of its surfaces. But this side, facing her, had several spots that had been wiped at, showing a bright yellow paint underneath. She shook her head in wonder. She could tell the vehicle had been used for utility.

She went to the end with the emergency exit and yanked on the door, which opened down towards her feet. She crept inside, just as she heard Bodhi run up behind her.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

"Looking around," she answered, thinking that was pretty obvious.

If the vehicle had been upright, it would have had an aisle down the middle and thirteen bench seats on each side of the aisle. Since it was on its side, the floor Eri walked on consisted of sideways bench seats and what appeared to be metal frames. She squatted down and looked closer, noticing glass or shattered plastic around the metal frames. Windows, she thought. This vehicle had windows. And they were not tinted black and did not have metal threaded through them to prevent them from breaking. She pushed in on the plastic pieces attached to the frames. The windows were adjustable from the inside.

She looked up, still squatting, and saw Bodhi looking down at her.

"What? Why the look?"

"I meant that we should only come inside the vehicle if there was danger. We could get hurt in here, or there could have been-" He stopped himself.

She stared at him. There was so much he knew that she didn't. It made her uncomfortable as the balance of power swung in his direction. She looked down, a twinge of guilt sweeping through her.

"I just wanted to see what was inside. What is this thing?" She stood up, walking to where the floor and the seats met. Several seats had detached from the floor and were leaning against the windows. She sat down on the dirty wall that had become a floor and leaned against the aisle. Eri looked up at Bodhi, silently inviting him to sit by her.

Bodhi looked at her before sitting next to her, their arms and legs touching along the length of her body.

Bodhi sighed. "I'm sorry. It is okay that you came in here. I like that you're curious. I think sometimes I'm just afraid your curiosity is going to get you hurt."

"Hey," Eri responded gently. She waited until he looked at her before continuing. "There are worse things than getting hurt." She spoke carefully, wanting him to feel the weight of her words.

He pursed his lips, nodding slightly. "There's just so much…to know."

"So why don't you tell me more?"

"Because…the more you know, the more danger you are in." He shook his head in frustration. "But, the less you know, the less power you have… Eri, I have known you for a long time. We have had classes together since we were little. My parents, you know, and other people-I'll say more about that in a minute-they guided me when it came to what I could and couldn't say. I was always, still am sometimes, hesitant to ask questions or say too much. My mom told me once that the children of the people who work for the government are watched closely, in case we're told too much or act rebellious." He took a deep breath and then turned his face to hers.

"But you…you have asked questions I wouldn't have dared to ask since first grade. I always knew it was you, in every class we've had together. It hasn't been a lot, but since we attend sessions during similar times of day, we've been together 6 or 7 times over the years." He looked unsure of himself as he spoke.

"Why did I not…how come I don't remember you?" Eri hoped this didn't hurt his feelings.

"Well, remember, my persona has changed drastically, and I don't talk in class very often." He shrugged.

"Yeah, so even though my persona changed…you are basically saying my voice hasn't?" She blushed at the thought of someone noticing her. She wondered how many stupid things she had said or asked in front of him.

He nodded his head, staring straight ahead.

"So, who else has given you guidance besides your parents?" Eri nudged him with her arm.

"For three years, from the time I was seven until I was ten, I had a friend. On the outside." Eri sucked in a breath. Other people have done this? How does she not know?

"His name was Zare and he was a genius. He was fourteen when he saw me. I was still pretty new to being outside. Zare knew everything. We would meet at night and he would show me all the places he had discovered that contained information. There are rebel hideouts around here from the Patriot's War, places we can go if the street cleaners are nearby. He showed me how to climb buildings, what alleys were the safest to go down, where to find wild food, and warned me about the sun and air. Which reminds me…," Bodhi dug in his pocket and pulled out a small plastic cylinder.

"What is that?" Eri asked.

"A breathing tube. After you have been outside for several hours, you will want to breathe in hard from this tube and push this button…here…to treat your lungs." He put it in her hand and she held it up, looking at it more closely. "It will work a couple times before you will need another. My parents have a whole tub of them for me that they're able to make at home. They reuse the cylinders."

Eri put the tube in her pocket. "So Zare told you how to survive out here?"

Bodhi nodded. "He told me that as soon as he got placed after the Achievement Exam, he was going to find a way to make it so people could go outside again. He wanted to be a tech researcher for The People. He said when he figured it out, he would contact me." Bodhi rubbed his face with his hands. "I had thought he would've contacted me by now. Seven years is a long time. Sometimes I wonder if he got caught."

"What happens if we get caught? What exactly should I be afraid of?"

Bodhi shook his head. "I can only tell you what I've guessed. I only had one other friend out here, a boy who was younger than me. He wasn't quiet or careful-he was arrogant-and one day I stopped seeing him at the places we would meet up. He was just gone. And then I saw him, in the Sims, last year. I can't really know it was him, you know-people like us tend to look like our personas-it looked just like him. I heard him talking to some kids and it sounded just like him. I was between classes and I walked up to him and asked him a question about a class. He looked at me like I was crazy and answered the question before he walked away. He didn't know me, and I looked enough like myself at the time that he at least should have done a double take." Bodhi shook his head.

"So you think they erased his memories?" Eri breathed out.

"I think so, maybe through the Sims; they have a way of manipulating our brains, of forging new connections and severing old ones. I think they just sever your past. Because what can make you the least powerful? What makes you the most vulnerable?" he asked.

"No knowledge." Eri nodded. "But how could they guarantee he wouldn't just do it again, rebuild his knowledge?"

"I am guessing they used his Achievement Exam data to place him in a job where he is very visible, very busy and very tired. Work the curiosity right out of him." Bodhi shrugged.

Eri's mouth opened to comment on how horrible that would be, and then she stopped. Bodhi knew how horrible that would be and he still risked it.

Eri reached out and lightly drew a finger up Bodhi's forearm, her curiosity about him overcoming her shyness. He smiled and shivered a little before putting his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. "What is this thing we are sitting in?"

"Right," Bodhi laughed. "I forgot to answer you earlier. It's a school bus."

"A what?"

"Believe it or not, school buses used to stop at designated locations and let kids get on or off so they could be transported to and from school," Bodhi answered.

"Why would kids want to do that?" Eri asked.

"This was before the Sims. Kids met together each day, physically, and spent the whole day in school. With teachers," Bodhi added, drawing out his words as if they were a surprise plot twist.

"That's crazy. Didn't they get sick all the time? Sun burned? Were there fights and distractions from class?" Eri couldn't even imagine going to school and feeling physically vulnerable.

"I'm sure some of that happened, but they also knew people, like, really knew people. And had spontaneous learning and…I bet they didn't feel as trapped as we do." Bodhi had thought about these things before.

Bodhi rested his cheek on the top of Eri's head. "So, why were you sad when you came outside tonight? What's going on?"

Eri shook her head slightly against his shoulder, feeling tears prick her eyes and pressure blossom in her chest. She cleared her throat. "My brother. Something is wrong with my brother. He's sick-pale and really skinny. He's using drugs, which everyone seems to think is harmless, and he downloaded software that allows him to have Sims sex even though he is only fourteen. It seems like those two things might make him happier, but instead he's sadder and sadder every time I see him, which is less and less often these days. "I'm scared for him, Bodhi. My mom seems to think this is just a normal teenage phase. I don't even know what a normal teenage phase means." Eri paused, wiping a tear. Bodhi waited for her to continue. "I don't know what to do."

Bodhi's silence extended longer than Eri expected and she pulled away to look at him. "What?" she asked, panicked by the look on his face.

"I don't know, Eri, I mean, maybe he's just sick?"

Eri shook her head, frustrated. "It's more than that."

Bodhi didn't reply.

Eri narrowed her eyes at him. "If you know something and you aren't telling me, I will be very, very angry."

Bodhi shook his head slowly, thinking. "There is a library by the lake that's been abandoned for over fifty years. I go there sometimes. A lot of the resources are still in good condition. One of the first times I ever went, I found a psychology journal with an article in it that was written around the time the Sims machines were becoming more widely available. The doctor, or the professor doing the research, he said he found that in a percentage of the population, the Sims experience created depression. Feelings of isolation, loneliness, distance, dissatisfaction…And I remember that he was looking into what it was about this group so it could be cured. One possibility was that they tended to be very creative, musicians and artists, and then the issue was…why those people? You can't cure creativity."

Eri stopped listening. A hazy memory of when Ezra was young surfaced in her mind like a bobber. Ezra had found a can of pureed peas, half eaten, left over from lunch. He had used the peas to draw all over the refrigerator. Their mother had discovered him and he'd gotten in trouble…but Eri remembered being startled by the drawing, a sketch of their father's face, done by an eighteen-month old. For the next three years, until he was old enough to understand, Eri had watched him try to draw with mold or manipulate anything he got his hands on. Only now, looking back, did Eri realize the extent of his talent and imagination, all of which was trained towards the Sims once he turned five.

You could take art classes through the Sims, and Ezra had. But he never seemed satisfied. He still would want to mush his food around on his plate into a shape, or arrange the few toys he had into shapes and pictures. Then, one day, he had just stopped trying.

Eri looked up at Bodhi. "What do I do? If he has this-"

"They called it the Sims sleep. It just made the subjects want to sleep and then, at some point, they just didn't wake up," Bodhi said.

Eri nodded. "I need to go home. I might, um, stay home for a while, to keep an eye on him."

Bodhi stood up. Eri stood, too, learning her forehead against his chest, feelings of sadness and frustration overwhelming her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. "I will be here for you. Just tell me what you need." Eri nodded into him.

They walked in darkness toward the alley, their feet scuffing on grass and then dirt. Eri tugged at Bodhi's hand to stop.

He turned towards her. "What?" he whispered, his words almost lost in the breeze.

She tugged him down to a crouching position. "Flashlight for one second," she whispered.

He turned it on and then looked at her with curiosity. "Be quick."

She drew a circle on the ground and then put a dot in the middle of it. "We need a way to communicate, to make plans through the Sims to see each other, when I am sure that Ezra is okay. Watch for it."

Ezra looked at her levelly. "That's a good idea. Wish I had thought of it." He smiled at her and then turned off the flashlight. She scuffed the dirt with her foot to erase the mark before moving quickly to follow him.

The next time Eri went outside, she would be a different person.

Ezra

Eri slept uncomfortably, her dreams filled with blurred images and strong emotions. Tangled in sweaty sheets, she couldn't tell if she was awake or asleep. Finally, she opened her eyes to the darkness of her room and was certain she was awake. She glanced toward the darkness of the wall covered in tapestry. She had carefully covered her window after coming in last night, hiding the rope she used by wrapping it around the frame of the window before taping it down. The tape was losing some of its stickiness. She would need to check the house for more when her parents weren't home.