Tuesday, 15 May 2192
It– it doesn’t hurt as bad as you feared.
The knife cuts clean, only catching once, on the plastic sheath of the tracker itself. You had hit a little higher than intended. The perils of working with a restroom mirror, head craned hard to the left. Watching the arms, the hand, the body in the reflection. It takes some follow up work with a pair of tweezers, blinking water out of your vision.
You still have your phone on you. Rivka could have texted you at any point after you ran out of the apartment yesterday, and there’s still nothing. No apologies, no demands, not even an attempt to deny what she said.
Part of you hope she does come looking you. That you’re wrong about her.
You hate feeling this angry. Hate being full of all this… this stupid fucking emotion and having no where to put it but back into yourself with whatever tool is at hand. Usually it’s your fists but hey look at you now, you’re trying something new this time.
Possibly something far stupider, but you’ll have to see.
Jury’s still out and all that.
There’s more blood running down the upper arm than you care for and the siren alarm of pain is straining your ability to keep your hands under control. To keep focused. To not drop everything right now because oh hell what were you thinking? Why did this ever seem like a good idea? A stream of curses running through your head as you dig around under your skin until finally, the tiny black cylinder clatters onto the counter. It leaves a red stain in its wake.
Can’t drop the knife fast enough. It slides into the sink, it too is red. Bright under the bathroom lights, wet and sticky. A wave of vertigo washes over you, gravity pulling your stomach down. Increasingly hard to get your vision to focus on the image in the mirror.
Deep breaths, clutching the counter top for support. Should maybe be lying down, right? But no, you don’t have that luxury. Like hell are you laying down on a public restroom floor with an open wound. You’re crazy, not stupid.
A wet paper towel wipes the skin. The instructional videos all used alcohol swabs. There’s a kind of satisfaction in it, isn’t there? In just throwing yourself full face into a terrible idea. Like jumping off balcony. Stupid. Suicidal. And an adrenaline rush of giving a angry ‘fuck you’ to everyone that put you up there.
You apply a generous helping of something the pharmacy aisle advertised as a ‘MediPaste equivalent.’ The sterilized sealant is stored in a tube like toothpaste. Feels like it too. You spread it slow, rub it into and over the wound until the blood stops seeping through.
Doesn’t – fuck – doesn’t hurt at all.
You ball your hands into fists, smearing paste into your palms.
Clench. Hold. Let go.
The chipping of the black polish on your nails has accelerated the past few days. You’ll have to fix it later. You’re pushing it as it is already. Reach for the faucet only to have to wave your hand in front of the sensor repeatedly before the water activates. Like it needs reminding that -hello!- there’s a person here.
Try not to stare at the horrid bloodless complexion that’s reflected back by the mirror while you wash your hands clean. Swallow down that familiar little wave of nausea, praying your heartbeat to slow down. It’s not a big deal. Just a little– just a little blood. Like when you fuck up an injection. Or get a nosebleed.
It’s nothing. It’s done. It’s over. It’s gone.
You did it.
Wet a hand and run it over the face, try to loosen up that expression. Look less like a murder victim. Nothing worth paying attention to, nothing worth tracking on security cam. Still-wet hands rest on the counter and twitch. Eager to act, even as you try to pull yourself back down to earth. Nothing in the mirror feels right. Looks right.
The therapist you used to see, he called it body dysmorphia. Said it was ‘a common comorbidity with glitches like yours,’ and ‘you had to learn to live with it.’ Indulging in it, like this, would be the mental equivalent of taking up smoking, he claimed. You’re just confused. That you’re still young, you don’t know who you are yet. Even, and this was a favorite line of discussion with him, that it was because you ‘lacked significant male role models at home!’
Hard not to believe him. Not to take it to heart. Even after Rivka found out about everything he was telling you and lost her mind over it. Ended the sessions right then and there in the hospital room, court mandate be damned.
Still. Hard not to believe it all.
This is you we’re talking about, and you’re crazy. Everyone thinks so.
Remember how, once, when you were younger, after reading this sci-fi story you found on that net that you were definitely not old enough for, you got it stuck in your head that you were secretly a monster? Stuck masquerading as human and if you could just– if you could just peel off this gross bag of flesh then you could stop pretending. That everyone would have to stop pretending that things were fine and finally face the truth.
It didn’t work out like that.
Obviously.
You needed stitches afterwards and wow was Rivka livid, even by Rivka standards. Still have the scar across your thigh.
Meanwhile, you best effort here wasn’t exactly ‘trained surgeon’ levels of quality. Your sum total of education on the matter being a dozen instructional videos and advertisements posted up on the chattrnet. An auto-gen playlist running on your tablet, propped up against the mirror.
The breath you take while drying your hands is still less steady than you’d prefer. An effort to force your hands still. Fingertips slightly numb from the anesthetic in the paste. Yet, too aware still of the cut into the arm. Another scar?
Another thing to piss Rivka off if she finds out more like. You can easily imagine her yelling herself breathless before dragging you to the nearest clinic to get the stupid tracker rammed back in there because god forbid she let a seventeen-year-old, a practically grown-ass adult walk around without being tracked 24/7, phone or no phone.
Once your hands are washed and dried, the linen bandage comes next, wrapped tight around the arm to protect the area. Allow the gel and the body to do their work.
There’s the muffled sound of a wailing child grows louder on the other side the door. The mother pounds her hand hard against the wood. “¡Deprisa! It’s been fifteen minutes! Come on already!”
You flinch. ‘Sorry’ you mouth to the door. Would it have been easier to do this at home? Absolutely. Would you have gotten away with it there, with A* able to watch everything you do? Absolutely not.
Once the arm is covered up you clean off the tracker as best you can. There’s a small divot in the side, from where the knife nicked it on the first extraction attempt. But nothing to suggest it isn’t still functional.
Which.
Feels weird, turning the thing over in your fingers now. You’ve had this tracker, or one like it, in your arm almost your entire life. A digital leash. And now here it is. You could anywhere. Hell, you could leave the Arcology. Rivka would have to go to the trouble of asking where you were instead of just having it at her fingertips.
You wrap the tracker in a fresh paper towel and drop it to the floor. Stomp on it with the heel of your shoe, expecting to hear something break but your foot just sort of awkwardly presses on it to no effect. Damn.
You try again twice more before sheepishly picking it back up off the floor. Denied the satisfaction of smashing it, you’ll have to settle for dropping it in the trash receptacle next to the sink along with everything else. Every bloody paper towel, and most of mini-first aid kit worth of equipment you lifted from the apartment before you left this morning.
Clean out the sink and wipe down the counter as best as you can. You pull out a few more paper towels and shove them down the trash to cover over the other stuff.
You wash your face, only to remember halfway through you’d already just did that, and suffer another minute of having to look at the reflection while you work with the eyeliner pen. Of course this is the part that gets your heart pounding. Cutting up your skin with a knife? That was the easy part.
Drawing on your face? Nerve wracking anxiety. Bubbling fear. Fuck. You’ve practiced before but never took it outside of the bathroom. Your hands aren’t steady enough for what you really want to do. Which is to copy Nova’s look. The way all the fan artists do it. The rounded triangles coming down off the eyes. Just going to poke your eye out.
Keep it simple. Basic. Crud, even. It’s just– it’s just to help with avoiding facial recognition, okay? Break up the facial profile a little to better confuse the security cameras. Just like in the story.
That’s all. That’s all it is. With the Superintendent watching everything, you need every trick you can muster to throw it off the trail when Rivka starts looking for you.
If she looks for you. And anyway, guyliner is a thing, right? It’s normal. Or it’s Fashion at least. Now’s the moment where Riley would have had some really pointed jab. Something like… ‘wow Morgan, you trying to make friends with raccoons?’ And then you’d wipe it all off.
Except she’s not here right now.
And you don’t.
And this feels… you don’t know.
You don’t know how it feels.
Stop.
Staring.
You break eye contact with the ghastly face in the mirror and drop the eyeliner pen from your hands before you can have any more doubts. No more thinking. Pull your jacket back on. Ignore the protest in your arm. Tug it down into place. The cheap black pleather is already starting to tear along the seams even though you haven’t worn it ages but if there was ever a time you needed to borrow the confidence of a fictional character it’s now. There’s even still that pair of black fingerless gloves in one of the pockets, hell, fine, you put them on too. The still damp skin of your hands rubbing oddly.
You find yourself flexing your fingers, over and over, until you become uncomfortably aware of every individual ligament. Bony, oversized hands, repulsive, gross gross gross – Another round of pounding on the door makes you almost jump out of your skin.
“Espera un m-momento!” You call back. Or try to. Fumbling over the words. Tongue and throat are one more gross machine you’re forced to pilot.
The woman on the other side huffs, her irritation feeding into your own.
Aren’t there other bathrooms she could use? Figures someone has to be laser focused on wanting the one you went with.
Sorry, sorry! You’re almost finished, you swear.
Quick check of your backpack; your tablet, two spare changes of clothes, and there at the bottom wrapped between a spare pair of jeans is a plastic bag. Everything you had the foresight to grab this morning before sneaking back out. Inside is a pack of clean needles, a month’s supply of your various medications, and a small glass vial full of viscous liquid, turned a glittering silver in the light by the nanites suspended in the solution.
It’s not like you can actually run away somewhere. The pills you can maybe stretch out by taking only when the migraines or body pain gets really bad. but the nanites are a hard time limit for how long you can stay away. Not unless you can figure… something out.
You zip the backpack shut and swing your arm through the loop, across the good shoulder only. All that’s left is the face mask, The ‘Breathe safe and cover up!’ public safety jingle playing in your mind as you pull the black padded fabric up over your mouth, nose. The elastic bands tugging uncomfortably against your ears, and give the body in the mirror one last look over.
You are, maybe, feeling a little bit of that manic energy right now of that sort that someone only gets when they’re riding the high of making a terrible mistake before the consequences catch up.
Fuck.
Looking at yourself like this in the mirror, with your lower face covered up, shitty brown shoulder-length hair, and your terrible attempt at eyeliner, you could almost, almost mistake yourself for a girl.
You pat yourself down.
Check every pocket.
Deep breaths.
You open the bathroom door, and the waiting mother on the other side doesn’t waste any time barreling towards you. The irritated look on her face shuts you up and you hurry to get out of her way as she storms in. Slams the bathroom shut behind her.
Another breath in, draw the arms in towards the chest, palms flat, then pushed out with the exhale. Humming tunelessly under your breath as you walk through the crowd, can pick your way through the hallways practically without looking as you make your way towards the mall.
You ignore the persistent twinge of pain in your shoulder and pull your headphones on. You check your phone, hoping to put something on to help manage the sensory overload. Mashing the button just flashes an empty battery icon with a narrow red line. Awesome. No, this is fine. It’s all fine.
You shove your hands into your pockets to try and keep them still. Can feel the heartbeat pounding against your chest, almost audible in your ears. The static buzz of the mall around you pressing in. Why does everything have to be so hard to deal with today?
Public service announcements and advertisements plaster every open wall. Report suspicious activity, outside air quality index today of 125 – masks are advised, buy Ford Cola, remember to keep your ID up-to-date, true love is Martian Diamond, remember to silence your devices, extreme heat advisory in Philadelphia, Trenton, and New York, become more then human, ask your doctor about nanite therapy today.
There’s no mention of the lockdowns, no warnings about the importance of PPE against Imago infection. Just the odd poster about face mask safety when leaving the arcology.
You screw your eyes shut and rub your temples. You don’t need to read every last sign, you idiot. You press your palms over you eyes like that’ll dislodge the visual noise and take another look around. Your hands itch.
Ysme Wonder.
Ysme Wonder on the bass. Steady fingers plucking strings.
You rub your nose and close your eyes.
Deep breath.
Even with the static right there to offer the counter evidence, it’s easy to believe everyone here must be staring at you. Seeing right through you. Judging everything you are. Like you’re back at school, never knowing who the next person to say something, to do something is going to be.
Something in your chest twists and tightens. You hunch your shoulders.
Need to stay focused.
You are not going to freak out.
Ysme’s bass tones swing up in the scale of your imagination. You are going to be fine. It’s going to be fine. No one’s going to think twice about you unless you go out of your way to be fucking weird about it. And actually, you know what? Even if you are weird about it, what are they going to do? Someone wants a go at you, you’ll spot ‘em a mile away through the static. You’ve hacked the Super before, you’ve shoplifted loads of times, you’ve even stared down a fucking Imago and not died horribly. You can do anything up to and including running away real fucking fast.
What’s that phrase that Rivka loves so much? C’est le vie. So it goes. It is what it is. Shikata ga nai! That’s the phrase. You’re so sick of putting up with stuff because ‘that’s the way it is.’ Well, shikata ga fucking nai this: You kick a planter as you walk past. Rewarded with the barely perceptible shaking of the maple leaves while pain shoots up your foot.
A security guard glares at you while you stand there and rub your shoe. “Hey!” He snaps, one hand resting on the gun tucked into his belt. “I’m reporting that.”
You roll your eyes, waiting for something more. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything else. Just stands there puffing his chest out, glaring at you. Lips twitching as he silently files an incident report with the Superintendent. Great, a new fine to look forward to tonight.
There’s a public health and safety crisis going on with literal monster attacks and this guy thinks yelling at some teenager over a potted tree takes top priority? Seriously? No wonder Security can’t seem to stop the attacks. You can’t stop yourself from giggling. Give him a curt wave before continuing on your way.
In the immortal words of your favorite character: Let’s blow this pop stand.
