9. Salt Water
Salt Water
Dylan
Last night at the beach was special, but she worried it would be a one-night stand. Except that it hadn’t even been that… Unless you counted spending the better part of the evening hanging out in virtual reality without so much as a kiss, virtual or otherwise, a one-night stand.
As her contract-appointed eight hours of veganism outreach for resilient meat-eaters finished for the day, she tugged her beige duffel jacket closed, its lower half like an A-line dress billowing in the wind, as she hurried deep into London’s brick and concrete streets.
Mirrored glass buildings swooped up and down, her horizon a matted mesh.
The new boroughs, built under the government’s expansionist policies, post-revolution, were all thankfully free of the dangerous fire-propellant cladding that like a pandemic had been bolted on to so many high-rises back in the day.
But the massive expansion of housing had retained other problems from the past: business centres where the work happened were surrounded by soulless housing towers, and then the remnants of the more spacious pre-existing residential neighbourhoods, the pattern repeating near infinitum.
Travelling between them were an army of flying metal and plastic drones.
A huge shape, nestled between the skyscrapers, blocked a large portion of what remained of the sky: one of London’s zeppelins, advertising that week’s ReSports match between the London Lazarus and the Paris Polyphontes.
In the past, Isaak’s face would have been up there.
She still hadn’t told him that she knew who he was.
As her eyes gazed at the horizon of Greater Greater London, last night was on her mind again.
When she’d first woken up, still in her bed, still with the solar system hanging above her as it ever was, she wondered if it had been a dream.
A drug-fuelled hallucination? No, it felt too real.
The experience was no field of flowers, head tilted back, lying on someone else’s bed after taking a deep breath, joint between her lips, like summers past. After Isaak summoned the waves, the place even tasted real.
The tang of salt water still stuck to her tongue long after she taped out.
Growing up, she hadn’t been allowed a virtual reality headset.
Her dad called the tech an early system of control designed by the Kingdoms. “Tech feudalism is only concerned with two things: creating new land, and renting it to you. VR is ideal for them. Infinite fake land at zero cost, where they can charge you real-life money.” Perhaps the fact it had been forbidden explained her fascination with ReSports.
Nowadays, the only time she used VR was at the gym, practising against basic bots.
The only conclusion, she thought, hands tucked under her folded arms, was that the Tapeworld was real. That little piece of sticky tape, indistinguishable from plain old stationery, was the ticket in.
At the monorail station, masses of bankers, executives, city boys and city girls in a parade of dresses and suits, gathered at the mouth of the carriages. She hopped onto hers.
Shared metaverses had come and gone over the years.
Each King tried their hand at a virtual world, and each had failed at mass adoption.
People weren’t interested in yet another place to see ads.
Decades of digital billboards had done enough harm to the collective psyche that people started rejecting ads outright.
They’d wised up, like her dad. But not in large enough numbers to completely upturn traditional marketing-driven consumption.
Arm looped around a pole, Dylan carefully unwrapped and sunk her teeth into the post-work chocolate cracker that she ate every day on the way home.
The sweet release of the cocoa mixture mingled in her mouth with her saliva, and for a few minutes she didn’t give a damn about Tapeworlds and tall boys named Isaak.
Rows and rows of passengers went about their commute routines around her. The more work-weathered they looked, the less likely they’d stare out of the windows of the monorail carriage.
Her journey was just about as long as it could be before it started to drive her up the walls. Longer trips were an expected side effect of London’s expansion.
No message from Isaak yet today. She could forgive a sleepy head, a night-shift worker, but the whole day without anything? She scrolled her feeds, breath half held, to distract herself.
Feeds. Like cows in the old days. Cattle feeding on the grass.
StreetSocial was a greatest hits of dopamine highs.
The United States had officially broken up ten years ago today, coinciding neatly with yesterday’s Brexit Remembrance, observed by the Twin Queens.
Resilient neophyte fascists went on about migrants and the cost of living, among many calls to bring back legal meat from opposition MPs.
It turned her stomach, but she kept reading.
She clicked a headline about the Kingdom to the west.
WHAT REMAINS OF ‘TURTLE ISLAND’
In the advent of nuclear detonations on American soil, and after years of strong-arm politics keeping a crumbling Congress in place, the former POTUS agreed to the State Independence proposal ten years ago today.
“The American experiment concludes. Let the world learn from our mistakes, and indeed from our greatest victories. The curtain may be drawing on this union, but liberty will live on in the hearts of man forever more.”
Following his statement, President Templeton was stripped of his title and returned to life as a civilian, living peacefully until he was shot to death a few days later, as per the tradition instated at the end of the 3rd Ultracon term.
That was the last Presidential Closure. Since then, the former USA has entered the custody of the Third Kingdom, The Book, where its states are treated as company subsidiaries. A more perfect union, broken and reshaped into something else. Many took to calling it the Kingdom of America.
Dylan felt a mix of disgust and passionate anger. Everything about the Third Kingdom triggered a bad taste in the mouth. The death of a kakistocracy sounded like a thing to celebrate and remember, but the people at the top never paid the real human cost.
Soundlessly, as her phone was permanently on mute, a notification appeared at the top of her screen. A text from Talia.
@talia: Soo @dylan… you never told me what happened after I left you with that dude? You two seemed… very cosy.
Dylan hesitated to text back. Talia would be expecting the kiss and handsomeness report, the entire eligibility check. Not to hear that he’d taken her to an underground, exclusive virtual reality. She took a deep breath.
@dylan: We cuddled. Nothing else.
@talia: Give me the details!
@dylan: there’s nothing to give
@talia: drinks ASAP – I need to confirm this in person xx
The Spalding Arms was an alternative-style pub – lowered lights hanging on black cable, wide white lampshades, wooden tables with black steel frames, thick jam jars instead of glasses.
It felt kind of retro, and Dylan was lucky enough to be a local – again thanks to her parents for helping her afford the place, really.
There were a few other groups of pub-goers seated around her and Talia; it seemed to be a popular place for a Tuesday evening.
“Okay, let’s hear it!” Talia demanded, while flipping through the lapboard to order drinks, her fingernails pink with red French tips. As she scrolled through the menu there was a satisfying tiny audible click with every tap of her nails on the screen.
It was hard for Dylan to resist whenever her friend took this much interest. How could she tell Talia he was a decent guy without mentioning the secretive club he’d invited her into?
“Isaak is sweet.”
Talia’s looked up from the menu and she made an approving face. “Isaak? Cute name.”
“He’s awkward,” Dylan admitted.
“So are you!”
“He was with the London Lazarus.”
Talia’s eyes went wide. “What?! He’s a celeb?”
“Not anymore,” Dylan said quickly. “It sounds like he has it rough.” She thought about mentioning his limp, but she didn’t want Talia to think any less of him for it. There was nothing wrong with him, really, and any hang-ups about his leg were mainly his own.
“Shame. ReSports and VR are making a comeback,” Talia said.
Dylan’s heart skipped a beat. “VR? What kind?”
“What do you mean, what kind? Just VR. Not even full-body scanning like ReSports, no having to run around, just sitting and gesturing. The Queens have invested in it.”
“New tech?’
“Probably, but just higher resolution, nothing groundbreaking.” Talia eyed her suspiciously. “Why are you so interested anyway? I thought you were pretty much tech-celibate.”
“Oh, nothing…”
From her scrunched-up expression, Talia didn’t seem convinced.
The waiter arrived with their drinks. The man had a piercing in his right eyebrow and a scar on his lower left lip. Thankfully, he came at just the right time to completely derail Talia’s train of thought.
“Here you go, ladies. A Bloody Mary and a Passion Fruit Kick.”
Talia grabbed the passion fruit cocktail and started slurping through the straw.
Quick as a flash, Dylan slapped her hand away.
“Oi,” she said, face sour, “we haven’t toasted yet!”
Talia waved her away and addressed the waiter. “So, where are you from? That sounded like a bit of an accent.”
The man smiled awkwardly. “Portugal.”
Flirting with the waiter. Well, at least she’d moved on from her interrogation into Isaak’s celebrity days.
When he left, Talia’s face dropped its smile in less than a second.
The two toasted, drops of their drinks spilling onto each other’s hands. “To Dylan finally getting laid!” Talia shouted. She took a big sip of the passion fruit cocktail.
“Nobody got laid!” Dylan corrected her.
Her friend laughed. “Why are you going red then?”
Dylan tried to avoid her stare.
Talia’s straw dropped from her open mouth. “Something did happen!”
“Nothing happened!” Dylan protested. “But… maybe I fancy him a bit,” she said, dragging her fingers along the straw in her Bloody Mary, putting on a coy smile to complement the smitten-by-his-beard look in her eyes.
Rather than leave Talia suspicious about what she couldn’t explain yet, Dylan decided to add flourishes where she could.
She may have amped up the enthusiasm, but she did really fancy him.
Talia leaned in eagerly, looking around as if dropping into stealth, ready to hear Dylan spill some beans.
“Really!” Dylan said. “Nothing happened…”
“But…?”
“We chatted on the vidphone, the next day.” She omitted the part about him giving her the tape and her panicking after trying it out…
“Who called who?” Talia asked.
“I called him.”
“What? Why?” Talia crossed her arms. “You should have waited for him!”
“Well, I wanted to ask him about something.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “Stop stalling and tell me what happened!” she begged.
“I’m getting there! Goddess, you are insatiable.” Dylan sorted the folds of her dress and leaned forward. “He left something behind when we parted for the night.”
“Oooh!” Talia beamed.
“At the bar, I mean!” The reprimand quieted Talia’s excitement. “It was a… USB. Golden. Before you ask, I didn’t” – and she chose her verb carefully – “plug it in.”
Talia bit back a giggle, cheeks turning red. Then she turned serious. “Right. So that was your excuse to call! And him leaving the USB with you was the bait!”
Well, aren’t you Miss Know-it-all? But you don’t even know the half of it…
Talia slurped the rest of her cocktail. “So, when are you seeing him next?”