Chapter 5

 

My hands are up. I'd just found out that I was a Programmer----which was the cyberpunk version of some sort of Boogie-man. I'd had a feeling that these people weren't the type to get anxious when there was a fight but for some reason they were reduced to nervous, scared teenagers when the idea of a programmer was around.

And all eyes are on me...

"Move Bronx," Larson states.

"Put your guns down," Bronx pleads with his team.

I am just as surprised as his team that Bronx is trying to diffuse the situation instead of following what clearly is the group decision to see me as an enemy.

"What are you doing, Bronx?" Nano states, "You're protecting a Programmer?"

I watch Bronx turn his head slightly. He is looking in my face. I wish he hadn't. I wish he hadn't seen that I was seconds away from being reduced to tears. I have no doubt that his team was going to erase me if they had the chance.

"I promised the kid I wouldn't turn my back on him again and I meant it," Bronx states.

I'm shocked. I'm looking over at Bronx and I'm confused. This was the same man who had left me in the car. I knew he said he regretted it but seeing him take some sort of action towards meaning what he said was a whole different story. Right now Bronx was literally standing in front of bullets for me.

"I told you guys," Tessa states to Nano and Larson, "I told you guys that he was losing it lately. His obsession over this kid is out of control."

"You told them that?" Bronx asks, "Tessa I've always done what was best for his team."

"Then choose. THAT THING or your team," Tessa states, "And step aside."

I can see Bronx standing there. I'm sweating down my back at this point. My shirt is drenched. It would have been easy for him to step aside. It would have made sense. Maybe that's why I just close my eyes and start counting my last breaths. It's weird the kind of things you think about when you are dying. Things like would Dree be OK if I was gone. Or would my mother cry if she didn't get the chance to say goodbye?

I was thinking about human things. Even though I knew humans didn't exist. Not anymore.

"I'm not going to choose."

"Goddamit Bronx," Larson states, "Sorry about this----"

I'm not sure what Larson is apologizing for until I see him charge at Bronx. His face goes blank and at that moment he's more machine than human! He takes a long stride! His body is tough, hard and heavy like a Rhino. He gets up to him and throws his weight behind a punch that looks like it carries the weight of a bulldozer. His metal arm is blocked by Bronx shutters backward shocked that his team has turned on him.

"You're really doing this?" Bronx asks.

"Kill the kid," Larson orders the others without looking at them or removing his gaze from Bronx.

Fuck. I was the target!

I duck down just in a matter of seconds before gunshots break out. As I crawl to the floor to avoid fire I see Bronx sweep Larson off his feet. Larson may be big, but Bronx is fast. Larson is punching Bronx or attempting to. Whether it was the metal arm or not both arms would be deadly if it connected. But that was the problem. Bronx was making very sure that they weren't connecting. I think I'm imagining it but I'm not. He's talking to himself, somehow calibrating odds and reading Larson's movements. His movements are stiff and oriented like some sort of human calculator.

That's when I see Nano...

He has managed to find me in my hiding place. His gun pointed directly at me.

"Shoot Nano!" Tessa is screaming.

He hesitates. I'm not sure why. I don't care. I push the desk though into his thighs causing him to stumble backward. I don't know how I know to do that. I don't care. All I know is that I can feel Tessa raising her gun. She won't hesitate. Not like Nano. She aims to kill. Somehow, I know it's coming. Somehow, I know I have to get to her before she does it. That's my only chance. So I'm kicking off the table as hard as I can.

I paused, listening for movement. The whisper of a footstep to my left. I turned, lashed out blindly, felt my fist connect with muscled flesh, heard a soft "Oomph."

Tessa spits blood.

"Guess those upgrades kicked in," she states.

I'm not sure what she's talking about until she swung a roundhouse punch. Somehow my body knows instinctively to bend backward as I felt her knuckles swish past my nose. I've managed to bend back further than I've ever bent in my life. And as though it's nothing my body retracts back towards her. I execute a perfect somersault towards her, letting my legs kick out like a windmill striking her in the face. When she falls to the ground I'm there to meet her, holding her into a lock. Her response is quick as she breaks the hold and headbutts me in the stomach. I withdraw. Fast. I'm fast. I'm quicker than I'd ever been, but so is she.

Before I know it we're in a dance. A symphony of ducking, punching, kicking, reaching for guns only to kick them away just in time and repeat the same sequence. We don't get tired. We don't breathe heavy. I feel pain, but not in the same way I did when I was human. Not now.

Now I was a machine.

Now my body was only worried about survival.

"Dammit, why won't you die?" she asks me as though I'm some sort of inconvenience for her.

She turned at the sound of running feet. A body ran into her as she stood there. She hit the table with a thundering crash. Splinters stabbed into her bare arms.

It's Bronx.

"Enough," he states.

I'd noticed he was able to subdue Tessa after defeating Larson who is sitting in a ball on the other side of the room. Tessa is defeated as well, up against the table spitting out blood and removing splinters. I can see her wires from here all tangled and disheveled underneath her pierced skin.

"You're making a mistake," she warns him.

Clearly Tessa was the leader of this little revolt and clearly, Bronx has chosen a side. I'm just surprised that in this case, it happened to be mine.

What I don't like however is what he says next.

"He is a Programmer. He could possibly be some double agent sent by IT to wipe us all out when we least expect it," Bronx states, "And I could possibly be making a mistake. But I'm the lead here and when the time is right----if necessary, I will be the one to take him out."

There is a vicious bearing to what he is saying and how he is saying it. All I know is that I'm nervous. I don't get what he's doing and why he's doing this but he's promising his team and me that if I become a threat—-I die.

~

It's late that night and I feel more confused than ever. The thing was that at least now I knew I could defend myself. I'm sitting there looking at my bruised knuckles when Bronx walks in.

"Amazing isn't it?" he asks.

It was.

"One second I don't know how to bust a grape in a fruit fight and the next moment I'm some sort of..."

"Programmer..." he ends it.

I wasn't going to say that, but when I turn to him it's a reminder of where we stand. He wasn't as terrified of me like the others but I notice he isn't walking right up to me like he usually does. I'm not imagining it. He stays on the other side of the room.

"Is that what you believe I am?" I ask.

"I know you are."

"I'm still online. Does it matter that I'm a programmer?"

"Yes," he states, "We older models all have limited resources. Like any computer. I'm a weapons expert skilled at hand-to-hand combat but I had to sacrifice other things. Nano focuses on hacking and understanding computer language. Tessa uses most of her resources on engineering. She can build anything from scratch. Then there is Larson who has a lot of his allocation focused on his body modification efforts. But Programmers don't have the same kind of limits."

"What kind of limits do they have?" I ask.

"Not sure," he shrugs, "This is the closest I've been to a Programmer."

"So I guess we're not family anymore, huh?" I ask him.

"What?"

"You said we were family before. Said because were online together..."

"I meant what I said," he responds, "I came to your school because Nano was picking up strong interferences. Usually, that happens when there are glitches in the system. I think someone was trying to bring us together."

"Who?" I ask.

He sighs, "I don't know. I don't believe in coincidences though. The fact that those glitches brought us to your school. The fact that you brought yourself online. The fact that you are a Programmer model."

"Maybe it's fate."

"I don't believe in fate," he responds, "Here lean back I brought you some ice for your knuckles."

It's cold how he says it. I look over at him and honestly I hate it. He starts applying ice to my knuckles. I guess after a few minutes of realizing I'm just as clueless as before he wasn't so scared of me anymore. As he presses the cold on my knuckles I can't help but look up.

I cross my arms and lean up against the bed, "You don't think two people could be brought together by the universe?"

"Maybe once I did..."

"What happened to her?" I ask.

"Him," he responds.

I swallow my spit, "Oh."

"It doesn't matter," he responds.

"You're shutting down again," I state.

"Shutting down?" he asks.

He stops playing with the ice and looks up at me with a smile on his face as though challenging the idea of what I'm saying. I hate that I'm not getting through to him.

"You do it every time I start asking too many questions. You shut down like a computer."

"You ask too many questions."

"I'm curious," I state, "What happened to this guy who made you believe in fate?"

"The same thing that happened to everyone, I knew. The machine got him. Erased him or reprocessed him. Either way, he's long gone. That was the closest I got to fate. It's the closest I'll ever get. That kind of stuff is hard to believe when you realize God is a computer."

"You're giving IT too much credit."

He shakes his head, "It's a design, Cassius. All of it. This thing we call life is just one big program. One big system. There is no coincidence. There is no fate. It's all designed perfectly by IT."

"If you don't believe in fate then why are you fighting so hard?"

He turns towards me. I don't think he expects the question, "I never thought about that. Maybe I guess...I don't know. I'm taking a page out of your book. I'm tired of the system. I'm curious. You know. Like you. What happens when the system breaks, Cassius? What happens when the design crumbles. I want to find out."

He's not shutting down. Not tonight. Bronx was telling me he didn't believe in fate but I didn't believe him. He wouldn't be asking the questions he was asking if he didn't believe.

"I want to find out with you," I admit.

I don't know how it happens. I don't know how we start holding hands, but we're holding hands. I look down at it. I expect him to move away. For a moment I think he considers it too but he doesn't. It feels so nice feeling his hands between my fingers. I wonder if he feels it too.

I clear my throat. I'm nervous. So I move in a little bit. Just an inch. Just a little more. He doesn't move away. That's good.

"The others say you're a Programmer sent here to erase me," he states.

"I don't want to erase you."

"You probably wouldn't know until it was too late," he states, "IT likes to play games like that. Sends its Firewalls. It uses our human side against us. It plays with our feelings."

"What feelings?" I ask.

He laughs, "You're funny. I'm being serious though. I shouldn't trust you. I should kill you. I know I should."

I sigh, "Yeah. Yeah, you should."

I'd never seen someone look so torn. I actually feel bad. I can see it written all over his face. I am putting him at odds with not only his team. I'm putting him at odds against what he believes is right and wrong.

"You've been asking me questions since we met, is it OK if I ask you one?" he asks.

"Sure?"

"Do you think it's a human flaw to believe in someone you know you shouldn't?" he asks me.

I shake my head, "No. It's fate."

I feel so warm next to him that I find a way to put my hand on his face. He's breathing heavy. There is this...THING between us. For a moment I think I've been imagining it but it feels real. It feels so legitimate when my hand is up against his face. It feels so legitimate when he puts his own hand on my hand to relax it on his face. Our eyes connect. It isn't fireworks. It's something deeper.

Bronx told me God was a computer.

He was wrong.

I could see God at this moment between us. No computer could design the butterflies in my stomach.

"I should go," he states.

"It's getting too real for you?" I ask.

I'm joking. I laugh and everything to let him know I meant it in a lighthearted way. He doesn't laugh in return. He walks to the door almost in this deep hard panic.

And then he mouths the words back to me with no emotion at all, "Yes, it is. And I should leave before I can't tell what's real anymore. Maybe the reason is that you're special, Cassius. You're in a million..."
~

I stay up thinking about him but honestly, I know more than anything that Bronx knew that he was afraid of me. It wasn't just that he was afraid of me. He was terrified of what I would do to his team. He wouldn't admit it to me. Not out loud but I knew.

And I was afraid to.

"Hello..."

Tessa is there. She's a sharp girl who looks like she's lived a rough life. It's not just the scar. It's the way she carries herself. She walks with a crooked back as though something is weighing her down. Her face always looks so serious. So unpleasant. The kind of girl you wouldn't really say hello to if you saw her in public. The kind of girl who you stayed away from.

"I don't want any trouble," is my immediate reply.

"Relax, not here to kill you. I promised Bronx I wouldn't."

She circles around me as she enters the room, fully taking me in as though trying to understand something that I haven't even been able to understand. Out of nowhere she finally smiles, slowly and grunts.

"He asked you not to?" I ask.

She smiles, "He's taken a liking for you. Which is rare. He doesn't like anyone. There was a time that I'd do anything for him. That time has come and gone through. You should...be careful with Bronx..."

"I should be careful with the guy who saved me when you would have preferred me dead."

She sighs, "Look, you're a programmer. You don't belong outside of the system."

"How do you know where I belong?"

I'm getting pissed off at that moment. I knew that his team hated me being around. I knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere with them.

"He hasn't been honest with you," she states, "This isn't his first team. Not even close. Everyone that follows Bronx into this war ends up erased. Annihilated. We are the only ones left fighting. You do realize you've signed up for a suicide mission?"

My heart is racing.

"Why are you here then?"

Tessa shrugs, "I had no choice. I was an engineer. One of the best in my school. One day I want to take some time off from school. End up at a bar. I meet the man of my dreams. Bronx Barnes. Everything I'd thought I wanted in a man. Masculine, sexy, strong and kind..."

The perfect man. I gulp a little bit as she continues.

" Bronx seduced me. I met him at a bar. He was this sexy bartender. Tells me that he's been watching me. Tells me I'm special. I'm one in a million."

I try not to show how bothered I am, but I think she suspects it. She's staring at me as though knowing what she is saying is going to hit a nerve. He'd just told me the same exact thing.

"Bronx told you that?"

"Yeah," her lower lip is quivering, "Says everything I know is a lie. Asks me if I wanted the drink special. Bronx promised it'll open my eyes to `the real world'. I was special right. That's what he told me. So I took his drink special and I wake up to this. What the FUCK is the point of coming online."

She breaks down. It's an awkward cry where I just sit there letting her get it all out. I don't know how to comfort her and I don't think she wants comfort. It isn't until the sobs turn to low whimpers that I get the balls to ask her.

"You'd rather not know the truth?"

She shakes her head. I guess this is a whole different meaning to ignorance is bliss. I can see the regret in her eyes. I knew they all had a different relationship with Bronx, but when it came to Tessa it seemed like she resented him for bringing her into this world. It explains a lot of the behavior from the earlier conflict. She was so quick to try to turn the team against him.

"We can't win. My life was perfect before this," she explains, "And I'm stuck. My entire life was snatched away from me because a cute boy called me special. And now I can't get back offline. But maybe you can..."

I pause.

I knew she didn't have the best intentions coming here but then again who had good intentions? Bronx. The guy who seduced people into this world that they hated?

Why fight this war in the first place? My life was fine before. Just fine. No one was trying to kill me. No one shooting at me. No one erasing me.

If I could go back to that...isn't that a chance I'm willing to take?

"How?"

"The device that brought you online. I believe it can take you offline."

"You want me to go back to the Masterson's Research facility..."

"No, I've relocated another device similar to that."

She was prepared to come in here and give me the information. She hands me a piece of paper printed from a printer. I look at the address.

"You've got to be joking me..."

"Why? That's the address of the same device that brought you online."

I sigh reading the address.

"This is my parents' house."

~

"Mom?"

I hear the garden hose outside. She was watering her lawn. Growing up I remember this house like it was yesterday. My dad and mom met doing research with the Rodney Masterson back in the day. Then they settled down and had me. Mr. Masterson bought them this home as a wedding gift. Walking towards the stairs I still remember the days my dad would put me up on his knee and tell me how amazing technology was. I always wanted to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to know about technology. I wanted to ask questions.

My mother clearly doesn't hear me. I head upstairs into the main bedroom. The closet has all these boxes. Boxes that my dad used. I knew my mother kept all of it.

Supposedly the device had to be here somewhere.

All of a sudden, my cellphone rings.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you? Who told you to leave? You're still being tracked by AI. You just came online. AI probably has every camera in the city looking for you."

I can tell by the deep sexy voice on the other end of the line that it's Bronx. He has this concern in his voice. For a moment I would actually think that he cared.

I don't think it's a good idea to tell him now that I ordered an Uber to get here.

"I went to get a device that could take me back offline."

"Why the hell would you want to be offline. You know the truth now. The truth is the most important thing..."

"For who? I was fine. I don't care about your rebellion. I just found it."

The machine is at the bottom of my father's closet. It's hidden underneath some other boxes. It's stashed almost like it means nothing in the world, but that was how my father was. He didn't even believe in banks. Felt like it was too easy to hack. He used to put thousands of dollars in socks and stuff it in the laundry room. It was the downside of being a technological genius. When he learned just how easy it was to manipulate the machines, he stopped trusting them.

"Where are you?"

"Jesus Christ. Don't touch anything. Send me the address. I'm coming right over."

"No need. I'm taking myself offline..."

"Wait please...don't...do...this. There is no guarantee it will work. Even if you were put back offline, AI would probably erase you anyway just to be safe."

"I wouldn't be a threat to it."

"You ARE a threat. Why don't you fucking get that, Cassius?" Bronx seems angry over the call and takes a deep breath before adding, "You're special."

There it goes again.

"Special like Tessa, right? One in a million----like you said she was too."

I know it may sound childish. I didn't own him. It wasn't even close to that, but for some reason, I felt like I couldn't get through to Bronx.

He is slow to answer, seeming to think about it carefully, "I've been looking for someone to help me win this revolution for a long time. I thought at a time it was Tessa. I thought at a time it was Larson or Nano. I was wrong. This time I'm not. You and I were made to be in this together."

it makes me uncomfortable how he says the word "Made" as though it was some design. Or maybe it's the use of the word "together". It sends these warm vibes all through my stomach. It sends it all down my back.

"How can you be so sure?"

"I just need you to trust me."

"I'm broken Bronx. I don't know what is going on anymore. I'm not sure of anything. I'm scared and lost. It's like parts of me are missing."

"Then let me be your mechanic. I will fix you."

Fix me.

The words melt me even through the phone. I put the device down. I'm about to tell him to come to get me when something else happens. I hear cars pulling up. A lot of cars.

"Bronx..."

Doors opening. Random people walking up to my lawn.

"Yeah?"

"How do you know for sure when the System is coming for you."

"You'll know..." is his answer.

It's not helpful. It's very Bronx. Very short and very straight to the point. I guess he was right though because within a matter of seconds I hear a voice calling from downstairs.

"Cassius---- is that you? Can you come downstairs for a minute?" my mother is calling out.

I'm shaking at this point.

"Bronx...I think I know."

"Dammit-----"

"Bronx I need you."

"You sound like someone who trusts someone else."

"I'm serious Bronx."

"I know. I'm sorry. Just like you needing me is all. And I'll make sure I'm there for you. Only thing is I'm ten minutes out," Bronx states.

"What do I do in the meantime?"

"Survive."

I hang up the phone. My hands are shaking. I have no weapons. Nothing like that. I make my way downstairs and that's when I see my mother and some of the neighbors lined up. Ms. Chang from the grocery store, Mr. Lewis from the hardware store, my mother's Pastor and others had joined my neighbors.

They stand one line almost like an assembly line.

"Ma----I didn't mean to scare you," I stated, "I was just coming home to get some stuff for the dorm."

Pause. Silence.

"Is there something you'd like to share?" she asks.

"No..."

"Can you sit, Mr. Rice. In the chair----there," Ms. Chang states.

"I'd rather stand."

"We need you to sit," my mother responds not skipping a beat, "I have a few questions about the people you've been hanging around lately."

She looked like my mother. She smelled like my mother. She sounded like my mother. But looking at her right now. I knew that this wasn't my mother. Not in the way that I thought. Something had hacked into her body. Something had taken control of her.

A firewall.

These weren't my neighbors. These were firewalls in the system, desperately trying to protect AI.

I start making my way to the couch and that's when it happens. The lights go off in the house. I'm not sure how it happens so fast. Maybe it was Bronx----no----he's still too far out. All I know is I see a figure in the distance outside from the living room window. The figure is waving at me. Telling me to make a run for it. Telling me I needed to get out of the house.

The window still had glass. The living room was crowded. At this point, I have no choice! I aim for it and even before I start running I hear my mother's voice.

"Don't even think about it!"

Too late. I thought about it. Too late, my feet are moving. My mind trying to focus on the piercing pain as I torpedo through the window, getting shattered by the glass all around me. I make it out, though somehow, pushing all the pain so deep that it doesn't exist at that moment. Maybe it was the upgrades or maybe it was something that I knew how to do even before. It's hard to tell the difference now.

At that moment the quiet had become like icy drips on already cold skin. I stopped, ears straining. The street was never like this, like some empty movie set. I turned around, eyes taking in every detail, seeing things I'd never had the call to notice before.

Where was the person helping me?

There were so many places the person could hide.

"Hey, this way?" a voice attached to a man stepped out from behind a sun-bleached red van. He has a mask on. A mask that covers his entire face. His hands were empty as he reaches over and pulls me in the van.

I barely get away.

~

"I'll drop you off down the street but you need to get to back to Bronx as soon as possible. He's the only one who can save you."

The guy's disguising his voice. I get it. I'm the only idiot who is online running around here without a mask and a disguise. I couldn't even go visit my goddam mother without being swarmed by the entire neighborhood. If it wasn't for this man cutting off the lights and distracting them however I would have been dead...or worse. I would have been the cause for Bronx and his team's death. I would have been the sole reason the revolution ended.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked the masked stranger.

"I've always helped you. Who do you think created that device to get you online. I did this because I wanted you to be free," he states and then says something else, "Even when you were a baby..."

He drops the deep accent that he has and talks normally. The voice sounds so familiar. It sounds like Christmas mornings. It sounded like Autumn rains. It's the same voice that was there with me when I fell off my first bike. The same voice who helped guide me towards tying my shoe. The same voice who made me fall in love with physics.

And for the first time in forever, I feel like this is where I belong.

He wasn't dead. He hadn't died in that accident.

"Dad..."

 

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