Writing: Disconnected (a rough draft)

Disconnected

By Sam Schifman

September 15, 2017

Pro-log: I have been thinking a lot recently abut how connected our society is becoming. About the fact that with in a generation or two kids will no longer lack access to information or the opinions of their friends ever. This story is my attempt to explore that subject. It is not meant to represent conclusions, just ask questions.

Nat opened his eyes slowly. On the surface the physical sensations of the IV in his arm, the canvas of the cheep cot, the musty air of the dimly lit cinder block room all registered, but they were pushed aside by the crushing silence. Gone was the hum of his friends and the feeds he listened to, most recently dominated by the new hire training from Dynmatic. There was just a void where the stats of the day should be. He asked first for the time, the temperature, his location, but nothing was forthcoming. Panic danced at the side of his mind, but then he came to the obvious conclusion.

Very funny Marco – Nat lynked. – My first day of work and you figured out how to blip me. You and Quan can stop laughing now and unlock me… No really this isn’t funny anymore. Marge tell those yokels that is enough.

The silence persisted and the shades of panic started to creep in again. He tried calling out to others, but no one answered. Then the reality of the IV and the pressure on the side of his face started to set in.

He reached up and found the soft bandage where his Lynk should be. As he pulled his hand back other pieces of reality; the vision of his hand covered in chard parts the last time he touched his face. Other bits followed that. The heat and light of an explosion, the acid taste of ash in mouth, the vision of blue eyes behind a gas mask.

The tendrils of panic were now full-blown tentacles. It must have been a terrorist attack, he had heard that the terrorist included powerful EMPs that disabled Lynks in their explosive devices. So, he had survived a terrorist bombing, but he wasn’t in a hospital. The musty smell and the dampness put this closer to a basement then any sort of official institution. On the other hand, there were bandages and the IV and he was alive.

All of these very relevant facts competed for his attention, but they kept getting pushed aside by the vision of Jimmy’s face. That lost look of emptiness in his eyes as he looked out the back of the old yellow bus.

“Are you awake?” a female voice cut through the panic. He turned his head and all of a sudden he was right there.

The first thing was the blue eyes, they sparkled and danced. Then the blown hair pulled back tightly. Her moth was a bit sharp and there was something else odd about her face, but Nat didn’t think it was a problem. She was wearing body armor, but it was worn and a size too small for her. The top straps strained, with a red shirt poking out around the edges. The pants were a better fit, but the large knife strapped to her thy made it clear she was in decent shape. There was also a hand gun on her belt, but Nat wasn’t paying attention to that.

He tried to open his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

“Here, water,” she said. Handing him a small cup and propping him up with a second pillow. “Dr. Carven said you would want water. We have been trying to get you ice chips, but he hasn’t wanted anything actually swallowed until now.”

The water was the best thing he had ever tasted, but it disappeared too quickly.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“You brought me here?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was a mistake. It would have been much better if I had left you.”

“More water?” he asked. She poured another mouthful into his cup.

“That probably sounded awful,” she said. “You would have died if I had left you there, at least that was Carven says. Still, now it is really complicated. Jago doesn’t take hostages.”

“Sorry, who is Jago? For that matter, who are you?” Nat managed.

“Oh, yay, you don’t remember,” she said. “You have been in and out of consciousness for the last week, but Carven warned my you wouldn’t remember any of it. My name is Jen. Jago is my commanding officer. We are part of the… wait, probably best if you don’t know any more than that.”

“Are you the terrorists that attacked the bus terminal?” Nat asked.

“We are not terrorists,” Jen shot back. “We are the resistance, fighting to free everyone from the Corp Net.”

“Well, I guess I am freed, so why would Jago have a problem with me?”

“It is complicated.”

“You said that already,” Nat said. “Ok, so does this Doc think there is any hope for my Lynk? Or did he break it on purpose.”

“Carven isn’t like that,” Jen said. “But he said your Lynk is probably beyond repair. He isn’t a Bio Mechanic, but he is pretty good at what he does. On the other hand, you had lost a lot of blood and saving your Lynk wasn’t top priority. For what it is worth I am… “

“You where going to say, ‘sorry’. But you were the one who set off that bomb and killed all those people,” Nat said.

“It is–“

“Complicated, I know,” he cut her off.  “How complicated can killing hundreds of people be?”

“They’re not people, they’re drones, connected to the net. We are trying to free everyone and some loses are necessary, but killing isn’t the goal,” Jen said.

“And that is supposed to make it better? So, why save me. If I am just a drone? Why not leave me there?”

“I already said sorry,” Jen said. “Look, I don’t know, you looked like you wanted to live. When I found you, you had already walked out of the terminal and down the street. There was blood all over you and you could barely stand up, but you kept going. I couldn’t, well I should have and I didn’t, and now we both have to live with the consequences.”

“That sounds ominous,” Nat said. “What does this Jago have planned for me?”

“Nothing, he doesn’t know about you yet,” Jen said.

“I guess I should thank you for that,” Nat said. “Look, sorry, I should really thank you for saving my life also. I just, well it is so quite in here. Ha, I bet Marge would be yelling at me now. She is always telling me I never appreciate the important things.”

“Is Marge your girlfriend?”

“Marge, my what, no, she is just one of my class mates. We where in the same unit at school, the gang of us keep pretty well lynked. At least we did…”

“Isn’t nice, to be free of the net and all?”

“You’re in the resistance, why are you still lynked?”

“No, I never was,” Jen said, casting her eyes down. “My parents wanted me to have, what they couldn’t. So they had a home birth and never had me fitted.”

“Oh,” Nat said. Suddenly what was bothering him about her face came into focus. Modern cosmetics made Lynks blend in, but they were never completely invisible. Everyone he had ever met had a non-symmetrical face. Jen’s was completely symmetrical, cut perfectly by her cute nose.

“How did they make it work?” Nat asked.

“They didn’t,” Jen said. “When I was four one of the neighbors reported that I wasn’t in school. When the police showed up my mother tried to resist with a kitchen knife. They frizzed her. My father escaped out the back with me. Some how he got me to a friend’s house before they frizzed him. The friend was in the resistance and they raised me. Not that friend, I don’t know who he was, I got passed around a lot, but I have always had a place. There aren’t many of us who were never lynked, so we are kind of seen as special.”

Nat didn’t say anything for a moment.

“I am sorry,” Nat said. “Kim would have something perfect to say. Most of the time she is just annoying, but at times like this she always comes through. Me, I just babble. I can’t imagine growing up so alone.”

“I never felt alone,” Jen said. “Personally, I can’t imagine doing whatever the Net tells you to.”

“I don’t do what the Net says,” Nat said.

“Oh, really, when was the last time you made a decision that wasn’t suggested by the Net?”

“Suggested? Sure there is always advertisements and teachers, guidance counselors, and parents telling us what to do, but they don’t make our decisions. I have my friends, mostly my unit, but there are a few others from grade school. We help each other all the time. I can’t say the Net doesn’t influence us, but in the end, we make up our own minds.”

“Doesn’t it drive you nuts?” Jen asked. “Having all of them in your head all time.”

“Sure, it does,” Nat said. “I get tired of Marco’s conspiracy theories, Kim’s constant bad attitude, Quan’s refusal to give you a fact just to be annoying, Marge’s bossing, and I could go on. I imagine they have something to complain about me. But I also know they are always there when I need them. I know that we can do things as a Unit that we can’t do alone. And I know that, I know, well I know… they are there for me and I am there for them.”

“I don’t need a thing in my head for that,” Jen said. “I know that Jago and the rest of my team is there for me.”

“It is different,” Nat said. “I had a best friend growing up. Jimmy and I did everything together. We lynked all the time. Accept for that one day in fifth grade. The older boys wanted us to go to the waists, down by the river. I was too scared, I said I didn’t even want to hear about it.

“It was my father who first told me about the accident. I never did find out the details, I suspect they thought I was too young. Jimmy spent two weeks in the hospital, but there was nothing the doctors could do. There was permanent nerve damage and they couldn’t get a new Lynk connected.

“He and I had shared everything for as long as I could remember. And all of a sudden, he just wasn’t there. I couldn’t even talk to him about him not being there. It was the hardest two weeks of my life.

“He tried to come back to school. His parents wanted him to still have a normal life. I did my best to help. I stuck with him every day. I repeated all the things everyone was lynking. I stood up for him when ever someone lynked something unkind.”

“It sounds like you were a good friend,” Jen said.

“I got sick,” Nat said. “It was only two days that I was out of school. Some boys found Jimmy crying in the bathroom. They beat him up pretty good, apparently, they thought he was being fresh because he wouldn’t Lynk to them and he couldn’t call for help.

“I only got to see Jimmy one more time. It was the day they took him off to a school for kids who couldn’t lynk. I will never forget the look in his eyes. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t even despair, he just looked lost. He looked like it was all just gone.”

Jen reached out and ran her fingers across the bandage on the side of his face. Then down his cheek. She gently cupped the back of his head and Nat reached up to grab her arm. She slowly lowered her head and kissed him.

“I am sorry,” Jen said, pulling back. “I have kept you up too long. Dr. Carven said I was only to talk to you for a short while. Get some sleep.”

Nat tried to protest, but he couldn’t find the words or even the energy to keep hold of her arm. She eased the extra pillow out from under him and he fell back to sleep.

He wasn’t sure how much later he woke up. This time he found it possible to sit up with only a little dizziness.

“Don’t push it,” a male voice said. “You are doing well, but it will be a few days before you can get up.”

“Dr. Carven I presume,” Nat said.

“Yup,” Carven confirmed.

Nat looked at the older man. He was in good shape, with the build of a runner. His salt and pepper hair was short cropped and his brown eyes had depth.

“Where is Jen?”

“She is gone,” Carven said. “She convinced Jago that it was just too hot to keep operating here.”

“Where did they go?” Nat pushed.

“Honestly, I have no idea. I am not part of the organization Jago and his team represent.”

“You aren’t part of the resistance?”

“Not really, I just do a lot of doctoring for them. On the other hand, Jago isn’t really part of the resistance either. The resistance isn’t that organized, but most don’t hold with the sort of tactics his team engages in.”

“But you treat his people?”

“Sometime,” Carven admitted. “I treat pretty much anyone who can pay. Work doesn’t come easy for someone who lost a patient due to Stimming. That was a low time, but I found someone who showed me how to disconnect, a little more gently then you did. I am better now, but I still can’t get ligament work.”

“I can’t pay,” Nat said. “I was just about to start work, when- “

“I know, besides any founds you had are gone now. You have been declared dead already. The official report is that you were disintegrated in the explosion. I apologize, but certain constraints prevented me from reporting your condition.

“Don’t worry about the bill,” Carven continued. “I have always had a soft spot for Jen, despite the company she keeps. I am sure she mentioned that it was complicated. In any case, you can stay until you are recovered.”

“After that?”

“If life has taught me anything it is not to ask that question,” Carven said. “Get some sleep, you should be ready for solid foods tomorrow.”