James
I smiled out at the Old English landscape of rolling green hills and antiquated fortresses as a young woman wearing a bag head and a lax pair of black dress pants and dress shirt stood next to me. Hide0us_Replica and I ruling over an army to smash and destroy anything that dared to threaten us.
That’s what this was all supposed to be about.
“I just wanted you to stand next to me. Why was that so hard to accomplish?” I asked her but of course no response was given.
“Why can’t you just give me what I want!” I screamed at the interface throwing a mug of some virtual liquid at it only for it to phase through and splash across the stone floor.
An error message blinked into existence momentarily only to blink out just as fast as I dismissed it.
“It’s all just a lie.” The voice told me, coldly and bluntly as I struggled to ignore it.
Hide0us_Replica just stood there, baghead expressionless as ever.
I closed my eyes and leaned back, willing my body to fall into the emperor's throne at the center of the castle and spoke, issuing my decree, to the dozens and dozens of other virtual female and male models all dressed to appear as Hide0us_Replica. “Create a record.”
The queen next to me nodded and pulled out a quill and paper, dipping it in and writing my note as I relayed it.
~~
Hey Em,
I know you’ll never see this. You logged out for good back in the hotel.
Not that you would care to listen to a word I say anymore.
I guess I lost in the end huh?
Sorry about that.
I had this idea. This vision of us standing beside each other as partners.
I just wanted to be the best along-side you.
You were my Hero.
Something bigger than life.
They kept distracting you, Esme and then that Boy.
If you’d just come to me like I wanted it never would have had to get this bad.
I could have tried harder, I know that.
I shouldn’t have drunk that damned alcohol for one.
Hah. So stupid.
All my plans and machinations, only to throw it all away cause I drank too much and passed out.
Pathetic.
That’s all I’ve ever been; pathetic.
I hope that the next level treats you well.
Let’s play together again some time.
You might be gone for good, but I’ll make sure Hide0us_Replica never goes away.
James Paige, Raging-Cactus”
~~
“So childish. Writing letters to a dead friend” I chastise myself but don’t say anything more aloud to ruin the final goodbye.
“Send the letter to Hide0us_Replica” I command the Queen who nods and hands it off to a nearby servant.
Not that I can tell the difference really.
I start to give the servants another command when I feel a bout of exhaustion overwhelm me.
“This is all too boring.” I grumble before double pressing on the helmet in real life and giving it a command.
“Switch over to the living room.”
All around me the castle and servants fade away and I find myself in a dingy Chicago apartment with a leak audible in the background and a view of the lake obscured by either glare from the nearby towers or smog from the city.
“Ahh home.” I whisper aloud as I hear the voices of Em and Esme talking in the background.
“I spent so much time working on that but it really was worth it.” I find myself talking aloud as I move from the doorway and into the kitchen.
“Play ‘daily mix 3’” I shout aloud over the recordings of past conversations.
“This is how it was always supposed to be. The three of us together with nothing in the way.”
Cheery J-Pop starts playing throughout the real-world storage locker as I feel something vibrate against my chest and the cords binding me to the computer creating the simulation as tugged on yanking me backwards and out of the illusion of my perfect future.
“Disconnect or take a load of lead to the chest.” A cold and furious voice growls out as someone else says something softer I can’t make out over the gossiping of Em and Esme and the cheery singing of a japanese boy encouraging me to ‘relax and chill’
I freeze up as Esme’s laughter echoes through the apartment and the music picks up. I’m trying to stay focused but one of the cords must have been disrupted by my assaulter and the virtual and real environments begin clashing, spintering the dingy chicago apartment with an old dimly lit shed glowing in soft blue light from a string of christmas lights half burnt from hours without rest after years of unuse.
“I told you to hurry up and disconnect!” The woman, I can tell she’s a woman now as the background noise is less noticeable, yells at me again and I can hear the somehow familiar clinking of a handgun.
“Ah. Is this how I’m gonna die? After all that it isn’t even someone I really know who kills me but just some random girl I pissed off. Is this Karma?” I can’t help but bitterly laugh at myself, something which only angers the girl more but I hear the other person, a guy maybe but with a slightly higher pitched voice that most men, calming her down.
“I’m wanted by the cops you know? If you let me live there will probably be a reward for yo-” Before I can finish speaking I feel my body being thrown across the room and slamming into the wall, the dozens of cords I’m connected to pull the old computer tower and monitor down with filling the room with an enormous crash, though metal helmet I’m still connected to did little to protect me instead making the pain worse as the simulation freezes and blares out a single note at maximum volume and blacks out half my vision.
“Did we ask you your opinion?!” This time it isn’t the girl yelling at me but the guy.
I recognize him.
I can’t help but laugh aloud as his shoe slams into my chest making me cough up blood.
“This is hilarious. The guy who loved you is doing what you couldn’t for the girl you loved Em. I don’t mind if I go out this way. No, this is perfect. A beautiful checkmate. I win in the end.”
I close my eyes to the blistering pain and flat lined tone of the dieing computer waiting for the darkness to come. Instead I feel a burning sensation as a booming noise deafens the confines of the storage locker and my arm suddenly feels weak. The strength and freedom it once had suddenly stole as I realized I started screaming at some point.
A small hand I loosely realized belonged to Leo reached down and tore off the helmet and cords, I saw his hand was covered in blood from the wound shoulder.
“You fucking shot me!” I shout out but he shakes his head and pulls me over to the door and out into the bright light of the day.
I can loosely make out sirens in the background but they sound far away. I know we're not far from Chicago proper, out in one of the industrial districts but someone should have heard and reported the shot. Shots? I can’t think from the ache in my body and the blistering light far above me.
“Actually, she shot you.” Leo points over his shoulder to the tall dark skinned woman with a muscular build that made her look like some kind of body builder. The furious glare in her eyes forced me to subconsciously try to slide back, not that my body, or Leo’s grip on my shirt cooperated at all.
“You should have been hit in the head!” she cursed at me and toyed with the gun in her hand, a simple 9mm you’d see in games all the time but for some reason this was the first time I could recall seeing it like this in real life.
Leo stood up and promptly spit in my face before walking back over to the woman and whispering to her only for her to spin around and stomp off shaking her head.
“At least they aren't here for the same reasons it seems.”
I bit my lip and used the pain to ground my thoughts and try and separate the aching in my stomach and the burning in my arm, forcing myself to dissociate from the pain and fight for a way to live. “Why are you doing this? You didn’t even know Em all that well. What a week of ass and some kisses and your heads over heels ready to go out and play vigilante? You got to fuck her what else matters!”
He swirled around and lunged at me only to stop at the last second and take a deep breath, pulling himself back. “You know you're really pathetic James.”
I felt my head tilt to the side and I raised an eyebrow grimacing through the pain. Confused by his off-hand remark I struggled to look up at him.
“You’ve known Em for years and yet you never once understood them. You cared for them exactly as much as any pathetic fanboy on the internet. You can’t even begin to understand the pain and anguish you put them through. I’ll be honest there were days when I woke up and all I could see was your disgusting face laughing at me. It was like you were this disembodied demon who haunted my every waking moment, poisoning everything in my life!” Leo’s words turned into screaming at some point but he didn’t move an inch, only looking down on me like a judge deciding my life sentence. “But I refuse. I REFUSE! To give you a moment more than you have already stolen and pilfered. I couldn’t even… When Em finally woke up I couldn’t-” He turned around at last and walked a bit away, presumably knowing if I tried to run I wouldn’t get very far.
I froze at his mentioning of Em but before I had a chance to ask or even process that thought the woman returned from the shadows holding the gun in her hand and staring at me as she spoke softly but loud enough for me to just barely hear. “Let me do this for you then.'' this time her eyes weren't full of rage, though plenty of that still remained instead there was a passion, a love, I couldn’t imagine or place.
“Do you know why I came out here with you, August?” He asked the woman, apparently August was her name.
She shrugged, playing with the gun's safety, I could hear it clicking on and off, in time with my heart pounding. “I assumed you wanted to see justice served to the piece of shit who hurt you.”
He shook his head. “No. I honestly… I hate him. But I think with you and Em I could have easily waited until the police caught up to him. I came out here for you Aug…”
She looked at him momentarily as a pain seemed to flash through her eyes before being squashed and her expression grew cold. “I’ll be fine as soon as I know he’s gone.”
Leo gave a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, I thought this might have been an argument they’d have had before. “Aug what do you see happening in the future if you kill him?! Do you honestly think the police, fuck I mean even the FBI is after him, do you think they’ll just shrug and give you a fist bump for a good days work? They’ll take you to jail. Imprison you and throw away the key. Everything you’ve worked for your entire life will be dead and over with. We're already in hot water, he’s been beaten and shot but right now we can still say we were just following up on a random lead and he tried to escape but if you make that final step if you pull that trigger…” Tears were streaming down his face at this point as he actively stood between myself and August.
She shook her head but the grip on the gun was unsteady. “This isn’t like back then, I’m not…”
Leo walked up to her and gently took hold of the gun before leaning into a hug. I could just barely make out his words as I followed the movements of the handgun. Watching it as I tried to smother the pain and look for a way out. “Aug, do you remember when you found me? My family had kicked me out. Called me a disgusting abomination. I was sleeping in some alley at just fifteen, I’d stolen some alcohol from the corner store and chugged the entire bottle. It was some dirt cheap whiskey they kept close to the door. There was a bus coming and I thought to myself. ‘If there is a god, then this must be him showing me the door.’ I let my body walk to it as it picked up speed and pulled away from the curb. I was so happy. It was the happiest I had ever been in my life. I was going to die but I told myself at least it was on my terms. I was going to die. As Leo, a proud trans-man. But then you stopped me, you pulled me away from the curb and wrapped me in your arms and told me…”
She finished his words, “If you're dying because of how someone else made you feel, you aren’t doing it on your terms.”
Tears were sliding down her cheek now and falling into his hair. He had the gun fully in his grip now. “You explained to me that your best friend, my sister, had just swallowed a bottle of pills and left a note to you asking you to do what they couldn’t. ‘Watch after my little brother for me.’ You wrapped me in your arms and told me that you had already buried too many friends and you made me promise you not to join the list. Now I’m telling you Aug, I’m begging you. Don’t throw your life away. You saved me that day and I’ll never be able to tell you how goddamn happy I am that you did. Please don’t leave me alone sis. I know you feel responsible for what happened to me at the hotel. But you shouldn’t. I left of my own choice, the only one who is responsible is that man there, and he will see justice dealt to him. ”
She seemed reluctant for a moment but finally relented and nodded towards him. Giving him permission at last to act she didn’t say anything though, her crying too much as he pulled out a phone. I thought maybe, just for a moment, he might call Em. If they were the one to judge me I’d be happy to go but I knew that was pointless hope. After that sobbing speech there wasn’t a way he would let me die here today. Predictably I saw him dialing 911.
‘No. I won’t get locked up!’ I looked around in a hurry and saw a hole in the nearby fence I’d spotted as they talked. I could do this. I was sure of it, the pain had died down a bit, it was still there but I could force my way through it.
I stood up to get my feet under me but before I could move I heard Leo thank the person on the phone and hang up, right as another bullet whipped through me and I tumbled to the ground, my legs given out beneath me.
“I guess that time at the range paid off.” Leo muttered bitterly as August just shook her head.
