‘The space race?’ Johnny huffed at Sal. ‘Ain't been no race for space since the 1950s. You know, Sal, our tech is always ahead of what we tell the dames at the news station. Space? Been populated for years. Ain't no race for space. Don't make sense sendin’ all those rockets up - bad for the Earth, ya know what I mean?’ he said sitting back in his chair on the porch, winking at Jimmy. ‘When you're picked for space programs, you're shown the way.’
Walking /
‘Walking through Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, Sal. I know I'm choosing you every life, we'll just switch up the scenery once in a while.’
She turned her gaze in the HoloSphere from him to everything around him. Stacks of books already written.
‘For when I get out, Sal. Just some ideas about Our Future with the little guy.’
We ain't goin' /
‘Nah, Sally, we ain’t goin’ to that stupid concert with Timmy and Tina. They don’ know what they’re in for. I heard the guys by the docks talkin’ about the mosquitoes again. So’s I pulled it up on my HoloSphere chart, the biome, goin’ back about fifty years. The kinda grass in that area - back then that grass kept the bad bugs away, the one’s with the dengue. Now’s they plantin’ new grass, that looks like the old, but it’s got this sheen to it, this, this lil’ irridescent shimmer. It attracts the diseased bugs. Let Timmy and Tina have their fun, but ain’t no beach for US, not this winter.’
The Sector /
‘No worries, here, Sal, I got US covered.’ Johnny looked at Sally as she unpacked the last of their bags from the SUV into the cabin doorway. ‘Sorry I couldn’t-’
Sally glared at him, sharply, knowing he was about to apologize again for being in his wheelchair. He turned red, for a moment, blushing the way he did when they first met. She smiled in return.
‘Anyways, Sal, I got the place covered. The inserts Jimmy gave you guys, instead of the vacc- it’s part of the Home Security System in this Sector.’
The new cabin looked like any other cabin in the middle of the woods, but it had a few updates, including the goo swimming around in their blood.
‘The Vector,’ she said.
‘Yea,’ Johnny smiled. ‘I thought you’d like that term for it. The Vector for The Sector. Anyone gets too close to you or the little guy, or anyone enters without the proper modifications, they get escorted right out.’
Sally knew by ‘escorted’ Johnny meant blown to bits outside of the perimeter. And with the war going the way it was, she was okay with that.
Perfect Person /
‘Ain't no thing as the perfect person, Sal, until there is,’ he said, sitting down in his chair across the room, looking at His Wife and Child. ‘How'd you figure out we're perfect for each other? I had a feeling…but you - you seemed more rigorous.’
She smiled, looking up from her embroidery and into his eyes. ‘You know me and science, Johnny. I figured everyone has a Soul Mate - a person designed by God for them, sewn from the same cloth, like Adam and Eve. I designed a coordinate mapping program, based on DNA. Where I'd go, what I'd buy and eat, to sustain myself, and based on the environments I was grown from, and what I wanted to do as a kid…I figured our DNA was maybe a stepping stone to each other.’
‘So when you first met me, did you know I was your Perfect Person?’
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I knew when I saw you smile.’
Spoofs /
‘We’re already on LockDown, Sal. Jimmy and me, and all the guys - we couldn’t wait to get back and tell you. Everything’s shut down overseas. Too chaotic, too-dirty dirty bombs - nothing was gonna survive. We got everyone out we could from their bunkers after their leaders - after their leaders…’ His voice trailed off, and she knew to let him have a moment - to collect his thoughts. ‘Anyways, we saved who we could. Even our top dogs, our leaders - gone. Everybody’s gone. Everything was rigged. We’re lucky we even got out.’ He looked at his wife, looked at how she was taking it all in. Stoic as usual.
He continued, ‘We got AI configured. It’s gonna drop all the data to Americans, piece by piece, plan by plan. Slowly. Until they adjust to the new way things are running. Spoofs, for now. Everything is spoofs. Don’t trust what you read, and don’t get into fights with Suzy, Sarah, Siobhan - all them housewives down at the market provocatin’ an’ like - let them figure it out their own way.’
Post War /
‘Post war kits is what we need, Sally. Can't trust anyone to do what we need for ourselves. If you can, get the word out quietly, to some women on base - don't want China or the powers that be catchin’ on. They'll half supply chain and sabotage what does go through.’
Sally listened, uninterrupting. She knew when Johnny meant business.
‘Make excuses, use the kids to gather supplies. Field trip to a clean area, get sand. Geology project, charcoal, quartz, copper, a few other conductors. Glass blowing factory, some good steel bottles. Microscopes and slides for biology lessons.’
‘Water filtration?’
‘Every kid needs to know how to survive, in case we don't.’
Pin Point /
‘I love it, Sal,’ he said, staring at the globe. ‘You know what it needs? Coordinates. Haven’t you been sewing again lately? Make a path, across the sphere, from you to me. Pin point every moment we meet, every special event, when the little guy was born - ’ Johnny paused, his eyes flashing in the HoloSphere. The image rezzed out completely. He was gone.
Vines /
She sat with the vines at her feet, coiling them in to a globe. The sphere slowly began to take shape, and the pile of vines at her feet lessened. She flicked on the HoloSphere and Johnny rezzed in to place. Something was off tonight. The holograph flickered, as if in acknowledgement of the feeling of foreboding coming over Sally.
Back in the Day /
‘We had back up, ya know, Sal? As kids. We had TV and shows and music that taught US, where our schools, pastors, community leaders failed. We had this back up fail safe. You could still look on your TV, and find a friend, or a father figure, when yer own let you down. Today's kids - they don't get this no more. They get corporations and tablets and streaming - and it's all jacked, tilted, upside down - teachin’ em the wrong things. The bad things.’ Johnny paused a moment, sighing, trying to turn over. ‘You got the list I sent you?’
Sally looked down at her hand in the HoloSphere. His note was even in his hand writing. ‘I got it.’
‘Pick them up for him, okay? It's the books I liked when I was little.’
A Message /
'There - you see there, Johnny? The women in the television show - the clothes change, based on who's watchin' the program. It tilts, from my angle, to yours. An overlay, so they get the most bang for their buck - direct advertising to each individual, the same show, shown from different angles.'
'Well, yea, Sal, they gotta increase their profits somehow and this allows more buyers, more advertisers investin.''
'But not the doormats. The doormats never change, not even seasonally. Zoom in.'
He narrowed his gaze and the television zoomed in to the mat on the foyer entryway. 'What's them patterns, Sal?'
'A message. A very specific message.'
Uncanny /
‘Johnny, are you seeing this?’ she whispered to her husband through the HoloSphere. ‘It’s crazy, everyone’s attacking each other an-’
‘Yea, I see it, Sal. What does it look like on your end?’
‘I dunno, just everyone flipped out on each other all of a sudden.’
‘I heard some guys screaming from the rooms down the hall - they’re hallucinating that each other are Uncanny - they’re not seeing reality. The AI we’s got built a bridge of trust, so it’s alright, Sal. Whatever they’re seeing ain’t real. I think they got uploaded with a virus. Just sit tight, we’ll see how long we have to wait this one out.’
Dolts /
‘They still think we’re stupid, Johnny,’ Sal spat, chewing on her hamburger. ‘These dolts from overseas come here, steal our academia, pretend to be US and our ancestors, and then rewrite our papers, our history, our science - it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘I know, Sal, I’ve seen it, they did it on the military bases, too. Come over, enlist, raised with a false sense of confidence - they think they already won US, Sal, that we’re already their captives. They’s just usin’ the data they collect, and rewritin’ it as they own.’
SubSpace /
'It was a key,' Sally said to the researcher. 'A harmonic tone. A varying algorithm, a tilt of the lilt, to alter thermodynamic pathways in the cerebellum, to alter his function. Keys can be replicated, and swapped,' she said. 'No One Tunes A Man. He isn't an instrument.' She looked at Johnny's holograph, pacing the room, his body now slowly decaying under their tombstone. 'He's going to be back, one day.'
Identifier /
‘It's not looking good for Jimmy, Sal. Susie got his EKG reading. His heart - his arrythmia - it looks like it's gone.’
‘But ain't that a good thing, Johnny? I thought those were bad.’
‘Not for him, Sally. It was his Identifier. What made him special, what made him tick so smart. It looks like the device was implanted during that so called stripper outing him and Susie have been fighting about. I checked a few guys, multiple sources, to see if anyone was covering for him. He was drugged, uploaded with a virus, and he's got this implant altering his heartbeat. It changes his personality, aspects of it. I'm gonna have to get it out of him, Sally.’ He looked at her from his wheelchair.
‘I know you got this. I'll cover the door.’
GRID /
‘I don’t get it, Johnny, what’s going on?’
Everyone was freaking out. Some people hallucinating, others acting out skits from the past. Some didn’t recognize each other or their loved ones.
‘What’re your eyes tellin’ you, Sal?’
‘That I’m sitting at home, talking to you through the HoloSphere.’
‘Okay, that’s good. That’s real. I had to hack in to the GRID, Sal. Upload some data. It took over a few minds, but as it renders their brains - it’ll let US know.’
‘Know-?’ she paused, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.
‘Know who’s a friendly and who’s not, know their background history, know what they’re capable of. Jimmy and I - back on the base, we got to talking. Would anyone even enlist anymore if they knew how they’d end up? So I got to thinking. It’s okay, Sal, just stay home, indoors, keep the blinds closed.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m safe here, because you’re safe there.’
Sally got up from her chair and walked around the house, closing the blinds like he told her.
‘It’s gonna render some data, Sal. And then it’s progress some of US, to see what our futures will look like if some survive, if some don’t, if some get hurt - then it’s gonna figure out who best to approach next, and how to protect US in the meantime.’
Sally sat back in her chair at her desk. ‘Okay, Johnny, love you.’
The Call /
‘The call went up, Sal, from overseas.’
‘You're redeploying?’
‘That's what they want, but, no, Sal. I ain't leavin’ you and the little guy. Jimmy got eyes and ears on them - they's lookin’ like US, but ain't no shared culture no more. Seems Asia and India already engineered Europe and Africa. Won't be drawin’ US in to another war to go save our cousins. Our real cousins are here or dead. Time to shore up the borders. Once they get word we ain't comin’ to them, they'll be on the way.’
You'll Know /
Space is just a matter of scale here, Sally wrote back from the other side of the screen on her tombstone. Time is flowing differently. Every decision you make, I see more outcomes. Just stay alive, Johnny. You'll know when to find me.
Love
Sally
Collapse /
I found a way, Sal. To collapse consciousness. You won't be in that grave for long.
Love,
Johnny
We the People /
‘It's time to let the People know, Sal. As many as you can find. I heard these doctors talkin’ the other day. They were talkin’ about reaping our minds for data. They're gonna drug everyone in the country. Upload nannites, create organoids from their own tissue. Psych evals from the inside out. Then, -’ Johnny hushed his voice. ‘-then they're gonna make US hallucinate. They're using projected energy from these UAPs, and it's hooked up and rerouted through phones, wire towers, servers - it’s gonna be like a hologram is followin’ our people, whispering things to ‘em, tellin’ ‘em where to go, what to buy - It's like they're kidnapping our people from the inside out.’
Sally gasped.
‘Don't worry Sal - just get the word out. Information is powerful.’