A dark alley. A hungry cat is roaming through the half-rotten garbage, searching for scrapps of thrown-away food. It lifts up it's copper head and smells the smoggy air around. It moves forward, still sniffing, until it comes upon a large mass.
-"Ughhh..."
The large mass moves as the shocked cat backs up into a puddle, splashing the cool, greenish-grey water, everywhere.
-"An..."
As the mass rises up, a silhouette can be distinguished from the filthy background. A silhouette of a man. He gets up, clutching his left shoulder in pain, and leans against the brick wall.
-"AndrAIa..."
Silence.
-"AndrAIa?"
No answer.
-"Where are you...?"
Still no answer. The cat brushes-up against his legs.
-"Mrrooow... Miarrooow..."
He looks down at it, then around. Walls. Garbage. Brocken boards, more garbage, old cardboard boxes, more walls; a rather sorry
scenario.
-"AndrAIa!"
He calls a couple more times, pausing to listen after each one, but the only sounds he can hear is the alley-cat's meows.
As he moves forward, he stumbles on something on the ground.
He looks down only to discover his worst nightmare come true.
His beloved AndrAIa, --Her blood-covered body lies limp on the ground among garbage.
Speechless, he drops to his knees. He lifts her off the pavement not knowing if she's dead or alive. The silence is shattered by a faint sound.
-"Uuummh..." she moans in pain.
A sparkle of hope flashes in his eye; she's still alive, all is not lost.
-"AndrAIa?" He gently brushes her wet aquamarine hair off her bruised face.
-"Enzo... Where are you..? ...what happened..." She's barely able to speak, it hurts so.
He huggs her, "I'm right here."
She opens her eyes, squinting, "..Don't leave me..."
Tears stream down her cheeks.
I picked her up off the ground and started towards the mouth of the alley. My shoulder still hurt. The cat was following me, it's tail high in the air. I knocked some garbage cans together on purpose, the cat stopped and listened.
AndrAIa was just laying there, in my arms. She didn't say anything about her wounds.
I could feel her blood on my hands.
There were alot of people on the street, only they didn't look like sprites. All with similar flesh and hair colours, some lighter, some darker.
They gave us dirty looks.
-"..I think we're in the User's world," she said lifting her head a bit.
AndrAIa always had all the answers.
She's the practical one, my better half.
-"God works in mysterious ways, girl."
She smiled at me.
I must've said the right thing. I don't even know what 'god' is. I heard Dot say that once, she told me she heard it from a User in one of the games.
That was a long time ago.
Real long.
I just kept walking.
AndrAIa's back and legs were all bloody. The rest of her body was covered with burns and bruises. Her hair was all wet and messed up --the shine long gone.
It was getting dark.
With the sun set an earie silence fell upon the street. The people were mostly gone, and the remaining ones were hurrying to their destinations.
No one wanted to be out after the jet cloak covered the sky.
I was getting tired by now.
Around the corner there was a small opening in between two buildings. There were a bunch of paper cups and other trash on the ground. There were a lot of surrenges too, lots of them. My shoulder was in pain at this time. I set AndrAIa down onto some grey bags at the far side, near the brick wall. She didn't move, just sorta layed there.
She sat up, finally.
-"C'mon, let's ReBoot," She tapped her icon. "ReBoot!"
I did the same with mine.
When I looked up she was still wearing the same clothes but they were alot looser around her body. The fins on her arms were gone,
aswell as the coral starfish from her hair.
She just stared at me with her mouth open.
Like she just saw the user or something.
-"..Your skin... ..I mean,"
AndrAIa, making an effort not to laugh, finally mumbled,
-"Looking at you, I don't know if I can believe you're still Enzo."
She's right.
My skin is an orangy-beige sorta colour, like AndrAIa's, but darker.
My clothes are different too.
An hour later...
-"Yes sir, may I help you?"
There's a tall skinny woman in her 50s behind a large pink counter.
-"She needs a doctor, ..She's bleeding real bad, now."
-"All right sir, please fill out the form."
She handed me some papers attached to a small board.
-"She needs a doctor now!"
-"Fill out the form please. I need to see your card, how will you be paying?"
-"What?"
-"How will you be paying?"
-"I don't know.. I don't have any money. Look, I need someone to help her!"
-"We can't treat you unless you are willing to pay."
-"She needs a doctor now!"
I banged my fists on the counter.
-"Does she have to bleed to death!?"
-"Sir, if you have no means of paying we can not help you."
-"But.."
-"I'm sorry sir. This isn't a free clinick."
-"What the fuck you want me to do! Let her just die!?"
-"I'm sorry sir. This isn't a free clinick. We can only accept finantially responcible...If you do not leave I will call the police, sir."
AndrAIa wigled in my arms a bit.
She closed her eyes and made coughing sounds like she was dying or something. The woman at the counter didn't say anything, never
even looked up. Stupid bitch.
-"Enzo.. Come on, lets just go," Everyone stared at us.
I almost lost it right there and then.
I turned around, still carrying AndrAIa, and walked out the front door. That woman wasn't going to let us in. I kicked the door on the way out, it made a loud bang as it smashed against the wall.
-"I'm alright," AndrAIa wispered. She was really weak, I knew it. Blood was running down her legs, staining her pants crimson.
-"I'm alright, it's alright,.. Let's just go,"
She held out her hand up to my face.
Her hand was cold.
As the night settled in, the shadows of the underground emerged. The dark city streets were now enveloped in neon light of the unspoken industry. All were at their places. All except two. A man in his twenties wonders aimlessly around the earie streets carrying a woman of the same age in his arms. The occupants of the capital's underbelly pass by, with no spoken words of compassion nor an offer to help. As if blind.
Cold looks. Cold, dirty looks was all we were getting.
We couldn't go to a hospital.
My body aches with every breath I take.
The world is heartless, the user's world, that it.
-"Where's the spark?" I tried to force a smile. He looked down at me,
-"Back in Mainframe." I could see the emotions on his face. Emotions he always locks up behind a mask of iron.
Time changes all.
-"Enzo, put me down.." I could see he couldn't keep this up for much longer. He just kept on as if deaf to my words.
-"I mean it, I'm alright now.. I can walk.." I lied.
-"AndrAIa don't."
-"I'm alright now, reeaaally," No responce.
Hard-headded sprite.
-"Enzo, put me down right now."
-"How many times have I told you, call me M..."
-"Quit it!"
He stopped.
-"..I didn't mean to.."
I caressed his face, "I know, lover," I wispered.
The next while is no more then a blur in my mind.
A woman.
Brown hair, I remember brown hair.
She's up against a brick wall.
She's crying.
Enzo's holding her up and she's crying; she doesn't understand. Or pretends not to.
She looks at me through her tears.
But I don't help her. I can't. She's safe.
She says she doesn't know what we want.
-"Just give me money. Give me your f--"
-"Please. Do it or else." I bud in.
Her wet eyes flash with hate. She takes a roll of bills from somewhere in-between her breasts.
Now I understand why he chose her; she's for sale. Like I was, but differently. He knew she'd have money. The minute she came up to him, rubbing her thigh with her gloved hand, I could tell he knew it.
We did real good with that one -- the landlady down 'Ben Ami' Avenue said we had more then enough. She said we could have found a better place. Something clean.
I don't remember what happened then. I must have passed out.
Again.
As I peered out our one window into the large yard, the kind they have in prisons, I couldn't help but think of my mother. Now forgotten in A.D.A.M. -- as much as I believe I am -- she was a sprite with a heart of stone and a face to match it. But I still loved her. She wasn't all that uncaring, my mother. I like to think she didn't really want to give me up. They were rough, the Game Masters who took me, almost right after my fifth birthday, to them games, changed my icon. I remember her standing there, staring. Maybe she didn't really want to do this. No need for remorse now; its to late.
Cycles later one of our travel games landed in A.D.A.M. .. I was but fourteen, but I felt as ancient as ever. We got out, looked around.
I found her then.
She had really no idea who I was, at first. She thought I was deleted. She kept looking off somewhere in the distance. Perhaps she didn't want to look me in the eyes. Perhaps she was to ashamed.
DAIsy, my mother.
My m o t h e r.
The words sound strange to me.
Enzo said I was lucky and all to have a mother, but I certainly didn't feel so lucky at the time. My mother didn't want me. That was clear.
Before we left I went to say 'goodbye' to her. They were lying in bed, her and her new husband. My real papa was never around in the first place, so I can't say anything about him. Now she had a new husband. I'll never call him 'Daddy' like she wanted me to.
She laughed through her tears, cuddling close to him, as I told her I was leaving forever.
Again.
Finally, she said, "So be it. Hope you do better then me, girl." Then she pretended to fall asleep and I left. I was crying too when I came out of her apartment and Enzo made me tell him why.
-"I don't understand.." he said. I didn't expect him to. His mom wasn't like this. That's why Mainframe still remembers her when A.D.A.M. has forgotten mine. All that's left of her now is an archived deletion file with the words "Rest peacefully, DAIsy." Nobody ever did find out her last name.
-"Enzo?" Time to stop this charade.
-"What?" He's exploring our one room apartment as if it was a castle. Can't blame him though. This is the fist home we ever had.
-"I didn't double-click my icon, I didn't reboot properly --"
-"You what?!"
-"So what was I supposed to do?! If I'd gone full-through I'd--"
He turned around to face me then. I could see the anger flashing in his brown eyes.. and fright? No, not fright. Something else. But still, was he afraid? There was nothing I could have done. Absolutely nothing.
I didn't want to see Her again. The girl. The sold girl.
If I reboot fully .. I'll be .. me. Me. Just me.
-"..Why?" He finally said. I looked down -- can't bare to look at him straight on.
-"AndrAIa," he grabbed both my arms, "Do you have a deletion wish?"
-"No. Let go. Now, let go."
-"Make me."
I was backed up against a wall, not able to move, to escape.
-"You'll .. die .. if you don't reboot. You're fucken bleeding your guts out here! You want to leave me alone here to --"
-"Arrogant bastard."
Now that hit home.
Right there.
Why wouldn't she want to reboot?
-"Selfish bitch." She couldn't even hit me if she tried; not enough strength left.
Not enough blood either.
But I won't let her die. Not like this. Not ever. She is my everything.
To lose AndrAIa would be to lose myself.
I reached down and tapped her icon. Twice.
She squirmed as my hand touched her belt. I held it there. I closed my eyes. I think she did too.
She is silent and but I can feel her breath on me. A millisecond turns into eternity.
I feel as if the room dissolved around us and then compiled again, bringing us back into it's domain. But then I remember we never left. Strange.
AndrAIa didn't say anything, just tore away from me and went towards the bed. I could hear the sheets move. I didn't look at her.
I think I need some fresh air.
Life is like a kaleidoscope; you never know what the next picture you'll see is until you see it.
I took a deep breath, getting ready for the next picture to emerge. It came to my mind, full of vivid memories.
Horrible memories.
Of my secret childhood.
I got up then. An explosion of pure adrenalin surged through my veins. Not even thinking clearly anymore I sort of jumped, grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn back.
-"No please don't leave me like this, Enzo..." I blurted out.
I must have sounded really inhuman then. He bend over me, in either pity or concern, I wasn't sure which it was at the time. I knew he wanted answers by the look in his eyes.
-"I won't leave if you don't want m.."
And then he saw it. My insignia, burned into my stomach. Branded. I knew I could never hide the truth from him then.
-"When I was sold.." I whispered, hardly moving my lips.
And then I saw them. I saw that secret reason why she didn't want to transform, to reboot. And I saw her eyes. Not the wise, mischievous eyes I had grown to know, but the scared little girl eyes that I hoped I would never see again. But there she was, a scared little girl. The same scared little girl who would wake up screaming and crying, tugging at the invisible chains she saw and felt around her wrists. That's why she always wore her bracelets; to be protected from those chains. A lump lodged in my throat then and I found myself unable to speak. What is left to say?
Its true, all true. She sold me. To the Game Masters who payed little. Like common cattle. I wondered why she did as she has done, why she couldn't find another way to survive. Not by a child's blood. I wonder why she didn't love me enough to find that other way. But there are also time I wonder if she felt the way she did because this same horror has happened to her. And if it did, did her mother sell her in the end?
To be continued...
Please e-mail me any suggestions or comments about my story.
