Story by Hhalix
The Beginning: Short Story
A cough rattles its way out of Alaric’s chest, and after a few moments of hacking, it expels itself out into the polar evening air. “This goddamn flu,” he mutters, stepping over rotting flyers and old propaganda posters, trudging past buried corner shops lit by holo-signs. His hands remain buried deeply within the worn folds of his slicker, eyes roaming over the storefronts and complexes that litter the streets of downtown Kepler. He jangles loose change in his pocket, hums an old tune, wondering what it was this time. He turns his mind over, and stumbles across a name: Elvis. He laughs, marvels at the sound of it, but it disappears as quickly as it had come. The songs always pop into his head: nothing he does stops the random snatches and arrangements of notes from playing over and over in his mind, a record tangled in the snare of memory. He prefers it this way, anyways. It reminds him a little of his mother. At this thought, his step falters a little, but he recovers and continues on, still humming. He has a place he has to be tonight.
It grows late already; a two word voice command pulls up Alaric’s console. It greets him: “You couldn’t have pulled me out any sooner?,” a smooth female voice asks humorously. Alaric chuckles. “Always one for jokes, Iris.” The console, which floats glowing in front of him, glows brighter for a brief second, as if secretly laughing. “I try my hardest, Al, but I’m scared half the time they’ll fly clear over your head.” Alaric bursts out into laughter, startling a patched-looking scavenger bot nearby. It zooms off into a dark alleyway. “Come now, I’m not that old. Hell, you’re as old as anyone, Iris. I got you fifteen years ago and you still refuse to let me upgrade your software.” The console shimmers, as if mildly irate, and a sulky Iris replies, “I have my reasons, Al.” Alaric shrugs, grins. “No need to be like that Iris. Just an observation.” A green bar of light phases through the center of the console. After fifteen years of knowing Iris, he still can’t fully figure out what this means.
“Iris, how far until we reach Demeter?”
“It’s 0.321 kilometers to Circe’s Pub. About another four minutes of walking,” Iris answers. “Don’t keep her waiting.”
“You’re not doing any of the walking, now are you?” Alaric winks conspiratorially. A blue bar across the console this time. Amusement, he thinks.
He intentionally increases his pace. You make a good point Iris. Demeter chose this pub purely because they had not been to it before. He was impressed when she told him: he thought he’d long since been to all of them. Kepler was a confusing place: a maze of concrete and steel and floating advertisements (Join your local GIWP: Today!), and even having explored most if not all of it, he still found himself lost at certain times. Two more minutes of walking, hands still buried. He wicks moisture from his eye as a breeze picks up, tugging at the corner of his slicker and dragging old garbage down the road. A similar robot to the one he saw earlier extends a rakish claw to examine an empty Plasik-cup, tripedal feet scuttling across the stained curb ahead. The Burner looks up; as he approaches the intersection, it observes him unflinchingly, dirt-coated lenses glowing dully beneath exposed circuitry and rust-speckled yellow metal. Iris chirps, a foreign sound that resonates in the freezing night air, her console turning a subtle shade of violet. The robot produces a low buzz, followed by a series of unintelligible sharp clicks. It scurries into a nearby storm drain. The console phases green again, a single bar arching through the opaque screen. “One of these days you’ll get around to telling me why you waste your breath on burners, Iris.”
The console sighs, “Wasting breath? I don’t breathe, Al.”
He chuckles lightly at her cleverness. “You know what I meant. They can’t even think. What do they say to you?”
The console flashes twice this time. “We’re a minute away from the Pub.”
“Iris, are you going to answer my question?”
There is a noticeable pause, the console floating motionless in front of him, vibrating silently. It resumes, however, shining brighter, and Iris says “Nothing, for the most part. They just repeat whatever they hear.” A hollow red circle appears on the screen, turns as if buffering, and begins to emit audio. There is a quick whir, and flicker of the screen, as Iris tunes and amplifies it. A high-pitched, saw-edged voice repeats ‘Fuck’ monotonously in the background. It grows louder with their approach. Iris’s chirp is heard; at the noise, a sudden, startled ‘FUCK’ emits from the robot; the rapid tick-tick-tick of metal on concrete, then another click as the audio loop closes. Alaric laughs, shakes his head.
“You hear something new everyday, I guess,” Alaric sighs.
Iris replies, “We’ve arrived at Circe’s. Take a left.”
Alaric notes how Iris changes the topic, but drops it. Besides, she is right. Glowing holo-signs paint the outside of a dirty pub. A half-torn poster hangs from a hovering street-drone. Half of a frightening face peers out from the still bright-red poster-back, hand pointing accusingly; beneath, a bold black caption reads: “Tired of BIG BROTHER? Fight with GIWP today!” A dozen similar ads plaster an adjacent brick wall, and a few have even begun encroaching on the dusty Plas-glass windows of Circe’s, which Alaric is surprised haven’t yet been shattered. This is a bad part of town. The Slums, so to speak, or rather, the edge of them. Then again, he likes to joke with Iris that Plasik will be here long after humans are gone. Iris, as if reading his mind, says, “Wood doors. It’s interesting they haven’t been stolen yet.” Wood is pricey these days; Alaric reads the quarterly, and has noticed the steadily increasing cost. Regardless, they are beat down looking things, chipped and cracked and worn from constant use. People in this part of the city, buried deep past the towering corporate buildings and bustling apartment complexes, tend to drink their problems away. Hell, Alaric had been one of them. Dying in a bottle, slowly but surely. He’s glad that part of his life is past him. From the outside, the pub is a beacon of warmth, a place to lose yourself, to shed your worry, if only for a night.
The console chirps, shrinks to the size of a quarter, and Iris speaks.
“I’ll be sleeping if you need me. Try to keep Boring-Al on a tight leash. Demeter doesn’t want to hear about the fecal composition of a barb-hog.”
At this, Alaric snorts. “If humour killed, you’d be a serial murderer, Iris.”
“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.” The console flashes a light pink; Alaric picks up on the sarcasm.
He smirks. “Go take a nap, Oh Facetious-One. That tongue of yours needs a rest.” The console blinks, once, twice, flickers out.
With that, Alaric pushes open the doors, hinges creaking, and steps into inviting light, music jangling a tune he picks up and carries with him even as the doors close again.