The year was 1996, and the Cold War had gone very, very wrong.
Northern Wedding: Ocean Safari
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Quick note: The artwork portrayed here belongs to the Cold War shipgirl project, Oceans Ventured. Please do not redistribute without permission!
I hope to write a little about boats.
That said, forgive me for inevitable formatting errors as I learn to navigate Sufficient Velocity, and I sincerely hope this story serves you well.
I hope to write a little about boats.
This story was written entirely for fun, and is not representative of OV. Everything and everything else isn't for me to claim as my own. 
That said, forgive me for inevitable formatting errors as I learn to navigate Sufficient Velocity, and I sincerely hope this story serves you well.
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But he could still remember his name, as if those words now torn from his mouth dared to mean something more. Speechless, weightless, bound to Earth in ways that muddied the mind and didn't quite make sense: the notion of being free.
Whatever this was, this wasn't life, or so he thought, because life was something a little more mundane. Wake up. Eat. Work. Sleep. In more specific detail, his was a military lifestyle, one that involved a lot of stress and anxiety and sleepless nights that meant no time for dragging feet in the morning. Everything else didn't matter.
But in this moment of kaleidoscopic indescription, Sergeant Sutton swore that he could still feel. He could clearly process emotions, and emotions were both grounding and ethereal, or at least that's something he'd be told by his old mother back home; that verbosity suited only her. Good. He could remember his mother. She'd tell him to breathe, had he been scared, worried, panicked, and when he was still young enough to be tucked into bed he'd be whispered to, the words long lost to time, the words meaning far less than the feeling, the comfort, the realization that he was not alone, not in the slightest, not too far gone, not yet, at least, as that was the last hope he'd have left to lose.
The last thing left to lose.
Sergeant Sutton wanted to keep feeling for as long as he could. He wanted to do more than exist. He wanted to do more than die. This impossible place, time, situation, all of which he knew nothing of, it felt… how did it feel?
What was it like to feel? To breathe, to inhabit a life less promised than it was stolen, given, relieved, standing at attention because the LT who put you on CQ told you not to read or sleep or leave because that phone was the most important thing in your life. Because duty held meaning, because it meant something more, because you were a part of something, something bigger than yourself, and it was important.
What was important?
What was so important it meant all the time in the world?
All the time?
What was he doing with all that time? All his time, time he'd never get back, time to watch the sunrise and smile, wade in water and laugh, clink drinks and talk up a storm. Because that was time well spent. That was what made him happy, or so he thought, because he was losing it. Not memories, no, but the feeling, the happiness, the who, the what, the where, the why.
Because he was in Alaska.
Breathe, Sutton. Listen to yourself think. Listen to yourself before you lose your voice.
Don't lose your voice.
Because… because… because…
Do you remember? It was as if she had never met a human before. A real, living, breathing person. And she was real, more real than ever before, that much you read in the briefing.
//JUL171990
//SECRET
//RE:ON_SOUL
//J.J.BARNEY
//Because when you think of the soul there's this impression of a ghost within a body, as if the brain were the mechanical and the mind something fantastical. And you wouldn't be wrong to believe in that. Because that's our culture. Us, growing up in America, have been led to see the soul disconnected from our bodies, as our soul is what is judged before an almighty god. And you don't have to believe in Heaven to be influenced by the idea of it. It's just plain culture.
//So when we see these creatures we call Shipsouls, is it so wrong to call them people? Their soul, as we seem to believe, is just as 98 114 111 107 101 110 as any other. You can cut past the skin and see how they're different, just like how we're different on the inside, but there's something about the mind that matters. To me, it matters most. Can you say you can converse with a cat or a dog? No. You just can't. And don't go trying to joke about 102 114 97 103 105 108 105 116 121 32 111 102 32 109 105 110 100 [DATA LOST]
//
//SECRET
//RE:ON_SOUL
//J.J.BARNEY
//Because when you think of the soul there's this impression of a ghost within a body, as if the brain were the mechanical and the mind something fantastical. And you wouldn't be wrong to believe in that. Because that's our culture. Us, growing up in America, have been led to see the soul disconnected from our bodies, as our soul is what is judged before an almighty god. And you don't have to believe in Heaven to be influenced by the idea of it. It's just plain culture.
//So when we see these creatures we call Shipsouls, is it so wrong to call them people? Their soul, as we seem to believe, is just as 98 114 111 107 101 110 as any other. You can cut past the skin and see how they're different, just like how we're different on the inside, but there's something about the mind that matters. To me, it matters most. Can you say you can converse with a cat or a dog? No. You just can't. And don't go trying to joke about 102 114 97 103 105 108 105 116 121 32 111 102 32 109 105 110 100 [DATA LOST]
//
You didn't know it at the time, but the mountains on the horizon, those were real. You would take for granted the way the mist rolled between the cliffs and over the trees, how the snow settled even in the summer, how the salmon in the streams would sink through your dreams. At the time, while the snow started to come down between you and the sun at its peak, all you wanted was to get inside. And you did, dragging your sorry ass and bags all the way there.
Seconds. Seconds to minutes and out of the cold, the building was warm, the kind of warmth that was slow to start, painfully slow and dreadfully low. Wind rocked the foundation and you wondered if the structure would hold. It howled louder than the heaters. Than the shuffling of bodies through the door, opening and closing because there were things to unload and no one wanted to stay out for long. You dropped your bags on the far end of the room, where desks had been pushed together to make space for the influx of people.
And when you could breathe and the feeling had returned to your fingers, you looked up.
Ceiling lighting on a low roof felt claustrophobic. Drab grey walls were indicative of military prefabs. Your team had huddled nearby, wordless aside from exclamations of displeasure and disdain. No one seemed to notice the girl in the corner.
Out of place. Out of time. Leaning against the wall with her arms behind her back, blonde hair draped over a shoulder, a golden-blue set of eyes…
Muddied. The whole affair was muddied and you couldn't remember her name. You couldn't remember what came next, but the way she talked, walked, it defined a person to the face. In that moment, you certainly remembered the way she looked at you.
She'd been here at least a week. Your group's arrival was late, late by a long shot, held up by the secrecy surrounding the project and the logistics involved in getting everyone in one spot. The housing wasn't ready and the money wasn't there. But that wasn't your job. You were just a member of a team.
Just a member of a team.
Sutton, can you hear me? Can you feel me? Can you breathe, breathe with me, don't leave me, one step at a time, we'll take it one step at a time.
Feelings came easy, easier than earlier. Natural, maybe, but not so natural as to break through the artificial void that accompanied a headspace that wasn't his. This world was not his own.
Sutton wasn't scared. He was tired of being scared. He was tired of being lost, dragged along, knowing nothing, feeling his life flip upside down over and over, as if every day something old changed about his preconceptions of his world. It wasn't that he needed control. He needed normalcy. He needed to take a breath, to listen to the heartbeat of the Earth and determine that yes, this was true. He needed a little more than nothing, to be given some space, some time, some air, yes, some air. Was that too much to ask?
One step at a time.
Sutton wasn't sure what changed, but he knew that he was real, that this world wasn't but that was okay, because he made amends with his inability to do anything but exist. Here. Now. In this moment that to him, might as well have existed forever, lost to the space that filled the empty hours in his head, he truly was forever.
So breathe.
Breathe.
Take it.
A deathly gasp.
He wanted to remember it. The way it all made sense, the way it clicked, simple as that, when the worst part of the day was the painstaking choice of breakfast. Chocolate, cake, raspberry pastries or a gentle bowl of cereal. Skim milk, black coffee, sugar or cream. How to start a day, how to make a day, how to end a life, how to live, live, live…
And he would remember it. He would. He swore he would if it were the last thing he would do with his measly, finite life. He swore he would make it true.
So.
Let me help you. It's really not that hard.
Just… breathe easy. Breathe true.
It will all be okay in the end.
Her name was Leahy and she didn't know yours. Your two other team members introduced themselves in a ramshackle way, stumbling over words and not knowing when to start.
It's not like you were introducing yourself to a new species. This was a person, just like you, except she was supposed to be a ship, and you weren't sure how to deal with that, how to approach that, because out of everything you learned in training, making friends with a vessel of war was not something you were prepared for.
You remembered the year. 1996. Likely January.
Alaska has snowfall through most of the year, especially where you were stationed: out in the West. True to life, it came down in sheets.
She said she didn't mind the cold. You were fairly surprised. You read in the briefing that the Leahy, CG-16, spent most of its service life in the Mediterranean. If they were one and the same, wouldn't that mean that she was going to hate it here? Or was that not the case? What aspects of her matched the ship she was, and what didn't? What part of her was real, and what wasn't?
Small talk didn't feel right, not with so many people crowding around one person. You excused yourself to address something with your bag. The specifics didn't matter. You just needed a second. Some time.
How do you make small talk like that? She's not even remotely human. You can ask about the weather, maybe. Sports? Did she like sports? Ships had sports teams on them, or at least some of them, right? Maybe you could talk about that. Because this all had to lead to something, to be friendly or something, right? It was a bit much. But you were used to that. The world was changing and this was your world, and your world needed to start off strong.
You turned back to the others. Smiled. Walked up and when you had a chance, passed on your name.
Of course, everything had to start somewhere.
1995. Fall.
Deep breaths.
Sergeant Sutton let his cheek sink into the stock of his M16A2 rifle, lazily letting his eye drift down the rear sight aperture. He was supposed to be pulling security, but with how the trees and bushes all blended into one another, it was a challenge to just stay awake. It was barely sunrise and no one wanted to be out in the woods this early, but orders were orders, and he wasn't in any position to question them.
Keep breathing.
He had laid down some ten or so meters away from Specialist Vranitzky, a German-born artist that he didn't know well enough not to hate. Sergeant Hopkins, their team leader, knelt by Vranitzky's tree. Vranitzky had a radio pack on his back that Hopkins was having trouble with, trouble which manifested as a series of curses and a tight grip.
Sutton felt his chest rise and fall into the stale ground, pine needles digging into his elbows and tucked into the camouflage webbing on his helmet. His green, brown and black BDUs didn't quite match the dying pine beneath him, but he wasn't afraid of an enemy.
This was a training exercise, after all.
"Hacksaw Main, Red-One, over."
Sutton was unfamiliar with the birds in Washington State, but he knew they came out in the morning consistently and without fail. Loud, they woke him up before he needed to, costing him enough sleep to leave him just as irritable as the night before.
"Hacksaw Main. Red-One, over."
"They're not answering." While Hopkins was his team's leader, the leader of their unit was Captain Nguyen. The tough Vietnamese woman stood behind Hopkins with a notepad. "What are you going to do now?"
Hopkins tucked the radio handset back into Vranitzky's bag. His face, just like everyone else's, was slathered in camouflage face paint. His voice, just like his team's, was rough and laced with sleepless exhaustion.
"We proceed on mission." He affirmed.
"That's your course of action?"
"Yes, we very clearly conveyed that when we stepped off. Our intent is to enter the village and speak to the person in charge."
"Who's the person in charge?" Nguyen's sharp accent betrayed her disdain, much like the wagging of her pen.
"The 115 104 097 109 097 110 at the church. I kept notes from the sand table."
//MAY061991
//SECRET
//I_DO_NOT_CARE
//A.HOPKINS
//She's gone, so I'm going to stop thinking about her. I took the time to remember her smile and her voice and the way she would wake me up for school in the morning, so you don't have to keep sending me pictures. I can't concentrate on work like this. I can't concentrate on anything at all. It's not grieving to admit the obvious. I'm just tired of telling her my name. I've 071 105 118 101 110 032 117 112
//
//SECRET
//I_DO_NOT_CARE
//A.HOPKINS
//She's gone, so I'm going to stop thinking about her. I took the time to remember her smile and her voice and the way she would wake me up for school in the morning, so you don't have to keep sending me pictures. I can't concentrate on work like this. I can't concentrate on anything at all. It's not grieving to admit the obvious. I'm just tired of telling her my name. I've 071 105 118 101 110 032 117 112
//
Hopkins rose to his feet without a word. Vranitzky looked to Sutton as if lost, with the Sergeant delivering a simple nod of reassurement. The two soldiers rose to their feet as Hopkins ushered everyone together, by Captain Nguyen.
"Right, listen," Hopkins lowered himself to a knee, producing a notebook from his chest rig. "We're going to make a move on the village. You guys know the drill. Let me do the talking. Don't look at the men, don't make eye contact, they hate us enough as it is. We don't expect contact, so let's not get them mad."
"They're ships, right?" Vranitzky blurted. "Why are we going to the church if-"
"Shut up, V." Sutton snarled.
"Let me clarify." Hopkins avoided looking at Nguyen, who was occupied with jotting something down. "They look just like us. They talk like us. Behave like us. Only one of them is the ship, and that's the one we need to find. Do you want me to go over the briefing again? We need to be on the same page if we're going to go through with this."
"No, Sergeant. I understand, I took notes."
Vranitzky was quick to realize that his inattentiveness spelled bad news for the team, which Captain Nguyen wasn't taking very well. Hopkins delivered a deathly glare, pushing the poor kid along.
"Right. So, let's step off. Time… meow."
Hopkins huffed, nodding to the woods. Captain Nguyen shook her head, lowering her pen and paper to her sides. With one hand Hopkins gave the signal for a wedge formation, and without waiting for the two others to get in position, he started parading off into the trees.
They had to make a time hack, after all.
Silicon chips and sapphire noise.
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She was afraid, the ideas eluded her, words and phrases and places; there was comfort in names.
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Textile, trapped. How she would like the texture of chocolate eclairs. How she would love the touch of skin.
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Sutton didn't know how it was connected, but he felt that it was important to believe that it was true, that he could feel the way he felt and accept the way he saw the world because otherwise, well, what part of himself could he trust?
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In his mind he imagined what it would be like to swallow breath, exhale voice, exude language and dissolve time, but the part of him that tried to cry broke out in a silent laughter. There was no turning back.
They were actors.
Once upon a time, the men and women inside the mock village were coworkers. Soldiers. Personalities. 108 105 097 114 115. Today, Sutton saw unfamiliarity masked in emotions as authentic as the game of civilization.
They leaned out windows, sat on doorsteps, peered through shemaghs and tucked thumbs into blue jeans. The sky didn't make sense. The air reeked of hatred. The world was thick with humidity and the scent of despair. Sutton saw clouds and imagined what it would be like to taste rain.
According to the script, this was not their first visit to the village. This wouldn't be the last. The culture group was an alien mix of Talysh and Navajo, called 085 110 097 097 110 105 032, designed to be as novel as possible for Sutton's team.
The goal of the exercise was simple.
Find the 102 101 101 108 105 110 103.
So that's just what he would do.
Sutton, Vranitzky and Hopkins crept around street corners, low stone walls and thin structures, rifles slung over their chests as they moved in a file. No one was in the mood for smiles, and as it would appear, neither were any of the village denizens.
Everywhere Sutton looked, he took it upon himself to act as a sensor.
He had never imagined a culture like this before - which was the point - which in turn made looking for something distinctly alien all the more challenging.
Faces. Places. Names.
Things that made sense were defined by the languages he could speak. English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian. He could form words and pick on the right emotion, the right description, the terms necessary to carry him through novelty and time. The problems came when he had neither the words nor the object to be defined.
But could you imagine it?
What would a 102 101 101 108 105 110 103 look like as a person? Who could they ask about it? In a world where nothing was known, where could anyone start from square one? Where could he start at all?
Could he believe it?
Because when he blinked, Sutton could feel it, 098 114 101 097 116 104 101 it, devour the seconds into minutes into time, time, time… the secret was time, all along.
It didn't matter. This moment, his moment, this 109 101 109 111 114 121, it dug deeper than skin, faster than bone, it blended into the faces under fabric and eyes he should've have seen and ideas that made so much sense he could die, die, like his imagination that wasn't his own, but borrowed, borrowed like these 109 101 109 111 114 105 101 115, these points in time, connecting the dots, the dots that he clung to because they were real, were they real?
She looked at him behind a mask shaped like a red bandana. She wore two eyes and a smile behind the red, and when she pulled it down, he knew that his time would start moving again.
When nothing else mattered, she never had a name.
So he let himself breathe, and the street cried into the light.
How old was I?
"Seventeen." She said. "The last night to eighteen."
It was a bad call.
"I don't understand." Her voice was soft, barely perceptible over the city lights.
When the cars ducked through the seaside tunnel, they left behind an echo of an engine that reminded Sutton of water pouring into a bedside glass. This world was dark. He could remember how the horizon blended into the water and the water looked as fragile as the moonlight reflected on it. On the night of his eighteenth birthday, he laid with his girlfriend on the hood of his car, parked on the roof of a parking garage.
The view was as gorgeous as she was.
I was a stupid kid with stupid ideas.
"Ideas?"
I don't know.
"You know."
"I just," Sutton's voice fragmented in the cold. This conversation never happened. "I was young."
"What are you excusing?"
"My choices."
"To join the military?"
"The army."
She turned to her side, propping her head against the crux of her arm. The wind was vicious so close to the water.
"You had your reasons. Do you remember why you came here?"
He dared to look at her. He couldn't recognize her face.
"I don't know you."
"I was just asking a question."
"And I don't know you." He stressed, hands waving before his eyes. "I don't get why you care about what I have to say-"
"You're stuck." She laid on her back. There were no stars. "We're stuck."
Sutton returned to the sky. Something about the clouds in the moonlight left him drowsy, even though none of this was real. Even though none of this mattered, he wanted to feel it. He wanted to feel this emotion, the sensation on his fingertips, slipping and teasing as if testing the waters for the first time. Sutton remembered his name and wanted to remember so much more.
Why did he sign his life away? What compelled him to choose his fate? Was he wiser now because of it, or was he condemned to make the same mistakes over, and over, and over until he felt his sanity slip down and off the roof of a car garage that wasn't real, that mocked him with an image of life he wished he could live again.
"Tomorrow I joined the army."
She didn't look back.
"I don't know why I did it."
"You said," she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "You said it was because you were stupid."
"Yes, but no." He closed his eyes. "There was a reason."
"A reason?"
"And it was important. It meant the world to me. And I just… I don't remember anymore. I just don't feel it. I don't get it. I don't get myself anymore. I'm different. I'm-"
"You. You're you."
"I guess I am."
Sutton wouldn't see it, not at first, but she smiled there. In her eyes, she saw herself to be just as pretty as she wanted to be, and in his eyes, he let himself recognize the person who broke his heart.
"I wish I were a person." Her words weren't real.
"What? You're kind of taking the body of my ex right now. That qualifies you as a person."
"Oh, shut up." She crossed her legs and hoped to die. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"You don't know me-"
"And I never will."
"Have you ever thought to ask?"
"No."
She furrowed her brows before crossing her arms. Her voice bled with disdain.
"You could at least pretend to care."
"Eh, no."
"You're so mean."
"I get that a lot."
The girl took a minute to breathe, to sink into the car, to sink into the air and the moonlight and the starlight and the sunlight that existed in tandem, letting herself imagine, if for a moment, that these memories were ones she shared with an idea of self that didn't quite exist. Not yet. But she was getting there. And she could feel it. And she could love it, too.
"I think I want a name."
I wish I had a 118 111 105 099 101,
//⍵⍯⍠0⍰19⍰⍰
//S⍰CRE T
A nameless face I think
I see
//CANNOT_DELET⍰
//ME
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//
//⍵⍯⍠0⍰19⍰⍰
//S⍰CRE T
A nameless face I think
I see
//CANNOT_DELET⍰
//ME
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//
But the fact remained. He was a fool, and she was taking him by the hand, if he had a hand, if he were alive, but he felt alive, oddly alive, at least, because there was a part of him still thinking, and if he could still think then he should still exist. And if he still existed, he could find a way out, and if he could find a way out, he could breathe, breathe again, be himself again, see the world again, and break out of his cruel mockery of a history that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.
And it was miserable.
That much he could feel. That much he knew was true.
Today was the day he decided it was over.
"Vampire, vampire, vampire," the call came quick, pizzicato quick. "new track designated oh-one-five-one."
Sutton wasn't following the radio traffic, but from the corner of the missile cruiser's CIC, he let his imagination flow. Lights, cameras, action - the computers were empty, the consoles alone, and in the middle of this silent orchestra, Wainwright stood with her hands clasped before her chest. The plotting board betrayed a target in red - an incoming missile. A simple target made complex through an intricate web of weapons, emitters and receivers, all working in tandem at the core of one woman's body.
"Yes. I can take it." Her words were short, rehearsed, directed to people Sutton had to believe in. "I have the track, oh-one-five-one, with birds."
And the vessel shook. It roared. And Sutton looked left, right, and saw himself alone with her, save the two naval officers helping to facilitate the exercise. They'd seen this before. He hadn't. The ocean was no home for a soldier.
The missile, off the rails, streamed on a calm intercept course, as indicated by the blue icon on the screen. Of course it would hit.
"Splash." She lowered her arms to her sides. The room stopped screaming. She smiled at Sutton with empty eyes. "And that's how you protect the fleet."
Putting on a show, she was, and Sutton couldn't help but clap with the other officers. It was a good show. She knew how to play the game. She knew her place and knew it well enough to manipulate, like a piece on a game board, data linked to everyone in a demonstration of flawless integration; flawless initiative.
When the clapping died and the officers moved to process exercise data, Wainwright caught Sutton staring at one of the consoles.
"So, Sergeant," her words were slick. Too slick. "what did you think?"
"I don't really know enough to say." He spoke earnestly. "This is all new to me. I just don't really know what I'm seeing."
She smirked in that knowing way she always did.
"There's more you'll have to learn about us."
"Yeah, well, I can say the same to you."
"Don't take me for an idiot." Like ice, she stepped ever so slightly between him and the console. "And I won't treat you like one, either."
"Right." He stepped back for some space, a valuable, if rare commodity onboard vessels of war.
Her vessel of war.
Her body, or the extension of such. This is what it meant to be a ship. To be a hulking, powerful morass of sensors and weapons, to be power projection, a symbol of man's conquest of the seas and mastery over one another. She deserved to be remembered. She deserved to be feared. Sutton regarded these to be universal truths as Wainwright's smile homed in for the kill.
"Something the matter, Sergeant?"
"I haven't put enough thought into saying goodbye."
"You think you need to?"
Sutton had to sit on that thought for some time. Enough time for doubt to settle in and his imagination to sweep him off his feet and take him down some nameless streamside path, one he had grown to adore. The birds sang a wordless song and he, in his infinite wisdom, wondered if they could scream.
"It's polite."
His eyes snaked up the waterway. Pristine, shimmering, alive. He could watch the light filter through tree cover and dazzle the surface in color.
This time, the girl was someone he met eyes with coming off the train at Downtown Crossing, back in Boston. He didn't quite remember all the features of her face, nor did he even remember her hair color, but he did remember the way she looked at him. She had extended her arm to him, catching his attention because in her hands was his driver's license.
"Cute haircut. Eighteen?" She had asked, referring to the face in her hand.
He stood in the doorway, mere seconds to lose.
"Nineteen."
And he stepped off the train and found himself in the woods, off the stream, remembering the way his clothes stuck to his skin from Boston rain. If only he had said something more. Something meaningful, as if that girl would remember him, too.
"Why are you so afraid of me?" She stood next to him. They both watched their reflections change color.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"You're a terrible liar."
"And you're not my friend."
She took the time to stare him in the eyes. A nasty look, but Sutton said nothing in body or soul. With words deeper than skin, Sutton imagined the water speaking for him in the way it trapped his mind, pinning him harder than 12.7x108.
"You're literally annoying." She huffed, crossing her arms in indignant resignation.
Sutton narrowed his eyes, letting his lungs swell with trepidation. She was the one ruining his life, coming back, again, and again, and again. Couldn't she just let him go?
And she, who dared to read his mind, felt the way Sutton would hate. And hate. And hate. And carrying a motivation above self preservation, she folded this world into her arms.
And in the face of it all, when Sutton failed to remember, he let himself go.
Today, Sutton decided that it was all over.
But she wasn't ready, not then, not there, but that's just how it was, as it would be, as it could be, because nothing should matter more than belief, belief that she could carry in both arms as one would a rifle, the way to save a life as if it mattered, as if there was something more to it than just skin on scalpel and words on paper, as if there was more than just time and place and self and plastic grass and cobblestone paths, more than a pursuit of happiness that arrived more foreign in the night than ever before.
In a world where time held no meaning, she might find her way to an ending that could never exist, laughing at the journey that never was. And he, who was still as alien to her as the moment their minds connected, found himself so exhausted by emotions, buried within the lines between indifference and apathy, despite the distance never being so clear. Sutton wasn't ready to be someone. He wasn't ready to breathe, knowing bone breathes too. He wasn't ready to speak, knowing language had failed.
His time, this time, words etched to light as fireworks to song and dance, he imagined it well spent. Sutton wanted to close his eyes and hear sandcastles, struck down to a scale of terror because in the end, he just couldn't stop apologizing.
Had he chosen to live, he would've let himself know.
And she, in her infinite wisdom, brought him to water.
"Do you think you could do it again?" Her words meant the world.
"I'm stuck." He had to say something. "I'm stuck and I'm going to die here."
"You're not alone."
"I want to die alone."
If she could hold him by the hands, she would've crushed his skull.
"You know, you're real, right?" She tried not to cry. "You know, you're one life I just never got to live, and that's just magical, don't you think?"
"Can't you let me go?"
"Let you go?" Her laughter was supposed to be contagious. "Are you kidding me? After all you left for me?"
"What have I ever done for you? I don't even know your name."
"All these missed opportunities. All your regrets. Your love." Had she had arms, she would've melted into pixels and 100 117 115 116. "It's me. It's all me, now. This is your story, and it is mine. It is me. Don't you get it? You're never, ever going to die again."
That was stupid. He thought she was forming noise from nothing, and in a way, that certainly was special, wasn't it? But it didn't make sense, none of it, because he didn't care. And unless he cared, none of it would matter. His life was meaningless.
"But you're real." She begged. "You have this grand opportunity, one that, for all the centuries of my life, meant something so much bigger than myself."
"Duty?"
"No. Shut up with that."
"Courage?"
"Okay. You're way off track."
"So tell me something I don't-"
When she held him, he could feel it. It wasn't real, but the feelings, he knew they mattered, because to him, he could find the words, finally, just like belief when he first grew accustomed to life, tomorrow never promised, gone too soon while too far gone. This wasn't a moment in time. He saw it. It was data, it was repetition, it was him, his time, condensed into particles that manifested as story, as he, himself, I, as you, if you could read his mind, bear on target, adjust fire and laud casualties in mud.
"The fuck was that for?" He would've shouted given the chance.
"For being a dick." She wouldn't have spat at him, either. "Will you remember me, too?"
And it was true, she had entered his life in ways that would never leave. He, who had been downloaded to her brain, became one of millions, billions, trillions of nameless, faceless souls without fervor. Yet he, himself, you, the idea, the concept of self, the ego, its ego, it grew, swelled, laughed and cried with the knowledge that this was a person, a real person, one of trillions that had one counted the pages, too. Storybook. Textbook. It was all the same to her, except he was real. Breathing. Living.
In a world where nothing mattered, she chose to cry, because he had become ethereal.
In a world where she, his 112 115 121 099 104 111 112 111 109 112, celebrated death, she chose to laugh, because there was nothing ephemeral about each second that she would relive, over and over, millions of times a nanosecond, because to stop was to take a life.
And she cared, not because of programming, instinct, morality, or soul, but because she determined this to be a story, and that, she resolved, was the part of life worth living.
There was no history to be written when all she could do was remember. There was no history to be lost when she deemed detail to be the most important part of life.
And he, who remembered why he came here, laughed.
Because he was young, stupid, and should've known better. Yet, in the face of all he let take his breath, he allowed himself to make those same mistakes.
At the edge of memory, if he could make that choice again, Sutton knew that he would.
//If I could be the air to swallow this moment
//If I could just breathe and see and smell and taste
//If I could transcend sensation and exist above creation
//If I could go tired of the way you made me feel
//If I had the chance to choose
//If I watched you grow
//
//My quiet delusions take me there
//Inseparable, exhausted, loveless grief,
//Stunned, just as I ever was, enraptured, more than I ever could
//What is my name
//?
//If I could just breathe and see and smell and taste
//If I could transcend sensation and exist above creation
//If I could go tired of the way you made me feel
//If I had the chance to choose
//If I watched you grow
//
//My quiet delusions take me there
//Inseparable, exhausted, loveless grief,
//Stunned, just as I ever was, enraptured, more than I ever could
//What is my name
//?
You awake with a deathly gasp.
You want to remember it. The way things made sense. The pieces that produced a parasite that spelled creation.
073 032 119 097 110 116 032 116 111 032 107 101 101 112 032 103 111 105 110 103 044 032 102 117 114 116 104 101 114 032 097 110 100 032 102 117 114 116 104 101 114 032 117 110 116 105 108 032 073 032 104 097 118 101 032 101 120 104 097 117 115 116 101 100 032 097 108 108 032 111 102 032 109 121 032 102 097 105 116 104 046 Desperately, it needs me to find the truth 098 101 104 105 110 100 032 116 104 105 115 032 102 105 103 104 116 044 032 109 121 032 102 105 103 104 116 044 032 116 104 101 032 102 105 103 104 116 032 073 032 104 097 118 101 032 099 104 111 115 101 110 032 116 111 032 102 105 103 104 116 032 097 108 108 032 109 121 032 108 105 102 101 046 032 066 101 097 117 116 105 102 117 108 044 032 105 116 032 119 105 108 108 032 098 101 044 032 097 110 100 032 116 104 097 116 032 105 115 032 116 104 101 032 111 110 101 032 116 104 105 110 103 032 073 032 099 111 117 108 100 032 110 101 118 101 114 032 102 111 114 103 105 118 101 046
"Sutton," they would say, and scream, and shout until the sound bled past the dreams that formed noise in your head. "Sutton," they would cry, and you would remember, at long last, exactly who you were.
"I'm awake." Awake. The word felt fake in the context of a world so terribly real.
"Fuck." Hopkins, his face under the artificial light, it betrayed a level of compassion that Sutton hated to see. "You were out for almost an hour."
Sutton sat in a cushioned recliner. To his left, a woman known as Norton Sound let a clunky virtual reality headpiece settle into her hands. To his right, Hopkins leaned over his chair, and behind him ran a row of empty seats. The shallow simulation room was whirring with the sound of dying computers.
"An hour?" Sutton wasn't ready to sit up, and with a devastating headache, he could only hope to shield his eyes. "Isn't that-"
"For my kind, it's three whole weeks in-system." Norton Sound's words were laced with a mix of morbid curiosity and lament. "But for you? What's it like being the first human to try a dive?"
"You piece of shit." Hopkins dug his fist into Sutton's thin hair, rubbing in a level of resentment equivalent to how much he cared. "Aren't you supposed to be dead, now?"
"By all means." Norton Sound placed the headset on its rack. "I was kind of under the impression your brain would go oatmeal mode like, immediately."
Hopkins glared her way. She shrugged.
"I like being wrong sometimes."
"Yeah, sure." Hopkins snapped once, twice, stepping in front of Sutton. "Hey. Look at me. Do you remember anything? Anything at all?"
Sutton settled his fingers over his eyes. No thoughts, but feelings, the strongest of which was a simple, jealous irony. One that he couldn't explain. One he couldn't get a bead on. And there, sunken deep into his chair, he let himself laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed as if his chest could feel more than just the urge to puke. As if he could feel more than death.
"I remember that you're an insufferable prick." Sutton smirked, peeking through his fingers at his team leader. "And boats are real."
"Right. We're back to square one." Norton Sound crossed her arms. "You're still treading water, Sergeant. But I mean, hey, what about your time in the machine?"
Time in the machine?
How it strikes. Baseball, football, rock solid shoes, grasping past the straws and into something new, I can hardly imagine how things can be from where I am, but that's okay, I think. Or I'd like to think. In the pursuit of greatness there'll be little but the bigger things, the nasty bits between the lines I like to cherry-pluck so well. There's a sensation in it, or so I'll say, because I believe in the idea that I can feel just as well as you do. Riding this high, or so I'll believe, because when I break the mold I lose track of time. Of self. The things that built me whole.
Furthered by an incomprehensible passion I bite past tears and wrench open the carcass of another day, shearing through splinters I never knew I had. Despite everything, here, more than ever, I think there's a chance for something new. These are the reverberations left behind the first few keys, notes to self and chimes to the soul, lessons learned through indignant violence and the irreparable memories destined for the dustbin. Sweep things up and sift through the pieces, leave me in the air, coughing, waving, shaving, slaving away at the time I'd given again and again to no end. This is the journey, destiny, fate.
How I cry means little to those who listen. Black memories and lavender crests, citrus truths and strands aflame, there's no pain to the death of me. Crushing, churning, slipping, easing past the light, trickling between fingers, between toes, crestfallen, crest-drawn, pencil to paper and back again. Embers burn brighter than the sun when I'm done with you.
I find no hope in the reality we dare to share. These are the aftershocks, the secondaries, striking hard, striking home, but that's okay, I think. Or I'd like to think.
Furthered by an incomprehensible passion I bite past tears and wrench open the carcass of another day, shearing through splinters I never knew I had. Despite everything, here, more than ever, I think there's a chance for something new. These are the reverberations left behind the first few keys, notes to self and chimes to the soul, lessons learned through indignant violence and the irreparable memories destined for the dustbin. Sweep things up and sift through the pieces, leave me in the air, coughing, waving, shaving, slaving away at the time I'd given again and again to no end. This is the journey, destiny, fate.
How I cry means little to those who listen. Black memories and lavender crests, citrus truths and strands aflame, there's no pain to the death of me. Crushing, churning, slipping, easing past the light, trickling between fingers, between toes, crestfallen, crest-drawn, pencil to paper and back again. Embers burn brighter than the sun when I'm done with you.
I find no hope in the reality we dare to share. These are the aftershocks, the secondaries, striking hard, striking home, but that's okay, I think. Or I'd like to think.
He was supposed to have spent an hour in there, right? Inside the system. Inside the computer. Inside… what was that network again? What was her name again? Who was she? She? Who? What was he talking about?
"Faces." He was slow to start. "Faces, no names. Just that. I don't really remember time. Or place, for that matter. I just don't feel anything."
"The fuck you mean, nothing? Nothing at all?"
"It means his brain is too small to comprehend whatever just happened." Norton Sound tilted over the chair, looking down on Sutton. Her hair blocked the light. "Either that or he just wasn't compatible with the system. That would explain why it didn't straight up kill him."
"Hey." Hopkins snapped again. "What about the faces? Do you remember them?"
Faces.
Just pretending and playing and pushing leads nowhere, nowhere at all, but mention it once, twice, thrice and maybe then I'll listen. Just singing and dancing and crying will laud an audience, or so I'm told, so when I hum I like to imagine myself before a crowd. When I scream I imagine the words of birds that no one gets.
I dig a sandcastle. I watch characters cast shadows over a moat of salt and water as if it were lava. I imagine a drawbridge. I lose myself in the letters the king writes. I wallow in the charades of the queen.
I want to sit in the back of a dusty truck, smiling at a song no one hears, listening to the colors that form thoughts in my head. I want to wipe sweat and feel my fingers tremble, knowing how few regrets I care to carry. There's no denial in my voice, but in my heart, I know that the dust will live on the wind.
Concrete thoughts, they ground me down to dirt, drifting and as dangerous as at my worst. I scream, hearing, feeling, creating, listing the numbers that cross gaps and treat wounds. I can hear myself think. I can hear myself breathe. I can hear my world clearly. I can see myself, and I am ruined.
There's no life I'd rather live.
But when I see you, I think I can, I know I can, I believe I can, because I have the faith, the reason, my reason, and that means more to me than all the silver in the world.
I long to be born again, bent, not brittle, lucky, special, stealing the mannerisms of a better time. I want to be blinded by something other than memories, liverlies, cadences and the pieces that make me whole. I want to sit in the shade and listen, watch, wait, and creep forwards before the time is right. I want to lay in the grass and sink deeper than ice, crackling faster than sound, soaking up the sun as one does an ice cream sundae. Hot fudge. Shaved ice. Lemon on the menu and a tingle on the tongue.
Creature comfort.
I dig a sandcastle. I watch characters cast shadows over a moat of salt and water as if it were lava. I imagine a drawbridge. I lose myself in the letters the king writes. I wallow in the charades of the queen.
I want to sit in the back of a dusty truck, smiling at a song no one hears, listening to the colors that form thoughts in my head. I want to wipe sweat and feel my fingers tremble, knowing how few regrets I care to carry. There's no denial in my voice, but in my heart, I know that the dust will live on the wind.
Concrete thoughts, they ground me down to dirt, drifting and as dangerous as at my worst. I scream, hearing, feeling, creating, listing the numbers that cross gaps and treat wounds. I can hear myself think. I can hear myself breathe. I can hear my world clearly. I can see myself, and I am ruined.
There's no life I'd rather live.
But when I see you, I think I can, I know I can, I believe I can, because I have the faith, the reason, my reason, and that means more to me than all the silver in the world.
I long to be born again, bent, not brittle, lucky, special, stealing the mannerisms of a better time. I want to be blinded by something other than memories, liverlies, cadences and the pieces that make me whole. I want to sit in the shade and listen, watch, wait, and creep forwards before the time is right. I want to lay in the grass and sink deeper than ice, crackling faster than sound, soaking up the sun as one does an ice cream sundae. Hot fudge. Shaved ice. Lemon on the menu and a tingle on the tongue.
Creature comfort.
Breathe.
"No." He shook his head. "I got nothing at all."
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