Page 6 of Coldwire
Tamera pokes her head through my door.
“Do you want any breakfast, honey?”
“I’m okay.” The security system beeps from a panel by the television. It’s announcing an external temperature change, which could mean a dust storm is blowing in. I already have no desire to go outside, ever, but our house system’s diligent notifications only add to my repulsion. I’d probably shrivel like a raisin if I stepped outside. A radioactive raisin.
“Are you sure?” Tamera presses.
“I’m sure.”
Tamera puts her hands on her hips. “Real food is good for you.”
I don’t have any memories of my adoptive mom because I was too young when she passed away. Tamera is the closest maternal figure I’ve known—though, technically, she’s my adoptive great-aunt. While Dad is busy in Melnova, Tamera’s the one who takes care of me. She lives here, at the Haven State house, staying close on the off chance my Pod needs maintenance while I’m inside. During the day she’ll log into upcountry as a daily subscriber, help Dad out at the Melnova apartment, and when it’s time to take some rest, she’ll come back down, getting sleep in the real.
I huff, throwing my legs over the alcove.
“But, Tamera,” I whine, “I’m so not hungry. Perilously unhungry. In fact, I might throw up if I get a single bite inside of me.”
It’s not entirely theatrics. I’m usually somewhat nauseous when I come downcountry, even though the reset is supposed to be refreshing. Once I get back into the Pod, the nutrient line will keep me fed. I’m fond of the nutrient line. Most other cadets, like Rayna, go downcountry way more than mandated to work out and feed their real bodies. They say that no amount of training upcountry can replace physical exercise in the real world. Meanwhile, I’m convinced I could stay logged in forever if the mandatory reset didn’t exist. The Pods are built to hold us indefinitely as long as someone is topping up the nutrient line, and my body never shows signs of decline when I’m forced to log off. Clearly I’m doing fine without popping down as frequently.
“All right, well”—Tamera checks her watch, waiting for the band to flash—“you still have about twenty minutes before your Pod unlocks. I’ll make you some coffee or something. Your father always takes tea upcountry, but if you ask me, I don’t think they’ve quite perfected the caffeine reaction….”
Tamera’s mostly talking to herself as she disappears back into the hall, then down the stairs to the kitchen. On my reset days, she doesn’t go upcountry until I do. So she waits with me, bustling around a wilted house with little to do. Secretly I think she’s impatient to return to the Melnova apartment, where she has a set list of tasks: buy ingredients to cook with, dust the furniture, put plants out on the porch. When I video-call Dad, I always see Tamera in the background, cooking despite her insistence that it’s all just pixels. Her dyed blond hair and happily plump shape make her appear younger, but Tamera lived a whole life before upcountry was invented thirty years ago. She speaks of virtual as a false reality, a copycat plane trying to replace the true experience. It’s why she only uses a Claw headset and doesn’t want a Pod of her own, so that she can be in and out as she pleases.
The windowpane rattles again. On the television screen, James Moore mouths through the NileCorp origin story, and I finally clamber off the alcove, contributing the audio for him in perfect synchrony:“The future is online. The future is digital.”The StrangeLoom icon flashes in the corner, an infinity-shaped arrow swallowing itself up like an ouroboros, and I wave the television off entirely.
Eighteen more minutes. I pad down the hallway. In the bathroom, the small touchpad for the light is always farther away than I think, and I grope my hand back and forth on the wall. My mirror image barely resembles a person hovering at the hazy gray entryway, more a silhouette than a body, more a phantom than anything solid. I don’t like being downcountry. I don’t like the empty white walls, the cold tile floors, and the clinical sterile smell that pervades every corner of the house except for the alcove, never going away no matter how much I try to create ventilation in my room.
The round bulb flares on. With the light, I’m suddenly crystal clear in the mirror, and my vision lurches. Everything appears flat. I have to take a deep breath. I force myself to count:Ten, nine, eight…
It’s called Wakeman Syndrome. For as long as upcountry has been around, so has the disorder that afflicts the 0.5 percent of people who question their reality as a result. It’s named after President Elliot Wakeman, the guy in charge when NileCorp introduced StrangeLoom and started allowing people upcountry. Wakeman was halfway into his second term when he went off the rails and tried to launch a nuclear weapon at Cega. Despite being downcountry at the time, he was convinced that nothing was real and he needed to wake up from a simulation. Atahua’s western neighbor barely escaped annihilation because the vice president talked him down and had him committed for psychiatric help.
A rather fitting disorder given his name, and the term stuck.
Breathe, breathe.
I’ve only told Dad about my symptoms, but he thinks I’m overreacting. He says it’s not Wakeman Syndrome, that I’m just too overworked at school. He offered to refer me to his therapist so I can talk through my feelings—normalfeelings, he insists, for someone of my age and ambition. He thinks I need to pick up some hobbies, try to enjoy life outside my grades. In elementary I studied excessively to ensure I’d qualify for Nile Military Academy, and now at Nile I study excessively to make valedictorian. Of course I’ve grown paranoid that I’m nothing but an incomprehensible warp of pixels and code. All I’ve known is putting good work in and extracting good results. When I’m not upcountry as an avatar, when I’m supposed to be relaxing as a real girl, time feels blurry, and the things that I’ve done mere minutes ago feel as though they’ve faded hours into the past. I get the sense that time ceases to exist, that if I think too hard about it, I’ll accidentally break out from its hold and become lost in a floating void.
“Lia?” Tamera’s voice floats from the stair landing. “Which mug is yours? The blue or the green?”
“Blue,” I call back. “Thanks!”
On Dad’s official government About Me! page, they call me Lia Sullivan, even though by their own law that’s not allowed. There have been one too many Medan child spies pretending to be orphans, which means that while Atahuans can take us in, love us, make us a part of their family, we can’t ever shake off the Ward surname, and we’re still mandated to attend military school once we’re of age. Wards are also responsible for our own tuition, so we all go into debt to these institutions we’re forced to attend, and our adoptive parents can’t relieve the burden. It’s a protective mechanism for Atahua, allegedly, but everyone knows what it achieves. Atahua needs spies for their cold war too, and this guarantees them their most precious resource: Medan faces who can blend in when they’re sent to the enemy nation.
So when Dad messaged me the appointment slot for therapy last week, I declined. I can’t risk the academy suspecting I have Wakeman Syndrome. They won’t want a cadet struggling with a disorder in NileCorp’s private forces, and the only reason I work so hard at the academy is to secure the most desired posting after graduation. I’m going to stay close to Dad, in Melnova. I’m not going to be used as ammunition in their war.
I reach behind my head, touching the slight hollow at the top of my neck, where my hairline starts. There’s no scar. The procedure is so small and routine that the skin heals over perfectly to encase the chip inside. I got it when I enrolled on the StrangeLoom system at five years old—everyone does to allow full immersion through neural signals. Sometimes I wish they’d left a scar, just so I’d have some minor difference between my body and my avatar. Proof showing I have real skin that can be cut.
My hand twitches, unexpectedly itching as though I’ve been bitten by a frenzy of fire ants. I scrunch hard, making a fist when my arm returns to my side.
“I swear, Lia, I don’t know how there are so many mugs in this kitchen.”
Tamera again. While she continues chatting idly from downstairs, Ireach for the shelves beside the bathroom sink, trailing my fingers along the items. One of the fine-tooth combs sticks above the rest, its handle thin and tail-like, sharpened at the end.
Before I can think twice, I have the comb in one hand, pressing into the palm of my other. Its sharp end sinks into my skin, burrows parallel to a vein, carving an indent. Then I push harder, harder. My hand stings fiercely, but it’s not enough. As long as it is bearable, it might be nothing but a virtual sensory response, manufactured to make me believe in a generated reality.
Break,I urge, imagining my skin splitting apart.Show me something undeniable.
“Lia!”
