Page 62 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
She says, “Tammy kept me updated. Said you messed yourself up, said it was bad, but. Fuck, dude.”
Crane just shrugs. He didn’t appreciate accidentally welding his eyes closed and nearly giving himself an infection with the piercings, but those were small prices to pay.
“Also…” She looks him up and down. “Don’t take this the wrong way, butseriously, when is the last time you showered.”
Crane does not want to talk about that.
Jess waves to get Stagger’s attention. “You fix that, okay? I know that piece of shit up there isn’t going to help.”
And then she hands over her phone, which has been opened to the jankiest text-to-speech app Crane has ever seen in his life. It’s riddled with advertisements and the UI is ugly as sin.
She says, “The good ones are like a hundred dollars, but I thought it might work for now?”
Crane frowns.
“Only if you’re okay with it, though. Tammy says you don’t even like writing notes, so I was worried this might be pushing it.”
Crane doesn’t respond. He’s too busy tapping through the options. It’s nothing like the AAC program Aspen and Birdie have on the tablet. No prepared phrases, no autofill, nothing. It seems straightforward enough, though.
It’s embarrassing how long he wanted to be silent before the hive finally gave him permission. In kindergarten, Sophie growled and hissed at people until Mom got sick of it and begged her to use her words like a big girl. In middle school, she researched what injuries could damage her voice box until the computer’s cyber-nanny kicked in and alerted the teacher. She wanted to stop, but she was so smart and so eloquent that it was never going to happen.
Crane is silent now. He has control.
He takes the phone and types,“Thank you.”The generated voice is a janky mishmash cobbled together from cut-and-paste syllables.
“Oh god,” Jess says, “it sounds so bad.”
“That’s why it was free.”
“Yeah, I hear it now!” Jess leans over Crane’s shoulder as if looking at the screen will reveal why the audio quality is utter shit. “I’m sorry, that sucks. We don’t have to use this if you don’t want.”
“It’s fine.”
“Can I ask? Why you don’t talk. If that’s too personal, you can tell me to fuck off, but—when we met, you said you could, so I’ve been curious. Sue me.”
Crane mulls over his answer for a bit.“In high school, I won the statewide public speaking championship.”
Jess gapes. “No way.”
“Twice. Was gonna go to school for political comm, PR as backup.”
“Political—no. Absolutely not. You’re an asshole.”
The robotic voice reading out“Fuck you”is funny enough that Jess laughs, throwing back her head, vapor trailing into the air. The window to the apartment living room is right above them; Levi could probably see it, if he was keeping an eye on them.
“So, you were headed to school, had big dreams and everything. What happened?”
“Mental illness.”
“Oh hey,” Jess says. “Same.”
Crane raises an eyebrow.
“Probably,” she backtracks. “What, you think an okay person ends up here?”
Still, Crane isn’t sure it’s the same. The hive found Jess locked in a boarded-up room. Nothing even happened to Crane. She has a reason to be like this. He’s not sure he does.
They sit and watch the snow for a while. Jess sticks out her tongue to catch a flake. Crane leans against Stagger’s arm for warmth, tries breathing out like a dragon the way he used to when he was little. He hadn’t realized how much he missed fresh air until he was out here.
