Page 136 of Coldwire
I stop directly before it, my hands hovering over the half-open cover. The polished surface curves at the head and the feet, making rounded edges on both ends. I follow the insulated wires that trail out from the underside of the Pod and locate the port in the wall, near the air vent.
“Don’t break it,” I warn myself. I ease my nails under the protective cover of the port, pulling at the plastic. It doesn’t budge for a second. I shift into a crouch and tug hard. Then the plastic cover comes off with the wires stuck in the center. If it had been plugged into the wall, the plastic would have slid along the wires, looped around them like a bracelet. Instead, there’s no port beneath the plastic, nothing except for smooth wallpaper. It’s no different from the windows. Everything is merely an illusion.
Which means that the Pod doesn’t evenwork.
I throw the plastic onto the carpet, letting the wires tangle up in their useless bundle. Each time I get into this Pod, it’s only for show. I haul the cover open properly and tap the back where the screen is, and it lights up despite not being plugged in. It lights up because it’s never been the Pod taking me upcountry. I’ve always already beenhere.
So how do I get out?
I blink hard. The main panel of my display returns.
System Settings
Recent Items
Sleep
My breath shudders. I hover overSystem Settingsand can’t make myself press down on the option. I don’t want to know what exists in the metadata that runs my avatar. I don’t want to have to face the truth if it tells me what is becoming clearer and clearer. Dad told me I was only anxious. Even the feed offered me a real illness that explained why I couldn’t understand the nature of my reality—why I always felt as though I were floating above everything like a ghost, something incorporeal that never truly touched the people around it.
System Settingsopens itself anyway. I’ve been staring at it for too long. The first two lines are familiar. My credentials have always been listed in the profile section of my usual display.
Everything beneath is entirely new.
User ID: #204007012058051774021
Password: numberoneforever
Property of the Mercy Labs, 208 M Street, The Independent Virtual Territory of Kunlun
Citizenship: Medaluo
Date of Birth: 2040-07-01
Citizenship: Kunlun
Date of Acquisition: 2040-07-01
Entry Password: [Machine is to logic as wordplay is to ___]
I want to throw up. I want to scream. I want to tear apart this house brick by brick only to see what is underneath and learn why they have put me in here.
But I do none of those things. If I want answers, it’s clear where I need to go.
I clamber into the Pod, slamming the cover shut over me. I don’t bother with the Claw, don’t bother settling properly into the headrest. If I were truly downcountry, I would need these processes to obtain access, but this must be a rendered shortcut, some pathway for me to jump across spaces in upcountry.
I tap the screen hard to trigger the map, then drag it over to Medaluo, hunting down Offron. I’ve seen the lifestyle videos on the feed—I know how people activate their access to Kunlun. They double-tap Offron, and that tells the Pod they would actually like to access Kunlun, not upcountry Offron. A window pops up, asking for a second password.
I breathe hard, gritting my teeth. Then, letter by letter, I enter w-i-t.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Come on—”
It spits me onto the street with a lurch, my shoulder crunching hard on the pavement.
I barely have the time to brace and stop myself from rolling right onto the road. A car speeds past.
“Hey!”
I flinch, swiveling at my waist. A young boy stands a few paces away on the sidewalk, holding the leash to a cat. He’s dressed in overalls, a luxury brand label stitched on the ankle cuff.
