ROGUE REBORN - ONC 2023

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Cecil showed me how to operate the device—a phone, an actual phone that I could slip into my pocket and that would ring or vibrate when someone was calling me, or sending me a message. A message sent into this tiny, brick-like thing? Words displayed on a screen like magic, scrolling across and allowing me to read them?

"Du jamais vu," I said in my native French; never seen before. The phone fascinated me, and I spent most of our tranquil stroll through nighttime New York City with my eyes glued to the screen as I pressed on it, getting the hang of how it worked.

"You're fitting in perfectly," Cecil said, amusement in his tone. I looked up to see him grimacing, but it was a playful face, a sweet but mocking one. "You look like all the Gen-Z kids that walk around without paying attention to where they're going."

"That's what you're here for; to guide me," I said, returning to the screen as it loaded something called a website. Cecil had explained to me how to type, and I'd discovered a search engine that loaded information on anything I asked for. It was exhilarating. "What's Gen-Z?"

Cecil snorted, then snatched the phone from me and slid it into my pocket, purposely grazing my thigh with his fingertips. He then slowly, languorously pulled his hand back up my waist until he yanked it away and pointed ahead. "If you want to be even more fascinated, look at that."

I was still blinking at my now bare hands, and reeling from the man's sexual contact with my body, but I peered up. We'd stopped in front of another window display. This one didn't feature stick thin mannequins, though; it featured dark, big, flat screens. Similar to the phone, but bigger, wider, flatter.

"What am I looking at? Giant phones?" I squinted at the square and rectangular screens, tilting my head, wondering how they powered on and off, and how one would talk into them.

"Televisions," said Cecil, and I caught him smirking in the window reflection. He was studying me as I gawked at the televisions.

"Televisions?" I gulped; that word was familiar. If I remembered right, those things were a mere thought back in nineteen-twenty-three, not quite invented yet. We had radios, we had cinemas; but personal screens that we could put in our homes to sit in front of and admire televised programs? No, never.

We advanced—once I'd disconnected my face from the window, busy drooling at all the possibilities, all the movies I'd be able to watch without having to sit in a cramped room with a bunch of other people.

Cecil got down to business, switching to what appeared to be a topic that was important to him. "Music," he said, his face serious. "You'll need to be up to speed on what's good and what's not, if you want to survive in this century."

I wrinkled my nostrils remembering the thump thump beats I'd heard from my room earlier. "From what I gather, it's a lot of drums and garbled language?"

Cecil laughed as we swayed by a couple in a locked embrace, fumbling for each other's tongues. "That was probably dubstep; it was blasting downstairs while I waited for you to wake. That's a popular style of music."

I feigned a gag. "It's abominable."

"It's popular for a reason," Cecil shrugged, "but I don't like it myself, either. If you want to fit in, know this. Country music is hit or miss, most rock music is classic, and pop tunes on the radio are trash, but fun to dance to."

"Country?" I snickered at him. "Rock, I'm sure that's lovely. And pop? Gosh, what are these weird names?"

"You'll get used to it. The more you wander around, the more you'll get acquainted with this era. The more you'll hear those terms, learn them, register them. And then," he patted my arm, "you'll get to form your own opinion without judging these styles on their names."