Conduit

Ch. 1

Victoria blinked at me. Then she grinned, "Of course. I think all of the time."

I lifted my chin, grinning back at her. "Oh yeah? What are you thinking now?"

Without missing a beat, she said, "That you've spent so long working on my update, you forgot all about Sanchez and his 400 Series."

My grin dropped immediately. Shit, how could I forget? Looking over at the digital clock hanging over my grandfather's desk, I not only realized I was late, but I was late late. Two hours. Fifteen minutes.

"Shit!" Quickly zipping my bomber to my neck, I turned back to the desk and the mess on top of it. I picked at the tools I needed, the ones I should've organized the second I stopped using it, and forced them, unevenly and cramped, into my grandfather's old toolbox. The latches struggled to close, but they did. As I turned, I held the handle tight and brought the box with me. Victoria looked at me with wide eyes. "Elijah?"

I looked from her face to the clock, then back at her again. I knew the subtle, small, tiny panic was all over my face. It wasn't like Sanchez was a big, important, much-needed job. No, not at all.

Just needed some food to eat. And bills needed to get paid.

I extended my hand for hers. "You're coming with me, right?" I asked.

She smiled, leaning towards the side of the desk. In one swoop, she scooped up my truck's keys. "Of course, I am," she said.

"Good." With a chuckle, I took the keys from her and flipped them in my hands. "Let's go make some money."

***

My city was quiet and had been for years. Driving down the empty streets of Chicago clashed with the movies I'd seen growing up. Once filled with life, action, and drama, the city I knew and grew up in was a ghost of itself. Then again, the whole world was. My father used to say it was a blessing in disguise.

Who needed the hustle and bustle of a world that couldn't sustain it? By the time I was born, Earth had an expiration date. And the clock ticked in my timeline. Was I worried? No. If I'd let fear consume me then I'd be huddled in a bunker, waiting for the end of times.

"All right." I stopped the truck at the intersection and slid my hand over to the radio. A wave of my hand brought up the screen. Two quick flicks of my wrist raised the volume. The news played; wasn't what I wanted. The government made sure every car in the nation powered on with the world's daily broadcast. And you couldn't change it until it was done.

Pressing myself against my seat, I put my hands back on the steering wheel and looked out my driver's side window. The doom and gloom crowd stood outside. Signs were in their hands. I sighed through my nose, shaking my head. Their bunker must've been nearby.

The streetlight needed to change already.

"Lyons has announced the need for a new Series. Developers are working as we speak," the radio host stated. Pulling my gaze away from the 'We're Dying Tonight' signs wasn't hard, but listening to the news wasn't any better. The media either didn't realize the terror they caused or didn't care.

"With the latest updates reaching farms and machineries, Lyons Industries say they are staying up-to-date with our necessities and can see our times changing in coming months."

Changing, huh? Sure.

Let the news tell it, the world's united Lyons Industry was doing all it could to keep the planet from falling off its axis. For every depleted nutrient, mineral, and animal was a robotic replacement. The Personals were the first batch to replace the workforce, allowing humans the ability to destress and unwind. Mental health took priority. Then there were the Insectades, or bee replacements, to maintain the natural course of pollination once bees became extinct. There were bots for farms, for mountains. For everything the planet couldn't support on its own.