Ro (A Cyberpunk Retelling of Romeo and Juliet)

45

JULES CAPULET

Sirens go off as we sit side by side on the rooftop. Our backs rest on the generator, transparent glass and neon rings of light bouncing in fluid rhythm within the system pipes. Ro slings her arm around my shoulder, pulling me tightly to her as our legs dangle off the edge of the Eye-Lens corporation tower. We stare down at it all. A hologram spread out across the side of a building, our faces illuminated in an unnatural blue-gray glow.

"If nobody knows we are alive except each other..." I venture, tracing our faces from afar, "then are we dead to the world?"

Ro laughs at that, pinching at her ear and tugging hard absentmindedly at the piercing. "If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?"

"Ro," I pull her tight to me. "I'm being serious."

"As am I," she replies, murmuring in my ear, "we have enough, Jules. We are enough for each other. We were too much for the world."

"Or the world was too much for us." I lean my head against her shoulder, her hair damp with sweat. I'm sure I wasn't exactly a sight myself, having come out of whatever induced state Jack Paris had me under. "Do you think there is any world or time where we might be together?"

Ro doesn't reply, staring out at our faces, blown up to ghastly proportions in the hologram. The news scrolling beneath it, proclaiming our deaths. She gets to her feet, pulling me with her as we stare out at the night sky. The sirens wailing below. "The world will know the truth of what happened here," she sticks her hands in her pockets, and I stand to link my other hand through hers. "Or rather, the world will know one version of the many truths they care to listen to." Together, we watch as the stories scroll by. Again, and again, and again.

The hologram flickers out, leaving our faces cast in darkness. The sirens go silent. The air is cold. We stand side by side, hip to hip. The world keeps on going despite our little drama.

It will live long after us, until there is no world left to live.

***

Emir Prince walks into the room that's filled with monitors. He sits in a chair facing away from the newscast. Ro and Jules. Jules and Ro. He's said their names thousands upon thousands of times to all those demanding he tell them the truth.

He'd received a coded document just that morning, followed by DNA samples to prove their deaths. Enough biomaterial to hand off to the necro department.

How sickening it was. To organize death with numbers and stats and figures, pretending these people never lived at all.

He reaches for the glass he'd left on the table, places it against his lips and drinks deeply. Strange to contemplate it. Two young lovers with two families that hated each other. Star-crossed. Emir would think it tragic if he had more time to think on it. But this city, New Verona seething with all its broken pieces and people. There was no time to think.

The recording played. His final notes on the case. He leans his head back, closing his eyes. Loses himself to the audio clip flickering into a blue-gray existence.

"This morning, a grim sort of justice. Even the sun doesn't shine," a sad laugh to which there's a choked sort of response from the listeners. Blank-faced. Tired. "Even the sun won't shine today..." Emir sighs to hear his final words, the point at which he had nothing more to say except to speak on sorrow. "I will repeat this sad story, again and again. That's what you all want to hear, isn't it? The sordid details. The salacious stories. At the end of it all, some will be pardoned, others punished. But know this."

Emir turns the monitors off at this point. His thoughts haunt him enough.

Never was a story of more woe.

None than the tale of Jules and their true love, Ro.

He accepts an incoming call from an unknown source. Some would consider this stupid for a police chief to do, but he does it because he's tired. And frankly, he's so angry and frustrated with the world that he just doesn't care enough to listen to reason. Let the danger get me, he thinks, it will kill the shell that is left.

"My name is Lawrence, a man of god." The voice tells him.

"And what do you want, man of god?" Emir replies.

The voice laughs, and somewhere far away, the final key is pressed. The last program's code is unleashed on the cyber system to change the city for good.

"The time has come for all to end. But before it does, let peace begin."