Transciety
by HardeeBurger
We are many. We are one. We have seen what has become of this world, and who is responsible. We demand punishment. We demand repayment. We do not forget.
Bob stumbled down the street as if he were a drunken fool. Thanks to his training in security maintenance, he was able to avoid the oversight drones that surveilled the city from the sky. He had no knowledge of DoorVue or StreetLite cameras in the area, if any, but since Seth lived in the Warehouse District, Bob was hopeful there would be few.
We celebrate the glory of the Purification Directive. We live in a world now secure from contradictions to the truth.
Bob wished he could dig in his skull, through his ear holes or his eye sockets, or perhaps by clawing open the surgical scar on the back of his neck. Anything to pull out the brainboard he had installed at the insistence of his wife, Cecilia. She had one in her head too, of course, atop the cortex of her brain. Their longstanding use by psychologists proved them to be safe and effective, and so more recently, marriage therapists were allowed to put them in their clients as well.
Bob hoped and prayed with all his might that Cecilia's brainboard hadn't been hacked, as his so painfully was.
Our unification of thought is more powerful than any army, more devastating than all their weapons. We are a people with one will and one purpose, and with a single cause.
"Leave me alone!" Bob cried, hopeful that no one had heard him.
The streets were all but deserted, as few ventured out this late at night in an area that wasn't residential. Seth was a stained glass artisan, and lived in a studio apartment above his shop. By walking to Seth's residence, instead of driving by car, no GPS tracker would divulge Bob's whereabouts to the authorities.
He struggled with thinking clearly as the hack scolded him in his mind.
The unclean will pay for their filthy deeds. Their perverse logic and lies have cost us for too long.
Did Gulf Street come before Ogden? No, it was Ogden, then Hunter, then Gulf. Once there, Bob turned left and followed the building numbers until they reached the 900s. He had been to Seth's apartment only once before, and that was in the daylight while driving, to fix the lead glass in a transom window. The business portion of the shop was sure to be closed at this hour, but Bob planned on pounding on every door until one of them led him to Seth.
They are the ones responsible! We've seen and heard what they've done, and we'll bury them for their dishonor.
"I have done nothing wrong!" Bob moaned, as if the voice in his brain could hear him.
We demand repayment!
"You'll get nothing from me!"
Bob truly believed, with what little he had left of his sanity, that he was an innocent man. Like many other couples, he and his wife got brainboarded to help save their marriage. It had been a boon at first, allowing them to mesh their minds. They shared their thoughts and hopes and dreams, intimately, for an hour or two twice a week, under the guidance of their therapist.
Cecilia was so sweet, he'd found! An imp who loved life dearly, especially the part she shared with her gorgeous husband. She was free-spirited and an artisan, a girl with a Bohemian heart. She worked as an international airline attendant because the comps and pay were good. Certainly more than Bob ever made as a mere tech-mechanic.
Through Cecilia and her artsy friends, Bob had become a runway model for Tylene Gunn, a world-renown fashion designer. Tylene was unconventional too, a not-by-the-books sort of person. She believed brainboarded couples should be able to mesh for as long as they wanted - continuously if they desired.
Which is what Bob and Cecillia chose to do.
We demand punishment!
With both Bob and Cecilia now working as world travelers, it cheered them to test how much distance could lay between them, yet they'd still be able form thoughts in the mind of the other. It was not much more than fifty miles, and Bob often missed his wife dearly, certainly more so than she might miss him.
We do not forget!
He missed her greatly now. "Stop it!" Bob cried out to no one, as he stumbled from door to door, searching for Seth.
Bob cupped his hands to his eyes and peered through the glass of a dusty and dimly lit studio. He saw twenty or more panes of glass, in all colors and textures and sizes. A kiln to melt them if needed, next to an enormous table that was covered with tools, such as grinders and drills and saws. The scent of solder and flux eked through a hole in the caulk around the window frame.
It smelled like heaven to Bob. He pounded on the door with all his might.
Eventually a light came on, then an interior door opened that led up a stairway. A bear of a man plodded through it, groggy from having been wakened. He scratched at a full length beard and ran his fingers through shaggy brown hair. Slowly and timorously, he approached the door Bob had been pounding.
We shall prevail!
Seth peered through the very same window, from the inside looking out. "Bob?" he asked. "Is that you?"
A boy's voice came from the man looking in. "Help me, Seth! Please let me in! I'm so scared!"
Seth was more a friend of Cecilia's. In fact, Bob would never have met the man, had he not broken that window above the door on his house. But the event had been rather recent, only eight days ago, and the two hit it off well. On this fact, Seth more than Bob, as the bear found the model to be handsome. Seth told Bob at the time, that although he was a stained glass artist, he had training in brainboard technology. He dabbled with computers as well as with glass, and bragged about his skills in a language the mechanic in Bob understood.
Slowly, Seth undid the locks on the steel door leading into his shop. After the last deadbolt slid free, he opened the door a crack, to peek at his late night caller.
"What do you want, Bob? Why are you here?"
In scant control of his actions, Bob pushed the door further open. He burst through and fell like a child into the arms of Seth. Despite Bob's firm body and athletic build, Seth was a much larger man. He draped his arms over Bob and pressed his hands to Bob's back.
A whimpered eked out of Bob, who spoke to Seth through his chest. "I'm hacked and I don't know what to do!"
They embraced for a silent moment, as Seth absorbed what Bob had said. "You're hacked?" Seth asked, to be clear. "Your brainboard? It's turned on?"
Bob nodded, causing his face to rub Seth's shirt. He smelled like fire and iron and beauty. Strength forged in heat and ash.
Bob squeezed Seth's big body harder. "Is Cecilia on?" Seth asked.
"She is, but she's not here. She's working a flight to Paris, or to Spain or somewhere."
"And the cronks are hacking your brain?"
It had to be civilian security. They were the only authorities who would know if an untethered brainboard was on.
We celebrate the glory of the Purification Directive!
Bob released Seth and stood weakly. "It hurts so bad," he confessed. "Can you help?"
Seth smiled and with a gentle hand, led Bob up the stairs to his loft. "I got stuff here where at least we can look, and see what might be going on."
After fifteen minutes that seemed like forever, as the torture in Bob's brain never yielded, Seth had a sensor mat in place on Bob's head. Seth tut-tutted and mumbled at the readout.
"What?" Bob asked. "What's it say?"
"These people are serious about you," Seth said in a monotone voice. "It's an attack directed just at you, to separate you, I think, from your wife."
"Why? What are they after with me?"
Seth mumbled but didn't answer, as he fussed over dials and bits of data. A few minutes later, he spoke again.
"They've got your security code and your override. I can't even shut your board off."
Our unification of thought is more powerful than any army!
"You've got to help! Make them leave me alone!"
More devastating than all their weapons!
Bob wailed. With compassion, Seth gazed upon his sad house guest. He tweaked at more dials and bits of data.
"I'll see what I can do," he said while studying his machines and monitors. "I hope I don't fry your brain."
The unclean will pay for their filthy deeds!
"Do anything! It has to stop!"
After another hour of torture and tweaking, Seth's apartment became as airless as a tomb. Bob felt like someone had cut off all his fingers. He could no longer reach toward Cecilia across an ocean of thought, anxiously awaiting her arrival in his mind. He was alone, complete and utter, without anyone in his head with him for the first time in weeks.
Without his wife in his heart. Without her love in his soul.
"I've turned your brainboard off," Seth said as he looked into Bob's eyes. "I don't think the cronks know I've done it."
The loneliness hurt almost as much as the hacking.
"Are you all right?" Seth inquired with compassion.
All the hopes and dreams and aspirations Cecilia had stuffed into her husband for over one hundred days began flowing, filling the voids left by the loss of her mesh. Her clean scent, her soft touch, her breath - intimacies Bob hadn't felt physically in a long while - they were gone, but they still provided comfort through his memory of her being in him.
"What's happening?" Seth asked, showing concern. "Bob? Are you there?"
Bob pulled the sensor mat off his head, holding it in his lap. Seth approached carefully and took it from him. Seth then lowered himself to his haunches, to look up into Bob's downcast eyes.
They connected.
"I'm alone," Bob confessed with great sadness.
Seth took hold of Bob's right hand. "No. You're not."
"I'm empty inside. Now there's nothing."
"Bob. I am here."
Bob's eyes began to wander. His hands flexed, his body swayed. He wanted to kiss Seth, to reward him, to thank him. To have their bodies pressed together again, caring for each other like when they first hugged. To feel Seth, to smell him, to taste him, warm and wrapped up in safety.
Seth helped Bob to his feet, then guided him to a more comfortable, upholstered chair. As Bob sat down, Seth lowered his mighty body, to again place his eyes below the level of Bob's.
Seth then began a short speech. "Brainboarding all the time with a person you love is a blessing as well as a curse. It leaves you empty, half alive, feeling lonely when you find out they're gone"
Bob nodded. Seth was right.
"But it also leaves you with a part of them. You become them, and they become you."
Bob smiled. Amazing amounts of Cecilia swirled to fill in the holes the loss of her mesh left in his heart. Her impish nature. Her sweetness. Her free spirit and artistic flair.
"Why would civilian security want to torture me? What were they trying to do?"
Seth shrugged, tottering a bit as he hunched close and low. "Well Bob, you're getting to be sort of famous. They know what Tylene has been doing, letting her models brainboard all the time."
"So? I mean, at best it's a misdemeanor. They might fine me, or maybe, I don't know - make me do community service."
Seth took Bob again by the hand. Skilful, sturdy, understanding. Capable of so many things.
"No," Seth said. "That's not the whole of it. You're brainboarded to your wife. A woman who loves you very much."
Bob let the parts of Cecilia still in him overflow from the holes in his heart, engulfing him, consuming him, swallowing.
Oh God. It felt so good.
"It's making you become gender-fluid. You're moving between being a man and being a woman."
It now made perfect sense. The reason why Bob dodged the oversight drones and other forms of surveillance, to be with a man he barely knew. Why he thought to seek help from Seth and no other, a friend of Cecilia's and not one of his.
Seth smiled in a sensitive, half-joking way. "It's probably also making you feel a little bisexual."
A very gay friend of Cecilia's.
Bob stuttered and mumbled and blushed. "Thank you. Thank you, Seth, for saving my life."
"You're welcome."
Bob looked the man deep in his eyes. "If I could, and I don't mean to intrude... can I please stay with you here, for the night?"
Seth rose from his haunches to stand. He guided Bob again to his feet.
"Of course," Seth said in a voice almost as pretty as Cecilia.