The Second Sphere
Chapter 2

My eyes fluttered open. Above me, a night sky stretched, black and speckled with white pinpricks—the infinite universe. The room smelled musty. I pulled my hand from the Source node and scratched my face. I shivered as the bed hardened and began to tilt upright. I thought about the Green Revolution and the day ahead.

“Good morning, Orion,” a sweet voice said. “I hope you have a wonderful day.” My servicer, Betty, the link-up program that kept my household in order, sounded chipper. But still, I wished I were back at the Source. Lila and Sam were 238,857 miles away. And the distance was more than just physical. My desire to visit them, although sincere, was cloaked in an overwhelming selfishness that just wouldn’t go away.

The lights came up slowly, feigning the coming of the sun on the horizon. The black night peeled away and, along with it, the white glow of the stars. I looked at the clock next to my bed. It was 5:20 am. I’d gotten a solid four hours of rejuvenation. Next to the clock was a small black and green fluorescent drive. Before I stood, I grabbed the drive, put it next to the chip in my neck and passed one unit of Love into me. Immediately, the world began to pulse with a bright yellow sheen.

I got out of bed. My gray sheets slid away, and I popped my feet into the worn slippers on the floor. I stood naked and shivering, remembering the pleasant evening before my time at the Source. I raised my head. Across the room, a woman sat in the chair in front of my link-up. She was still like lake water.

Then my head began to buzz. I felt the waves of information coming. I put my hand up to my neck as the cacophony rose. A shiver jumped through me and I closed my eyes.

A respectable looking man was hunched in a dreary office, drinking a cup of coffee enhancement with a content look on his face, engaged in whatever mundane mind-work he was paid to do. Suddenly, the cup didn’t quite make it to his mouth. The coffee spilled. His face filled with anger. His nice white shirt was stained. “Don’t worry, Control Sponsored Cleaning is near.” The image shifted. A bot steamed the stain out of this nice man’s shirt and the contented look was back on his face. Then, a bit of muzak. “Control Sponsored Cleaning, conveniently located near your home in Sector 35, Area 12, and also near your work in Sector 13, Area 9.”

It was too early for advertisements. But hell, that was what I’d signed on for: eternal life for perpetual bombardment from retailers.

I went to the bathroom to shit, shower, and shave. The ads didn’t stop, though.

A man in the shower. A smile crossed his lips. ‘When the day begins, it’s as though the world starts anew. It’s another chance to make an impression. Make sure you make the right one. Delta Clean, the soap that makes the right impression.’

I’d have to tell Betty to add it to my delivery.

When I was done with the shower, I dried myself, put my slippers back on, and went back into the bedroom. The woman sat in the chair, in precisely the same position she was previously. She was quite beautiful, I realized as I approached her. Her face was dark, her nose just slightly sloped, and those almond-eyes; well, those brought back the memory of being at Cody’s apartment.

A black dress lay crumpled in a pile on the floor next to the chair.

“Get up,” I said to her. She didn’t move. I tapped her shoulder and her eyes flew open. I didn’t have time to waste. I knew the bombing would be on every major network. My boss would want answers and I would need to find them. Somewhere.

She raised her head and gazed at me calmly, but didn’t make any other movement. “Get up,” I said again. I didn’t remember whether she could speak. Without saying a word, she got up, picked up the dress next to the chair, and went into the living room.

My bedroom was a mess, swarmed with clothes that needed laundering spread across the floor and the desk with my link-up. It wasn’t that I had to do my own laundry. No, Betty got my clothes cleaned. I only had to ask her to have the laundry service come. That I hadn’t asked her was probably related to all of the Love credits on my drive.

I thumbed through the few clean clothes in my closet and dressed quickly, slipping on a pair of grey trousers, a white shirt, and a pair of black loafers.

In the living room, a granular film covered nearly every surface. The withered brown couch sagged in the middle. Organo-glue kept my gray coffee table together, though the crack down the center was still very much visible. Red nano-paint covered the walls, probably a couple hundred years old.

The woman now wore the dress and sat in my favorite, comfortable chair in front of the image window, which showed the United States Capitol on a gloriously sunny day, just the way I remembered it when I lived near DC. That chair was the place I liked to sit and remember the past, what life had once been.

I pushed that lust for the old days aside as I went to the kitchen.

“You want anything to eat?” I was pretty sure that throwaways didn’t eat, but I thought I’d be polite.

“No thank you,” she said as she tilted her head toward me. When I was done filling myself with nutrients, I put the dishes into the dishwasher-unit and gave Betty the orders I needed filled. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:40. If we left now, I could get her back to Cody and get to work before 6:30. Brian would be mad, but I didn’t have a choice. Late fees on throwaways drained my paycheck.

There was a bit of pressing business, though. The drive on the bedside table called my name. I put it to my neck, drew a credit, and the pulse of the world began to beat more quickly. I slipped it into my pocket just in case I needed a dose or two later.

“You ready?” I asked the woman. She stood, her eyes totally devoid of will. Seeing her in that tight black dress, the delicate curves of her body tempting me, I remembered why I had picked her out in the first place.

My front door opened and I walked out into the hallway, the throwaway following closely. The building was quiet. Her high heels clicked as she sauntered down the narrow hallway behind me. The green faux-plaster walls glowed with a certain marvelous insanity. The Love made me feel as though I was in a beautiful sea. I hoped I could make it through a whole day wrapped in that serendipitous cloak.

When the elevator doors opened, the throwaway moved stiffly to the back, facing the wall. Some programmer had done a shit job with the social skills.

“You can turn around,” I said. I thought ‘down’ for the lobby and, when the doors closed, we dropped. When they opened again, we stepped out into the sparsely furnished white space that was the lobby of my building. The building struggled to be respectable amidst the number of people who now weren’t paying their fees. Deadbeat bastards counted on the fact that rarely did a bot collector come knocking at their door.

“Good morning, Mr. Cox,” the concierge bot said as we headed toward the door, a trace of jolly old England in his voice. He was a squat, silver model with thin tubing for arms and a small rotating head. The damned bot was irritating as an itch, but I knew that he only did the friendly shucking and jiving because he was programmed to do so.

“Morning, Oswald,” I mumbled.

“A good morning to you, Miss,” he said to the throwaway.

Without another word, I led her out the front door into the cool sector hallway. The durable clear plastic and silver metal curved around us in a maze. Through the windows, across from my building, behind the TSG Lunar Capitol Building and the Lunar Bank building, I could see ships dock at Central Station. They were probably cargo transports, maybe a few people on business. No one came to the moon on vacation anymore. The place had lost its cachet a few hundred years ago.

Behind Central Station, I caught a tiny sliver of the earth, sparkling blue and green and looking like home. “I can’t wait to get back there,” I said under my breath.

“I know what you’re talking about,” she said. I eyed her briefly and realized that she had no idea what I was talking about, that despite being programmed to sympathize with me completely, there was just no way that she could.

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