Life, Like

Defiant, I dive deeper into delicious oblivion, even as the mist of sleep begins to part, my conscious brain pulling me, unwilling, toward the surface of another gloomy daybreak, Helga Storborg’s bright, chirruping voice slicing through the feathered edges of sleep.

“Those angry clouds from the past few days are gonna move on out, and we’re expecting some absolutely beautiful skies this afternoon, Ron.” 

Defeated, my right eye creaks open, just enough to see the light from the alarm screen dancing across the corrugated metal walls. Helga’s blurry form slides into focus, all bouncing white mane and silky patterns stretched over her diminutive frame. The greenscreen behind her projects an animated sun rising over the gold-dipped dome of the Capital building.

“Ricky,” I grunt into the darkness. “Snooze my alarm.”

I’m already rolling over, retreating from reality, when Ricky’s angular voice tumbles out of the speaker, syllables stacked awkwardly atop one another. “Your shift begins in twenty minutes. It is time to get up.”

On the screen, Helga and Ron are engaged in performative banter about their weekend plans. 

“I’ll be here to keep you updated, folks.” Helga smiles into the camera, frozen, before the scene dissipates and the room is dark again.

—

Now I’m awake and the happy soft-focus of sleep is forgotten. I consider calling in sick and chugging what’s left of the vodka. But the air is dry and crackly with microscopic particulates of dust and sand and the fires won’t put themselves out, I concede. Now that I’m conscious, I feel the annoying pinpricks of a thousand splinters of sand that rode in on the storm and burrowed their way into my apartment, into my bed, my shoes, the corners of my eyes. They grind themselves into the fibers of my bedsheets and leave nearly invisible red scratches across my back. The vodka would help with that, I think, but heave myself up and out into the dim morning anyway.

—

I trudge heavy-footed across the cracked concrete, jagged slabs of mantle converging like tectonic plates, stumbling for a moment but not pausing as my scavenged steel-toed boots (two sizes too big, toe boxes stuffed with rags) slam into the exposed edge of a joint. 

The sky is blanketed by a singular expanse of gray cloud cover stretching out in every direction. It’s illuminated from behind by the faintest red glow, like the blush of hot blood under pale skin.

The streets are mostly empty, but for a scrappy congregation on the corner of 9th and Cedar, picket signs and clipboards in hand, megaphone trumpeting a monotone chant even as most of the borough is still sleeping. I pause at 8th and steel myself to be the sole object of their fervor, then pull my hood up and adopt the most purposeful gait I can manage.

“Cyborg Rights Now! End Bot Enslavement!”

An encampment of androgynous, flannel-clad coeds descend on me as expected, their signs waving in my face, thrusting fliers into my closed fist, their urgent voices mingling in that particular way where not a single one is perceptible any longer. Cyborg Emancipation League is splashed across jaunty embroidered patches on their beanies, their crossbody bags, their sweatpants.

Above the din, Megaphone Guy is shouting an impassioned sermon. 

“-no intelligent life form deserves a life of indentured servitude, bolted into place, slaving away at the beck and call of corporate greed!”

“Yeah!” Shouts a silver-haired girl, fist raised in the air. The scene is more moshpit than deserted city street. I can’t help but admire their enthusiasm in spite of the lackluster audience.

“We demand dignity, freedom, and adequate compensation for our cyborg friends!”

The whole merry band cheers, and even as I’m already wheeling away, a rigid movement on the periphery captures my attention. Silicone skin rippling unnaturally, gleaming metal joints peeking out from under a CEL crewneck, the cyborg pumps his fist in the air along with the others, each movement just imperceptibly stiffer than his neighbors’.

My eyes are scanning the crowd anew, searching for others, when I slam headlong into Vince.

He smirks at me and then thrusts his jaw in the direction of the protest, now half a block behind us. I fall into step beside him.

“The fuck is all that?” His gruff voice tells me he’s just rolled out of bed too.

“The…Cyborg Emancipation League?”

“Ohhhh,” Vince exhales the word with the smoke from the last drag of his cigarette. He flicks open his pack, fingers another, silently offers me one. I decline.

“Don’t need any more’n what I’ll get on shift,” I murmur.

“Fucking conspiracy theorists,” Vince says, and clicks his lighter.

I jerk my thumb back towards the CEL group. “Them?”

“Yeah man. They think the corporate boogeyman has created a secret race of cyborg slaves so they don’t have to pay real people a living wage. Just keep ‘em chained up and working ‘round the clock. Invested millions so they look real enough the unions don’t catch ‘em.”

“Is that even..possible?”

“You ever seen a robot so convincing you couldn’t tell it was a robot?” Vince cocks his eyebrow at me.

“Well…I guess I wouldn’t know,” I say slowly.

Vince chuckles. “Bunch of crazies, man.”

—

Terry made curry at the station. His wife, heavily pregnant with their fifth (sixth?), showed up in an actual lace apron with a picnic basket full of buttered naan hooked over her arm.

I’m heaping more jasmine rice than is prudent onto a flimsy paper plate when the alarm sounds, and I cast one more wistful look over my shoulder as the engine pulls out of the station, my mountain of Indian food still steaming on the picnic table just inside the garage.

—

CBTV used to be here, where we’re standing. But all there is now is rubble. Terry and Vince have already pulled the lines and mutual aid is responding with a larger rig. I’m standing slack-jawed at the edge of the twisted mountain of cement and rebar. A column of black smoke rises from the detritus, and behind it the clouds from the morning have been replaced by the most vibrant field of blue. Poking out from a bonnet of plaster-laden wire mesh, a television camera lens catches the light. Under a thick film of white dust, the camera’s red light is still blinking.

“They were live,” the Chief of Police has sidled up next to me, hands on his hips.

I glance quickly at him, then back to the ruins.

“Aye, Dillon!” Vince calls over. “Goin’ in!”

There are more than a dozen of us tasked with combing through what’s left of the news station; there are a staff of 26 to be accounted for. From time to time, a small fire springs up and I radio for the hose. I fumble for the buttons through my thick gloves, and the handset clatters down to the pile of rock and ash at my feet. I pull a glove off with my teeth and brace myself against the most stable slab of collapsed wall I can find, then bend down. As my fingers grasp for the fluorescent green of the two-way, my hand grazes silken plum fabric, and I recoil in horror. A mournful groan, barely audible, floats up from under the wall.

“Ah shit,” I hiss. I wrench the slab from left to right, taking care not to rock it onto her. When at last I’m able to heave it to the side, the familiar blonde-white of Helga Storborg’s perfect blowout lays exposed, now matted to her face. 

“Ms. Storborg, are you-” I begin, but then her head lolls to the side, and I suck in a deep breath through my teeth. A craggy cinder block projectile is buried in her skull, her left temple caved in. There’s no blood -not yet- and her eyes dart around, crazed.

She moans again. “My legs— I can’t feel my legs.” I’m horrified that she’s conscious. I’m not sure what to say, so I begin clearing the debris from atop her body. “Let’s get you out of here,” I say, casually, dutifully, like I’ve seen brave rescuers say in films. I’m fighting back vomit.

Slowly her legs are excavated from under ceiling tiles and a studio light, and I’ve nearly unearthed her feet when I brush aside a charred notebook and I see it. Her feet, molded perfectly to metal pumps in a sickly shade of ochre, and the pumps, welded together at the soles, riveted to a metal base.

I gasp, and my eyes dart up to her crumpled face. The soft whirring of a servo. Her preternaturally green eyes are fixed above. A viscous golden rivulet of oil beads up around the rim of her wound and courses down her cheek. Helga opens her mouth, and for a moment, there is only crackling static. Her words slur and sizzle, and her eyes are still locked on the sky.

“I was right,” she whispers. “The sky is absolutely beautiful.”