neurosis

I don’t remember how I got here. I look around, trying to jumpstart my memory with something. Anything. There’s nothing but sand.  It’s soft sand. It feels nice under my feet.

…but I’m wearing boots. How can I feel the sand?

Wait, now it’s hard sand. Compacted like rock and even hotter.

The sun is overwhelming. Suddenly my attention is consumed by it.  Was it always this hot? It splits through the hazy sky with the accuracy of a laser. I feel like I’m under attack. It takes my breath away, as if purged out of me by the vacuum of space. I’m sweating. Now I can feel my boots.

The sun has backed off. It’s still there, but no longer stifling and constraining. I can breathe through the heat. How did I get here? I start walking. I stumble my way through the dunes. Tiny mountains of sand. It’s soft again, but not as pleasant as before. I can’t feel it through my boots. 

There’s no vehicles around. I remember my car. I was in my car. I had turned off the autopilot for some reason. Why did I do that? I keep walking. My muscles burn. My skin burns. Panic starts to set in. Trickling from the back of my neck through my spine and into my chest. It overrides the confusion and frustration. My breathing quickens and I gasp for air. The heat makes it feel empty. It’s not enough. I try to steel my mind and at least control my breathing. It kind of works. I decide to focus on something else. 

Where am I? It’s an endless sea of dunes. Trillions of tiny particles blown into giant ripples across the ground. How long have I been walking? It feels like forever.

Wait. I see something. Far off and away, behind the dunes. It’s a rock formation. A ‘mesa,’ I think they’re called. I try to think of any place with sand dunes and mesas. The outskirts of the city? The badlands? Decades of scorching sun and toxic waste killed off all the life there. I look around for plants or animals. There are none. 

Is that where I am? Why am I out there? What was I doing? I was driving my car. Why did I turn the autopilot off?

I had it modified so that I would never need to turn it off. I was never a great evasive driver. The A.I. was better. Wait. Why would I need to be an evasive driver? I don’t remember. But I remember driving. Did I crash? How long have I been out here? Did I get a concussion? I reach up and feel my head. I’m sweating but my hand doesn’t have any on it. My hair is not slick and wet like it should be. Am I dehydrated? I keep walking. My brain feels like it has holes in it. The answers are there. My questions sit on the cusp of them but the holes have burrowed and excavated them away. 

The mesa looks different now that I’m closer to it. It’s taller than I thought. It has a funny shaped rock near the top. It almost looks like letters. I blink the sun out of my eyes and squint. They are letters. It’s not a mesa at all. It’s an apartment building. That shouldn’t be there. It looks familiar. It’s not my building. But I know it. I walk toward it. The sand gets flat again. I can’t see the dunes anymore. It’s an endless plane of rock all around me. I feel like I’m at sea. Have I ever been at sea before?

I keep walking toward the megabuilding. It’s huge, now that I’m closer to it. At least a hundred stories tall. The panic starts to come back. Am I dead? Am I dying? Is this what death is? Walking an infinite desert with flashes of something… familiar?

I don’t remember how I know this building. But I know it’s not supposed to be out here. Was I driving to it? Did I crash into it? I scour the windows for any activity. Hundreds of floors and not a single person. Some of the lights are on but it seems like nobody is inside. There’s too many windows to keep track of. I keep walking and I wonder if I’ll ever make it to the building. I must be dying.

I hear a name. Somewhere in the back of my mind. Nyx. Is that my name? I’m still so far away from the megabuilding. I turn around. The dunes have not returned. My purgatory remains the infinite plane of compacted, scorched sand. I must have gotten in an accident. I must have turned off the autopilot and driven my car off a bridge or an overpass. Hopefully I didn’t kill anyone else. Maybe there was a dust storm. Maybe I couldn’t see anything. Maybe I did kill someone else. Maybe I’m stuck here forever. Punishment. Atonement.

I turn back to the megabuilding. The lights are off now. It is empty and dark and a husk of itself, baking in the sunlight. I remember driving. I remember feeling panicked while driving. Why was I panicking? I turned off the autopilot because… Because I needed to drive. But why? There was something about the autopilot. I needed to turn it off. I stop walking. It’s distracting me. I’m right on the edge of an answer. Why did I need the autopilot off?

I needed it off because…

Because it might have been compromised. Something tugs at me. The megabuilding calls to my subconscious. I’m supposed to go there. I begin walking again. Who would have hacked my car? And for what purpose? My brain hurts. My furrowed brow feels like it may be permanent with the effort I’m putting into trying to remember. There was something in the trunk of my car. What was it? It was important. I needed to bring it to this building. 

I get closer, but it feels like it moves away. I can’t tell for sure. I’m destined to do this forever. I was bringing something here. But what? Something important. An organ? Did I work in the medical field? This isn’t a hospital. Black market, then. God, I hope I’m not a harvester. That thought feels mostly wrong. I try to hone in on different segments and pick out the offending portion. Black market? Feels… not wrong. Okay. Harvester? Organs? Body parts? That feels wrong. Okay, well that’s good, at least. I try to run through a list of things I know exist on the black market in the city. Art? No. Guns? Closer. Not wrong but not right. Implants? Close again but not it. 

The locked plastic cases flash in my mind in an instant. Lined up and packed in the trunk of my car, ready for delivery. They had something tiny in them. There were a lot of them. Thousands? Inside each case? I remember locking the cases. They were parts.

Electrical components. Integrated circuits, digital processing chips… Cataloged and organized and packed with care inside each case. Locked with a reinforced analog padlock. So they couldn’t be hacked open.

Nyx… I hear that name again. It must be my name.

This time it sounds like it comes from the sun. It’s so loud it pierces my brain and rattles my teeth. It hurts.

I blink and I’m suddenly looking up. It’s dark. The sun is gone. The sand is gone. It's cold and the sky is pitch black. The corners of my vision are lined with flashes of red and yellow and movement. I try to look; to turn my head; to sit up - but I can’t. I’m frozen.

I blink and I’m in the desert again. There is no sun in the sky but its light is still cast over the infinite landscape. This is wrong. This has always been wrong. I start to run. The panic has returned and feeds itself into my legs and forces them to move. I run for longer than I’ve ever ran before. And then I stop.

A plastic case sits before me. My plastic case. I need to unlock it.

I approach the case. I know what’s in it. It’s those components. The ones that are supposed to be delivered to Maven. Wait. Who’s Maven? I can’t remember but her name wraps me in a warm blanket of trust and soothes my panic. Maven would want me to open this case. I kneel before it and place my hands on it. Maven needs these parts. 

A flash of Maven’s face comes to my mind. We’re sitting in her favorite diner. She’s shoveling noodles into her mouth. It’s raining outside and it smells like oil and wet concrete. The street is busy with vendors and people going back and forth and living their lives. There’s music playing somewhere close-by. A nightclub. The rhythmic bass drum nearly shakes the table we’re sitting at. It's nostalgic and it makes me feel fuzzy.

Our conversation plays fast-forward, like a dream. It skips over all the unimportant things. She has another job for me. I agree. She tells me it might get ‘squirrely.’ I’ve done a lot of jobs for her. I smuggle electrical components. She says the big corporations are going to try to stop me this time. I shrug.

I’m confused, but then I remember… The components are discontinued. Hard to find. I raided a few stockpiles. It took a long time to find them. They’re valuable for some reason. People want them.

I’m in the desert again, staring at the case. I need to open it. I don’t remember where I put the key. It needs a key. For some reason, it’s urgent that I open it. Just to see what’s inside. But I already know what’s inside. But that doesn’t matter. I’m frustrated. My teeth are strained against each other and I feel like screaming.

I know where the key is now. It’s in a compartment in my wrist. It only opens with my thumbprint. Part of me needs to open the case. Needs to place my thumb on my wrist. It’s a burning desire. It tugs at me and won’t leave my mind. It engulfs my chest and spreads through my limbs. It makes me want to move. But this is wrong. This has always been wrong. I can’t bring myself to do it.

I’m overheating. I should be sweating but I’m not. The sun is so hot. Too hot. But it’s not in the sky.

I know why these components are so valuable. Someone uses them to make things. Circuit things. Modifications? Yes. That feels right. Mods. Implants. Guns. Gear. I remember packing them. I remember a list given to me from Maven. A huge order. I was going to make half a million dollars. They were going to be used for… for all kinds of things. There was something important they were going to be used for.

Catastrophic failure.

Malware detected.

Rebooting…

BIOS Version 2.1.0

System ID: 83746592

Nyx’s eyes blinked in confusion. She’d thought she was already awake - staring at her coveted plastic case in the endless desert - but she was in her car; hands on the steering wheel and with the gas pedal floored.

The car wasn’t moving. She took a second to get her bearings. Her head was pounding - a sharp pain that grated at her temples and pricked at her eye sockets. She kept her foot on the gas, trying in vain to push it harder and harder into the floorboards, but there was nothing left for the vehicle to give. It wasn’t even making a sound.

She had only just noticed the tiny readout in her vision:

Malware successfully removed.

Reboot successful.

“Damn hackers,” she muttered as she finally looked up and through the cracked windshield and viewports. She’d hit a streetlight, evidently. The lamp flickered and buzzed but did not fail outright, illuminating the inside of the car in short flashes along with the red dashboard lights.

Her senses slowly came to her along with her memory: She’d been attacked. Her panic started to set in - this time in reality - and she reached for the firearm she had strapped to her thigh.

She flicked the small strap-lock and held the heavy gun in her hand, adjusting her grip until it was comfortable. She could hear shouting from behind her. It echoed off the street and into the night. In a single gesture, she unhooked her harness from herself and set her other hand on the doorframe.

The shouting increased, and now she could make it out. “Shit, she broke out!” someone cried. “Get her!”

She looked around the interior of the car, maneuvering her body like a cat, trying to get a good view outside of the windows. It was no easy feat: she’d long ago barred all of the windows with armor plating in the form of blinders. It didn’t matter when the car was on - external cameras projected a 360° view - but she had obviously killed the car, and thus, her sightline.

She could see a few shapes moving toward her. The street was mostly empty - she wasn’t downtown, but they must have chased her into a suburb.

She flipped the safety of the gun off with her thumb and held her breath.

In an instant, she kicked the door open and rolled backwards onto the street. She aimed the firearm underneath the car and swept it across to find the attacker’s feet. 

She pulled the trigger and the concussive force of the gun kicked dust and debris into the air. She saw a flash of red and a large shape fell where the foot was just a moment before - and she pulled the trigger three more times.

She heard other gunshots coming from behind the car; scrambling feet; shouting.

She rolled to her side and kept hunched - concealing her body by the frame of the car - and stalked her way to the front.

“Get her back down!” someone else cried. 

“I’m trying! I’m trying!”

Nyx swept to the left and peeked her aim out from her cover. There was another man, aiming where she'd been a moment before and stepping carefully over the body she'd shot. He didn’t have time to look up and see her before she shot him, too.

With her two attackers dead, she inched forward along the length of her car. There was another vehicle - some type of home-fortified truck - on the other side of the street. The frame was welded and riveted with sheets of thick metal: a down-and-dirty method for armoring up a car.

She could see movement in the front seat but she knew her ammunition would be useless against it. She had to run. Her neural implant had already been hacked by this guy once - if he broke through her firewalls again, he might figure out how to stay in, and she might be gone forever.

She glanced at the trunk of her own car - which had been cut open, revealing the small plastic cases. The men had been prying at them while the hacker tried to manipulate her mind into revealing how to open them. There were pliers, crowbars, electric torches… Nothing had cut or broken through the reinforced cases or their locks. If the hacker had seen through her mind while she was under, he’d already know where the key was and how to get to it. All he had to do was shut her down. He’d probably leave her to rot in the street when he was done. She’d be stuck in that infinite purgatory forever. Or until someone pulled the plug on her.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away. Maven needed these parts. They were going to be used to arm a revolution. Intercept and reject wireless hackers; bypass security circuits; create modifications on hardware that would allow corporate-grade weapons to function in the hands of those they oppressed. It was important. It was going to strike at the upper echelon; to balance the scales of power and give people some teeth to bite back with.

She aimed at the armored truck and pulled the trigger as she ran forward, hoping to distract the hacker and make him panic. Maybe she’d get lucky and the armor was all for show.

The bullets ricocheted off the angled sheet metal and she spun to grab the cases. She tried to quickly size them up - and fumbled with how many she could carry under one arm. Some is better than none.

I don’t remember how I got here. I look around, trying to jumpstart my memory with something. Anything. There’s nothing but sand.  It’s soft sand. It feels nice under my feet.