There is a
particular palpable silence when two people both begin to suspect the
other's sanity. Unfortunately for Darren he lacked the luxury of
appealing to common sense when “common” seemed to be entirely
redefined for miles around him. The silver-haired and eyed woman
tapped her foot impatiently, clearly adverse to wasting time and
money on the frightening electronic box surrounding them. A “mod”
called “personal space” was how she described it but to Darren it
could only be perceived as sorcery and the breaking point of this
unsettling unfamiliar environment he had stumbled into.
“Well?”
“I'm not
taking my clothes off.”
“Why
not?”
“Because
I'm in the middle of the street, you're a complete stranger and I
don't even know how it would help in working out my identity.”
Darren scratches his head at such a case where he even has to explain
why this request is weird and intrusive. The woman removes her long
black coat.
“Would
it help if I did it too?”
“Hm?-No!”
Darren hesitated for perhaps a second too long. “Can you not just
believe I'm not a hospital escapee? I mean, how do I know you're not
the crazy person?”
“What
would it matter to you if I was? You approached me.” There is
another lengthy silence between them. Darren considers his options
but all appear limited or unappealing. Despite her abrasiveness and
possible sexual predator conviction, this woman was still the most
normal-looking person around.
What kind
of sense would he glean trying to talk to the rainbow-suited
dog-brained businessman? Or the metallic-nippled invincible-beard
gang leader? He had to persevere with this. Besides it was probably
all a terrible fever dream or hallucination from hitting his head in
the factory. He would probably wake up soon and everything would be
back to normal...Dull, dreary normality...
“Okay
fine, I'm doing it, just tell me how it's going to help.” Darren
begins clumsily removing his work uniform shirt. Originally grey but
stained with enough fudge to as appear brown patterned, he notices
that he has long since lost his apron with no recollection of when
exactly. This strikes Darren as another irregularity in detail
consistent with dreaming helping cement the idea in his mind.
Glancing back at the
misty white forcefield, the circus-clothed citizens walk on by
briskly and indifferent to Darren fidgeting awkwardly before a
strange woman in only his boxers.
“Why have you
stopped?” Darren glares at the woman in disbelief.
“You're joking
right?” The woman shakes her head in a patronising fashion, she
taps the pebbles at the side of her head and the visor flicks around
her eyeline again.
Darren continues
telling himself it's just a dream despite his repeated pinching and
mental gymnastics to wake himself up all proving fruitless. He takes
a deep breath and yanks down his boxers trying to mask his
embarrassment with misplaced authoritative interrogation.
“Well? Find the
answer you're looking for?” The woman's expression is one of
confusion as she eyes him up and down. Darren was bracing himself for
amusement, disgust, anger and pity but was not prepared to see his
naked body outright confusing someone.
“You're naked.”
This being the paltry conclusion to a deeply intrusive and
unexplained demand sets the spark to Darren's temper.
“What the fuck? You
just told me-Of course I bloody am it...What the fuck is wrong with
you?”
“What's wrong with
you?”
“Wh...Y,
you can't just say that to a naked guy! Are you trying to demolish my
self-esteem?”
“I'm
not talking about clothes naked, I mean you've got no mods or
implants or anything.”
“...Well
no, I mean I've had a few fillings but-”
“If
you were in hospital they'd have marked you or attached a bracelet.
People can shift them around but they can't take them off without the
codes from the nurses...So...I guess you're like some backwards,
technophobe villager although even they get mods for like diseases and
stuff.”
“Okay,
I don't really get what you're saying but can I put my clothes back
on now?” The woman seems to have become less prickly, faced with
something apparently she can't understand for a change.
“Yeah,
go for it.” Her voice is distant and indifferent. Darren scrambles
to get dressed as quickly as possible. The woman flicks her visor on
and off several times before coming to some kind of decision. Darren
stands for a while adjusting himself and trying to look like he
didn't just gracelessly debase himself at a random woman's request.
He checks through the forcefield again but beyond the misty wall, not
a soul seems aware of their conversation or their movements within
the box.
“Look,
you seemed really uncomfortable with the whole naked thing so I feel
like I owe you.” Darren decides to ignore the implication anyone
else would be fine with stripping bare in the street but notes that the pity he expected has finally arrived.
“If you're lost or brained or whatever's going on I can help you
find a hospital or something if you want.”
“Wait,
I thought we got past this?”
“No
I don't mean the prison terminal, I don't think you're shit-circuited
anymore but if you dunno where you are maybe you injured yourself.”
Darren struggles to decipher the woman's bizarre language. Does she
think hospitals have terminals like airports? Is there an insanely
huge hospital here that has to be detailed by terminals? She also
seems to think a psychiatric ward is akin to a prison.
“I
kind of thought I'd have woken up by now to be honest.”
“Unless
you're blitzing on some kind of biomod, which is impossible now I've
seen you naked, you're not dreaming.” Darren furrows his brow,
bombarded with yet more new words and starting to lose confidence in
his comforting resignation that this is a semi-lucid dream or the
hallucinogenic death throes of excess fudge poisoning.
Marginally
more sympathetic, the woman takes a step towards Darren and switches
off her visor. “Normally I'd just Ping you my profile but I guess
if you're all retro we can just shake hands. My name's Myriad.”
Darren sighs, feeling stressed by this new world but is grateful for
even an imitation of something familiar. He shakes the woman's hand
and forces a smile, her fragmented silver eyes seem to pierce through
his own as though he were transparent, or perhaps he just still feels
vulnerable having been naked moments before.
“I'm
Darren, nice to eventually meet you Miriam.” Darren exhales trying
to lighten the mood with a joke but his new acquaintance seems less
than impressed.
“Not
Miriam, Myriad.
Myriad Bethlehem.”
“You're
name is...I, okay never mind for now.” Myriad crosses her arms and
again gives Darren the cold analytical squint.
“You
really must be from some ultra-stiff little bubble bush.”
“If
the half of that I understood means what I think, I didn't think
Droyslden or Manchester were particularly remote until now. I mean
the factory where I worked is literally just over there.”
“The
chocolate factory?”
“Yeah.”
Myriad
goes silent and contemplative again. Darren is grateful to have
reached some kind of placated parley with her but can't help feeling
a less secretive and private person would have explained a lot more
to him, both quicker and easier.
“Why
is that so strange?” Darren asks. Myriad flicks her visor on for a
few seconds. If you look closely you can see images and words
appearing reflected backwards on the immaterial screen but before
Darren can pinpoint much the visor flicks back off.
“Where
exactly is the factory?” Again, she seems physically averse to
providing a straight answer.
“A
few streets back that way.” Darren points down the streets he came
from, his finger clipping through the forcefield and probably
appearing quite strange to passers-by as a disembodied index
finger...Then again, given his sights here so far maybe that's
entirely normal.
“This
is why I'm thinking you're brained or spinning on some drug date.
There's no factory back there and proper chocolate doesn't exist
anymore.”
Darren's
eyebrows crash into a mass hair pile up on the road to his forehead.
Quite exhausted by the relentless barrage of weird today has thrown
at him, Darren can only blink in baffled disarray and disbelief at
the statement. Myriad watches him closely as this revelation unfolds.
Neither of them notice the “Personal Space” forcefield flickering
around them.
“The
only thing beyond the city in that direction are fields and an old
restricted archaeology site that you wouldn't be able to even get
near.”
Darren
looks to the floor and is silent for a long time. He puts his hands in
his pockets and exhales several times. He chuckles to himself in a
pitch dangerously close to hysterical. Myriad takes a step back and
fixes her sight on him carefully.
“Darren?”
“I,
er...Your visor thingy. I noticed something on it the last time it
was on.”
“Oh
my Bridge? Only my nan calls it a visor.”
“Heh,
well I think I spotted the time down in the corner there. Just after
half nine is it?”
“The...”
Myriad freezes with a realisation. Apparently the same realisation
that is breaking Darren's mind apart in front of her.
“It's
not the time is it?”
Darren
finally looks up with a demented half-grin as though he can't decide
if he should be happy or angry. His eyes slightly better reflect the
distraught cognitive combustion imploding and rupturing within his
consciousness.
Myriad
had considered the possibility long before it dawned on Darren but
unlike Darren who had no other explanation, Myriad never entertained
more than a shred of the idea being at all plausible. Upon witnessing
Darren's conflicted internal collapse though even her intensely sceptical
barriers are lowered somewhat by how genuine his mental breakdown
appears to be.
Before
either of them can reach a word to puncture the searing silent
atmosphere of confusion, someone else reaches through the Personal Space and grabs Darren's arm. Suddenly and violently, he is dragged through the
supposedly private conversation area and out onto the street...
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