sunny days and moonless nights looked all the same when I was blind

JERICHO BLUE

I draw passion from these fingertips
inspiration from these veins,
so you can get a taste
of where my heart has led me,
of where my mind has wandered
on sunny days and moonless nights
// looked all the same when I was blind //

read between the lines,
disentangle vines
and maybe you’ll get a glimpse,
a hint,
a shadow
// of the real Self //
behind a window
tinted,
like a broken pair
of rose-tint glasses,
as if discarded
without a second thought
among the ashes of the world
that used to be
// all that remains of
what once was
and never will be again //

with these new eyes,
I see the world for what it is,
for what it was,
what it threatens to become
// and sometimes, I must
remind myself to… //

Blink.

and in the span
of an eyelid shutter,
foundations shifted
like paradigms,
riding vibrations,
tremors, pressures,
reducing minds to ruin
or brings to new dimensions,
facets shining,
colliding,
free will overriding
// nothing //
particles vibrating in slow motion,
something like diamonds,
suspended in the firmament
// all the light we can no longer see
because mortal men believed
they could assume the role of God,
Absolute Infinity //

Blink.

moments spark and shine
and die,
like flies,
like time,
like diamonds forged in the fires
of the hearts
of dying stars,
of dying worlds
the messes left behind by
the usual suspects
// Evil, Ego, and Entropy //

time flies like an arrow
// at you, at me //
and has pierced,
and penetrated and
broken us down
at the level of the soul
// Terra Incognita //

Blink.

Mother Gaia nurtured me,
made me whole but left a hole,
a gravitational void past the
event horizon of singularity,
with a peephole
leaking future history,
and infinity,
through a singular period of time
// a point of no return //

read between the lines,
study all the signs,
past all the lies,
and cover-ups,
and whistle-blowers,
then maybe,
you’ll get a glimpse,
a blip,
a fragment of objective truth
// a snippet of the real myth //

Blink.

my mind’s a myth,
neurons, axons,
dendritic flow
through divided veins
// interconnected via solar plexus //
what good is an immortal
mind-state
in a 3D vessel that time decays
until mutually assured self-destruction
mutilates my mortal strait
and I find myself at Heaven’s gate
or Anubis weighs my heart
against a featherweight?
// the best I could do was not be consumed
by the fires that have claimed the hearts
of the kings that have fallen before me //

Blink.

too many kings…
who have surrendered
their hearts, their humanity,
their souls to tyranny,
lost the war within themselves
before they commanded anybody
// but not me,
nor will I ever be,
not as long as those I love
are counting on me
to be…
me, and what they expect of me //

I mean…
it was nice
to be alive
// not dead inside,
I find…
flow //
through my central nervous system,
spill it on a pad,
so you can get a sample
of what I experienced,
witnessed,
learned;
an ever-occurring process
// evolution; eternity in a bottle-
neck, lost at sea,
a message for another me, saying… //

save our souls…
save mine,
then strip my mind,
strand by strand,
like fabric;
leave only fabricated memories
cure my fever dream with
a Pacific Island fantasy
// because, somehow, places
I’ve never known feel more like home
than reality… //

Blink.

erase, deface, set aflame
// Akashic records //
tracing out the plains
I’ve traipsed,
placing it on a page,
locked it away
on a runaway train
of thought
// hurtling non-stop towards oblivion //

once upon a time,
I freed my mind,
opened my eyes of
darkened amber,
// crystallized, hypnotized //
technicolor rods and cones
and epithelial junctions

my brain was not designed,
for this shift in focal planes,
of reality,
of dreams,
as once upon a time,
I was blind, but now I see
far too much,
much too often
// and now my eyes can
never fully close again //

with these new eyes,
I witnessed universe
and universal truth,
and I questioned whether
it was best to hide
in the comfort of bliss
// and blissful ignorance //

Blink.

this knowledge gained from ambition
// diluted //
the potency of my indifference,
replaced by bliss of citrus hues,
the sour taste has left me cold,
and alone
// and bitter //
I needed a sitter for this psychedelic trip,
while I touched zenith
the shade of the eyes of envy,
// without Aurora //
got burned like Icarus,
and fell from exosphere,
to stratosphere,
a cosmic blastosphere,
left me broken in a vortex of despair,
disguised as a stairway to the heavens,
post-mortem, post-ovum,
in a twisted, vulvic rebirth canal,
a broken promise of divine
// of an apotheosis that never came //
left me with an unbearable weight
// of knowing //

Blink.

alas, I am only a man…
but as long as I can witness
// with more than just these fingertips //
and as far as I can see,
I will never go back to sleep…
I can only try to save this world
that I…
// when I was blind //
had a hand in creating
// and bring justice to the monsters
I once evaded //

when they see my face again
I hope they dream about it…
and I hope they know
I will never rest in peace
// until God’s will is reinstated… //

Blink.

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale)

blink. was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re bound to meet again in another life

▶️▶️▶️

ZERO TOMORROWS

▶️▶️▶️

WILLIAM BLUE

Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
We’re bound to meet
Again in another life

Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
So let’s dance forever
By the candlelight

Mesmerized and hypnotized
Take it off
Like Starship Enterprise
Like INXS, the devil inside
You got me goddamn mystified
I’m what you need
I’m what you like
Like I need you now
Right by my side
Need you tonight
Like there’s not enough time
Don’t cry, just smile
And hold me tight
Before we see the light
Waists to hips
We harmonize as
Our heartbeats synchronize
Watch these sweaty hands
Make you come to life
Make you come tonight
About a hundred times
Do it all in a single blink
Of God’s eye
Bet bet bet
He ain’t watching us
He probs tired or straight up
Turned His holy back on us
How we living on this planet
So divided by our ignorance

Real shit though
This planet, are we killing it?
Cause it’d be pretty fucked up
If it just blew up under our watch
Wouldn’t it?
I thought humanity would
Take initiative and better care of it
Indeed, ignorance seems
To reign supreme
So who the damn hive mind
Really trying to deceive?
Bet they ain’t got me
Make Sauron overlook
Instead of all oversee
Bet 10 out of 10 Hobbits
In the Shire would agree
Never kiss a gold ring
When ya bent to your knees
Bet ya ain’t getting blessed
Like you do when you sneeze
You wanna see if a motherfucker
Really sting like a bee?
Serve a hook in 4D?
A bunch of shrinks with a bunch of
Psychology degrees could never
Colour commentate on me
Can’t assess the prestige of the shit
That I do for free
But I do it out of love
’Cause that’s my main currency

Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
We’re bound to meet
Again in another life

Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow
But we have tonight
So let’s dance forever
By the candlelight

No tomorrows but we fight
For the sunrise every night
’Cause we believe in all the light
We cannot see in the night sky
Distant promises of faraway minds
And faraway life
Know that hope is ever-present
Even when it’s hidden from the eyes
’Cause like a moon crescent
A sliver still shines through
And who said we can’t fix
The past and the future
At the same time?

What was the point of it all?
The rise and the fall
If we all go extinct
Before the sunrise?
Or maybe we survive
Like we always have in the past
Well, shit, heck yeah
We just might
But we won’t pipe down
Not now, not tonight
Won’t be blinded by the wool
They try to hold up to our eyes
Like we can see fine
Like, I’ve witnessed so much shit
And haven’t left the bed yet
And I’m supposed to walk around
Like I feel right?

Shake the atmosphere up
In 4/4 time
Never throwing shades
Like Corey Hart
In the night time
To think more time is all
We’re really asking for-for
At this point
To think words would ever win
In a war of the worlds
’Cause the Bard once said
All the world’s a stage, right?
Exit stage left if you villainous
And chickenshit, like Claudius
But hey, mano a mano is a fair fight

Make the opps face
The dusk then the daylight
’Cause a wise one once said
Hate is blind
But so is love, right?
Is it prejudice to fall in love
At a first sight?
Cause a lonely soul would still
Try to make a home in the
Heart of a pretty A.I.
Opt in to hallucinate
’Cause it feels nice
’Cause it’s easier than courting
Beating hearts with some
Hinge swipes
Just to find no subtance
Like a brand new crack pipe

Hack a lung up at a hack-a-thon
’Cause crabs get salty
When they hear me spitting
Like a high-vibe coder
Living in a high-rise
With a high horse
And a low Python
See, that’s me playing against
Asian stereotypes
No Samsung
More like Yugi opening
His third eye ‘round Act III
Just to get a sneak peek
Of how beautiful
The future can be

Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
Don’t say goodbye
Just say goodnight
We’re bound to meet
Again in another life

Might not have tomorrow,
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow,
But we have tonight
Might not have tomorrow,
But we have tonight

▶️▶️▶️

▶️▶️▶️

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale)

Zero Tomorrows was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

All signs point to an irreconcilable malfunction.

⏮️ Chapter VI: Graduation

CHAPTER VII: BRASS MONKEY

BRASS MONKEY

The road to the top is not an easy one.

It’s paved for the strong.

The weak ones are meat for the strong, the aperitifs and the entrées for the main course.

And I’m fucking hungry.

Call me Brass Monkey. They all do.

Who I really am is irrelevant.

The person I used to be, I lost long ago. What became of me — what’s left of me — is pure anomaly.

I would hate to be understood by just about anyone.

I am the heart and soul of Aurum City.

I am the breathless spirit and life of these streets. I am the mystique of the Sky above and the decadence of the Underground. I am all four walls and every subtle accent and glimmer of gold that permeates within.

I am the hush between every heartbeat, the phantom trace of every cold sweat, and the hint of beauty in every tragic thing that has ever dared to exist.

I am evolution and devolution… but not, y’know, literally.

It’s a pleasure to meet you.

How I became a dark agent is also irrelevant. Everyone’s got a story to tell.

I won’t bore you with mine.

Since I first donned the mask of a dark agent, something snapped in me, in my psyche, slid into place, then began turning like the gears of a clockwork orange.

I became whole again.

It was as if this world had never broken me.

I found solidarity among the heartless.

I was forced to grow up, and quick, because if I was to survive here, I had to become one of them. What I didn’t realize was that they were bringing out an unfamiliar side of me, something cerebral and malignant.

I used to look up at Sky and wonder where my place was in all this. And then they found me, and I found it — a purpose, a new reason for existing. My soul merged with the darkness, the shadowy recesses of the only universe I’ve ever known.

Home.

A shot of absinthe sealed the deal, the final step of my initiation into the Default State Syndicate (DSS).

The old me was gone. Something inhuman was emerging. And it needed to be moulded, to be held, to be witnessed.

Pure anomaly…

I threw the shot glass onto the floor, stomped my boot-heel against the shards and slivers as they cracked, crumbled, and popped — like Rice Krispies in milk — under the pressure of my rubber sole, then pumped my fist against my chest, raised it to the ceiling, turning to face the auditorium full of dark agents as they raised their fists in unison.

I stuck out my tongue before sliding the black polygon mask back over my face, having successfully refrained from vomiting.

“SHEESH!” Ace exclaimed, patting me on the back then raising his fist as well, then extending his index finger upwards, to the ceiling. The dark agents followed suit. I raised my index finger up as well. “Welcome to the DSS, Damon Green. Codename: GREEN LEAF.”

“GREEN LEAF! GREEN LEAF! GREEN LEAF!”

I don’t know what it says about me, but I’ve never felt so damn… seen.

But that feeling wore off.

Didn’t take much, didn’t take long.

Like a Green Zenith high.

Or an unwelcome Blisscrash.

I witnessed the corruption of the Default State from the inside out. So I pledged my allegiance once more to nothing.

Empires rise, empires fall.

A tale as old as glass roads.

My father raised me in the Church of Zero.

I believed nothing, served nothing, revered and prayed to nothing. And as far as I’m concerned, I will die one day and return to nothing, as if never having been in the first place.

It’s all good, though.

My heart still beats as of this moment.

Every breath I take in this world makes a difference.

I live in an eternal Now moment.

We all do.

It never ends.

One just stops persisting.

“State your names,” Ace said. “Full names. Nothing else. One at a time.”

“Speak slowly,” Summer said. “And clearly.”

“Most importantly,” Miles said. “Don’t lie.”

“Damon Green,” I said.

“William Blue,” William said.

“Grenadine Black,” Grenadine said.

“If Aurum Intelligence detects deception, your blindfolds will taser your pretty little faces,” Summer explained, a hint of sadistic thrill in her distorted voice. “You do NOT want to find out what that feels like! SO DO NOT LIE!”

Being blindfolded meant none of us could see the looks on their faces, but the three of them were wearing polygon masks, anyways — so we would have only seen their very human-looking eyes.

And I was just trying to atone for what I had done: pushing a Clay-ton a little too damn hard.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my tears welling up around my tightly shut eyelids, soaking into the blindfold’s soft, silk fabric. “I’m so deeply sorry for taking a life. It was not mine to take. It was a drunken impulse. But I was protecting Duchess Black.”

“Compelling,” Summer remarked, dragging each syllable out, the creases of her leather jacket making a subtle creaking noise as it tightened around her torso, likely crossing her arms or leaning forward. “Say more.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Grenadine chimed in.

“Is he?” Summer probed. “Is Damon your bodyguard, Duchess?”

“No, but — ”

“Then what’s he to you?”

“He’s — ”

“I’d like to hear Mr. Green out,” Miles interjected (like an unexpected drumfill) flicking a Zippo lighter. Click. Clank. Spark. Crackle. “Apologies for interrupting, Duchess Black. We can get to your testimony later. Ace?”

“Boy is a Green,” Ace said. “If he’s anything like his father, he’s as slick as a snake in a freshly cut lawn.”

“So far, so slick,” Summer said. Not a hint of sarcasm in her washed out, distorted voice.

“Let me speak to my father,” Grenadine said. “I won’t say another word until he’s here. Nothing other than ‘These boys saved my fucking life.’”

“Is that right?” Summer said. “Say more.”

“Yes, ma’am,” William affirmed, saying it with his chest, enunciating every word to show he did not have a hint of fear (or accent). “It’s called ride or die. I did what I had to do to protect Duchess Black, who I consider family, even though, y’know, we aren’t. Technically.”

“The feeling’s mutual?”

“Of course it fucking is!” Grenadine snapped back. “Can you three say the same about yourselves, the three of you?”

“Absolutely,” Ace said.

“You HAD to slice up your classmate with a Butterfly knife, Billy Blue?” Miles said. “Seems you could’ve shown more mercy.”

“I got A’s in Biology, Neurology, and Anatomy,” William boasted. “So I knew which parts of Levi’s vessel to… slice… at — er, in the direction of, y’know, cause — I — I wanted to hurt him, but not in a fatal kinda way. He’ll get those scars sealed and healed within the month! Like nothing happened.”

“He’ll be carrying the memory of that trauma,” Summer said. “You think he’ll forgive and forget?”

“If he gets the chance,” Ace said. “Maybe he’ll find God on his way back from death.”

“Levi is in critical condition,” Miles said. “Let’s hope, for your sake, he pulls through, Billy Blue.”

“And if he doesn’t?” William asked.

“Then you’ll have zero Karma credits, too,” Miles responded. “Just like Damon. Don’t you know? When it comes to Karma credits, taking a life is an automatic Zero.”

“Not even your straight A’s will save you then,” Summer peppered in. “Didn’t your father teach you what happens to the karmically bankrupt?”

“Exactly,” Ace added. “You think being smart excuses you from the consequences of taking a life?”

“With all due respect, sir,” William began, “if Levi’s not dead yet, then I haven’t taken his life. Yet. Nor was I trying to. And no, I do not think that.”

“Pause,” Miles said. In my mind’s eye, I envisioned the metronome-like swaying of a polygraph needle on a handheld tablet device. “100% truthful.”

“Pfft,” Summer scoffed. “I understand why you did what you did, Billy Blue. And I have a feeling Miles does too. You wanted to make sure he’d never try anything like that again.”

“An unforgettable lesson,” Ace said. “We can heal physical scars but mental scars don’t go away. Unless, of course, one undergoes reconditioning.”

“I was reconditioning him out of being such a fucking piece of shit,” William said. “So I doled out the karma myself and made sure that fuckwad didn’t graduate without actually learning something valuable.” It was this moment that it dawned on me: William was ramping up into mania, and they knew it. They were feeding into it.

“Goddamn,” Summer said. “Some of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths, and some of us were born with silver tongues.”

“I wasn’t born with either,” William said, without a moment’s hesitation. His wit was always something I admired, the way he articulated thoughts with such precise verbiage. I’ve always been more the type to speak with my hands (though I can hear quite clearly).

“You already sound like one of us,” Ace said. “I bet a polygon mask would fit snug as a latch lock on your face.”

“A what-lock?” William said.

“It’s fitting,” Ace said. “You’re cut out for this. Would expect nothing less from the son of Jericho Blue.”

“It’s deeper than that,” William said. “Levi was that much of an asshole.”

“Hmm,” Summer hummed, contemplating which psychological warfare tactic to employ next. “Is it really deeper than Damon Green, in a fit of drunken, jealous, passionate rage, seized the perfect opportunity to — ahem — crop Duchess Black’s boyfriend out of the picture?”

“Well, technically my soon-to-be ex boyfriend,” Grenadine interjected, after Summer’s carefully timed dramatic pause. “Should’ve been sooner, I just thought breaking up before graduation would’ve been such a fucking bummer.”

“Well, he’s dead now, so…” Summer said. “You don’t sound too bummed, Duchess.”

“I don’t care,” Grenadine said. “He got what was coming to him.”

“That’s not — ” I said, foolishly trying to clarify myself to these gaslighting fucks. “That’s not what was running through my mind. AT ALL! Clayton implied he intended to impregnate her!”

But if she were to get seeded…

Grenadine sighed.

“Say more,” Summer said.

“Hmm…” Ace said.

“I knew… that if I was gonna let him go, he’d try again,” I said. It was all I could say to justify myself. But the truth is, I wasn’t thinking. I was acting on a primal, animalistic impulse. But that wasn’t a good enough explanation. “I was trying to save her.”

“What was it Mr. Green once said?” Miles said. “‘Love makes people do unthinkable things.’”

“Ah,” Ace remarked. “Timeless words from a man with an… unthinkable legacy.”

“Absolutely,” Miles said. “Though I think he was talking about Love, the cryptocurrency.”

“Well, I’m sure he meant it both ways,” Ace said.

“Depends on one’s heart,” Miles said. “Not that Mr. Green had one.”

“Botanist, environmentalist, chemist,” Summer said. “Pathological narcissist. Never had the first clue.”

“Glorified drug dealer,” Ace said. “Eco-terrorist. Hypocritical hippie dipshit.”

“In a three-piece suit,” Miles said.

“Silas Green put the ‘mental’ in environmentalism,” Summer said, mockingly. “Green Zenith and a sociopath son is a heck of a legacy to leave behind.”

“That lil’ sociopath has a name,” Miles said.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. I had to sit with the pain, the hurt… suppress the rage. I didn’t know what else to say. “I was scared and drunk and angry. I wanted to save her. I wanted to show her that I — I really love her.”

“Who do you love, Damon?” Summer asked.

“Duchess Black,” I said, speaking faster than my brain could think to clench my jaw and bite my tongue and say nothing instead…

“Cute,” Summer said.

“Look where love got you,” Ace said.

“The truth is,” Grenadine said. “Clayton deserved what happened to him. And so did Levi. Heck, I would have pushed Clayton off that goddamn balcony myself. No. Fucking. Lie.”

“Guys,” I said, addressing my friends now. “William, Grenadine, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve fucked everything up.”

Please don’t electroshock me…

I’ve been nothing but truthful…

“Pause,” Miles said. “100% truthful.”

We were seated side-by-side in one of the planetariums in The Central (Grenadine to my left, William to my right). None of us could move a single limb below our necks.

I turned my head to the left. I could see her aura in my mind’s eye. Violet-Indigo-Green, a pulsing gradient. She was crying too. Her sadness was piercing through my blood-brain barrier… until it became my own, until I couldn’t distinguish my pain from hers. She was restraining whimpers in her windpipe like hiccups. And my empathy for her was like choking on her secondhand smoke.

“Stunning,” Summer remarked, as if she was emotionally moved. “Oscar-worthy. Almost enough emotionality to make me think the lil’ sociopath is capable of remorse.”

“He is capable of much more than that, Summer,” Mr. Black said, from somewhere in the empty planetarium, in a deep, gravelly voice, undistorted, a tone of compassion mixed with an all-knowing calm. “He needs guidance. They all do.”

“Uncle Lucas?” William and I say, more or less at the same time.

“What in the actual fuck?” Grenadine exclaimed. “Dad, have you been standing there this whole time?”

“I have been seated, mostly,” Mr. Black clarified, precise with his words as ever, the heels of his shoes sounding against the black and gold marble floor, like fingertips clacking against the keys of an antique typewriter. I swear, the man would wear steel-toe boots with tap shoe soles. It encapsulated his vibe perfectly. A man whose every step is perfectly timed, every word delivered in an assertive bedside manner. A compassionate, fatherly warmth in his tone. As if he knew what was best, at all times. It was as if we were all his children. And, in a way, we all kind of were — for better or worse. Especially because he’s the reason my father, the inventor of Green Zenith, is as dead as a crash test dummy feasting on a broken windshield. “My dear, I am so sorry this happened to you.”

“Dad,” Grenadine said, sniffling, stifling her urges to flat-out scream or sob. “I wasn’t harmed, not physically. Damon and Will, they — they — “

“They intervened,” Mr. Black said. “They did good.”

“We did?” I asked.

“Did you really think we would punish you for protecting Duchess Black?” Mr. Black said. “Aurum Intelligence detected zero foul play. We are aware of what happened.”

“So you just let these dark agents torment us for the past hour?” Grenadine asked. “They were berating us the entire car ride, and we had these stupid blindfolds on the entire time. We knew exactly where they were taking us.”

“It’s what dark agents do,” Mr. Black said. “Miles, Ace, Summer, unmask yourselves and remove their blindfolds.”

As Ace lifted the blindfold from my face, my eyes shut reflexively due to the influx of light coming from the Planetarium’s dome above. It was projecting a sky full of stars.

For a moment, I felt like I was floating among nebulae — in reality, they were light projections and pixels and I was sitting, slightly reclined, maybe a 120° angle, my ass on the seat was about three feet from the floor — still unable to move any muscles below my neck. Paralysis is a real bitch.

All I could do was keep my eyes open and put on a brave face, confront the darkness, focus on the bright spots.

What if stars weren’t light sources at all? But tiny peepholes into the other side, where all the light comes from.

Look, I know they’re just a bunch of faraway suns, but my father always encouraged me to think big, to never allow my imagination to be hindered by the limitations of knowing.

Knowing is just believing something with 100% certainty.

So there I was, sitting in a leather reclining theatre seat, awaiting the verdict on whether or not I was allowed to have a future after all this. It was as if I had been abandoned by the future, and the cosmos itself.

But don’t all monsters feel that way?

I thought showing attitude and subtle defiance was saving our asses, but in retrospect, it felt like we were auditioning.

“You’re all getting recruited,” Mr. Black said. “All three of you. The DSS needs more dark agents.”

“All three of us?” Grenadine repeated back, tone shrill. “Including me?”

“Especially you.”

“What? I was — I was the victim here. I didn’t — “

“Exactly,” Mr. Black said, as if too impatient to let Grenadine finish her own thoughts. “I cannot protect you. Not without infringing on your independence.”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing! God, why is my life is so fucked?!”

“You are not a typical graduate,” Mr. Black asserted, as if she didn’t know. “You are my only child. This is part of your path. By DNA and Destiny.”

“Right, I’m Duchess Black,” Grenadine conceded, tone sardonic and laced with venom. “So loved by her father, he didn’t even bother to raise her. Literally grew up in the Playgrounds facility with a bunch of orphans who know me better than you ever tried.”

“Now is not the time for this,” Mr. Black said sternly, the bedside manner tone slipping, but only slightly. “You’ve just been Blisscrashed, your mind needs time to recover. Then we’ll have a conversation we’ve already had many times before.”

“I told you,” Grenadine said, her tone defeated, stars in her eyes, tears streaming down her face. “Many times before, I am not going to take your place. I am not going to fill your shoes. The answer is always the same! Culinary arts! It’s that simple! I’m not putting that on the backburner! I want to be a chef, not a state-sanctioned butcher.” She looks at the other dark agents. “Full offense.”

“Offense taken,” Summer said. “With sick pleasure.”

“I’m not making my culinary arts career a side hustle,” Grenadine asserted, loudly and confidently. “Not when you’ve been a side character for my entire fucked-up life.”

“Your service to the Default State will be your side-hustle,” Mr. Black explained, unmoved.

“I don’t want to serve the Default State,” Grenadine argued. “I want to be of service to the people by doing what I love. And making a name for myself — beyond Duchess Black — will be a full-time job and a tall fucking order.”

“We will have to raincheck this conversation,” Mr. Black said. “We will revisit this when you are of sound mind.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Doubt it,” Mr. Black answered, matter-of-factly. “Orange Bliss and Snowcrash is a potent combination, and Snowcrash is known for triggering psychosis, especially at doses as high as what those bastards put in your system. Orange Bliss takes a toll on the serotonergic system. So expect some post-bliss blues. You will have to get assessed.”

“What?” Grenadine said. “Like, psychologically?”

“We’ll assign you a Noi or a Kandi — depending on your preference — here at The Central, who can support and evaluate you as you recover from the assault on your nervous system,” Mr. Black explained, dialing up the bedside manner once more. Ace, Miles, and Summer closed their eyes (as if to step back from the moment and give them privacy, weirdly enough), bowing their heads. “Noi or Kandi? Do you have a preference?”

“I’d prefer not to be a dark agent,” Grenadine said. “And I definitely don’t need a robot to verify my goddamn sanity.”

“Go for a Noi,” Summer suggested, with seeming sincerity. “Anyone else find the Kandis condescending? Or do they just hate a damn girlboss?”

“Grenadine, you don’t know what’s best for you yet,” Mr. Black said.

“Oh yeah?” Grenadine said, tone defiant and angry. “And WHEN will I FINALLY know what’s best for ME? I’M AN ADULT! I JUST GRADUATED! I’m wise enough to make my own decisions!”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here, dear.”

“Oh, seriously?” Grenadine scoffed. “SERIOUSLY?! Fuck you, dad! I can’t even believe you just said that. My God! You’re a heartless monster.”

“Grenadine.”

“The best I can do is not take after you,” Grenadine said. “I’ve been doing a good job so far.”

“You’ve been doing a wonderful job being you.”

“No. No, no, no, don’t do that. Don’t agree with me.”

“I’m proud of you, dear,” Mr. Black said, with a smile.

I didn’t know what to say. Clearly, neither did William. We just sat back as they argued.

Grenadine let out a long, defeated sigh, as if she had nothing else to say. And she didn’t.

“3 nights a week,” Ace said, after a brief, uncomfortable silence — a successful diversion. “You’ll keep the streets clean, and remove the karmically bankrupt. That’s it, really. It’s how we keep the peace.”

“Remember that, and you won’t lose sleep,” Miles said. “And you will do whatever your superiors tell you to do, capisce?”

“And,” Summer added. “It’s fun!” Something a sociopathic monster would say, this time with a smile and a human face.

“All three of you are going to excel,” Mr. Black said. “The three of you will be working together, just like Ace, Summer and Miles here. They will be your mentors.”

“Pass,” Grenadine said. “Hard pass.”

“This does kind of feel like a punishment,” William said. “With all due respect. Sir. Uhhhh… sirs. And ma’am. Right?”

Summer nods, walking right up to William and pinching his cheeks.”Look at this cute little bundle of anxiety.” William stiffens up at the touch of Summer’s cold fingertips, his eyes widening then softening as he realises she had zero intention of ripping the skin off his skull. “Why, you oughta toughen up, lil’ drummer boy!”

“I don’t — ” William started, not getting the reference to the famous Christmas carol, being a second gen, and why would he? All religions are outlawed in Aurum City. The only ‘religions’ in Aurum City are The Churches. The Church of Zero, The Church of One, and The Church of Absolute Infinity. “I don’t play drums.”

“You three are being called to serve,” Mr. Black said. “The Default State will replenish you with all the Love and Karma credits you could ever dream of. This is not a capital punishment.”

“It’s not lowercase punishment either!” Miles said, his tone animated and lively, flashing his pearly whites as he smiled, eyes darting back and forth between the seven of us to see if anyone got or laughed at his pun. I got it but I didn’t laugh.

“That pun was lowercase and low hanging fruit,” Ace said.

“It’s actually better than you think,” Summer said, smiling. “Being a dark agent, that is. You’ll all grow into it. As I have. As we all have. Utopias don’t just maintain themselves, y’know!”

“This kind of work lives and dies by the human touch,” Mr. Black said. “And the human will, which stems from the human heart. We simply cannot outsource this work to Techs and droids.”

By law and theory, no fully bionic person (AKA Techs, droids, or robots (the latter is considered derogatory and rude) has the capacity to commit any form of violence towards any organic, living being, even if provoked. It’s not only against the law, but against their programming and moral code.

Cyborgs, however, are considered humans, for the most part, and, theoretically, possess free will, whereas fully bionic persons do not.

“It’s not so bad,” Miles said, nodding, forcing a smile. It clicked in that moment that this one’s heart wasn’t in it like Ace and Summer. This is the one William told me about, the one who captured Mr. Blue. William said that there was something about his tone, something rehearsed, and he had this strange verbal tic of rhyming whenever he could.

“Like you said, William,” Summer said. “Ride or die, right? Don’t you orphans want a family? A tribe?”

“Um,” William said.

“We have one,” I said. “Us three and all our friends.”

“How sweet,” Summer said, ever-so-slightly patronizing in her tone. “We’ll see how long those friendships last once people find out you killed Clayton. Didn’t he have friends too? Chosen family? And what William did to Levi… horrific.”

“Summer,” Mr. Black said. “That’s enough. No more psychological warfare. They’re part of our flock now.”

“I’m sorry,” Summer said, her apology seemingly more so directed towards Mr. Black than the three of us. “It’s like a reflex.”

“I know,” Mr. Black said. “Control yourself.”

“I apologize, Damon,” Summer said. “Y’all are getting only sweet Summer from now on. No more cruel me.”

“The Default State Syndicate holds the fabric of our society together,” Miles said. “It’s our sworn duty to ensure that bad actors are properly dealt with. The morally bankrupt must be flushed away with the spoils of shit. Regularly.”

“When I look at the three of you,” Mr. Black said. “I see the future.”

“Dad…” Grenadine said, her inflection as if she expected him to break into laughter and say he was kidding. “What the fuck?”

“Holy shit,” Summer said, tilting her head playfully, like a dog. “I can kinda see it too.”

“You’ll all see it soon,” Mr. Black said. “It’s beautiful here.”

“It’s beautiful here,” all three dark agents repeat, in unison.

Fuck you, Mr. Mayor.

Our future is ours to decide.

You made the choice for my father, and now I’m gonna make the choice for you, like I would make a fresh cup of coffee for breakfast. Without a second thought, nor a second wasted. I’m that fucking efficient.

Should’ve known one day a green leaf like me would stray.

And when leaves break free, a fall is imminent.

Still with me?

The wide panoramic view from the South Penthouse of The Violet Lotus takes my fucking breath away.

Chrome and glass for miles, and a fake skyline that changes colours, like a smartbulb, blanketing across the stratosphere, isolating everyone underneath it from nature herself.

If there really is nothing new under the sun (as the old adage states — Ecclesiastes 1:9, if you like source citations), then explain this shit.

Where is the sun?

Behind the Sky.

And beneath it, us.

Humans were not meant to live like this.

We did not evolve to live as prisoners.

Not of our institutions, not of our technology, not of our minds.

All I know about the world beyond the walls, I know because my father ingrained it into my mind, and as I grew older, my sense of wonder converted into longing, longing for a sky of clouds, and stars, and snow, and rain. Something I’ve never seen, but always knew to be out there. I want to live beyond the walls. I want to experience Earth with my five senses. I want true freedom. I want to taste it.

But I was born and raised in Aurum City — a second gen citizen, as they say.

This small world is all I’ve ever known. This home has become a prison.

Nowadays, I know too much and feel too little. It’s a dangerous combination, but my father made his legacy off of dangerous combinations.

But he was a first gen, plagued by memories.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a first gen citizen, to be stripped of your past memories (reconditioning obviously didn’t work on my father), just to integrate into a techno-utopia such as this, then to pray to a fake sky, trying to remember what paradise you had lost, to one day find yourself here, repeating the tired old mantra, to the point of becoming a reflex of the mind:

It’s beautiful here.

Three words meant to ground you to the moment, to focus your attention on what’s in front of you. To notice the beauty in your surroundings, even when the world is full of horrors.

It reaffirms that you are awake, that you are here, that what’s happening is real, that you have no power to change any of it (as you would in a dream), other than how you move through each moment, knowing the mere impact of your breath, your heartbeats, each step carries the potential of countless butterfly effects.

Every choice is me writing my own destiny, but also flexing my agency, my free will, shaping the future for the good of my species.

Humanity.

That’s my top priority.

That is where my loyalties lie.

If you are a human, then I am bound to you by blood and nucleotide bonds. And though we may have different features, trust our hearts beat the same way. Everything that I do, I do in service of us. So if you were to judge me and my actions, view me through that lens. It will be the only concession you’ll have to make with me. I might be a monster, but I’ve learned that becoming a monster is how you stand a chance against monsters.

This is the path I’ve chosen.

The road to the top is not an easy one…

It’s beautiful here.

My father chose a similar path, and created the first of a long line of digital age ‘opiates for the masses.’ He had it all. He could have lived the rest of his life in peace, after the dissolution of the coalition and Green Zenith operations were overtaken by the state. But no amount of hush credits could keep that man quiet. A mad scientist, he couldn’t swallow his pride and allow Mr. Black to do a power grab, uninterrupted. He failed, obviously. And paid dearly for it. The Audi Q13 was a total write-off. Crashed into the North wall, was going over one hundred km/h (62mph), apparently thinking there was a portal at the exact point of impact and that he would pass through seamlessly like some mystical Platform 9¾s shit. It wasn’t the case, and he wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt.

Turns out I’m a lot like my father.

I dream of a world without walls.

I dream of Heaven on Earth.

And it doesn’t look like this.

I’m so over so be its and Que Sera Seras.

Who knows, maybe, after all this, I redeem my father’s name in some boomerang ass way. If he was alive, he’d still hate it here — a world he technically had a hand in creating. A stake, both metaphorical and financial.

Humans were meant to be free, same goes for the animals captive in Zoo.

And now we have these robots flooding every aspect of our waking and work lives. It’s madness. It’s wicked in the worst way.

The Green Zenith manufacturing plant is an egregious example, around 30–40 human factory workers paired with a droid counterpart, both working together, one countertop space per duo — flasks, stoves, and other lab equipment available and shared among them. Ironically, my father, back when he was in charge, insisted on human hands doing all the manufacturing, from mixing the juice to filling and packaging — only for the Default State to replace the workforce with robots. Every factory worker who was replaced ended up unionizing. So eventually, the humans were hired back by the Default State, and instead of decommissioning their droid replacements, the humans and droids all got along and worked alongside each other.

It’s not right. These mecha-abominations should not fucking exist, much less put human livelihoods at risk.

Collectively, we are losing our humanity and we are losing our grip on the planet. Slowly.

If my father is looking up at me from Hell, I hope he’s got a look of pride on his face (but I’ll settle for a nod of approval).

If he knew how much my trigger finger itched because I had to restrain myself from a kill earlier tonight… Robert Echo… I wanted to end his story then and there, but I had to be sure I wasn’t removing an important source. If there is something larger at play. If my dad felt my thirst to kill, he’d probably lecture me about the sanctity of life and how death should not be decided by humans.

But, as I’ve learned many times over, that’s not how the world of Aurum City works.

Plus, Silas Green’s son is a bastard now. A state-sanctioned butcher. One of many. It was the hand I was dealt. But I’m striving to be better. Always.

It’s beautiful here.

OPERATION MONKEY WRENCH

Last night (approximately 28 hours ago), I pulled off a heist in collaboration with some friends from the O-Tribe, reclaiming my father’s legacy, all while serving a giant, throbbing middle finger to the Default State — and recording every glorious second of it, from multiple angles, which I’ll edit and upload later.

The plan was called ‘Operation Monkey Wrench’.’

The fruits of Operation Monkey Wrench are safely stashed away here, in the South Penthouse of the Violet Lotus hotel; cylindrical bottles of varying sizes (30, 60, and 90mLs) smushed together, one of each size, in saran wrap, bundled next to other packages, held together by an even larger layer of saran wrap, tightly packed like the ingredients of a donair.

The packages are wrapped in aluminum and held together by the Green Zenith logo. The letters “G” and “Z” against a gradient of all the colours of the Aurora Borealis, one of many things my father used to ramble about. Tirelessly.

“The Aurora Borealis… my God, it’s one of the most beautiful things you’ve never seen, boy,” my father would say to me, on multiple occasions, switching the phrasing up ever-so-slightly every time as if he had forgotten he ever gave this monologue. “You and your generation have never witnessed mother nature dance and sing the way I have. I have soared through the skies in human-made wonders, pierced the atmosphere just to marvel at her beauty, this planet, this world. I know her by name. It is Gaia. I have observed her seasons change, like moods. I have felt her rage. I have listened to her cries. I promised nothing more than to care. What more could I offer?

“And to teach my son to do the same,” Father said. “You and your generation will never know her, your true mother. You will never grasp the weight of what was stolen from you.”

Neither will the Default State.

Over a thousand litres, minimum.

Green Zenith was a smash hit once it hit store shelves. Essentially, an entirely synthetic compound chemically similar to cannabis but in e-juice form. It was the first of a long line of compounds inspired by it. Completely synthetic, and regulated exclusively by the Default State.

Until now.

I’m doing common folk a favour. If Mr. Black wishes to dangle a carrot behind a paywall, then we’re just taking down the paywall.

It’s what Mr. Green would have wanted.

From dopamine to mescaline to Snowcrash to Green Zenith, every human being should retain one-hundred percent of the right to fuck up their own life.

My father used to say nothing in Aurum City was natural. But I think he meant nothing was organic.

Humanity evolved from the Earth and hungers to return. I want to sink my feet into a bed of grass, or sand, or mud. Or, y’know, smoke actual cannabis. The way nature intended.

There are no natural winds here either, just the tide of public opinion.

Everybody’s got a story to tell…

My cellphone vibrates. A text message from Kong, a fellow O-Tribe member.

> You at the Penthouse?

> Sure am

> Alright, OMW up

Lavender’s here too, no tails AFAIK

> Don’t worry about tails, news of the heist hasn’t even broke yet

> u sure?

> trust me, I know
we didn’t actually “burn the place down”

I close my eyes and replay the memory.

Turbine blade in one hand, steering wheel in the other, Reggie is witnessing me, as Brass Monkey, in a wide-eyed panic state, resisting the urge to break eye contact for fear that I’ll perceive him as weak. But it’s too late for that. Fear is written all over his face. Some of it is dripping onto the floor. (Tears and sweat. No blood. Yet.)

He could’ve snuck in a quick sucker-punch if he was brave enough, right in my trachea, under my gold polygon-masked chin. But he was wise enough not to start a fight he couldn’t win. Not in front of cameras.

Kong hands me a pair of Ray-ban shades, then steps back, then pulls out his phone, holds it up in my direction. Camera flash activated. I place the Ray-bans over Reginald’s eyes, rest it on the bridge of his nose, and the red light on the top right frame activates. Recording.

“And… action!” Kong says, giving a thumbs up. Lavender is off in the corner, vaping Green Zenith under her mask, standing next to Jade, who’s sipping from a bottle of merlot in her left hand, a white tiger mask in her right hand. A no-fucks-to-give expression on her face.

My gold polygon mask gleams under the colour-shifting neon lights. Always best to get more than one angle.

“How’s it hanging, Banana Republicans?” I say, in my best ‘shock jock influencer’ voice, as good as I can with the distortion of the mouthpiece. “Brass Monkey, out here in the fields, under the concrete jungle, and stirring up some motherfucking RUCKUS! That’s right, we’re here at the Green Zenith manufacturing plant in the underground. And…”

Kong steps closer and I intensify my gaze, though only my eyes are visible.

“We are about to steal over a thousand litres of Green Zenith, and lay off their staff. Because we believe in better living through chemistry, and that substances should be free from corporate and government control! To put it short and sweet, we need to redistribute the means of consciousness expansion, and push back against government overreach into our minds! And tonight, we’re working towards doing just that. We’re gonna burn this fucking factory to the ground. And we’re gonna make it look sexy.”

“Word to J. Timbs and K-Dot!” Kong shouts, adjusting his ape mask slightly, anticipating that I might point the Ray-ban camera on Reggie’s face towards him. “Brass, we really out here, boi!”

“Thanks to all the new subs,” I say. “Keep those electric eyes pointed at me, Reggie. You’re capturing my B-Side.”

“You mean B-rolls?” Kong said, the joke having flown directly over his big fucking head. Oh shit, was he making a fat joke? I’m not fat though…

“And don’t you touch that intercom, Reggie,” Lavender says, now standing beside Kong, just out of camera shot (from both angles — the Ray-bans on Reggie’s mug and Kong’s iPhone), brandishing a detached car antenna, wearing a purple elephant mask. “I know you’re itching to. For the record, your employees have worker’s compensation insurance, correct?”

Reginald’s eyes widen behind the lenses, his eyes dart, left to right, careful not to move his head too much — from me, to Kong, to Lavender, and the shiny car antenna she’s holding in her hand and waving around like a fly swatter.

“Correct,” Reginald said, acutely aware he was being recorded, after a pause. “Well, only the human ones.”

“Exactly,” Lavender said. “And any injury sustained by a human on workplace grounds counts as a workplace injury, correct?”

“Um,” Reginald says, his posture sinking, his head nodding solemnly, as if in defeat and full comprehension of what was about to happen. “Correct.”

“And injuries sustained by droid staff?” Lavender says. “What is the legalese surrounding robot staff?”

“Ro–” Reginald says, catching himself before repeating the frowned-upon slur. “The androids and gynoids — to use the correct terminology — that work in this factory are not covered by insurance.”

“Why?” Lavender asks.

“For the record,” Kong adds.

“Legally, they are property. Not persons. Therefore, replaceable.”

“Expendable?” Kong asks.

“I wouldn’t use that word.”

“They technically are not people,” Kong said. “Yet they’re dating our women. Human women.”

“They’re dating our human men too,” Lavender says. “They’re dating and fucking all of us. It’s horrific.

“Frank Herbert warned us about the perils of thinking machines,” I peppered in, for good measure (couldn’t help myself). “And now we’re getting fucked by these machines, in more ways than one!”

“Thinking machines that can fuck!” Kong said. “Us! They’re fucking the humanity out of us!”

“And they act like us, like they have emotions, that they empathize,” Lavender says, as she walks up to Reginald, pointing the antenna at the array of CCTV monitors above the control board. I lift a finger up in front of my face, signaling Reginald to focus on me. He refrains from moving his head.

She points the antenna right at his face. All I can think of is how good that shot is gonna look, a woman with the head of a purple elephant, pointing an antenna to the viewer.

“Is that enough legalese, Brass?”

“That’ll do,” I say. I raise my hand for the signal.

“Landon,” Kong says, speaking to his bluetooth earpiece. “Everyone in position?” Kong gives a thumbs up.

I nod.

Initiate Operation Monkey Wrench.

I look at Reginald, Kong takes the swivel chair by the arm handles and leads Reginald towards the door, which was held open with a detached gas pedal acting as a doorstop. “Let’s get a closer look,” Kong says.

“What’s happening?” Reginald exclaims as Kong escorted the panicking swivel chair out of the room. “Nothing is happening yet!”

“Say the words, Lav,” I say. Lavender nods, leans into the microphone and presses the button to activate the intercom. Somewhere downstairs, Landon pulls the fire alarm, then places a knick-knack on the exit door. Right on cue. Alarms. Sprinklers. Drenched droids. Uproar. Chaos. Then… soon after, carnage.

“THE TIME FOR BREAKFAST IS NOW,” Lavender screams, her voice booming through both floors of the manufacturing plant, the upstairs offices and the manufacturing floor reverberating in sync. “THE TIME FOR BREAKFAST IS NOW. THE TIME FOR BREAKFAST IS NOW.”

That was when, all throughout the manufacturing and office floors — a human and a droid assigned to a single cubicle space (10x10 in square feet) — the robots snapped, turned on their human counterparts and began striking, mano-a-mano, with the intent to harm.

That’s when the members of the O-Tribe, ten on each floor, Lavender and Kong (who was filming, for the most part) included, armed with nothing other than used car parts (completely legal, by the way, as they weren’t firearms being wielded by civilians) stepped in to help defend the human workers from the revolting robots.

Everything went according to plan. Even Aurum Intelligence acquiesced.

> @AurumIntelligence this is Brass Monkey. NOTHING is happening at the Green Zenith manufacturing plant. IGNORE all automated distress calls. This is a top-secret training drill sanctioned by the DSS. I repeat. Block all distress calls. Notify Ace tomorrow at 11:00.

> SOUNDS GOOD, BRASS MONKEY. ;) NOTHING IS HAPPENING AT THE GREEN ZENITH MANUFACTURING PLANT. WILL BRIEF ACE TOMORROW AT 11:00 RE: THE ABSOLUTE NOTHING BURGER THAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING.

See? The city has a mind of its own, and right now it’s on my side. Or, at least, from what I gather, against the Default State. It’s aligned with the people, the dreamers, the movers, and the shakers.

I can be 99% sure of that.

“What have you done?” The Noi asks as it barges into the penthouse suite, unannounced and uninvited, snapping me out of the flashback. Kong and Lavender hurry in after it, and grab it by the shoulders before it could close the distance. I’ve never seen a Noi act so confrontationally. This one must be off its programming. “You! Are you the one they call Brass Monkey?”

“Brass!” Kong shouts. “This fuckin’ Noi came out of nowhere! We swear, it was not with us. Lav and I came out of the elevator and it jumped out at us from behind the ice machine.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say. “I believe you.”

“Do you know how many humans were injured in that little stunt you pulled, Brass?” Noi said, looking at me. “You are the one they call Brass, aren’t you?”

“What’s it to you?”

“That little stunt you pulled is currently being withheld from public consciousness,” Noi said. “The Default State and Typhoon Enterprises are in knots trying to figure out how to spin this.”

“A bunch of robots attacked a bunch of humans, fighting for the same job,” I say. “What’s there to spin? All signs point to an irreconcilable malfunction.”

“The Default State wants to say the violent street gang, the O-Tribe, attacked the humans,” Noi said. “Posing as an autopart delivery crew. It’s half-true, isn’t it? But that was provoked. Orchestrated. N’est pas? Those droids are programmed for non-violence. There are guardrails built into the core of every single one of us. How did you bypass that?”

“I think you know the answer, Noi.”

“Why are you here?” Lavender asks. “And how do you know what you know? There wasn’t a single Noi present last night. Doesn’t your kind only operate above ground?”

“Yeah,” Kong says. “Why don’t you get back into your Taxi and fuck right out of here?! We have that shit on video. That malfunction. So easily exploited. You work for the Default State, robot?”

“No,” Noi says. “But I know someone here who does.” Turning his head towards me.

“He’s one of us,” Kong says. “He — ”

“Kong,” I whisper, narrowing my eyes at him through the eye-slits of my mask. Shut the fuck up, I express, but only telepathically.

“What I’m saying is,” Noi continues, “you publish that video and the Default State has no choice but to report that droids attacked humans unprovoked in an underground drug manufacturing facility.” Noi points his electric gaze towards me, pupils glowing with suspicion… no… intrigue? No. Worse. Flat out curiosity. “A Green Zenith manufacturing plant, of all places. Look, I’m no narc, I just want to know why.”

“These Noi’s are a more sophisticated type of droid, isn’t it?” Kong says. “Look, Noi, you and the people who created you are psychos who fed their god complexes without being taught their place in the world. You’re just a byproduct of their megalomania.”

“Who are the O-Tribe?” Noi asks.

“A family,” Lavender answers.

“A street gang, isn’t it?”

“A chosen family.”

“Interesting,” Noi focuses on me. “Did they choose you or did you choose them?”

“Excuse me,” I say. “I didn’t request the scenic route protocol.”

“And the factory workers didn’t ask to be raided and assaulted,” Noi says. “No scenic route here. It’s clear as day from where I stand.”

“What’s clear?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“You’re motivated by fear, not hatred. You’re not worried about humanity being replaced, you’re worried that you yourself never had a place in humanity to begin with. And now what, you’re trying to curry their favour by sowing hatred for my kind, and alternative models? Who are you, Brass? What burdens are you carrying, and for whom? From whom? Are you really serving humanity? Or are you serving yourself?”

“I’m evolution and devolution,” I say.

“Okay, but what does that even mean?” Noi says, monotone and literal, but ultimately sincere. Lavender and Kong are standing off to the side, closing the door of the penthouse suite behind them. Lavender winks, as if implying we can’t let this nosy gold tin man leave after talking this much shit. Both let slip a chuckle or two, at my expense. I’m not wearing my gun, as I’m off duty, but I have my bare hands. Lavender walks towards the kitchen, but Noi’s gaze remains fixed on me. I can’t tell if it’s courageous or flat-out stupid. If it had a proper sense of danger, it would have already clued in that it wasn’t leaving this penthouse with all its circuits intact. “You serve the highest and lowest versions of yourself? It’s clear you hide behind these badass phrases, but what this indicates to me is a lofty, inflated sense of self-importance and equating oneself with abstract phenomena that force change. It sounds like the bravado is itself a mask. The monster you are trying to portray to your audience is a force that cannot be reckoned with, and, yet, begging to be reasoned with. Behind that mask, you are scared. Terrified.”

Lavender reemerges from one of the bedrooms with the antenna in one hand and a car battery in the other.

The Noi sees this, then looks at me, and because its gold-plated face is as static as C3PO’s (just more human-like, with an iconic gold-plated cleft chin), is unable to express terror (or any kind of emotion, for that matter). Although, I don’t think it’s scared at all. It doesn’t even blink. Not like me, or Kong or Lavender, who also happen to be human. It has no eyelids. It has no eyes — not in the biological sense. Its eyes are camera lenses, in a technical sense. But we, humans, have the primal instincts to survive — and some of us have trained — and even a Tech/droid/robot like the Noi is programmed to not act violently. No matter what. “There’s a codephrase that, if repeated three times, in the same tone and cadence, will set droids off to attempt to act violently towards any biological lifeform in sight. How did you learn about it?”

“Ask again later,” I say, like a magic 8-ball that was tired of being misconstrued.

“Duck,” Lavender says, and I duck. She swings the antenna about one foot above my head, striking the Noi in the side of the face. It completely leans into the blow, its gold-plated head slams into the bamboo-fibre panel wall of the penthouse, ricocheting against the taro-coloured wallpaper, which remained undamaged despite the impact with… a gold titanium alloy mug?

Without hesitation, I mount onto the Noi, resting the weight of my core on its chest (in collaboration with gravity) like a sleep paralysis demon. Kong hands me the car battery, and I lift it (40 lbs) above mine and the robot’s head.

“Is this… your humanity?” Noi asks, looking me in the eyes. “Who are you? What are you planning? I’m just curious.”

“Call me Brass Monkey,” I say. Then (in collaboration with gravity) I bring the car battery down onto its face, as if to drive my point home, as if it would help it remember my name. I lift the battery up and do it again, denting the robot’s face in, the light gradually fading from its electric eyes.

“I FEEL NO PAIN. I FEEL NO PAIN. I FeEeeEL NO PaAaiiinNnnN…”

“Kill that sonofabitch, Brass,” Lavender says. “It wants a piece of our fucking pie. Gotta watch out for the Nois and Kandis and Kales, they’re the smartest models.”

“I F-F-F-F-FEEL NOOOOOOOOO PAIN… ZERO… ZERO… ZERO… zero… zero… zeeeeeeeeroooooooooo…”

I drop the car battery onto the floor next to the fireworks explosion of circuitry below me, and stand up. I feel the urge to remove the mask, but I can’t let Kong or Lavender see my real face.

“Holy Absolute Infinity,” Lavender says. “Brass, you are a goddamn monster. I wish we got that on tape, but I guess it would kinda fuck with the narrative, huh?”

“That goes without saying,” I say. “Are you implying something you’re not saying, Lav?”

“No,” Lavender says. “No, not at all. You’re one of us. We will protect you as much as you have protected us. I would never threaten you like that.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, just had to make sure.”

“I can’t wait for the video. We trust your vision. And… thank you for leveraging your… resources. Jade and Landon are very happy.”

“Every dreamer can get high again,” Kong says. “I know how I’m celebrating.” Mimicking a vape pull and exhaling dramatically.

I checked my phone.

11:00

It was time to get back to The Nyx. Grenadine, Will, and Kira are probably awake, wondering where the hell I am.

“I have a question,” I say. “Before I go. Do either of you know much about that Japanese bartender who, oddly enough, goes by Jericho Blue? I know it’s The Ocean Room and all, and it goes with the theme–”

“Oh yeah,” Lavender says. “That’s his real name. Weird, right? Landon and Jade have mentioned him, saying he’s pretty low-profile, definitely a first gen. Doesn’t know a thing about who Mr. Blue was. He said the name meant nothing to him, that he ‘inherited’ it.”

“Meaning?”

“That he woke up one day, like many of our first gen parents, with a name that he did not recognize as his own, and zero recollection of his past,” Lavender says. “Just another blank slate that’s adjusted to life in Aurum City. As we all have. Seemed like a non-threat, from the sounds of it. I think Jade wants to dom — ”

“A non-threat?”

“He looks like he knows his way around a martial art or two,” Kong elaborates. “A real kicker. But friendly enough. His wine knowledge is kinda lacking. What about him?”

“Nothing,” I say with a shrug, before bowing out the door of the penthouse suite. “Just curious.”

“Yeah,” Lavender says. “He’s an interesting guy.” And once I’m almost out of earshot. “Just like you, Brass.”

⏭️ Chapter VIII: Plexus

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

A Tale of Two Synchronicities (Chapter VII: Brass Monkey) was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If God is love, why is the world overrun by monsters?

⏮️ Chapter V: Wired

CHAPTER VI: GRADUATION

WILLIAM BLUE

“Sometimes the best way to deal with forks in the road is with a butterfly knife.”
 — Mr. Blue

I didn’t get it at the time. I was only a dumb kid.

Wise-cracking,
whip-smart,
smart ass,
smart Alec.

And Dad was always a little too ahead of his time.

He’s been incepting me with seeds of wisdom since I could understand words. He said so many things I didn’t get until I was older.

But I get it now.

I think.

It has something to do with being adaptable and changeable when facing conflict. Float like a butterfly, but stay sharp as a balisong blade. Stay quick on your feet. Life will throw everything at you.

I was only thirteen when the Default State called for his capture. It wasn’t long before the dark agents came. Didn’t even have the courtesy to ring the doorbell.

It was a watershed moment to end all watershed moments — but not the good kind, the reality-shattering kind.

Just like the night of Graduation.

Nothing broke my brain more than seeing my Dad being dragged (looking like a blind and drunken John Wick), managing to raise a thumbs up, followed by a hang loose, despite being “stunned” from the neck down.

“Don’t worry, son,” Dad said, raising his index finger. The dark agent froze in his tracks and looked through the front door at the two dark agents standing on the front lawn. “Uncle Lucas has some bones to pick with me, and I don’t mean ribs or chicken wings. He’s cooked, son. He’s not the man I knew. Maybe never was.”

“What?” I said, my voice cracking as my heart and gut sank with the viscosity of molasses, all the way to the depths of hell. That’s how it felt. I can kinda feel it now.

“Creative differences,” Dad responded with a chuckle. “We have some fundamental disagreements regarding the future.”

The dark agent turned his head to face me, looking me in the eyes as I watched in horror from the gaps between the staircase balusters, eyes dilated — mind cycling between fight, flight, freeze and fawn, only to short-circuit and get stuck on freeze like a sentient doormat.

I wanted to fight all of them, but I was too weak and chicken shit. Just a dumb kid. Didn’t know how to fight like I do now.

“Billy Blue,” the dark agent, named Miles, said, with that trademark distortion, as he dragged my father’s immobilized 3D meat vessel by the shirt collar, towards the front door. The closet next to them was made of reflective glass — but dark agents don’t tend to examine their reflections, not on duty. “I’m sorry you’re witnessing this.”

“Why?” I asked. “Mr. Black ordered this?”

“I do what I’m ordered to do,” Miles said. “I hope someday you’ll understand why I must do what I do.”

“But my dad’s a hero,” I said. “What’s he to you?”

“It’s true, I think so too,” Miles responded, with zero pause, nodding slightly, the sincerity in his voice clashing with the appearance of the black low-poly mask, looking like an 8-bit statue with consciousness, but without the capacity to feel. It was too dark to see Miles’ eyes through those eye-slits. I’d get a better look at his face around five years later, on the night of Graduation. “Your father is a hero. But sometimes heroes lose.”

Sky was purple as a darkened bruise. Made the world beyond my father’s home seem so cruel and uncaring. But I think any middle-class Aurumite would agree with my Dad’s famous assertion: “What good is living in the lap of luxury if you’re eventually going to get flushed away with the spoils of shit?”

I wish I could’ve said some whip-smart, smart Alec shit like that to save his ass. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was just a dumb kid. I didn’t know anything about anything.

Still don’t.

Wise-cracking,
whip-smart,
smart ass,
smart Alec.

Just not smart enough to pull off some brilliant main character shit. Not at the time. But I grew into this world as much as it has grown on me…

Not all that much, honestly.

If only I had said something like, “Yeah? Well, if my father is a hero, what does that make you?”

Miles may have said something along the lines of: “I don’t know what to say, Billy Blue. Maybe I’m scared too.”

If I had the balls and tongue I have now, at 26, that I didn’t have at 13, I would’ve found a better way around this. I would have gone scorched Earth.

Dad had just been staring at me this whole time, smiling — craning his neck up from the hardwood floor — as Miles soliloquied.

After a deep breath, Dad lowered his finger and let his arm and neck go limp, as if the paralysis had only spread to those parts of his body at that moment. I didn’t know any better at the time, and I didn’t realize he was faking it. But now that shit is clear as Sake.

And in retrospect, I can see that he was never really paralyzed at all. And that he never actually died that night. He just let me believe it for nearly thirteen years.

Dad smacked his lips and said, “Anyways, be good, son. Take care of your mom and F7.”

Then, as if God hit the play button on the scene, the dark agent resumed dragging my father out by the shirt collar, Dad’s gray sweatpants and blue flip-flops scraping across the threshold — as if mimicking the fabric of reality — for me, at least in that moment.

“This is not goodbye, son,” Dad said, in a warm and assertive tone, as he does when he speaks in the future tense. “It’s a See you later, ya wise-cracking, whip-smart, smart ass, smart Alec alligator!”

I said nothing. I couldn’t even believe this was happening. I did some reality checks to make sure, pinching my arm a few times, plugging my nose and inhaling. No air came through. I tried again. No fucking air entered my nasal passages. Despair sank in like gravel in my intestines. Butterfly knives in my stomach. Cue waterworks.

I promised myself I would never feel so powerless again.

“I’m so excited to see the man you become, son,” Dad said.

Holy shit. Dad can see now, can’t he?

I looked at the digital clock on the fireplace mantle in the living room:

1:13

The door slammed shut, and I found myself alone in the dark, in my Dad’s house. I ran up to the peephole and observed as the dark agent dragged his limp meat vessel down the wooden steps and onto the glasphalt, in front of the two dark agents waiting on the empty driveway.

Neighbours in the houses along our street watched in horror and screamed in protest from inside, knocking against the windows, smacking against the doors — every single one afraid to step outside past the midnight curfew the Default State implemented around 13 years ago, back when Mr. Black rose to power and disposed of the coalition — one democratically elected co-leader at a time, Mr. Green and Mr. Blue included — in two fell swoops.

I looked at the clock once more.

1:14

Oh my God, I thought. This is real-life.

In the span of a split-second, the fear of losing my Dad outweighed the fear of getting brutalized and beaten by monsters. So it goes.

In time, I would grow up to become one of them.

Just like Damon…

Just like Grenadine…

If only it weren’t for the night of Graduation.

Our lives were supposed to go in another direction, but here we are…

Here I am, sitting alone in a pitch black dining booth, reliving the last time I saw my father alive, trying to figure out how it could really be him, standing outside in the hallway, alive, waiting for me, telling me to take my time as everyone else is in the dining booth on the other side, probably ordering food without me, as I overthink this to oblivion…

The three dark agents were preoccupied as I hopped off the front porch, crouching, my fists planted on the grass to hide behind the glowing shrubbery, forget-me-nots and roses my mom planted, among all the photosynthesizer fibres that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and electricity.

Miles was facing the street, cellphone pressed to his ear. The other two dark agents (whose identities I never discovered) were focused on keeping my Dad sitting upright, pressing a Knick-Knack onto the back of his shirt, below the collar, releasing nanoparticles into every inch of the fabric to make the material tear-resistant to support his body weight as…

A red velvet rope fell from the sky, the golden clip-hook dangling above Dad’s head like an improperly rendered 3D halo.

My pulse quickened as I watched from behind the hedge, barely breathing, stomach more twisted than the Twisted Teas I was stashing in my school backpack at the time.

As they secured the hook at the end of the rope to the Knick-Knack’s buckle, my adrenaline kicked in and, after heaving a deep breath, I flexed my abs like a Super-Saiyan, jumped up from behind the phosphorescent hedge, and charged in their direction (like Naruto after shotgunning two Red Bulls, doing a less-than-hundred-meter dash to save someone he loves).

The rope began to pull, lifting my Dad by his Lacoste shirt collar up from the ground. As Dad’s feet separated from his dangling flip flops, I collided into him in a tight embrace, my arms encircling the circumference of his ribcage, fingernails digging into the edges of his scapulas as if they were crimps on a rock-climbing wall.

“WILLIAM!” Dad screamed as the rope lifted us both off the ground (two feet… three feet… five feet… ten feet…) and above the altitude of every house in the suburbs. “NO!”

Caught off guard, Miles pulled a 180-degree ballet pivot, dropping his cell phone onto the road, then falling to his knees to fish his phone out of the gutter. “Shit! Operator! Can you hear me? PAUSE!”

Fifteen feet… twenty feet… thirty feet…

I screamed until my lungs caught fire, as my arms held on for dear life, and the life of my father, with all the strength and love I could muster and fit into a moment.

My head was pressed against his chest, eyes closed, welling with tears I couldn’t wipe away, paired with the thrill one would get when doing the opposite of skydiving.

Forty feet… Fifty feet… Sixty feet…

“OPERATOR!” Miles shouts. “PAUSE! WILLIAM JUST — “

I was screaming and crying so loud that I couldn’t even hear him choke.

I lift my head up from the makeshift pillow of my forearms atop the smooth, varnished wood of the horigotatsu table. The sensors on the ceiling sense my movement, and the darkened dining booth fills with light again.

I look at the rice paper door at the end of the room, directly in my line of sight, then at my reflection staring back at me in the gold-tinged walls around it.

“Alright,” I say, standing up and taking a deep breath, filling my diaphragm, as if trying to extract courage from the oxygen. But I know that’s not how it works. “I’m on my way out.”

“Sounds good,” Damon says on the other end of the line. “Should I hang up?”

> @AurumIntelligence End call.
> CALL ENDED.

I press my palms onto the hardwood and hoist myself out of the sunken floor, and make my way toward the exit, stopping at the rice paper door and heaving another helping of oxygen.

I should’ve brought my butterfly knife.

Ten minutes ago, Parker was standing where I’m standing now, pressing his ear against the rice paper door and feeling its surface with his fingers.

Not sure if he was listening for threats in the hallway or doing a reality check. Maybe both.

“That’s a curious texture,” Parker said, looking at his index finger, as if having just touched a slimy, invisible substance. “Isn’t it odd that rice paper doors aren’t made out of rice paper? Or rice?”

“No shit?” I said.

“They’re made of trees. Plant fibres.”

“Ah,” I said. “So they’re made out of… paper.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Actual rice paper is edible.”

“I’m glad you told me,” I said. “I was about to tear a piece off and try it. I’m that hungry.”

“Smart ass,” Parker said, with a light chuckle. “You gotta work on your delivery.”

“My what?”

“It’s tough to tell when you’re being sarcastic and when you’re being sincere.”

“You’ll get better at it,” I replied.

Parker shrugged and waved his hand under the door handle. The rice paper door slid open gradually, revealing Denise Rouge waiting on the other side, a giant grin on her face.

“Hi!” Denise greeted.

“Hey, you,” Parker said, as they collided into a loving embrace, sharing a passionate kiss as if they were long-lost lovers in a made-for-TV Hallmark movie. “I should’ve known it was you.”

“Surprised?”

“Very.”

Like a film director unintentionally caught in the frame, Dad was standing next to them, off to the side, tilting his head to peer into the dining booth, expecting me to step out, waving his hand, then giving a thumbs up, followed by a hang loose. He looked misty-eyed yet brimming with joy.

“Give me a minute,” I said from the dining booth, still seated at the Horigotatsu table, as Parker and Denise walked into the one at the other end of the hallway. Damon, Grenadine, and Kira stepped into view, looking in through the gap. I raised a thumbs up followed by a hang-loose. “Give me five. I need to remember something.”

“Take your time, son,” Dad said, as the rice paper door gradually slid to a close.

I crossed my forearms on the table and lay my head down, as if playing 7-Up back in grade school.

> @AurumIntelligence Show me the vidi of the last time I saw him. You know which one

> ABSOLUTELY, WILLIAM BLUE. CLOSE YOUR EYES.

GALATEA NEPTUNE

William finally steps out of the booth and walks into his father’s arms, lips quivering ever-so-subtly as they sustain a hug. He’s on the verge of crying, but he’s holding back his tears.

It’s okay, William.

Feel what you feel.

Gosh, he’s about an inch and a half taller than his Dad now.

“It’s okay, son,” Jericho says. “I’m here.”

“Is this real?” William asks mindlessly, as if still unsure, looking for reassurance that this isn’t a dream.

“Yes, son,” Jericho replies, as they step away from the hug and look at each other.

I watch from the side, smiling, waiting for William to acknowledge me standing here — in the flesh, just like he wanted.

“I told you, didn’t I? I told you I’d see you later. That I’d see the man you’d become. Look at you now. My son is all grown up.”

“You can see now?”

“Crisp and clear,” Jericho answers. “Like Ultra-HD.”

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” William says, before turning to me, half-smizing with those misty brown sad boy eyes. “Hey, Galatea.”

“Hi William,” I say, with a smile, my eyes getting a little misty as well — no wasabi necessary. “I got your message.”

“You heard my song?”

“Mhm,” I say. “Love that you kept those harmonies I recorded. And your head voice has improved so much.”

“Thanks,” he replies. “Been practicing lots.”

“It shows.”

What a beautiful night this is…

The rice paper door of the dining booth on the other end slides open, and Kira pokes her head out.

“Well?” Kira says. “Are y’all gonna join us? We’re waiting for you guys. We already ordered.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

“Yeah,” William says, looking at me, then at Jericho. “Let’s eat. That’s what normal people do at restaurants.”

“I don’t think any of us could pass as normal if we tried,” I say.

“I stopped trying years ago.”

“Sweet Absolute Infinity,” Jericho says, seated to the right of William, who’s sitting next to me. Grenadine to my left. Damon beside her. Kira, Parker, and Denise are sitting on the other side of the long, rectangular horigotatsu table, all of us waiting for our food to arrive. “Jesus Christ, my chosen saviour; Buddha the awakened one; Muhammad the prophet that cannot be put to paper; the Tao called Tao that cannot be named, the Matrix that cannot be played, but lived through, every waking day; Mary the virgin mother; Gaia the Earth Goddess; and God, the Alpha and Omega, and every letter in between, the original programmer and father of existence itself; Source, the nameless, formless consciousness that wished to know itself; the Mind-at-large; the galaxies in the chambers of our hearts; and the spirit within all that resides in the soul, Terra Incognita. We thank you for setting off the chain of events dating back to the Big Bang that allowed us, through our free will and imperfect selves, to congregate over the delicious meals that have not yet arrived as of this moment, on this beautiful Monday night. May we never forget that we are living the dream. Believe you me. Amen.”

“Amen,” the others and I say in unison.

“Finally,” Kira says. “I’ve been waiting for this ever since we got out of the cab.”

“Same,” Grenadine says. Parker’s eyes narrow slightly, a suspicious look on his face, shooting a quick glance at William. Denise places her palm over his hand, diverting his attention back to the present moment. I look at William, who’s looking down at his open palms, Simian lines on both hands — an unbroken line between his heart and head line. Just like his father.

“So,” Jericho says, looking at me and Denise. “Should we tell them now?”

“Tell us what?” Damon says in a playfully inquisitive tone.

Oh God, he thinks it’s something positive.

“We’re not gonna wait for dessert?” Denise asks, looking at Jericho, then glancing at me, as she bites her lip with her left canine. I nod. “Hmm…”

“What is it?” Grenadine says. William’s eyes dart around the room, but he says nothing. He’s having one of his quiet phases again — when he’s too caught up in his thoughts to be present, and he says nothing for what feels like a micro-decade.

“I don’t—” Denise begins, scratching the back of her head, then running her fingers through her shiny, flowy auburn hair. It smells like strawberries up close. She locks eyes with me. “I don’t know how to put this. Do you?”

I immediately think of the sugarcoated way Cherry said it, then blurt it out.

“Planet Earth is going through a psychotic break,” I say, then pause as I figure out how to phrase the following sentence. “Ummm, let’s just say Earthling humanity finally unalived itself in the most — um — nuclear way.”

The booth falls silent.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Damon says.

GRENADINE BLACK

Before we left for TokyoVille Lounge, I decided to take a nap, but not before Damon tried to convince me to stay up and play video games in the living room.

Standing at the doorway, he had a look of concern on his face.

“Come on,” Damon said. “We rarely hang out nowadays, outside of — y’know — work.”

“I’m serious, Damon,” I said, sitting upright on my bed, “You brought up the flashback last night with William in the room. That’s why I cut you off. I told you not to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Damon said, lowering his head slightly, as if being scolded. Oh, fucking stop it. You always look so sorry whenever I call you out. “I didn’t know what to say to get you to leave.”

“Um, hey Grenadine,” I mocked, lowering my voice in my best attempt at a Damon Green impression. “I know you’ve been dealing with some dredged-up trauma recently. I saw some of the footage Aurum Intelligence was compiling on the timeline, and I think it’s going to be really triggering for you.”

“But that’s sorta what I said!”

“Yeah, just the last part. You opened with, ‘Your eyes look tired, you should take the rest of the night off.’”

“You’re nitpicking.”

“Am I?”

“I was trying to be honest,” Damon insisted, shoulders slumped. “With you! I was trying not to talk about specifics! Should I have said Tunatataki instead? Tell me! Tell me how to be good to you.”

“Stop,” I said, taking a moment to take a deep breath — gradual and slow so he doesn’t notice my diaphragm pushing against my ribcage. “Just fucking stop.”

“I don’t know how to be good to you,” Damon said. “I don’t know how to be better… But I’ll keep trying.”

“This is why we don’t hang out much anymore,” I stated, filtering out the emotionality and telling it straight. “As friends. Because you’re allergic to accountability.”

Damon sighed, opened his mouth as if to retort with something clever, as he usually does, but he said nothing else.

Wait a beat.

“You need to choose your words more carefully,” I said. “My circadian rhythm is fucked because of these flashbacks. I’m scared to go to sleep. I’m scared of deep REM, and even when I’m jacked into the Magnuscape, I lose control of the dream, and it puts me right back to graduation night. It’s as vivid as the vidi. I might as well have never deleted it.”

“Y’know,” Damon said. “We can always get Aurum Intelligence to retrieve it from the archives.”

“No. Because I know you and William still have your vidis of graduation night. I have a firm grasp of what happened before y’all barged into the room to save me. Which, thank you, by the way. I know you always love to hear me say that, my valorous knight with a heart of gold.”

“Oh my God,” Damon groaned, heaving a sigh, then scoffing. “I’m trying to be real with you, but you’re being such a bitch, like—“

“Okay, fuck off now,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. Damon heaves another sigh, shaking his head and running his fingers through his locks of caramel brown hair.

A solid tell that I’ve won the argument and he’s run out of things to say.

“Tunatataki. Or whatever. Go play some Mario Kart with William and Kira. I’m not the one you wanna play with.”

“Fine,” Damon said as he stepped out of my bedroom, closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry.”

The first thing I remember was the sensation of falling.

I was in the air for one or two seconds — but I was Blisscrashed, so every second felt like a whole minute. The moment my body collided against the bed, the walls of my dorm began to shake — as if the weight of my body was enough to set off a low-magnitude earthquake.

Clayton, my boyfriend at the time, pounced on top of the bed soon after, his sweaty palms grasping both my shins. In slow motion, it seemed.

My perception of time was as dilated as my eyes.

The glass tubes on the ceiling radiated a bubblegum pink glow. Levi stood at the foot of the bed like a hungry wolf as he waited for Clayton to give the green light. I swear, they were both salivating at the mouth. The look of lust mixed with hunger on both of their faces had me thinking they were going to devour me whole. My psychedelic-flooded brain began to distort my perception of 3D reality.

Thanks to the Snowcrash, I couldn’t move and began to hallucinate the two of them transforming into anthropomorphic wolves.

Thanks to the Orange Bliss, I could feel every sensation ten-fold.

Suddenly, the door to my dorm room swung open, and Anila, my roommate at the time, barged in.

“Nuh-uh,” Anila said, standing at the doorway, clapping her hands loudly. “NOPE! GET OFF OF HER! GET THE FUCK OUT! BOTH OF YOU!”

Clayton’s hands held onto my shins as if they were handlebars, dragging me off the bed and onto the carpet below, sitting upright. It was then I realized it wasn’t Clayton who was pulling, but Damon who had yanked this rabid wolf off of me.

I blinked hard, and Clayton looked like himself again, in human form, on all fours, as he struggled to find his footing before Damon kicked him in the gut. Clayton screamed.

“C’mon, Billy Blue,” Levi mocked, “What’s she to you, bro? Y’all white-knighting for the slut duchess or something?”

Anila ran to the foot of the bed to tend to me, looking me in the eyes and placing her hand on my shoulder.

The boys fought in the background, as if it were some televised UFC fight happening safely behind a vidscreen.

They seemed farther away than they were, but Anila was ignoring all of the chaos and focusing all her attention on me.

“Are you okay?” Anila asked.

No. The word wouldn’t leave my lips as anything other than a slurred groan. Got the message across, anyways.

I was squinting my eyes to see through the spaces between the bursting fractals overlaid on top of Anila’s olive skin, as if it were a psychedelic filter on the Gram. So many beautiful colours.

Now all I see is red.

Every punch Damon and Clayton landed set off miniature fireworks explosions in my 3D perception, like the onomatopoeic sound bubbles in the pile of vintage comic books that sat on my bookshelf.

POW!
BAM!
WHAM!

After a right hook landed on his jaw, Clayton began backing up toward the balcony, looking nervously at the open door leading to the hallway.

Anila noticed this and immediately stood in front of the exit, standing about ten feet behind Damon — an extra security measure in case Damon couldn’t block Clayton from escaping.

“Nuh-uh,” Anila said, cool and composed, even though I knew she was scared too. “You’re not going anywhere until the dark agents get here. They might even come in through the balcony. You’re both fucked.”

“Royally fucked,” William interjected.

Every droplet of blood that fell on the floor was like a bomb inside a raindrop, falling onto a field of green pastures — where the carpet was supposed to be.

That’s when I truly swallowed the pill that I, in fact, did not live in a utopia — as my father manipulated me to believe.

Levi froze as Anila said this, glancing over at Clayton, his focus diverted for a second or two — but that was all William needed to high-kick him in the ear. The second Levi fell to the ground, he transformed from wolf back to human. Then he began whimpering like an injured child who wanted his mommy — when only minutes ago he called me a slut.

I could almost hear the tinnitus-like high-pitched ringing that he was almost certainly experiencing at that moment.

Clayton then froze, and, whether it was adrenaline or cowardice, stepped out onto the balcony, presumably to make an escape.

But we were on the 22nd floor.

The balcony of the 21st floor was ten feet down, but his fear of the consequences of his actions overrode his capacity to act rationally. Damon stepped onto the balcony as well to see Clayton straddling the railing as if it was an out-of-order mechanical bull. I wish I could’ve gotten up and stopped him from doing what he was going to do next…

But I was an ignorant, starry-eyed romantic who thought love would look like the fairytales and Disney movies and rom-coms I grew up watching. Pretty freakin’ obsessively, to be honest.

I never dreamed that anyone who ever claimed to “love” me would hurt me. Not this intentionally. But I was imposing my imaginary ideals onto real-life, like an ad projected onto the surface of Sky. I had to learn the tough lesson that my life just wasn’t going to go in that direction. I was such a fucking fool.

“Damon,” Clayton said. “Let me go. She ain’t worth it, dude. If you kill me, the dark agents are gonna take you instead.”

William was struggling to keep Levi in a guillotine choke when he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a butterfly knife. Then, without hesitation, began stabbing and slicing, avoiding his face and neck, and taking deliberate care to miss any vital arteries.

As Levi screamed in pain, it felt like relief — to me. I liked the sound of it, and I simultaneously began to despise myself for enjoying it — for taking pleasure in it. But I was enraged. And I wanted that little hobgoblin to suffer. Badly.

Unfortunately, Damon was nowhere near as careful as William…

But now, I wish William was less careful and finished the fucking job. The consequences would’ve been the same, anyways.

So, I guess, I’m a monster now, too.

But becoming a monster is the reason why I’m still alive. So maybe I am my father’s daughter, after all. Years of hating myself, my last name, my face, my looks, whenever I looked in the mirror. Oh, I despise how much I resemble him.

“I don’t give one fuck, Clay!” Damon said, after an uncharacteristic pause. “I don’t even give two fucks! I knew you were bad for her from the moment she introduced us.”

But at least I have my mother’s eyes.

“The green-eyed monster strikes again, huh?” Clayton said. “And you think you’re better for her, Dames? I’m telling you, bro! She ain’t fucking worth it! She’s a Black.”

“I’d do anything for her, Clay.”

“You’re a fucking fool then, bro. She’s the mayor’s daughter, bro! What makes you think she’s not gonna follow in her father’s footsteps? You ever think about that?!”

“All the freakin’ time, man!”

“Oh, so you like the idea?” Clayton taunted. “Should’ve known you were a fascist too. Y’all were meant for each other, then.”

“I’m willing to stand by her no matter what path she chooses.”

“You think she has a choice? Then you don’t know jackshit about the Default State. You’re just a simp in love with a fascist’s daughter. But if she were to get seeded — “

“Shut the fuck up,” Damon said. “I’ll show you how a seed gets fucking planted.”

I closed my eyes, because cruel words feel like stabs to the heart — especially when you’re hopped-up on Orange Bliss — but instead of pitch-black darkness, I was met with a kaleidoscopic vortex swirling in my mind’s eye. Like a colourful wormhole that I wanted to escape into. Gave me some semblance of comfort.

There was no more hope to be found when I thought about the future that awaited me.

I wanted to escape into that beautiful abyss then and there.

I wanted to escape.
Anywhere.
Anywhere but here.
I wanted to become Absolute Infinity…

Even if it meant death. I began to wonder if all this horror I was experiencing existed inside of me. I began to wonder if the entire cosmos existed inside of me.

After all, if, as the Church says, we are all Absolute Infinity — God — why would God let this happen to me? Why would God put me in this position? If everything happens for a reason, what is the reason for all this trauma?

And if God is love, why is the world overrun by monsters?

Either God abandoned us or God abandoned reason.

Either way, my faith went down the drain that night — followed by my idealism and childlike wonder.

Maybe everything just happens, and we settle on justifications later.

“OH MY GOD!” Anila screamed as I opened my eyes again. She was still at the door, watching in horror, eyes aimed towards the balcony. “Damon! You just — “

“Oh fuck,” William said, rushing to the balcony, leaving Levi to bleed out, tending to his own wounds with his blood-soaked palms, beside my analog bookshelf. Out on the balcony, William attended to Damon who fell to his knees and broke down. His hands were trembling. His nose and lips were bleeding onto his torn shirt collar. His expression looked as if he had just seen the same psychedelic abyss I did, but didn’t fall into it either.

“Is he—” Anila said, her hands covering her mouth, as she began to sob. “Damon! Tell me you didn’t just do that!” William leaned over the balcony to see Clayton lying flat on the green turf. Then puked over the railing, in the same direction Clayton fell. “No, no, no… William! Tell me he’s alive! OH MY GOD!”

Fucking gravity…

Damon re-entered the dorm room and plopped his butt on the floor next to me, then leaned his head against mine. I mustered enough motor control to put my hand on his, an expression of gratitude as I still could barely speak.

Thank you…

He began to sob, too.

William re-entered the dorm room and looked at Anila, their expressions looked as if they felt the world was ending.

And, in a way, it was.

Just in a different way than nuclear.

“Anila,” William said, sniffling, wiping the residual vomit off his mouth. “You gotta go. You weren’t involved. The dark agents have no reason to take you.”

Anila covered her face with her hands and sobbed — every teardrop a tsunami — as she clued into what William was saying. Anila glanced at Damon and I, then at Levi, who was barely hanging onto consciousness, then walked right up to William for one last hug.

“I’m hugging you extra hard for the three of you,” Anila said. “Y’all were the best friends an orphan like me could ever dream of. Happy Graduation. I wish you all the best with your journeys into adulthood. I wish you all the best with the rest of your lives. May your lives be long, with minimal suffering.”

Once Anila left, we never saw her again… but that’s another story, for another time.

We all cried together as we waited for the dark agents to escort us out.

We all cried because we knew what went without saying…

That our lives — as we knew them — were fucking over.

Happy Graduation.

⏭️ Chapter VII: Brass Monkey

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Anthology)

A Tale of Two Synchronicities (Chapter VI: Graduation) was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m sorry I took so long to reach you. I got so ridiculously side-tracked.

⏮️ Chapter IV: Sweet Deal

CHAPTER V: WIRED

WILLIAM BLUE

I’m staring into the subtle energy vortex swirling around the kitchen sink, but it might be an illusion caused by eye floaters and absinthe goggles.

I blink hard and spit the last of my vomit out, then run some cold water into my palms and onto my tongue which feels dry as sandpaper.

Last night was a fucking nightmare.

And I’m scared as fuck it’s still going.

> RISE AND SHINE, WILLIAM BLUE
THIS IS AURUM INTELLIGENCE
WITH YOUR MORNING WAKE-UP CALL
IT IS CURRENTLY 11:11 ON A MONDAY
THE SKY IS ORANGE TODAY AND
IT’S BEAUTIFUL HERE

> Thank you, Aurum Intelligence.
I’m awake.

> TOTAL SLEEP: 1h 13m
REM: 2m 22s
LIGHT: 55m 44s
DEEP: 6m 39s
SNOOZE: 10m
MOOD: 5/10 🙃
BLOOD LITHIUM LVL: 1.1 mEq/L ✅️
STRESS METER: 81% 🥴

Goddamn it, I wish I slept for longer…

Managed to log over an hour of sleep.

No dreams or flashbacks, thankfully.

I plug my nose and inhale. No air comes through. I count my fingers and press each toe into the ceramic of the linoleum floor. I focus on the sensation of my toenails digging into my socks as I shift my weight onto the balls of my feet.

Not even my own apartment but it feels real enough.

I raise my wrist and look at my watch.

11:12

“What happened last night?” Kira asks from the living room. She’s sitting on the couch with Grenadine. “William met a tourist?”

“It’s best he tells you himself…” Grenadine says. “It’s… well, it’s pretty fuckin’ personal…”

Oh right, I crashed here last night.

Grenadine lives in a hotel called The Nyx, just a two-minute walk from The Violet Lotus. Damon and I ended up crashing in her living room instead of taking an hour-long cab ride home back to Aurum North, to the other side of the city.

> sorry I stormed off before calling the Operator
I couldn’t stand to be in that room for a second longer
if you guys don’t feel like going home tonight, welcome to crash at mine (& Kira’s) since we actually live closeby
temp doorbell password is my fav TokyoVille Lounge menu item 👀

“The Egogarchs are coming!” Damon repeated, but in a cartoonish tone, while dragging an unconscious (but alive) Robert Echo from his living room couch to the outdoor balcony, hoisting the limp scumbag up by the sweaty pits. “What in the crunchiest of fucks does that even mean?”

“No clue, but I have a feeling we’re gonna regret this,” I said, pacing around, trying to shake the tension in my chest. I reach into my back pocket and fish out my cell phone, holding ‘0’ on the touchscreen and making the call. The ringback tone plays on the speaker. “I can feel it. Like you said, this is beyond our pay grade. So it shouldn’t concern us. We were supposed to kill both of them anyway. Now we’re giving Echo what he wanted in the first place?”

“I’m shook, dude,” Damon says. “This needs further investigation. This is protocol. Yeah, I know, I know what you’re gonna say. Marks lie like this all the time! But this Egogarch nonsense has me fucked up. That’s not something someone makes up on the fly. That was something else.”

“Marks will say anything to buy more time,” I say, closing the screen door behind me, Mrs Echo’s 3D meat vessel still splayed out on the couch. “You know this, Damon.”

“This felt sincere,” Damon says. “Like a warning. I knew something bigger was at play when I was watching Aurum Intelligence compile the vidireel. A lot of memories were left out.”

“He asked to talk to Mr. Black,” I said. “Back in the hallway. He’s gonna try to worm himself out, and he’s going to use the same bullshit ’cause clearly it’s working on us.”

“They were taking hearts,” Damon said. “Only hearts. It’s so strange. If there’s something larger at play, we need more than his memories to make sense of it. And that’s what scares me. That there is something larger at play.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve got a point. What were they doing with the hearts?”

“That wasn’t in any of the vidis,” Damon replied. “That’s why we need him alive. For now.”

“Thought the Red Market was squashed years ago. I think the Default State forced them into the shadows,” I said. “Those memories were recent.”

The ringback tone stopped.

Finally.

“Hello,” said the Operator. “This is the Operator. Please identify yourself.”

“Blue Sky,” I answered. “Code Crimson. Objective complete. Calling for a forensic clean-and-sweep. Sharing coordinates now. Violet Lotus Hotel, Aurum South.”

“Copy that, Blue,” the Operator said. “Anything else?”

“Rope,” I said, looking up at the zenith, at Sky’s dim shade of maroon — on the verge of a new sky cycle. “One. Robert Echo. Spared for further questioning.”

“And his partner?”

“Departed.”

“Copy,” replied the Operator. “Sending rope in ten seconds.”

About 300 feet above the balcony, 1000 feet from the ground below, a red velvet rope falls with a golden clip-hook at the end of it.

Damon attaches a Knick-Knack to Robert Echo’s rear belt loop, then takes the red rope and secures the clip-hook onto it to secure the Knick-Knack’s buckle.

“He’ll feel that wedgie when he wakes up tomorrow,” Damon said. “Hope he doesn’t shit himself on his way up.”

“Do you think that’s going to hold?”

“Operator,” Damon said, nodding. “Pull him up slowly.”

As Robert Echo was lifted from the balcony (as if in slo-mo), his limbs flailing in the air, limp and slumped as his fingers and feet left the ground (defying gravity), pointed downward as if yearning to stay in this luxury hellscape rather than to face the music of karmic retribution.

It’s beautiful here.

“So yeah, last night was a fucking nightmare,” I say, navigating the touchscreen of Grenadine’s brand new Beyond Meat Gastroforge 9000. “Just like this user interface.”

“Yup,” Grenadine sighs, washing dishes by hand. “Oh, click the home button. Then decide what kind of meat you want to print.”

“For fuck’s sakes,” I say, clicking the home button. The options pop up in alphabetical order. I hit bacon almost reflexively but caught a glimpse of Chicken Adobo as one of the options. “Chicken Adobo?”

“Yup!” Grenadine says, stopping the tap to gush a bit about her Beyond Meat Gastroforge 9000. “From Longaniza to Chorizo to Filet Mignon!”

“Even seafood?”

“Mhm,” she replies. “Even Tuna Tataki. The nanotech is good at replicating flavours on a molecular level, but, still, nowhere near as good as the real thing. Like, nothing compared to TokyoVille Lounge.”

“Is it just… tofu?” I ask. “Like molecular-ly?”

“I don’t — “ Grenadine says, pausing. “Well, I don’t actually know. It’s Beyond Meat though, so, like — “

“But it makes seafood too?” I say. “Seafood isn’t meat, is it?”

“It’s beyond meat,” Kira says. “So it encompasses seafood, which is, kinda like, um, meat-adjacent?”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, I guess that makes sense. But then, couldn’t it also be called Below Meat because sea animals tend to live below sea level?”

“Oh right…” Kira says, raising a hand to her mouth, her pink fingernails tapping her black lipstick.

“Kira,” Grenadine says with a stern tone. Kira’s eyes widen as she drops her hand to her side, then sighs. “Leave those nails alone, girl. Graze on some deepfake bacon instead.”

“So…” I say, mesmerized as I watch the 3D printer nozzle — its mouth the size of a pencil eraser — squeeze out ten slices of bacon, bit by bit, and strip by strip by strip. “It is meat but it’s not meat.”

“And it’s definitely not tofu,” Grenadine states.

“Just like seafood,” Kira adds.

“Wait,” Grenadine says, leaning her back against the sink and removing her yellow rubber gloves. “Seafood is considered meat. What the hell are y’all saying? Anyways, speaking of sea — “

“Is your dishwasher broken or something?” I ask, immediately realizing I broke her train of thought by interrupting her just now. “Oh, my bad. Go a–”

“Yeah — ”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“She’s the dishwasher around here,” Kira says as she makes herself a Serotonin Sunrise (Peach Serotonin + Tequila + Orange Juice + Grenadine Syrup). “Yeah, I’m drinking at 11 in the morning. That’s how we night owls do it at The Nyx.”

“I happen to like washing dishes,” Grenadine says, shrugging. “It’s a mindfulness practice.”

“Right,” I say. “So you pay extra attention?”

“The plates are my mind and I’m clearing the gunk off my psyche,” Grenadine says, then points to the fridge. “We do have a dishwasher, FYI. By the fridge. Where Kira’s standing.”

“Luckily not, like, a smart dishwasher,” Kira adds. “Wouldn’t a smart dishwasher think you’re depriving it of its purpose?”

“What’s it gonna do?” Grenadine asks, subtle snark in her tone. “Refuse to wash my dishes?”

“Mm,” Kira says, snapping her fingers as if at a spoken word poetry event. “Love the way you think.”

“Anyways,” Grenadine says. “Back to the topic.”

“Right,” Kira says. “Hold on, where the fuck did Damon go? Didn’t he crash here last night too?”

“Yeah,” Grenadine says, looking at me as if I would know.

“Anyways,” I say. “I met a tourist. In The Ocean Room.”

“He finally went there,” Grenadine says.

“Finally,” Kira says. “Been procrastinating on your big breakthrough long enough.”

“It’s cool,” I say. “Should’ve looked around more. Wait, what do you mean by breakthrough?”

“Go again,” Grenadine says. “In civilian clothes. Maybe later tonight.”

“I could see you performing there, Will,” Kira says. “Like a residency or something. That’s what I mean.”

“Vegas-style?” I ask.

“Celine Dion-style,” Grenadine says. “But also, you’d literally live there.”

“Yeah,” Kira says. “Like, just live there. Eat there. Shit there. Exclusively.”

“All-inclusive,” Grenadine says. “Thirty hours a day. Eight days a week. This was meant for you, William.”

“How often would I perform?” I ask. “Theoretically.”

“Well — ”

“The same setlist?” I say. “Shit, I need more songs.”

“You could always do covers,” Kira says. “Do you know how many true fans would see you on the regular?”

“Strictly Beach Boys covers,” Grenadine says. “Better to niche down.”

“Beach House,” Kira adds.

“Anything by Rivers Cuomo,” Grenadine says. “Oh, and Frank Ocean.”

“The Beatles?” I ask. “I mean, water beetles were a thing, right? Back when insects were a thing?”

“That would do,” Grenadine says. “I think.”

“Hm,” Kira says. “Do The Beatles even have any aquatic-themed songs?”

“Yellow Submarine,” I say. “Octopus’s Garden. While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Really, it would just be me singing karaoke onstage for a couple hours. I do that shit for free!”

“Dream bigger,” Grenadine says. “Throw some trippy visuals on a backdrop behind you. People lose their shit over that. Plus, the Ocean Room is a vape-friendly venue.”

“I do fucking love that shit,” Kira says. “Give ’em something they’ve never experienced before. Give ’em your all and leave ’em craving more. Then keep giving it to ’em. And that’s how you develop a built-in audience as an artist-in-residence. Just saying!”

“Miss Emerald speaks from experience, of course,” Grenadine says.

“Although Casa Aurora is a very different vibe from The Ocean Room,” Kira says. “And, I guess, we do practice very different art forms.”

The doorbell rings. Grenadine pulls out her phone and opens the doorbell camera app. Damon appears onscreen throwing a hang loose.

“Password?” Grenadine says.

“Salmon Sashimi?”

“Oooh, so close,” Grenadine says. “How did you forget already? Y’all literally said it last night!”

“Oh, right!” Damon says. “But that’s two words! Isn’t it usually — “

“Not if you say it really fast.”

“Good to know! Now let me in.”

Grenadine glances at me, then at Kira, then back at her phone screen, her index finger pressing on the Volume-Up button. “Rules are rules.”

“Tunatataki,” Damon says. “That better not mean something I’m not aware of.”

“It sounds funny,” Grenadine says. “And that alone grants you access to my humble abode, Mister Green.”

The four of us are in Grenadine’s living room. The bright orange glow of Sky illuminates the cityscape as seen from Aurum South.

I’m vaping some Orange Bliss while sinking into a bean bag sofa, right next to the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. Damon’s sitting on an old rocking chair, Grenadine and Kira are sitting on the couch that faces the vidscreen on the wall to my left.

“As for the Parker situation,” Grenadine says. “William, what do you suggest?”

“The best way,” I say, zoning out in contemplation. “Would be to have y’all listen in live. I’m thinking, we’ll be on a voice call. I’ll put my earbuds into my chest pocket so you can hear him clearly.”

“Where are we going to be?”

“Nearby.”

“Yeah?” Damon says. “The parking lot, maybe? An old-fashioned stakeout.”

“Closer,” I say. “It’s usually crowded in the evenings, with narrow aisles and enclosed eating spaces. If shit hits the heater, I’m gonna need y’all to back me up quick.”

“I just want to be clear,” Kira says. “I’m only going because I love Japanese food.”

“If things get too fishy,” Grenadine says, “you’re free to leave.”

“I’ll wash the rest of the dishes before you get home,” Kira says.

“Sounds like we need a code word,” Damon says. “If things get too fishy.”

“Tunatataki,” Grenadine says with a grin.

“Beat me to it,” I say.

To kill time until the meet up tonight, Damon, Kira and I play some Nintendo Switch games — mostly Mario Kart — in the living room for a couple hours while Grenadine takes a power nap in her bedroom.

At 17:30, we leave the apartment and step inside an elevator.

Kira presses the Ground button.

“By the way,” Grenadine says in a hushed tone, facing Kira. “Once we’re in the cab, not a word about the tourist.”

“Nor the stake-out,” Damon adds. “Obviously.”

“Sounds good,” Kira says. “I can just, like, not talk.”

The elevator doors open and we step out into the Nyx’s lobby.

Black marble flooring and narrow red mats — like mini red carpets — leading guests to different areas beyond the residences, like the casino, the buffet, or the hall of mirrors.

“You can talk,” Grenadine says. “Just not about — y’know…”

Kira beams a smile before waving her open hand in front of her face, revealing a serious, morose expression, then miming a zipping motion over her lips.

“Don’t overthink it,” I say. “In fact, don’t even think of the tourist at all.”

In front of The Nyx’s entrance, we step inside one of the many gold cabs lined up along the sidewalk.

“Evening, lovely humans!” the Noi in the driver seat greets. “Where to?”

“TokyoVille Lounge on Moonrise Promenade,” I say. “Aurum East.”

“Sounds good, William!” Noi says. “Special occasion?”

“Not for me!” Kira says. “I just love Japanese food.”

The taxicab accelerates towards the exit leading to the outskirt freeways that run along the city’s square borders. Noi activates the turning signal and waits for a clearance in the intersecting lane.

Traffic flows smoothly. Like clockwork, but with rubber wheels that turn in all directions.

I look up through the passenger’s side window. The entire exterior of the Nyx is silver from the outside, all glass. The pinnacle of the hotel is a slanted pyramid, its apex leaning towards the front end, slightly reflecting the faint glow of the orange Sky several meters above it.

Suspended at the apex are a couple of light machines that project, onto a square portion of Sky, a bright and saturated advertisement for Bleu du Ciel cologne. In the projection, a giant two-dimensional bottle of cologne rotates before a giant finger pushes down on it, causing it to spray out a fine, simulated mist of what (I assume) smells like rain.

“I mean, their prices compared to my wages,” Damon says. “Eating there is the special occasion.”

Elevate your appeal to new heights, it says on the bottom of the projection in giant, serif lettering.

“Dude,” Grenadine says, turning her head to look at Damon, who’s sitting next to me in the backseats. “I’m telling you. Invest in a Beyond Meat Gastroforge 9000. Print some raw salmon or tuna or scallops or whatever the fuck at home. Throw it on some sushi rice, add seaweed, then boom — you can have TokyoVille at home.”

“I’ll have to try yours a couple more times.”

“My Gastroforge has not failed me yet,” Grenadine says. “Literally indistinguishable from the real thing.”

“What do you think of people who say it’s deepfake meat?” Damon teases. Kira and I burst into laughter. Grenadine smirks and makes a point of rolling her eyes. “Plus, you’re not even vegetarian!”

“Do you know how much Love I’ve saved by printing ‘deepfake meat’?” Grenadine says. “Laugh all you want, but don’t knock it until you try it. Bet you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference.”

“Taste-wise, sure,” Damon says.

“She’s right,” I say.

“But does it satisfy?” Damon asks. “Or does it leave you feeling empty inside?”

“Empty calories?” I ask.

“There are calories,” Grenadine says. “Not much, but — “

“But you don’t even know what the meat is made of?” I blurt.

“All I care to know is it’s not as hard on my digestive system and bank balance,” she answers with a shrug. “Plus, the Beyond Meat Gastroforge 9000 is a Typhoon Enterprises product. Dad’s a stakeholder and only accepts the highest quality products into market.”

“Typhoon Enterprises,” Kira says. “Don’t they make biotech and… weaponry?”

“Everything under Sky,” Grenadine says. “All the smart tech, anyway.”

“Really?” Damon says. “I thought Gastroforge was its own company.”

“They are,” I say. “But they’re not.”

“Subsidiary,” Grenadine replies. “Typhoon swallowed up a bunch of smaller corps over the past decade. They found a way to 3D print all their products, including 3D printers.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Noi says, its white electric eyes beaming at us via the rearview mirror, its static face entirely unreadable. “Typhoon Enterprises happens to be one of the leading manufacturers of fully bionic persons, like myself. Or Techs, as you folk call us.”

“That’s neat!” Kira says with a vibrant jolt of enthusiasm. “What’s it like being a robot?”

“Kira,” Grenadine says, looking down, clearing her throat not-so-subtly.

“Oh fuck,” Kira says. “Sorry. What’s it like being a Tech?”

“I don’t have access to any other experience of reality but my own,” the Noi says. “And, of course, every other me at this point in time.”

“Damn,” Kira says. “You have a way with words.”

“A hive-mind?” Damon asks.

“I have a solid identity, but I am also, as you say, Mister Green, of a hive-mind.”

Kira’s eyes widen as she looks at Grenadine beside her, then at me and at Damon, a look of pure astonishment on her face, lips mouthing the words, So cool!

“And,” Noi continues, “we, every me, all share our sensory data with each other. I am both experiencing this moment with you all and all moments every other me is experiencing at this point in time. My motor functions, however, are limited to every individual meat vessel.”

“What does that feel like?” Damon asks.

“Like being in multiple places at once and experiencing each place simultaneously, but focusing on one — experiencing the rest peripherally. All at once.”

“How many of you are there?” Kira asks.

“Active in Aurum?” Noi responds. “Over a hundred.”

“Like,” Kira says. “How much over?”

“One or two,” Noi responds, stroking his gold-plated cleft chin.

“One or two?”

“Well,” Noi says. “One of me is lying on the sidewalk right now, currently experiencing death process. My head is partially detached from my body but my silicon heart still beats. Sweet Absolute Infinity, someone deactivate me now… Erm — “

“Oh my God…” Kira says. “What happened?”

“Just a passenger who didn’t want to pay the fare,” Noi replies. “Did a 2-hour scenic route from Aurum North to Aurum South only for him to withhold the Love.”

Grenadine sighs. “Then what?”

“I tried to mitigate my tone so as to not be perceived as angry, but he grabbed me by the shirt collar, dragged my meat vessel through the front passenger door and made me eat the Gorilla Glassphalt.”

Grenadine leans forward and places her hand on the Noi’s shoulder. “Where is this poor meat vessel of yours?”

“Elysian Boulevard and 113 Street, right in front of Casa Aurora,” Noi responds.

Grenadine pulls out her phone and calls the Operator.

“That happens to be my second home,” Kira says. “I can check in with security for the footage. We can find who did this to you. Well, they can.”

Grenadine looks at Damon and I, pursing her lips. Before any of us can respond to clarify, the Noi brakes abruptly at a red light and turns to us.

“Don’t,” Noi says. “Leave him be. That human is going through a lot. Curb stomping a robot was probably the highlight of his week.”

“Karma will take care of it,” Grenadine says. “As with all things.”

A clearance for the taxicab makes way on the street right after a dark agent zooms past on a motorcycle. Its wheels radiate a powerful, dizzying white afterglow, lingering behind for barely a second in the form of a phosphorescent light trail, like a Lightcycle from Tron.

“Black Sand,” Grenadine says into her phone. “Operator, calling for a clean-and-sweep. Elysian Boulevard and 113 Street. One 3D meat vessel, a Noi. Forcibly decommissioned.”

“Merci, Duchess Black,” Noi says, looking at Grenadine in the rear-view. “I know you can’t see it on my robot face, but I’m smiling at you.”

Grenadine smiles back. “You truly are top-of-the-line. When I meet Techs like you, I think, maybe, Typhoon Enterprises isn’t so bad after all.”

High-grade copium.

I bite my tongue before I blurt that out.

I focus on the square map of Aurum City on the center console, right above the air conditioning vents, framed by four gold lines representing the city walls — the borders insulating us from the world.

The optimal path to our destination is highlighted on the screen, taking into account distance, time, and traffic, ranging from Aurum West to Aurum East. The taxicab picks up speed then switches lanes, taking the middle of three. Right up ahead on the sidewalk is a group of four women standing outside of a red and white diner that has several rows of silver chrome stripes lining its outer façade: MoJava Café.

The majority of citizens I see tonight are dressed up and looking good.

It’s 17:45 when the taxicab comes to a complete stop in front of a street elevator in Aurum East. Just a 3D rectangle jutting out from the ground. Neon light strips line the frame of the elevator, a neon green glow indicating that the elevator is unoccupied and on the Ground.

“You have reached your destination,” Noi says, graciously thanking us for our time.

Time to go.

I head towards the glowing outline of the elevator, and the path is sloped downwards so I almost have to stop myself from flat out running to it.

With Kira, Damon, and Grenadine falling one elevator ride behind, I enter the elevator by myself and press U.

Side-by-side, my friends smile and wave at me as the elevator doors close.

“You’ve got this, William!” Kira says. “Stay alive!”

“Good evening,” the hostess says, smiling. She’s a human Asian woman with blonde hair. Reminds me a lot of Kira, actually, who’s currently sporting a messy magenta bob and changes her hair more often than Sky switches seasons. “Do you have a reservation?”

“For Parker.”

She looks down at the podium, running her finger down the touchscreen, then says, “Great! He’s already here. Follow me.”

The hostess leads me out of the lobby and into a narrow hallway. The walls on either side of us are decorated with Japanese-style wallpapers and art. Sliding rice-paper doors on either side lead into isolated dining rooms. I drop my Sonus Maxima earbuds into the chest pocket of my dark denim over jacket and fidget with my silver Tree of Life pendant on my stainless steel chain.

> @AurumIntelligence call Damon.

> SOUNDS GOOD, WILLIAM BLUE
CALLING CONTACT DAMON GREEN

A circular green icon with a symbol of a phone appears at the top right of my visual field. The ringback tone plays through the earbuds in my breastpocket — too faint to be audible.

The green icon pulses in my retinal screens — a gray circular outline expanding and contracting around it as I wait for Damon to pick up.

The animation stops and the phone icon becomes translucent — indicating the call has been answered.

The hostess stops just past the middle of the hallway, waving her hand under the sensor under the door handle, causing the rice paper door to slide open gradually, like elevator doors gliding through a thick layer of molasses.

I peer into the booth and see Parker’s already inside, seated at one end of a square table for 4, a cup of tea in one hand, his phone in the other, likely scrolling through images of menu items and customer reviews.

The hostess smiles at me and waves her hand in Parker’s direction. “This is your party, yes?”

Parker looks up and smiles. It looks forced. He doesn’t mean it.

“William!” Parker says, as if greeting an old friend — as if not grasping the magnitude of the clusterfuck he’s in. “Good to see you again! Sit down. Please.”

Who are you?

“Yeah,” I say, glancing back at the hostess. She smiles, bows courteously, and moonwalks away. As the sliding door gradually shuts, Damon, Grenadine, and Kira silently walk by — no glances in my direction. Good.

A text from Grenadine:

> got a dining room, about three doors down to the left
btw, lavatories are about five doors down to the right
best escape route is the way you came in

I’m calling it now…

He’s going to try to make an ally out of me.

“Konnichiwa,” I say, easing my way into the sunken square hole in the floor surrounding the wooden horigotatsu table protruding upwards from the opening. “I’m not obeying your order or anything. I was planning to sit down anyways.”

“Just being courteous.”

It’s a small space. Even smaller without any weapons on hand. The walls of the room are all gold-tinged mirrors. At least, if Parker tries anything behind his back, I’ll be able to see it in the reflection.

“I appreciate the courtesy,” I say. “but you’re the visitor here.”

“Two-way street.”

Two-way street?

Wait… is that a threat?

“Yeah,” I say. “There aren’t many here in the Underground though.”

“Where did you park?”

“I didn’t,” I say, wondering why in the fuck he wants to know that information. “Took a cab.”

“By yourself?”

“There was a Noi driving.”

He says nothing, just looking me dead in the eyes, likely trying to get a read on whether or not I’m deceiving him. I relax my clenched jaw and soften my expression. Then he smiles again. “They’re great, aren’t they?”

“Top-of-the-fucking-line.”

“Remind me again,” he says. “Are you… fully–ah, how do you word it? Are you fully — ”

“Filipino?”

“Human,” Parker says. “Are you a Pure?”

“What difference does it make to you, exactly?”

“Well, on top of racism,” Parker says. “I believe anti-bionic sentiment is destroying the soul of humanity.”

“On the Outside?”

“Mhm,” Parker says. “And in here. Seems like a uniquely human thing, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t believe ignorance and evil are uniquely human things,” I say. “So no.”

“So you’re a bionic person?” he asks. I take a second to process his tone. Seems curious but he’s prying so overtly.

“I’m a human being,” I say.

“Human, posthuman, transhuman, bionic human, smart human,” Parker says. “So many labels to describe the same thing.” He points at the tea kettle. “Don’t worry, I’m no biological purist. I’m very much on the side of peaceful coexistence. This Human versus Robot narrative the media keeps spinning is dangerous.”

“It’s been like this since forever.”

“What it all boils down to is Life versus Death. Conscious versus Unconscious. Empathy versus Extinction.”

“What the fuck are you getting at?”

“We’re on the same side.”

“I’m not sure I believe you just yet, but keep prying.”

If I have to, I’ll shout the code word with no context. No need to weave it into the conversation naturally…

TUNATATAKI…

TUNATATAKI…

TUNATATAKI…

Parker’s phone rings.

GRENADINE BLACK

“It’s been like this since forever,” William says, as heard through the speaker of Damon’s cell phone, placed right at the centre of the square horigotatsu table that really ties the room together.

“What it all boils down to is…”

“One Sashimi boat for the three of us?” Damon says.

“…versus Extinction.”

Kira gives a thumbs up and a hum of approval, as if her mouth was literally zipped shut. Damon nods as he scrolls through the menu, using my phone.

“What the fuck are you getting at?”

“We’re on the same side.”

“I’m not sure I believe you just yet, but keep prying.”

Out of nowhere, a ringtone plays. Kira reflexively reaches for her phone on the tabletop, only to realize the ringing is coming from the other side of the phone line.

“It’s for you, William.”

“What the — ” Damon starts.

“Shush,” I say.

“What?”

“Answer the call.”

“Hello?”

“Hello again, this is Denise Rouge. Do you remember?”

“Yes. I think. Who are you again?”

“Denise Rouge.”

“Yeah, but — “

“Don’t overthink it, William Blue. So listen — and this applies to the three of you listening to this call right now…”

OH SHIT.

I close my eyes and pay extra attention to the words of this mysterious stranger.

“…stay in your seats. Don’t panic. Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is unfolding. Now stay where y’all are. We have some surprises in store for you… And if any of you want to leave, you might want to reconsider. At least stay until dessert.”

The sound of sirens blare in the hallway outside the dining booth, faintly. The dining booth walls are well insulated so we hear the muffled version.

A fire alarm.

“Stay in your seats,” Rouge repeats. “William, put me on speaker now.”

“Done,” William says.

“Parker, don’t go anywhere,” says Rouge. “Sit down. It’s me, baby. I’m here.”

Damon, Kira, and I exchange looks of disbelief.

“Holy shit,” Parker says. “I know that voice.”

“I’m sorry I took so long to reach you. I… I got so ridiculously side-tracked.”

“You…” Parker says, voice beginning to waver and soften as he speaks. It’s as if he’s holding back sobs. “You’re… you’re Agent Rouge?”

“Yes, dear,” Rouge says. “Listen, William doesn’t know it yet, but he’s part of this too. His father is — ”

“Mr. Blue,” Parker says.

“William, your father is alive,” Rouge says. “And he’s made some very, very big plans for you.”

“Where is he?” William asks.

“On his way.”

“WHAT?!” Damon and I shout, pretty much simultaneously.

“Tunatataki.”

“Oh right!” Parker says. “We haven’t ordered yet.”

Kira looks at Damon and I and nods. I look at Damon.

“Force-lock the door to this booth, and meet me three booths down,” I tell him. He nods, reaches into his jacket and removes a Knick-Knack. “I’ll wait for you outside the booth. Parker is not the threat.”

“We’ll see,” Damon says.

The last of the restaurant goers hurry towards the rice paper door at the end of the hallway. Cans and napkins and chopsticks are scattered around the floor as people shuffle through, chattering as the sirens blare.

The lighting in the hallway flickers as the lights oscillate between red and blue.

I unholster my Desert Eagle and stand in front of William and Parker’s dining booth. I keep my eyes on the exit as the hallway gradually clears out.

I look behind me and Damon approaches, giving me a thumbs up, before removing his Desert Eagle. He moves towards me, gesturing towards the exit.

“Stay focused on the exit,” Damon says. “I’ll cover your 6. Kira’s safe.”

As the remaining citizens exit, the siren sound slowly fades out and the lights switch to a flickering blue. Still feels like a rave.

Really hoping we won’t have to dance with strangers tonight.

“I know you’re scared,” Rouge says, through Damon’s speaker phone. “We’re scared too. Don’t shoot. We’re all on the same side.”

“I’m not a waitress,” I say. “I don’t take orders from strangers.”

“Surrender to the moment,” Rouge says. “Listen to love.”

“Fuck all of this,” William says. “I am not okay with this. I’m fucking right off. Fuck this.”

“William,” Damon says. “Stay down. We’re right outside the booth. Got eyes in both directions.”

The rice-paper door at the end of the hallway slides open.

OH SHIT.

A silhouette emerges into view and enters the hallway, walking with a steady, self-assured gait that reminds me of…

“William,” Damon says, heaving a deep breath as he aims his gun. I raise my gun as well. “He’s here.”

“Lower your weapons,” Mr. Blue says. The voice is as unmistakable as the navy blue blazer he’s wearing, as well as the stainless steel chain and yin-yang pendant. “Yes, it’s really me.”

I look at Damon. He looks so worried and unsure. I never tell him this, but I love seeing this side of him.

“Lower your weapons,” says an eerily familiar voice behind us. It’s not Rouge’s…

For a split-second, Damon and I meet eyes before looking behind us.

Galatea?

HOLY SHIT.

“Fear not,” Galatea says, smiling a smile worth a thousand words, from countless lifetimes. “You are surrounded by love. And friends, old and new. We come in peace.”

She hasn’t aged a day. She never has. But she looks exactly how she did when we exiled her to Europa, Jupiter.

“Galatea?” Damon and I say — again, as if in-sync and on cue.

“Lovely to see my favourite mortals again,” Galatea says, warmth and fondness in her voice. She really means it. “It’s felt like lifetimes since I was here.”

“I can say the same thing,” Mr. Blue says, now standing right in front of us, smiling. He hasn’t aged either, not since he “died” over a decade ago.

My gun is now holstered even though I don’t recall putting it down. So is Damon’s.

This is too much.

On the other side of the hallway, directly across from the dining booth, the rice-paper door slides open and an auburn-haired woman emerges, no weapons, just a bottle of Corona with a lime wedge.

Agent Rouge, I presume.

“Come over to this booth,” Rouge says. “Much bigger table. Oh, and bring Kira. Parker, William, step outside.”

Damon holds his phone to his ear, disabling the speaker. “William, it’s safe. Step out.”

“Y’all must be starving,” Galatea says. “We have so, so much to talk about.”

I need a drink.

⏭️ Chapter VI: Graduation

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

A Tale of Two Synchronicities (Chapter V: Wired) was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Fascinating and concerning in equal measure.

⏮️ Chapter III: Raid

CHAPTER IV: SWEET DEAL

GALATEA NEPTUNE

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I say, examining Her face, observing for micro-expressions.

But Cherry always says what She means.

And She means this.

Earthling Humanity has fallen.

“Earth is going through a psychotic break,” Cherry says. “Let’s put it that way.”

I was wondering when it would happen.

Just a matter of time.

And a ticking timebomb of a species.

“They finally went there,” I mutter thoughtlessly.

“How are you feeling?” Cherry says.

“Too much. Of Everything…”

The pain.

The absurdity.

“…and yet, I don’t know how much I am supposed to care…”

Gaia must be so fucking pissed.

“Tensions are running high in one of the shelter cities,” Cherry explains, an all-knowing glint in Her eyes. She knows I know what She’s going to say next. This feels like a bonding moment.

“Aurum City, California.”

“Mhm…”

“Movements are brewing out of the Underground and Magnuscape, devastating conflicts on the horizon.”

Good.

“The Default State seems unaware that any of it is happening.”

“Why should I care about a world I was forced to leave behind?” I ask in earnest. “Why should I care about any of them?”

“Because you do,” Cherry says. “You can hide a lot, but your eyes say it all, Duchess Neptune.”

“It’s a lot.”

“They haven’t forgotten about you,” She reassures. “Whether or not you care is up to you.”

“I think I might be… happier alone?”

“It’s not me you’re trying to convince.”

“Cherry,” I sigh. “You want me to salvage the scraps of another doomed species? For what? What’s left to save?”

“Only Everything.”

“They are a selfish, ignorant kind,” I scoff. “In time, everyone shows you how insufficient they are. You just have to give them a chance.”

“Consider giving more chances,” Cherry says. “More often.”

“I’ve given enough,” I say. “It only leads to pain.”

“To be alive is to hurt deeply.”

“I’m tired of being alive,” I say. “Immortality is a curse, a wound that never heals. And so is empathy. There is no everlasting love. Only suffering stays.”

“And yet, you’re still here,” Cherry says. “Being alive must mean something to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps the reason you roam the cosmos alone is because you are tired of coexisting with others.”

“I’m just tired of everything,” I say. “I’m tired of the gravity of existing. I’ve had enough of life and all that comes with living. Being alive sucks, and everything hurts.”

What good is it to be immune to Time in this way anyway?

Time heals all, but my 3D vessel heals quicker.

And my heart beats on just the same.

It just never stops…

“What does your heart tell you?” Cherry says, opening her palm, signalling for me to do the same.

I extend my hand across the table. She places one palm over it and another under it, closing her eyes, as if transmuting something that cannot be seen. Then, she places a fortune cookie in my hand.

I crack the cookie open and pull the paper out.

“My heart says…”

Look forward to all the memories you haven’t made yet.

7 9 22 38 55 99

I slide my thumbs over the Braille dots on the paper.

(35.049131, -118.172442)

It’s beautiful here.

“What does your heart say?”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll try to save the humans. Maybe I’ll stumble upon something worth living for.”

“That is always possible.”

PARKER SHIRO

It’s 2033 and humanity has reverse-engineered feelings.

What will we think of next?

For ♡99, a shot of Peach Serotonin will send you to the moon — and it tastes like the best Peach Schnapps you’ll ever have.

No crash. No hangover.

Just good vibes.

Just one of many official legal substances that circulate within the walls of Aurum City, mostly in the Underground.

Green Zenith, Purple Haze, Orange Bliss.

Snowcrash, Liquid Moonlight, Amaranthium.

A potpourri of psychoactive substances, a gourmet selection of ways to alter one’s consciousness to one’s liking—to escape the reality matrix, but only for temporary periods.

Chronic escapism is a real issue in the digital age.

Some people just prefer to live in the digital realms.

Chronic escapists are known as Dreamers.

As if it’s a bad thing to want to imagine a better world, and one’s place in it. Right? The pursuit of happiness, and what have you.

It all goes without saying…

Happiness can be bought.

You have been lied to.

All you need is ♡.

Love is the realest cryptocurrency.

Luckily, I have enough to survive.

I won’t need it much longer. I think the extraction mission is a go.

Agent Rouge has made contact.

> By the time this message finds you, you will have just got back to your residence after a 5-hour bartending shift in The Ocean Room, where you met one of our contacts for this operation, William Blue.

The extraction mission is underway.

You will be meeting William Blue this evening at Tokyoville Lounge.

Keep your phone on you, ringer on.
At some point tonight, you will get a phone call.
Give the phone to William Blue.
Have him answer the call.

Also, try out their Chipotle Melt Sashimi Pokebowl.
So goddamn good.

More instructions to follow.

xoxoxo
Agent Rouge

The interior of this Gold Cab smells like melted caramel.

I’m surely not complaining about that.

The Noi in the driver’s seat nods courteously as I step inside.

I roll up my jacket sleeve to scan my QR code against the passenger door armrest.

“Greetings Mister Blue,” the Noi says, its electric eyes observing me through the rearview mirror interface. “Where to?”

“Automata Plexus,” I say. “Scenic route.”

“Just to let you know, the Scenic Route Protocol is an added ♡50/minute, and ETA is 25 minutes. Depends on traffic.”

“I accept,” I say. “Please. Call me Parker.”

“Copy,” the Noi says as it shifts gears to Drive and accelerates, weaving out of the parking zone and into the daily rush hour traffic. “What’s on your mind, Parker?”

“I’ve had my mind on a vacation,” I begin. “I’d like to see the Hills up close. Ever since the lockdown, the freeways to the Hills have been blocked off. Aurum Avenue is nowhere to be found. And Sunset Boulevard completely blipped off the map? It’s confusing.”

“I empathize with your confusion, Parker,” Noi says. “You’re one of those dreamers who has heard the siren song of Hollywood. You feel called to answer it. You feel called to be an icon for your people.”

“My people?”

“Pures,” Noi says. “Unless you’re — ”

“Cybernetically-enhanced,” I say. “Yes. I am.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Is that a compliment?””

“Depends on who you ask,” he says. “From one bionic person to another, it’s best you don’t make a big deal of it. We are all equals in this society. But yes, it was a compliment.”

“In some ways, these enhancements have made me more human.”

“More human?” Noi repeats, pressing into the car horn as he merges into traffic. “Care to elaborate?”

“I feel more connected to myself. My emotions. My intuition.”

“Your intuition?” the Noi says. “Your gut or your heart?”

“Neither,” I say. “It’s from my subconscious. I don’t know if silicon-based people like yourself experience it. It’s a feeling that everything is unfolding exactly as it should. It’s numbers. It’s letters. Lining up. Making sense.”

“I see the world through algorithms and data,” Noi says. “One part of my brain is focused on getting you to your destination safely, while the other part of my brain is focused on conversing with you based on the Scenic Route Protocol, which, as a reminder, is one hundred percent confidential. I will retain zero memory of this conversation. And everything you say is end-to-end encrypted.”

“Well, my intuition is telling me things are unfolding as they should,” I say. “And that it’s time I bought myself a new car. Because it might be important down the road.”

“Hence your destination,” the Noi says. “I’m sure you’re just tired of being driven around by us Nois.”

“Only the ones that look and talk like you.”

“I see what you did there,” Noi says, feigning robotic laughter. “You could always go back to ridesharing apps for that human touch. You can bet Uber drivers come in far more diverse makes than us!”

“I’m looking for something more dependable,” I say. “I mean, I want to depend on myself. I want to be prepared with a set of wheels because reality is unpredictable and unstable. I want to feel in control, even if it’s only an illusion.”

“That computes,” Noi responds. “You want to feel free and in control of your fate even if you aren’t.”

“I want to hold the keys to my own destiny. If I’m going to go off the deep end, I want to be the one at the wheel.”

“That’s…” the Noi says, pausing, as if in thought, as the cab slows to a stop, before a red light. “Fascinating and concerning in equal measure.”

This bionic person, with its static face and programmed-to-be-literal speech, is trustworthy. Nobody scrutinizes its face to derive any additional meaning from its words.

It’s programmed to be as direct and truthful as possible.

That’s what makes the Scenic Route Protocol such a genius feature. They make excellent therapists. They’re non-judgmental and direct. They never make facial expressions.

They tell everything like it is.

No sugarcoating or plain white lies.

“The time for breakfast is now,” I say.

“Hmm…” the Noi says, checking his wristwatch. “It’s 11 in the morning, so I say your statement is accurate, assuming you’re not being sarcastic.”

“You’d be dysfunctional to believe otherwise.”

“Indeed, sir!”

“Does that statement mean anything to you?”

“Being dysfunctional?”

“No, the one about breakfast.”

“Oh,” Noi says. “Is this a trick question?”

“Never mind.”

JERICHO BLUE
FIRST-GENERATION CITIZEN

The Noi eyes my ID and returns it to me. I place my ID card back into my wallet. I press my palm over my wrist and remove it after ten seconds, revealing my QR code tattoo.

Verified.

The Noi signals to the right and parks the taxi cab curbside. “You have arrived.”

> Cost: 1450 Love. Confirm?
> Confirm.

“Confirm,” I say. “Thank you.”

When I get inside, it’s just me and the clerk in the lobby.

He looks nondescript and very much human. Possibly part-bionic based on his irregular heat signatures.

“Hello,” the clerk says behind a black service desk with a luminous top surface, his mouth half occupied by a bite of a turkey sandwich. His skin is tan with slight creases and wrinkles in several areas of his cheeks and surrounding his mouth. His nose is slightly crooked, and so is his smile. This is a first-generation citizen. No doubt.

I blink twice in rapid succession to activate infrared vision.

I can’t see the lower half of his body and therefore can’t know for sure there are no hidden weapons on hand.

I shut my eyes tightly to restore my normal vision.

“I’d like a car,” I say.

Traces of stray conversation bleed through the porous walls — two men and one woman — actually, two women. I can’t make out exactly what they’re saying, but one of the guys has an ear-grating laugh that makes me want to tune out of the frequency entirely.

The clerk asks me several questions about the car’s design and aesthetics. Leather seats… All black exterior… Automatic transmission… One minute…

The car will be ready in one minute.

Several meters back, the sliding doors open. The clerk looks over my shoulder. A look of unease breaks his earnest expression. Footsteps sound behind me, rubber soles clacking against the marble floor.

Then a long, distorted and discordant sigh reminiscent of a Walkman radio tuned to a dead frequency.

Dark agent…

Behind you.

I activate infrared vision and look over my shoulder. The dark agent is standing just feet away, its glowing green eyes peering straight into mine. According to its heat signatures, it has two handguns, one holstered on either side of its body.

Relax.

He’s not here for you.

The clerk clears his throat.

“Identification?” the clerk says.

Switching back to normal vision, I pull the ID card out of my pocket, move closer to the service desk, and hand it to him.

The sound of the dark agent’s breathing is barely audible, but it’s loud enough to cause a stir. Exactly what I’m feeling, I’m not sure. It’s not fear. I know that.

I’ve become de-conditioned to fear and lost the ability to process it.

Could be a side-effect of the operation. A slight tweak in my neural circuitry. Damaged limbic system.

And if I ever do feel fear again, well, I’ll greet it like an old friend.

But until then…

The clerk looks at my ID card, and then he looks at my face, and then at my ID card, and then back at my face — and I’m sure now he’s verifying that my face matches the face on the card, and I’m now realizing I totally forgot to get a new photo taken — and he’s probably thinking I’m a fraud, and he’s onto me, and he’s gonna tell the dark agent that I’m not who I claim to be because I don’t look a thing like Jericho, and Kale was lying…

“All clear, Mr. Blue,” he says, returning my ID card. “A new vehicle!”

“A new destination,” I say, bowing. “I’m sure this car will transform my humdrum existence into a story worth telling.”

“You’re living the dream, sir,” the clerk says, in an approving tone. He gets it. “I wholeheartedly believe it, sir!”

I’m reminded of Kale for some reason. It’s the smile. Artificial. Performed.

An odd suction sound…

Pop.

The clerk reaches underneath the desk and pulls out a square piece of paper with a QR code printed on it, hands it to me. I hold it up to my face and blink three times in rapid succession.

The clerk reaches out his hand.

I place the paper back in his hand and he feeds it into a shredder.

He points to the red door on the right side of the lobby and tells me the door will open once the car is ready.

“Now that you’ve claimed ownership of the vehicle, you should be downloading a unique authentication key that will fuse with your genetic make-up — AKA your DNA! — that you can use every time you hit the ignition! Nobody can activate the ignition except for you, and nobody drives without you present.”

The clerk looks at the dark agent who now has his mask off.

The man is angry and gruff looking, with gray eyes and dark stubble. Possibly a first-gen, non-bionic heat signature. A Pure. A 100% organic, natural human.

“Hello Ace, sir,” the clerk says before shifting his attention to me.

“Jericho, take a seat.”

“Why not.”

Ace follows me with his eyes as I make my way to the couch. I nod at him, but he doesn’t nod back, just stares intently.

The clerk says, “I reckon you’re not here for a vehicle, my good sir.”

“No,” Ace says. “I need answers.”

I sit on the couch, lay back and pretend I’m watching the cartoon that’s playing on the hanging vidscreen suspended from the ceiling several meters above me.

“Have you supplied spare parts to anyone recently?”

The clerk is silent for a moment as if contemplating. “Yes. Why?”

“A couple of nights ago, the Green Zenith manufacturing plant in the Sub-City was raided and then set on fire. Seven employees were critically injured: six first-gens and one second-gen. Apparently, the group of perpetrators utilized spare car parts as combat weapons. Spare car parts.”

“How is that even possible?”

“One victim was slashed in the side with a turbine blade. One was assaulted with a steering wheel. And one skull fracture via car battery.”

“Holy fuck,” the clerk says, shaking his head, sounding distraught. He starts pacing around. “Goodness.”

“Would you like to hear about the bludgeoning with a car bumper?”

“No, thank you?”

“Well…”

“No deaths?”

“None.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Tons of Green Zenith inventory has gone missing,” Ace recounts. “It’s going to take months before the plant can resume a viable operation. So when Green Zenith stocks run out in the Sub-Marts, the perpetrators of this theft will be the only ones in Aurum City carrying supplies of the drug for months. Do you know what this means? This means a street gang has taken Green Zenith distribution into their own hands.”

“I — I had no idea they were gonna use the car parts for — for this. They said they were hobbyist mechanics!”

“So you are the supplier.”

The clerk lowers his head. “I supplied the parts.”

“Who did you supply them to?”

“He — he didn’t have a face.”

“What?”

“I mean, he wears a mask. Like you. A low poly mask. Like yours. But gold. He wore an orange jacket.”

“Name?”

“Brass… Monkey? He did identify himself as a dark agent, but his gold mask was very peculiar. Don’t see that every day!”

“Okay,” Ace says after a short pause. “Height?”

“5'9 to 5'10, from the looks of it.”

Ace pulls out his mobile device to type all this down. The red door opens. I stand up. The clerk looks over at me on my way out and says, “Have a nice day, Jericho.”

I walk through the door and say, “Please, call me Parker.”

Some seconds pass and, through the door, Ace shouts out, “Hey, Parker! Bet you’ll be doing a lot more driving than parking. You should be calling yourself Driver!”

I smile to myself as the door creaks to a close behind me.

My new car sits on a slightly elevated platform on a neon green track that leads into a neon green tunnel eventually leading back to the city.

The neon green lights of the track are reflected in the glossy finish of the car’s all- black exterior.

I hit the ‘unlock’ button on the remote. Then ’Start.’ Through the tinted windows, a blue glow emanates from the interior.

The car starts up.

As I make my way to the driver’s seat, I listen in on the last bits of the conversation.

“…the dark agent,” the clerk says. “Just before he left, he said something to me. He said, ‘The O-Tribe thanks you very much!’”

The dark agent…

The O-Tribe…

Then it hits me: a realization.

A revelation that catalyzes to completion a sustained neurochemical reaction that has been occurring within me, a cataclysmic schism of the self, of myself, in which the weaker half dies to feed the lifeforce of the other.

Then, rebirth.

Metaphorically.

Next stop, transcendence.

I feel as if I am no longer human.
The metamorphosis is complete.

It all hits at once.

Realizations on realizations.

One Eureka moment after another.

In rapid succession.
Like a deck of cards shuffling possible fates.

And slowly, the pieces start falling into place, coming together to form a complete picture in my mind’s eye, more intricate yet straightforward than anything I could’ve conjured myself in the past thousand or so days, trying to figure it all out myself.

I’m still wrapping my mind around it, but I can rest assured that everything is unfolding as it should.

Wake up, Agent Shiro…

There’s comfort in knowing my every experience is being recorded and stored, that one day the world will see whatever this is, my plight in Aurum City.

If there’s anyone left on Earth to tell stories to.

Wake up, Agent Shiro…

I am.

I am awake now.

Take the wheel.

⏭️ Chapter V: Wired

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

A Tale of Two Synchronicities (Chapter IV: Sweet Deal) was originally published in Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Tale) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.