I woke up, my head was spinning. For a brief moment, everything was blurry, I found myself in the middle of the road. I sat up and noticed a sharp pain right above my ear. I placed my hand where the pain was. I felt thick liquid trickle down my hand, blood. I felt like I was falling. I fell over again, and I was no longer dizzy.
He must have fought back, I thought to myself, They normally don’t stand a chance, they must be gaining more experience...
I saw a corpse roughly a meter away of me. I saw the back end of a sharp, bloody knife stabbed into his lower stomach, I guess when i'm unconscious I don't have a very good aim, I thought. Five years ago, before my condition became apparent, this sight would have disgusted me. I would have felt guilty to a point that I couldn’t stand living. Sadly, I’ve grown used to the sight of corpses with knives in them laying next to my side in the morning, although, I never remember killing them. The thought that my subconscious was killing innocent civilians was quite an intimidating one. There were deep knife wounds all over his chest. A gust of wind blew through the sky that sent a chill down my spine. I looked up at the dark night sky. I notice a few clouds, but there was so much light pollution in the sky that the stars were practically invisible.
“Time?” I asked.
My contact lenses displayed 0230 in bright crisp red characters.
“Two thirty,” the earpiece in my left ear said in its familiar robotic voice.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I explained to my earpiece, “I’m not blind, I can see the time through my contacts.”
“Sorry sir, but I can’t tell if you’re blind or not.”
“Yes you can, I told you at least 100 times.”
The earpiece remained silent.
I guess it doesn't have a very good hard drive. I thought.
“Just bring me my car, I need to get out of here before the street cleaners come.”
“The car is already here sir. You drove it here while you were unconscious.”
“Wow, I bet it takes true skill to drive while I’m asleep..”
“Sir, you weren’t asleep. It was your condition, and I do not understand why you would bet.”
“I know.” I explained. “It was a joke.”
“Sorry sir, but I do not understand how that was funny.”
“I keep forgetting that AI’s have no sense of humor. As a matter of fact,” I said, “it seems no one around here does.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t.” I replied annoyed.
I leaned over and grabbed the corpse’ name tag. It was labeled “17464”
“Good old 64” I said.
“Sir you don’t even know…”
“Shut up.” I said annoyed as I muted the earpiece.
Curse the day these stupid things were invented. I thought.
I pocketed 64’s name tag. Then I realized how lonely I felt without my earpiece, so I turned it back on.
“Fine! I’ll you let stay on, as long as you stop telling me useless information that I already know.”
“Thank you sir,” the earpiece replied with a monotone voice. I knew that the earpiece honestly didn’t care whether it was on or not, it was just telling me what I wanted to hear.
Another gust of wind shot through the air as though the murky night sky was trying to make me feel guilty.
It’s not like I had a choice! I assured myself. I mean, I’ve been trying to stop my condition ever since I got it. I still couldn’t shake off the feeling of dread, and the pity I felt for good old ‘64. I hopped into the car.
“Take me home” I pleaded.
“Already on it sir.”
“I’m so tired, I could sleep for a year.”
“But sir….”
”Do you want me to mute you again?” I asked
“No sir,” it replied.
Then I dozed off.
* * *516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7De7RXoOw
I later dreamt that I was ten years old again, I was riding my bike with my friend,16563. We weren't in the same district, but we both lived near our district’s borders so we lived close together. We even went to the same learning center. We raced down the street on our bikes to the large forest by the river where our secret base was located. 63 managed to pull ahead of me, so I started pedaling harder, but, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get ahead of him. He accidentally pulled too hard left when we approached a turn. That mistake cost him his lead, I managed to speed past him.
Yes! I’m going to beat him again! I thought, as I start to pull ahead of him.
“You aren’t beating me again!” I hear 63 shout to me. He began to pedal even harder, and as I slow anticipating the finish, 63 barely pulls ahead of me.“Ha! I beat you!” He shouted with joy, as he hopped off his bike.
“Ehh, that was just luck.” I shrug, as I hop off my bike and started heading into the woods.
“It was not just luck.” 63 argued
“Of course It wasn’t.” I added sarcastically.
“It wasn’t!!” He shouted back.
“Fine it wasn’t. It doesn't even matter that much.”
63 was quiet the rest of the way to our secret fort that we built one day. The tree’s of the forest were obviously fake, but we were able to nail together a few pieces of fake wood. It wasn’t really much of a fort, more like random pieces of wood jumbled together. I remembered when we built it. 63 and I disagreed on the main plan, but we eventually came to a compromise. I was in charge of the top, and he was in charge of the bottom. It took all afternoon to build but, we were proud of it after we were done building.
“What if we put leaves on the top so It could have shade?” I asked 63
“Well, you're in charge of the top.”
“Ok, can you help me?”
“Yeah.” he said.We spent the next little while grabbing leafs, and placing them on top of our structure.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
