[ RECEIPT_ID: CH_15 ]
A LONG WAY
HOME
STATUS: MARKED_RETURN AWAITING_PICKUP
He turned back, his eyes resting on the steel door he had just crawled out of.
…
He wryly let out a weak laugh, but abruptly stopped.
He left a faint, glowing trail of fluid behind him. Somewhere in the distance, a delivery drone passed. It was a heavy buzz that came and went like a crescendo.
Down the block, he heard casual footsteps approaching. A man in a neon orange worker's vest, a bag over one shoulder, and a cup of overpriced coffee in his other hand.
Xu watched him nearby.
The man glanced down as he approached. His eyes traced the glow, the trail, and the general situation of Xu laid out on the asphalt.
Xu felt mild anticipation.
He raised an eyebrow, stepped over him without breaking stride, and continued down the block, humming to himself like he had seen this a million times before.
Xu stared at the space where he'd been.
Dr. Drive’s words echoed in the empty cavern of his skull.
Xu narrowed his eyes.
He gritted his teeth.
“
Draaaaaag.
.
His eyes snagged on a silhouette down the road. His head popped up, pebbles unstuck from his face, and he fell to the asphalt below.
A wheelchair sat outside a narrow entryway under a flickering porch light.
Draaaag.
Draaaaaaaag.
You are better than this.Draaaaaaaaaaag.Clink—Creak.
But it IS comfortable, and who knows? Maybe they left it out to return it.
FLASH
We having a sale on guilt today? he managed to say sardonically.
Squeak.
He rolled forward once more, extremely slowly.
Squuuuueeeeaaaaak.
Xu squeaked along in his wheelchair.
He had invented a one-arm technique about a block ago. It worked by pushing the right wheel aggressively down. This curved the wheelchair until it squeaked to a stop, then, kicking with his remaining leg, until it turned the left wheel enough to straighten himself back out.
He felt like the fastest man alive.
Squeak.
Squeak.
He turned.
Squeak.
Squeak.
He turned.
He passed a closed noodle cart. There was a small handwritten sign taped to the window that said BE BACK SOON in three languages and had probably been there for six years.
He passed a puddle.
He caught his reflection in it.
People began to gradually hit the street, likely heading to work for early morning shifts.
A kid, maybe six, walked past holding her father's hand. She glanced over. He looked back at her. She smiled and skipped.
He rounded the corner.
Three modded teenagers stepped out of a branched alley. They had masseter mods and suspiciously low-quality optical implants.
They saw a man rolling along in a wheelchair in the distance, in other words, they saw an easy markand a surprisingly bright one.
"Look at this," the leader sneered. His voice was heavily synthesized. It buzzed with static. "Looks like someone should have bought more hardware."
The kid on the left snapped a baton open. It crackled, blue arcs crawling along its length with the dry hiss of angry electricity.
"Strip him," the leader said. "Take his optics. Leave the rest of the meat."
“Who installs LEDs in their skin?” the third muttered.
“Weird dude.”
“Just get the fucking hardware.”
Xu’s ride stopped squeaking. He looked up.
He didn't feel fear. He felt profoundly inconvenienced, wildly inconvenienced, and deeply inconveniencedall at the same time.
He was managing a crisis. A mugging felt like an insult. The teenagers stepped into the warm light of his flesh. They saw the golden light bleeding through his pores. They saw his heart. It was hammering. Xu’s face was deadpan.
Then, the smell hit them. Burnt coins. Scorched Fat. Putrid cheese.
Baton boy froze. The electricity died with a soft click. "Bro. What the fuck is wrong with him?"
Xu tried to speak. His vocal cords felt like dry ash.
"I am..." Xu rasped. The sound was loose and flabby. "...busy
FLASH
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Headed home to sleep."
His eyes trembled, and his focus slipped, the world softening at the edges. A small, defeated frown pulled at his mouth, the kind you make when you realize that yes. That really did just happen.
His eyes drifted shut, not in peace, but in surrender.
Squeak.
"Did he just give us a thumbs up?" the third kid whispered.
Xu’s wheelchair halted instantaneously. And slowly wheeled around.
jazz echoed in the depths of his mind.His face was doing all sorts of weird things.
"I think he's radioactive…”
They didn't rob him. They glanced at each other and then scrambled over each other. They backed frantically into the alley. They looked terrified that whatever did this to him might be contagious.
Squeak.
The sky had begun to lighten. The deep blue of night faded into a sickly gray dawn that was just beginning to break.
The translucency of his skin became more obvious.
A mental image of his desk lying outside his window appeared in his mind.
He rolled up the sector where Taylor's apartment was and stopped outside the door.
Xu sighed.
Squeak.
He arrived in front of a cracked window.
He had a plan.
It was a good plan. He would ease himself over the ledge, find the counter with his palm, lower himself to the floor, and be down before anything else in the apartment knew he was there.
He had built this plan over the last half-block. It was the best one currently available to him. He only had a hand of 4 to work with. A “one functional arm” of spades, the “memory of her floor plan” of diamonds, a “fairly vague understanding of the do’s and don’ts of his new shape” of clubs, and his ace in the hole: the “will to live” of hearts.
He wedged his good arm inside. He heaved himself in.
Xu’s head poked in first, and before anything else happened, he recognized the smell.
They used to eat them together when they had first been pulled off the street. And underneath it, he could just faintly smell the same cheap soap brand they all used because they were all poor and knew it.
He had been running on fumes and sheer stubbornness for the better part of four hours.
He felt his body relax without warning.
His palm missed the edge of the counter.
A perfect fold.
He began to—The plan did not account for faucet knobs.
Squeak.
Wshhhhh.
THUD.
His torso followed suit, folding awkwardly over the edge. His head slammed into the sink with the force of a planet, his organs jolted forward into his ribcage with a heavy, wet thud. It sounded like a bag of wet laundry hit the floor.
He twisted.
Clunk.
His Nanosword had jammed between the corner of the sink and the bottom of the windowsill.
He lay there, folded in half, his face pressed against the metal drain. He couldn't move his head.
A refrigerator hummed nearby.
A small gurgled groan came from the sink as darkness overtook his vision.
He was home.
Something was humming.
Xu had decided, at some point, that the humming was important. He had been thinking about it for a while now. It had a rhythm, it was consistent, and it was the most reliable thing in his immediate universe, and he found that comforting.
The drain smelled like eggs and grey water.
He knew this because his nose was still in it.
He had developed a theory, based on what he had calculated to be somewhere in the range of forty minutes to four years.
He was quite confident about this.
That if he simply did not move, nothing bad could happen to him. This theory had held up remarkably well so far.
“Good faucet.”
“Reliable faucet.”
He and the faucet had formed a co-dependent relationship. He just hadn’t informed it yet.
The sink suddenly lit up as if the sun was being reflected around it, charging up to enlighten him.
He very, whispered into the sink.
Footsteps.
They stopped.
Squeak.
The faucet had abandoned him.
Xu froze mid-breath. His chest contracted. A tiny scream trapped somewhere between disbelief, fear, and fury clawed its way up his throat.
Xu found this unacceptable.
His only source of comfort had been stolen. He began to breathe faster and faster, until eventually. Another squeak sounded out, and the calming drip had resumed.
Footsteps moved away. Came back. Something soft landed against the side of his face.
He decided it was also reliable.
Click.
Something scraped against something else.
Then nothing.
He slept.
He awoke to a signal from the sink, it had more knowledge to share.
He stared into It’s ethereal light. Harder. Harder. Harder still. Shapes began to populate his vision.
Xu banished this enlightenment with his eyelids.
Shapes began to emerge in the glow. Whispering dots. Shadows flitting behind his eyelids. He ignored them, studied them, and became them. His mind drank in the forbidden knowledge contained in their depths.
“Mmmm.” He felt nice.
A pause.
Xu became aware that he was being looked at. He couldn't anyone looking—the edges of everything were soft and slightly behind where they were supposed to be, like the entire sink had a natural glow.
A voice, close.
a voice said.
Xu smiled in bliss.
a voice said. Xu suddenly flew through the world.
?? CUSTOMER_FEEDBACK_PORTAL
Lillian Shire? VERIFIED BUYER
☆☆☆☆☆
0/5 STARS
"The turning radius is terrible, the left wheel squeaks enough to alert every mugger within four sectors, and it doesn't come with a bathroom assistance module. I've been forced to change my diet to just Sustenance-Seven?. I can't believe this is the only product your company sells. Pick up this joke of a product and refund me by tomorrow morning. I left it outside, by the door."
MERCHANT_REPLYAutomated_Response_Bot_#44
We're disappointed to hear that you've had such a bad experience with our company. We'll send a driver out tomorrow morning to pick up your return, once processed, we'll refund your Credits in
Online-In-Store-Credits.
Xu, Xu, Xu... You heartless bastard.
