Blur of starry sky. The blacked out curve of country road zooms at your side of the windshield like you just got plunked down in the passenger seat of someone else’s first person shooter. Buzz of yellow center marks dive at you from the black like wings. Josephine at the wheel dark hair hanging to her jawline. Dispatcher chatter on the radio sounds like it’s underwater. This is truck 44. One of the county fire dept ambulance rigs Fort Pillow acquired in the fallout of the last reboot. Josephine cuts her eyes at you.
Jack you still with me.
Most there yuh.
Voice sounds alien like a recording of a recording and you wonder if she notices. The words feel like shapes like chunks of color and noise to chew and spit out. The teeth rattle in your skull. This is decompression from the slip. Two minutes ago you were in the staff locker room with Cap and Jules. Needle in the hay. Needles under my skin. Keep biting my own tongue by mistake. Like I don’t recognize it. Two minutes ago you were at your locker patting yourself down talking to Jules. What did you say. I said hey Jules what year is it and she slapped her locker shut. Don’t fuck with me Jack. Darted a glance over her shoulder. Cap in the corner fiddling with the police scanner. Evander taping two of his fingers together with electrical tape. Molly eating a bowl of ramen soup with her headphones on. Nobody listening. Jules doesn’t want to answer. The paperwork says 2025 so that’s the party line. But that’s when they started the reboots. Pulse the grid and everything goes down for three days. Comes back up and they wiped away a year. Then another. They just reset everything digital back to whatever year they like and anybody who says different ends up locked down somewhere. House arrest if you have money. Disappeared if you have the wrong footprint. Fort Pillow is last stop before the yellow. Okay you say tell me what’s the last phone you remember. I remember the ones that scanned your iris don’t you. What is this about Jack. The phantom phone. Why did you choose the touchscreen. Fuck you Jack it was my favorite. I don’t know. Cap gives you a quick headshake to drop it. The staff is divided. Half of them swallow the 25 psyop because that’s what their phones say. The other half knows it’s 2029 or later but afraid to say so. Nobody wants a visit from corporate. The patients are all over the place like zealots it’s anywhere from 2017 to 2033 and beyond. That was two minutes ago. Now you’re in truck 44 on a body run with Josephine snap the fuck out of it. Keep pushing your luck boy gonna wind up cut in half somewhere. Taste of metal. Did you get the bullet. Buzz of wings around my eyes and wave my hand like a spastic. Shivering and my skin feels strange. Face not right not quite my own. Take a look at dark window my ghost reflection and my thoughts still drift and fade apart before they take shape just as they appear on the horizon. Internal cloudbursting. Decomp from the slip. Notion of self breaking up, disintegrating. The self in freefall like a satellite in orbital decay. The bullet is in my shirt pocket. Josephine is staring at me like she’s waiting for an answer but I didn’t hear the question.
Jack where are you.
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