“Hi. I’m Rachel. Two and a half years ago, I was drafted into the military—Remember the good ol’ days? When America still had a government?…”

I trail off, staring at the script pulled up on my computer monitor. Every part of the delivery was off. Instead of light hearted and conversational, I sound tired and stiff. Like a worn down door-to-door salesman scared of getting caught in the lies necessary to peddle my own crappy product. A tone like this would automatically put my audience on guard.

Sighing, I lean back in my chair. I’ve spent weeks working on this one script. All I have to do is read from it, but my eyes and head hurt from working too long. Just one more push.

Taking a moment to collect myself, I lean into my cheap computer mic…

I can’t force myself into the mood, can’t force the attitude into my voice. I look over the script again. Writing like this would never go viral, never reach my family. I should just let it all out, and go from there.

I lean forward and start over. No script.

“Hey Mom. Hey Dad. Hey Jack. It’s Rachel… I just want to let you know I’m doing fine. And I miss you…” My resolve weakens and tears start stinging my eyes.

“Aris, Talia, if you see this, I…” My voice catches in my throat. There is a slight pit-pat where tears slide off my chin and onto my keyboard.

I can’t do it. I need some air.

I push myself out of my chair and all but run down the stairs and out of the house. The mid-June sun beats down on my thick mane of black hair and a cool breeze runs down the back of my exposed calves and arms, rustling the woods behind my house as I check on the garden taking up the entire back yard.

The yield was… sub par. Can’t say I was disappointed, that would require expecting something more. The dirt and mulch bed crunch underfoot as I kneel over the drying husk of my tomato plant. The fruit hadn’t dried out yet, but it wasn’t even close to ripe. Same for the rest of the sparse collection of plants I tried my hand at harvesting. All dead or dying.

The only ones spared are my basil plant, and some other herb or weed I didn’t know the name of and I don’t remember ever planting. Both thriving in the wake of my neglect. Guess I didn’t inherit a green thumb from my Asian side. There goes my first idea for clearing my head.

I step off the dirt bed as another breeze makes the woods whisper in the sweet scent of nature to my desolate wasteland. It’s a good thing I get all my food from Tara. I’ll have to tell her our little project was a bust, and not to waste any more seeds on me.

Ducking under my clothesline, and shoving flailing pajamas out of my face, I look over the back porch for my sketchbook. I usually had it out here. My heart skips a beat before I remember I left it at Tara’s last time I was over there. There goes my second idea.

There’s a huge boulder in my front yard. I took to climbing and running up it as a way to stay fit, but it quickly lost its challenge. Now I have padding tied around it to use as a punching bag. I rarely use it, the giant rock doesn’t make for a very engaging sparing partner, not much opportunity to get lost in the task: not even a candidate for idea three.

I’m already in gym shorts, a shirt I didn’t mind getting sweaty, and a sports bra, so I go for my usual run around town. I jog past the row of collapsed houses that lead deeper into the broken skeleton of the town that stood here years ago. The rubber soles of my shoes beat against the cracked asphalt roads, around the bomb crater in the road, and onto concrete sidewalks full of debris and crushed glass from the husks of the former restaurants and offices.

Plants and weeds ooze from every crack and crevice they could squeeze out of. Small brown animals scurry through the calf-high grass filling the alleys and lots behind buildings. Birds flutter from rooftops at my passing.

I see one of the little cats I’ve become friendly with bound away as I approach. I always leave food out for her—and the other stray cats—whenever I make dinner. They’re still wild, still wouldn’t let themselves be pet, but they were chill enough to let me sit and talk to them from time to time.

In the middle of the main street, a single street light still flickers among its more battered brethren. Most of this town was demolished when the war rolled through. It was one of the first to go. People had long since scavenged the sandbags, tents, vehicles, and equipment left behind by the military; and stripped all the wiring and useful materials from the buildings and cars and street lamps to take to the other towns that still had people living in them.

My house is only livable because they used it as their base of operations when scavenging the town. In return for living here, I keep an eye on this street light and send a message to an anonymous email if it ever goes out, or fire off a flare if power to the house goes down too.

Both are powered by illegal power lines siphoning off power from nearby towns. They call them ‘ghost lines’ because no one knows who maintains them. Just nameless, faceless samaritans.

I finish my run across town and back. As I jog up to the side of my house, I see a Rubes, the little black and white cat that ran off earlier, waiting patiently on my back porch. I look to the sky, it’s a little too early for dinner.

“Hey, Rubes! How ya doin?” I say as I approach, careful not to spook him.

He glances upon me with the upmost indifference. Then continues looking through the glass door and into my house.

I suppress a gasp. Could this be it? Could he be ready to come inside?

I step over him and gently slide the door open.

He panders his way inside immediately.

I make no effort to suppress my gasp as I follow. I leave the back door open enough for him to slip out, the last thing I want is for him to get spooked and feel trapped.

I scoop out some of Tara’s special cat food from the fridge and some water into two small bowl and set them on the floor.

“Make your self at home, little man. I’ll be right back.”

I take a quick refreshing cold shower, by the time I throw on a fresh set of pants and a comfortable shirt, Rubes is done eating and wondering about the house.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He hasn’t left yet. He might stay the night.

“Hey, want to check out the up-stairs?”

Rubes ignores me, but when I head up, he follows.

“This is my little home office.” I open the door and freeze. Suddenly and painfully aware of how my room looks.

Piles of rejected and scribbled-out sketches litter the floor, adorn the walls and stack up in piles around my desk, balled up sketches overflow from the bin like popcorn, dozens of half-finished animations and story-boards fill my computer’s memory.

Rubes doesn’t seem to take notice and brushes past my legs, poking his curious head all about the room.

“Yeah I know, it’s a bit of a disaster. I’ve been kind of busy.” He’s a cat. It’s not like he cares, but having him here makes me think of how this would look to someone else. I haven't brought Tara up here recently for that exact reason. If she saw all this, she would just worry.

This was all I have to show for five months in hiding, trying to find a story to bring to life; I had plenty to share, having seen so much during my time as a military scout and corporate trainer. I just need to turn that into a message I can send out to my family. Something big enough to reach them, wherever they were.

But every time I try... Nothing works outside a few shorts about the video games I’ve played, just to see if I still had what it takes to animate like I used to, just to see if I could post videos without getting caught. Anything else brings back too many memories, too much pain, too many mistakes.

I make my way over to my computer and push aside rising memories and my tablet to check the secure connection on my computer, and drink from my water bottle as I read over yesterday’s conversation with Lain.

‘Hope your mic works. It’s the best I could find.’

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Not what I’m used to, but it’ll work’

‘Ohhh, I see. You were a famous streamer before the war? A motivational speaker?’

‘Lain. We agreed. Nothing personal.’

‘I know. It’s a joke. You suck too much at both of those ;)’

I smile at rereading that one. The dot next to his username ‘LX442’ is green, so I type away a response on my keyboard.

‘Oh really? Why is it you keep begging me to up my game and start competing?’

He only takes a few seconds to reply.

‘Because you suck. You’d never win. But you could, if you trained. People have started making money betting on you. Myself included. You’re missing out.’

My hands hover over the keyboard.

Lain’s like my trainer. He coaches me when I replay old video games, and together we see how far up the scoreboards I can get. Then I animate a story out of my training arc to make a video. I only do it for practice, others make serious money placing bets and winning competitions, but if he says I could go pro…

“How ‘bout it Rubes? Think I could become a pro gamer?”

Rubes is too occupied swiping papers across the floor to answer.

“If I could make enough money, I could leave and search for my family the old fashioned way. They might even still be in the same city as when I left.”

Rubes stares up at me. Preening from across the room.

“I know. I wouldn’t have time to work on my magnum opus anymore, but look around. It’s been months and I’m still at square one.”

I grab my digital art tablet and stare down at it.

I spent a lot of my time over the months learning how to navigate the New Web. Ever since the war, computer networks have been heavily monitored, controlled, or outlawed. Any device or person found on a network free or corporate control is hunted down and ‘taken offline’. Making it impossible to reconnect with my friends and family after I went into hiding. You never knew what was a trap, a scam, or who could be trusted.

At least at first. After five months of cultivating sources, contacts, and techniques for dodging detection, I got the hang of it. I even found a few places I could safely publish my work, places where I could go viral, like back in the days before the war.

Rubes makes himself comfortable on a pile of scrap paper by my bookshelf, next to some of my handheld contraband gaming devices.

“If I go on the run now,” I explain as if he could sense my doubts, “all this time spent learning the web goes out the window. I’d have to learn how to track people down and evade capture physically. That’s a whole new learning curve. And I can only mess up once before it’s all over. Online, I can just scrap the alias and move on, so long as I don’t leak any details like my location.”

I set my tablet back in front of my monitor. That’s why I turned to this. I was an internet celebrity before being strong-armed into the military. I went viral completely by accident. Not just fifteen-minutes-of-fame viral, it was my career for years.

Now, I need to do it on purpose. I need to let my family know I’m okay. But I can’t send out anything that could be used to track me down. Nothing that could tip the authorities off to start looking into my family, either. It was an impossible task, but I have to find a way.

It wasn’t going to happen today, but I know I can get it done. This is what I’m good at.

I send Lain my response.

‘I’m not doing it for money.’ I type, ‘I don’t need any where I’m at, anyway. Like I said, too busy with my big project. After that, maybe.’

I play around on my computer for a few more hours. When I get up to make myself some dinner, I find Rubes gone. Maybe he’d be back tomorrow. I feed myself, lay out food for the rest of the cats, brush my teeth, and go to bed to get an early start in the morning.

***

The young major Sanders enters colonel Dunn’s office with the news the older man’s been dreading.

“Vincent was just given the order to mobilize his forces. They’ll be on the move early tomorrow morning.”

Damn. I need more time.

“Is our man in position?” The colonel responds.

“No, he’s still on another job.”

“Is anyone on our payroll in the area? Can we get anyone there in time?”

“No, sir.” Sanders holds his voice and his gaze steady, devoid of emotion as he watches the old colonel rub the sides of his head and shift around in his chair. The colonel’s been refusing to allocate adequate resources to monitoring or disposing of the girl for months. Even though the investigation died down, he still refused any action that could leave a trail, lest he come under scrutiny again.

Pathetic. This man is too old. Too cautious. Just retire already.

Major Sanders is ten years the colonel’s junior, but only one rank below him. The colonel’s former military, transferring over to private security when the East Corporate Conglomerate formed to buy out the government a little over a year ago. Running from the Conglomerate into the hands of ArisCorp was nothing but a desperate attempt on his part to maintain his status and his pension plan.

The colonel stops fidgeting. The old man meets the major’s eyes with a cold hard stare.

“There is one more move to make.” The colonel sneers. “Deploy the ACUs.”

“Sir?” That would be insane.

“What? This is nothing but a last-minute field exercise, with the added benefit of testing their scouting abilities. A simple all-systems test in our own backyard to make sure everything is running smoothly. Something well with in my power to do.”

“That would require the prior approval of—”

“You let me worry about him.” the colonel snaps in a low voice. “As far as you’re concerned, I already have the paperwork in order. Everything will be squared away by the time the ACUs return. Get. it. Done. I want those things deployed and back again well ahead of the major’s advance, and I want them set to kill.”

“Sir!” The major turns and strides out of the room.

As soon as he clears his boss’s office, and is sure no one could see him, Sanders allows himself a small smile. The old man was losing it. So long as Sanders kept his ass covered, he should get the colonel’s job even sooner than he thought.