A digital door plastered with neon adverts of the latest streaming sites that advertised the early 2020s. An age where social media was still in its infancy, where presidents were still voted for and people still poked their air-filled heads in politics. When everyone still felt safe behind their anonymous usernames.

My neighbor from two cells down was arguing with the drone delivery dolt.

"You had promised a ten-minute delivery…"

"Sorry lady, but sometimes we are a few minutes late, it's a tough route delivery in the congested part of town."

"Excuse me, who are you calling a lady…"

The delivery man froze, his next words would decide whether or not he retained his post.

I decided that my good luck today would be shared.

"Come on now Mako…leave the kid alone. He's got it bad enough having our piss-poor route."

Mako, a young man with enough estrogen- some genetic defect- that made him appear more feminine than male, turned and grinned his metallic smile.

"More like infected…"

"Now don't go scaring the kid."

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I turned and met the boy's dull gray eyes. Screen ripping does that to people, the direct injection of simulated images is fantastic but soon begins to wipe all color and glamor from your once brilliant irises.

"Kid, no one here's had the bug in" I ran some calculations in my head, waved some arithmetic fingers, and said, "a few months, at the least."

"No, no…remember the Ex-satellites, who came back from orbit with the jitters,” added Mako.

A vacancy that holed out the boy's soul sockets began to show a flittering of emotions that had probably not been shown in years of over-stimulated high-stream gluttony. The Internet was no longer a web, but a stream of information highways that anyone can hop on and be led to everything and anything. The only fear was not a sickness or a disease, but a lack of connection. In the past decade, a new virus had begun to spread: the origin being unknown, some religious zealots believe it to be some manifestation of scripture that is more ambiguous than a.i and the human spirit. This virus, codenamed “Sweep”, did just what its titular title suggests: it sweeps and wipes out all of your internal caches, and leaves you unable to reconnect your consciousness to the flow of the internet; leaving you a husk, a shell unable to download and install itself with any form of cybernetic substance.

It was a primordial reboot. A return to when man accessed the internet as opposed to being a part of it.

The sensory module on the boy's wrist began to vibrate; he had a new delivery to make, and the message couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

“I have to go. It’s a v-sector package.”

And the so boy scooted away on his hover-bike.

“I bet he won’t be a damn second late for those rich V-sector bastards..”

I didn’t reply but in my silence there was understanding.

“One day…maybe one day,” I replied.

“That day will never come.” He said.

“I know it won’t,” I resigned.

“Later.”

“Later.”