I rolled into town, cruising slower as houses started springing up around me. The blur that used to be the landscape slowly started to take form and shape. I remembered vaguely driving through the area with my father so many times before this. He used to take me out here for some reason, it escapes me at the moment, I think it was one of his last vague attempts to bond with me while I was still young. Sometimes he would get spurts like that, suddenly decide it was time to go fishing or go play golf or something. Too bad I wasn’t a fan of fishing and couldn’t play golf; otherwise it would have been a lot of fun.
Well, I guess I can’t blame him for trying, the problem was, every time I was taken away from my computer, even for a day I would start to shake, my little brother ten times worse then me. We would just be like lost souls, no idea what to do with ourselves at all. We would sit together and play out videogames in our heads, like it was some stupid role playing game except you were a giant robot pilot or a starship captain or a hacker… My parents just thought we were fidgety, my brother and I knew one thing, and the urge to play had consumed us. Our souls were lost to it long ago, we couldn’t stop it, we loved it, and we poured thousands of dollars into new games and better systems. It was a hobby of ours.
I kind of smiled when I thought about me and my little brother, I hadn’t talked to him in a long time, and recently he had been off on some business trip or another. He always went away on trips to exciting places. I never left this town; the town that I suddenly found myself in the heart of, cruising toward a more familiar surrounding. I ran my bike slowly down a familiar road, one I hadn’t traveled for years, the place had changed dramatically. The buildings were newer, the streets were paved with that plastic looking tar that was supposed to hold up forever, pieced together like some kind of giant jigsaw puzzle,it always disoriented me to look at it. Yeah the place had changed alright; I went to school there years ago. Before any memories could come flooding back I gunned the engine, and sped back to a place that was more comfortable for me.
The display in my helmet flashed slightly, it was telling me that a new Kawasaki part had been built for my bike; a custom gyro I had ordered was ready at the assembly line and would be shipped to my home shortly. Well that’s one good thing about the world today, I had only ordered the part last night, and it was supposed to allow a hundred percent safe driving at speeds in excess of three-hundred miles per hour. The one I had now was good for only about two hundred, it was a stock part, the bike would get a little bitchy and warning lights would flash every time I reached two hundred fifteen. Then I’d get a message from my insurance company when I got online happily reminding me they didn’t cover crashes at speeds in excess of two hundred miles per hour. Ok so maybe instant technology wasn’t all that great.
I was planning on doing a complete overhaul of my bike, the gyro was the first piece in, and there were hundreds of other things to choose from. Custom this custom that, it was all crazily complicated, I couldn’t tell what part was supposed to go where; I was in no way a mechanic. My personal online shopper helped me to pick out all of the parts I needed. Another good reason for the invention of better computer programs, this one was a competent online personal program, customized to fit my needs. These things never screwed with you, and knew everything. It made my day a lot easier, in town people actually still stood behind the desk, and couldn’t find anything, even in their own stores.
Well at any rate he helped me decide exactly what I needed to customize my existing bike. He did however have a constant “suggestion” that I consider one of their more up to date bikes. I was kind of annoyed at that, but I think there was something in his software to back off on the issue if I sounded annoyed, so we stuck with what I had now. Kawasaki broke in on my monitor, letting me know my other parts would be shipped within the afternoon, that was good, now all I had to do was get a blank bike cpu from my friend in China, and I would have the perfect Bike for me. I would just have to copy Konpyuuta Chan’s primary drivers and link her directly to my bike; perfection.
I rode into the back alley I always did, ran down just about four buildings deep and cut hard to the right; I could see the back of my building now, so I pulled her in slowly. They would complain to me later if I pulled in with the engine racing, I guess it annoyed the customers. I parked my bike in its usual place, covering it with its special alloy cover. I slid my helmet off the display panels inside finally falling silent. I glanced around, nothing out of the ordinary, the same gray overcast sky as always, the same battered looking buildings. My eye sight flicked for a minute, like a frame jumped on a TV screen.
Konpyuuta Chan walked over to me; she emerged from around the front of the store, casually pushing her hair out of her face as she walked. I suddenly noticed that the wind was blowing kind of heavily, the air was cold. She stood in front of me now, about five foot seven; I think that’s the height I had assigned her during programming. Her hair was a soft kind of blond now, falling loosely around her shoulders. She was wearing a familiar outfit to me, nothing amazing, just a riding outfit, dark Blue single breasted jacket and a bright kind of gray pants. She must have kept in on from when we were on my bike. She was patterned after an Anime character, and old favorite of mine, one that was lost to the world long ago. She was pretty unique as far as I could tell; I had researched possible appearances years ago on the wired. Nothing looked similar to the way I made her.
By now I was used to the way she stood out of the environment. Her cartoonishly bright colors almost clashed with the dull outside world. It definitely highlighted her every detail, making her seem that much more real. She smiled at me for a minute looking, brushing her hair back out of her face one more time before finally speaking to me.
“It is going to get pretty bad today, the weather reports are all coming in, you should get inside before it starts to rain.” She said matter-of-factly.
“I picked up a new optic cable, you’ll be back online in no time, just have to go upstairs and plug you back in.”
“Oh I am so glad! The connection has been horrible lately; you know how slow it is this way! Hurry up and plug me back in.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her; she stuck out her tongue at me and started walking back inside. I followed after, pulling the cables I had bought out of my coat. She walked up to the entrance to the upstairs of the building, waiting for me to open the door for her. Part of her program, watching her walk through doors all the time used to give me the creeps, like she was some kind of ghost, not a real person. I opened the door for her and let her run cheerily upstairs ahead of me. We wound down the usual corridor and down to the end of the hall where my room was.
Down by the door was a tray with a liter bottle of Mountain Dew and a small green can filled with Amp. There was a small note scribbled in some sloppy Chinese stuck underneath the bottle.
“It says: ‘If you wanted something to drink you should have just come downstairs. We all enjoy your company very much.’” She giggled for a moment. “I think one of the girls downstairs likes you!” She laughed again.
“Shut up” I said it without thinking. “Just leave it be, they probably think I am a weirdo by now. They already think I talk to myself.”
She stuck her tongue out at me again. I just realized that getting into a fight with my “imaginary friend” in the middle of the hall way was not a good idea. I looked down and spoke a simple command aloud, a floating keyboard appeared in front of me, invisible to all those around me, similar to the way Konpyuuta Chan was leaning against the wall next to my door, this keyboard suspended itself in front of me.
“I already checked you know.” She sounded a little annoyed. “I’m not that stupid, I’d tell you if something was wrong.” She leaned back on the wall and closed her eyes, looking rather patient.
I let my hands wander over the board, my vision blurred; next thing I saw was the inside of the room, projected by my glasses. Nothing unusual was inside. A quick heat scan brought up nothing either.
“I told you.” She put her hands behind her head looking a little full of herself. “Can we go inside now?”
I waved my hand and the keyboard vanished. I reached down and picked up the tray and Konpyuuta Chan hopped in front of me and unlocked the door with a little key, it swung open silently and I stepped inside. Everything was alive once we stepped through the door. The main panel was on and scrolling through line after line of hard code, she was debugging something; I didn’t care to ask what. The lights were the usual dim glow I liked them at, leaving the room in a haze of shadows. I unzipped my coat and hung it on a peg near the door, laying my helmet down underneath it gently. I kicked off my shoes and left them by the door as well.
I heard the door click behind me. I was a little surprised, I only had the computer locks installed a week ago, I suppose Konpyuuta Chan had already taken the liberty of extending her network to cover their operation. She was always on top of things, mostly so I didn’t have to be, I just couldn’t. I was never good at anything like that; I had an organizer since I was like ten. Later a fancy little Palm Pilot. They all did the same thing, reminded me where I had to be and what I had to do. They would always beep in an annoying way reminding me of some obvious task like “Lunch time” or “Do your Home work!” I guess she was just an evolution of all that.
The main screen in the room cycled through the thousands of channels available on the television network I subscribed too. Nothing to watch at all really, it was just a bad habit by now, the funny thing was I didn’t even change the channels anymore, I had Konpyuuta Chan do that for me. She sat on the only piece of furniture besides my desk chair, a crappy little couch I took from home when I was like twenty. It was a little beaten up, a far cry from the nice antique it used to be. She had discarded her blue riding jacket in favor of a light blue tank top, her legs curled up underneath her on the sofa, she looked utterly bored and un-amused, flipping through the channels, looking like she would yawn at any minute. I finished connecting the line, suddenly she bursted into color, becoming much clearer, sharper almost a more vivid image of herself.
The screen flashed for a moment, then multiple windows began opening as her ultra high speed connection kicked in. She jumped up from her chair and vanished, I could see her runtime icon appear silently in the background of the main panels. She had returned to her beloved cyberspace. I was inclined to follow.
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