Pulse
There's a running joke that Jared used to hear back when he was still working at The Piston. It went like this: What's the coldest dish served in the entire tower? Then the other person would yell 'Justice!' and everyone would laugh like it's not the saddest damn thing in the world.
Justice really was the coldest dish served in the tower, and everyone in all 1999 floors of it ate it every day. But today more than any other day, that justice felt like injustice.
Jared took out his pocket watch – a remade family heirloom that dated back almost three hundred years – and looked at it again. Nope. Still the same time. Still Saturday, 23: 18. In 42 minutes, Jared would be no more, dusted away by the pulse.
Even now, a red border throbbed around his civilian interface, a warning that his criminality threshold had been reached. Of course, it was silly calling it a warning. In actuality, it was more like a notice, like mortgage bills and credit card statements. You committed a crime. Now you're going to die. Good day, and please wait for the pulse to reach your area.
He could almost see the Administration mascot, Shian smiling her calibrated, symmetrical smile and saying, "The pulse: What makes justice a fact!"
The clock ticked. 40 minutes.
What a sad way to go, alone. Sitting on the roof of his apartment like this, staring at the various floating billboards in their bright neon colors. A nearby one with a familiar yellow-and-black font featured a Neo Geographic advertisement, imploring old fogies who want to support the foundation to write them into their wills.
Jared would, but as a lowly trade clerk, his assets wouldn't pay the Administration taxes required to write such a will. His possessions would be automatically vaporized once he was dead, his apartment sterilized and given to the next occupant on the waiting list in exactly… 38 minutes.
38 minutes until he died, and he was still alone. Is there anything worse than this?
He was so caught up at staring at a big-breasted advertisement for X-sized cups (user-discretion advised) and its annoyingly commercial music that he almost missed the sound of pounding footsteps. Then the door to the roof opened with such force that it practically exploded with a bang, and out stepped Nagasha.
Jared smiled. Guess he didn't have to die all alone after all.
"Sha." He beckoned at the other man the way he always did. A friendly come-here-and-have-a-drink-mate wave that he got from his Irish-English ancestry. It made him seem approachable, and there was nothing more he wanted in the world tonight than having Nagasha approach him. "Come here and sit with me, mate. The ads are crazy funky tonight."
But Nagasha just stood there, and when Jared squinted at him, he could see the misery rolling off the man like a bad smell. It was the pose, the stance, the twisted face; he looked more like the dead than the dying.
"What's wrong? You look like you swallowed a barrel of fish. The barrel too with, mind you." He joked. Nagasha – who laughed at everything usually – just looked at him with wide, pained eyes.
"J-Jared," He said, so softly Jared wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been paying attention. "I thought I'd be too late."
"Man, don't make it sound like you hoped so."
"Jared…"
Jared looked at his watch. "Nope, we still have 35 minutes. Now why don't you come here and give me a hug?"
He did, bounding across towards Jared. If Jared had been standing nearer to the edge, he would have fallen over when Nagasha ran into him. Arms came up to wrap around him, so tight that it was hard to breathe, so tight that all of their warmth could be shared. If he had been brittle, his ribs would have shattered.
"Jared. Jared." Nagasha whispered into his neck cloth. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't get away. Father – Father had me remanded."
"That sucks, mate. The wine cellar again? Now how did you get out, hmm? Without me helping and all too – you're getting real smart, lad." He kissed Nagasha's forehead, all slicked and shiny with sweat. His cheeks were shiny with a whole different sort of liquid. He kissed his cheeks too, lapping lightly at them. "Did you know that tears of regret are supposed to be salty? These cheeks of yours are like salted fish, Sha. What have you got to regret, hmm?"
"Everything." His hands clenched so tightly, he could have passed off for a prizefighter.
"Shh," Jared cooed. "It's okay, Sha. Don't regret anything."
"Everything." He repeated, pulling him closer, closer, until there was nothing – not even air – between them. Until they were as close as any two clothed humans could be. Slowly, with an unspoken agreement, they sank down onto the grey concrete until they both sat, Nagasha between Jared's legs. Another billboard floated closer advertising shark fin and seasoned jellyfish, casting a neon blue light on the both of them.
"We can run." Nagasha said, after a minute. "We can go. Up instead of down this time. I-I don't have a plan, but it'll be okay. It'll be better this time. Come with me, Jared. We can outrun the pulse."
"We can't, Nagasha, and you know it. No one can outrun the pulse."
Monday and Tuesday, at the Airstrip. Wednesday at Castella and Soft Eden. Thursday at the Prism and both Pasturias. Friday and Saturday at Mineria. And then Sunday, at the Chandelier. There was no escape. Even if they managed to climb all the way up to the Prism - and there was no way they could make it that far with no clearance - Jared would still be dead by next Thursday. There was nowhere to hide from the pulse in the tower.
Made in the late 22nd century, the pulse – so commonly used now that it lost even its capital letters – was the beginning of the judicial revolution, the birth of a time where justice is not arbitrary, is not biased, and can never be affected by corruption.
The pulse had been fine-tuned and modified over the years, but the basic premise was the same: Nothing escaped it. Using the grid's network, it simply swept the tower from top to bottom, seven days a week. Any and all criminals who exceeded their criminality threshold connected to the grid will have their entire cardiac and nervous system shut down. Death wasn't even the correct verb in each case. It was a shutdown, plain and simple.
And for people like Jared, who had committed the ultimate crime of murder? There wasn't a place in the tower where he could hide. Death was not imminent; death was a fact.
"That's because no one's ever tried." Nagasha took both his hands and held them tightly, his eyes shining with feverish intent. Jared knew that look; it was the reason he was in this mess in the first place. Somehow, he couldn't hold a grudge over that either.
"Look, love," He said, as gently as he knew how, prying his hands away. "No one's ever tried because everyone knows it's not going to work. And frankly, most people would rather sit and enjoy their last moments than run frantically around, trying to escape fate."
Not actually true. He'd watched a NeoGeo documentary on criminals destined for the pulse, and a recorded 79.66% of them did exactly that: Running around – didn't matter if it was up or down – with a wild-eyed, crazed look to them, trying to escape a fact. Jared didn't want that. He wanted what he had now, Nagasha in his arms and his pocket watch in his hand. His most precious possession and the man he loved, what else could he find that's worth more?
Nagasha turned away like he was slapped. Jared touched his chin and turned his face back, kissing him softly. He was crying again, the same man who had once told him that emotions were a birth defect and that love was a product of faulty pheromones that can be cured through surgery. What a difference four years and a lot of homemade lunches made!
When they had first met, Jared had freed a decidedly ungrateful Nagasha from the wine cellar of his family's vacation home on Soft Eden. The annual Volt party had been held there that day, and Jared had followed his boss there as a replacement for his secretary's assistant's assistant, who called in sick. Nagasha had been locked in by his father, told to 'reconsider' his opinion on some debate they had until he could come around to his father's way of thinking. It was only by luck that Jared had gone off to fetch replacement wine, and found him there, fuming and disgruntled.
Not that he ever thanked him.
From there it had been a single-minded, disdainful courtship. Single-minded pursuit on Jared's part and endless disdain on Nagasha's part. They didn't even have an anniversary, since neither was really sure when Nagasha admitted to his feelings – they were both too drunk and too horny to find a calendar – but it had been four years of bliss, romantic espionage, and clandestine dates since then. Four years of evading a man who had a 30-year-plan for what his son should do, be, and breed with too, but for the most part they were more than happy enough.
"I'm sorry I made you elope with me. We should have never… Should have stayed… Should just…" His fingers were tearing holes into Jared's shirt. Not that it mattered, it was never very strong anyway, cheap thing that it was.
Jared stroked his hair. It was ash blonde, and it always reminded Jared a little of hay, like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be brown or gold. Somewhere, there would be a record of the exact color combination for Nagasha's hair, down to the pigmentation value needed to replicate that color. But that was too scientific, and Jared was just a clerk who loved romance novels but hid them in covers that said Les Misérables. He preferred to think of the color as uniquely Nagasha's - just like everything about him was unique - and especially lovely.
"Sha, you know I would have followed you anywhere."
"But that's exactly it!" He cried, burying his head in the crook of Jared's neck. "I should have just accepted it or filed for severance with my father! I-Instead I had to take the coward's way out and now…" He took a deep breath that couldn't shake the trembles out of him. Jared didn't look. Nagasha wouldn't want his last memories of him to include one where he was covered with tears and snot, too shaken to wipe away either. He had too much pride for that.
"You shouldn't have killed him, Jared." It was whispered into Jared's collar.
How he wished too. "I know. But you know how it is – we were in the lousy part of Minera, and it was either knock him dead or he'll knock you dead. And for what? Filthy watch. Better things to die for, yeah?"
"At least it would have been me!" He hissed back. The hug was beginning to feel less like a hug than an attempt to dislodge every piece of flesh Jared's back had. Nagasha's fingers were dragging across it, scrabbling and scratching, as though if he held on tight enough, there would be none of Jared for the pulse.
His whispers were broken. "Stupid… Stupid idea…"
"Sha, it's okay, mate. It'll be fine."
"It's not going to be fine! You're going to die!"
"And so's a lot of people in the hospital tonight, yeah? Think of it as a shortcut – I'm going to heaven now before I can sin my chance away." He nuzzled the top of Nagasha's head. "And I reckon I'm going there, you know? I'm sure God must be sitting around, saying, 'Now that's one more fuck up for the pulse! It ain't right that he had to die! Now let him in here where the good virgins are at!'"
Nagasha, bless his soul, laughed. It was weak and choked and sounded like he was trying to laugh around a mouthful of puke, but it was there, and for once Jared thought there might be a chance he could get out of this the right way after all. He'd been worried: who was going to make sure Jared ate right and stop working at midnight? Who was going to make him laugh and force him to watch lousy pre-hologram movies until he felt better about the things that stressed him out?
But hearing him laugh like this, it felt like hope. Jared didn't really believe he was going to heaven – really, which Administration disapproved religion allowed murderers to go to heaven? – but he figured, heaven was for the living, not the dead. Heaven was the consolation prize for those left behind, a pat on the back that told them their beloved ones were going somewhere better, and not simply falling over the edge and into an endless hole. That was why even the Administration couldn't purge the concept of heaven, even after they censored it from the media. Heaven was the last refuge for the living.
"You stay away from the virgins, Jared, or I'll have your bratwurst for supper."
"I think you've fulfilled my virgin quota, love," He said, and was rewarded with a delightful blush.
As quickly as it came, the blush became an angry flush. "He's right though, your God's right. This is fucked up. The pulse is wrong, and there's no one we can talk about it to. There's no court… No one we can explain to… No one we can explain that this was all a big fucking misunderstanding to."
"I don't reckon they care, Sha. I've never heard of anyone charged with self-defense, have you?"
Nagasha shook his head.
"Figure is, even if you'd been the one to kill him, the interface would have charged you with murder just the same. It's not like they can't modify the algorithm if they want; they just plain don't care. A kill's a kill, and better me than you, right?"
"No!" Nagasha fairly screamed. He shoved Jared back, wiped his face on his sleeve and glared at him. "No, it's not damn right and you know it! It's not better when it's you! There's nothing better about this at all!"
Jared took his hand and rubbed lightly at his wrist. He could feel Nagasha's pulse, strong as thunder itself beneath his fingers. Nagasha growled at him, too angry for words.
"Hey now," He cooed, rubbing his wrist in circles. "Come sit with me, yeah?" He didn't need to look at his watch to know the time. Since the red border appeared around his interface, he had an internal clock, a stopwatch inside him that told him exactly how much time he had left. The dreadful feeling that reminded him every few minutes that he had a few minutes less to live. Fifteen minutes left.
"Come sit with me, Sha." He repeated. Nagasha seethed, eyes and fists closed tightly. When he reopened them, a little of the fight went out of him and he acceded wordlessly.
This time, they lay side by side on the roof, hands held tightly together. He watched the advertisements instead of Nagasha because every memory of Sha was seared into his mind, so much so that he had enough to last a lifetime and then some. He didn't need to see him to know every shape, every contour of that beloved face and body.
He could feel Nagasha looking at him, fighting back tears. It was in his voice.
"This is unfair. It shouldn't be like this. This isn't justice."
"Let it go, love."
"I'm not going to let it go! This is—This is worse than letting criminals run underfoot, to butcher innocent men without trial, without even a court and jury… This is worse than the pre-tower times!"
"Shh," He crooned. He moved over, pulling Nagasha close with their clasped hand, and silenced him with another kiss. "I don't want to talk about that, Luc. You can go on some forum and debate until you turn purple when I'm gone, but this is my moment and let me be selfish about it, alright? I want to be with you. No words. Just let me feel you."
Tears spilled off the edges of his lover's eyes. He held up Nagasha's hand and kissed his knuckles. "My prince charming. Figured from the first time I saw your haughty, arrogant arse that I was going to fall for you and hurt my gonads while I'm at it. This isn't so far off course, 'least I get to keep you until the end."
He kissed each joint on Nagasha's hands. "You were so beautiful… Even with your huge ass nose that you looked down at everyone from. Figured you wouldn't even need a nose extension to play Pinocchio, yeah?"
Nagasha just gave him a watery smile. "D-Don't need a nose to know I'm lying."
Jared nuzzled the nose in question. "M-hmm, you're the sorriest businessman's son I've ever met, I think. Never saw a guy who blushed that hard when he lied. How will you cut your deals, love?"
"I d-don't do that anymore. I just have to think of you saying 'Lies are just checks you can't cash, is all!' and I smile instead of go red."
"That's my boy. I always knew I wasn't going to make an honest man out of you," He teased, nibbling Nagasha's ear. This was what he loved best about them – not the incredible sex or the thrill of evading one reporter after another – it was the time spent holding each other and talking softly about nonsense that he loved.
Nagasha was surprisingly sober, his expression pained. "I wanted to, Jared. There was nothing else in the world that I wanted more. Join our names and simply be together with you… I thought I wanted my father's company, his approval, his power, but all of that was meaningless. Being chased by you made me happy; chasing them made me anything but."
"I know, love." He leaned his forehead against Nagasha's, their noses touching. He looked into those dark brown eyes and thought he was a lucky man anyway. He was going to die soon, but he had more in his twenty six years than some men could find in sixty. He was going to die young and happy, rather than live as an old man with regrets.
He had ten more minutes.
Jared leaned closer, smoothing his hands over Nagasha's body. His hands travelled abdominal muscles, hips, chests… Until he found what he'd been looking for and plucked it out of his back pocket.
"What's this, Sha?"
Nagasha just stared at the knife. His eyes went flat. "It's a shiv."
"Planning to make yourself a sandwich?"
"You know what's it for," He answered softly.
"No, I don't. You were always the smarter one. Explain."
"I…" His eyes darted towards the yellow-and-black advertisement for Gratuita Honey and Confectionary. Sweeter than your honey and better for you too! "I was going to cut. Follow you once you were gone."
The emotionless way he said it – like it was a fact instead of just a plan – made Jared's heart tighten in pain. Maybe he was being stupid – Nagasha was always accusing him of being stupid after all – when he thought Nagasha was going to bounce back from this alright. And if not alright, then eventually alright, but here he was, determined to come along for the ride. Stupid. Maybe they were both idiots. Maybe that's why they're both in this predicament now.
He put the cold, flat surface of the knife of Nagasha's face and gently, carefully, slid it across his cheek.
"Read my lips, love," He moved the knife down Nagasha's cheek like he was shaving him, until it grazed his soft, lush lips. He placed the knife down where it bisected those lips, like a metallic silent sign. Unbidden, Nagasha kissed the blade, eyes never leaving Jared's.
Jared moved closer, until their lips were separated only by the blade.
"No."
He whispered.
"No."
And again.
"No."
"Say it, Nagasha. No."
Nagasha continued staring at him.
"No. No. Say it, Nagasha, say it. Tell me."
Nagasha closed his eyes. His eyelashes against his cheek looked dark, almost black.
"No." He said.
They had five more minutes.
Jared let go of the knife and shoved it away with a foot. He pulled Nagasha close, holding onto him. He would never let this go. Never, not until they cut him from the grid, and even then, some perverse part of him hoped he would hold onto Nagasha anyway. His fingers moved over his chest until he found Nagasha's heart, and he pressed his palm down until he could feel it beating. His interface could tell him Nagasha's exact systolic and diastolic pressure; that told him nothing. His hand over Nagasha's heart told him that this was a man who loved him; it told him everything.
"Listen," He said, whispering against his ear. "Because I'll only say this once."
Four minutes.
"You're going to live. You're going to live, and you're going to be happy. You're going to show your father that you not only have opinions that aren't his, but that they're just as valid, just as right, and then you're going to show him how strong your will is."
Nagasha kissed his shoulder, leaning close.
"You're going to walk out of his company, just like you always said you will. You're going to build a rival company, and you're going to take all his ideas and fix everything that we know is wrong with it. You're going to make the volt grid so much better that they'll either have to join your ship, or sink with his." He ran his fingers through Nagasha's hair. "I know you can do all that and then more, because you're the best grid engineer there is and you know it. You're going to crush him, and you'll love it because he's been crushing your spirit for years. But that's not important. You know what's the most important part, love?"
Three minutes.
Nagasha shook his head, and Jared kissed his ear.
"Live. Be happy." He trailed kissed down Nagasha's jaw, until he reached his lips. "Do whatever, be whatever, go wherever. I don't even care if you don't do what I said. As long as you're happy."
Then they kissed. The kiss was not passionate, merely sweet. As sweet as romcoms made kissing under the rain out to be, as sweet as candy for people with low sugar levels, as sweet as the sugar water used to season pickles. But mostly, it was as sweet as every kiss of theirs was. Infinitely, unbearably sweet.
Tick tock.
When he pulled back, they were both smiling. Jared moved a hair off Nagasha's forehead, mostly for an excuse to touch him. The love he felt for the man in his arms was a panicked, frantic love that made it no lesser in value. It felt like all the love he should have felt for the years to come, converged to make itself known for this last moment.
He wished time could stop, he wished time would stop. He wished he had a thousand hours to spend telling Nagasha all the ways he loved him, he wished he had a hundred years to cook for and pamper him. He understood, as the clock ticked relentlessly, what those people in the documentary felt: that clawing, aching desperation for more time. Please, give me more time. Just a little more, just another day, just another taste of the synthetized sunshine and artificial breeze. Just one more chance – no, just a possibility is enough – for a walk in the park with the man he loved.
One minute.
He said, "I'm going to tell you a joke, mate, so listen up real close and be wowed by the genius of my comedy, alright?"
Nagasha chuckled. "Yes, sir. Fire away."
"A weak-kneed clerk and a businessman's son walked into a bar one day. The drunk and angry bartender said, 'No service for paper pushers', whipped out his gun, and shot the clerk dead. The businessman's son looked at his dead mate and said, 'Oh shit, what now?"
He took out the pocket watch and stopped it, suspending it so that for the clock at least, time will never move forward. He pressed it into Nagasha's hand.
Sha asked, "And then what happened?"
"That's for you to find out, boyo." He said.
Then zero.
.
.
The room is dark, illuminated by a lone TV. The TV's not showing anything at the moment, just a plain blue screen with a lot of white words. It's hooked up to the man's computer, which is hooked up to more computers. One of the computer screens shows the time, but it's counting upwards, like a stopwatch. The difference is this isn't ever going to stop. It started about fifteen days ago, and it's just going to go on and on and on until the computer stops or the man stops first.
The man lights a pipe. It's not his; it's Jared's. Jared, with his love of antiques from the pre-tower era. This room belonged to Jared too, which explains why there's one whole wall of antique wooden clocks and carved cuckoo clocks. Jared, now fifteen days dead. Twenty one thousand six hundred minutes of pain.
He debated stopping all the clocks when he came to the room, but then he decided it was too maudlin, too Mrs. Havisham. And anyway, that's a lie if there's ever one. Time does not stop. Time lacerates. Time pulls apart your wounds and plunges its knife into it, again and again, again and again. It does not give you a time out, or even a break. Time is just pain, to the power of infinity.
He's waiting for a call. He hopes they're not wasting his time. He blows a perfect O, and he thinks about how proud Jared would be if he'd saw that. Jared would have made some joke about some hookah-smoking caterpillar from one of those old pre-tower books he was always reading. Jared would have smiled, took the pipe away from him and nagged him about his health.
He thinks about Jared a lot.
He blows another cloud of smoke.
He looks up at the other wall, the one directly opposite the wall with all the clocks. This one is bare, but leaning against it is Jared's desk, and there's a photo frame with a picture of a younger Jared in a graduation robe. The man leans forward to pick up the photo frame. He sweeps a thumb across Jared's face, careful not to get any ash on it.
That was one of the silly things about Jared too, his insistence on keeping photos when everyone just stores it in their interfaces. Now it's the last physical proof that there was ever a man named Jared who occupied Lot 309.
The computer starts beeping.
The man swirls in his chair and checks the call signal. Green. The location's right. The time is a few seconds off. All the numbers match. He hits connect on the keyboard, and the phone on the desk immediately starts ringing. He picks up the phone after six rings.
"Give me a word," He says.
"How do we know this isn't a trick?"
"Give me a word," He says.
"We checked you out. Clean-cut billionaire heir, not even a speeding ticket to your name, and now you're suddenly interested in the Counterpulse movement? I think it's you who need to explain yourself."
"Give me a word," He says.
There's a long pause and static that can only be computer-generated noise.
Then the man says, "Yes."
"Deal." He says.
.
This one is a prequel to a sci-fi/futuristic story that I have planned, but most likely won't write until I'm done with Cupid. It will be about a man trying to outrun the pulse... With only his imaginary friend as his companion. Yes, you read that right. Cue trailer music and mysterious manly voice saying: ONE WEEK. ONE MAN. A RACE TO THE TOP.
/lololol Okay I will stop now.
Seriously, I need to write about boobs or something. This is a sappy, angsty, annoying standalone and I don't know why I wrote this except maybe to hate myself more. Sorry, gaiz.