Neon Rush {M/M} ❀

Ch. 9.2 Coyote Ugly on Crack

Zef returns to work the next day hoping to once again disappear into his project and forget Gray, the Faraday cage, or the fact Gray hasn't texted him back. Instead, he does a dumbass thing. He opens up the shared file for his lung filter implant to see what modifications and progress the company's made on it.

Might as well have guzzled a pint of battery acid for breakfast. 'Cuz they've made modifications, sure, but not to improve it. They've replaced the filters with a cheaper version that will need frequent new ones. The engine got a downgrade. The one Zef put in there should operate efficiently for twenty-odd years or more, the one Bionic Capital stuffed in its place would be about as useful as a monster truck on wagon wheels after a year. Tops.

They ensured Zef's life-changing tech would add to landfill waste while people who needed it were forced to continuously replace it. In a word, they planned the obsolescence shit out of it.

He buries himself in work on Project Serenity, but with the sense something's boiling up inside him. Raising his blood pressure so bad his implant keeps giving him warnings about his resting heart rate.

What's Bionic Capital gonna do with his next project? Make it a subscription? Cut off desperately depressed people from an AI support line if they can't pay their bill?

Zef chews and chews and chews on his lips 'til they're as frayed as his nerves by day's end. He anticipated this. Gave himself a failsafe if stuff goes tit's up with Project Serenity, too, but he didn't want to have to use it.

He just wanted to make something good.

Why does the world have to take everything—everyone good—and spoil it? Exploit it? Rot it from the inside.

His frustration builds over the course of the week, for reasons beyond Bionic Capital's bullshit.

Gray still hasn't answered his texts.

Typical. Once Zef settles on a plan, Gray's more elusive than ever. The only thing consistently predictable about Gray is that he's consistently unpredictable. Work keeps Zef busy, distracts him from nine to five, but then he goes back to his empty apartment, and the job? It doesn't fill him up like Friday night sushi or an impromptu trip to a strip club.

There is one silver lining—the time allows him to heal completely from top surgery. Every morning, he puts on clothes and has a blissful moment of quiet as he feels fabric against his skin. Not the coarse, restrictive fabric of his binder, but the crisp linen of work shirts or the soft flannel of his pyjamas.

One evening, he comes home expecting the same cracked, concrete interior, only to find the red light blinking on his mail slot.

He opens it and finds—an envelope.

Not a parcel, not a prescription.

Real paper.

He slips a finger under the adhesive flap, the rough tooth of the page exquisite to his fingertips. The letter inside has his name inked on it, in a hand remarkable for its neat, curling lines. In cursive. God, nobody writes in cursive anymore. Only manufactured, printed fonts these days. Nothing so personal and hand-drawn, with the jitters of a pulse from the fingers that laid down the letters.

When was the last time he'd received a message that wasn't digital light behind his eyelids?

He's not sure he ever has.

He opens it and finds the neat, hand-written letters continue down the page. It takes him a while to read, his eyes unused to cursive. It almost looks like another language.

Zef,

Sorry won't suffice no more. I won't lie and say there's not a lot wrong with me. But— Fuck, I miss you. Should I be saying that? I'm saying it anyway.