The Phantom City

Chapter 5

The shadows seemed more confined than ever, in the absence of Abel's presence. So I turned and kept walking, on and on into the flat infinity, waiting for the so-called virus to kick in and shake my brain out of it.

I grimaced. 'Virus' and 'brain' were never good words to have in the same sentence. Especially when the best-case scenario was going to rely on my ability to imitate an AI. The majority of my experience with robots came from watching Terminator and surfing conspiracy websites. I rubbed at the back of my neck, where a dull phantom pain twinged beneath my fingers . Either of my friends would have dealt with this better. Asha was the one who wrote the science part of our blog, anyways, and Dana probably would have programmed the virus herself.

I felt a pang in my chest. I should have asked Abel if he knew what had happened to them, seeing as he apparently had some clue about all this.

But thankfully, I didn't have long to dwell on it. The darkness around me convulsed, as though it was about to be sick, then shattered again into fragments like someone hit a dome of black glass with a wrecking ball. I clapped my hands over my ears, the vibrations from the impact tossing me backwards, and barely opened my eyes fast enough to watch the entire space rupture apart.

Color blasted back into my vision. The world spun like I was on a a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl, then accelerated to speeds even astronauts would have envied. I gasped in a breath, grabbing at the first thing in front of me to keep from toppling over. Or throwing up.

It didn't work. My stomach twisted like an old dishrag, and when the movement gradually slowed, I found myself coughing up sour bits of food and acid onto the carpet of a very nice looking car floor. The leather seat felt sticky beneath my hands.

"Boss? Hey Boss! I think his body's rejecting it." That voice -- it was the squeaky little kid from before, only a thousand times louder than any normal human voice should have been. I made the mistake of looking up, and everything lurched again. The contours of his face and blurred in and out of sharp focus. Wheels roared against the pavement, blood whooshed deafeningly loud through the valves of someone's heart, a single screw rattled about in the doorframe.

I curled my arms in towards my chest.

"He looks like he's gonna throw up again, Boss. We might wanna --"
"Pull over."

At the command, the car came to a clean stop on the side of the road.

By some miracle, the chaos stopped with it. My vision slowly consolidated, and the noises all muted down to a normal pitch. Not wanting to restart the madness, I wiped the sleeve of my sweater across my mouth, and stared resolutely at muck between my feet.

My side-door flew open. I caught sight of a row of vaguely familiar apartment buildings outside before an enormous hand grabbed my jaw and wrenched my head up. Remembering Abel's warning, I let my expression slacken, and stared dully into Race's fuming eyes.

"Operational status." He barked, searching my face.

Light glinted off of an earpiece sticking out from under his greasy hair. "Functional." I said, doing my best to imitate Siri's smooth voice. My traitorous, drumming heart pounded loud enough that anyone listening would have known the truth right away.

Race's lips twisted in displeasure -- but not murderous intent. I must have gotten it right, that the earpiece was how he ordered the nanocomputer in my head around.

In my head. I stomped out the embers of panic that the image stirred up. There would be time for that later.

"Functional. Doesn't seem that way, does it? What went wrong?" Race tightened his grip on my jaw, snapping me back into the moment.