System Reboot (Sequel to System Failure)

Chapter 16

Alesa's POV
Adam was quiet as we left the library and took the busy, shop-lined streets to the Sky Tower to have some late lunch. His eyes kept darting around the crowds, noticing everyone and everything, and he didn't begin to relax until we had stepped inside the elevator and the steel doors had closed behind us.

"Checking to see if we were followed?" I guessed as he let out a deep breath.

He smiled at me a little sheepishly. "Yeah. We weren't though."

Yet he still seemed to be distracted at lunch, and though I could tell that he was trying his best to keep up the conversation, his focus kept drifting away and after a few tries to refocus him, I let him think, staring out the huge glass walls at the city below. His expression, for the most part, was impassive and distant, but every now and then, I caught a flash of anger.

After the meal, we wandered around the city some more, ducking in and out of shops and art museums at random, neither of us realising how late it was getting until the stars were out in force. Actually, Adam wasn't aware enough to realise the time; he was constantly zoned out, accidentally bumping into people several times and he would have bumped into more if I hadn't started to pull him out of people's way.

I held tight onto his hand as we walked home, taking the lamp-lit streets that were still slightly crowded as the city's nightlife appeared. We followed the trail of lights across a smaller road and into the park near our apartment, the small splashes of the fountain reaching us. I walked next to Adam as we started down the simple paths, his feet dragging.

"Hey," I said quietly, coming to a stop and gently forcing him to stop as well. "What's wrong?"

He started a little as if broken out of his trail of thought yet again, but he shook his head. "It's nothing," he mumbled, looking away.

I put both my hands on his face, making him look at my one normal, one coded eyes, my voice gentle. "Adam, you can tell me. I'm a virus too, remember? We're in this together."

He stared back with his miss-matched eyes, a few spurts of red code flashing in one eye before he gave a heavy sigh, gently pushing down my hands from his face. I thought that meant that he wasn't going to tell me. But then he did.

"Just look around Alesa," he said quietly, his tone the most defeated I've ever heard it. "Really look. Look at us, look at everyone else here, look at the buildings and the signs, just look."

I looked around. There were a few people in the park with us even at this late hour, sitting on chairs or late-night walking their dogs. I glanced back at Adam and gave him the tiniest of shrugs, showing that I didn't understand.

"People, Alesa. Look at what they're doing. Everyone we've met all day, everyone who bumped into me, the people who were at lunch with us, the people at the harbour, all of them. Didn't you see?"

"What was I supposed to see?" I asked, my confusion showing.

"Technology, Alesa. Do you remember a single person who didn't look at their phone, or have headphones on? Did you see a single person who was looking at the world around them, just taking the time to enjoy it? To be part of it? To be a part of others?"

I hesitated, but I knew the answer without needing to recall the day. Everyone at the harbour either ran with headphones or were taking calls or fiddling on their phone. The people who walked down the streets with us or waiting in the shops were the same, lost in their own reality. The library, though we were there for a short time, had many people working away at laptops, and very few reading the wealth of books present. At the Sky Tower, some people were talking with each other, but all with their phones right there beside their hands, while others ignored their dining partner all together. Even looking around the park now, I could see that it was the same story. Nearly everyone here had headphones in, and everyone had a phone.