Off The Limit

I bet you will think I am making this up, that this is all just some made up story for the internet. Or, if you have a bit more depth, you might approach it with doubt but enough curiosity to give it a chance to live in your mind as real, whatever that means. But if you were me, if you’d felt the alien touch, tasted the kiss in a dream, then real would not come close enough to describe the story I am about to tell you.

1.

I’m waiting on the edge of the platform, a thousand feet above ground. I can see, through the rush of the new model Tesla commuter ships, the beauty of the city. From this high, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between the movement of android or human. I get lost for a moment watching them when my phone rings. The infamous Apple ring tone sounds eerily the same as the one from long ago, despite the different world it rings in.

“Yo it’s Aki”, my voice finds a place between the humming of ships in bay.

“I saw her, it was really her man” my friend says to me, his voice piercing.

“Where did you see her?” I step back as my ship comes in, catching a glance from a girl next to me, her eyes distract me for a moment.

“In the abandoned city, about 3 kilometers off the limit” he says, static in the line.

Static means one of two things: bad connection when you’re off the limit

or

A monitored line from an Android hack.

I was in the deepest part of the city, so static meant the latter.

“I’m going to call you back, man” I hang up. The girl next to me on the platform smiles, her blonde hair reflects the sun in a way not natural, she asks me if I live around here.

“I’m new here” I say, “still looking for a place, I hear the elevation block has the best view”

“I suppose that depends on what you enjoy looking at” she says, her eyes glimmer for a moment, then I realize that it’s not the sun shining but her processor analyzing my face.

For a few seconds the September air feels cool, then is washed away by the heat of the engine. I tell her goodbye before I step on the ship,

“See you around”

I’m still learning to tell the difference between real and make believe.

2.

The smell of fuel danced up in front of me, the light from early Autumn over the dashboard of the ship, this was the ride that was always there for me. If I wait long enough, memories creep up, ones that know they don’t belong in this world any more. There’s one that always stays a little longer, the one with her- mid summer, I’d pick her up, she always liked the sound of the engine. My model was one of the last to use Freon, but it was almost impossible to find it now, unless you went deep enough in the lower block in East 7, so I had to go fast with the vents open to keep us cool. She liked that better though.

I can’t remember all we talked about, but there’s one thing she’d always say back to me. I’d say to her after I’d start the engine,

“How fast can you handle?”

“No limit”, she’d say,

her smile different than any other I’d seen.

I’d look down smiling, engage the drive, and even though summer was dying, it felt cool when she was with me.

Of course, now my engine starts in a different world, the sound a shell of what it used to be.

The static comes in on the system, no hack, just the wiring. My friends voice cracks through,

“Man, you gotta see this”

To be continued.

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