The streets lay empty. No one walked around. He could hear noises from the living pod buildings all around him, huge structures that reached into the amber sky. Light and sound emanated through the windows, coming from thousands of displays and entertainment channels. He shouted again for help, then thought better of it. No one was even coming to the windows to look, and shouting only gave away his location. For someone to help, they’d have to detach from the network. That’s what he had done, and now they would make him pay for it.
He spotted a shadowed place next to a building and ran to it. Pressed into the dark, he heard the whirring of some kind of machinery coming from inside. The wall felt hot, hotter than the sticky air. He caught his breath, then dared a look around for the men who followed him.
As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he saw an old metal door in the wall. He ran to it and yanked on the handle. An even hotter blast of air hit him, along with a dazzling light. Squinting, he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Raising his hand, he shielded his eyes against the glare of overhead lights. He stood on a steel platform with stairs leading down. Below him stretched a hive of activity. White steam billowed in the air, and the whirr and groan of machinery almost deafened him. Dozens of people milled around long tables, some folding laundry, some preparing food cubes. One man sat at a bench repairing a food delivery drone. The people weren’t using displays. They didn’t have keyboards. They weren’t plugged in.
He glanced this way and that. No sign of the men who’d come after him. He ran down the stairs toward the man fixing the drone. The man looked up as Ben reached him.
“Can you help me?” Ben asked, trying to catch his breath again.
“What’s wrong?” The man put down his tools.
“Men are after me!”
“After you?” The man’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“They mean to repurpose me.”
The repairman stared at him, noticing the network jack in the side of his head. “You’re from the living pods?” he asked, looking amazed.
“Yes.”
“And you aren’t plugged in?”
Ben glanced at the others. They took no notice, just continued their work.
“I thought you couldn’t live without being plugged in.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s when the corpse cleaners come. When someone has unplugged from the network.”
Ben shook his head. His mouth had gone dry.
“You die without it.”
He backed away. “I don’t think it works like that.” He’d been unplugged for days now, and he was fine.
“The men will come and plug you back in,” the repairman assured him.
Ben turned. He had to get out of there.
He ran back toward the stairs, but just then the door banged open. The three men from his living pod stood on the platform, pinpointing him on the busy warehouse floor. He pivoted and ran the other way, but not before two more men entered through a different door.
Closing in from all sides, they homed in on him. Panic swelled up inside him. He made a dash toward all the people folding laundry and making food. He sped through them, his pursuers close behind. Then one of the Repurposers tackled him, sending him sprawling across the floor. In an instant the rest fell on him, grabbing Ben’s hands, wrists, and legs. He thrashed, crying out for help. The workers stared down at him, and one advanced, but the Repurposer waved her off.
“No need,” he told her. “He unplugged from the network and is going a little crazy. We need to take him back to his pod and reconnect him.”
She nodded and went back to folding laundry.
“No!” Ben shouted. He kicked his legs, but still they carried him toward the metal door. They lifted him up the stairs and dragged him outside. As he thrashed in horror they retraced his footsteps, hauling him back to his building, down the hallway toward his living pod, in through his neighbor’s place, and through the hole.
“It’s not killing me to be disconnected! You’ve got it wrong!” he screamed.
The men remained stoic. They pulled him into his bathroom. He thrashed, knocking over his supply cabinet, spilling towels into the shower. A vase fell off the sink and shattered. Still they held him tightly. None of them made eye contact. He wasn’t a person. Just a thing.
“Hold him down,” one said. They flipped him onto his stomach, and one knelt on his back.
He felt the man’s gloved hand on his head, pressing down, parting his hair over the network jack in his skull. The man brought out a gleaming metal instrument with a circular saw on one end.
Ben kicked out on the cold tile, but the others held down his arms and legs.
The man brought the tool up to his head jack, and Ben felt a blistering pain in his head. Everything went gray, then black-and-white. All their voices became muffled.
“The jack is corrupted,” he heard the man say. “I don’t think we’ll be able to repurpose him. There’s dust in here, some weird debris. What has this guy been up to?” He felt the men readjust their weight on him. “I’ll give it a try.”
He brought the tool in again, and a searing flash of heat erupted inside Ben’s head. He flailed, fought against them, but all he could smell was burning flesh. Suddenly a white-hot eruption filled his eyes, and his brain felt too big for his skull. He screamed as it swelled, his teeth cracking against the tile. He squeezed his eyes shut. An agonizing
