“Hey, homie? Care to check in? What is this place?”
The voice startles her. She loses count of the minutes. Sitting up in the bed, she waits for the nurse to come back. Or for someone—anyone—to come and unplug her from the heavy brain scanner still attached to her head. She could have done that much, the nurse. She could have unplugged Kaarina from this uncomfortable device before she took off, gasping “We have another one” into her invisible walkie-talkie.
“Okay, could you please explain what’s happening? Who the fuck are you? Why am I seeing you? Do you even speak English?”
“Finnish… I speak Finnish,” she whispers.
“Ha! It talks! And in fluent English too. Thanks for joining this madness.”
“Why are you here?”
The man huffs, momentarily lost for words. “That’s the thing, girl. I’m not there. See, last I checked, I was in the City of California Medical-Center, getting my chip treatment. All was swell. And then I wake up. I’m still here, but not really, because I’m staring at your pale white-girl face. This is not the AR-shit I was promised. Or is it? Is this part of the treatment? Some sick way to test our mental health?”
She listens to the voice, turning her focus inward, to herself. As she closes her eyes, images of a room—another hospital—flash on her closed eyelids. Hands and arms gesture wildly. A man, at least ten years older than her, his skin many shades darker than her own. She looks out past the broad window she’s never seen before to the skyscrapers rising on every side, sunbeams piercing the air between them. This is a place she’s never been before. Not that she’s there now either. Not really.
“Where are you? Who are you?”
“The name’s William. The place I already told you. I’m in City of California.”
“You’re from the United States?”
“No such thing left, hon. You should know this. Only West-Land remains. And the cities. Sounds like you’re from East-Land yourself. Sweden? Why are there dark shades in front of the windows there? Let me see outside.”
“Finland. And you can’t. It’s already dark.”
“Oh, so it’s four a.m. there, not p.m.?”
Her eyes go back to the clock on the wall, the same one William must be staring at—through her eyes or mind or being or some higher existence. Her head turns until she finds what she’s looking for. A digital clock by the lab table tells her the exact time of day. Sixteen hundred, sharp.
“No, it’s still daytime.”
“It’s already dark at four o’clock in the afternoon? Girl, what kind of a special hell do you live in?”
Her head spins with weird sensations and exhaustion. She counts the minutes again.
Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four.
The strange man in her head won’t stop talking. He blabbers along, flustered and bewildered, talking through emotions that Kaarina surely should be feeling as well.
“…so maybe this is a chipping phase, and just a part of—”
“I don’t think this was supposed to happen,” Kaarina says, interrupting him. “I think something has gone terribly wrong.”
When William doesn’t respond to her, she continues. “I think the chip didn’t take. And they messed up something in our brain.”
“What does that have to do with you and me?”
“I don’t know,” she huffs. “It must have… connected us to each other somehow.”
“Like telepathic allies and shit? That’s insane!”
Kaarina nods. She sees William burying his face into his hands. “It is insane. But I also know you’re flustered and rubbing your face in despair. How could I know this, if this wasn’t because of the chip? If not for the chip, then how are we even having this conversation?”
Bill spreads his hands. “You’re right,” he says. “You are so fucking right. This is insane. We’re insane. What the hell are we going to do?”
“That’s what we need to figure out, I guess. And I think we should do it together.”
The door opens. Two nurses in blue overalls walk in. A doctor wearing a white lab-coat follows. Kaarina giggles at the scene, though she’s not sure why. Something about the nurses’ expressions make them look like cartoon characters. Looney Tunes, ready for action.
The doctor seems calm, almost serene. “Look who’s awake. How are you, Kaarina?” Her voice is soft as silk, pleasant as slowly flowing water.
Kaarina meets her smile and shrugs. “You tell me, doctor.” She’s glad they’re speaking in her native Finnish. For years now, English has been the official language of both East-Land and West-Land. She feels too confused—too off—to dig into her normally fluent English vocabulary.
“Can you please tell this whitecoat to speak English? Because heaven forbid I get to know what the hell is going on.”
“Well, my name is Dr. Laura Solomon. I have good news and bad news. Which one…” The doctor’s words trail off when Kaarina shakes her head. After giving her an empathic smile, the doctor puts on a pair of AR-glasses and starts tapping into some sort of a digital database Kaarina can’t see.
“You’re probably wondering why we use such old technology.” The doctor’s index finger briefly points at the AR-glasses she’s wearing. “It’s just so much easier to differentiate the realities from one another. For the human mind, it’s easier to stay in control of your own mind when you can shut down one reality with a simple hand movement.”
“With all due respect, Doctor, that is not something I’m wondering about right now.”
“Very well then. The procedure went as expected. We were able to install the microchip implant into your cerebral cortex. That is the good news—nothing went wrong. No bleeding or infections, no blood clots or nerve damage. No trace of CSF leaks, all mental functions are working as they should.”
“And the bad news?”
The doctor taps on her invisible gadget a few more times until her hand swipes to her left. She takes off the AR-glasses and hands them over to one of the nurses.
