Chapter 20

“I have never been this sober in all my life,” Nicola said, staring out the windshield from the passenger’s seat. “I don’t want a smoke, a pill, a snort, or a swallow. I don’t want to do anything more harmful to my brain or my body for as long as I live. O God, how long do I have to live?”

“I’m not too good with existential questions,” Mikel said. “However, I’ve been living with this knowledge longer than you have and, well, the fact of the inevitable puts life in a new perspective. I paid for a friend to complete their gender transition, and I may never see her in person again. I’ve spent my time giving friends encouragement and compliments, treating them as they hope to be treated by others. I thought it would be hard, but with their responses, my giving is almost effortless.”

“Have you asked the people you hurt for forgiveness? They say that’s what you’re supposed to do right before you die.” She would not look at him.

“I’ve had too much to fix in the here-and-now to look backwards that much,” Mikel said. “I’ve got this job and this demanding employer.”

“You got guns blazing and cars smashing up in front of your face,” Nicola said. “They weren’t after me, were they? They were trying to stop you, to stop you from doing what we just did.”

“Maybe.” Mikel chewed over her observation for a moment, letting the quiet fill the cab. “You and I are in the middle of a seven or twelve-dimensional chess game, and we are pieces on the board we cannot see well, much less understand. I trust my employer but I’m still responsible moment by moment.”

“Your employer: is he the government?”

“No, she is A.I. and Bass Clef is one of her subroutines attached to me for the duration,” Mikel said. “The sexy stuff he tried with you is a variant of what she used with me and still does. They’re A.I. though, and everything they do has a reason. She tried to explain the reasons to me, but they don’t make sense. My phone is still uploading data, but to where, we don’t know. If we asked where, we would not understand the answer. Comprende?”

“Yes. No. I’m scared.”

“Me, too,” Mikel admitted. “Your big brother is scared witless. Still, the only way to go is forward. If I stop, the worst probably happens that much sooner. Or I die quickly of overwhelming anxiety. I cannot figure out which is more likely.”

“Turn right at Three Bridges Road,” Nicola ordered. “There’s a dairy farm that sells real ice cream if you have the cash. I always feel like I’m in the middle of an illegal drug deal when I go there, but this stuff is to die for. Crazy world, no?”

“I got some cash. You?”

“Plenty,” Nicola said. “I thought we were going someplace boring, and I was hoping for a side trip. The place wasn’t boring. How much data did we copy?”

“The screen you found said there was over a petabyte of data,” Mikel said. “How my phone could load that much data is beyond me. I’m used to gigabytes and terabytes. If you think too hard about it, your head will spin.”

“Turn here,” Nicola said. “About a mile down on your left will be a sign for Turner Brothers Farm.”

They found the drive. After a long dirt trek complete with ruts and potholes, they came to several buildings. They pulled around the back of the barn and parked in front of a shed that Nicola said was their farm store. Inside the store was a commercial refrigerator with milk products, including cheese, milk, and honest-to-God butter. The prices were eye-popping. Nicola opened the chest freezer and retrieved a pint carton of berries ice cream. The pint cost more than a decent meal for four in the city. She wrote down in the notebook up front what she bought and shoved the cash into the metal box next to the notebook. “They know we’re here, and they know my truck. This is a matter of trust that the farms around here value highly. If you cheat one, you will have cheated them all. Got it?”

“Got it,” Mikel said. “Do they have spoons, or do we have to wait until we get back to your house?”

“I gotcha covered. I’m always prepared with all sorts of items in the bin under the dash. I don’t share my finds with anyone. Anyone.”

“Your secrets are safe with me, Nicola. I will not reveal them even under torture.”

They went back to the truck and returned to the road. Continuing up the road to the first bridge, Mikel pulled off and parked next to the picnic table that had seen better days. Looking out at the small rivulet running down the middle of the wide stream bed, Mikel felt a fresh sadness pulling at the periphery of his being. So much was already lost.

“There are real berries in here,” Mikel exclaimed when he dug into the pint.

“Yeah, they use greenhouses and shit-tons of chemicals, but they pull off miracles,” Nicola said as she chomped down on her spoon. “They can’t get vanilla anymore and the fake vanilla is suspect today. They use real berries to flavor the cream. They’re illegal artists in a fucked-up world.”

They ate all the ice cream. Nicola licked the inside of the top while Mikel ran his finger around the inside of the container. “We need to return the container,” she said. “All we need to do is place it in their mailbox on the road. No evidence of their work is allowed far from their property.”

“Returning their container is the least I can do,” Mikel said. “Let’s roll.”

After stopping by the mailbox, Mikel turned the truck towards Nicola’s house. At one point he felt a wave of dizziness cascade across his vision. He pulled off to the side and waited for the sensation to pass. When his head felt clear, he glanced over at Nicola whose face was scrunched up with concern.”

“Bad ice cream?” she asked softly.

“Muthafucka!” Mikel’s phone announced. “Upload is complete. One point two petabytes have been recovered.”

“How?” Mikel blurted out. “The phone isn’t that big.”

“The chips in your head are, muthafucka. Bluetooth 11.2.3 is hella efficient.”

“There is no such thing as version 11,” Nicola protested. “Version five point something is the newest available. I bought a phone five months ago and I had to pay extra for the new version of Bluetooth.”

“They saw you coming, sweet thing,” Bass Clef said. “Next time, I will deal with them personally on your behalf, my beautiful shade of pale.”

“Enough,” Mikel said. “What happened to Forte?”

“She managed both transfers like melting butter in a hot pan. It was beautiful.”

“Who the hell is Forte?” Nicola demanded.

“A.I. in the chips in my brain,” Mikel said. “She won’t or can’t talk to me yet.”

“How many women do you have in your life?” Nicola sounded suspicious and angry too.

“Only one of them wants me for my body, and she is in the hospital, little sister. Get over it.” He rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out what he was going to do next. He softly belched ice cream instead.