She was standing over that bridge. She was looking at the city from there.
He only noticed she looked as punk as fuck. She looked like the type of badass he always felt attracted to. The type of person that he will let them destroy his heart.
He built as much confidence as he could to just approach her. He could just look at the view, the infinite movement of the city with its devouring energy. Flying lights with metal wings.
She felt his presence. She scan him and the surroundings. Old habits from her past contracts. The implants let her know that it was safe.
- Bridges. She said, turning to him.
- What? He replied confused more for the fact that she talked to him than what he just heard.
- Yeah, I like bridges. She replied.
And before he could say anything else she jumped onto her electric scooter and left. He could notice some parts of the scooter and how it was custom modified to get illegally faster speeds.
Before she full accelerate, she turned to him and did a sign with her hand. He saw immediately a notification on his device. It was written "meow meow meow".
The background
She spend too much time in the ·Ether·
She could go by the name of C3L35T3 or / CLST
They start to call each other QT in the chats.
She deals with an abandoned childhood trauma. She carry this state of mind... reason why she decide to get lost in the Ether, go deeper and farther than anyone has done before. Suicidal tendency... At the end no one knows but it's assumed that she surpassed the limits of what a human brain can resist. We want to believe in the legend, that she managed to transcend and live somewhere in the Ether. Maybe and most likely she just fucking toast her brain.
"Either way I'm going to die or you're going to die or one of us will leave each other... either way I will lose you." -CLST
The father.
She didn't know much about him. Fascinated with communications. Engineer. The only memory she have as a kid is watching her father working in his home-lab with tech who looks ancient. He use to spend his days in his garage communicating with other planets. She never believe it when she was a kid. The father didn't really knew that either. He was just using signals and needed translators, others amateurs like him to get to know the messages. Actually he was listening language developed by Semis, but that was kind of random conversations from them. Nothing really importan (looks like). Maybe later he get to know that Semis where traveling to another planets, kind of going rogue or independents from earth. The father was spending much of his time creating tools to make communications with Mars using the tech available at that time. She never got to close with him. Both didn't knew how to anyway. He was pretending everything was fine. He used to touch the nose of C. in a particular way. Later with this communication he knew about the Semis program. He never knew the mom was part of it.
The mom.
The mom leave her and her father when she was a kid for another man. At least, this is what the mom make them believe. The mom used to work in secret for the chinese government and was sent to Mars. Her mother left earth to go in a space program to contribute to populate Mars developing the Semis. She was working specifically with the metal-tissue integration. The mother left the father and C. supposedly for another man that later will die (or killed?). The father don't know that. C. found out by entering in the Ether and found by asking to his mentor. She wasn't that good at that time. C kind of understand. But the damage is done. So she is trying to stay cool and calm down her little inner child C. She still working on that. Afraid of abandonment.
About Semis (semi-humans)
Developed with synthetic tissue and hardware. The Software was a mix of AI and random bio-shit that they where creating. Taking human ADN from who could pay the price. Cloning and sending the material to Mars with the promise to an extension of life. Expanding the self. Half tech and half meat. For many the Semis where just a tool to serve the government-corpo plans. Populate Mars, expand. Many against. Many in favor for going interplanetary species.
The Sky
Is this place people use to call Internet, but the new version of it. Like in music you use to experience it in Mono, and then Stereo and then surround and then neurotransmitters crossing your brain.
So she used to go very often to the Sky. Looks like she was addicted to it. She was going every time she could.
Maybe she had a story with a Persona. Like in Ubik, that she could just connect with the dead bodies. Like they can access the conscience of the person and the only limit of the person is the time of death. So even if they are connected to the Sky, so you can access them, they don't know nothing about technological advancements and they don't store new information. Like conscience that you can talk with them. Like a talk you can have with anyone you just meet. Maybe this Persona was the father or the mother of someone she cared. A dead lover that she never got to overcome. Maybe she feel responsible for his death.
***
Yeah. That's what you're becoming. A reflected shadow against a beautiful view of the city by night.
C came to me at the bridge in her scooter... She caught my attention and as quick as she appeared, she fades into an unknown direction. Maybe another bridge like The Ether. Bridges that in principle their function is to connect. Between this reality I belong and the one C has chosen to take.
Maybe the ghosts won this time.
It happened that I was just right there at the rigth moment for me to watch it. Like a Étoile filante. Fragile et éphémère.
A bridge connecting past and future. And I'm just watching how hopes and dreams fade in neon lights, sunsets and sunrises. All at once in an emotional timelapse in the digital memory of my heart.
