Friends

Purring coaxed her brain to consciousness that morning. Time to feed Thor, her giant Maine Coon. Lana didn’t even glance at him, but he kept purring and followed her to the window. She opened the blinds overlooking the desert she worked on so the light would guide her way to the kitchen where she fed Thor his real food breakfast.

Pets were the only “real food” customers those days. Lana had her last real meal twenty years earlier when she was nine; old enough to remember, but young enough not to care. Back in 2095, all North Americans began receiving nourishment through self reproducing chemicals they ingested as a weekly pill. Nowadays if they remember meals, or care, they can ask their Page to make the chemicals taste like something. Lana always asks her Page to give her grilled cheese. It’s the last thing she remembers eating.

Page is a brain chip initially installed for its enhanced virtual reality features. All gamers wanted Page so they could play games in hands free virtual worlds. Once most of the population installed them, Page replaced the internet and when Mexico, Canada and the United States merged in 2102, the general population voted to give all working class citizens a Page for free. Lana got her Page in 2103 when they launched the emotional regulation feature. Of course she tested it out right away. No one expected that once you turned it on, you never thought, even once, about turning it off. Life must have seemed better with it activated. But Lana hadn’t seen her family since activation day.

At work that morning, the sun made Lana’s skin feel like it was supposed to; warm and soft against her cold fingers. She was in her on-site office in a tent next to a construction zone waiting to receive a new hire who would report to her. He’d join the team of workers laying roads across the Montana-Saskatchewan desert for the expansion of her company's autonomous solar powered car fleet. All she’d ever done since she left her family to work at sixteen was help lay down roads or teach others how to do it. It was her sole purpose, the only task worth her time; every citizen had to play a role in saving the world from the destruction past generations had bestowed on it, and laying roads was hers. If all people lived that way, they’d save the world sooner.

He walked in two-minutes early ready to work in his safety vest and helmet, which wasn’t surprising because he had great references, but when she saw him her heartbeat accelerated. She took a deeper breath than usual, but it kept pounding. She knew her Page would handle it soon.

“Morning Lana, it’s always great to meet a veteran in person,” he said, with his round face grinning. Grinning seemed like an overreaction to her.

“It’s great to have another high performer like you join our mission,” said Lana.

He reached out to shake her hand, which she reciprocated. Her hands were still cold, because his felt warm. He wouldn’t let hers go.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.

She smiled softly, relieved that her Page wasn’t malfunctioning. She just had memories with him that Page was blocking out. No distractions from the mission, she reminded herself.

“No,” she said and smiled again, politely, “but Page is having a hard time calming me down. So I assume I would otherwise remember.”

“Axel, here, reporting for duty,” he said and grinned wider, “just your big brother, trying to make a living in this crazy world.”

He released her hand to pull her into his chest for a hug. His warmth made her heart beat erratically, but then she felt Page normalize it again.

“I never activated that emo tech,” he said, “I know you did it, I remember.”

She hugged him back because she still knew it was the right thing to do, but she hadn’t been hugged in at least a decade.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend,” he said, “I know you don’t feel what I do, it’s just so great to have found you like this. Alive, healthy, somewhat sane.”

“Thanks for understanding, Axel,” said Lana as she withdrew from his arms. She was just glad that despite resisting emotion regulation he still understood that contributing to the planet saving mission was the right way to spend his time and so she’d never question his decision.

“Page: Message from Axel”, popped up in Lana’s mind interface

“It’s just a picture of us. Proof we’re family, you know? Don’t want you to have to just trust my word for it”

Lana let her Page open the message. It was a photo of a young Axel with his arm over Lana’s shoulder standing on top of the last mountain that still had trees in Montana. Page only let Lana see sentimental images for seconds prior to eliminating them forever.

Axel remained silent as she took it in.

“Friends?” he asked when she’d returned her gaze to his.

“Friends,” she said. But she wasn’t sure of it.

He nodded and they left the tent together for his first day of training in the desert.

That night, Lana could hear Thor purring through the door as she entered her apartment. She’d been working later than usual, teaching Axel with the team, so she knew Thor would be more ravenous than usual. She kneeled to console him with a neck scratch and her hand landed on the heart shaped locket that dangled from his collar. She’d never opened it, but the irregularity of the day made it seem like an acceptable thing to do.

One side held a picture of a woman smiling between a young round faced boy and girl. “For Lana & Axel” said the other side of the locket.

The erratic heartbeat returned, but Page reconciled it faster than before. That must have been her mother. She closed the locket and proceeded to feed Thor.

“Friends?” he’d asked. “Friends,” she’d said. She believed they could be friends, just a little more.