Wishful Thinking

“Your lenses on?”

Ra shook his head, kicking a piece of red-orange clay with his boot.

“Wrists?”

He stretched out his pale, sinewy arms that looked naked without a familiar wristband.

“I got a...” he pointed to a small scar on the back of his palm.

“We have a frequency going to offset internal trackers, you’re good.”

Ra looked hungrily into the forest behind the guard’s back, where the crowd was already moving in synchronous waves raising a fog of red dust, silent and awkward to an outsider.

“You got the cash?” the guard leaned to the side to block the image from view.

The man’s hand dove into his black skirt pocket and pulled out a disposable payment chip, transparent plastic giving off a pearlescent glimmer in the dim daylight. The guard moved his hand over the chip, a fluid display on his wristband glowing up with green approval.

“No speaking, no code exchange, no personal substances.”

Ra nodded, his silver nose chain swinging forward like a miniature anchor cable. The guard moved, allowing him to pass through to a small, chubby man with a slimy smile who was distributing the stickers. Ra lifted the vantablack sleeve of his shirt, his skin feeling the scorching hot air of the midsummer forest, uncomfortable without the protection of the self-cooling fabric.

The sticker man attached a white raisin circle to his shoulder and handed over a case with a pair of cheap lenses and headphones. Ra stepped away from him, eager to join the human wave. He slid the headphones in, enjoying their gentle wrapping of his ear canal as they melted to take the necessary form. Suit followed the lenses, their thin presence comforting and exciting. He flinched at the small prick in his shoulder, seconds remaining until the Change.

Ra took a deep breath, his carbon filter whizzing quietly on his chest, and looked up at the bits of the yellow sky through the spiderweb of naked tree branches. The failed forest experiments somehow made the usual terrain look even sadder, at least the dunes and craters looked natural, while terraforming attempts were always out of place.

Three, two, one.

Knowing what was happening didn’t make it any less magical. Ra smiled at the long-needed sensation of his neutral pathways rerouting, adjusting his mode of thinking, reinstalling his memories, painting over his old life.

He happily conjured a glimpse of his home town of Ceren knowing it wouldn't last a minute: high walls of yellow concrete, oily-black waters of the canals, industrial rovers busily steering around the central dome with the rusty rockets that never took off. The memories hazed, like they were someone else’s, just a bad dream you’re about to wake up from. He did. Ra opened his eyes, squinting from the morning sun slanting through the high windows, watching the dust particles dancing in the warm light.

“We need to clean up in here,” said a voice by his side, its timbre making Ra’s heart flutter. He turned his head just a bit, afraid and longing to see the bird-like profile, the wheat hair, and the heart-shaped locket that he bought for Set a hundred years ago at the last of Earth's bounty black markets. Wait, no. There was no black market, he must be still dreaming. It was a trip, a spring break in Vienna, four years ago, right before graduation, while they still lived in Budapest.

The guy sat up in bed, his skinny, freckled back looking golden in the light.

“Open the window,” asked Ra. Somehow the thought of breathing in the morning air was exhilarating, as if he hadn’t done it every day.

“You do it, I gotta pee,” Set sloped off the bed and shuffled to the bathroom.

“But you’re up already,” moaned Ra, feeling exceptionally lazy on the soft mattress.

“You got legs!” yelled the voice from the bathroom, followed by the loud sound of a stream hitting the basin. At least shut the doors, for God’s sake.

Braving the sore muscles from yesterday's party, Ra crawled out of the bed and swung open the windows like two glass-white albatross wings. A thrust of fresh air and a deafening bird chorus engulfed him for a moment, as the city honked and roared below, everyone rushing to catch the sunny side of a cafe for a Saturday breakfast. Hands wrapped around him and a soft kiss left a warm wet mark on the back of his neck. The cool metal of the locket pressed against his spine, making Ra shiver.

“I’d kill for a smoke,” Set whispered into his neck.

“We’re out,” shrugged Ra.

“I know,” Set was leaving more wet marks on Ra’s back.

“This is bribery,” Ra tilted his head backwards, smiling.

“I know.”

“Nothing is sacred with you,” he grunted, shaking off Set’s hands and bending down to pick up his linen shorts from a pile of clothes on the floor. “I’ll be back for compensation.”

“Much appreciated,” Set bowed theatrically, then snatched a shirt from the floor with his toes and threw it up with a laugh.

Ra shook his head and turned around, taking a hold of the round copper door handle to let himself out, feeling the scorching heat for a second. Why was it so hot in the hall in April? The graffiti on the staircase walls showed dark tree shapes growing out of the brick-red sea. A fire siren wailed outside the grease-smeared square window in the roof, someone must’ve burned their toast. He blinked, his eyes burning as if from dehydration. The air was stuffy, it was hard to swallow. Ra rushed down the stairs, eager to get outside, to breath in the morning wind again, just once. He saw the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor, outlined by sunshine, no more than ten steps away.

Seven, six, five, he stretched out his hand, ready to feel the chipping paint against his palm.

The siren got louder, turning into a screech, and he felt a dull hit to his face that threw him on the ground. The door blurred, thinned, giving way to the yellow skies. He moved the tongue in his mouth, tasting the sour blood, regretting the waste of moisture. His mind was rolling back into regular thought sections at a rapid speed, pruning out alien pathways. He fished out and threw away the lenses and headphones, both short-circuiting from the raid tech.

It was a stampede. Some of the attendees still tried to make a run for it, others lashed at the keepers, delirious from the pain of an interrupted Change. Ra lay flat on the ground, waiting for the air to come back to his lungs to take a deep breath, thinking of the golden locket and the brisk laughter, of the high windows and the fresh air, of the life that never was with the man that was no more.