Disconnect

Chapter 1

The world is a strange place. There are so many people with different beliefs, ways of life, lines of thinking, and financial situations. Most of these things are out of people’s control, whether they want to believe it or not. Most people can’t just change their mind about something simply because they want to. Some things that people believe are ingrained in them, usually from a young age, and once those beliefs take hold, it’s nearly impossible to erase its effects in their entirety. A way of life is oftentimes a cultural product, instilled in people from generations of their own family and peers. Cultures don’t change overnight. They take generations to truly shift in their entirety. Sometimes cultures are content with where they are and only undergo minor changes with time. One’s culture is often the basis for what one considers moral or just. As technology has improved, and people began speaking to people from entirely different parts of the world, people began to realize how good and how bad people in other places really had it. By the fourth millennium, most cultures had stagnated to a degree. There were plenty of people who were unhappy, but that’ll never change. There will always be someone who draws the short end of the stick, and there's nothing you can do to change that. There’s nothing that can be done. Some systems just have flaws. People still like to be angry about things though, and even now people call for social reform. The topic? Drones mostly. Though these people are few and far between in the modern day. Most of these people are content still owning drones, but decide to simply treat them nicely. Some even go as far as to have relationships with them, though not without consequences. It is unanimously considered degenerate behavior to…desire a drone. You’re inclined to agree. It’s what everyone else believes, and they probably know better, right? …Right? You’ve seen pictures in your parent’s news apps in passing, but that was the extent of the exposure you had to such things aside from the occasional mention of it on the internet, though you were limited on what you were allowed to see. Being of younger age made it difficult to have freedoms on the internet, for your protection of course.
     You were only 14, afterall. Despite this, you had more freedom that most you suppose. You were heavily restricted in what you could do, but coming from money had its perks. Though your parents rarely actually gave you any money directly. They were both wealthy, business centric people. From what you understand from listening in on conversations you probably shouldn’t have been, they met as sworn enemies from rival companies. You could recall the pair talking in passing about slights they would throw each other’s way when they were young. This only stopped when both companies were bought by a megacorp or something. Business was never your forte. You preferred a different brand of entertainment. Some that many would consider girly. As a younger child you wanted a garden, which your parents forbade. They said they didn’t want dirt on you all the time, though you suspected they were more worried about the floss of your home. It’s not like they were going to be the ones cleaning it anyway. There were dozens of drones here to do menial tasks like that. You weren’t really the attention to detail type at that age quite yet, in all honesty you just thought certain squash looked cool and wanted to grow some like some kind of edible toy. The mind of a child, am I right?
     Despite being a boy, you always preferred your hair long. Not too long, just a couple of inches so you’d have something to play with while pretending to pay attention in class. An alternative benefit was that you could hide your eyes from the teacher while you pretend to read. That is the only thing your parents let you continue on with that they considered “girly.” You liked the color pink just fine, so when your parents asked if you liked it, you didn’t think it was a big deal to say that it was a good color. They felt the opposite. You never had that cotton candy ice cream stuff again after that incident. Another thing your parents seemed off put by was your blatant disinterest in sports. In fact, the more they tried to get you interested in sports, the more you started to dislike them. You love watching people get knocked out on youtube as much as the next guy, but watching sweaty men ram into each other at running speed just wasn't something you were into.
     Despite all your parent’s poking and prodding into what you enjoy, trying to coax any kind of manliness out of you, they do try to set you up in life. They give you money, but they do teach you about money saving strategies, tax evasion, fraud, and the works. All the things big companies can get away with. The idea was to get you a job at this “JCJenson” place as soon as you were old enough to. Family business and all that. You're honestly not sure what your parents did at this company because they were pretty hush hush about it. Must be something important. Important enough to get them invited to a big party for higher ups in the company. You noticed that the mail coming to your home was addressed to your family name instead of any individual person. After some digging on the internet, apparently this is something royal families would do to address each other a couple thousand years ago. The ego of these “Elliot” people must be huge. You wonder if they need double doors to go from room to room with their massive heads. This makes you chuckle to yourself.
     “Is something funny, (Y/N)?”
     You look up to see your father, mid sip of his morning coffee, still looking at you for an answer with one open eye.
     “Oh, no. It’s-,” You don’t want to tell him what was so funny about your thoughts of his colleagues having huge heads, because that would be a lot to explain. You didn’t think you’d get in trouble or anything, it’s just awkward to explain comedy to someone who probably doesn’t have your same sense of humor. You look down at your plate to see food that wasn’t there a moment ago. It seems breakfast was served while you were daydreaming again. The pancakes, eggs, and bacon were all on one plate. The eggs and bacon in the visage of a smiling face, and the pancakes only had syrup on the far side, so it looked like goopy hair. You can’t help but snort a little.
     Your father looks at your plate and sees the silly face and smiles for only a second. For him that may as well have been a full blown bout of laughter. He rarely smiles. He’s not a sad or angry person, he’s just tired a lot. Your mother is much the same way, but she isn't here now. Your father was around more often than your mother in the mornings. They both seem to be compulsive workers. You wonder if you'll end up like that when you’re older, or if those genes just skipped you entirely.
     You look up to find utensils to begin eating when you see two drones, a butler and a maid, looking in and staring at you for only a moment before they catch your gaze and quickly retreat. You always liked the drones here. They were always nice to you. Sometimes you felt like they acted more like parents than your own flesh and blood. It wasn’t your parent’s fault that they had jobs, but you were still lonely. Maybe the drones saw this and decided that your happiness should be added to their duties. You were thankful for them playing with you from time to time. They would do their jobs and sometimes come see you when they had time, which wasn’t a lot. Lately though, as you’ve gotten older, you’ve felt more awkward around them. Sometimes one of them would come by for a visit to check on you, and you wanted them to leave you alone. You never had a reason for it, but sometimes you just wanted space. Maybe this was the “rebellious phase” you always heard about teenagers. You thought that was supposed to mean you rebelled against your parents, but you have been wrong before. It's not like the drones had any authority over you or anything. Your parents only ever asked that you don’t break or damage them because they were expensive. You wouldn’t either way. As far as you were concerned, if something could feel fear, it was worthy of compassion.
     “(Y/N), are you listening?,” you hear your father snap his fingers and wave his hand in front of your face for probably not the first time.
     “Sorry. I was just somewhere else,” you say before digging into your food. Bacon and syrup has no reason to be so decadent.
     With a huff your father repeats himself, “I said, ‘Are you packed?’ We’ll be heading to Australia first thing when the sun goes down.”
     You swallow your mouthful of food, though not all of it, “Uh… Most of it. I have clothes that the drones picked out, but I don’t know about entertainment.”
     “Don’t worry about that too much,” your father continues with breakfast.
     You look at him, expecting him to explain what he means by that, but he doesn’t. He just continues eating. You imagine you’ll be leaving as soon as your mother gets back from work. You wonder to yourself if today will be one of the rare “father son days.” This hope is quickly dashed when he too leaves for work. You could have sworn he said he had the day off, but he said he had to do some “quick numbers.” That left you alone in this big empty house. You’re crushed by a sense of loneliness that you don’t remember being there. Maybe it’s only now revealing itself because you had hoped for something more out of the day. You slowly walk to your room, a long ways away from the kitchen, with your head tilted low and your feet dragging. You feel the beginnings of tears well in your eyes as your nose does that tingle thing you hate.
     “Young master (Y/N)?”
     You stop about halfway to your room as a maid drone addresses you. You raise your head to see her hollow eyes looking at you with concern, a second maid halting her cleaning to do the same and cover her mouth. Maybe you were more visually upset than you thought. Not like you had been around enough people to be educated in “proper social nuance.”
     The maid repeats herself, “Young master (Y/N), are you alright?”
     “Yea-,” the word dies in your throat with a squeak. You were never good at lying, and the voice crack just made you feel pathetic.
     The maid seems very concerned for your well being, reaching for you before retracting her hand. She goes over to the other maid to have a conversation on their visors. You couldn’t see the glowing words clearly through your welling eyes, trying with all your will not not let a single tear fall, especially in front of someone. In a moment the maid was at your side, one arm around you to hold your shoulder, and the other hand on your closest shoulder. The friendly contact breaks the dam. You refuse to whimper, hiccup, or make any noise if you can help it, but you feel safe enough in her touch to let the tears fall down. With the excess water gone, you can see her face. She’s still smiling at you, but it’s forced and fake. Her eyes are still hollow. She’s trying to make you feel better as she walks you to your room.
     Before you get to your room, a butler drone is running down the hall towards you and the maid, meaning to pass you. Once he does, he does a double take at your face, and slows to a stop. You hear him approach, then you hear the sound of visors changing to words again. You don’t look this time, respecting their privacy. The butler follows silently until you arrive at your room, at which point the butler opens the door for the three of you, closing it when everyone is inside.
     The butler thinks about what he should do for a moment before he has an idea. He gets onto your computer and boots it up. You always shut it down after use. You read somewhere that it can still be hacked in sleep mode. You didn’t know if that was true, but you didn’t lose anything by playing it safe.
     “Young master (Y/N), would you like to continue listening to that audio play from the 21st century you started yesterday?,” the butler was already bringing up YouTube.
     You clear your throat, you were not going to let that squeak happen again, “You mean Black Dogs?”
     The butler gives a smile, mimicking a dignified old man's voice, “Precisely!”
     “I uh, stayed up late and finished it…”
     “Oh. No problem then. Were you looking at something else then? I know you like your stories. Maybe the man who made that one has other things you’d be interested in,” the butler began to explore the channel to see if there were any other stories you would like.
     “I think I want to just take a nap…,” you said trying to feign drowsiness. You were a little tired from not sleeping a full night but that had more or less become your natural state.
     The maid began to usher you to your bed at the opposite end of the large room. It was funny. Your room was so large, yet all the empty space only reminded you about how lonely you were. Once you were sitting down on your bed, the maid paused as if unsure whether she should ask you to change clothes to proper sleepwear, but decided not to. The sound of a thunderstorm begins to play on your computer as the butler moves to cover the windows and turn out the lights of the room to best simulate nighttime. The maid at your side lays you down and covers you in a blanket. Just when she moves away, your hand moves on its own and grabs the maids hand. She jumps slightly at the unexpected contact before looking at you again.
     “C-can you stay… until I fall asleep?,” you ask while avoiding eye contact. Even now you know you were too old to ask for something like that, but you didn’t feel like being alone. You were about to backpedal but were stopped by the maid speaking.
     “Of course (Y/N). Just until you go to sleep,” she gives you a smile and sits on your bed in such a way that her feet are off the covers. That's when something unexpected happens. For the first time, in a long time, you find yourself in the embrace of another. The maid has your head in her arms and presses you against her metal chest while one of her hands strokes your hair in a gentle fashion. It's not very comfortable to be honest, but the contact is something you didn’t know you craved. You feel the bed cushion shift as the butler sits on the opposite side of the bed, body facing away, but head turned to address you.
     The butler gives you a warm smile, “If you need anything, we’re always here. We all are.”
     You feel a warmth in your chest you don’t often feel. It always seems to come back in moments like these, when you’re feeling like trash and the drones always seem to flock to you. You feel safe, cared for, happy, maybe even loved. You can’t help but stop crying as you let yourself relax. Your day didn’t start great, but hopefully after your nap, you can try again. Some part of you realized something before you consciously did: You don’t feel so lonely right now.