Murdersphere Mosaic [ManXMan] [BoyXBoy]

Chapter 5 Part 2 Mine! Mine! Mine!

I stare at the door feeling consciousness attenuate, its thready presence yawning around me, twisting until all I can see is the door. I cannot move. I do not want to move. If I do anything something bad will happen. I don't want to be here, but I do not want to be anywhere else.

No. I want to go home. But home is Atlantis and it is gone. Home is Balobedo, and it is gone. Home is somewhere else I do not remember and I feel my tenuous hold on consciousness snap and I sink into a spiral shorting thoughts competing to be "home."

I had to make a choice and I choose Atlantis and the thought loop stops.

It is nighttime.

"How much time did I lose just standing here?" I mutter.

I do not have a convenient clock, watch, or cell phone, but I have a tablet. The thin black thing floats over to me and I realize that it is a leatherette folio and I wonder for a sick moment if this is a paper tablet. No, a dark semi-reflective screen greets me when I open it. I see the circle with a vertical line sprouting through the top pole and hope that it means what I remember it meaning: "power-on."

The screen lights up, booting to a blue screen with a virtual keypad along the bottom and icons that presumably label applications along the top.

"Don't over-fucking-think this." I mutter.

I start with familiar key combinations eventually bringing up the help program and I start from there. It is not exactly like I remember, but the graphic user interface is intuitive and forgiving. 

My phone and internet service are attached to the apartment and in turn attached to the building. The pad can travel with me and connect to the city network, keeping me in touch via internet, or cellular depending on where in the city I am. If I hold the thing to my head, it even functions as a phone, but it blocks my peripheral vision.

I am not complaining though. After a few minutes I can get useful information.

I have been standing here more than 24 hours, trapped in my own head.

"Oh hell." I mutter. I go take a shower. While under the water, all of the lights in the apartment go out. A cacophony of car horns sound dimly through the closed windows.

Cursing and sputtering, I storm out of the shower, soaking wet.

Someone knocks on the door.

I send my thoughts through the door and who I find, sends me into utter silence. I open the door.

Orai, in her white lab coat, shuffles through, all too pleased with herself; closing the door behind her before jamming a finger in my chest. "You did not thank me when you were on television!"

"I was not coached to!" I retort. "And you're going to get me in trouble being here!"

"I am the equivalent of a streaker at a championship tennis match." She says. "They cannot help but watch. If they could. It's going to take the cameras a bit to reboot independent of the local grid. Besides, they're pissed at you anyway for going zombie for nearly two days."

"Won't they guess that you're here?" I reply.

"They would have to know that it's me." She says. "And they are going to be riveted by the footage from the mobile units that are unaffected by my power outage. You are alone and have no friends. How can they interpret this as being about you?"

She waves a ten fingered hand in a rapid, dismissive fashion as she changes topic. "Anyway, I forgive you for not mentioning me. You are green Talent, but, even without the plug, the Audience knows what I have done, and that bitch pudding-head Poplar is scheming to remove my mark from you with the Authority's blessing. So... I have taken steps."