Sparrow in Saturn R̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ Reborn

 

She hadn't heard from User51 in weeks. Meta4 kept the burner phone with his last number in it. She had circulated their hashtags on all of the usual places. She’d agreed when he wanted go.

 

It was only a side quest, he'd said, an easter egg.

 

She had tried to find her own access point after he hadn't returned. Her only clue was "Apogee." She’d found it on a sticker in the 4th stall of the women’s restroom in the bus station in Someplace, Nevada. 

 

It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle while not knowing if you even had all the pieces. 

 

Apogee was also the name on the highest score of the Addams Family pinball machine in Toledo, Nowhere. Above the name GoSting. That was the same night she’d smoked her last joint and solved Time Cube theory but couldn't quite remember it the next day. Stuck with this sense of deja-vu and feeling like a fixed point on a map between her feet and the sky. Above and Below. An exponent in a world of sleeping NPCs.

 

Do you still believe in it all? U had asked her once when they had retreated into the matrix, found a loophole in the code and stayed for almost a month in an unoccupied cabin in Thisplace, North Carolina. They’d read excerpts of all the books they were each carrying and left them all behind when they left.

 

U called it poetic terrorism. Like the weekend they stayed in a condo in St.Louis,Somewhere while the rich old couple who owned the place were out of the country. U hacked into the guys on-line gambling account and convinced her it was karma when she won big money on her first try. They only dumped half into their own pay-pal account before U wiped away the rest of their digital footprints.

 

I was in the honeymoon of my life… Meta hums to herself as she hangs string of lights over a fairly clean mattress she had found and pushed up against a wall in the empty 2nd floor office where she was currently squatting. 

 

She’d also found an old sewing machine in a storage closet and it was on the floor next to an old microwave. The place still had power but no water. She reaches for one of the gallons she carried all the way from the gas station gasping as an automatic reflex makes her rear back, then she laughs at herself and the tiny light bulb of the old sewing machine, the familiar texture of something that could cause her pain. Like tall wiry boys in woolen caps with deep southern accents like caramel dripped on apples.

 

She’d broken character at least four times now. Picked up the blue handset of each old coin operated telephones she passed by and spoken into the silence: I’d like to speak to User51, please / User51 can you hear me?/ This is Meta4 calling for User51 / I would like to establish a connection / Please!

 

She dropped dimes and quarters that never came back. Pressed the lever that never caused a dial tone. And one time when she was quite sure she was alone she smashed the receiver against the brassy metal buttons of the numbered keypad repeatedly before hanging it back in it’s cradle, retrieving her pack from the ground and walking away.

 

 

___________________

 

A/N: This is the continuation of an entry I posted last season:

 

 

I'm not sure if it stands alone but none of my other ideas for the topic this week came together.  I enjoyed revisiting this world anyhow.