Ascension by Daniel Weisbeck (reading tree .txt) 📕
- Author: Daniel Weisbeck
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The lift was empty. Inside, her virtual assistant spoke. “Hello, Liza. Floor ninety-nine?”
“Yes,” Liza replied. Staring forward, she avoiding eye contact with the Keeper’s android, who had tucked itself up against the wall to her right, within breathing distance if the thing could breathe. She had never been this close to one before. Most people kept their distance from the new android model. Their almost perfect human movement was a step too far for Liza. And nobody really understood why the Government had been building them secretly. This one hadn’t said a word to Liza yet, and she was keen to keep it that way.
The lift purred upward and came to a gentle, almost imperceptible stop. Liza held her breath. The doors slid open to her floor. The corridor was clear. Hurrying down the hall, Liza ducked into her apartment quickly. The Keeper followed.
“Welcome home,” said her assistant.
Liza ignored the customary greeting and turned, facing the Keeper.
“Stay here, by the door. I don’t want you any further inside my home.” Liza kept her eyes on its body, refusing to look directly into its steel blue glass eyes.
“Understood,” the creature spoke to her for the first time. Its eerily human voice sent a chill down Liza’s spine.
Inside, Liza looked around and had a strange sensation she was in someone else’s house. She felt a voyeur about to be caught and sent away at any minute. This isn’t the time to have an identity crisis, she scolded herself. She only had three days. She needed to get organized. Well, really, she didn’t. However, there was no way she could survive three days if she felt things were out of order. My closets, she thought silently. I’ll start with my wardrobe and then move on to my storage.
Liza left the Keeper at the door and made her way back into the apartment's only bedroom. Deep into her wardrobe within minutes, two distinct piles rose from the ground: things for recycling and stuff for donation. Everything in the Sanctuary was recycled if not reused. She wore the clothes of others before her, and soon, someone new would be in her favourite white pull-over, unless she put it in the recycled materials pile, to be stripped back to its minerals and reconstituted into a new, more modern design. Liza caught herself staring at the two lumps of clothing. After a long sigh, she lifted everything in the donation pile and heaped them in with the recycles. Fuck it. Burn it all. Erase Liza Lee.
Suddenly a random thought pinched at her heart. Henry. In her haste to get busy, she had forgotten she needed to contact Henry.
“SIVA, are there any messages for me?”
“There are fifty-two messages unheard. All are from Henry. He spent the night sleeping outside the main entrance doors last night as well.”
Liza went stiff. Her eyes glazed over and her mind wandered into the most horrible of scenarios. She felt both fear and sadness for Henry at once. “God, how could I have not contacted him,” she whispered, horrified at the person, herself in this case, who could do such a thing to someone they loved. Someone they loved; the words repeated in her mind. She had never told Henry she loved him, not in those exact words, even though he confessed his love for her many times over. But yes, she did love him.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. There was a brief anomaly in the network. When it cleared, Henry was no longer outside the building.”
“What do you mean anomaly? That can’t happen. The network never goes down.”
“I don’t have an answer for you, Liza.”
Liza’s hands began to involuntarily clench into white knuckles as panic tightened its grip on her throat. The words of her Arranger rang in her head: Red Flag file. Henry must have been tagged and collected by the Keepers. They were the only entity powerful enough to cause a black-out in the network.
“Oh god, oh my…” Liza started a quick pace back and forth in her bedroom, trying to figure out her next steps when suddenly SIVA spoke, giving Liza a start.
“Liza, you have a visitor. Henry is outside your door.”
The door to Liza’s flat slid open. Henry’s bright blue eyes, crowned by his thick strawberry-blond eyebrows, instantly glazed over with pending tears. He dared not rush in, even though his body demanded it. Liza hadn’t been expecting him. His arrival was an intrusion, a necessary intervention to win back her trust. And he now had a plan—a way to save them both. But she might not believe him or believe in him any longer. Maybe she wanted to be alone. Perhaps she wanted to sleep with more men before her pending Ascension. These thoughts haunted him.
Liza stood in her entrance staring at Henry. Words sat in the back of her tightening throat, unable to come out. She hadn’t wanted to cry. Her plan was to be strong for him. After all, he was the one who would have to live without her. But fight as she may, emotion took over her will, and the tears poured out in trembling sobs. “I…I’m so…sorry,” she stammered between jagged breaths.
Henry leapt forward and pulled her into his body, his arms wrapped around her in a ribbon tied tight. They both wept without words until they spent all their tears. Liza slowly calmed herself and caught up with her breathing. That’s when she realized she could feel Henry’s heart pounding against his chest. Poor Henry, what had she done to him?
Liza wiped her cheeks and stepped back so she could look him in the eyes. “I should have called you.”
“Don’t. Please don’t apologize. I understand. I understand you like I’ve never understood anyone.”
Liza let out a small, unexpected sigh which felt like letting air out of a balloon, a release into a more relaxed state.
Just then, a motion at the end of the entrance hall caught the corner of Henry’s vision. Startled, he pulled Liza behind him. The silver Keeper stepped into the hall and stared at them, unspeaking.
“Henry! It’s okay,” Liza grabbed Henry’s arm, holding him back. “It’s been assigned to watch over me. In case I try to run or hide, I guess.”
Henry’s muscles remained coiled. For what he had no idea. He had never been in a physical fight with another human his entire life, much less a Keeper. He wouldn’t even know how to attack one.
“Please continue your visitation in the apartment,” the silver android asked in a near-perfect human voice. The apartment door slid shut behind them. It was not a request.
Liza stepped in front of Henry. “Let’s do as it says. Please, don’t cause any problems, Henry. It’s too dangerous for you.”
“Me? What about you? How long will it be staying here?”
“As long as I am here. Until my Ascension.”
Henry’s cheeks burned red with a sudden rage. “Ha…ha…ha,” he stammered. “How long do we have?”
Liza’s eyes fell to the ground. “Three days.”
A palpable silence filled the gap between them as the reality of their situation settled in. After a few moments, Liza gently clasped his hand. “Come, let’s go talk in the bedroom. We can be alone in there.”
Henry allowed himself to be led into her flat, keeping a hard stare on the Keeper who remained at the end of the entrance hall, turning his back to the wall and standing guard.
As soon as Liza’s bedroom door slid shut, she swung her arms around Henry’s neck and pressed her lips against his. Henry met her approach with an open mouth, surprised. Liza had never been so explicit in her desire for him. Within seconds, he realized it was really happening. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Perhaps she always did. But knowing it for certain made the moment feel like the first kiss all over again. He leaned into her, and their lips moved flesh to flesh, breath to breath. Then all rhythm disappeared. A frenzy of lustful activity unravelled. Liza pulled at his coat, then his shirt, as he ripped her top off. They hopped on one foot as they hurriedly took their trousers off. Henry tripped as he pulled at his last pant leg, and he fell on top of Liza, forcing them both to collapse onto the bed. The mass of their bodies pressed together caused their skin to pulsate and tingle. Sensations amplified to a fever pitch. Liza’s chest and groin rubbed and pressed into his gyrating body. Her back arched as he pulled her closer. Inside, they were one.
The act was quick. Faster than usual. They both found the end in a rapturous moment of release while squeezing the other in a near suffocating grip. But this was not the end. Henry remained inside, and they wrapped themselves into a ball like snakes entwined and lay together for over an hour, silent, awake.
“Do you trust me?” Henry finally spoke. His chin nestled on top of her head.
“Of course.”
He felt her warm breath against his chest. “There is a way for us to be together. If that is what you want.”
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