Sometimes I felt like a guardian angel.
An angel without wings.
Now, I spent my days concentrating on guiding Mr. Akiya towards Shuijing, with only an outdated map and the coordinates he gave me. Had he veered off course? Was he going in a completely wrong direction?
Did Shuijing City even exist anymore?
But he must have been getting close, because as the days passed, there was more inference on the radio waves, making it harder and harder for me to talk to him.
From what I gathered, he had been severely injured, but he didn't elaborate, so I didn't press.
It wasn't like we were friends, anyway.
Just two lonely souls talking to each other.
"What's going on right now?" I asked. "You need to check in with me every hour or so. Otherwise you might get lost."
"There's a sandstorm right now." Crackling noises. "It's been pretty slow going right now. And I'm going the direction you told me best I can."
"Well, find shelter, can you?" My voice rose. "Didn't your base have any vehicles that you could've taken?"
"No one's used vehicles in a good few decades. At least not while I was—" And he cut himself off.
I rubbed my temples, then my eyes, which hurt from staring at the monitor for so long. "Any landmarks? Any cages?"
"I just told you, there's a sandstorm going on right now. I can't see anything."
"Then find shelter, man! Why are you still walking? With that wound, even!"
Ah…I realized that I had snapped at him. Mr. Akiya stayed silent, and then there was just interference. I leaned back in my chair and swiveled around to face the darkness, closing my eyes. I'd messed up…
What made it so hard for me to deal with people? Was it because I hadn't dealt with a living, breathing person in years?
The last time I had seen my mother and grandmother, they had been standing at the door of the base, silhouetted against the purple twilight.
"Won't you come back with us, Darius dear? Please, now with your father and grandfather gone…"
"I'm not going," I said. Though I did miss them…
"Darius, please…" My mother tried to take my hand, but I slapped it away.
"Darius!" My grandmother looked affronted. "How dare you slap your mother!"
Well, I was already in trouble, so I slammed the door on them, with all the strength my childish body had. And then I slid down to the floor, leaning against the door, listening to my family pound on the door, pleading for me to come out.
Eventually, they must've forgotten that I still lived in the base, because electricity was cut. Or maybe they ran out of resources. Or maybe they were dead.
I still needed electricity to power the monitors and machines, and I definitely needed water, so I went out one night into the town and slipped a letter under one of the doors. I had forgotten where the officials lived, forgotten the layout of the town, forgotten everything.
There were only stars and sand and sky.
No one was allowed to leave the town. To prevent them from doing so they had built tall fences surrounding the town, so that it looked like a birdcage. And we weren't the only town. All the towns within a certain radius from Shuijing had all been subjected to this. This was what I had always known. Ever since I was born.
And guess who gave the order.
I had assumed that Mr. Akiya had had his own personal reasons for wanting to get to Shuijing. A long time back a lot of people had wanted to go, due to lack of oxygen here. Shuijing was a crystal, a diamond, shining in the sand. On sunny days you could see it in the distance, a little star on the edge of the horizon.
Who had ever gone there? Who had ever come back?
All we knew was that it was the place of androids. The place where the High Prince lived.
All alone, all wrapped up in that little glittering bubble there…
And why did Mr. Akiya want to go there? It wasn't like he was going to come back…
No one did.
No, I suppose I was frustrated. He was going there for reasons on his own. I was merely the operator. I wasn't supposed to interfere. I was only supposed to help him.
But why couldn't he have come here instead?
I turned back to the monitor. I would have to call him again once the hour was up…
But little boxes were popping up all over the screen. So rapidly that I couldn't stop them. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Just little boxes filled with text…
The same text, over and over again.
HE MUST DIE.
Was it a glitch? A bug? "No, no, no! Stop!" I cried aloud, frantically pressing keys to no avail. And then the whole screen froze, with a large red ERROR message over it.
I swore, and got up, kicking the chair away from me. Why was this happening? Because the world was mad at me? Because I was mad at the world? It was all I could to stop myself from opening the door and throwing myself into the wind outside to perish.
Who must die?
I must die.
A second before I slammed my fists down on the desk, I stopped myself. No. I mustn't let my emotions get the best of me. I had to do my job. I was the operator, the voice on the radio. The guardian angel.
I had to help Mr. Akiya get to Shuijing City. No matter the reason.
He must not die.
Quick…I had to calm down, get the system back online, contact Mr. Akiya. What would grandfather and father say…?
"Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale. Good. Now sit down, figure out what the problem is. If all else fails, shut down and restart."
So I found my chair and sat back down, turning my eyes back to the numerous blinking screens. It seemed that only the ERROR message was coming from the system itself; the messages were all coming from an outside source.
But which outside source?
Briefly, the text conversation from the other day crossed my mind. But I shook it away.
HE MUST DIE. HE MUST DIE. HE MUST DIE. HE MUST DIE.
Who must die?
HE MUST DIE.
They didn't seem to be coming from any specific program. Just new chat windows, browser windows, all from the outside.
It only took a couple of controls to get rid of the ERROR message. The text boxes though…
Once the ERROR message was gone, the screen unfrozen, no more new text boxes popped up. I could either delete all of these new messages by hand, or I could just shut down the browser and lose the map.
"Just stay right where you are, Mr. Akiya…" I muttered, forcing the browser to shut down. "Thank goodness you have a sandstorm hindering you."
And I sat back and watched the boxes disappear, at first slowly, one by one, then faster, like someone was popping bubbles.
Might as well call him now.
I turned the volume on my headset up. Still just interference. Mr. Akiya had probably shut his radio off. But who could blame him…
"Mr. Akiya." I tried saying something. "Mr. Akiya."
Still just interference.
I hoped he wasn't too mad.
And so I sat there, just a lonely boy in a dark room, repeating some stranger's name every three to five minutes, hoping to hear something besides interference, watching boxes pop like bubbles on all the monitors around me, slowly spinning around in my swivel chair, just slowly, so slowly…
What a pathetic guardian angel.