AARON: Hey, are you online?
D1V: I’m always online.
AARON: Oh, cool.
D1V: Hello?
D1V: Aaron? Mr. Day One?
AARON: Hey! Sorry, parents. Are we still doing some exploring?
D1V: Sure. I won’t be videoing this one though. Just grinding. No one cares about that.
D1V: ?
D1V: Are you even there?
AARON: Yes! Hey! Sorry, yeah. Parents again. I’m in, obviously.
D1V: What’s their deal?
AARON: Parents? Mom’s a doctor, dad runs the practice office. Trying desperately to get me to take over.
D1V: Wow. Cliché much?
AARON: Tell me about it. Mom has me running the office for the summer, but I guess... I don’t entirely mind it.
D1V: Oh?
AARON: Dad didn’t have it easy when he moved to the States. He’s in his 40s but he might as well be 60.
D1V: Ah.
AARON: Yeah.
AARON: Heavy stuff for a video game chat, right?
AARON: I promise to be all about resources, crystals, and building materials from now on.
D1V: No, no. It’s nice. I don’t get out much these days.
AARON: No? I feel like you must be popular, what with the video channel and all.
D1V: Hah! Right. Popular.
D1V: When you spend all your time trying to support your family and save for college...
D1V: Well, the offline world sort of fades away.
AARON: Wow we are GOOD at lighthearted chats.
Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application
D1V: Up for some grinding?
AARON: Hey! Yeah, I’m around. Are you always up this late?
D1V: It’s late?
D1V: It’s like 10PM how old are you?
AARON: I’m more of a morning person!
D1V: Why don’t you pop on a VR set this time? It’s cool when you’re with someone in that.
AARON: Ah, sorry, I don’t have one.
D1V: Really? I thought with the game development stuff you’d be all over that.
AARON: Eh, it doesn’t really pay that much? Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day.
AARON: The only reason I can game on a PC is because I built the thing out of parts I found.
D1V: Found?
AARON: In the garbage. We live in kind of a wealthy area. What about you?
D1V: Not wealthy.
AARON: Are you on the East Coast too?
D1V: Let’s talk about something else.
AARON: Oh. Sorry.
D1V: I’m just careful about what I dish out, that’s all. You didn’t do anything wrong.
D1V: Aaron?
D1V: Still there?
AARON: Yeah sorry, I’m ready! Let’s go.
7
DIVYA
I walk down the PATH station stairs, the steps shockingly long and diving deep into the ground, to make my way from Jersey City to Hoboken. The walls are lined with a cream ceramic tile that they somehow manage to keep clean, despite the grit of the train tracks and underground tunnels right at the end of all this. People make their way up and down the escalators, walking, running, even skipping steps, super busy for no real reason. You could just stand there and let it take you, but instead, everyone rushes to save those extra thirty seconds.
I take the stairs to avoid it all.
It’s easy to get lost while weaving in and out of the small sea of people—though it’s better than the oceans of people that fill the area on the weekends, and during the morning and late-afternoon work rush. I adjust my hoodie as the crowds surround me, as if someone might spot me. But that’s just it—no one knows who I am. No one cares, outside of gaming.
Here, I’m safe. I’m not an avatar, a social media profile people can target.
I think about that email from the Vox Populi. The photo of my address. I wonder if whoever sent it actually saw me going home one day, or if they just took a screenshot using Google Maps, figuring out my address the way just about any half-decent hacker can using the Internet. My mind drifts to Aaron, and how unfair it is that he just gets to be himself in those public online spaces. He lists his town, his birthday, even his last name on his profile.
Hell, his friends even have his password.
I tug my hoodie a little closer as I hustle through the turnstile and make my way to a waiting train, the door closing with a friendly chime behind me as I enter the air-conditioned space. I grab hold of one of the poles in the train car and hold on tight to the cool metal as the PATH lurches forward, making its weaving way through the New Jersey cities.
My phone buzzes.
RECLAIM THE SUN: CHAT APPLICATION
AARON: Hey, sorry if I made things weird last night.
AARON: I get it, the privacy stuff. I do.
AARON: So basically, my parents aren’t super psyched about my life choices? The games?
AARON: I built my computer. Most of it, at least. From things in the trash.
AARON: My family doesn’t live too far from universities here in Philadelphia, so I dumpster dive sometimes.
AARON: My pals all call it my Frankenstein computer.
AARON: But it’s Frankenstein’s monster, actually.
AARON: Please imagine that being said in a very pretentious literary voice.
AARON: Anyhow, that’s my story, and you don’t have to share yours. I just hope it makes you laugh.
AARON: Or something.
I smile.
It does.
And I almost miss my stop, talking to him.
* * *
Rebekah charges at me before I even have a chance to sit down, wrapping her arms around my torso and squeezing the hell out of me. I think I feel my ribs shifting inside my chest.
“I’m...happy to see...you, too...” I groan out, and she lets me go, hopping back into her desk chair, the black seat spinning around a full rotation before she stops and faces me, her eyes totally alight. She runs a finger along the side of her head, fixing a rebellious lock of her mostly short hair, the right side a little longer than the once-buzzed left. The blood orange color is a deeper shade today than it was the last time we were on the stream together, and her small apartment smells faintly of hair dye.
“This. Footage. Divya,” she says, a beat between each word. “I can’t even handle it. The amount of people emailing about it... I’m so glad you thought to start recording. Discovering that Easter egg, where people can duel over a planet...” She balls her fists together, shaking them. “Who cares about the trolls from the other day? This video is going to be everywhere.”