The greenery seemed to move like carnivorous plants. Roots and vines from the climbing plants covered all the spaces between the tree trunks. Just like the electrical cables, she thought. An inscrutable hum of white noise was heard. No animal sounds could be discerned, but it seemed that the flora breathed in an unbearable noise. A noise, just like the traffic and electronics that poured over Gothenburg like the moisture in a rainforest. It preyed on the population without creating any expressions in their faces. They were getting used to the sounds of the city, as did she.
But now that she was stuck, almost wrapped in the plants, she panicked. She pulled the blade and cut herself free from the claustrophobic vegetation. No sunlight seemed to reach the ground, so she oriented her way with her bare feet. Blindly, she used her katana sword like a machete. Her mind raced like she was drunk. Where was she? How had she gotten there? But above all: how the hell was she going to get out of there? The plants cut into her skin, right down to the metal, and blood smeared along with moisture and sweat. Suddenly she fell through a bush and was blinded by the TV noise of the gray sky. Soft grass. Huge machines were raised from the lawn and sprayed water in trails of mist around them. She thought they resembled drones. The kind used by the corporate elite for their synthetic grass. Not because the grass needed water, but because it looked like it needed water.
She looked behind her. A wall of rainforest swallowed by the low clouds.
“You’re not supposed to go in there”, a male voice told her.
She couldn’t place its origin spatially, so she stood up and was surprised that no one was there. Just a field of grass and fog. But people could be heard, so she kept walking. Her feet stopped on asphalt. Hot as a summer’s day, they burned. She looked at them. Did she forget her shoes? A girl’s feet stepped in front of hers.
“My!” a female voice called suddenly.
“Right… My,” she thought. “That’s my name. How could I forget?”. The girl licked her gooey soft-serve ice cream and a mother came and grabbed her arm.
“You shouldn’t go so close My”.
The mother stopped. Looked at the bloody cyborg standing before her. The left eye was broken, blinking as if there were loose wires. The skin was torn and showed the inseparability between the organic and the digital. The mother’s gaze was as if swallowed by the sight. What was under the surface would never under any circumstances be revealed.
“Come, let’s go”, said the mother and dragged the child along with her eyes fixed on My.
It wasn’t until then that she realized it was a park she found herself in. She sighed with relief and laughed to herself. How could she be so stupid? There are no more rainforests. That’s when she woke up.
The screensaver sailed on the blank screen as if it were a computer from the 90s. She was slumped over on the couch and the incense on the table had burned up. The orange lights from outside poured in from the window as if it were a neon sign. Her back ached and she stood up. Rolled a joint and lit up as she went to the fridge. She took a glass from the sink and poured oat milk. Went back to her room and sat down at the computer. Entered the password and checked her email while drinking the oat milk with the same hand she held the joint. She ran the encryption in her program and plugged her personal link into the digital machine. A voice said inside her head:
“Hey! My! I have caught the virus that was requested. It is embedded in a chip. Come and get it as soon as you can. You don’t have to do this. There is still time to withdraw”.
My leaned back in her chair and put one foot on the desk as she smoked.
“I will not withdraw from Roland. I’ll meet you at work before you open”.
She turned off the computer. Transferred the bitcoins to the laundry so the money would be reasonably available until Roland sat in his office. She put out the joint and felt the effects of THC and CBD color her consciousness’ screen brown, pixel by pixel. The backpack hung next to her transparent rain jacket. She checked it and made sure nothing was missing. Retrieved the sword that was lying on the table in front of the sofa and fastened it with the buckle of her backpack. She put on her magenta Dr. Martens and pulled on the jacket. Tossed the backpack over one shoulder and lit a cigarette after putting on the sunglasses.
The early morning was black as the abyss above all the screens of the streets. The commercials were reflected in the wet asphalt. There hadn’t been a single day without rain in two years. Gothenburg’s harbor was covered in tens of meters of high walls so as not to drown the city. She walked from Biskopsgården, over the new Älvsborg’s Bridge and stopped to look out at the sea. The water was the color of petroleum and danced in digital patterns not far below My, where she stood in the middle of it all. The cars whizzed past her. She missed seeing the starry sky and all the space junk reflected in the sunlight like satellites. Not even the airplanes were visible, though the steady noise from their engines pushed down towards the earth.
She continued her way towards Majorna and stepped into a street where neon-like screens could not be seen. Not far from there was Roland’s shop. He sold old synths and other equipment to the wealthy sats who could afford to pay for the equipment that Roland cobbled together from materials from the dump. Of course there were computers that could produce identical sounds, but there was something special about owning your very own Moog, or Korg. Not because the product was genuine; Roland managed to throw together good instruments, but he never claimed that they had any origins in the 80s. They were at best copies of copies of an original, but even he couldn’t fool anyone that there was any pedigree. Even the original was now a copy. When Roland arrived, My flicked the cigarette she had in her mouth and greeted with a narrow smile. He had his big 80s glasses, an umbrella and a cap that hid the hair that had disappeared on his head. My wondered when he was going to implant synthetic hair, but she didn’t really dare to ask. It’s no big deal anyhow, she thought. But others weren’t as open as her with all the parts implanted under the skin.
“The money is coming in. It shouldn’t take more than a minute”, she said at the same time as Roland looked for the right key to the business door.
They stepped in and shook off all the rain. Roland sat down on the chair in his office and beckoned My who was trudging along.
“Okay”, he said. “Here you have it”.
Out of nowhere he put a chip on the table.
“Be careful because there will be houses in hell all over the Nordics if you do this. Mother Co. is a giant. If you mess with them, you will have to change your identity and flee Europe”.
“I know what I’m doing”, she said and crinkled her nose snarly. “Don’t worry. I was born from a womb, so I lack an identity already as it is”.
“On the contrary. You are still on the state register. Don’t underestimate them. I can’t afford having to deal with anything of this. Okay? I’m not being paranoid, just cautious”.
“The state is a residual product of our past. Trust me, no one will be able to direct this to you. You are just the middle man. When this is done you won’t see me again. I’ll be gone like a ghost”.
“When are you planning on doing this?”.
My put the chip inside her reader. It stung like the come up of a stimulant.
“Tonight”.