“What are you doing?” Jeremy demanded.
“Uh, sorry,” I said. “I was curious.”
“Curious about what?” Jeremy asked, agitated. “You don’t know what it is.”
“No, no, no,” I said. “It’s just that I thought…”
I strained to think. This would make the difference between changing the batteries in the gaming controllers or getting carted off to Arby’s.
“…working on a novel,” I said.
He seemed to soften slightly at that. Maybe what worked for Bruce worked for every guy out there.
“Me?” he asked. “I wouldn’t be doing that. No, I’m not talented enough.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’ve tried. I really wanted to. Reading Game of Thrones makes me really want to, you know?”
I sympathetically shook my head. “Mmm hmm.”
He shook his head. “And then I think, what’s the point?”
I nodded. “Self-doubt,” I said. “We all get it.”
“But that’s no reason for you to look at my computer!” he exploded. He rose from his chair and pointed an angry finger at me. “Do you have any idea what damage you could have done? The whole network would have been screwed up!”
Randy rushed in. “What happened?”
“You’re never inviting another girl here. I don’t care how well she cleans the bathroom,” Jeremy announced as he pointed at me. “She was going to take down the Internet.”
I raised an eyebrow and snorted. “I doubt that. No one can take down the Internet.”
“We’re controlling it here,” Randy said. “It fell apart, and now we’re trying to put it back together. We only have small coverage, but it’s making a difference. It’s enough for your phone to find me, anyway.”
I was stunned. This was the new Garden of Eden. Life was starting over here.
“This is huge,” I said. “What are you doing with it? Are there scientists and architects working to rebuild? What happened with the Incident? Do they know what happened? Is there a cure to what’s killed so many people? Can I look up my parents? Marilyn and Steve Sonobe?”
Randy waved his arms at me. “Jeez,” he said. “Take it down a notch, would you?”
Jeremy snorted. “Scientists and architects.”
“We’ve got a network,” Randy said. “We’re in contact with people doing the same thing we are in different parts of the world. Also, Toronto is paying us to keep them connected to the Internet. It’s not much, but it’s keeping the lights on.”
He gave me a goofy grin as if he were bragging about third place in the junior high science fair.
“But we’re not rebuilding anything?” I asked. “Wouldn’t this help rebuild society?
“Rebuild?” he asked as stared at me with confusion. “Rebuild? Everything is here. We’re officially better than everyone else. The way it should be.”
“B-But,” I stammered. “What about things like life and families?”
Randy beamed. “I have a girlfriend in the Philippines. So I’m good.” He tapped an app on his tablet, summoning an anime girl who blew us a kiss.
“Her name is Bernadette,” he said. “She likes carrot cake, the Clone Wars and thigh-high stockings.”
I shook my head. “All of that sounds made up.”
He shoved his tablet in front of my face where an anime girl blew me a kiss. Bernadette was very exotic-looking and wore some kind of uncomfortable-looking black leather boob strap with a matching bikini bottom and platform boots. She was also animated and did some kind of wink face over and over on a loop.
“You know she’s not real, right?”
He gave me a hurt look, as though I told him Attack of the Clones was a much better movie than Empire Strikes Back.
“Of course she’s real,” he said. “Look at her.”
He gestured fiercely at his laptop screen. “She’s looking at us now. Don’t be rude.”
“Randy,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “Look, you’re a cute girl, but this is the love of my life.”
He looked me in the eye and cocked his head to the side in an “I understand” matter. “We’re still friends, right?” he asked.
“At the risk of getting banished to an Arby’s, it makes me wonder if you’ve lost the ability to connect,” I said. “And don’t flatter yourself.”
“Watch,” he said. “I can connect.” He typed in words in a dialogue box. “She’ll respond,” he said. “And if I was such a doubter like you, you would have never been allowed inside this house.”
“When was the last time you’ve been out?” I asked. “I think you’ve all gone stir crazy.”
He shrugged and then clapped with happiness when the laptop made a sound like a door chime.
“See!” he exclaimed. “She responded. Bet you feel silly now. Silly enough to make everyone in this house hot chocolate.”
“She has terrible grammar skills.” I pointed to the screen. “Not to mention the fact I highly doubt she’s spent today in her bikini having fun in the sun, considering it’s a sun that’s probably harmful.”
I grabbed the tablet out of his hand and took a closer look. “She’s also going to get a bitch of a yeast infection from that leather G-string.”
I handed it back to him as he gave me the side eye, so I got up and wandered around the house. I tried to get a look outside, but the boards were nailed in tight over the windows. Downstairs, Jeremy wasn’t at his usual station so I tried the back door.
Just a breath of air, that’s all I wanted, who cares about acid rain. I unlocked the dusty lock and then pulled it open. The sun was going down, so the sky was a myriad of oranges, reds and purples. It was gorgeous, and I breathed in deep to the cool, crisp air, which was amazing at first, but then there was something slightly off putting. There was a slight chemical hint to the air, like maybe there was something being pumped in. Maybe it was the thing making the sky that weird shade of neon purple. I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with the black chemtrails in the sky. I’m not a scientist, so I’m not going to try to have answers to these problems.
I heard the sound of the toilet flush, so I took in my last gulp of free air before quickly and silently shutting the door. I arranged the boards how I found them. I turned slightly, fully expecting to see Jeremy’s wrath, but instead I saw no one. I did hear, however, the sound of a doughy frame of a large man sliding down a wall and then hitting the floor. I followed the sound of that, then turned around to investigate. My search began and ended at the closest bathroom where Jeremy had slid to the floor in a fleshy rumpled heap, completely passed out.
“Jeremy?” I asked as I rushed to his side. I took his hand and patted it. “Jeremy?”
He didn’t stir, but I could see him breathe from the way a Doritos crumb quivered in his moustache.
“Guys?” I called out. I looked out toward the living room where the other two roommates were passed out in front of the massive television.
I ran to the kitchen and poured some water out of the faucet into a Burger King collectible Star Wars glass. The water had that similar brownish tinge of the earlier house, but regardless, a house with power and Wi-Fi had to have safe water, so I rushed it over to Jeremy and splashed it down his hairy face. The moment it hit his skin it sizzled and steamed.