Transient - Complete Book One (Episodes 1 - 4) (Transient Serial) Page 11

  Why do I even care? Rae wondered. I won’t be around to see it.

  She felt like she was wasting time when she had no time. But what was there to do?

  She thought of applying for jobs, but there was no future in that–not to mention that nobody gave Transients jobs. Her parents offered to give her money out of her college fund if she needed cash for going out, only she didn’t want to go out.

  Everything seemed pointless until she stumbled across D-Row -10, a private internet forum for people with less than ten years to live. You had to prove you were Transient to join the site, or even see the discussion threads.

  For a couple of days Rae debated with herself whether or not she cared enough to seek out other Transients, but she had so few friends now, and nobody she knew understood what she was going through.

  At first she was worried it was some kind of scam, maybe an Internet pyramid thing, or a scheme to steal a person’s identity, or maybe even a molester site. It was hard to say what it was to be honest, since the internal discussions of the site were off-limits to the general public.

  But then Rae realized how silly her concerns were. No one wanted to be Transient, not even Transients. No one cared about them either. Transients were tolerated, and usually ignored. The only people who would want to talk to a Transient was a member of that tribe.

  Is there a tribe?

  The idea intrigued her. Maybe Transients around the world would unite and...

  Do what? Die together?

  No the forum was probably just what it said it was: a place to chat among like-minded people, who had the same problems and same concerns, without the rest of the world looking in and judging and trolling.

  Maybe that’s exactly what I need, she thought, and decided to take the plunge.

  There were a couple of things she had to do first to be allowed in, the usual. She registered on the site, and the admin asked her to verify her ID with a passport or driver’s license or birth certificate using one of the standard authorization third-party sites. She took a mobile phone photo of her passport and attached that to her reply email, along with the requested links to her social media, and then she waited.

  Nothing happened for the rest of the day. Rae went to bed that night wondering if she’d made a mistake, if she’d just let herself be scammed by some Russian or Chinese mobster. The idea of sending in your passport photo was hardly foolproof. The only thing that meant was that someone was willing to jump through a couple of hoops in order to sign on to the site.

  And of course the only people who would bother to do so would be Transients.

  But when she woke up the next afternoon—for she had been staying up late and waking up late—Rae had an email in her in-box from the admin who was identified simply by his login ID, Apollo.

  The message was short, and addressed to Sunshine2018 her login name (a nickname plus her death year).

  Welcome to D-Row -10.

  Sorry for all the pseudo-security measures, but this is a club created by and for Transients only. Looking forward to chatting with you.

  Your new best friend (I hope!),

  APOLLO.

  Rae logged onto the Transient's site and saw that‘Apollo’was currently online. It looked like a normal chat room. She decided to dive right in.

  Sunshine2018: Hi...

  APOLLO.: Hey. So glad you made it.

  Sunshine2018: Just checking in.

  APOLLO.: Glad you did.

  Sunshine2018: It's hard to talk to people about this.

  APOLLO.: I know, that's why I started the group.

  Sunshine2018: How many members?

  APOLLO.: On the forum? Only seventeen right now. I'm still getting the word out. I'm the only one online now. And you, of course.

  Sunshine2018: Oh. I was imagining a world-wide network of Transients. LOL

  APOLLO.: Me too. Step one is imagining. Step two is working toward the dream. I'm on step two now.

  Sunshine2018: I just took my cryptograph last month.

  APOLLO.: I'm sorry. You're still dealing with this, then. It takes a while. I've got so many feelings running through me since, I don't know how to deal with them sometimes. Coding helps.

  Sunshine2018: You're a programmer?

  APOLLO.: Oh yeah. Hacker from way back. I'm still a high school kid.

  Sunshine2018: I dropped out.

  APOLLO.: Me too. I meant high school age. I stuck with it for a little while after my test. Three months, but just couldn't take it anymore. I've been out for almost two now, but I keep thinking of myself as a high school kid still. But I'm not. I guess I'm an adult now. But I'm not that either. It's weird.

  Sunshine2018: Yeah.

  APOLLO.: I see your D-Row -2.

  Sunshine2018: Yep. My expiry date is 2018.

  APOLLO.: Me, too.

  Sunshine2018: Really?

  APOLLO.: Don't call it that, okay?

  Sunshine2018: What?

  APOLLO.: DR-4. Expiry date. That's Constant language.

  Sunshine2018: Constant language? Love it.

  APOLLO.: Don't let them label you is all I'm saying. Expiry date = sucky language. Don't buy into that.

  Sunshine2018: But you called this D-Row -10?

  APOLLO.: Got me there, but I had to call it something, so people knew what it was and how to find it. Inside, we can call ourselves whatever we want. BTW, I'm 2018 too. That's what I was trying to say.

  Sunshine2018: I'm sixteen.

  APOLLO.: I'm sixteen months - older than that.

  Sunshine2018: How do you…?

  APOLLO.: Passport.

  Sunshine2018: Duh. So you know my name and everything, then.

  APOLLO.: Yeah.

  Sunshine2018: But I don't know yours…

  APOLLO.: You will. Maybe.

  Sunshine2018: Why maybe?

  APOLLO.: It takes a while to earn trust. I don't trust people. Nothing against you, but I've got lots of people who don't like me.

  Sunshine2018: Me too.

  APOLLO.: No I mean people who want to do me harm. Like serious shit.

  Sunshine2018: Paranoid much?

  APOLLO.: Always. Hacker genes I guess.

  Sunshine2018: Oh, right.

  APOLLO.: And this site. It's got kickass security. Away from prying eyes and all that. It's not impenetrable, but it's tight. And if the overlords ever wanted to be afraid of Transients, I'm the one they'll hit first.

  Sunshine2018: You sound like a guy.

  APOLLO.: I am!

  Sunshine2018: Hah. Not as dumb as I type, huh?

  APOLLO.: You're straight-A.

  Sunshine2018: Was.

  Sunshine2018: Wait are you guessing or...

  APOLLO.: Hacker.

  Sunshine2018: Right. Hacker. Stalker.

  APOLLO.: Paranoid. But you don't have to be afraid of me.

  Sunshine2018: How scary are you?

  APOLLO.: Transient. Scary enough. People think they're gonna catch it from me or something. Like I'm a pariah.

  Sunshine2018: Exactly!

  APOLLO.: You know what I'm saying?

  Sunshine2018: I know exactly what you're saying. Pariah. The way people look at you, stare at you, whisper behind your back.

  APOLLO.: It's hard to go out into public anymore.

  Sunshine2018: I've been hiding in my room.

  APOLLO.: Me too.

  Sunshine2018: You're in my room???

  APOLLO.: You're funny.

  Sunshine2018: Funny looking yeah.

  APOLLO.: You forget; I've seen your picture….

  Sunshine2018: What are you saying?

  APOLLO.: You need a new passport photo.

  Sunshine2018: Thanks. I guess. And a new yearbook photo too, right?

  APOLLO.: Hell no. Never again. No more yearbook photos evah…

  Sunshine2018: LOL

  Sunshine2018: One of the good things I guess.

  Sunshine2018: And homework, goodbye.

  Sunshine2018: But now what is my dog
going to eat?☺

  Sunshine2018: Hello?

  Sunshine2018: Is this thing working?

  APOLLO.: Sorry, I'm back. Had to step away for a bit.

  Sunshine2018: Warn me next time.

  APOLLO.: There's something you should know though.

  Sunshine2018: Okay.

  APOLLO.: About me.

  Sunshine2018: Waiting...

  APOLLO.: My expiration date is February 13, 2018.

  Sunshine2018: Weird. Mine too.

  APOLLO.: I know. For some reason, I didn't even check the date until just now.

  Sunshine2018: Crazy coincidence.

  Sunshine2018: I mean; this isn't a joke or something, right, because that's just weird. Odd. As in not funny.

  APOLLO.: No joke.

  Sunshine2018: Well if you're lying just to get into my pants...

  Sunshine2018: See, that was a joke.

  Sunshine2018: Because I'm not wearing pants.

  Sunshine2018: ???

  APOLLO.: You’re the third one.

  Sunshine2018: Third what?

  APOLLO.: February 13, 2013. You, me and Halldor.

  Sunshine2018: Halldor?

  APOLLO.: Another member of the club. His handle is HAL2001.

  Sunshine2018: Then maybe it's not a coincidence?

  Sunshine2018: ???

  Sunshine2018: ??????????

  APOLLO.: It's not a coincidence.

  Sunshine2018: Okay…

  Sunshine2018: Explanation?

  APOLLO.: Thinking.

  Sunshine2018: No ideas?

  APOLLO.: None I’m ready to commit to just yet.

  Sunshine2018: Not asking for a commitment. We just met, remember?

  APOLLO.: LOL

  APOLLO.: There’s just a lot that doesn’t make sense.

  Sunshine2018: About life?

  APOLLO.: About the cryptograph.

  Sunshine2018: Yeah.

  APOLLO.: Noticed that, did you?

  Sunshine2018: Oh, yeah.

  APOLLO.: And?

  Sunshine2018: And what?

  APOLLO.: The cryptograph doesn’t make sense.

  Sunshine2018: How so?

  APOLLO.: The system. The predictions. The certainty.

  Sunshine2018: Of course we don’t like it. We’re Transients. Someone has to get the short end of the stick.

  APOLLO.: I bet I can tell you something about you that you haven’t told me yet, that I can’t find on your ID.

  Sunshine2018: Okay…

  APOLLO.: Your lifespan test had a date, but no cause of death?

  Sunshine2018: How did you…?

  APOLLO.: Just a guess.

  Sunshine2018: You too?

  APOLLO.: And Halldor.

  Sunshine2018: Um, wow.

  APOLLO.: What are you thinking?

  Sunshine2018: That is a coincidence.

  APOLLO.: Not a coincidence.

  Sunshine2018: Mistake, then.

  APOLLO.: The system makes mistakes?

  Sunshine2018: Everyone makes mistakes.

  APOLLO.: Not the cryptograph. It’s 100% accurate. Right?

  Sunshine2018: So they say.

  APOLLO.: So they say, indeed.

  Sunshine2018: What are you thinking?

  APOLLO.: Sometimes it’s good to be paranoid.

  Chapter 1 2

  Weeks and months passed, and more Transients joined the private online club.

  Rae helped welcome them in. She and Apollo had struck up a close friendship of sorts and he had given her limited admin rights. She did the pre-screening for applicants, who were now arriving at a rate of five or six a day. Apollo was busy doing other things—what Rae didn’t know—and he greatly appreciated her stepping in to shoulder some of the responsibilities for running the chat room and forum.

  Rae had lots of new ideas for what to do with the forum, and Apollo implemented many of them, especially when it came to how best to organize the rooms and discussions. Once the membership grew to a few hundred, organization became a key ingredient to keeping everyone happy, and the discussions flowing.

  There were now folders and threads dedicated to relationships, school life, dealing with parents and family, as well as finding resources like therapists and doctors and religious leaders of various traditions.

  The membership now seemed to have spread over most developed countries.

  The U.S. had the most members by far, almost half. That was partly because of population but mostly because the cryptograph was fully implemented and mandatory in the U.S. while in some countries it was brand new and often still voluntary.

  Especially in the third world and some of the Middle Eastern countries in the midst of violent conflict. In states with weak governments or outright anarchy, there was only a meager adoption of the test, though it was now available at least in theory, to anyone on the planet. The United Nations for its part was pushing the cryptograph to third world and otherwise reluctant nations, most of which were more concerned with the cost of the test than with its social or economic implications.

  Most important for Rae, she was making friends again. Especially with the Thirteens, her label for the other kids who were scheduled to die on the very same date at her.

  It was a statistically significant number now, more than twenty-five kids and growing every week. Something close to eight percent of the D-Row -10 forum was determined to die on the very same day.

  This troubled everyone.

  Many threads were dedicated to theories about why this might be so. The most popular idea was that the creation and existence of the private forum was what would end up killing them. The most paranoid members of the group, including Apollo himself, believed that somehow the government would come after the site’s members, and in some way execute them or perhaps there would be a terrible accident in which they would all take part.

  But even Apollo didn’t understand why the government would want to target them, or even bother. They were just kids chatting away online, talking amongst themselves, and not bothering anyone else.

  What did it matter if a bunch of Transients wanted to find friends online? It was only natural that they would seek out others of their kind, and form bonds and friendships and rivalries and in-groups like any other such cluster of people.

  As the debates raged on, there were no answers and the arguments grew increasingly circular, and sometimes nasty, as often happened online.

  Rae, as moderator, had to step in and let cooler heads prevail, or shut down some discussions if they got too mean and personal. All of the kids in the club—and they were all kids, none of them over eighteen—were wounded souls, easy to hurt, and quick to lash out in self-defense against perceived injustices, which were bad enough in the real world and even more hurtful in this, their one place of refuge.

  Several new members became close online friends. Besides Apollo there was Danielle Joffrin, Benny Chow, and Halldor Bragason.

  Apollo had mentioned Halldor on Rae’s first day in the group. He was from Iceland, and had a biting sarcastic wit to his profile that never failed to amuse Rae. Like his country, he seemed a little cold at times. He was an engineering student or planned to be. His father and mother were both engineers, and he had picked up their gifts from an early age. He loved mechanical engineering more than anything. Vehicles fascinated him. Not just cars and planes, but high-speed rail and space vehicles and anything that could be constructed into a complex system. It was complexity that fascinated him most, and he saw everything as a puzzle to be analyzed, taken apart, rebuilt. Even people.

  He tried deconstructing people online, but his results were more often humorous than insightful, and frequently the subject of his barbs were wounded deeply and Rae had to put him in his place, sometimes freezing him out of discussions completely and making sure he didn’t interact with certain members who felt they had been slighted.

  But Rae knew he didn’t mean anything by it. He was just a kid who lived too much in his own head, and didn’t kno
w enough about empathy to understand how he came across. Still she considered him one of her best friends.

  Danielle Joffrin was French, from just outside Marseille. She was the youngest in the group having been tested at fourteen. Apparently that was something they did in France, starting the kids at a younger age than Americans. It was still mandatory to get tested by sixteen, but many parents opted to test their kids two years early, which was something no American lawmaker could tolerate.

  It wasn’t that the test was less reliable at that age, but in America the feeling was that younger kids should be allowed to enjoy their childhoods without the burden of their own mortality thrust upon them. It raised the question of whether or not the cryptograph could be successfully given at birth, or even in the womb, but not even the French would go along with that idea. For them the test was optional at fourteen and mandatory at sixteen. So Danielle while not the youngest in the club, was the youngest in the immediate circle of Rae’s close friends.

  The other, Benny Chow was Chinese from Hong Kong and the oldest of the tight circle of online friends, almost eighteen. He was an artist, skilled in painting but interested also in sculpture and glass and other forms of creative expression. He was somewhat reserved, thinking more in pictures than in words.

  Growing up in Hong Kong, his English was as good as anyone’s but Rae always imagined him talking with a British accent. She hadn’t heard him speak, but had seen pictures of him at art exhibitions in Asia and Europe. His work was much discussed in certain circles, and since his cryptograph, he had only become more popular. This was for two reasons. Firstly, he became much more prolific and experimental. With only two more years to live, he threw everything into his work and tried hard to explore new ground, come up with ideas, ways to express himself. Like all transients, Benny was conflicted and rode waves of emotion from day to day. But unlike most, he did not mind the ostracism that came from being transient, because he could bury himself in his small Hong Kong studio and just paint, splashing his feelings onto canvas with great abandon.

  The second reason that Benny Chow’s artwork became popular was his imminent demise. Death had a well-established reputation for increasing the value of an artist’s work. The trouble with that though was that art collectors never knew when an artist might die, or how the market would react. If a collector knew for example that Van Gogh would die next year, he could corner the market on the artists’work at a cheap price, and then sell after the artists’death, making a huge profit. In past decades, it was rumored artists had even been killed to manipulate the market in their works. Now that wasn’t necessary. Everyone knew when Benny Chow was scheduled to die. He only had two more years, which meant only two more years of creating new works, and with every passing month his new material became more valuable.