Colored Rain

Morning sunlight poured through the floor to ceiling windows, striping the room in a burning orange. The hanging blinds, made of alternating exotic woods, rung with dull, pleasing clunks as the cat, Oscar, brushed past. He stretched as he found the perfect spot, and then flopped over, landing in the middle of the largest, warmest beam of light. His purple and black fur eased out and then contracted as he purred in contentment.

Of course Oscar wasn’t a real cat, he was designed, by Francis. Francis had also designed the wooden blinds, the kitchen table, and the lounge he had fallen asleep upon last night. All three had become quite popular after publishing, his inbox was always full of compliments and suggestions. He lifted the book off his chest, another story of aliens, space ships, and far off galaxies, his favorite. He stretched and stood, taking staggered steps off the lounge and into the kitchen. Oscar noticed him awake and hopped onto the table, eager for attention. Oscar was nowhere near as popular as his furniture designs, his odd colors being the only remarkable trait he had. In every other manner, Oscar was a normal, long haired Persian who enjoyed cuddles.

“Perhaps I should have given you wings, or two tails, huh?” Francis asked his cat as he picked him up. Francis buried his face and hands into the deep, soft fur as the sleepiness faded away. Oscar purred.

A notification popped up in front of Francis, floating like arcs of light in the air. Francis smiled, it was Sari, she wanted to walk through the city together. It was the first Tuesday, both his and her favorite day of the month. The day when the city remodeled itself, changing and twisting into something new and exciting. Francis messaged her back with his implant, setting Oscar down and changed his clothes. What would the city be this month? What should he wear? He scrolled through the online shop as he ambled towards the exit. Large ball gowns and a fairy costume were the most popular. Medieval? Interesting. He didn’t want to change his gender today, and he doubted he’d look any good in the fairy or dress costumes as he was, his body was the wrong shape for it. He could change that too, but instead he went with the boring option. A pair of old fashioned jeans, a hoodie, and some sunglasses. Classic, outdated by a few centuries, but comfortable.

Francis waited for a moment for the door to turn green, then stepped outside and into the dazzling morning light. He had expected Sari, the short, shy girl of middle-eastern descent to be waiting for him, but instead, there was a large, black, bear.

“Sari?”

The bear looked over, stood on its hind legs, and waved.

Francis smiled as he shook his head. She used to go about as a robot a few years back. Then it was a stunning beauty, a tall powerful man, and then she was herself. Bored with the artificial shapes, she had appeared as she always had before, a short, brown skinned girl with an infectious grin.

“You’re taller than me again? Does being short bother you that much?”

Sari, the bear, huffed out a great snort, as text arrived in his implant.

“And look at you, same boring outfit, same boring shape. I just wanted something new, thought the fur would match the new city look.”

And match it did. The scenery wasn’t medieval as Francis had expected, instead it was a lush garden, filled with butterflies and bluejays, roses and robins. The building he had walked out of was now a hedge, tall, imposing, and beautiful, a cute round door marking the entrance into his home. Rain was falling. A shimmering, multicolored dousing that seemed to electrify the enormous trees and flowers as the droplets landed, neither he nor Sari became wet.

“This is a good one,” Francis muttered.

The bear nodded. “It’s nice, the last few were pretty cool, I liked the tech one a while back, but it’s been ages since we had a nature theme!”

“Yeah, wanna explore?”

Sari nodded again, and dropped down onto all fours, sending a shiver through the grassy earth. Other animals, based on both real and imaginary, darted along other pathways. People too, dressed in wonderful, stylish costumes passed in and out of sight. The two friends found an empty path, and set off, disappearing behind hedges and gardens that seemed to reach into the sky. They spent a few hours watching bugs and worms wiggle through the dark soil, smelling the flowers, and chasing squirrels who managed to always stay one step ahead.

The two made their way to a hill that sat in the middle of the city for breakfast. It wasn’t a very tall mound of earth, but it always gave the best view, and many times, had the best attractions. This time was no different. A massive tree reached up into the sky, its branches reaching over the city. The massive limbs held small, white leaves that cast prismatic shadows onto the world below. Numerous restaurants and cafes circled the wide hill. The two found an empty table and sat, looking up in awe, and placed an order with the waiter. Food was quick, instant, as it always had been. The waiter would arrive, you described what you wanted, and it would be in front of you as your last syllable fell.

A colorful sundae, topped with cherries and chocolate syrup sat in front of Francis, a massive steak sat in front of Sari.

“You don’t have to eat meat because you’re a bear,” Francis giggled at the beast as it began gnawing and tearing at the giant slab of meat.

“Shush, you keep to your sundae you boring, boring man. Today, I am a bear.”

That only made him giggle more. He took the spoon and dug into the wonderfully creamy dessert, and ate his sweet breakfast. They say that long ago, someone took a scan of the best foods, of the best ingredient, made by the best chefs, and uploaded them so everyone could enjoy it. Indeed, neither Francis nor Sari had ever eaten anything rotten, or badly cooked, or otherwise imperfect. Sari had ordered a pile of bolts one time, during her robot phase. “Greasy bolts,” she had requested, and greasy bolts was what she got. Even in her strange inhuman form I could see the distaste on the first bite. She called back the waiter, and requested the bolts taste and chew like chocolate. The waiter nodded, and left, the job already done at her word.

Everything you could ever want was a single gesture or hand wave away. The waiters were robots, real robots. Similar mechanical beings tended to the infrastructure, the food supply, and the everyday going ons the humans required. Many were far out of sight, somewhere outside the city walls. Most humans didn’t care. Arts and fashion dominated the culture, with every person a designer, a painter, a poet.

Francis sat back, feeling content as Sari ordered another two steaks. She wouldn’t feel any more full after her first meal, but the flavors and textures were there, same as the first. Francis sometimes wished they’d add some bit of randomness to the food; every sundae, steak, and snack was the same as the one before, perfect.

Francis began drawing above the table with a pen that drew with starlight. The shapes twinkled and glowed in the air beneath his pen, forming a wonderful pattern of ivy, flowers, and birds.

“You really like this theme, huh?” said Sari, through her third steak.

Francis nodded. “It’s beautiful. I like watching the sun through the leaves, and I like the bugs and small animals as they explore.”

Sari nodded back, somehow looking thoughtful despite her shape. “I wish I could see real animals, not these… fakes.” She waved her massive paw at a passing squirrel, it barked at her and scampered away in response.

“Ha! Good luck with that!”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, I know, but…” Francis trailed off, unsure of how to tackle the subject. It wasn’t a secret, everyone knew. But it was in bad taste to speak of it.

“Yeah.” Sari didn’t need an explanation. As everyone else knew, so did she.

“Come on,” said Francis, “I just checked the map, they have a fair set up on the other side of the hill.”

“No! No peeking!” Sari hated having the surprise ruined, she preferred to explore and find every little thing the city offered before it changed the following month. She got up anyways and followed him, a faint smile wrapped over the bear’s muzzle.

The fair had games and prizes, most digital, but a few real. The real prizes were the true goals for anyone in the city. They couldn’t be altered, and they couldn’t be replicated. Well, they could, but it wasn’t the same. When Francis reached out and touched the bear that was Sari, he felt fur, he felt resistance, he felt a subtle warmth flowing through his fingers. But he knew that was all the implant. It told his arm to stop, it told him she was soft, it told him the air was perfumed and his sundae was tasty. The stuffed bear, currently in Sari’s claws, was real.

Francis saw it a few feet up and out, as the giant claws gripped the little plush, but the real stuffed bear, was somewhere in Sari’s real hands. There was a tinkle as the bear shrunk, morphed, and lightened. The coal black fur became long black hair, perfect brown skin, and a smile that took up her entire face. If she was going to have something real, then what was the point of viewing it up in the air, through her implant? Might as well revert to her original body, and view it for real.

“Wow,” she whispered, “it’s so…”

It was imperfect. It had a few awkward stitches, slightly skewed eyes, an ear that was a bit too stuffed. When one views only perfection their entire life, it’s easy to spot the little changes, the little errors.

“Come on,” Francis took a step away from the fair, “let’s get something to eat.”

It had taken all day to win the bear, it was truly a rare prize. The sun began to set, and the two found a table that overlooked the city, the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the setting sun beyond. Sari hugged and petted the stuffed bear as the food appeared. A shepherds pie for Francis, a currywurst for Sari, perfect, as always.

“Happy?” Francis asked between bites.

“Yeah!” She held the bear under one arm, and began digging into the sausage.

A sudden wave passed over the city, a shake in the earth, then the sky. A shout sounded out, not outside, but into their heads.

“It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s-”

The world flickered for a brief moment, and then the garden faded away. The grass, the massive tree, the flowers and animals all dissipated, replaced by dull beige buildings, towers, antennas. The distant mountains became blasted and terrible, cutting upwards to a smoldering red sunset.

“Dammit.” Francis spoke. The shepherds pie had transformed into a small, plastic sack, filled with bland, unappetizing paste. His hands, knuckles swollen, fingers gripping like claws, held onto the bag instead of his spoon. The implant had made him think he was moving, chewing, tasting, but instead he was just squeezing away at the packet of tasteless goo. The robots remained the same, dirtier, scuffed, but the humans changed as much as the city.

Francis looked up towards Sari. She still clutched the real stuffed bear under one arm, but like him, she now had the bland meal packet to her lips. Her skin was pale, her hair, patchy and thin. She was nude, as was everyone, her ribs visible under her wasted breasts. Her eyes caught his, and then darted away. He appeared the same as she did, he knew it. With the implant, he felt strong, virile, happy and pain free, but right now? He could feel his body, he could feel the joints scream with pain at every movement, he could feel the cool concrete bench hurting his bony ass. He felt so weak, so pathetic. They were both in their thirties, but the Earth couldn’t accommodate them anymore.

Another wave shuddered through the air, and the lush world faded back.

The surrounding people didn’t speak for some time, neither did Sari or Francis. The echoes of birdsong and gusts of wind in the leaves were the only sound in the city. Everyone knew what the world looked like, everyone knew the reality. Everyone wished they didn’t.

“Fucking religious nuts,” said Francis, cutting into his pie. He shoved a large scoop into his mouth, attempting to wash away the blandness of the paste. “They just have to rain on everyone else’s parade, don’t they?”

Sari didn’t answer. She stared at the currywurst, then the bear.

“Sari”

She dropped her utensils, and pet the bear, looking at the fur, how it deformed.

“Sari?”

She touched the bear to the currwurst, sauce lingered on its nose, she stared at the splotch.

“Sari!” Francis shouted.

She jumped. “What? What do you want?” Her eyebrows knit into a point, staring at him in fury.

“I just wanted to see if you’re okay, with those nutjobs shutting off the system and everything.”

Sari relaxed her eyebrows and looked back at her bear. “Are they nutjobs?” she whispered.

Francis rolled his eyes. “Yes, obviously yes. Some people just can’t accept a good thing when they have it. We can’t roll back time, we can’t fix the world, and we can’t just go out into the wastes, we’d die.”

“Is this living? Real living?”

Francis groaned. He knew she had been acting weird lately, this attack couldn’t have come at a worse time. “Sari, I’m real, you’re real. You are my best friend, isn’t our friendship real?”

Sari stared at the bear. “I’ll never have kids. I’ll never be close to you.” She glanced up, looking deep into Francis’s eyes.

Francis blushed. He knew what she meant. “I mean, if you want to go to a private room, I wouldn’t say no…”

“No! You know what I mean! Not the fake kind, not the one where you think it’s happening, but actually… you know!” Her hands fluttered with expression, waving about in the air.

“Sari, you know we can’t, our bodies, our real bodies…”

“That’s what I mean! I’m… did you see me? Did you see what I look like?”

Francis frowned. It had been decades since either had seen or felt their true bodies, not since they were kids. The projection they felt now was an optimum version, based on their DNA. His true body felt terrible, it looked terrible, so had Sari’s. The only way anyone could have a child now was through artificial wombs. Some women would even modify their body to appear pregnant as they waited.

“Haaa, I’ve come to terms with that a long time ago.” Francis looked at his hand as he clenched and straightened his fingers. Perfect, dexterous, unlike the knobby claws he had seen a moment ago. “What’s the point in living if it’s hell?”

Sari shot to her feet, gripping the bear tightly. “What’s the point of living if it’s all fake!” she shouted, before stalking off.

Francis stayed put, unwilling to follow. He tried to eat more, but he had already lost his appetite. The sunset was in its last stages, a small red flare peeking over the mountains. As it slipped away, the gardens around the city began to glow. Flowers bloomed with light, fireflies lifted up, and small lanterns floated overhead, dusting the world with tiny motes of light. Laughter punctuated the conversations that began to spring up. ‘Oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ of wonder sounded as the inhabitants of city 17 went about their evenings as if nothing had happened.

Francis walked home, alone, and threw himself onto his lounge sofa when he got there. Oscar jumped up, purring and nuzzling into his chest. His hands paused as he reached out, a thought flashed in his eyes, before he dismissed it. He pet his cat, and scrolled through furniture on the shop. An idea rose up in his mind, a side table, curved and wonderful. Legs made of vines and flowers, the top made of stone. It would look like a natural rock, lifted out of the ground by the magic of nature, it would look perfect in his living room. He began to draw.