The Field Of Digital Forget Me Nots

 

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Introduction

I was standing in an open field filled with unfamiliar flowers blossoming all around until the horizon, staring at the glistening moon over my head. The wind shook my hair every now and then.

– You must find it! – My father's voice interrupted my observation of the landscape. I turned to the direction I heard the sound coming from but nobody was there. My sight met the trunk of a an oak. I approached and touched it. The roughness of the bark seemed unusually pleasant to my fingers.

– You must find it! Hurry up!

I turned sharply. Again, there was nobody there.

– What must I find? – I asked the wind, hoping to receive an answer, but there was only silence.

– Hurry up! Otherwise the inevitable will happen! – Father’s whisper came from right next to my ear and I felt cold shivers going down my spine.

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Chapter 1

1.

– Airi san, unless you wake up right now, you will be in trouble!

Unwillingly I cracked my eyelids open slightly, taking a glance at who was disturbing my pleasant morning drowse. Two bright blue eyes were staring back at me.

– Simo, shut up! – I ordered in a dissatisfied tone and pulled the blanket over my head to avoid seeing the small, round device.

– Airi san, unless you wake up right now, you will be in trouble! – Simo repeated the programmed message, hopping about on the side of the bed. On mornings like this when all I wanted was to sleep just a little more, I hated my alarm clock. The blue flying ball kept repeating its message, sustaining the irritating hopping. After the fifth time it stopped. I smiled contentedly as the sleep began to embrace me again.

– Seven and forty five minutes! – the alarm clock stated insistently and started reading morning news. Almost a minute passed until my brain processed what Simo had said.

– Seven and forty five... – I slowly repeated. The next moment my eyes burst open and I jumped up with a loud shout.

– I’m late! – I tried to hurry to the bathroom but got entangled in the blanket and fell down on the floor. I spent half a minute trying to get out of it and stand up on my feet. When I finally succeeded, a couple of quick steps took me to the wardrobe. It opened with a quiet swish. A clothes hanger slid out, holding my work clothing – brown pants and a white shirt. I grabbed it and ran to wash my face, cursing quietly.

“Holy stardust, Airi, if you are late for work practice, it will be recorded in the school’s file and that means your efficiency factor in Nirona table, which accurately indicates how good, orderly and useful to the city is each its inhabitant, will decline.” Having thought that, I frowned.

My mother’s face appeared before my eyes. She was furious. Suzuki Mayuko, a person who along with my father had participated in the research of a revolutionary technology – bio apparatus – couldn’t afford having a daughter who has received a warning for being late. I waved the image aside and hurried out of the door. At the moment I shouldn’t be wasting the precious seconds philosophizing about what will happen if I arrive too late.

I ducked into the stream of people, running as fast as I could and holding a vitamin-rich food bar in my teeth. Hopefully I’ll manage to arrive before the boss. I had overslept by a full twelfth of an hour, meaning I was 5 minutes behind my daily plan and had missed the transport that would take me to the office by 300 seconds.

The station was crowded. I nervously walked up to the schedule, went over it and sighed heavily. Due to air traffic inspection, the next carrier will arrive only in twenty minutes!

“That’s it, Airi, you’re dead!” Maybe I could run to the office?

“Yes, an excellent idea, if only the building weren’t located at the other side of the city!” I reprimanded myself for being so slow-witted. There was no chance of making it in time.

– Airi! – I heard someone calling my name and jumped in surprise. I turned and looked around. A smile appeared on my face. It was Kaoru, a classmate and a good friend of mine; we were also doing our practice work together.

– Hello, partner! – He waived joyfully.

I rushed up to Kaoru, took him by the hand and sharply pulled towards myself.

– What’s wrong? – he exclaimed in surprise.

– You have your flyboard with you, don’t you? – I stared at him anxiously. Kaoru nodded and raised his right hand holding a blue object. He was grinning.

– We are inseparable, – he explained.

– Great. – I inhaled impatiently. – Take me to work! – My voice was trembling. The mere idea that I would have to spend the next about a score of minutes curving through the air made my stomach turn a somersault. Unfortunately there was no other choice. Upon noticing my wry face, Kaoru smirked.

– Come on, it’s not that bad. In fact, it is a very convenient way of transportation. – He stepped on the flyboard and it automatically lifted a couple of hand spans above the ground. The board reacts to movement so one has to be very agile and flexible to pilot it skillfully. Not everyone was capable of it.

Kaoru turned and held out his hand. With obvious antipathy I got on the board and seized the young man’s waist as tightly as I could. Because of the impending flight, I kept regretting having overslept this morning and allowing myself to get into something as crazy as “cloud diving”, as flyboarding was called nowadays.

– If you dislike it so much, you can close your eyes, – the fellow said, and the gibe in his voice didn’t go unnoticed to me. I crossly muttered that he better hurry up. Kaoru pushed against the ground and started the flight.

“Everything will be alright, everything will be alright!” I comforted myself, trying to pay no attention to the friend's loud exclamations of delight. I heard a beep coming from the top of my palm. The biological apparatus indicated palpitation. I had to divert my thoughts from unpleasant matters somehow! I remembered the dream I saw this morning and started analyzing it. I realized that most of what I had seen had disappeared from my memory; however, there was one thing that I remembered very clearly – my father’s voice saying I must find it. What could that mean? Dad told me in the dream that something inevitable would happen unless I hurried up. So strange!...

Roughly twenty minutes later I noticed that Kaoru was reducing the speed and we were descending. I dared to open my eyes and sighed in relief. We were at the building housing our workplace – Dwelling Premise Improvement Bureau. I jumped down on the pavement and felt that my stomach was continuing loud and persistent protests, craving to introduce myself to my breakfast. I ordered myself not to surrender to nausea and opened the door to the establishment. My palm tingled – the registrar recorded my arrival using the information entered in the biocode.

– You are late! – immediately I heard a harsh reprimand. I drew my head into shoulders, not daring to look at our work superintendent - Nemuru Amai san. She was a woman in her thirties who had been working in this office for fifteen years and demonstrated outright dissatisfaction with having to stay at such an establishment. Of course, who wouldn’t want to earn more money! Especially Nemuru, whose biggest hobby, judging by her looks and how often she changed clothing, was shopping.

– You’re lucky that Akusei hasn’t arrived yet. Get down to work, and no lazing around! Suzuki san, you have to arrange the data repository from E to H. Review the list of valid clients. Transfer the invalid ones to Tiama kun for information processing.

I nodded and sighed quietly. My work was boring. One and the same every day. Going over the names of clients of Dwelling Premise Improvement Bureau stored in the data repository and arranging them by who used the services offered by the company last. Had I had a choice, I would never have come here; unfortunately both my mother and my father worked in high-ranking government authorities and the city’s laws in this regard were implacable – children must follow in their parents’ footsteps.

I walked up to the cabinet and coughed.

– From E to H, please. – Recognizing my voice, the drawer opened and presented my folder. I took it and sat down at the table where Kaoru was already waiting. I opened the folder and took out the data repository information medium. Upon pushing the launch button of its execution program, a digital holographic panel appeared in front of me. I placed the device on the table and touched the topmost name on the screen with my finger. Information on the client was displayed and I inhaled deeply, preparing to read it, however, just before I started, the door to the office opened. A tall person entered the room – he was a middle-aged man, his hair was quite thin yet he didn’t seem to lack strength. I sprang to my feet.

– Airi san, Kaoru kun, good morning. I see you are as cheerful as always. – His loud voice filled the room. I smiled timidly.

– Good morning, Akusei sama, – we both greeted the boss with a bow. He nodded and with a wave of his hand asked us to come closer.

– I have a small assignment for you both. Do you agree?

We were willing to do any other work! Akusei took a small folder out of his bag. I apprehended that it held a data repository disk or something similar – at least the size of the folder matched hundreds of others stored a couple of steps away, in the large drawers on the right.

– What exactly do we have to...? – I didn’t have time to finish the question because the senior slipped the light folder into my hand.

– Today you will have a rather unusual task. It is very important and I trust you. You will have to be couriers, the task is simple – to deliver this information to the client’s specified address.

– Can’t we just send it? – I looked at the device located in the corner. It was a cylindrical device with an opening in one end. Usually the necessary information was put inside and it instantly reached the client’s house. The separation and connection of atoms in an ideal form – the technologies have really progressed nowadays.

– Unfortunately that wouldn’t be the best option. And the matter is too important to trust that garbage. You know very well what happens with machinery – it sometimes malfunctions, something fails and it’s over - the information medium is lost and all the work must be done again. Therefore… – He dug the pocket of his slightly sagging pants and pulled out a small item that resembled a button. – ...this information medium holds all the necessary data. The place you have to go is marked on the map.

Akusei produced a smile and I nodded understandingly. I put the information medium in my pocket and the folder in my shoulder bag. In a short moment I and Kaoru left the office building.

– Let's take a look at where we are being sent, – the young man suggested. I lightly touched the surface of the small cylinder with my thumb and immediately a holographic image of the map with two red flickering dots appeared a few centimeters above it. One of the dots was us, the other - the target we had to reach.

– Industrial area, – Kaoru stated in surprise, having studied the image, and I switched the information medium off and put it back in the pocket.

– Is that area... safe? – I asked, noticing myself shiver unintentionally. A couple of days ago I had read some news on the Internet about several young people from our school injured in street fights near the industrial area.

– I think the boss wouldn’t send us on a dangerous task. Perhaps his bad reputation is only empty rumors? – Kaoru guessed. I looked at the young man hopefully.

– I wonder why Akusei is sending us there. What could be so important that it couldn't be entrusted to transmission?

– I guess we'll find out, – Kaoru answered and dropped the flyboard on the ground. Frowning in disgust because of the forthcoming flight, I stepped on it.

The youngster pushed against the ground, deeply inhaled the city's purified air and we slowly ascended. I noticed that Kaoru was a very good surfer, as he was able to adapt both to the wind currents and to the surrounding air traffic, through which he skillfully maneuvered to get to the upper layer of the city's air space which was intended for users of flyboards.

– It seems a little odd that Akusei is sending us on such a task. Have you worked as a courier before? Why entrust it to us instead of some other agency?

I shrugged my shoulders in uncertainty and opened my mouth to answer, but Kaoru accelerated the flight, I choked on air and could not utter a sound for a moment. I heard a loud beep coming from my bioapparatus, indicating increased heart rate again.

"Just try to comment on it one more time and I will beat you black and blue, Kaoru!" I thought.

– Here we come! – the friend shouted, and if it weren't for the wind that was blowing in my ears, I would have gotten a bit stupefied by the loud scream.

The young man was skillfully maneuvering between high–rise buildings while I, being a funky chicken, was holding tightly to his waist and clothes, hoping that I wouldn't get loose.

– Great! – Kaoru shouted. He really enjoyed extreme adventures! After a particularly sharp curve it started to seem to me that all my organs had exchanged places. Once again I felt nauseous and quietly hoped to myself that I wouldn't have to leave today's modest breakfast on somebody's head!

My body trembled and I had already managed to ask all my loved ones for forgiveness, say goodbye to my peaceful life and even picture my grave when we finally stopped and I was able to regain normal heart rate as well as breathe calmly. I hobbled a few steps on the sidewalk, making sure all my extremities still functioned, and leaned back against the wall of an old building.

– An excellent flight! – Kaoru enthusiastically jumped off the board.

– Speak only for yourself... – I breathed out. I was still unable to recover my voice. My body was trembling.

– Well, further on foot – he said, giving me a hand and helping me get on my feet. After a moment of hesitation due to practical considerations about whether I should wait a little more to recover and calm my troubled mind, soul and body, I got up, opened my eyes and looked around. My face filled with surprise.

We were in the farthest part of the city – the outskirts of the industrial area. I looked at Kaoru. I reluctantly realized that we would have to go back in the same way and once again it seemed that something had started to whirl in my belly. Goodbye, lunch! I'll starve today.

– What's the address? – my friend asked. I took the information medium out of my pocket and passed it to him. Kaoru looked at the map and smiled.

– We're almost there. Come on, we'll reach it in a couple of minutes. – He pointed ahead.

– Hey, are you sure it is safe here? – I asked, observing the surrounding area carefully.

– Don't worry. You shouldn't believe all the nonsense people tell you. And if something goes wrong... – he raised his hands up, trying to exert the kefir–like mass he himself called muscles. – I will defend you!

– Thanks, you really comforted me! – I uttered and reluctantly came closer to the young man, clinging to his shoulder, with my thoughts already developing an escape plan and estimating how quickly I could run after the recent "excellent" flight.

– Thirty two, thirty three... – Kaoru was studying the illuminated house number plaques. Many of them were slanted, some were flickering, and others had simply refused to work properly, displaying unintelligible characters instead of numbers. With every step I took in the industrial area, I disliked it more and more. This place appeared in the news very often, mostly because of the havoc caused by street hooligans. I had also heard stories about a government–unfriendly group residing in one of the abandoned buildings. Apart from hooligans and criminals, only poor factory workers lived here.

A third floor window opened over us and somebody dumped waste out of it. We both managed to stop timely to avoid being hit by fruit peels and old newspapers. My eyes widened in surprise. Newspapers? Paper? Fruit peels? No recycling of household waste? This place was way behind the rest of Nirona!

– Forty two. Here we are! – The young man stopped at a metal door. I skeptically looked upwards and pointed at the number.

– It says: fifty six, – I said. He also looked up and smiled.

– We will find out very soon! – When Kaoru was just about to knock, the door sharply opened.

Before I managed to recover, a sharp katana blade was facing me. Everything happened too fast for me to be able to react. I hadn't expected anything like that.

"This, my girl, is certainly one of the most experience–rich last days of life one can ever have. Mommy, daddy, farewell!..."

I shut my eyes waiting for the impact.

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