Read Eve and Adam for Free Online

left.
    It’s not that I think I’m some kind of prize.
    No, wait, that’s not true. I do think I’m some kind of prize. I’m smart and occasionally funny and I’m pretty. I don’t see why I should spend long dates with some guy who expresses himself in single syllables and wants to go to slasher movies.
    Which does not answer the question: male or female?
    I also don’t understand why I should let some guy fondle me when I know the relationship has no future. I don’t need to be groped that badly.
    So I’ve been on exactly three dates. The first when I was fourteen. The most recent two years ago.
    A guy tried to kiss me once. I didn’t let him.
    I live that part of my life vicariously through Aislin.
    I hear her stories. And I admit I’m fascinated most of the time. Sometimes kind of appalled. And then fascinated again.
    Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be her. To be that … experimental. To be that “what the hell?”. To actually have detailed, well-informed opinions on questions having to do with kissing. Or whatever.
    I have no opinion on chest hair versus no chest hair. Aislin could write a treatise on that alone.
    So. Who do I want to create with my new simulated godlike powers?
    Male or female?
    I sigh. I squirm in my wheelchair.
    Who am I kidding?
    Male.

 
    – 11 –
    SOLO
    I can’t get into Eve’s file on Project 88715 yet. It’s encrypted.
    She just finished up a half hour ago, but I’ve already checked out the surveillance video. I can watch her face as she stares intently at the screen. I can even see myself, staring intently at … her. And Terra, being her predictably insane self, raving on about world domination.
    I’ve been able to access—and edit—this kind of file for a couple of years now. I don’t edit out the merely embarrassing, I make the minimal edits to conceal the degree to which I have penetrated security.
    It bugs me that I can’t get into Eve’s working file. It’s that new security protocol. A lot of the newer stuff is beyond my reach. But I have enough to bring the Food and Drug Administration down like a hurricane on this place.
    Soon I may have enough to bring the FBI.
    Do I want Terra Spiker to go to prison? The question makes me a little uncomfortable. She has sure as hell broken the law. Many laws.
    It’s time for school. It’s Saturday, but I slacked off all week and I need to catch up. It won’t take long; it never does. I click on the window for the online high school. I replaced the generic logo of the school with a picture of a guy sleeping. Which I guess says what I feel about it.
    On my screen I get a video feed of a lecture on the Manhattan Project. Ancient history about the first atomic bomb.
    The reading for this unit is on the right side of the screen in a window. There are numerous links in the text that open audio or video or text.
    The lecturer drones into my headphones. I click on a link that shows a loop of an atomic bomb exploding.
    A request for chat pops up. It’s a kid I know online. He, she, or it goes by the name FerryRat7734.
FerryRat7734: What’s vertical?
SnakePlissken: You could just say, “What’s up?”
    I don’t know if FerryRat actually meant to write FurryRat. I don’t ask questions of people I meet online. I figure they have a right to be whoever or whatever they want to be.
    My online name is SnakePlissken. There’s a reason for that. It’s the only character I’ve ever come across who shares my last name. Plissken. Google just the word “Plissken” and that’s who you come up with. I don’t appear in Google. I am invisible. That’s deliberate.
FerryRat7734: Is it just me or are they teaching us how to make an atomic bomb?
SnakePlissken: The science is easy enough. The engineering’s a bitch.
FerryRat7734: So can you do me a favor? Send me your notes on the next week’s lectures?
SnakePlissken: You going on vacay?
FerryRat7734: I wish. I have a procedure.
    I sit back. The teacher is droning on. A