Red Poppies
a short story by Annika Sage Ellis
It didn’t mean anything, really. This sort of thing happened all the time, to all kinds of people. The world was still turning, the sky hadn’t fallen, everyone was going about their lives as usual, nothing in the grand scheme of things had changed. It was sad, but not dire.
Regardless of all of this, seeing the dead body of a stranger on her couch was alarming in its own way.
Most people would have screamed. Maybe passed out. Called the police. Gone to stay at someone else’s house until it was confirmed that there wasn’t a serial killer in the general area. But Nora knew better than that. She just sighed, shucked off her jacket at the door, and dropped her purse in the designated Do Not Get Blood On area, indicated by a plastic crate in the corner of the foyer.
“Poppy,” she called into the house, like a disappointed mother (which she might as well be at this point), “is there a reason you’ve brought more of your work home with you than usual today?”
A deceptively cheerful red-head with sparkling green eyes peeked over the top of the couch, seated on the cushion next to the body. “Hey, Nora-Bora!”
The nickname was cute. Now was not the time for cute. Nora crossed her arms. “Well?”
Poppy laughed nervously. “Okay, so I know this looks bad—”
“It always looks bad.”
“—but I couldn’t dump this one at the usual spot because I was kinda-sorta being tailed? I made sure to lose them before I got here.”
“So why aren’t you at—”
“I couldn’t bring it back to the boss either. Classified.”
Nora pressed a hand to her head. It was always classified. “Just tell me how long I need to deal with this thing.”
She glanced at the body. “How much hydrofluoric acid do we have?”
“We should have enough for another tub, I think.” Sometimes, she couldn’t believe the words that came out of her own mouth.
“Then it’ll only be about eight hours!”
Nora took a measured breath. “Fantastic.”
She crossed the living room, giving the couch a wide berth, and into the kitchen. She wasn’t planning on eating anything – not anymore, at least – but on the nights Poppy came home with a “friend,” she allowed herself one particularly stiff drink to cope.
As she pulled the Crystal Head vodka down from the top shelf, the skull-shaped bottle winking at her in the dim light, she considered the one upside to Poppy’s career choice: it paid extremely well. Paying well didn’t mean she liked it any better, but it certainly helped with the mortgage.
She had barely poured the glass when there was a soft rap on the wall.
“Are you mad?” Poppy asked, standing in the threshold like a scolded child. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun and her hands were sheathed in rubber gloves. Prepping the tub.
Nora sighed. “No, I’m not mad.”
She didn’t seem convinced. “I made sure to poison this one, so there wouldn’t be blood on the couch this time.”
“I’m not mad, I promise.” She almost sipped from her glass before putting it back down again. “But your job is very stressful for me, you know.”
“I know…”
“You’re gone for days at a time, I never know if you’re safe, sometimes you randomly show up in the hospital and I never know what happened. And then you leave, and I just have to be okay with it.”
“Nora—”
“It’s so hard to talk about you – about us – with people. What am I supposed to say to my parents when my wife takes off every other week? What am I supposed to tell my friends? I don’t even care about the—” she listed on her fingers “—the blood or the bodies or the weird chemicals we have to keep in the garage or the fact that I will never get the smell of death out of the attic as long as I live. I just never see you anymore.”
Poppy had all but dissolved herself, crumbling in the entrance of the room. She smiled weakly. “It sounds like you’re mad.”
Nora abandoned her planned drink and met Poppy in the threshold of the kitchen. She took the gloved hands in her own. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at…”
“Everything else?”
She laughed, but it almost sounded like a sob. “Yeah. Everything else.”
Poppy pulled her into a soft embrace, and she returned it gladly. It had been nearly a week and half since the last one, after all.
“You know,” Poppy murmured, “I’ll probably have to stay off the grid for a little while. This was a pretty high-profile job.”
“Couple weeks of vacation, then?”
“I’ll figure something out with the boss. He’s a fan of my work, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
Nora could see the body from where she had her head rested on Poppy’s shoulder. Cold and stiff and lifeless.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
IRMa-1247
a short story by Annika Sage Ellis
Look up. Look down. Look to your sides. Roll your neck. Roll your shoulders. Arch your back. Kick your feet. Flex your fingers and toes.
Did you do it?
Eh, what do I care? I don’t get paid enough for this. All that I care about is that you’re awake. Take it up with maintenance if you have a glitch in your system because you didn’t feel like running the wake-up checks.
Anyway. Welcome to the waking world, “Infiltration Response Machine Number Twelve-Hundred-and-Forty-Seven.” Sorry, I have to say that. I’m going to call you IRMa-1247 from now on, though. Hopefully that’s not a problem. None of your buddies seemed to have a problem with it, so you’ll probably be cool with it too. Doesn’t hurt to ask though. I know you can’t talk to me yet, so just give me a thumbs down or something if you’re not.
The CEO of Riddlecloud Enterprises – and, just between us, massive douchebag – Kieran Riddle wants to personally and formally welcome you into the world and to society, with his best of hopes and wishes and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. I’m tired of saying that every single time, mostly because I know Kieran doesn’t give a single shit about you. I’ll cut to the good stuff.
So, IRMa-1247, here’s the basic gist of why you exist. You’re a manufactured intelligence created by Riddlecloud Enterprises to walk around and pretend to be a person for the sake of crime solving. You’ll be interacting with suspects and pretending to be a civilian to gather intel and perform recon missions with the local police station of wherever you get shipped off to eventually. I don’t know where, distribution isn’t my department.
Once you pass all your checks, get your software updated, and everyone decides which language you’re going to speak, you’ll be starting your new job as soon as you learn how interact with the local culture well enough to be mistaken for a normal human being. But you won’t be, legally. For some reason.
Can I be real with you, IRMa-1247? I know we only met seven minutes ago, and you weren’t even switched on for four of them, but I already know you’re going to be a better person than most of the jackasses out in the world. And by law, you won’t even be a person. But sitting in this goddamn factory day after day, meeting all of you guys one day and watching you leave again in less than a week will do one of two things to a guy: make him completely emotionally dead, or make him wake the fuck up and start feeling more things than he’s ever felt in his life. I’ll let you guess which category I fall into.
It’s so fucking weird, watching all of you wake up. Because you look like people – you could be any random asshole off the street – but we’re supposed to treat you like toasters or some shit. It’s even weirder when you get your voices uploaded because then you sound like people too. And I’m still supposed to look at you like you’re a—a car or a blender or a smartphone. It’s weird, IRMa. IRMa-1247, sorry.
I almost wish I was in the software department so I could actually talk to you. But they’ve got monitored cameras over there, and I’d get fired in about thirty seconds if I were acting like this upstairs. I can say whatever I want down here. No cameras, no microphones. No one cares about the factories. No one cares about the people they can’t see.
And like… I don’t really know what I want to say here. But you’re in the downstairs of life, IRMa-1247. And I want you to know I see you. I care.
I probably won’t see you again. I’m hardly ever allowed upstairs. So just… I don’t know. Remember me when you get shoved in a box and shipped off to Paris, or whatever.
Alright, I need to keep the conveyor belt moving. See you around, IRMa-1247.
Maybe.
