With eyes closed, lying perfectly still, his own existence became almost imperceptible. He heard kangaroos bouncing through the dry bush and everywhere the croak of ravens lauding it over their plentiful feast.

He opened his eyes and watched one of the birds dipping it’s beak into someone who had once walked and talked and now didn’t.

Bet they haven’t eaten this well in years.

Tom breathed in and out. The TCS had hit maximum and the smells of burn and crisp were spice to his nose. He tried to identify each scent, like a chef with ingredients. Was that plastic? Was that animal? A touch of gasoline?

The plant life wasn’t suffering from the air quality. If anything it was thriving. Saplings and bushes had taken root in gutters, vines and grasses now covered most of the rooftops that hadn’t caved in and few windows frames let the ferns and braccia grow through as they pleased. For these suburbs, the border of what was inside and outside was disappearing.

A branch snapped behind him and he spun, gun drawn–

Where did I get a weapon?

And what is that?

It was twilight. Long glittering hands, spooned sweet mush into his mouth.

‘How long is this going to take?’ He heard a man ask.

‘I don’t know. We can bring him with us when the tower is done.’

‘As a pet?’

‘He’ll snap out of it eventually.’ Hakka curled his hand and gently rubbed his knuckles under Tom’s chin. ‘Won’t you?’

Tom tried to nod but only managed to shudder.

‘What did you do to me?’

The man lowered the spoon and spoke gently, parent to child, ‘I disconnected your upgrades. They were infected.’

‘Frenzy?’

‘That’s right. You had bad inputs for a long time.’

‘What does that mean? I’ve had those upgrades for years.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it all fake then?’

‘I don’t know. For most it is a mix of true and false data.’

‘But there was a war, wasn’t there?’

‘There have been many wars. Some are still going.’

‘What about Amber?’ Hakka shook his head. ‘My daughter?’

‘If you are asking what happened to your daughter, I have no way of finding out; right now.’

‘Was she real?’

‘I don’t know. Listen,’ he stood up, purple silver head blocking the sun seven feet above. ‘You sit and digest. I’ll come back to check on you soon.’

‘What’s going to happen to me?’

‘We’ll get you to a rescue shelter. Then you can lodge for asylum. Do you have any family overseas?’

‘I have a brother. If he is still alive.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Belgium I think. Europe. Unless that wasn’t true either.’

‘That’ll work. There’s still a trade route the refugee networks can tag onto. I really gotta go but I’ll get your preprocessing done. Alright?’

‘Okay. Thank you.’

Hakka disappeared into the bush.

Tom sat quietly, memories he now doubted floating past like sticks in a river.

‘Jove? Are you there?’

Do you want to be more than you are?

Do you want to live longer?

Do you want a life of unlimited possibility?

Release your mind and free your body today by visiting your local Prometheus office.

He waited for weeks for his brother to approve the transfer. Or to find out he was dead. Or that he was a figment of the virus.

In a hollow white cube he bobbed up and down on the waves. With a moulded seat, a hole for a toilet and a hammock strung across the diagonal. Tom had his legs hanging out the plastic bars to dangle in the ocean.. Through the window he could see many others just like him, looking out from prefabricated fake ice cubes. He couldn’t see how far it went, but behind them on the shore he could see massive apartment blocks. Hundreds of buildings distinguishable only by a variation of window size and spacing. Each block had over forty floors and each floor he could count nearly a hundred windows. Just in his field of view there was probably over a hundred thousand people living, not to mention the refugee farm in the bay.

Behind the cliffs of apartments were green covered mountains. Steep shards unlike the rounded lumps he was used to from Australia.

Food was delivered by drone in solid blocks he chewed the corners off. One compressed rice paste, a nearly black one that tasted intensely green and a sweet one, probably red bean.

When a big ship went past, his cube rocked. He had to sit down and brace his arms and legs against the sides.

Sometimes the cells became clumped together and all the people inside rushed to talk to each other. As if to prove their existence through communicating. They were from everywhere, every country, once upon a time.

There was a radio set into the ceiling he could tune to different languages. He stuck to English most of the time. It played music and news from the world.

He wondered about Australia and waited for news. Then he thought about his country, and all countries and wondered what they really meant. Did they have any function other than division? Unity and division perhaps. He had neither. He had nothing. No family, no friends no place he could go back to. Only the faint hope of his brother who may or may not be alive or may or may not exist.

He heard shouts from the other cells and quickly pulled his feet out of the water. Below them a swarm of jellyfish glided below, slow, deadly and carefree.

When it rained the water slussed down the moulded gutters, a delta of grooves, that collected drinking water into a ballast tank below.

He had one printed photo left of him and Patrick, and his anonymous parents. As the storm pushed his cube side to side, waves sloshing in, he hugged it under his shirt to protect it.

The next day he took it out to dry. Now even his and Patrick’s faces were washed out, everyone almost completely faded away.

Just as if I never existed.

Everyone became excited at something, calling out to each other. He jammed his face to the bars to see coconuts floating towards them. A dozen languages were rapidly jumping up and down, desperate to get at these unexpected treats.

Tom watched as three cubes over a guy reached out with a net to catch a coconut and then exploded in a geyser.

‘Don’t touch the coconuts!’ Everyone cried. Then silently watched as the mines drifted between their pods, bouncing into some and detonating.

Eventually it ended. As he was airlifted out he saw the ocean below. He saw other floating cells like his, thousands upon thousands, until the scene below looked like a layer of rice and he was just one grain of rice plucked from a big bowl full.