In Case of Emergency

by Elizabeth Broadbent

---

I woke in a skyscraper somewhere off Market Street. The building growled as it wobbled with the wind. “They call it ‘the groan,’” a woman had said the night before. “When hurricanes blow through it’s like someone dying.” Someone, maybe me, had balled up my black ninja-suit and tossed it under a table.

As I left, I passed through a Twentieth-themed den, all beaded curtains and loud-flowered velvet. Above the sofa hung a picture of a hacked-up cartoon character — a famous one with round black ears and creepo black eyes. Blood pooled red-sharp and slick-bright; pink insides showed, like something from a slashfilm.

My lips had chapped and my skin felt taut and dry. I found the ground floor, where a valet-bot palm-scanned me, then said, “We’ll bring your sol-car ‘round, sir.” I should’ve told it off for presuming gender, but it was an older model and only lowbrows yelled at bots.

Gray smog hung low in the cold morning. Icicles clung to I-76’s rock. I dropped down to the Blue Route, then turned onto Rt. 30 and finally twisted down back roads, home to Malvern, where Angel was still dying. Autodrive assumed control while I cried.

---

“Where the hells have you been?” asked my mother when I wandered into the kitchen. Why was I there? I didn’t want snackage. I didn’t want anything. “Don’t you answer your slamming comm?”

“Can you get you some coffee, fren?” the cook-bot said.

“Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes. “Milk and stevia.” I hated coffee but it would keep me awake.

“You look morning-after,” Mums told me.

The windows were tall and wide and meant to frame a sunrise. They showed only bare-branched trees, needle-sharp against a pale sky.

“Where were you? Angel is asking for you.”

Angel didn’t ask for crappo. Mums asked. She’d escaped to the kitchen for a slamming break. Why did we go into kitchens? Bots cooked. We didn’t need to see stoves and fridges and coffee-bars. Kitchens should’ve been bots-only, like charge-rooms — places people only entered in case of emergency.

“Knox, you can walk up the godslamming stairs and say good morning.”

“Why do we go into kitchens?” I asked.

“You’re a total dysfunction. Tighten up and deal.”

Outside, my white breath billowed into rolling smoke. I had nowhere to go so I slid into my sol-car and pinged Zane. Maybe he was still in love with me. I was still in love with him.

“What?” He’d been asleep. Whatevs.

“I’m blah.”

“You’re always blah.”

“Can I come over?”

“I look like poo and I’m not getting pretty for you.”

“Meh. Mums says I look morning-after and I’m not getting pretty for you, either.”

“Then fine, come over.”

I cried from Rt. 30 all the way down 202. Even driving fast did crappo to help. When Zane’s airlock whooshed open, he hit the house intercom. “No one’s home,” he said. “Come up, my room’s a wreck.”

Zane’s couch heaped with clothes; comforters lumped up his nestbed. Only one side lay unzipped. Pillows propped him up, and his pretty hair snarled. “Sup?” he asked.

“Not much.”

“If you’re getting in bed, take off that shirt and pants at least,” he told me. “Your mums was right, they look all morning-after.”

I hauled them off and crawled in with him. “Your spikes are messy,” he said. Zane scrunched his nose as he arranged them. We weren’t wearing shirts. I ran my fingers through his tangles. He liked it and I liked it, then we were kissing. Our chests pressed together. His was firm against mine, but when we lay down, his belly felt tender as heartbreak. I should’ve gone home and said good morning.

Afterward we slept. Zane curled around me, and it seemed something like safe.

---

“Why’re you all blah lately?” Zane asked as I pulled clothes on. Mine were definitely morning-after and I borrowed some from him.

“Just am.” I yanked his black hoodie over my head. He was still nakey. If I looked too long I’d slide back in bed.

“You’re ultra-blah whenever I see you, Knox. You wanna hit up someplace tonight?”

I shoved my feet into my shoes and leaned down to do them up. “Maybe. Depends on where.”

“Do I have to drive to Malvern to pick you up, teaparty?”

I straightened fast. “No.” Zane couldn’t come over. “I’ll hang. Ping me, kay? Laters.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Laters.”

Mums stomped downstairs when I came through the airlock. “Now you’re wearing different clothes. Who were you slamming this time?”

I grabbed coffee from the cook-bot.

“They’ll download her and make a SimMe, Knox. It’s not like she’s going away.”

Why did we always fight in the kitchen? Everything seemed gray and sad.

“Sometimes these things happen. Healthcare even said, sometimes these things happen.”

I was too tired to keep lying. “You always tell me, ‘Oh, we’re gonna sim her.’ A sim’s a bot, Mums. I don’t want a bot. What am I ‘sposed to tell people? Hey, Angel’s dying, and it’s majorly morose, but don’t freak, cos we’re simming her?”

“People die,” Mums said.

“Then you watch her die.” I pushed past her.

“What am I ‘sposed to do? Smother her in her sleep?” she called.

Upstairs, I slipped into a room full of monitors and tubes. Angel’s gray hand lay on a pillow. I picked it up.

“Knox?” She opened her eyes. “I’m so sleepy. Can you stay til I fall asleep?”

Maybe she’d heard us. Maybe she was too far gone. “Course I’ll stay.”

Soon her hand went limp.

I sat on my bed and cried alone, then played hologames til Zane pinged me.

---

We hit Kickstarts in downtown Philly that night.  “Haiii, Knox,” everyone said when the welcome-bot led me to a low-lit table. They were vaping and drinking already. Baylor had saved me a seat. She was probly my bestie, even before we had a thing with Zane.

“Hey-ya,” I replied as I slid into a cup-chair between her and Keanu. Maybe everyone had forgotten Keanu threw the party that ended with Baylor’s twin dead. Maybe they were only pretending to forget.

“I didn’t think you’d really come,” Zane told me.

“Course I came.” I dug my vape from my bag.

Keanu flicked dark hair over her shoulder. She had nothing under her red plasti-dress and wore it like she wanted everyone to notice. “What flavor’s that vape?” she asked.

“Guess.” When I passed it to her, our fingers touched; hers ended in short, black nails stamped with red stars. My ninja-pants fit tight but luckily their matching shirt hit mid-thigh.

 The night rolled on like any other. We vaped. We drank. We talked and I ordered bourbon and coke, hold the coke; bourbon and coke, hold the coke. Keanu said my vape was sour-cherry. It was sour-lemon but I didn’t tell her. She talked about her art deconstructing cultural icons.

“I saw a painting of a snuffed-out cartoon character the other day.” Yesterday? Hells. “Maybe a mouse? It was all bloody.”

Her teeth seemed sharp and white-bright, like a shark’s. “That was mine. Where’d you see it?”

“At a party.”

“That’s awesome. I’m headed to maintenance?” Keanu tilted her head and smirked. “I don’t think I can find my way there?”

I stood. Her dress would ride just high enough on her pretty thighs.

Baylor yanked me down.

“Don’t slam her in maintenance.” She spoke in a hiss. “How drunked up are you?”

Keanu’s green eyes slit into meanness. “Baylor, who died and made you boss? Just cos you and Knox and Zane were baes —”

“Who died?!” Baylor asked.

Keanu sneered. Maybe she wasn’t thinking or maybe she’d forgotten or maybe she didn’t care. “Yeah. I asked who died and made you boss.”

Baylor flung her drink in Keanu’s face.

“What the slamming hells?” Rum dripped from Keanu’s chin. Her makeup blotched black and ice skied over her dress. “What’s your malfunction, God?”

A bot rolled over. “Can I help you, frens?” it asked. “Kickstarts requests that all guests refrain from —”

“Slam your refrain from.” Baylor stalked out. I caught her as she walked through the airlock.

“That slamming —” she started.

“Angel’s dying.” I sank to the sidewalk. Baylor pulled me up, stuffed me in her sol-car, then held my hand while I cried the whole drive to Bala Cynwyd.

---

Baylor’s parents were in Reno or Sacramento or maybe Salinas. She made me a cuppa tea and sat me on a spidersilk bedspread I remembered from when we were baes. I said Angel had cancer. I said she could die anytime, and that might mean tomorrow or next month or who godslamming knew. I said she was getting simmed and that bot wouldn’t be my twin but Mum acted like it would. Mostly I leaked tears and ignored my tea.

Baylor played with my hand. “Part of me wishes they’d simmed Lyons. Part of me’s glad they didn’t. I mean, maybe it doesn’t matter if they’re them or not?”

“They were declared self-aware.” I drew my knees to my chest. “So they’re human or whatevs.”

Baylor’s nails were ragged and bitten bloody. “Everyone has a twin. Twenty-five hours a day it’s in my face. I’m always alone.”

“Me too. She’s there but she’s not.”

“At least you understand.” Baylor seemed to hesitate. “Wanna sleep here tonight? Not do it. Just sleep.”

I almost cried. “Can I?”

We curled like kittens under her spidersilk spread, breathed together, then slept.

I woke with my nose buried in the back of her neck. She smelled like smoke from Kickstarts. Her pale hair tangled and her head lay on my left arm. My right hand held her breast. I didn’t mean it. Her nipple felt firm and tight, like an unripe berry. My eyes stayed shut. It was quiet. I should’ve moved. I didn’t want to move.

“What’re we doing, Knox?” Baylor sounded sleepy but she snuggled in.

I tensed. I might’ve wanted to but I wasn’t trying for it. “I woke up like this.”

“Mmm, you feel good but it’s not a great idea.” My arms went empty when she left. I turned on my tummy. What a total dysfunction. She didn’t miss being together. She felt sad for me.

“Knox? You straight?”

“I’m fine.” Her pillow muffled my words.

“You don’t look like it.”

I sat up. “I’m gonna bounce.”

“I thought we’d grab breakfast, then pick up your car —”

“I’ll take a self-driver to the city.” I yanked on my ninja-shirt, tied my sash, and slipped into its split-toed shoes.

“Okay.” She finger-combed her hair. “Knox?”

I pulled my hood snug. “Yeah?”

“It’s dumb but I thought I’m alone and you’re alone —” She sagged. “Nevermind.”

“What?” I stopped messing with my mask.

“It’s stupid.”

If Baylor had said she was lonely and I was lonely and maybe we could be lonely together, I would’ve stayed. Instead I straightened my mask over my nose and pinged a self-driver.

---

“In my day, people starved,” Great-Great Gram’s generative holo said when I slid inside. “Do you know what ‘homeless’ means, boy? You should be grateful your mother has enough to sim your sister. Say thank you.”

Mums must’ve been bitching to her again.

“It’s a bot,” I said. “And there’s universal basic income? People don’t have as much as us but —” How did I say, We’re major bling? Whatevs. I didn’t have to explain life to a holo.

“Don’t turn your back on me!” Great-Great Gram yelled.

“Baylor says hi,” I told Angel when she woke up.

“Tell her I said hi back.” Two words took one breath. “Soon I’ll see everyone.”

“What d’you mean?” I asked, but I knew.

Her forehead scrunched like her brows were furrowed. “When I’m simmed.”

Angel imagined life would keep going through robotic resurrection.

“Yeah,” I said. “Soon.” The bot wouldn’t be her, but belief made death easier. I wished I could believe it, too.

I held her hand until she slept.

Baylor pinged me again and again. I ignored her. Eventually I pinged Zane.

“Baylor’s looking for you,” he said.

“Slam Baylor.” I curled in my nestbed.

“She said something about Angel — Knox, is Angel dying?”

I cut my comm.

---

Kai hit me up around nine. “I’m gonna see some slashfilms,” he said. “You wanna come?”

I met him at Narberth’s slash theater. Everything inside looked like the late Twentieth. They had grimed tile instead of nano-floors, and neon-font letters named refilmed pulp flicks. We got popcorn cos people still did that at slash theaters; Killian Jones sang “The Man Who Sold the World” while we waited for fako flavor.

“So how you been?” Kai asked. Sometimes he talked like a suborbital Twentieth.

“Kay. Sup with you?”

“Not much. Mostly blah.” He slid his hand in his pocket and passed me a pill. “But I don’t wanna be.”

I downed it dry.

Slashfilm names were serious lolz, like Buckets of Bones and Tides of Terror and The Day the Cannibals Came. Kai and I each killed two Cokes and a popcorn bucket. Everything was ridic and ultra-gory. Kai laughed less than me. He watched greedily instead of giggling and his eyes stuck on the screen. It could’ve creeped me out if I wasn’t suborbital. Afterward I wanted to ping a self-driver cos the world was far away and floaty, but Kai said he’d drive if we could make a stop. “Where?” I asked.

“Ever been to a redlight?”

“No.” If I wanted to fuck around I pinged Zane. I didn’t want to think about Zane. “But I’d go.”

He drove to Sondra in Devon. I was flying. It was the best redlight, Kai said. I’d heard that somewhere else and I couldn’t remember why it was so ultra-stellar. It looked like any other bar with dark corners and bots rolling back and forth. Light ebbed and broke and burst into brilliant stars.

“I thought we got a holo menu,” I said. “You know, listing the bots or whatevs.”

Kai smiled. “Not here. They come to you.”

“But bots can’t—”

He smiled wider. “They’re SimMes.”

My mouth dried. This redlight was best cos the bots liked it.

The waiter’s spidered claspers set our glasses on the table. Pinch, pinch, clickity claws. I shuddered. “Would you prefer male or female, frens?” it asked.

“Female,” Kai said.

“Um, uh, male.” I fixed on its pinchers.

“Shared room or single?” the bot asked.

“Single,” Kai replied.

The SimMes seemed real. Mine reminded me of a doll, all wide eyes. I twisted a strand of his black hair. “What happens if you cut it?” I said. “Is it gone forever?”

“Nanos make it grow back.” We sat together like two guys drinking. He said his name was Tryon. Someone named Tryon had died, and his family cared enough to sim him. Now his SimMe was slamming people for money. How did that happen?

“Do you do this for funsies?” I asked.

“What?” His head tilted.

“This.”

“Sure.”

Maybe he was lying. Maybe everyone was lying. Malkans said we were living a simulation, like Hindus once taught we were a dream in the mind of Brahma, except for some scientist’s tech. Maybe they were right.

Tryon said something. I was watching lights bubble and break. “Excuse me?”

“I asked what you liked.”

“Whatevs.” I looked back at the lights.

“Do you wanna do this? You’re totally suborbital. Can you even pop one?”

Maybe I didn’t want to after all but Kai stood. “Hey, you ready to go back?” he asked. His SimMe looked like a teensy blonde in a near-sheer dress. “Let’s go.”

We walked to a red door, then holos led us to separate rooms. Tryon touched my hand. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know.” Pillows piled high on a big white bed.

He examined me with those wide eyes. They weren’t eyes. They translated signals his central processing unit interpreted as visual cues. “Are you shy?”

“Not really.” I sat on the bed. People slammed there. Whatevs. I sat on sofas at parties.

“You paid for me. So you wanna fuck around.”

I flopped backward. Light spun. “I never fucked around with a bot.”

“I’m not a bot. I’m a SimMe.”

I sat up and everything tilted. “You’re a slamming bot.”

“Bots aren’t sentient. I’ve been declared sentient by —”

I slid off the bed. “You run on a rechargeable, teaparty,” I said. “If I cut your arm, you wouldn’t bleed. You’d show slamming metal.”

It blinked at me. It seemed so real and somehow both sad and mad. “I don’t have to put up with this crappo.”

“At least regular bots aren’t programmed into delusion.” I walked out. I’d probly get charged anyway but whatevs. I floated toward the door. Around a corner, someone was screaming at Kai, something about,  “She’ll be out of commission for a month,” and “If she was human you’d go to godslamming jail —”

Kai held up his palm. “Scan it,” he said.

The man scanned it, then shut up. We left.

“What’d you do?” I asked as we waited for his sol-car.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told me.

At home, I spoke to no one, climbed the stairs, and collapsed in my nestbed.

---

Angel wasn’t better and Angel wasn’t worse. I read to her until she fell asleep. Afterward I tucked her pink comforter close. “You came in late,” Mums said downstairs. “I don’t bother to wait up anymore.”

“You shouldn’t,” I told her. The trees seemed sadder and farther away.

“You can’t go on like this,” she said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A self-driver took me to Narberth. I couldn’t ping Baylor. I couldn’t ping Zane. Kai creeped me out and Auden didn’t answer his comm. I drove into Philly, to The Whig. It was on Arch Street near the Trocadero. The bar was small and dark and old. Taxidermy sat on shelves and its only light came from below booze bottles. A spiral staircase started from its floor and hit the ceiling.

The Whig kept a real bartender, Will. He palm-scanned me, then mixed my bourbon and coke. The guys next to me were talking sol-cars.

“A Sighra 24/40 is the fastest thing on the market,” said one with dreads.

“Nah, a Sighra Midge will beat on a straightaway,” said his blond friend. He wore darkglasses and a trench coat like some movie villain.

They kept going on about it while Will made my drinks — a 24/40 had this, but a Midge had that, on and on. I said, “A Neono Caprice will destroy them both.”

They cracked up. “That’s American-made junko,” the blond told me.

“I got a red one that’ll beat any Sighra.” I threw down my bourbon.

“My 24/40’d crush it, ninja boy,” the dreadlocked guy said.

“Like hells it would.” Will poured another bourbon and coke. “My Caprice could kill a Sighra.”

“It’s a major land shark.”

“That land shark would eat your sol-car like a slamming megalodon.”

“Prove it,” said the blond.

“What?” I drank half my bourbon at once.

“Prove it, teaparty. Race us.” The blond grinned under his darkglasses.

“Fine.” Baylor would have a total malfunction, but she wasn’t there and I’d driven in worse shape. They gave me directions to a no-go spot in NoE Philly. “Meet us at the traffic circle,” the blond said. “We start there and do a two-mile straightaway.”

“What do I get if I win?” I asked.

“I admit I’m slamming wrong,” the dreadlocked guy said.

“Fair,” I told him.

I ran two reds going to NoE and drove the wrong way down a one-way. There were no houses near the traffic circle, only empty sport fields. Trash caught in their rusted chainfence. When I braked next to the Sighras, druggies glanced up from their burning ashcans.

Both guys got out. “Two miles straightaway,” said the dreadlocked one. “You’ll see the stop at the end. First over the line. I pinged some peeps and they’re waiting.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me out here?” They could’ve. The druggies wouldn’t stop them. “Or your friends won’t call the race wrong?”

“The no-go ends a mile past the start. That’s why it’s so crowded.” He flipped his hand at the druggies. If we stayed too long they’d snuff us and sell everything for parts, people and sol-cars both.

 We set comm alarms for two minutes. I turned on my engine but didn’t rev it. My Caprice could destroy them. The alarms blared and we hit it. They had the accel and left me back, but I caught up fast. The city flashed by, all addicts and ashcans and blank open buildings. I didn’t see the man until the Sighra next to me swerved. I tried to swerve too but we were going so slamming fast I spun. Another Sighra flew at me, and I tried to swerve again. I couldn’t turn fast enough. Something smashed. The world shook, and everything went black.

---

I woke alone in a white room. Sheets rustled when I sat. Nothing hurt. No machines beeped and no needles jabbed my arms. I was naked. My spikes were messy but no one had shaved them.

The door opened as I swung my legs over the bed. “Oh good,” Angel said. “You’re awake.”

She’d died and I’d missed it. Mom had simmed her. “Get out.” I wadded the sheet over myself. “You’re not my slamming sister.”

Her eyes were so kind. “I brought your ninja-suit, Knox. And you can wear a chunky comm. No one has to see.”

“I don’t slamming care what you brought.”

Angel flipped my left wrist. A small data port shined there. She held hers next to it. “Twins again,” she said.

I thought of that suborbital moment in the redlight when I was watching Tryon and ended up on Malkans and their simulation. I was Knox Emerson. I remembered everything. I dressed. My sister and I left the hospital and walked to valet, where a bot would bring her sol-car.

---

 I didn’t lie. I was past lying or hiding cos what good did it do? Zane and I sat in Valley Forge Park together. Washington had camped there once and maybe that mattered. We both wore thick coats against the wind.

“Why are you all cuddly?” he asked.

“I’m cold,” I told him. “It’s slamming cold out here.”

“You get cold?”

I wanted to smack his head, but I didn’t feel like I could. “Yeah, loser. I feel everything. And before you ask, yes that means everything.”

He twisted a strand of hair. “I was worried about that.”

“It’s not like, some signal or something,” I said. “I feel it. Like if I think about it, I pop one, and if you mess with it, you know, stuff happens.”

“Does it?” he asked.

I didn’t stare over those pale fields like I would’ve before. “You wanna find out?”

“I kinda do, yeah.” He stood.

I didn’t. “Kinda isn’t good enough.” I twisted my fingers. It was hard to be brave. “I’m still in love with you. So if you wanna find out, I need to know if you love me, too.”

Zane stayed quiet for a few moments. He seemed to search for words as the wind lifted his hair. “I never stopped being in love with you. You always said you liked being slam-buddies cos it was easy.”

I hated saying that. It hurt every time. “I was scared. I didn’t think you loved me or even really liked me very much.”

“Why did you think that?” Wind tangled his hair, and Zane tucked it back. “Why would you ever think that, Knox? I thought you didn’t wanna be baes anymore. You stopped pinging and hardly talked to me.”

I drew my elbows close. I would’ve cried before. “Angel was dying.” I had nothing to hand him but the truth. “I think I was scared of everything. And it sucks, cos now I’m scared everyone will hate me since I’m simmed.”

“Do you remember like two years ago, when we’d just turned seventeen, we all went to Triptix and Baylor had a total dysfunction cos no one wanted to talk about her brother dying? You told everyone to fuck off and when she left you went with her.”

I kicked the dirt. Maybe some soldier had kicked it five hundred years before. “You all were asshats about that. I was mad then and I’m kinda mad now.”

“You were real brave. I loved you so much for that.” Zane sniffled, then swiped his eyes. “If you remember that and especially if you’re still mad, you’re still Knox.” He hugged himself. “Then I get scared and I think, what if he’s just a program who thinks that?”

It was the hardest question. “What if I am?” I asked. “What does it change if I remember everything, and I act the same way and I feel the same things?”

Zane huddled into himself. “It’s fake, cos you’re not human.”

“I’m real for you if you decide I am.” I stood. “Right before this went down, I met a SimMe and called him a bot? He got really angry and sad. When I knew Angel was dying, that’s how I felt, except I was scared, too.” While I walked, the frost-stiff grass crunched underfoot. Zane followed. “I disappeared into it. But I remember everything, and I’m me. It doesn’t matter if I’m a program or not. I’m Knox Emerson.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “You can agree or not. I hope you do.”

He stopped. Those dull fields rolled around us as Zane took off his gloves and touched my face. “I missed you. I mean, before you died. I missed you so bad.”

“Can we go home?” I asked.

“No one’s home at my house. They never are.”

“You still wanna . . .”

He smacked my head. “You always wanna.”

I smacked him back. “You always wanna.”

We held hands as we wandered back to the lot. “Only cos you do,” he told me.

“Liar,” I said.

We slept after. Later, Baylor came over. We moved downstairs, where a long golden arowana swam circles through a tank that ringed the whole room. I said I was sorry for disappearing. I said I was sorry for everything. Zane held my hand. Baylor cried and called us both idiots. They forgave me cos they loved me, even simmed. The arowana swam around us. It was supposed to be lucky. Light struck those gold scales and I believed it.

---

A six-year staff writer for Scary Mommy with pieces published in The Washington Post and Insider, Elizabeth Broadbent has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, and BBC World News. Her short stories have appeared, among other places, in Tales to Terrify, Penumbric, Tree & Stone, and The Cafe Irreal; her novella, Naked & Famous was published with EJL Editions in summer 2023, and her poetry chapbook, Wrapped in a Burning Flag, comes out in winter of 2024. She lives in Edgar Allan Poe’s city with her three sons, two dogs, patient husband, and too many David Bowie records.