How to Accept Change

I think I've stated before how I don't do well with change?

Now more so than ever. For eighty plus years I have had the same routine. Day in and day out. Sure, the tasks changed ever so slightly but not by much.

'SSDD'

And now everything is different. I have a grandson (who doesn't know it yet) living with me. And a man-alien that is threatening to consume my life.

What's a girl to do? Avoidance. 

With Asher being able to read my mind I attempt not to think. Not think about how bloody hot he is, or how much I want to drag him into my bed and have my wicked way with him. 

Or the sneakiest one of all, how he might be the one. The one to change everything, and how it doesn't actually bother me at all.

How's that going you ask? Well... 

What is Time?

Over the years, I have seen many movies regarding time and its mechanisms.

How time is fluid but it's static, or how a pebble tossed into the river of time makes no difference. No matter what we do, we can't change the past or affect the future. But, don't step on a butterfly because you'll alter things irreparably.

I cry bullshit; these are things said to make sense of our smallness concerning the mass of time. Sure, time is a tide pulling you in continually. In the grand scheme of things.

But having stood outside of time and enjoying the luxury of observing it undisturbed I can tell you a secret.

Time is moments, strung together around one thing. You. Me. In this, you are allowed to be selfish. This moment is about you, your perspective and your experience.

My past moments and future ones have been pulled tightly around me and I hold onto them all and only this moment exists for me. Because every moment that has been and will be, have coalesced into this one moment in time.

Now. All there is is this one moment in time. All there will ever be for me drawn around me.

Play It Again Sam

So, here I stand. At the end of a stint that has marked me for eternity, for better or for worse.

I'm certainly not the same person I was when I entered into the deal with the Manufacturers. The Man.

Except that, this has been my life for so long that change is difficult. I can imagine it, and it is glorious. Do you know that I have never left the country?

In this day and age, I am an anomaly. Even though everyone is jacked in and live so much of their lives online, they all still figure out that there is no substitute for physically going to places.

Things are more tightly controlled now; you can't just hop on a plane and fly somewhere. Investigations and more forms than a pregnancy require, long before you even book your seat.

Still, people accept it and embrace the requirements. Part of life, you know?

So, what am I looking forward to when I am properly free? Bikinis and martinis of course.

Can you stand it?

Ben is gone.

I know it, he had to be. Even with his dose skim he can't have lasted for long. I outed him by accident and he was still kind enough to give me an extra dose. Just in case.

It bothers me that I don't know and I don't know how to contact him without outing myself. I am supposed to be dead, this the Manufacturers believe.

At least, I hope they do.

Viv is hacking into the task app and she believes through that she can create a worm that will get into their system. And then we can figure out what the hell is going on.

I don't want to know so much to stop them, but it 'd be good to know who I've been working for, for so long. My deal was seemingly simple but now I'm not so sure.

Change is Coming

This life I led, and the things I've done to maintain it has left little time for a social life. Or a taste for being around other people. It wasn't all because the Man dictated secrecy.

My tasks that started out easy and simple were the most fun too. I felt light after each one as if I had done some small good for someone. And I chose to ignore that my employer was a drug peddler for the most part.

I never saw what a drug trade did to people, and my previous life was very far away from that sort of thing. I lived in suburbia and yes, the mothers all had a little something to help keep them going, but, it was polite, civilized drug abuse.

Messed up, but we understood that people did what was necessary to keep life running as normal. So, I didn't understand what the Man was doing.

And now, it is too late for me to change the past and alter the future.

Looking Back

I've been told that I'm getting ahead of myself, and I should focus.

So, one of the questions put forth was why I didn't know about the Black Marketeers. A valid question, and easily explained. :)

After our re-birth into this new life, secrecy was drilled into us. That it was, in fact, the only thing that would keep us safe. Alive, if you will. Which, in hindsight, was weird rubbish.

So, like the good little immortal I was, I kept to myself. I didn't have regular suppliers for anything. I ordered online and used false details, and credit cards that banks were so happy to hand out.

I got most of my arsenal and armour through private sources, where there were no questions asked. And never from the same people.

Same went for furnishing my warehouse, pay people on time or in cash and no one wants to know more.

And, truth be told, I was so wrapped up in my misery that I didn't go looking for people and experiences.

I was kind of a sad creature before.

Tricky Details

Yeah, you guessed it, it is a port.

I've spent many years a naive idiot doing the bidding of the Man. They have a very neatly controlled setup designed to not allow questions.

The careful spread of rumours and fearmongering assured that we stayed the course. Do as we're told and we receive our daily dose. A dose administered just as the pain gets really interesting.

And I get it; it makes sense to do things this way. If you are running an operation for a drug like Shi. But the thing that gets me is that if I have a port in the back of my neck was there ever another purpose for it?

And once again, what the hell was in the cocktail they injected into us? Even more now than ever before it worries me, was something in it to deal with the nanites?

Viv wants me to jack into her system and all will be revealed. But the idea of her being able to see into my head is also not all that appealing.

How Love is Born

The pain lasted for a very long time. At the time and for many years later I assumed it was a lesson. And part of the pain felt is for the sake of teaching us younglings a lesson.

Stay in line, don't be late. Never, ever be late.

My new friend Viv has finally convinced me to have a look at the port in the back of my neck.
Being the wetware hacker that she is, she recognised something I never knew or could have known. I always thought that the site in the back of my neck but according to Viv that is not the case.

She deals with using human volunteers as wetware drives to make her "wetnet" faster. It involves having a port and neural lace installed. With the help of some handy dandy little nanites.

Guess what my injection site is?

My true Love

What hasn't been clear to many is the method of dispersal. An injection at a particular point in the back of the neck. Check. How?

That my dear ones aren't so easily explained, even after all, this time, I only understand the barest hint of it. But I can share what I have gleaned.

That first night we were told to strip down, and don hospital robes. Most of us still thought we had modesty to protect, not understanding that even that would be stripped away.

We were lead out into a massive room lined with operating tables. One by one we ended up on a table, flat on our stomachs. I couldn't see the others but soon a stranger was at my table.

I didn't know what to expect, Bill was deliberately vague, but my head got pushed back down, and a needle jabbed into my neck.

The world exploded into a bloom of pain.

What we do at Night

Immortality has been good to me, for the most part. That first night things were made clear, one hundred years of service to the Man and in exchange I would get to live forever.

In principle it seemed easy, Bill had made it look easy. He claimed he had done it, made it through without a scratch even.

So I went into the gathering full of hope and perhaps even joy. I had shed the past so only had the future to look forward to. Yeah, I was a fool.

Also that I wasn't alone, I wasn't about to enter this endeavour by myself. There were others, quite a few more than there is now.  This is something I have never shared with a living soul.

That first night was horrendous, for all of us. Our hope was short lived, and to be replaced by pain. More than I've ever endured, nothing compares.

Now, I have spoken a lot about the pain and how they make us wait before we receive our daily dose. So I don't think I need to delve too deeply into that side of things here.

But, you need to understand that the pain on that first night was meant to thin out the herd. Only the strong was meant to survive, meant to move on and into immortality.

Change Sucks

But Richard stayed true to form. Perhaps he was incapable of change, of seeing me for more than what I was at the time.

I have to believe that we were happy once, in love even. There had to be a time before life swept us up and tossed us around as its playthings.

But now for the life of me, I can't remember that time clearly anymore. Perhaps we both changed, I always believed - especially during the epic sulk - that it was all his fault.

I was blameless, nothing more than a victim of his infidelity.  It was easier to think that Richard was at the core of our problems. But, now I know my thinking is different.

He is to blame, as much as I was. It's only taken eighty plus year of shit to grow up enough to admit I was wrong.

I digress. After he had left to return to his new lady-love, I went into the backyard and lit the firepit.

According to Bill, I couldn't take anything with me, so I burned the remainder of my favourite things. I tossed in a few of Richard's favourite things too.

What can I say? I was in a bitchy mood.

Indentured Service

Of course, the bastard lied. But at this point, my experience was that all men lied to get their way. Woman manipulated, in case you thought I was overly sexist.

The catch is this, as he explained it to me:

"For a short time, Elza, a very short time you will perform tasks for the Manufacturers. Things that are within you scope of abilities."

I nodded, it sounded good so far, I could handle that sort of thing. Man, I was naive.

"You might even enjoy some of the tasks they present you with, and before no time at all, you will be able to find yourself able to move up in the organisation.  There is plenty of positions for people willing to do what it takes."

Ugh, I need to go shower...

And So it Goes

I thought for sure it was a trap, which the mysterious man I met the previous night was out to get me caught. A really long-winded way of doing it but still.

He offered me an "exciting opportunity", he made it seem like the best possible thing that could happen to me, and not just because of my current circumstances demanded a change.

"Immortality, Eliza," Bill said.

I sighed, I knew what he was on about, but it still made no sense. Immortality was a thing of dreams and legends. Not something tangible.  And sure as hell not within my reach.

"What's the catch, Bill?"

Of course, he waxed lyrical on how one hand washes another and how we have to work together for a brighter tomorrow.

Whose tomorrow? Not mine, certainly.

Life or Something Like It, Part Deux

And there we were, him dead and me in trouble. So much trouble that I didn't even know how bad it was going to be.

My husband would be pissed; that's for sure. He isn't known for his patience; I sometimes think he just puts up with me. It didn't use to be that way of course, but those days might be gone for good now. :(

At least, I have you...you'll never leave me, right?

But you know what happened next, but the day that followed was long. It stretched out in front of me with nothing to do, nothing and no one needed me.

The story of my life.

Life or Something Like It

Today sucked. It really, truly, absolutely sucked.

I went to a party and watched my dumbass husband flirt with his mistress. He didn't even notice me, not once did he look up to see where I was in the party. He didn't care, so neither did I.

Plenty of young fish in the sea and a fair amount of them were at this party. So easy it was to strike up a conversation and do a bit of flirting of my own.  Accepted a few drinks and a few grossly exaggerated boasts of daring and cunning.

Eventually, though one stood out amongst the rest, he was broad shouldered and just simply stunning. He knew it too but was willing to play the game with me.

Soon enough, we found ourselves outside in the garden. We picked the furthest corner, away from the general party noises. No interruptions he had purred into my ear.

This bit was where things got bad, fair warning!

I went outside with the full intention of having sex with him; I can be honest about that now. But when we got to our secluded spot he got rough. Things got out of hand.

As I found myself knocked down after my adamant refusal, I grabbed the closest thing I could find. I got up and stormed him with my rock. He hadn't expected me to be so fast or strong and before he knew it - before I knew it - he was at my feet.