A war conducted by remote control—drones piloted from great distances away—lingers on for seven years. The technology was celebrated because of its promise to save the lives of soldiers. It failed to save civilians caught in the crossfire. The technology also killed the unborn children of those controlling the drones.
Springtime in the Mojave Desert brings gusts of dust-filled wind. It is 1997, and a teenage girl name Michelle complains of shoulders made sore from the heaviness of the shotgun which is her constant companion. Another constant companion is a robot named Skip. The landscape is pure devastation: a post-apocalyptic nightmare of alienation and loneliness where a girl needs a shotgun and a robot to deal with the occasional abandoned Oldsmobile and the dead bodies of an elderly man and woman carefully positioned next to the car. Fortunately, the keys to the car were in the man’s pocket, along with money and entry permits to Canada. Even more fortunately, the car actually starts when she turns the key. The girl, the gun and the robot head to their destination, a house on 2139 Mill Road in Point Linden, a cape just to the north of San Francisco.
The landscape outside the Oldsmobile is surreal. The first place they stop to get some sleep features enormous yellow ducks towering high over what turns out to be a shooting range. It takes two nights to make their way out of the restricted zone. Chaos rules in town as people struggle over the necessities for survival while younger men with guns pretend to be soldiers. Michelle’s backstory is filled in with memories revealing a hard life constructed of issues with her mother and foster family misery as a result of her beloved grandfather’s death. There are also more pleasant—if ultimately bittersweet—recollections of a girl named Amanda who is more than just a friend.
As she drives, Michelle recalls event that a paint a dystopic portrait of a population hooked on a virtual reality technology called Sentre. It was only the year before, with the big Mode Six update to Sentre that things began to take a turn. From that point on many people stopped living their lives, essentially, and turned into zoned out zombies. In addition, some very strange physical changes begin to take place among the VR addicts.
When they reach the coast, they are greeted by the sight of enormous assault ships that were once the pride of the army now abandoned, hollowed out, and existing only for the purpose of giving birds a high cliff to perch upon. Point Linden seems to be utterly abandoned. The lawns are overgrown in some yards weird, indescribable shapes rise light something from a nightmare but at the same enticing, like a siren’s song. On the night of May 11, 1997, the girl and the robot pulled into 2138 Mill Road. Michelle immediately decides this the perfect moment to tell the story of her brother, Christopher.
Even though she was herself only four when he was born, even she could tell right away something was wrong. The next three years of his life resulted in thirty brain surgeries. It was her grandfather who started calling Christopher by the nickname, Skip. Skip grew to love a Kid Kosmo action figure his sister found for him one day, having seen every episode of the Kid Kosmo TV show. Years later, after Skip has been taken by child services, after her grandfather had died, and after she’d been placed into a foster family, Michelle starving from lack of food in the city of Soest, wondering if she has any future. And then a yellow robot appeared on the driveway carrying a Kid Kosmo action figure. And she understood at once even before finding the long surgical scar behind his ear and just below the bionic addition of advanced VR technology known as a neurocaster.
She and Skip are in a convenience store in Point Linden. He ate some canned food and drank some mineral water. It seemed impossible he is still even alive and as she looks at the neurocaster, she knows she will inevitably have to remove it. The thought of taking this necessary action is terrifying, however, because she has only seen a neurocaster removed once before. And this action resulted in immediate death. But it has to be done so it will. Tomorrow. She’ll do it tomorrow.
