James Smythe - I Still Dream

I click send.

The little thing telling me I’ve got another email triggers straight away, popping up on the top of the screen. I think how quick he was to reply, and then tell myself that’s stupid. Can’t be him.

Bug Report. It’s from Organon; or, the Organon that’s installed on Mr Ryan’s computer. He must have just stopped using it. That’s what it does, after the session: it lets me know how its programming went. There’s a feeling in my throat, like something stuck, that’s made out of disappointment. I open the report and have a look. Everything’s fine: Organon asked him a lot of questions. I can tell which ones, but only by their log numbers. I can’t see his responses, and I don’t want to. That’s the point of it. It’s private. It’s yours, and yours alone. Mr Ryan was using Organon for four hours. That’s fine. Maybe it’ll be useful, like he said. Maybe he’ll help me learn something about it.

I work on Organon myself, then. I put more questions in. I tell it about my day. I tell it that I’m worried about Mr Ryan with the software, that it feels out my control; that I wish Shawn would reply to me, because that always helps me to feel better; that I wish my mum would calm down, let everything go a bit more, because I’m going to be fine. I’m going to be fine.

Organon asks all the right questions about what I tell it. I wonder if Mr Ryan will have found it useful at all, or if it’s really only geared to me; my questions, my answers, designed only ever to make me feel better.

When I’m lying in bed, I listen to Radiohead, and I hold my elbow, and I feel the scab pressing onto my palm; and I think about the email I sent, the words I wrote, the letters that made them up. I rearrange the sentences in my head, making them better, instantly filled with regrets about them; and I think about how I would do it all over again, if I had the chance.

‘You’re so bloody boring at the moment,’ Nadine tells me. She thinks that her bluntness is her best trait. She thinks that’s how you know she’s a true friend, because she’s just so upfront. Honesty, always. I try to be honest with her, as well, but that would mean telling her how tiring I find that honesty sometimes. ‘Come out on Saturday. Darren and Gavin will be there.’

‘I hate Gavin,’ I say, which isn’t strictly true. I don’t hate –hate him, but I certainly don’t want to get off with him, which is what Nadine seems borderline obsessed with making happen. Nadine thinks she’s got a chance with Darren if Gavin’s distracted.

‘Well, it won’t just be them. Owen, probably. Maybe Sarah and Tommy. Maybe Martin.’

‘My mum’s being a bitch about me going out.’

‘She didn’t ground you. You’re not locked up.’ There’s this petulant look on her face, a pout that she thinks is pitched somewhere between sulky kid and sexy temptress. ‘Well, I’m going. Everybody’s meeting at Finnegan’s, and then we’re going to the park. If you don’t mind me being on my own, fine. God knows what could happen, though.’

‘We can’t get into Finnegan’s. I don’t have an ID.’

‘Gavin’s brother’s working the door this weekend. He says he’ll let us in.’

‘It just doesn’t sound very fun.’

‘ You don’t sound very fun.’ Nadine and I have been friends since we were ten. Her father died in a car crash the summer before I met her. She was buddied up with me that September. I think they thought we could bond over losing a dad, even though hers was a totally different thing to mine. I might not have closure, but she watched her father die. Very different sides to very different coins. But it worked, kind of. And now, I don’t know if we’re only friends because we have been for years. She doesn’t totally get me, and I’m not sure that I totally get her, either. And yet. ‘Come on. Gavin keeps asking.’

‘He doesn’t even know me.’

‘He does. He says that he thinks you’re well fit. He told Darren.’

‘Fine,’ I say. Not because I’m agreeing to go, or because I believe that Gavin said that, but because wriggling out of it will be much easier closer to the time. When I get cramps on Saturday morning, or when Mum properly grounds me – whatever lie is easiest to sell to her – she’ll have to accept I’m not going. For now, she’s happy. She grins, leans over, and kisses me. She does that, like a little seal of approval she makes every time she’s happy with something. Not a real kiss; just her lips in an O, pressed against my cheek; a trace of the lipstick we’re not allowed to wear to school.

‘You’re a properly wicked friend,’ she says. ‘What are you doing after school? I thought I’d go to Our Price.’ Nobody shops in Our Price any more, but Nadine’s got a habit of stealing the tape boxes. They keep all the cassettes up behind the counter, and you take the empty box up and they pick them out for you. Nadine’s started nicking the inlay cards. That way, she’s got the lyrics and everything, and she can borrow it off somebody else, make a copy of it, and she’s got the inlay card all ready to go. Looks like the real thing, tastes like the real thing, sounds like the real thing.

‘Lab time,’ I say, and she rolls her eyes right back, does this huff that’s so exaggerated I know it doesn’t come from anywhere that’s even close to real.

‘Oh my God. Will Pryin’ Ryan be there?’

‘Don’t call him that.’

‘You can tell though. He’s such a fucking perv.’

‘Oh he is not,’ I say, but I feel a bit weird, defending him.

‘He’s never been married. He’s not got any kids. He’s a bit weird, and he’s old. And he talks really strange. He’s either a perv or a homo.’ Malice in her eyes. ‘Probably he’s both. ’

‘He’s American.’

Another eye roll, and I can see the subject change in her mouth, opening it to start saying one thing, but changing her mind. ‘Have you got any new albums?’

‘I’ve got the new Björk,’ I say.

‘Lend it me?’ I can see her thinking about stealing the inlay card already.

‘I’ll just make you a copy,’ I tell her.

‘Love you,’ she says, and she gives me another of those stupid false kisses, then swoops off. She twitches her head like a little bird, glancing at the other tables as she passes them. She makes eye contact with some of the other students, just for a second; making sure they all get a tiny piece of her eye-attention. But for some of them she holds her gaze longer; really making sure that they notice.

Mr Ryan’s really pleased to see me. Excited, even. We’re the only people in the room, which means the door stays open. I don’t know if he’s a perv or not. I don’t know if you can even tell. He starts talking before I’ve put my rucksack down, though, he’s that excited.

‘I have to tell you, Laura, having spent a bit of time with her, Organon is quite the achievement. Really quite remarkable.’ He blinks, as if he should be wearing glasses and his eyes can’t quite focus. ‘It’s as if she knows exactly what to ask you. Almost spooky.’

‘It’s just a bit of code,’ I say.

‘Maybe so, but it doesn’t feel like it. Usually with software, you can see the cracks. But this is so far beyond anything I’ve seen like this. I get it, I understand it, how it works. It’s just … The cracks are plastered over. You know?’ He goes to a computer. Organon’s already running on it. ‘I’ve been playing with her some more, today.’ He must see my face react to that. I wonder how much I give away, moment to moment, and don’t even realise. ‘Don’t panic, nobody else was in here. This was just me. I wanted to look at the code, see if I could add in some of my own questions—’