I woke up. I had slept 4.5 hours. This was an improvement from last night's 4.3, but well below the 7.5 hours needed to earn the niteNite achievement. Why was that? Sugar and caffeine intake was at an all-time low, having completed my detox programme in record time. Black coffee, 8 fl. oz., no sugar, no Splenda. No carbohydrates after 2:00 p.m. Low-to-nil sodium in all meals before 10:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m. I closed my eyes while the morning's alarm whined through neuropathic pathways. I saw fireworks.
I sat. It stopped.
There are four bonus caches between my apartment and the railway station, and the walk allows me to clock 2.4 km every morning. This increases my weekly outAbout ranking that contributes towards my overall healthBody scores, and by taking note of each geoLocate cache, I earn redeemable points to be converted into credit. I looked at the scrolling advertising above the fitness centre - 111 geoLocate points, 1.2 km. I looked at the Hillside High School massacre memorial, at the plaque of names, at the statue of the gunman - 234 geoLocate points, 1.8 km. I looked at the McDonalds on the corner of the railway station - 98 geoLocate points, 2.3 km. I looked at the clock central to the railway station - 101 geoLocate points, 2.4 km.
On the train, I received notification that I had obtained a new bookWorm high score. I had surpassed 560 pages read within a week.
Susan announced the new finance system would be entering Phase 2 roll-out. Jessica asked if there would be no more Phase 1 training conferences. Susan said that as per her memo sent out this morning, Phase 1 training would continue until the end of August. Jessica asked if this training was compulsory and would not Phase 2 compensate for any undelivered Phase 1 training. Simon said that Phase 2 training would refresh all Phase 1 training but would slow down roll-out and put pressure on instructors if everyone had not completed their Phase 1 training. Anne asked if Phase 2 training would have financial advisors conducting the training as her Phase 1 training was unsatisfactory because her systems expert trainer was not familiar with questions specific to accounts raised during the conference. Susan asked if she had mentioned this on her feedback submission. Anne had. Susan said this was beyond her control but any queries could be forwarded to the new accounts manager. Jessica asked when the new accounts manager would be appointed. Susan said the new accounts manager would be appointed during Phase 3. I imagined their heads splitting in half along the line of their mouths and tipping back and back to permit a sudden rush of billowing blackness pouring from their exposed esophaguses and filling the meeting room with void. Ink in water, swallowing us all.
A fire alarm forced evacuation and allowed me to clock in 439 steps on my getBusy record. Down, and up again. Nothing was on fire. Nothing is ever on fire.
In accordance to my healthBody regime, I ate a salad of quinoa, passionfruit seeds, and feta. Jessica was there and talked to me about the finance system roll-out. Instead of listening, I watched a homeless man sleep on the sidewalk. His face was dark with drying blood. I debited to him the points I had received from that week's geoLocate and watched his credit rise. He woke up and picked up his device, as most of the destitute still use an external tracking system to receive the notification, and smiled. I think he smiled. He had no teeth in his mouth. My goodSamaritan score rose. I was four more instances away from a new unlockable charity medal.
It was Friday night. Jessica wanted to go out. I knew that we would drink which would throw my sugar rankings, but it would also raise my inStyle social-based scoring which I had not improved in a while. Perhaps it would make me tired. Perhaps I would meet my niteNite requirements.
We gravitated to a bar that registered on our hotSpot trackers. We ordered drinks. Jessica talked about the finance system roll-out. Music thrummed, bone-deep, and inTune identified and catalogued it by artist, album, and genre. I watched people but there were a lot of them, anonymous mysteries packaged into flesh and bone, and identifyMe necessitated eye contact in order to calibrate. I wasn't trying.
It happened by accident. There was a man who seemed much like the other men around him but we made eye contact. Previous paramours had ranked him high in charisma and sensuality, with lower rankings in analytical intelligence and income, but he had high rankings for bookWorm. I was curious and as I looked further, I noted that not only did he have a high page count score of over 600, he was reading the same book I had been reading that morning. He looked away but I sent an interestPing and waited. I wanted to ask what he thought of the book. I wanted to know if he liked it. I wanted to know if I liked it.
We made eye contact again. He was reviewing. There was nothing in my head.
Jessica was no longer speaking of the finance system roll-out and by the time the man’s rejection had blocked my ability to access his profile, she had moved on to talk about the shared administration model. We finished our drinks and I walked back to the train station (two geoLocate caches, 0.4 km). And I sat on the train and didn't read anything because I was drunk and it was very late so the train cart was empty so
I screamed—
—and walked the 2.4 km back to my apartment without acknowledging the geoLocate caches at all and I got undressed and climbed into bed because I didn't want to eat because it might disrupt my healthBody scores because I could feel the sugar from the cocktails in my blood and I could feel my inebriation like white noise disrupting the neuropathic pathways and there was a moment in the dark where I was in the dark and it was just myself and I thought about how he rejected me because maybe he hadn't seen we were reading the same book maybe he hadn't seen that maybe he hadn't seen me maybe he hadn't seen. Maybe he would be here now in the dark with me and I would put my mouth on his mouth and the blackness from inside of him would fill me or maybe it would be mine that fills him and empties out of me finally until it was gone and then we would have sex and then we would get married and raise children and I would unlock many new medals, new scores, new achievements, and then I woke up.
I had only slept 5.6 hours. An improvement from last night's 4.5.