Leslie and I laid in bed together, enjoying each other’s company on a day off. Leslie’s hand glided across my cheek, a small smile on their lips.
“You know,” I said, tucking a lock of Leslie’s hair behind their ear, “a part of me is looking forward to going back to the System.”
“Yeah?” Leslie responded.
“The System herself can be… hard to live with, but there’s plenty of things I miss from in there.”
“Like what?”
I chuckled. Outcasts had no idea what they were missing without electricity. “Air conditioning,” I started. “Ice cream, captions.”
Leslie’s brow crinkled. “I’ve heard of the first two…”
“Captions are amazing,” I said, rolling onto my back. Leslie propped themself on their elbow, looking down at me as I talked. “Sometimes on videos,” I continued, “there’s an option to have a line of words appear at the bottom. And those words are what people are saying in the video. I don’t think I would’ve been able to hide my defect as long as I had without them.”
“I’m surprised the System has something like that,” Leslie commented.
“People forget headphones sometimes,” I replied, as if they would have any idea what I meant. “I’m excited to see what Outcasts will do,” I said.
Leslie blinked. “What do you mean?”
I rolled back onto my side, propping myself up on my elbow to match Leslie. “When the mission’s over, trade will open with the System, right?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Which means Outcasts can shoot videos,” I said excitedly. “I wanna see what kind of shows and movies Outcasts make. It’ll be refreshing to see something without the System as a character.”
“Tewjiotklefmdnhuaewijoktwet,” Leslie replied.
“What?”
“Outcasts aren’t that trusting of technology,” Leslie said with a dry laugh. “It’s already gonna beijtwelkr scandal when people find out about our stash of System devices. Twejitelkfnl talk for weeks.”
“You’re going to release them?” I asked. I don’t know what I expected they would do with the devices afterwards, but letting them out into the public wasn’t something I’d thought the Strokes would do.
Leslie groaned as they flopped onto their back. “Tejtwoifdhsojt of the deal,” they said. “If the mission succeeds, release the devices. If it fails, destroy them.”
“Well, it will definitely succeed,” I said, ignoring the spark of doubt in the back of my mind. “And former bytes will love to teach Outcasts how to use the devices. I know I’ll enjoy teaching you.”
“What are you talking about?” Leslie teased. “I’ve seen them enough to know how they work.”
“Seen them,” I replied, “not used them. I guarantee you’ll have no idea what to do.”
I laid back down on top of Leslie, my arm across their stomach, my head resting on their shoulder. They wrapped an arm around me, gently hugging me closer.
“I’m gonna miss you,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Leslie replied sadly. “I’m gonna miss you too.”
To be continued…