Throbbing, aching pain in my elbow sounds the alarm for the coming storm and draws a curse from my lips. I lean against the vending machine in a near empty street of ‘Cuse while I massage the joint. This autoimmune issue is not kind.

  Neither was the disease that slammed it awake to unfurl and rear its ugly head.

  Both illnesses hit me like a train at the end of last year. And dealing with the endless doctor’s visits and new meds wasn’t all. It was like the diseases opened a door and winter crawled inside my skin, murdering the life I had. By spring, all that existed was the husk of a woman where the cold, bitter wind whistled through and created snowdrifts against my heart to freeze it into an icy fortress.

  My skin formed a cocoon so hard that when spring leaked into summer in all its muggy glory, there was no way for the burgeoning warmth to seep in and thaw me into who I once was. The two-week stint of summer in the city of ‘Cuse helped a minuscule amount. The heavy rains and cloying heat sank into my skin and twisted around my bones to marionette me through the days.

  Summer thawed me enough for Gen’s lecture about making a bucket list to wind itself into my desiccated brain. To use the list as a solution to what my life had become. But now, summer is leaving, and with the rough crunch of autumn tumbling in, my bucket list is daunting in the shadow of winter and the memory of what it brought.

  My elbow throbs in answer, and I lean my head against the bright yellow vending machine, focusing on the blue square of sidewalk below me. A few straggling pedestrians glance my way, but no one stops.

  “Come on, just a few buttons on the ven mach,” I mutter to myself. Breaking the day down into smaller bites and tasks should make it easier, but it’s hard when my mind is consumed by the pain throughout my body.

  The pain. The destruction of my being. It’s a constant reminder, killing all drive to work on the list. My biggest dream is out of reach, and so all fight for life evaporates.

  I go to work, home, and doctor appointments. There is no joy to be found in any of that, no matter how much Gen, my friend and boss, tries to restart my soul—or my desire to live. She reminds me of the list weekly. Hounds me to add goals and nags me to keep going so I’m more than a warm body taking care of my bot, Az. Even with all that, the list stayed as a title for a long few weeks.

  Things To Do Before You Die

  A little hyperbolic, maybe. None of us knew for sure. We knew that the genetic condition triggered my immune system to revolt, and it was waging war against the very thing I needed to live. The doctor had called the autoimmune disease an illness of overlaps. Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, he said, or MCTD. More like Major Coccyx Torment Disease. All it’s been is a pain in the ass.

  I pat the pockets of my pants, too big since I lost weight with the genetic condition cannibalizing one of my kidneys, but a favorite pair all the same. I bought them with my roommate, Mel, when I decided to dye my hair lime-green because they matched. After a moment, I find the small rectangular pack of smokes I’m searching for and drag it out.

  The electric pink box fits with the neon-worshipping city. Some places in the world have tried to cut back on the neon-soaked streets for one reason or another, but not ‘Cuse. It grabbed neon by the teeth and never looked back. A rainbow of cigs offers themselves to me. I select a vibrant blue one, lighting it with the tangerine lighter shoved into the box. I breathe in and find peace within the acidic smoke flooding my mouth.

  I shift against the glass front of the machine to face down the street and gaze past the other vending machines at the gray, cloud-streaked sky. No one has tried to change the cloud color yet, so they float by, unmolested by man’s hubris. Pure white smoke slips from my lips and finds itself among their puffy bodies. The pale ghost of a bad decision–something many would frown at; either due to not being colored puff, or for said bad decision. But colored smoke costs too much. I use slang, shorten words, dress in trends, but I’m not about to blow earned cost on fancy smoke.

  I’m not that bright. Not cool, by modern standards.

  Smoking doesn’t help that.

  It stopped being bright before my grandparents were born. Any smoke, no matter the color, is sign enough of a filthy habit. Mine happens to be a white flag of surrender to any passerby. An, “oh, hello, you’ve caught me trying to ignite an ember of joy within my soul.” Foul. Disgusting. A relic of the past that refuses to die due to people like me who seek small flirtations with death. For myself, it’s three times a day. One at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Each one marking a new part of the day. Burning cost, but I’m willing to pay it. Like the list, it’s mine. Something I chose and not something this traitorous body takes from me.

  Not yet, anyways. Not yet.

  The cig does take away some of the pain, at least. Or at least enough of it to tap the holo on my wrist against the payment square on the ven mach. I key in the input I’ve memorized and listen to the machine working, waiting for the cure to my exhaustion. The can slips free of the arm and jostles into the retrieve slot. With a sigh, I fumble to get it.

  “You all right, Jaqs?”

  An undignified noise bursts free of my lips. I almost drop the coffee can but clasp it into my stomach at the last moment. My other hand spasms and clamps hard on the cig, refusing to let it fall into the street. I pivot, and there is Gen, leaning against the orange garage door of her shop, frowning.

  Her feet are crossed at the ankle, the wan light of the sun catching on the six-inch, bright yellow stilettos that make her pale skin look wan and sickly. Not a bright feature. An orange mini skirt and a canary top, which flounces around her waist, completes the outfit. Her eyes are hidden behind lilac shades edged with flattened prisms to reflect rainbows against her cheekbones. Gen’s electric pink curls are almost as bright as the lights overhead. She’s a rainbow compared to my solid green. But then, she probably took time piecing together her look this morning while I rolled out of bed, late, and threw on clothing.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” she says. “You’ve been standing here for a while, and Az is staring at the sky. Everything good?”

  I glance over at my bot. He’s stretched to his full height, almost coming to the top of the electric blue trees they planted this spring in the space between the rainbow sidewalk and street. Az pays us no mind. I’m not even sure he knows Gen is here.

  “He’s looking for birds,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. I shake a few strands of electric green hair free of my fingers. My heart races a mile a minute, and tension screams through my muscles, making my right calf hurt. I’m not doing well. We both know that without me answering.

  Something jostles in the machine behind me—another can of coffee. One I didn’t order. Its neon blue label glows under the harsh light of the machine. Waiting.

  I grab the can, freezing both hands with the cool cylindrical bodies. “You want this?”

  Gen wrinkles her nose. “Ven mach coffee? No thanks.”

  I shrug and reach behind me to put the extra can in the side pouch of my neon green pack. My shoulder pops in answer. When I stumble back around, Gen is staring at the cig in my hand. I creep it towards my lips.

  “Don’t,” Gen snaps, straightening to tower over me. “Item two on the list.”

  “You mean the item you pestered me about adding to my list?” I answer and step away while putting the cig to my lips and drawing in the smoke. Gen reaches for me, and I dance away from her, around the neon tree. It makes my knees scream in agony. Worth it to keep the cig. She grumbles. I smile. Gen said to start small for the list, with easy accomplishments, so I wouldn’t get discouraged. And I did. All while knowing my ultimate want and how unattainable it is.

  First thing on the list was to move to a better part of the city with Mel, my roommate of a decade, and best friend. I mentally write it along the second string of lights that hang above Gen’s angered expression, not in neat print or beautiful cursive, but in the chicken scratch shaky hands that screaming muscles leave me with. And cross it out. It hadn’t taken that long to find a better place to live. The back room of Gen’s shop, stuffed with teetering boxes with a coating of grease and the stench of oil, would have been better than where we were living. No more roaches or mice for us.

  We were trying to live off our universal basic income without extra cost in picking the run-down building we had. But it got to be too much. We craved more. Better than the failing building we’d found years ago. Mel promised to keep a job longer than a few days to pitch in for extras. Things UBI didn’t cover, like extra rent, beer, weed, fast food, movies, video games, and bots. Little joys that enhance life but aren’t considered essential. Things we’d grown accustomed to, even in our little hellhole of a unit.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I breathe the smoke out like a prayer. Another plea that things will go well, and the list isn’t for nothing.

  “God damn it, Jaqs,” Gen says. She lunges and pinches the cig from my lips. With a disgusted noise, she flicks it into the street. Bye, death stick. “Number two on the list is to quit smoking.”

  I answer with a long, drawn-out suffering sigh.

  Gen rolls her eyes and, from the holo around her wrist, pulls up the app for the garage door. It shudders and starts to open. “No more smoking. Time to load Hector’s bot and get it to him.”

  “Az, come on, time to get to work,” I call. I put the can of coffee I’m still holding in the side pocket of my pants. It leeches cold through the material into my skin, grounding me to the present.

  The bot turns from the sky. His angular face tilts, considering my words. Two slices in the undulating metal, where eyes would be on a human, are a kaleidoscope of color. They settle on lime-green. He’s processed what I’ve said and agreed to the command.

  “I want to pet a bird,” he replies, not moving.

  Guess we’re not agreeing today.

  He’s learning more and more each day about human patterns. But there are days I do miss when he’d agree to any command. That was a long time ago, though, back when I was a child building a giant in my parents’ run-down shed. A being that could crush cars, solve equations faster than any human, and whose one goal was to stand in the overgrown field behind my parents’ house, waiting for the world to accept him.

  Nature. Something Az was born of when machines dug the elements from the earth to form boards and components, but not something he’ll ever be a part of. He’s too alien to it. A bird has never landed on him, much to his dismay.

  “You cannot pet a bird. There are no birds right now. Come on, we have work to do,” I respond.

  His eyes turn a startling, brilliant purple. It bounces off the gleaming silver of his body and gets lost in the wan light of the day. His eyes deepen to a sullen gray. Not bright. Not bright at all. A pang goes through my heart.

  Az relents and crosses the empty street. His arms slump inwards around his core. The wheel on his left shoulder huddles against his head, a miniature mountain that eats the pale, despondent sky. He holds his arms tight against himself to keep them from swinging, folding them against his core in a mimic of what I’ve done a thousand times. His double-jointed legs, made for speed and for his transformation into a motorcycle, shuffle inches at a time.

  Gen lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. “You baby it, Jaqs.”

  “He’s my bot,” I half-whine. “He helps me so much, it’s the least I can do.”

  It’s why upgrading Az’s components is item number three on the list. Not that most people would be aware of that. The list is not on any social for likes, or hanging somewhere to check off each item. It’s a thought, driven to memory by recitation. A nice, tidy construct that remains hidden from prying eyes. Something all mine. Something I control.

  Az reaches us and his eyes brighten, chasing away the gray and lingering maroon to reveal a startling pink that matches Gen’s hair. “Hello, friend!”

  Gen rolls her eyes and sashays into the open garage, as distant as always.

  “Maybe next time, bud,” I tell Az. He nods and ducks through the door alongside me. The garage is longer than it is wide, running the length of the building. Gen flicks on the white lights to illuminate the painted orange floors, in need of cleaning, and lemon yellow walls, in need of a retouch. But it’s hard to get to those types of tasks with the endless list of bot repairs the shop runs through. We move along the side of the baby blue truck towards the towering tangerine colored bot sitting by the welding station. One of Hector’s apple harvesters. We’ve maintained them for years at this point, but this is without a doubt the worst conditioned one we’ve seen. Someone, maybe bored teens, had ripped one of the arms off. Gen and I had worked for a month to reattach it, fiddling with wires and code to get it to work again. The shiny silver of the scar around the joint gleams.

  Az’s steps ring on the concrete floor. He crosses to the harvester and settles next to it. Az’s eyes light blue, seeking a wireless connection, and the harvester comes to life with a gentle hum. A trill sounds from both bots. Gen glares at me. I smile in return. The noise is something new I added last night out of pure love for Az. Something to make him as cute as possible. It’s the little things at times, and it fits within the bounds of the third item on the list. Next was to upgrade his components so he could attach to any e-car or input in the city.

  “Az, perform the BIT,” I say.

  Az’s eyes go yellow as he enters the built-in-test functionality to run the harvester through code. Gen picks at her nails while we wait.

  “How was the date last night?” I ask, fiddling with the cig pack in my pocket.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Gen murmurs.

  I pull her into a side hug that she reluctantly accepts.

  Az’s eyes go green, and the harvester rises to their full height. Test completed and successful. I run Az through a few other tests to take the harvester through until we’ve determined the final checks are good.

  “Az, load the bot,” I say. Gen shakes her thin holo awake with a twist of her wrist. The screen projects into the air from the pink bracelet, allowing her control of her apps. She finds the truck and lowers the bed. Five minutes later, the harvester is loaded and the truck bed is back in position.

  Easy peasy. Gotta love tech.

  “It’ll take a couple of hours to get to Hector’s orchard and come back.”

  “Stay safe, Jaqs,” she says, her voice a whisper of care. Weightless and warming. Something to carry with me without difficulty.

  “I’ll try.” I shrug. It’s the best I’m able to offer, but it’s enough to get Gen to enter the shop. “Az, let’s go.”

  The bot trills. He nestles against the side of the garage and squats. His body breaks open, metal peeling into folding hexagons to reveal a sphere of metal and glass with legs. Az blinks up at me from his cocoon with two large LED eyes within the glass. I scoop him from his outer shell and, with delicate movements, disconnect his legs. They’re the connectors for his body and some e-cars. Silenced in his small form, Az blinks a dark purple. Unhappy.

  Yeah, me too, bud.

  With a quick press to my holo, the door to the truck squeals open. We need to get grease on it. But time at the shop disappears like water through a sieve, headed to the paying customers and never to the things that help us.

  The button to close the door sticks on the first press. It takes three more to get it to work. I throw my pack across the bench seat and hook Az up to the center console. His sphere sits in a fitted circle, cradled by cracked padding. Az’s deep, brooding purple glass lights canary yellow.

  “No arms, little bud, but you at least get to drive?”

  He flashes bright green and starts the truck.

  Good enough.

  The truck’s low electric hum fills the garage. I step through the contacts on the slim electric pink holo around my wrist and flick Hector’s address from the holo to Az. He blinks blue while he processes and then settles into a lime green. The center console glows with him, illuminating the cabin.

  Az crunches onto the asphalt, easing into the small street. The smoothness allows me to pull out the can of coffee and open it without worry. The tab punches through the thin aluminum with sharp demand, and the first sip sends a shiver down my spine. I thumb the display of the heat up past Az’s preset. That works on the first try.

  At a stoplight, we wait for a rainbow of people and bots to pass along in front of us. A woman in a hideous faux fur coat of bright candy apple red walks slow, nose in the air. She pushes past a small delivery bot, sending it out of the crosswalk where it blinks in confusion, trying to find its path. My narrowed gaze follows her. There’s no place in Old ‘Cuse to be going dressed like that.

  The tag for this part of town is silly. Even a hundred years ago, when the city was still Syracuse, ‘Cuse was old. It’s an ancient growth oozing out across the land in newer and newer rings of steel and plant dressed balconies. The Seed Wars brought the first wave of people from the desolate cities and the dust bowl of the Midwest, caused by corp greed, brought more. Rising waters from climate change brought others from the coast, completing the diversification of a once struggling city.

  With the increased population came the scrapes; towering spikes of metal and glass that pierce the sky higher than anything before. Claiming a new territory for man’s hubris. We used to call such buildings skyscrapers, but the full name has become a mocking cry hurled at old buildings that once carried it with pride. Time moves ever forward, and the old buildings are overshadowed by the newer The scrapes ring the stumpy buildings of Old ‘Cuse like a fence. A division of old and new. It’s easy enough to cross the boundary, but there’s a different manner to those in the scrapes.

  The light flicks to green. Az is first off the line and cuts through traffic towards the highway. The console glows.

  I sigh. “Fine. You’re allowed to play music. Not show tunes though.”

  Vaporwave fills the small cab. We fight over the volume. Me, turning it down with a sharp jab. Az, inching it back up as if the number on the central console doesn’t click over each time.

  “Az, you don’t have ears, and I need mine to work.”

  He darkens to maroon.

  “Don’t pull that. You get plenty of vibration at home on the speaker.”

  He lightens to a sullen green but relents to the volume I want because his next favorite thing after vibration time is coming up. The highway, which means speed. Az turns south onto it and zooms into the left lane, leaving behind the bright painted brick of Old ‘Cuse.

  The drive allows my mind to wander back to the list. Always to the list. And since there is no one to stop me from daydreaming, I skip past the wanted vacations and career accolades to the last item.

  The deepest want.

  It’s visceral, so entwined to my being that it runs parallel to my veins and leeches into every part of life so that random things remind me of it. Like someone skipping in the park. Or the slash of the Milky Way across the deep black of night in Amish land, where people coalesce to view the dark sky. At times, Az’s interface glow leaking across the walls makes me long for something I’ve never even seen. And, in weakened moments, when defenses fall and the spark of happiness stutters and dies, it calls for tears. Big, fat drops that course down reddened cheeks until I’m dried out, leaving nothing behind but a deep, angry pulse of want.

  A want to step into nothing. For the darkest void to pull and for the stars to reach into my soul, burying their beauty there.

  I want to walk among the stars.

  The ads along the highway laugh at how futile even noticing the stars has become in a neon-worshipping world. Lights coat every building, person, and car. Outside of Amish land and far removed farms, viewing the brightest star is difficult. I grew up on one of those farms and have been to the Amish’s land, but it’s not enough. And the next step, walking among them, is an almost impossible task given the circumstances of my illnesses. There’s a good reason they don’t let sick people like me go to space. We don’t do well up there.

  But cost gets you anywhere.

  I just have to find a way to get it.