Quinn
She'd forgotten that the city sang.
That the heat broiled off the tarmac and chewed at her feet. Warmth bleeding in between the dense skyscrapers. That the world hummed under a muted, starless twilight with too much sound, smog-tinting bleeding neon.
The city.
She was in the city, her old home, back in her old universe. Years in the wasteland and already she'd forgotten how fucking bright and how goddamn loud her old home could be.
Quinn found herself on the same old curb where it had all ended, staring into the clogged-up, cacophony traffic. She had died just two steps away from where she sat now. But the bush was gone, and they'd erected a barrier. Things had changed.
Her breath quickened.
For one, there was a massive billboard that flickered to life right before her eyes. High-definition footage stretched across two buildings. It interrupted the skyline like some kind of fucked-up divine announcement. An actor with a massive, pearly smile towered over her. A new toothpaste commercial; she hadn't seen that brand before.
Quinn squinted. Jasmine and Apple flavoured. Weird.
There were new skyscrapers too, and they were taller, glassier. A concrete jungle of the glummest cityscape grey. An anchor slammed in to speak; her lips were cherry red, eyeshadow too pink. Her makeup was different. She hadn't seen that style before, more blush under the eyes, more glitter on the nose. But the caption seemed to scream.
PIONEERING TECHNOLOGY 'FLOAT' OFFICIALLY CREDITED TO THE LATE DR QUINN LEE FOLLOWING REVELATION OF FRAUD BY DR MARCUS DEAN.
Float.
Her name. The fucking asshole's name. She'd forgotten about him, about how he'd degraded her, abused her, used her. The man who'd stolen her achievements away from her and had given zero fucks. He might as well have killed her. Perspiration was clinging to her spine now, rage itching up her neck.
A picture of her face was pulled up, smiling, no makeup, tired but with awfully sharp eyes. A gaunt, sickly look was on her cheeks from overwork. There was oil in her hair, and her jaws were tight with tension. She looked like shit, worse than the most awful days in the wastelands.
A flush of shame flooded her veins.
That day had been awful; surprise meetings and sabotaging colleagues sort of awful. She reckoned she looked worse than wasteland Quinn, seemed unhappier even. It was a shitty picture taken at the company. A picture she'd hated and had to use for years.
And then came the picture of him.
Quinn's hands clenched tightly. She didn't want to remember his ugly mug, those fucked up eyes and the terrible memories. But there it was burning into her eyes. The oily grin, the white teeth, the thin fucking fish lips, the sleeked back hair. The billboard stuttered, and the anchor's face appeared framed by stock images of lab equipment and stupid running data. Her tone was grave.
"In a shocking turn of events," she stated. "The revolutionary neural-interface technology, Float, was discovered to have a hidden signature constructed in its code. The private logs of its creator were discovered."
The footage slammed into a digital reconstruction. A black background, green syntax, the faint outline of a heart. Her signature. A cursor click led to a gallery of information. And videos. Quinn's cheeks blossomed into a smear of red.
She'd forgotten about that little thing. That cutesy little symbol she'd pressed into the back panels of her creation where it'd open up to a flustering recording of her utter hatred for the company and its men.
It had only been meant as a test of the virtual keyboard and video recording services. A backlog of blackmail for her safety. A private archive meant for her eyes only. It should not have been accessible, given that that version of Float was hers, locked away in storage like a diary.
But Quinn's cheeks burned then, oddly hot, pulse thundering. She'd said too much in that shit, penned down too many angry words. It even held direct quotes from the asshole who'd treated her like shit.
The company should have made Float into a clean version 2 system with a full factory reset. They should not even have access to it. The fact that they'd cracked into her personal files after her death and used her version for public access made Quinn's lips stretch into a smirk.
Like all the elite motherfuckers in the world, clearly her bosses had not understood her code. They had probably shat themselves hiring people to try to understand her creation, and had then chosen to search her files for her working version of the technology. Their failures were now slapped onto the product, hastily covering up the fact that it was a private copy, and now someone had accidentally entered her domain.
How fucking hilarious.
The anchor's lips seemed to twitch at the corners.
"It has now been confirmed that Float was not created by Dr Marcus Dean, the widely recognised face of the project, but by his late colleague, Dr Quinn Lee."
Quinn watched on, hands clasped tight between her knees.
"Newly recovered archives recorded by Dr. Lee herself have gone viral, shedding light on significant ethical concerns within the company AntiC. Evidence of systemic misogyny by senior executives and team members is now trending worldwide."
A video of the asshole flashed next, features blurred, but he was screaming into the camera, screaming at her. So they'd truly retrieved literally everything from her logs, even the deleted footage…Her cheeks were warm at the thought.
"Documentation recovered now suggests potential evidence of foul play in Dr Lee's death, raising urgent questions about the erasure of her contributions to one of the decade's most influential technologies.
Police now confirm that Dr. Dean was also a passenger on the company bus involved in the fatal accident that took Dr Lee's life last year. His presence on board had not been disclosed until today."
A picture was revealed then of the party she'd missed after her death. All smiling men, not a single woman, and Quinn scoffed. Then a replay of the news of her death, of a company bus colliding with a drunk woman on the street.
"In light of this new information, authorities have reopened the investigation into Dr. Lee's death."
The footage then snapped back to the anchor, whose expression now grew oddly solemn. The caption had now changed.
BREAKING NEWS: WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION CONFIRMS GLOBAL OUTBREAK OF SOUL SICKNESS
"We're following breaking news tonight. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially confirmed what it is calling a global pandemic of a mysterious illness now known as 'Soul Sickness.'
Details are still developing, but officials say more than ten thousand cases have been documented worldwide.
As global attention intensifies on the creators of Float, Dr Dean was hospitalised last week after collapsing during a public keynote address.
WHO has now confirmed Dr. Dean is the first officially diagnosed patient of Soul Sickness."
The video showed the asshole vomiting a black, unidentified substance before losing consciousness on stage. Then another of him on a stretcher, blood in his hair, oxygen mask on his face. The ink, spewing from his chest, was too familiar, too damn familiar.
Lonely.
Quinn stood then, breath hitched, eyes wide. What the fuck? Her mind slammed now to the world of Euodia, to the seven men. Ink. Lonely. The transformation. This was the first sign of Lonely from a timeline decades before the one from the story, from a different universe, from her world.
Her eyes went wide then, staring, watching.
The feed was shifting to a slow zoom into a hospital room, to IVs, clean sheets, to the ink tumbling into a container from Marcus's chest. Quinn stared at the chains on his hands, clamping him to the bed, a gag on his lips. But his body was basically skin and bones, flesh so thin she could see the inky veins.
He looked like a zombie.
He looked like he was dead.
"Medical reports describe the condition as causing severe psychological and physical distress."
The screen revealed a disturbing list. One that seemed more fitting for rabies, and too damn similar to her Lonely. But what disturbed her greatly were the words that were clearly highlighted in red: A ravenous need for their soulmate.
Soulmate.
Her hands shook.
"In all cases, patients have expelled a black fluid from their orifices, most predominantly from the heart. Tests have so far failed to determine a biological source, but experts have discovered that it comes from the soul."
Behind the anchor, a chart appeared: the silhouette of a human body overlaid with a heatmap. It shifted to one that displayed the soul, from a glowing orb in the heart to a hollow, rotting void. Quinn's gasp echoed in her ears.
The decay of the soul.
It seemed almost as if someone had stabbed a sword right through the heart, and dark blood was now leaking from within.
"Early data suggest the illness first appears aggressively in people who have severed ties, rejected or betrayed their soulmate.
Victims experience intense hallucinations, a compulsive longing to reunite with their soulmate and a crazed need to replenish their dying soul.
Their bodies will first seek out their soulmates to heal the wounds of the soul.
In later stages of the illness, patients will experience intense confusion, seeking out all for their flesh and, more predominantly, their hearts, where the soul is presumed to originate.
Doctors warn that the sickness becomes nearly impossible to treat once the soul liquid has completely covered the victim's body."
An animation played, showing the flowing ink consuming a person whole and transforming them into a monster.
"According to WHO epidemiologists, the only known recoveries have occurred when a soulmate emotionally and physically reconciled with the afflicted individual, something they describe as 'extremely rare.'
Experts caution that late-stage Soul Sickness patients can become highly dangerous and should not be approached by the public."
Footage played of a roaring monster smashing through a mall in a foreign country. The devastation was censored, but it was clearly feasting on humans. Quinn stared, horrified.
A Lonely.
It truly was the Lonely.
"The cause of the leaking soul appears to be an airborne pathogen that weakens soul resilience and will gradually rot the soul.
The possibility of soul sickness increases if one is not able to maintain bonds with their soulmate to raise soul resilience.
This means that all individuals are at risk.
All individuals must engage in bond-strengthening activities.
Authorities are urging the public to stay informed; maintain regular and strong emotional and physical connections with their soulmate; and seek immediate medical care if symptoms appear.
We'll continue to follow this developing story and bring you updates as they come in."
Footage rolled. Quinn's throat tightens. The screen went black. A moment later, a toothpaste ad began again. Discount flights. A teaser for some crime drama debuting next Friday. Her vision spun.
What the fuck?
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