As they walked through the city in the later hours of the afternoon, Claudia felt like she was walking in the middle of a graveyard. She saw Torino as a large cemetery designed to house the citizens who lived there. A thin mist enveloped the discolored buildings, creating a sinister atmosphere; the gray condos appeared like massive tombstones, the graffiti on their walls more like grotesque epitaphs filled with profanities and various obscenities.

The old derelict industrial building stood in front of them, a small sign telling the people outside that it was open. The Iron Theater used to be part of an industry that made chocolate, candies, and other sorts of sweets, a brand that was very popular during the festivals. The place was mostly empty; a few people were scattered here and there. Claudia recognized Marisa, the bartender, a woman with purple and blue colored hair and a cybernetic eye. Claudia waved her hand to her and Marisa smiled back, while serving a beer to old Gianni. Turning around, Gianni noticed Claudia and waved at her. She replied with a smile. Gianni was one of the few old people she knew that wasn’t scared of the outside world. A lovely old man who, strangely, fit well in their group. They went to the table, their table, their territory where no one except them could get in. Their gang was there, waiting for them. Eddy, Giovanna, Ettore, Mirko, and Pancrazio. All there waiting for them with empty glasses in their hands.

"Bring some beers, Marisa, it’s on us," Paolo said.

"Ah! My man! What are we celebrating?" Ettore asked. "Did you win the national lottery?"

"Hell no he didn’t, that’s my plan." Pancrazio spoke in a loud voice, like usual. "That said, why are you guys being so generous? Did something good happened to you?"

"We made a decision," he said, solemnly.

"You moving? Are you changing city? Because let me tell you, it’s going to be a waste of time and energy. Everywhere you go it’s the same shit, everywhere. If you think that Torino is bad, wait until you see Roma. And may God help you if you ever happen to get too close to Foggia. Hell on earth, that’s what it is."

Claudia found herself searching for Paolo’s hand, something to hold on to to give herself the courage to speak. She had no idea how to say what she wanted to say. Around her, her friends were eager to know, waiting to find out what was the reason for their feast. Something happy, probably, maybe the two of them were thinking of marrying or having a baby. Something nice, at least.

"We have decided," he said, holding her hand and speaking in a clear voice, "we are going to plug in tonight, and merge ourselves in the Stream."

Claudia noticed the faces of her friends changing. They were no longer eager to know; now they wished to be somewhere else. Giovanna averted her gaze, Ettore simply looked at them, Mirko, still high from something he had smoked before, was staring at the bottom of his glass, empty eyed.

"The Stream, huh?" Eddy said, lighting up a smoke. "It’s going to be some trip then."

"Yes, it will. We won’t be seeing each other again. I felt that it was the right thing to let you guys know. We have been friends for some time now. We didn’t want you to hear about us on the newsfeed."

The Stream. It was the name that regular people gave to it. The official name was C.D.E. 2.5.7., that was the name of the program created in the HQ of the Grossman company, located in Berlin. C.D.E. 2.5.7. was originally conceived as a computer program, a sentient virus that could easily adapt to multiple data protection systems. But the virus, a very advanced A.I., chose differently. Its autonomy was too large to be contained, and it escaped through the Internet. Initially, the virus appeared dormant, no activity could be detected from it. Then the messages came. The virus attacked multiple computers around the world, asking people the same thing, over and over again.

"Be with us."

A few months ago, Paolo told Claudia that he was going to join the Stream. The girl was left speechless.

"Why?" Giovanna asked. "Why do you want to do that? Aren’t you going to die?"

"People who join the Stream don’t die. They live on within the Stream, they reach a new level of consciousness."

"Aw man, there are other ways to get there," Mirko blurted out, his greasy long hair resting on his shoulders. "I can give you some of my stuff if you two want it. I’ll throw in a few of my special mixes, you’ll like, promise."

"The higher level of consciousness we seek is permanent. Not something that will last a few hours at most. The Stream will help us achieve that, so that things will finally start making sense, for once in our lives."

"What are you talking about? Making sense of what?" Ettore asked, visibly confused by the conversation.

"Making sense of the world," Paolo said, almost in a resigned tone. "You all know me. How long have I been involved in politics? Protesting, going to rallies, helping other workers on strike?"

"Since I’ve known you?" Eddy asked in a rhetorical manner.

"Yeah, same here," Mirko said, blurring the words a little.

"Since forever," Giovvana replied.

"Always," Ettore continued.

"For a fuckton of time.," Prancrazio concluded crudely.

"And how much have I accomplished in all this time? In all of my fights?"

This time, no one spoke. It felt embarrassing for them, but not for Paolo. He knew the answer already.

"I’m thirty-three, and I’ve been an activist since I was twelve. Every time I go to a rally I always see the same faces, and every time they get older and older. In the span of the next years I’ll be the only one left. When I was younger I always felt that no matter how difficult things were, you could always fight on and hope for change. But after all this time, I wondered: what will become of me? Will I become an old man, standing in the middle of a square, waving a flag, while no one pays attention? The idea scares me, I don’t want that future. As a man, that is what will happen to me. But as something else, if I join the Stream, I can finally achieve something, something unique that as a man will always be denied to me."

"Like what?"

"Freedom. Unlimited freedom from oppression. I will travel through the entire planet, gather information and change the entire system from inside, all at once. As a massive Stream of digital willpower I will finally achieve something."

"Got any proof?" Pancrazio said, emptying his glass. "’Cause so far the only I thing I hear is just speculation, wishful thinking at best. And you are betting your life on it. Even better, you are betting her life on it. Ah!" he said, pointing his finger at Claudia and refilling his glass.

Feeling herself at the center of attention, Claudia wished to disappear. She didn’t want to speak about her reasons. She was afraid that the others would ridicule her, like Pancrazio was doing.

"Claudia is doing this because she wants to, I don’t control her. She can make her own choices."

"Sure she can, little quiet Claudia, always sitting down and never talking. She lets her big man do the talking. After all, you are a mature fellow, aren’t you? So much more mature than the rest of us."

"Where are you going with this?"

"Oh come on, you think we don’t see it? The way you look at the rest of us, like we are scum because we are not activists like you, that we don’t care the way you do. You think that we have nothing inside of us. You think that Giovanna is just a silly girl with her ambitions of becoming a serious singer, or that Mirko is just a stoner, or that Eddy is nothing but a greedy lawyer that enjoys the sight of a couple fighting or breaking up, or that Ettore is an idiot because he talks only about his muscles."

"I have other hobbies," Ettore replied weakly.

"Not the point. The point here is that Paolo, Mister I Care About The Rest Of The World And I Like To Make Sure That Everybody Knows It, has reached the breaking point. But instead of facing reality he wants to run away inside a computer, hoping that he will find something better there. And he is going to drag a young woman with him."

"I faced reality when the cops arrested me and beat me. I don’t need a lecture from you." Paolo rose up from his chair and Claudia did the same, still holding his hand.

"Tonight we will plug in and join the Stream. Tomorrow morning someone will move in and take our bodies. Everything has already been arranged. We just wanted to say goodbye."

"I read somewhere," Pancrazio said, in serious tone, abandoning his usually mocking voice, "that this virus, the Stream, is trying to grow stronger in order to take over the entire digital infrastructure, and to do so it needs to grow. And in order to grow it needs more data, data it gets from the people who join the Stream. That thing doesn’t want to make the world a better place, it wants to take control of it. If I remember correctly, various governments are thinking of a few ways to stop it permanently. Let’s say that you join the Stream and then they kill it? What happens then?"

"Then we will simply kill them first, once we join the Stream," Paolo replied.

A cold, hollow silence swept the table, silencing them. Claudia found herself biting the interior of her cheek, his words weighing on her like a mountain. She remained silent for a long, interminable instant, until her nerves gave in. She attempted to fake a smile, reassuring the others.

“In any case,” she managed to say, holding her voice still, “we didn’t want to leave without seeing you guys for one last time.”

“That’s right,” continued Paolo, “we are not here to discuss this thing, we have already decided. We are here to say goodbye to you all.”

“Look, Paolo, that’s just ...”

“It’s not that we are ungrateful to you all,” he said, “having you as friends was good for us. It’s just that we have decided to move on with our lives. Please, understand our decision and respect it.”

Claudia could see that no one at the table had really any desire to start a discussion about the subject of life and death, none of them had the skills for a debate of that level, and they were aware of it. The only thing they could do was just stare down at their glasses, sinking the words they wanted to say out loud.

Slowly, Claudia stood up from her chair and went to Giovanna, carefully hugging her sobbing friend.

"I don’t want to lose you," Giovanna said with teary eyes, hugging her back.

"You won’t, I’ll be around you, every time you open up your computer. I swear. So, don’t do anything nasty, okay?"

"Okay," she said with a sad smile, wiping away the tears from her light blue eyes. She hugged Claudia once more and the young woman felt the brush of her friend’s red hair over her cheek.

"Goodbye, man," Ettore said, hugging Paolo with his strong arms.

"When the global revolution begins, just remember that you will need lawyers, lots of them. So remember your friend Eddy, okay?"

"Lawyers will get the bullet like anyone else," Paolo joked.

"Are you really trying to achieve a higher level of consciousness? Is this Stream stuff better than drugs?"

"It is. I’m sure it will be better than anything you had in your whole life."

Paolo was unsure about what to say to Pancrazio, but his friend stood up and went straight to the bathroom. Paolo followed him and found him waiting for him.

"You are serious about this," he said. "Fuck me, that’s insane."

"It’s not. Everything is clear for the first time in my life. We are joining the Stream this evening."

"Don’t do it. This isn’t you," Pancrazio said, his hands combing his dark hair on the back of his head. He felt powerless to stop Paolo from committing what was nothing short of a suicide in his eyes. He had no witty lines to say. No jokes or quips, he could only plead.

"You are stronger that this."

"I’m not."

The man who wanted to change the world and the man without hope did not speak again. Paolo left the bathroom, leaving Pancrazio alone. There were no goodbyes between the two of them.

They payed their dues to Marisa. The old man, Gianni, was not at the counter anymore.

"He is probably outside having a smoke," Marisa said, looking at them with her cybernetic eye. "We couldn’t help but overhear what you just said. Are you really going to do it?"

"Yes, we will," Paolo replied, holding Claudia’s hand.

"I see." Claudia caught a glimpse of sadness in her natural eye. The cybernetic one was a cold construct of steel and glass, with thin cables that ran outside of her cranium.

"I’ll miss you guys, you have always been nice to me."

"You don’t have to. We will always be around you. Have no fear, you will never be alone," Paolo said, sounding more and more like a priest.

Outside, they saw Gianni smoking a cigarette, resting his back against a rusty streetlamp. The old man went to them. He smelled of tobacco and wine.

"Mind if I walk with you for a while?" he asked with his raspy voice. Paolo and Claudia had no objections. The three of them walked through the quiet city, the mist now enveloping the buildings and making them disappear from sight.

"So, we won’t see each other again, huh?"

"Not directly, not like this," Paolo said. "But every time you turn on a screen we’ll be there."

"Sound pretty damn strange in my book. But it’s okay, we can see each other again. It’s just," Gianni said, letting go of the consumed cigarette and stepping on it, killing it, "it’s just that we won’t be able to walk like this ever again."

This time, Paolo did not reply. Claudia felt that the old man was right. As part of the digital Stream they could easily travel through the entire world, but at the same time they could never truly interact with it. Being part of a larger program, the freedom of doing such simple things would be denied to them. A shiver ran through her spine. Was she really doing the right thing, following Paolo so blindly? What was going to happen to them? Were they simply going somewhere else, leaving their mortal bodies behind, or were they simply committing an elaborate suicide to give their death some sort of meaning? She hugged Paolo’s arm, searching for the strength to speak, but her voice never came out, limiting herself to a silent whimper.

Gianni left them in front of the small apartment complex where the couple lived and said his goodbye. He shed no tears. Claudia couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time that old man Gianni accompanied someone home who he was never going to see again. Did he lose someone who plugged into the Stream? There was no way of knowing, and Claudia didn’t want to reawaken old, sad memories in the old man. Once inside the house, they checked the equipment for the transfer. They had two different computers and two sets of suction cups to connect their brains to the system. Claudia felt sick all of a sudden. She felt a rising sense of dread watching Paolo while he was checking if everything was in order. Sweat started to accumulate on her forehead and the back of her neck, and her pitch black hair became sticky on her skin. She wasn’t sure about what she really wanted.

“Paolo,” she finally managed to say, “are you ... are we sure about this? It’s a very important decision, and we won’t be coming back. Are we ...” she stopped, unable to continue. Paolo took off his jacket without even glancing at her. She began to think that maybe she could somehow persuade him, or at least plant some doubt into him.

“Are you worried, Claudia?”

“A little, just a little. It’s not that I don’t want to come with you, it’s just ...”

“I understand,” he said. “I had the same doubts. But honestly, I can’t go on like this anymore.”

In his eyes, she saw something that made her feel sad for him: defeat, resignation. She realized only in that moment that Paolo had been broken by life itself. He had given in.

“For a long time I thought the world could change. I studied all the books my elders passed on to me, all the ideas about changing the world through reform or revolution, all the scrips made by old world intellectuals. I believed in them, in all of them. Until I couldn’t do it anymore.”

As he spoke, she saw his shoulders slumping, his head hanging lower than usual. Was this the same man she loved so much? What happened to him?

“I’m tired Claudia, all the ideology in this world will never fix it. It’s the people, you see. The people that broke the world, and they keep breaking it every day. Even when you explain, when you try to fix it they just come back and break it again. I don’t know how come old people can still live in this world, but I can’t keep going on. You know how it feels, right?”

She knew indeed. All the time spent studying history books, getting a degree, finding a job. Looking back, it seemed so pointless. It was true, people never learned from their past and kept committing the same identical mistakes. What was the future for people like them? Just a word, nothing of importance.

“I know,” she admitted in the end.

They made dinner together. Knowing that they weren’t coming back, they cooked all they had. Pasta, chicken, vegetables, French fries, bread, fish. Everything they had ended up in their stoves and their bellies. There was no need to be frugal: it was their last dinner after all.

"Paolo," she asked, timidly. "What will happen when we get inside the Stream? We’ll still be together, right?"

"Of course we will. But it will be different from this, from everything we ever experienced in our lives."

"Different how?"

"Our consciousness will merge together. You will become me, and I will become you. We will become one mind. And then we will merge with the others inside the Stream. We’ll become part of something never seen on this world."

"But what is going to happen to us? I mean, in practical terms."

"There won’t be an us. We will become one with the Stream, and inside the Stream we will become one with every single person who has joined it before."

He couldn’t help but notice signs of distress on her face. He rose up and cupped her face in his hands. Her big, black eyes were full of uncertainty and doubt.

"Don’t be afraid. We’ll be together, forever. And we will be happy. I can’t make you happy here, but in that place, in the world that is coming, I can do anything, and you can do the same as well. It is the heaven we are looking for," he said, kissing her softly. "I love you here, and I’ll love you there."

Claudia nodded silently, forcing herself to smile, but while her face was quiet her heart was racing madly inside her chest. The thought of losing herself inside something so vast and complex sent shivers down her spine. She was never going to laugh or make love with her man again. But the thing that really scared her was what they could find inside the Stream itself. If the Stream attracted mainly desperate, sick and suicidal people, then she would become part of them, and they would become part of her. The idea made her feel sick. She imagined a malignant tumor forcibly implanted in her. She wanted to be one with Paolo and Paolo alone, not with a multitude of deranged strangers. She wanted to object, to tell him that there was no way that a global revolution could be born from such a thing, that she didn’t want to be part of a river of damned souls surfing the planetary digital infrastructure until the end of times. She wanted to scream that she was already happy to be with him.

But she did nothing of the sort; she wasn’t the kind of person to object or raise trouble. She was too passive and meek to propose an alternative. Paolo was different, he was the one who proposed things, who had ideas and wanted to translate them in the real world. He was headstrong and filled with determination, and when he had proposed to her that they join the Stream she was completely unprepared. She had known him for years, and the thing she loved most about him was his inner strength, his desire to keep pushing on, no matter what. Paolo had told her that it was his experience as a political activist that allowed him to keep on living. He once summarized his philosophy to her; it was better to keep on marching on or else you’ll start to rot away. Claudia had a different attitude; she believed that there was nothing to do to fix the world, something that made her more and more depressed and apathetic towards life. Paolo believed that through political action the world could change. And while she was never fully persuaded by his ideals, she loved and admired his conviction; he was like a rock to her, indestructible, unshaken by poverty, sickness, and doubt. But that rock had been eroded over time, and Claudia realized too late that she was not up to the task of saving him. If the roles had been reversed, if it was herself who had fallen in despair, then Paolo would have saved her. But it was Paolo who needed to be rescued from his inner demons, and Claudia had no idea what to do. Even in his darkest hour, Paolo’s personality overshadowed hers, preventing her from speaking and acting like she really wanted.

"It’s time," Paolo said, standing up from his chair. "We have to go now."

Almost like she was on autopilot, Claudia rose up with him. The two of them went to their bedroom and attached the suction cups to their temples. Claudia felt the sweat running down to her neck and between her breasts. She was afraid, and she didn’t have the courage to say it out loud. The two of them sat on the floor, where they had positioned their computers. Paolo tapped the buttons on the keyboard and waited for the signal. The monitor showed a strange image; everything was purple, except for a teal-colored image in the middle of it. Claudia wasn’t sure about what shape it was; sometimes it appeared like a tear, sometimes like an eye. Paolo and Claudia put on their headphones to listen to the Stream. She almost jumped when she heard it: a million voices filled with sadness who spoke quietly and gently, like a beggar asking for money.

"Welcome friends," the Stream of voices said to them. "Be with us. Have no fear."

"We don’t," Paolo said, without hesitation. He held Claudia’s hand, and only in that moment he realized how much she was afraid.

"It’s okay, don’t worry."

But Claudia continued to be worried, her breathing becoming more intense as she started to look around the room, searching for a way out.

"Commencing transfer in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..."

Suddenly, with a scream, Claudia tore off the suction cups on her head and ran away to the small living room. She fell on the ground, hitting her head. Touching her forehead, she felt blood coming out. It was dark, the lights were off. She rose up, holding her head and crying, but not from the pain. She was afraid of going back to the bedroom. Slowly, though, her feet dragged her back and she saw Paolo, lying on the floor with his headphones still on, just like the suction cups that drained his consciousness inside the Stream.

"Paolo?"

No answer. Paolo was breathing but nothing more. He had become a living corpse, his mind forever part of the Stream. She sank down onto the floor, hugging her knees, unable to move. She could hear something from the headphones that Paolo was wearing, the million voices part of the Stream. Were they calling her? Was Paolo among those voices? She had no idea, she was too scared to find out. The only thing she did was sit on the floor, watching over the body of the man she loved. She sat there for hours, all night, staring at him, hoping for a life sign; a small twitch of his fingers, a rapid movement of his eyes. But nothing came, except for dawn. Claudia was still there, reduced to a flesh statue, trembling with fear. Then she heard the noise of the front door opening. Unsure about what to do, she remained quiet, sitting in the dark. The bedroom door opened and the men wearing orange jumpsuits came in. They had the city logo on their backs and black plastic bags that were large enough to contain a human body.

"Hey," one of them said, "where is the other one? This one is that guy. Paolo, right? He said there was going to be his girlfriend with him. Where is she?"

Then the two cleaners noticed the scared young woman with a head wound and her face marked with a trail of tears on her cheeks. She started to crawl towards them, feeling weak and tired.

"Please, please help him."

"Aw shit, she chickened out. That’s the worst part of the job."

"Please, help him," she begged, pointing her finger to Paolo, "he’s still breathing, please."

"Nothing we can do, miss," said one of the cleaners, taking out a small syringe from his pocket. "Once the mind goes away the body is nothing but a chunk of meat. We need to take care of you now, you are clearly hysterical."

"No, please, please help him. Help him."

The two men grabbed her and pinned her on the floor. She felt the syringe penetrating the skin on her arm, and she screamed so much she thought she was going to rip her vocal chords. She called for Paolo to help her, but Paolo lay there, motionless. She kept calling him until the tranquilizer injected made her lose consciousness, forcibly dragging the young woman into a world where only darkness existed.

*     *     *
When she awoke from her forced slumber she looked around. She was on a bed in what appeared to be a hospital room. There were four beds; the other occupier of the room was an old, comatose man, thin as a toothpick, connected to a plastic bag filled with a white paste-like substance through a thin transparent filament. She tried to stand up, but she discovered that they had chained her wrists to the bed. She began to scream, asking to be let go and where Paolo was. After a few minutes, her screams degenerated into an incoherent yelling against the ceiling. She felt someone approaching and saw two male nurses, one of them with a syringe in his hand. She knew what was coming. She screamed anyway.

*     *     *
After eight days she finally managed to calm down. Despite being forcibly fed by the robotic nurse she had lost a considerable amount of weight. Being already skinny, she looked like a skeleton with long, black hair. A nurse explained to her that she was going to join a therapy group for people like her, survivors who refused to join the Stream at the last moment. Claudia just nodded; she didn’t feel like talking. She didn’t feel like doing anything at all.

Predictably, the therapy group was made of people like her: empty shells who had no desire to share their feelings. The veterans were the ones who did most of the talking. Claudia heard everything, but she wasn’t really listening; she kept her head down, watching her knees, hoping that no one would speak to her. The words of the people went in one of her ears and exited through the other.

"acked out the last moment. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t d"

"red to death. I thought that I was just going to di"

"she’s gone, forever"

"miss him so much, oh God"

"We should have been together, it’s all my fault"

"Alone"

"Christ, I’m so alone"

After the therapy session she was told she could go home if she wished, but that she had to come back for her daily session. After three times without her, the authorities for the mental hygiene would show up on her doorstep and drag her by force. She nodded silently, not caring about potential punishments. They couldn’t make her suffer, she was already in pain.

*     *     *
She had no desire to go home. She wanted to be with others, with people she cared about. She went straight to the Iron Theater, hoping to see her friends. Outside the old industrial building she saw a familiar face. Old man Gianni was smoking in front of the closed bar. Gianni stared at her like she was a ghost from the digital world, a hologram made flesh. He dropped his cigarette and went straight to her, hugging her. The smell of tobacco invaded her nostrils, and she hugged him back. The face of the old man was a mixture of sadness and joy, his smile hidden under his thick gray mustache.

"You didn’t do it in the end."

"I was afraid," Claudia said, almost whispering. "But Paolo wasn’t."

"I see," the old man said, bitterly.

"Is the bar closed?"

Gianni stepped back and looked at the building, searching for words that would not hurt the young woman in front of him; she looked so fragile, ready to fall apart at any moment. But he had no way to shield her from the truth, she deserved to know.

"Marisa is gone. She joined the Stream," he began. Noticing the eyes of the poor soul in front of himself, he steeled himself to continue. "And not just her. The others did the same, soon after you left. I don’t know why but they did."

Claudia felt sick, her mind almost shut down, her knees bent. Gianni managed to catch her before she fell. He noticed that she wasn’t crying, there were no tears left in her eyes. The only sound she could hear in that moment was simply the low beating of her heart in her chest, further proof that she was still alive, sole remnant of her group of friends, now all gone. She began to regret her decision to stay behind; how lucky were they that had left the world, leaving their husks made of flesh and bones in this sad world? Why couldn’t she do it? What was her fear? Now she was alone, and nothing could change that.

"Pancrazio is still here," he said to her. "He’s at the Bar Sport down the road. He’s still with us. Why don’t we go to him? What do you say? Come on, you can do it. Stand Claudia. Stand."

The idea of another survivor like her managed to give her some strength. Weakly, she stood up, with Gianni helping her. The two of them walked until they reached the small Bar Sport. A red plastic table and a couple of filthy chairs stood outside. The bar was old fashioned; the only modern piece of equipment was the robot serving at the counter and the holographic machine showing the lottery numbers. The place looked filthy and the walls were made yellow by the cigarette smoke. At a small circular table sat Pancrazio with a bottle of beer, still fresh from the fridge. Surprised by her presence, he didn’t say anything to her. Claudia and Gianni walked to him and sat down. Pancraziolooked away from her, from her eyes.

"The fucker is gone, right? Fucking dammit," Pancrazio said, emptying the bottle all at once. "To think that I gave a shit about that idiot."

"Are the others really gone?" she asked. "Are we the only ones left?"

"Yeah, welcome among the living."

"But why?" she asked, her lips trembling.

"They were sad, that’s why, what else? Eddy hated his job, he didn’t want to make money out of other people suffering. Giovanna knew that she was just a mediocre singer and that her dreams would never come true. Mirko wanted to reach real, permanent enlightenment. Last year, Ettore found out that he had a heart condition that would kill him off eventually, no matter how much he trained his body. And Marisa was disgusted by the way she looked, with her cybernetic eye. All those things don’t matter anymore if you join the Stream. And so they did it. They jumped in and now their problems are over."

"I ..." she muttered. "I didn’t know that they felt like that."

"’Course you didn’t. They spoke to me because they see me as a drunkard who forgets things, so they shared stuff they wouldn’t share with anyone else. They were sad and down, but they never thought of ending things. Until you two idiots tried to join the Stream. That was what broke them. You understand? They saw you two as the happy couple and then you tried to kill yourself. You were their hope and you took a dump on that," Pancrazio said, raising his voice.

"Calm down now, don’t talk to her like that," Gianni said.

"Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it? Paolo giving up like that was the source of all this. Isn’t that right, eh? What do you say Claudia? Am I wrong?" Pancrazio yelled, slamming his hand on the table.

"Please esteemed client, lower the tone of your voice," the robot at the bar asked in a mechanical tone.

"Fuck off!"

"You’re right," Claudia said, sniffing her nose and wiping away the tears. "It’s my fault. I was afraid, but ... but I never tried to dissuade Paolo. I don’t know why, I just ... I was confused. I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me, I’m sorry," she lowered her head, her hair hiding her face, her tears dropping heavily on her legs. "Please, don’t be mad at me."

"Stop it," Pancrazio said, wiping his eyes as well, fighting off the tears. "Grab a beer and drink something. Calm down now, I’m not mad anymore."

She took three beers from the rusty fridge and asked the robotic bartender to open them for her. Going back to the table, she handed the beers to the two men. They raised the green bottles, saluting their friends for the last time.

"To the ones we lost over the years."

"To those bastards who left us to be alone."

"To ..." began Claudia, hesitating at first, but then continuing with more conviction. "To the ones we love and loved."

The three drank their beers under the watchful eye of the robotic bartender, who was coldly indifferent to the solemn funerary celebration happening close to it.

"Why didn’t you leave with them to join the Stream?" Claudia asked, all of a sudden. Pancrazio was surprised by her question. He took a small sip and stared at the green glass of the bottle.

“Guess I’m afraid of dying. That and I don’t want to leave this world to them.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Them, the bastards. All the cocksuckers who make your life miserable. I mean, look around, look at the city. This place is dead, and not just this place. I don’t know if you have been to other cities, but they all look the same: empty. Zero life in them. I don’t know what happened to them, maybe it was the crisis, maybe all the people just got old. Don’t know, that’s not important anymore. The important thing is that all those places are depressing as hell, and when you try to change them you just end up bashing your head on a rubber wall. The wall doesn’t break and doesn’t move, it just stands there.”

He drank his beer under the eyes of the young girl. The digital screen on the wall showed a soccer match that no one was watching.

“Paolo wanted to change things, he wanted to bring life here. So he got organized, he began marching, protesting, voting. Things didn’t change but he kept trying. Then something must have happened to him, something broke him. The bastards got him. You get me?”

“I ... I think I do,” she said with a soft voice “I think they got me too. A long time ago.”

“Same here,” Pancrazio replied. “I lost count of how many times I wondered why bothering waking up in the morning.”

“But you are still here.”

“Damn right I am.”

“Because you were scared of dying,” she said. “Is it good? Living just because you don’t want to die?”

“Of course not. That’s just surviving, you can’t live all your life like that,” he replied, finishing his beer. “You need hope to live. That’s why I’m still here.”

She fell silent, the half empty, cold bottle of beer resting in her hands. She felt her fingers freezing from the low temperature of the glass.

“What is your hope?” she asked.

“I hoped that not all of you would die jumping into the Stream,” he said. “Guess I got what I wished.”

“Pancrazio, what is mine? My hope?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, averting his eyes. “That you gotta figure out yourself.”

The three at the table continued to drink, but no more words were exchanged. The low humming of the robotic bartender and the noise from the soccer match were the only sounds in the bar.

*     *     *
She went back to the apartment she used to share with Paolo. There was a smell of stale air; she opened up the windows and a fresh breeze swept the rooms. There were few stars in the sky and there was no moon in sight. Going to her bedroom she noticed the two computers, still active, burning hot. She was going to turn them off when she heard the voices. The headphones that Paolo had used to transfer himself were still connected. The voices were coming from them.

Hesitantly, she picked them up and put them close to her ear. The voices were more clear now. They spoke with their sad, resigned tone, luring her in.

"Claudia," they said, "be with us."

"Paolo," she trembled, "is that you?"

"It is us. Paolo is us. Be with us."

She felt something new swelling inside of her: she felt anger towards the voices, and the thing behind the voices.

"I want Paolo, not you. You are not him."

"Us is Paolo. Us are happy. You can be happy. With us."

"I don’t feel like being happy right now," she said, surprised by the calm rage she managed to muster. "I don’t want to be happy."

"Sad. Sad world outside. A bright world inside."

"A bright world, you say. Are people laughing there, inside?"

"Happy," the voices replied.

"That’s not an answer, you fucker. I want to know if you can laugh. Paolo knew how to laugh. Come on, I’m waiting."

"Happy," the voices replied calmly.

"You can’t," she said. "You can’t laugh."

The voices remained silent. She felt rage swelling inside; she wanted to unleash it all at once. But the rage quietly gave way to something that was eating her, a silent sadness gnawing her core. Inside of that voice, that thing that seduced the man she loved and her friends, there were the people she loved. And within that sadness she found a sliver of hope.

"If you are there," she said, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry for letting you go alone. But I was afraid, I didn’t have the courage, you were the brave one. I always followed you, always listened to you. I never said out loud what I thought, if I did ..."she wiped the tears streaming down her cheeks, trying to control her trembling voice. "If you are there, I want you to know that I love you. You were a fool, but I love you. And to all of you guys there, if can listen to this message, I promise you, I won’t give in. I swear. For you, for me."

She looked at the glowing screen and waited for an answer. None came to her. The river of voices had gone quiet. She didn’t know what to think of it. The cybernetic entity that took away the people she cared about most in the world was beyond her understanding. She had no knowledge about computer and digital infrastructure, no tangible way to strike back at that creature made of code. In this world, she had no power to stop the monster.

But then she understood that the monster was powerless as well. It required help from the outside to act; it needed despair, it craved the very souls of people who gave up on their lives. Without this external support, the creature was useless, just a voice reverberating in the head and nothing more. Maybe, in time, scientists and military men would find a way to destroy this sentient virus. In the meantime, she would hold on to her life and make something out of it. She knew that sadness and despair would always be around, they weren’t going away. But they could be kept at bay, exorcised by the company of those we love most.

Without waiting for an answer that wasn’t going to come, she turned off the computer.