Crossings

Prologue

A return to the norm was possible for there to be re-awakening in the planet of the apes, where once there was paradise. To and fro’ I went essentially escaping parasites.

To get away from the “Me”, to be someone else would become a philosophical endeavor in and out of the ruthless world of positive imperilment of having to become someone by any and all means.

In theory, one had to divine what could be true, but no one could remove the purpose, escape enslavement. Reason itself would actually be of the infiltrating thoughts that laid no cause or reason to there being a right, like laws themselves. The irony…

A survival mechanism arose, the simple, natural, and, whole, was stained by what could be deemed entirely as unnecessary. To encompass that realm with words would be murder all over again. There being theft and conceited effort to that being the purpose for endeavoring and higher power, like a rite of passage, even it if would be entering an entirely different realm, and/or role, the purge…

Playing, working, living and growing were all the benefit to look up with the least bit of vice left for there to be evil.

All that was needed was innocence lost, and then this…

Chapter 1

Luis was fallen asleep on a desert island and his homeland had just been invaded by robots that he trained to dance and lance.

Luis understood what it took to be great, and had spent countless hours perfecting his craft of selling. Knowing his super power was in his ability to fight with an emotional IQ that kept his cool.

Passion for the heat of battle made him do his job with a fervor of a lion in the jungle where the competition were sailing and swimming at sea.

Instead of work all day, he took long breaks to train other salesmen in his career.

And when the day was done he would speed read and run with his ear piece in, he was able to consume information at a rapid clip.

Not bad for someone who was short-sighted and in need of corrective lenses. This one-eyed monster preferred AR glasses after getting LASIC surgery to regain 20/20 vision.

Now weighing his options, Luis had to sacrifice his time on vacation to return to a despotic civilization that erupted In battle.

He was a successful car salesman, so working for the robot company was a flourishing endeavor for him.

Now, he knew he would have to reclaim his land from a robot invasion.

All the money he made was made to be his own demise…

He knew he could trust one person who was also from another time. That person was Scion Edward.

Once hailed to be a saint, he was living in the Westside of Orange where Edward “the Silent One” had been peeled, no pun intended.

Chapter 2

A recreational park was all that he had. From circling the block, to there being no end in sight from traveling to ‘work’.

Every time the train stopped traffic, that would be the “end of the tracks”. That was 13th street.

Returning to the 3rd block, which was less than he traveled throughout the day. It was hard to tell, everywhere looked the same, the dividing line was the rail-crossing, which would be the fork whether he made it to work.

It was the n’teenth time that he crossed the 12th street and 13th street crossing. Only this time he was suffering heat exhaustion, still kicking rocks, he had a re-occurring vision of crossing the railway. It was so hazy and acarine in his mind, at some point he gave in and flattened out on the winding road. The ambulance came to revive him.

In all his knowledge, he tripped and fell, but to the EMT medics he was pretty much revived from passing dead, with an autopsy and all.

First, there was the peddling and pacing too slow, then there was the pacing too quickly, there were thousands traveled by this frequent flyer, and it was certain when he reached the outskirts of the city. Either it was 3 blocks, or it was 4 blocks, on 13th street.

He had found the edge of this town from where he started from, just to be near his friendly neighbors from other parts of the globe. It was rare that he had made it to this part of town, but he did, and that wasn't until after stampeding a maze of 14 blocks on foot for a dozen years.

After crossing the 13th-14th block where there was a railroad crossing, magic in his life took place. The magic was that he would wake to 13 blocks to circle, not knowing if he surpassed the city perimeter.

Another innocent pedestrian who crossed paths one day, traveled three or four blocks a day. He would deliver food and frequently make his quest to work. Many people found it odd that this gentleman was in traffic all day...

The great concern was whether he was alive, living within the city perimeter of a high-profile railroad crossing at 13th and Broadway.

There were two 13th streets, and two different Broadways—lane and boulevard.

So, it was a question of whether he was lost to begin with, or whether he was needing to make his detour to enter the promised land over the railroad tracks of 13th and Broadway Blvd.

‘Whenever will he leave this place?’ People thought.

In the meantime a saint would seem well enough to eat and live off the fat of the land. Praying for people and receiving good tidings was a daily occurrence for him. There were nightmares of a circus careering around and consuming him, yet he was a dreamer, with a work ethic that could move mountains.

It was prophetic to say he would escape this maze, a thirst to survive, first, and lust for life. All that was needed was to make it past that fork in the road…

Chapter 3

The city street signs were smaller and more detailed looking, that’s what made Mark feel he was already on his way to the other side, yet would get lost when it was time to pass the corridor to make it across the tracks. A misfit and a user, he grew up sarcastic and was a playful billy. This transit however was no grounds for playing.

The second 13th street that he would have to find in order not to reach a dead-end as a pedestrian was hard to find. It was a joke to think he never made it to the other side, still many wondered, seeing him lost and going in circles…

The other side was a stately lifestyle of mansions and palms blowing in the wind. It was even cooler weather, the further one got... The side Mark lived on was a hot, dry desert.

Flat square blocks, he would plod and plot for a few miles before getting lost.

Then there was a second 13th street that dead-ended, by the time he circled back it was too late to make it to work. Mark was a hopeless case.

He suffered thirst in the desert, to the point where all he needed was water to survive. Then it was a dollar, then it was a bike.

After passing out from heat exhaustion and getting hauled off the street, Mark began to gig a working job as a delivery person.

Unfortunately, he could only take close-by orders for risk of dragging down delivery times. At the end of the day, almost every day for about a year, he would cry out, ‘That was my life.’

Chapter 4

Then there was Vato—a young, happy-go-lucky who went through trials of a lad who bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. Being a male godhead his objective in life was to appease his family. Relying on friends to refute a cruel system, yet. Brought up in a world of terror and dysfunction, he would cross paths with Mark, who saw and knew very little. Mark was about to embark in a race to the bottom as a campy hobbyist…

Vato grew up modest, there was nothing in life he couldn’t attain, yet was content with what he had. Mark, on the other hand, wanted it all. His dream growing up was to play professional sports. This, no doubt, had been a coming-of-age experience, shot down by excessive drug use and recreational activity.

Chapter 5

The street life was a far cry from the dysfunction that was taking place around, yet still represented a drug epidemic.

The street Mark was on, ‘Bigsby’, intersecting with Broadway on the other side of town. One of five main streets that he took, That was the last thing he saw of a past life. That’s because ‘Shaky City’, as it was called at the time, melted. All that was left was his five senses and a corporal vessel of cars and people he knew in a past life, because it was over.

The ambulance came and hauled Mark to a hospital somewhere in the peeled universe that literally ceased to exist.

He met Vato, and they made friends quickly, swapping stories about playing kickball at school and both had family who grew up playing stickball. They would trade cards and throw dice a couple times.

Mark shared stories, one about playing street hockey with golf clubs. It was odd but, ’Shaky City’ had all types. The great leapfrog contest, was really racing in potato sacks and seed spitting on the fourth of July. Vato thought him odd, to say the least, but he grew on him. After all, they attended the same state fair, and knew what it was like bobbing for apples and eating deep-fried junk food.

Upon their first acquaintance, Mark asked, “So, what’s your story?” Vato looked at him sternly as if to say, ‘You should know.’

Vato had been discovered a few blocks from where he lived. Outside looking up in the sky, stars made constellations, Vato knew all of them.

He also had ‘hops’ playing basketball.

The streets were riddled with drugs, there was no life on the streets, just glued memories that pieced it together.

What led Mark to the hospital was a spiked drink they suspected. He found out how Vato had to carry his burdens. Still, with the same pains and same responsibilities as normal, it wasn’t easy.

Mark wasn’t concerned with life’s complexities, but rather his personal life and how it deteriorated.

It had been two weeks since he saw his girlfriend. She was going to visit him. She had changed her number, apparently.

Chapter 6

“Oh my god!” Mark blurted out. “My head hurts!”

“I can take your mind off that pain.” Vato interjected.

Both were locked away in a hospital that resembled a prison cell.

“How do you know it’s pain?”

“How do you know it’s me, and how do you know you’re you?”

Mark just reflected at the blank white ceiling in his bed, silent.

All the while, Edward was outside praying for his life, “Truth is a bright future, in sufficient credibility to claim you are exalted in bringing life itself in this world…”

Chapter 7

Once released, Mark was on a quest to become someone, not just an ‘other’…

Someone super successful, well-known, cool, someone like Luis.

Upon returning to home from vacation, Luis was forced to start a new job. It was in options trading. Everyone thought he was in it for the money, but he was in it to seriously reform leadership to clean up the robot invasion.

There was a great deal of comraderie won in a few of the robots Luis trained. They could think, feel, and their sense of sadness, vindication, and loyalty were all apparent. In other words, it was simple to know who in the company’s deployment he could trust.

After this battle, Luis was sure that he could bring a girl on a vacation to the island that he was at, since, he had spent so much time traveling. That was his entire dream.

He would go back and meet someone at the waterfall. It was so pristine, the waterfall did seem like a glacier ice cap within a forest green cliff. Majestic and pure, what could be said of Luis’ inspiration to just escape, now that it was clear his trusty robot alliance was greatly outnumbered.

After the fallout Mark was seen a loser still, he joined Luis’s enterprise knowing the cause to overturn the robot company, given he was human.

He learned how to get along with the robots; he affected the trade, making it more aggressive and his anachronistic way was similarly the pulling of the ‘sword from the stone…’

Every time it was the hour to make money, they would short stock, there was an indicator that measured the number of sales orders, and it was showing signs that something was up!

Ironically, when there was heat, Mark would make money on this landslide, and Luis would leave the building with his robot comrades to visit the robot company.

Turns out, many companies were actually hiring deployed units and it was becoming a hot bed for fortune.

Cutting the time that work got done, and lowering the cost meant unit investments in a robot made this a lucrative endeavor.

Luis wasn’t having that though, not after what he saw.

If nothing else, Mark had a knack, and persistence was key. All that time getting lost on the streets made him appreciate every hour he could spend in the trade.

It got pretty high-concept, but nothing was stopping him.

As soon as he made his first trade, he was up and down, hitting the books to see how to make money.

Then it dawned on him, Luis was succeeding because he had an in at the Robot company.

The irony was Luis was making money on the upside,

While poor Mark was taking losing positions, on the downside, just what Luis wanted to happen!

It only took about a couple months until Mark got the swing of things.

There were some healthy checks, one option was to take a defense company long. Looks like he hit his mark there, everyone was uncertain about the markets, but the robot company kept going up!

Soon as he got his check, Mark went to buy designer suits, and all kinds of men’s groomings, this was his mad ball…

Truth was Luis didn’t care what the price did, it was a shuffle to re-organize management, because they were bent on destruction.

There was a media outlet in the adjacent office and a bookshelf with a little depiction of Prince Arthur’s fabled sword-in-the-stone hanging in the background.

After several rounds of negotiations Luis finally managed to convince leadership to at least deploy the robots for other purposes instead of “military gain”.

There still was the downfall of invading robots in all the land.

All the while Mark kept calling and calling to make a dollar.

A research company was contracting to hire deployed robots. The company’s attrition would go up and things would become a lot more balanced now that the bots were getting to work instead of simulating drills and safe quarters.

Mark had his eye on the company, with a possible buy entry at $2.50 per share…

This, along with AI, was going to be the future; why not kill two birds with one stone by buying a robot to do research?

After making this great investment—unlike buying stock—Mark was left with his robot drone. Now was time to learn and adapt.