Recipient Unknown

Machine gun fire and explosions filled my ears. All around me my comrades were dying to the enemy forces faster than we could push them back. I pulled out a grenade from my belt and hurled it at the opposing trench. Screams and moans of protest answered the shockwave, but my triumph was brief. A stray bullet found me and sent me crashing to the ground.

“Player eliminated,” said the robotic announcer directly in my ears.

“Sorry guys, guess that’s it for me,” I removed my headset as my teammates were asking me why I just stood there instead of ducking back down, blaming me for their impending defeat.

Silence replaced the simulated warzone’s chaos as I returned to the reality of my apartment. I stretched and yawned as I considered what to do next. I turned the television on to chase off the silence and switched to the news channel.

I sighed and went over to my sink. I had better start working on those dishes if I wanted to eat on a clean plate today. There’s only so much an open window or air freshener can do after all, especially when there’s a refinery two blocks over.

The caked food debris refused to give way easily and required most of my attention. The news was little more than background noise anyways, a constant stream of assorted bad news, disasters and tragedies being paraded and peddled for shock value. One segment did catch my attention though, one about an apartment building a few blocks over. It was being investigated due to another outbreak of a virus that wiped out all the residents, s it had a few times before in other buildings. The police finally had a name for it: Acute Vascular Degenerative Syndrome.

I sighed deeply and told myself, “Name rolls off the tongue,” as the authorities announced another two weeks of quarantine in all nearby sectors.

I stopped my scrubbing and listened attentively, hoping desperately not to hear the dreaded number 467, my own sector. The announcer listed one after the next and I felt my face get sweatier with each.

“… sector 457, sector 458, sector 466 and finally sector 467 will remain under quarantine for another fourteen days, or until further notice.”

I smashed the plate I had been holding. Another two weeks! I had already been cooped up in my apartment for three weeks, and now another two on top of that. This place was going to be my tomb sooner than later if this didn’t stop.

I turned my television off and started gathering the pieces of the dish. I took deep breaths and tried not to prick my fingers on the sharp edges.

The spinning carousel of scenarios I was imagining for the coming weeks was interrupted by a whirring sound coming from my balcony. I got up just in time to see a black and yellow delivery drone drop a package and leave. I went over and watched it fly away for a moment and wondered where it might go on its next delivery as it floated over the chimneys in the grey sky. Dumb robot doesn’t know how lucky it is.

I felt my hand tighten and stopped myself when the broken shards started piercing my skin. “Best get rid of this,” I told myself aloud before returning to the door. I looked at the package through the glass for a moment and wondered what it could be. I hadn’t ordered anything, and my birthday was still six months away.

The plain brown box demanded all my attention. I brought it inside and started studying it. It was lighter than I had expected, and I felt nothing move inside. The only address I could find anywhere on the package was my own, no company name, return address, or even warehouse numbers to be seen anywhere on this box.

“Call mom,” I commanded to my computer.

The air between the couch and television illuminated a phone icon and it rang three times. On the third ring, my mother’s face was created out of light in the space where the phone icon had just been. Her hair was brushed smooth, as always, and she was wearing a bathrobe. “Afternoon mom, how are you?”

“So, you remembered your dear old mom, Jackie?”, she asked with a grin. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Funny you should ask,” I said pointing to the box at my side. “Did you send this?”

She leaned closer to the camera and squinted her eyes to inspect the brown box in my hands. “I haven’t sent you anything, Jackie. What’s in it?”

“I don’t know, mom, I thought it came from you. Any idea who it could be from?”

“Your brother and sister have their hands full at the labs, so I doubt they’d have time to send anyone anything. Your dad would have told me if he was planning anything so… Maybe your uncle Dan? He sometimes forgets to write details when he sends out things.”

“Yeah, but why me and why now?”

“How would I know, Jackie? Dan’s a strange man, always has been.” She paused a moment and cleared her throat. “You should give Samantha and Harry a call occasionally, they’ve been really stressed out lately working on a cure for this… disease that’s been spreading. Have you heard the news? They say…”

“I know mom, I know. I’m in for another two weeks. It’s driving me nuts,” I sat down heavily on my couch and started tapping my foot on the ground.

“It’s going to be alright, Jackie. Just think of it as a prolonged vacation!” She smiled broadly but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Thanks mom. I have to go now; I still have some cleaning to do.”

“Take care Jackie. Love you!”

“Love you too mom,” the screen turned to black, leaving me with silence and the weighty question on the table before me.

I sat on the couch for several minutes, staring at the box. I kept watching the box as if doing so would reveal its secrets, and I wished I could afford x-ray implants, but those are only for the security details of the powerful and wealthy.

“Maybe the police should know about this?”, I told myself aloud as the computer dialed the emergency line. The ringing continued and no one picked up. I hung up and tried again, still no answer.

A third try, and this time it said all lines were flooded and to try again later.

“Some help they are!”

I continued my staring contest with the object, when I realized it had been delivered. SkysUp had dropped it off, if I recognized the logos on the delivery drone correctly. If anyone had any information on this package, it would be them.

“Call SkysUp,” I ordered to the computer.

There was almost no delay in being answered. A smiling girl in a clean-pressed blue uniform appeared.

“Welcome to SkysUp! I am Flora-78, how can I be of assistance today?”

“I had this package delivered and I don’t know who it’s from. Do you have any records of where it came from?”

“We keep records of every shipment made!”, chirped back the girl with the thinnest hint of a synthetic voice. These androids were getting better every year. Better than many people at least. “May I ask for your name and address, sir?”

“Jackie Smith. Building Kappa, apartment 1178, sector 467.”

“Please wait while I search for the information,” Flora-78’s eyes went blank, then turned a clear blue, almost white, as she was looking through the databases. Her brow furrowed and her eyes returned to their normal darker blue. “This is strange, mister Smith.”

“What is?”

“Our records do indicate a drone went to your apartment today, but it wasn’t scheduled to do so originally. There also aren’t any records of who it was sent by or its content,” she paused for a second and her eyes flashed clear blue again. “I just called my supervisor. He should be able to help you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”

“It’s fine, Flora, you’ve been plenty helpful,” I smiled at her though I could feel my forehead wrinkling.

Flora-78 disappeared in an instant and was replaced by a lean man in a suit like hers, but with a bright red tie. “Good afternoon mister Smith, I am Nelson McArthur. Flora-78 has informed me of your situation. Have you already opened the package?”

“I haven’t. I’m not about to open it when I don’t know what’s inside,” I saw Nelson’s eyes turn light blue as Flora-78’s had just moments before.

“The drone delivering your package seems to have been tampered with. I will have our analysts take a deeper look into the matter. This situation falls under company policy that your package should be returned to us without delay. Please return it to your balcony and a drone will be by to collect it shortly.”

“Alright, I’ll do that. Thanks Nelson.”

“On behalf of SkysUp, I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced in this matter,” Nelson bowed before the call ended and I found myself on my own again.

I grabbed the box and stared at it. “You’re a handful of trouble, you know that?” I brought the box over to the balcony and laid it down. I laughed at all the trouble being caused by this little thing. “You’re probably full of something dumb, aren’t you? Like cookies from a grandma who got confused and put a wrong address in, or some other stupid thing. Yeah, I bet that’s it,” I closed the door and stood by, waiting for the drone to come by.

What were the people in the buildings in the nearby sectors doing? Most of the ones I could see were in quarantine now, and I wondered how many of them were tired of being trapped in their own homes, either alone or with children that couldn’t understand why they were cooped up.

The package was gone when I finally came out of my thoughts. I shrugged. For some reason, I wanted to see the drone taking the package away, but I guess that’s not very important anyways. Over a month in your own home makes things happening on the outside seem irrelevant.

I went back to my couch and put on my headset again. I got matched with new players and got into the warzones for hours. We crawled, ducked, flanked each other, and lobbed grenades. It was a good time.

It must have been around midnight when my friend Josh joined in. We usually played as a team, him as a sniper and me as a grenadier.

“Hey Jackie, you there?”, he asked, his voice trembling.

“Yes Josh, what’s going on?”

“Did you check the news today?”

“The disaster reel? Yes, I did,” I replied flatly. I was more interested in getting the machine gunner out of his nest.

“You should turn it on now,” he sounded as though he was breathing deep and hard even though he was at home.

“Why? What’s going on? Ah! Got him!” The machine gun nest burst into flames as my team rushed forward to the enemy base.

“Seriously, just check it out.”

“Oh, fine,” I removed the headset with a huff loud enough that he’d be sure to hear it.

I turned on the news and saw footage of the SkysUp shipping depot surrounded by people in hazmat suits while workers were being carried off on stretchers with domed bubbles over them. The announcer was hard to understand through her respirator, but I managed to understand that a mysterious package had been returned to the facility and it contained what is suspected to be an airborne variant of the virus causing Acute Vascular Degenerative Syndrome. ‘Luckily’, most workers there were inorganic and wouldn’t be able to spread the illness further.

The newscaster repeated a holo-message found in the package, which came from ‘The Human Collective’. “Greetings, recipient! You and your building have been chosen at random for eradication. We are sorry for the inconvenience of your impending demise, but the cost of humans on the planet has become too great and action must be taken. We, at The Human Collective, hope your transition back into raw matter is painless and swift. Good death.”

My muscles turned to jelly. If I hadn’t been sitting, I would surely have fallen to the floor. That was the facility nearest where I lived, probably the one where that weird box got sent back to. If I had opened it…

Josh’s faint voice from the headset woke me from the spiral I was heading into. “Jackie? Still there? Did you see it?”

I put the headset back on slowly. It felt as though it weighted twenty pounds now. “I saw it Josh.”

“That’s just insane, isn’t it? I finished my shift there just after noon. I really dodged a bullet there!” He forced himself to laugh but it sounded hollow.

“You sure did.” I said as I started blankly into the mirror behind my television screen.