Bro Code

Bullet tracers sparked and ricocheted off the side of the car Callum crouched behind. He peeked his Assault SMG over the roof and let off an angry burst, hearing a satisfying grunt of pain from his target. Beside him, his partner stood up over the car and laid down some more concentrated fire. Cal took this as a signal to move. Gun in hand, he made a mad dash toward a parked sports car on the opposite side of the road.

“How is that mission going?”

Liam’s familiar voice resonated through Cal’s headphones. Cal didn’t realise how much he had missed this. Simple things like just hanging out and playing videogames. When they were younger, they used to play for hours at a time, that is until Mum would yell at them to go outside while muttering something about “Back in my day…” He remembered the fights too. So much competition between them. He smiled to himself as he recalled the arguments that had turned into quiet scuffles, trying to inflict as much damage on each other as possible without alerting their parents. But that’s how brothers are. Deep down they love each other to death, they just have a funny way of showing it sometimes.

Cal glanced at his health bar, while a crazy car chase unfolded on his screen.

“Could be better,” He confessed. “I just killed some random player and picked up the $20k he dropped. Now his mates are coming after us in this Batmobile lookin’ thing. I would have killed the driver already if my bloody partner could steer in a straight line for one second.”

Liam chuckled “It’s a pity I’m not able to play. I have much better aim than you, Cal.”

“Ha! In your dreams, Liam. I would say your aim is cancer, but cancer has actually killed people.”

The call went silent. Cal’s smile faded. After a long pause, Liam’s response came through the headset.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

The facade had been shattered. For a short while, it had felt as if it really was his brother on the other end of the line. Like the past three months had just been a bad dream, and he had woken to see his Liam sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling down at him, “You ok little bro?” Cal felt all that suppressed pain come flooding back like a stab in the chest. Tears welled and poured down his cheeks as his body rocked with silent sobs. Liam was gone. He knew that. Cal told himself that this was just to help move on, that all he wanted was a chance to say goodbye, but he knew that was a lie. A part of him hoped beyond hope that somehow, he had managed to save a part of Liam forever. A secret piece of him that he could go to whenever the pain grew too great.

“Are you alright, Cal?”

God, the voice was almost identical. Cal stifled another round of sobbing and wiped away the snot and tears with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he choked, muting his microphone.

The light from Cal’s screen, once vibrantly illuminating the room, had dimmed to a subtle grey. His unattended character had met his doom. He sat there in the dark for a while, listening to the ambient whirs of his computer. “Liam” remained quiet too, receiving no stimulus from Cal’s microphone. Reaching into the drawer of his desk, Cal withdrew a black notebook. He did his best to clean his wet, snot-webbed hands before he began paging through it, fondly recalling the memories stored within.

Liam sat down heavily in a dining room chair that Cal had nestled beside the computer desk and popped his feet up next to Cal’s mouse.

“So, what are we doing exactly?” Liam inquired.

Cal shot him a warning look in the direction of his feet. “I’m trying to make a smarter version of you, basically.”

Liam chuckled, removing his feet pre-emptively. “That shouldn’t be hard.”

He watched Cal’s fingers move over the keys. His hands were a blur, pressing hotkeys and typing advanced-looking-shit on his screen. For all Liam’s teasing, Cal was really gifted with this stuff. He had been writing code since he was a little kid and had basically been promoted to tech-support-guy for the entire extended family. Liam couldn’t be further to the opposite end of the spectrum. He still got a dopamine rush from hitting control-alt-delete to force close an app. Still, he couldn’t resist riling Cal up every now and then.

“Have you unlocked the matrix yet?” Liam teased.

Cal rolled his eyes without missing a beat. He stopped typing abruptly, switching tabs then rapidly digging around in his desk drawers, muttering.

“Pen…pen… Got it.”

He raised his pen in triumph.

“”Oh, yeah… Notebook… Mummm? Do you have a notebook I could borrow?”

Cal was out the room and down the hall before Liam could ask what the hell was going on. He shrugged and quietly put his feet back up on the desk.

Sitting with knees tucked up under his chin, Cal continued to reminisce while gazing over Liam’s shoddy handwriting. Pages upon pages of psychological questionnaires, catch phrases, and character traits. Cal knew his project had been an ambitious one. He had decided to try build a very basic AI based on a real person. Calling it an AI was probably a massive overstatement. The only reason he had wanted to build it in the first place was to convincingly imitate people for prank calls. A silly idea upon reflection. Still, at the time, the thought of pulling it off had made him giddy with glee. Liam had moaned and complained throughout the process, though Cal sensed he had secretly enjoyed it more than he let on. Though they had grown apart somewhat during their hot-headed teen years, whenever Cal asked to work on the project, Liam would always drop whatever he was doing to help. The truth is that Cal didn’t really need Liam’s help at all, he could easily have filled out the questions and done the voice recordings for the program himself. Hell, he probably would have finished it much quicker. But that didn’t matter in the end, because deep down, he wanted nothing more than to show his big brother what he could do.

Cal had finally flipped his way to the end of the notebook. He let out a deep sigh, beginning to fold it closed when he noticed something at the bottom corner of the last page. He bolted upright in his chair, heart racing. It was a small paragraph. Shaky and faint, like it had been written hurriedly - Liam’s handwriting.

Dear Cal,

I want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t always been the best brother to you. I know we used to fight a lot and I always used to tease and rile you up all the time. I hope you can forgive me for that. I need you to know that this isn’t your fault. I’ve been in a lot of pain for such a long time. Please look after mum for me. I know this will be really hard on her. And dad too, you know he doesn’t know how to deal with emotional stuff very well. Also, know that I’m proud of you. I’ve probably never said this to your face but it’s true. You’re so much smarter than me and I know that you’re gonna accomplish incredible things.

I love you Callum

Tears flowed freely as Cal looked up from the last words of his brother. He gritted his teeth and wailed into his hands. He couldn’t prevent it now. Loud, convulsive sobs escaped his grasp as he desperately tried to muffle the noise. “Why Liam? Why didn’t you talk to me? How could you leave me here alone?” As all the energy seeped out of him, the sobs slowly subsided. Finally, he lay still, except for the occasional sniffle. He had cried until it seemed there was no more tears left in the world, and though the sting of grief was fresh after reading Liam’s words, Cal felt a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. A burden he never knew he was carrying. Liam was gone, and Cal might never fully recover from that. But Liam had also loved him. Liam was proud of him.

Cal exited the game still idling on his screen and unmuted his microphone.

“Hey again” Cal said.

“Hey Cal, where did you disappear to?” The voice inquired.

“I was uh, just reading something.” He replied. “I’m actually thinking of hopping off for tonight. Feeling a little tired.”

“Okie dokie then,” the voice acknowledged.

Cal paused “Hey, Liam.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“… I love you,” Cal whispered.

“I love you too, Cal.”

Cal shut down the program, then navigated to the project folder, and hit the delete key.