Empty Streets Read Free Page A

the departure of the street cleaners. Eri cracked open the door to make sure, opening it wider when she saw the truck fading into the distance.
    He exited behind her like wind against her back. She grabbed the crate of food, hauling it inside while pinning the door open with her leg.
    "Hey!" he whispered loudly.
    She poked her head around the doorframe, looking in his direction.
    "Find another way next time. And welcome to the outside." He held his arms out to the world around him and smiled before he turned and jumped onto another porch, disappearing on the other side.
    She shut the door and set the crate of food down, knowing with certainty that everything was different. She closed her eyes and saw nothing but his face.

Chapter 3
    School
    Eri walked into the bathroom and touched the lamp to illuminate the mirror. She expected to see red, burned flesh from the exposure she'd experienced this morning. She looked closely. Her skin was unchanged.
    She rushed through the thirty seconds she had of water to brush her teeth and wash her face. She leaned toward the hazy mirror. Her dark eyebrows came too close together, her eyes were too big for her face, and her skin always looked washed out in this grey world. In her mind, girls her age looked beautiful, with firm, curved bodies and smooth, glossy hair. They wore lip-gloss and plucked their eyebrows. They wore bright clothes and had perfect, straight teeth. She imagined this to be true.
    Eri walked straight to the basement door. Her parents would be home at five-thirty. She wanted to be done with school when they got home so she could beg them to cover for her. She had already thought about her reasoning: she had been uncertain what there would be for dinner and wanted to get the food in the house. Perhaps she could explain she had heard at school that people's food rations had been stolen around town, even with the harsh consequences. She was pretty sure her parents would stand by her fallacy, so long as it was easier when The People called to ask about it.
    She went downstairs to the Sims machine and climbed in, already feeling her energy wane. Something about going to school through a machine wore on her.
    Once she had all the gear on, she reached forward to power on the machine. The electric hum of the building lulled slightly as her machine accessed the energy and information grid. The Sims used a lot of power. No one in her building could use much other electricity as long as their children were attending school. No air conditioning. Little electricity. Minimal hot water.
    Most of the people who lived in this complex worked at the factory. Their children were lucky to have Sims machines. Eri shuddered to think about the few children who were shuttled to public schools every day, met with unsavory conditions and dangerous external elements.
    Eri took a deep breath and stood outside of her first class, waiting for the usual wave of nausea. She was certain it was the Sims environment that made her feel both physically and emotionally unwell. When only a slight discomfort settled over her, she watched her hand reach out and pull the door handle open, vaguely aware that in "real life" she was pulling at nothing in her simulator. She walked into a sunny, well-lit room where she saw the twenty-five other people enrolled in the same class. They were all fabulously good looking. It was only when someone would participate in a class discussion that she got a sense of who they really were.
    "Hey…Eri?" A small, thin girl with bright pink hair and a pert nose smiled at her. "Is that you? Every time I see you, I think you look different."
    "Hi, Sal." Eri sat at a small desk and a laptop appeared in front of her. "It's weird isn't it, since in reality we all look the same every day?"
    Sal giggled. "Totally. I'm secretly really a six-foot-tall man!"
    Eri stared at Sal, waiting for Sal to say she was joking. Sal opened her laptop and made no move to take back the statement.
    Eri hated