Oasis (The Last Humans Book 1) Read Free Page A

foreign to me—little kids get it before they learn how to act civilized and look properly happy.
    Mason takes a deep breath, lets it out, and in a shaky voice says, “I told Grace how I feel, and she called me a crazy creep.”
    Stunned, I release his shoulder and step back.
    “Crap,” Phoe says, echoing my thoughts. “This is bad.”

3
    L ike I told Phoe , I’m not as happy as others in Oasis. Coincidentally, my restlessness began with Phoe. Specifically, it began when she first spoke to me a few weeks ago. No, truth be told, it started a bit later, when I learned that certain really cool stuff, like great movies, books, and video games, repeatedly get wiped from Oasis’s libraries.
    At least I assume it happens repeatedly. On my watch, it happened to Pulp Fiction , a movie Phoe had found buried deep in the ancient archives. The movie was awesome, but either because I’d accessed it or because of some horrible coincidence, Pulp Fiction got on the radar of either the Elderly or the Adults, and they deleted it. One day it was on my Screen, the next I couldn’t bring it up. Phoe said it was no longer in the archives either.
    What’s worse is this happened before I got a chance to get Liam and Mason to watch it with me. My friends didn’t even believe me when I said that the movie used to exist. Phoe was my only witness, and I’m not ready to tell Liam or Mason about her. Actually, being unable to share something with my friends for the first time in my life has also been a source of unpleasantness, but not as much as the questions that now plague me: Why delete such a good movie? Was it because it had all those banned words? Or was it the violence?
    If I asked these questions out loud, I’d get a numbingly boring Quietude session instead of answers—and that drives me nuts. So, because of all this, had anyone asked me before today, I would’ve said that I’m the one and only unhappy person in Oasis. Yet even I wouldn’t call how I feel ‘depressed.’
    “I didn’t think it was physically possible for anyone to get depressed,” Phoe whispers. “The nanocytes in your head regulate serotonin and norepinephrine re-uptake, among a million other variables that synergistically conspire to keep you nice and cheerful. On top of that, the Institute curriculum includes copious amounts of meditation, exercise, and other feel-good propaganda.”
    “Didn’t you hear me?” Mason repeats, his voice quivering. “I told Grace I love her.”
    He thinks I’m judging him, and it’s hard not to. Sexual interest—or romantic love, as it used to be called—is not part of our world. The only reason we even know about it is because of ancient media, which is rife with examples of people our age being ‘in love’—a state of being that sounds qualitatively different from love of Food or love for one’s friends. People even used to get ‘married’ back then and start ‘families’—two social constructs that are incredibly weird.
    Marriage I could sort of understand. It was probably like being friends with a female for a big portion of your life. I can relate to that because we used to be friends with Grace. Family, however, is just bizarre. It would be like being friends with people based on random factors, such as DNA commonalities, and with people of varying ages—including the Adults and the Elderly. Since Youths never meet the elusive Elderly and the only Adults we come across are the Instructors, I find family hard to picture.
    As to romantic love, I didn’t think anyone has any interest in that stuff. That strange emotion was a form of insanity tied to procreation, and the Elderly take care of that now—though exactly how they do it is the type of question that gets you an hour of Quietude instead of an answer.
    I know that from experience.
    “Actually, taking procreation out of the game never stopped lust or love for the ancients,” Phoe butts in. “They had something called birth control. I think the