CHAPTER 2
Their bedroom should have been bright and airy, but it gave off feral den vibes instead. And it drove Nica mad. She took it in - everywhere she was forced to look: the unmade bed, the cluttered desk, the dirty and clean laundry barely distinguishable and tossed across the bedroom floor, and - maybe grossest of all - the shades drawn down, but unevenly and slanted, blocking the massive windows which should have offered views of Lake Megunticook sparkling in the sun behind the house.
But Nica couldn’t fix any of this. Mona drove their body.
Nica had asked for this private summit between herself and her bodysib, but now that Mona had flumped them onto the bed and said: So, what do you want to talk about, Nica? You want to criticize my choice in boys some more?, Nica found herself at a loss for how to begin.
Her first thought was that she wanted to use their mouth to talk. She was tired of using the audioplants. The technology was amazing and had profoundly improved corporeal conscious cohabitation since the immune minds had emerged. But it had also created a default setting where the Munies were always corporeally subsumed by the Ronies.
So that’s where she started, at first spoke into Mona’s audioplant - the device integrating chemokine and cytokine signals generated by Nica’s mind and deploying machine learning artificial intelligence to decode the signals into language - in this case North American English - and vibrating Mona’s left cochlear nerve so she heard it as spoken words from her sister.
“Mona, do you mind if, for this conversation, we take turns using our voice box? I miss hearing my words coming out of my mouth.”
Nica felt Mona roll their eyes, and heard her say, “Fine.”
Out of practice, Nica concentrated and took hold of their voice and forced the words, “Thank you…”
Then Nica fell into the pattern they’d used before the audioplants were developed 8 years before - she tapped her chest, right over her heart, with her right hand to signal to Mona that she’d finished a sentence.
“You sound weird, Nica,” Mona said, and tapped.
“I know - I haven’t spoken through our actual voice in like…two years!” Nica said.
“That’s not true, there was that time you sensed the creepy Munie following us in Portland a couple months ago. You totally hijacked our voice that day,” Mona corrected. Tap.
“That doesn’t count! That was more like an involuntary scream.” Tap.
“Yeah, I guess. So what’s your deal, Nica Chica?” Mona asked. Tap.
The old nickname triggered a bloom of emotion in Nica that bled into the beginnings of tears.
“Are you crying?” Mona asked. Tap.
“No, you are, Monie Ronie.” Tap.
“Are you gonna talk, or what? You asked for this summit and for our voice. Use it, Chica.” Tap.
“Fine. Did you really not know about the Purkinje tat?” Tap.
“Oh,” Mona said and paused. “I– I really didn’t, Nica. I just thought it looked cool. When Eli suggested it, I just…I don’t know…”
Nica counted a few heartbeats and then spoke through their mouth, “Are you gonna tap out, or what?”
Mona startled, “Oh! Sorry. Forgot. Out of practice.” Tap.
“It’s fine. And I believe you. On the tat. You’re dumb enough to not know.” Tap.
“Bitch.” Tap.
“Whatever. But, Mona, what the shit on turning off your audioplant? That is so off agreement! It’s, like, rule one!” Tap.
Mona rubbed her face, “I just…I just wanted to feel like a basic Ronie for a while with Eli. I wanted him to forget you were watching us. I wanted to forget you were watching us. That might be part of why I went along with the perkin? Whatev - the neuron tat. I just sort of wanted to be on my own…” Tap.
“Mona, we don’t get to do that. And if you ever turn off the audioplant again, I will mess you up so much socially. I will take this body right over.” Nica said. Tap.
“Bitch, you can try.” Mona warned.
And just like that their right hand came up and slapped them across the face.
“Nica, what the fuck?!” Tap.
“Mona - I can more than try.” Nica said. “It’s been like 7 years since we got tested at Planned Integration. Just because you had better body control then, doesn’t mean you still do now. You wanna get a retest? See who comes out on top now?” Tap.
“I’d kick your ass.” Tap.
Nica felt herself bend their mouth into a smirk, “Let’s find out. Then, based on the results, we reset our body control agreement. What do you think?” Tap.
Nica felt their pulse quickening. After a moment, Mona answered, “Let’s not do anymore testing. Those tests sucked. And they hurt a lot.” Mona didn’t tap, but she seemed like she had more to say. Nica didn’t press. Mona continued, “So, what do you want, Nica? You sound like you need something different to make this work. What is it?” Tap.
“Well, for one thing, I want to sit up right now. Can we look in the mirror like we used to when we talked? It’s helpful for me to see your body language and stuff.” Tap.
“I was comfortable, but fine,” Mona said as she sat up and scooted over until she was sitting looking in the mirror.
Nica smiled, “Remember when Great Gramma Gretch taught us the mirror thing?” Tap.
“Yeah,” Mona continued the smile, “TripleG were pretty amazing for old ladies.” Tap.
“How did they ever figure out how to do this?” Nica asked. Tap.
“Neuron G gave up a lot…” Mona trailed off. Tap.
“Auntie Carmen, too.” Nica said. Tap.
“Why do all of our family’s examples have the Ronies giving stuff up?” Mona said with scowl. Tap.
“Random chance, I think,” Nica said, “And, Mona, I’m not asking you to give up your life…but…”
Mona interrupted, grabbing the voice, “You don’t want to give everything up either…” Tap.
Nica nodded into the mirror.
Mona fidgeted, “I hear you…but what does that look like?”
“Well, bitch, don’t turn off your audioplant! I’ll try not to cock-block you, but it is not cool to break the rule like that.” Nica said. Tap.
“Fine. And sorry.” Tap.
Nica nodded, “Apology accepted.”
“What else?” Mona asked. Tap.
Nica answered, “I think I’d like turns in charge of our body sometimes. Like - you’re not the only one who is interested in dating. And I really like exercise, and you tire out way before I do. Like, let me finish the runs sometimes? We’ll burn more calories and maybe win some 5k’s.” Tap.
“Nica, it’s been years. I’m nervous.” Mona said. Tap.
“Exactly, Mona…it’s been years. Why does our system think things should just stay the way they happened to get set up when audioplants came out? I kinda hate the ‘plants,” Nica said. Tap.
“I’m sooo jealous that you get to talk through those, byatch! Like, you get to pick exactly who hears what you say! Do you know how blitzy that is?” Mona’s expression was incredulous.
“Mona, the audioplant’s ‘kine signal language translator gets what I say wrong, like 10% of the time!” Nica almost yelled. “The thing has actually mistaken my ‘maybe’ for a ‘yes’ once. That’s not exactly ideal.” Tap.
“So, what?” Mona asked, “You want, like, one day a week? A couple hours each day?”
Nica saw her eyes soften in the mirror, appreciating Mona’s openness. “Maybe we just start really small. Like one hour each day after we get home from school?” Tap.
“You’ll control my body during my homework?” Mona winked. Tap.
“No! Well, actually, yes, sometimes. It drives me nuts when you don’t focus. I keep reading the same paragraphs over and over when I know you’re actually day-dreaming about Eli or some other numbnut Ronie.” Nica rolled their eyes. Tap.
Mona smirked, “I think some Munies and Integrets are cute, too.” Then she lit up with a huge grin, “Hey, what if we get lucky and we fall for an Integret where you like one mind and I like the other mind and we live happily ever after having weird foursomes!” Tap.
“Gross!” Nica said, “But kind of intriguing.”
They stroked their chin at the idea and Nica didn’t know which one of them made it happen.