Cloudforme
“Just look up, and you’ll see me, free as a cloud,” she used to say. She knew about it back then, having knowledge beyond my understanding of internet systems. She said it in response to my worry when she holed herself up in her room for days with her brightly “Do Not Disturb” sign glowing orange neon on her door. She did tell me what she was doing, but I was never interested.
My interests were in the ground, taking samples and studying the compositions of earth from all over. It all started from plants, and learning about the hydrologic cycle and how it cultivated the world at just the right temperature. Water evaporated into the atmosphere, condensated, and fell back down at another location, helping plants drink nutrients from the soil to produce oxygen, pollen, and fruit, all while eating carbon out of the air. It was beautiful to be a part of the cycle, especially with humans both adding to the plant cycle and benefiting from it.
Cloudforme was the compound in question. Vivian explained the basics to me when she first learned about it. Being the big sister, she prompted to instill a sense of fear into me of what was coming for me. She enjoyed her title of doomsayer so much that she would come to me with every new thing she learned, all the way up to her disappearance two years ago. She did not seem any different the day before she went missing, still threatening me with orbital lasers and warning of the people listening through my phone.
”There is probably a whole team. tracking your every move, Slick,” she said. “All ‘cause of me.” I remembered her vivid hair that she dyed different colors depending on her mood. When she disappeared, her hair was a deep blue, bleached lightly at the tips to appear like cresting waves. She went into her room like always, but never came back out. She snuck out, and did not come back.
Her systems were under severe securities, and it took me months to even gain access, finding more about Viv than I wanted to from some files most easily accessible. She was into furry stuff, and that meant lots of animalistic depictions in various stages of undress that I was very embarrassed by. Past that distraction, I tried to find anything about where she went, but much contents seemed to be encrypted behind passwords, threatening to wipe the system. I was out of my depth.
Cloudforme was a compound that broke the body down into simple hydrogen and oxygen atoms. All the matter of carbon was extracted, leaving behind all other elements in a sickening sort of pile. The unfortunate byproduct of turning a human into water, was that water joined the hydrologic cycle, having not been in the ocean or in the ground prior. While the cycle cleansed any water that made it high enough, the rain fell through rising water, catching evaporated or fine particles of the new water and bringing it back down before cleansing.
The government did away with any study of these occurrences, seeing as the compound was only public for a day with plans of turning humans to water after their death rather than burning them to ash or giving them to mushrooms and bugs. The leftover pile was still absorbed into nature, but the water joined the cycle. Viv said that since then, the government has been using Cloudforme to disappear people far more effectively than any other method.
”Liar!” I would say, and come crying to mom and dad that Vivian was being mean. “I don’t want to be a cloud! Vivian is making up scary stuff!”
”Oh, Zoey,” Mom would say. “Don’t listen to your sister. She’s a big meanie, even to us.”
”Why?”
Mom only sighed, and looked over at Dad.
”Maybe we aren’t smart enough for her,” he said. “But the smart are very lonely. We have to try to make her comfortable even if we can’t control her.” Viv took over the household in the first year of high school, buying the house from under our parent’s nose. She was too smart for her own good, keeping us more like pets rather than family. She had a lot of money from doing some stuff online, and I worried she would one day get in serious trouble.
When she disappeared, there was a strange sense of relief that felt sickening in my stomach. Her presence was overpowering, removing all parental authority from the household. Mom and Dad were more like a couple living there with their kid, me, while Vivian was on a higher plane of existence in her room.
Even though, she was still my sister, and would make time to doomsay for me in the worst days of puberty. I started enjoying her grim ideas and events, filled with cover-ups and beings that had no right to exist. She did prepare me for the horrible feelings of periods by telling me about them in gory detail. I only realized later that she was feeling those things herself, and just wanted to share it with someone. She was my friend before she disappeared, but did not reach out with anything. So I went looking for it myself in her system.
The first level was easily solved, because Vivian mean for me to get through and claim the info needed for me to take over all the stuff she handled for the family. The second level was where I found her stash of furry content, which surprised me for a time. She even tried drawing her own stuff, with varying levels of success. The motivation seemed to be lewd, and it was a part of her I did not know about. The third level was a lot tougher to get into, figuring out passwords to encrypted files. That took me months of learning about file organization where some innocuous file was actually the key to opening certain encryptions to avoid having to remember passwords all the time.
”Smartass,” I said to myself, finally cracking an encrypted file about Cloudforme.
”Zoey?” Mom asked, walking in without even a knock. “Dinner’s ready.”
”I’ll be right there,” I said.
”Any luck?” She asked. “You’ve been at this for a while. As much as it pains me to say it, maybe it’s time to let her go. She’s smart enough to be ok out there. At least… that’s what I choose to believe.” I grimaced at her dismissal of my beloved older sis. She was just happy to not have to deal with a smartass that Viv was.
“I know, mom,” I said. “I’m still going to keep looking.” I did not want to tell her about the breakthroughs I made. I was nowhere near smart enough about the stuff Vivian was, but I had a lead. She did love telling me about becoming a cloud, and I feared that the people after her either planned to turn her into one, or already did. If that was so, I would take vengeance on them.
“No TV at dinner, Greg,” Mom said.
”Sorry, hon,” Dad replied. “Weather’s all out of whack, and they keep being wrong about predictions. It’s not even big differences, but nature has a mind of its own.”
”It always did, dad,” I said, taking my seat. I stared at the empty seat where Viv would sit occasionally, when forced to be part of the family for holidays. It was hard to tell whether she enjoyed our company, but she bared it for me, at least. “It’s finally telling humans that it had enough.”
”Yes, yes, the environment and stuff like that,” he said. I rolled my eyes at the dismissal. That was the whole reason the planet was like this, the humans being too busy to take a moment and think about the environment. I saw it firsthand in soil samples as they started containing less nutrients, weeding out the more pampered plants to only produce and abundance of weeds that grew in any conditions. The weeds that grew pretty flowers like dandelions were by far the most ignored.
”Let’s not get into it at dinner, huh?” Mom asked, forever the diplomat. She was always there to break up a fight between Vivian and Dad when they got into a heated argument over current events. She knew the more secret details behind events, and hoarded that knowledge rather than share it, which was probably what kept her safe rather than taken away. I wondered what changed.
”I miss her,” I said, realizing I said it out loud. Both of them looked at her seat for a moment. “Sorry. It slipped out. Merry Christmas.”
”Today would definitely be a day when Betty would convince her to join us,” Dad said. “But let’s not focus on that. I am certain that she is just fine, wherever she lives now. Maybe she’s just protecting us from something she’s working on.”
”Exactly,” Mom said. “It’s ok, Zoey.”
It was not ok. They were just happy she was no longer undermining their authority, and dreaded when I would do the same. Eventually, I would have to leave home as well, and I already had college plans in environmental studies to do with soil sample study tied in with the hydrologic cycle of our planet. I absolutely loved when weather events took control back existing with fragile balance at the edges of the land. The smarter humans went further inland, but not too far up the mountains.
The benefits of ports were international, and at most times antiquated. It was not necessary to import produce from other countries, but many rich people paid money to distribute food because they needed to paint with more than just the array of colors available in the land. It was born out of a desire to move around, and a craving to sample the world while others did the work of bringing the world to them. In turn, this provided work for people all over the world that gathered the goods, packaged and shipped them, even if the prices paid were staggeringly little for the labor involved.
I learned far too much going down just two levels of Vivian’s system, along with a strange enjoyment of a lizard tail worn on hips clearly not meant for it. It turned out I liked reptiles more than fluffy animals, and it was crazy that interacting with her clearly explicit material made me realize this. Maybe I could get a lizard pet when I went to college. We certainly would appreciate moisture equally.
It took me months of reading her encrypted files to learn more about her online friends from all over the world, in various stages of destruction from unpredictable weather events that seemed to avoid the place where I lived. Many thought I was Viv and sent me some very explicit stuff they created, and I was not about to tell them that she disappeared, so I became Vivian for them, sorting the new drawings into the folders she already had in place. It was kinda funny to have folders and folders of it all, for whenever her mood struck a certain type.
After a year, I was onto something big that involved the Cloudforme compound. There were studies performed where the water escaped from the dissolved humans was captured and stored. When the condensed liquid was subjected to an electromagnetic field, it grouped up. It was a very strange phenomenon, such as sand forming shapes when subjected to a frequency vibration. Something in the water produced was still aware that it was not just water, like a carbon DNA serial number at the electron level.
The study was shut down and never completed, but the results were clear. Cloudforme did not kill, only changed human beings into a state of matter bound to the hydrologic cycle of the world. It felt like the most campy science fiction, bridging into fantasy of soul and crap like that, but I did wonder about the weather events going on in the world as the use of Cloudforme was further used to disappear people.
By Easter Sunday, I had all the layers of her system under my control, and found a folder with my name on it. Within, was an array of videos, one stood out as it was in all caps. “WATCH LAST” drew my attention far too much, and I decided to watch it first.
”You contrarian dumbass,” I heard her say on the screen. She looked sickly in the recording, and I didn’t know when it was recorded. I hardly saw her, but when she came out of her command center, she looked normal, not like this ghoul on the screen. “I knew you’d go for this first. The only counter to a smartass, is your dumbass, but this is checkmate. I guess… She looked away, and trailed off into a mumble. Her eyes looked tired. It was the first time I saw her like this.
”I’m… I’m not ok, Zoe,” she said, looking right into the camera. I saw it. Something was wrong. “It’s easy enough to pretend for the short bursts of time that we interact, to wear the face, you know? No, I guess you wouldn’t really. You’re more…” She motioned her hand to try and recall the word. “Honest, I guess. And yet you made it here, if you did. That must mean I am not. It’s actually quite a trip to think like that, but… you know, it’s pretty obvious I’m partly there already.” She smiled weakly, cynically, and I felt tears well in my eyes at the look.
”Don’t worry, sis, I won’t… burden? Yeah, I won’t burden you guys with it. It’s not like you can do anything about it. Ideation aside, seeing the world for what it is, I’m dying nonetheless. None of my smartass remarks can save me now. I’ve been thinking about it a while now… dying, you know? I figured I could beat the bastard at his own game, but I don’t know. I kinda… I kinda wanted to live to see where you end up, sis. I love you, Zoey.
”Since you’re seeing this, you’ve probably laid me bare. I like what I like, but you can delete it if you find it weird. Or maybe disseminate it to everyone reaching out on my system. I guess there would be too much of it for that. I don’t know, I guess it’s not important, even though I appreciate everyone who shared their work with me and let me be a part of their lives. It’s a testament of art, even if the world sees it only as smut.
”I’m going to split when it gets real bad. Don’t hate me for it, ok? I don’t want you to see me… well, like this I guess. I don’t want your tears to be my last memory, sis. I’m sure you’re gonna take on the world all on your own.” She held up a peace sign and smiled weakly with tears showing welling in her eyes. “Guess that’s me, Zoe. Have a great—.” She threw her hand to her eyes in a sob, that made me completely lose it. The video ended as I bawled at the keyboard for a solid five minutes, wiping my eyes with my sleeve, and blowing my nose into a paper towel.
She was sick with something. The worst thing was that she knew ahead of time, the smartass she was, that there was nothing she could do. All her knowledge only served to burden her further. She did not even say what the ailment was, but by the look of her face, sullen and hollow, it had to be something killing her from the inside slowly. If only she reached out to me, maybe wee could have fought it.
”Stop crying, dumbass,” she said in the next vid, which was titled with a number as all other videos in the folder. There were six videos. “I’m wearing makeup for the rest of these so you don’t have to look at my… whatever. I don’t want you to remember me like that, got it?” I grit my teeth in anger. She had me figured out to the extent that I would cry. It made me mad, but I also knew she was too smart for her own good.
“You’ve got my system now, so use it for something revolutionary. I’m leaving it for you, if you ever figure it out, that is. If you don’t, then I guess this will never make it to you. There is some kind of kindness to that, I guess. A video that is better forgotten. Heh. I have seen a few of those online. I’m certain you have as well.
”The house is set for the next ten years or so. After that, I have an automated hosting that will send all the info for all three of you so you can take control back. You’ll probably be done with college then. I bet you’ll have someone at your side to help you fight your struggles, and I’m sorry that I’ll be long gone. I guess I won’t be able to see how you turn out. Docs I found online estimate a few months. I did also have them check me out in person, even had a little fun with one who turned out to be into my kind of stuff.”
She sighed.
”Sex is pointless when you’re dying, at least for women. Guys will keep going until the last second, since they just need to leave a bit of it behind. Sorry, getting distracted. I guess I just realized I’m never going to be a mother, you know? Fuck! Sorry.” She covered the camera with her hand for a few moments.
”Look at me, bawling again like a stupid baby. I don’t want to die, sis.” I felt that stab me through the heart. I regretted never seeing through her whe she was still around, not pushing to hang out with her more. I felt the tears coming again, but Vivian had just the remedy.
”I love a furry wolf with a tail buttplug that I can jerk when he’s laying pipe in me.”
I burst out laughing, tears streaming out alongside the super awkward silence the video cut to before cutting out. I hit the table with a pound of my fist to stop enjoying the quip about her kink. I imagined a scaly tail that pulled out of a butt with a pop, and burst out laughing again.
”Damn you, Viv!” I said through my teeth.
”Did I cut the furry bit from the last vid?” She asked in video marked as the second. “If I forgot, sorry. Momentary delights, you know? I’m sure you do. We share a bedroom wall, after all.” I paused the video and thought back to all the times she must have heard me. She hardly left her room, so she was there any time I had a stray thought of that nature.
”Focus, Zoe,” she said. “I was doing some spelunking online, digging into some more covert stuff. Don’t worry, I have all the systems reinforced with counters that brick any attempts to either triangulate or attack my command center. It took a lot of doing, so if these never reach you… damn, that would be quite a loss. I trust you with it, if you get this far.
”Anyways, I found something about this thing called Cloudforme. Folks in power just using this engineered serum that squeezes bodies like a juice box. It wasn’t meant to be used as warfare. Initially, they just wanted a more efficient way of getting rid of people. Chemical bins melt stuff down, but then you need to dump that somewhere. It’s not sustainable.
”Sorry if that’s new knowledge, but it’s pretty common practice nowadays, so gov tracks all chemical supplies and stuff. Anyways, the serum is it’s own organism, cultivated and programmed to replicate in the body fully to dispose of it into a pile of burnable putty and vapor. It’s revolutionary. People become water, and fuel, and water is already fuel plenty if you could just split it on a molecular level.
”It’s wild! I always wondered what it would be like to be a cloud.” SHe laughed. “Guess I’m heading there anyway. Might be a cool way to go, and at least the remains can be burned as fuel, though… that’s morbid.”
I sat back from the second video. Three remained. I knew what was coming, but I did not want to face it. I considered taking a break, and coming back to it later as I hold the cursor over the third video. I grit my teeth, but could not predict what she said.
”I was going to kill myself when you were about five,” she said. I felt that sentence like a sledgehammer to my chest. I remembered the “ideation" she mentioned in the first video I saw. “It was the first time I realized what I would become. You know… a smartass. They say it’s lonely at the top, but that’s the power pyramid. For mental acuity, it’s comparing pyramids to attaining oneness with the whole of existence. It’s far more than just loneliness, it’s madness. It’s a schism, but I know you won’t understand.
”Death being the end of everything is logical on the smartypants brains that barely make it beyond the solar system. It’s the most obvious to the animals that humans are, building the pyramids just to vye for the upper echelons. The truly smart know that beyond the thinking is more thinking, and that just means it’s better to get through the first part as quickly as possible. So yeah, dying young.
”Too late for me now, I guess, but it was important for you to know about that part of my life, since you’re the one who prevented me from taking that shortcut. I wanted to see where you end up, Zoe.” Her eyes welled again, and she dabbed them with a sleeve. I was equally holding back my feelings, replaying her funny confession to throw levity into my brain to stop being sad. It was not working very well.
”Keep living, dumbass,” she said, then turned the video off.
”Fuck you! Then why’d you fucking leave!?” I burst out, throwing the wireless computer mouse against the wall as it splintered into pieces. I could no longer control the videos with a cursor, and I bet the noise would bring over either Mom or Dad, so I jumped up to lock the door.
”Zoey? Everything ok?” Dad asked, trying the handle. “Why’s the door locked?”
”I need some time,” I said. “It’s ok, dad. I just found a video of Vivian on her computer. It made me mad so I threw the mouse at the wall. It’s ok.”
”Oh, ok,” he said, uncertain. “It’s been nearly a year, Zoey. I think you should consider letting her do what she’s doing by herself.” I wanted to tell him, but clenched my fist and held it up against my heart to try and calm myself. It wasn’t working.
”I need time,” I burst out in a sob, then threw myself onto Viv’s bed and bundled up away from the screen at the end of the video. After a few minutes, I slunk out of bed back to the seat at the screen, and used the arrow keys to select video number four. With enter, it played. It was her again, wearing a smile. She waved.
”Hey, Zoe,” Vivian said. “Not much left now. Sorry about the feels. I try to keep them locked away, but you know, it resurfaces when I address it all. When I face it, even though I’ve craved it since I was young. It’s stupid, isn’t it? You go through these things and hope you die soon so you don’t have to think about them anymore, but then you’re faced with a definite end, and you try to live out the rest of your life in those last moments.
”Humanity rears its ugly head once more. I guess I’m not leaving much of anything behind in terms of humanity though. It’s all just use of systems that I picked up along the way.
”Froze some eggs since I had the time, but I think they might be affected by the disease. I’m sure you’ll find the link to them. Maybe a piece of me can live with a surrogate or something. I don’t know. I’ll let you do what you want with them.
”They did a study on that Cloudforme stuff. Something codes itself into the electrons themselves. It’s wild. I wonder if the people who got turned into water are the ones causing all the weird weather events. It’s silly science fiction if that’s true, but wouldn’t it be hilarious? Looking up at the sky and thinking, ‘oh, it looks like rain, I bet it’s Mike dripping’.” She laughed.
”I wonder…” She said, then the video ended. I was confused, but it was nice to see her smiling.
I tabbed back to the folder and pressed the right arrow key to move the selection to the last video in the folder and hesitated. I had half a thought that she would end on some joke again, but I would burst out crying anyway. I grit my teeth and pressed enter.
”Zoe, sis, buddy mine,” Vivian said, eyes aglow with hope. “This is the last you’ll see of me, but if it works out, if this pans out, I’ll drop you a location you should see. Even if I’m no longer there. Even if this is a futile effort. Here.” She motioned to the bottom of the screen where a GPS location tag appeared. I paused the video and wrote it down on a paper towel, then resumed the video. She held her hand pointing to the number for a few seconds, then flashed a thumbs up at the screen.
”If it doesn’t work out,” she said. “I love you, sis. Ya dumbass. Tell Mom and Dad I love them, too. Don’t tell the dredges online though. They will just ask you for feet pics.” The video cut out, and I rushed to look up the GPS coordinates dropped in a map. It was a location in the city where we lived, but too far to walk. It was an hour drive, and I’d have to think up some excuse for driving out in the middle of nowhere.
I shook the messages off, trying to get myself together, but when I got up to leave her room, I felt an ache in my heart that pulled me back to her bed. It was raining by the time I woke up, still locked in her room. I came out to find the house empty. Mom and Dad went out somewhere, blissfully unaware of the amount of suffering Viv was going through while avoiding interacting with us. If her timeline was true, she would have died around Christmas. Maybe that was why she left at the start of fall.
The crazy weather events did not seem to affect our town for a while, as the rest of the world suffered random hailstorms, thunderstorms, even wild snowstorms that ventured into warmer regions near the equator. Nobody could understand, because nobody had the research. Only the people who buried it all knew, and they were not about to say anything, touting environmental efforts and looking for patterns.
I did not want to wait for them. I did not want to have to explain why I needed to go to some distant part of our town. I decided to get there by public transport, taking an umbrella against the rain that seemed to be getting heavier. I hoped the wind would stay gentle. Rain with a gust was inescapable. It was significantly longer by public transport, as there was no direct path. I had to take two buses and still walk ten minutes.
On the other side of the weather events, were the supernatural folks. So many different weather cults sprung up. The spiritual soothsayers kept saying it is Mother Nature coming to take revenge. The worrisome part of that was the strange account of the populace recording strange events that were dismissed as video editing.
They were ghosts in the fog. They were falling humans that splashed against the ground as water. They were humanoid beings standing in the sky. They were rainbows that bent like ribbon bows. They were puddles with people looking up from inside them. There were a lot of weird events that were said to be furthered in a panic of unpredictable weather systems. Everyone was carrying umbrellas at all times, and prepared warmer clothing anywhere they went. It had to do with Cloudforme, but admitting so, would mean explaining that many were turned into water on purpose, adding unstable water particles to the hydrologic cycle.
The part of town where the GPS location was did not feel very welcoming. It must have been one of those sections of town abandoned by the governing body for some reason. When support pulled out, so did the stores, and that took care of people living there. It was cheap, sure, but the nearest store was probably a brisk fifteen minute walk or twenty-five minute stroll. Unsustainable, and still within the dangers of not being supported by the city it was a part of.
The location itself was inside of a building, and I hesitated. I worried about the area, but knew Viv would not send me to a place that would be dangerous for me. I walked around the corner and found the wide open dock to the warehouse which stood silent and empty save for a tiny light illuminating the corner plate sign. The sign was a Roman numeral, or capital letter V, and I went right for it. There was a staircase that looked newly built going to the roof. I followed the possible sign to the top and found a peculiar weather event atop the roof.
It was still raining, but there was a bubble of air that seemed to resist the downpour. The bubble in question was around a metal table with seats attached to it. It reminded me of a memory from long ago, when I was young, and when Vivian was still proud of her smartass self. We sometimes went out like a family, and I almost forgot all those memories because of the other stuff happening in life.
I walked up to the bubble with my umbrella, finding the rain no longer falling on me within it. I looked at the umbrella and tossed it outside before taking a seat at the table. There was no sound of rain overhead. The bubble seemed to be trapped in a soundless chamber. I looked around at the rain pounding down, but it was so weird without the sound of it. It did not feel real without that one sense.
The sound appeared as the side of the bubble opened to a hand which made me recoil at the sight of it. I watched as the hand, which looked transparent, became more like a cloud, or a bubble of fog. A second hand popped up, and I got ready to bolt, but when a face cleared the threshold, I was too stunned to move. It was Vivian, but not exactly.
For one, she was naked, with blobby anatomy that had no details like her crotch or nipples, but still the shape I imagined she was. She also had no teeth, but the face was fully built with detail as a textured surface holding shifting fog. She sat down across from me, and wrote in the air with her finger.
”Hey, sis,” I read. I had no words, only sat closer and reached out to her, but she recoiled. “Form weak. No touch.”
”I’m sorry, Vivian,” I said. “I wish you told us about…”
She shook her head, which then shifted around like a blob that it was. She opened her mouth, and lifted hands to stop the head from wobbling.
”WIP. I am dead. Sorry.”
”Clearly not dead though,” I said. “How are you even doing this.”
”Lot effort.”
”I can imagine. I’m not going to tell Mom and Dad. I think they're better off just thinking you’re living somewhere safely.”
”Thanks. Delete porn?”
”No, I kept everything on your system.” She smiled. “I keep adding to the folders people send you.” She flashed a thumbs up, then drew a lizard in the air. I opened my mouth in shock.
”No limits.”
”Hey, no spying on me,” I said.
”I need to go. Weather troubles.”
”How bad is it?”
”Many. Angry. Seeking revenge. Hard to control.”
”Doesn’t mean you have to be the one who fixes everything.”
”Ya Dumbass,” she wrote, and got up.
”Well, at least I’m not a smartass like you.”
”Love you.” I felt tears spring up out of my eyes and she reached over to touch one, absorbing them into herself. “I will cherish this gift.”
”Can we meet again sometime?”
”Three months.”
”I love you, too, sis.” I watched as she waved her hand, and walked back out into the rain, looking like a humanoid figure walking up to two others. All three then took off into the sky as if climbing up stairs. At a rapid pace. I watched them, and feared the bubble would pop as the rain pummels down on me, but the bubble remained. I would still have to go out in the rain to get my umbrella, but it turned out there was no need to as the sky cleared as soon as Vivian left.
The bubble remained, but it looked invisible now, or as a light aura over the table that displaced air very lightly. I wanted to study how it worked, but it definitely had something to do with someone who was turned Cloudforme. There was still a lot I did not understand, but I knew I could leave it to Vivian. The weather was just as unpredictable for the next month, but it started calming down the closer we got to the promised day three months later. I ventured to the warehouse and sat in the bubble awaiting the blobby hand piercing through it, but instead, it was her in the flesh.
There was a lot more detail to her body, and her skin was dyed to look like clothing now. Even her breasts had points indicating nipples, even if they were “squished” under the clothing which did not exist. Her finger still made text in the air, but this time, it floated like a foam within the bubble.
”Hey, Zoe,” she wrote. “We can try a hug now, but be gentle.”
I went around the table and embraced her lightly. She felt like a very fragile balloon, and absolutely weightless. When she sat back down, I had so many questions, but she held up a hand. I watched as another person walked into the bubble. It was a guy, or rather he upheld a male figure, but was just like Viv. I smiled with surprise.
”Is this your boyfriend?” I asked.
”Partner,” she wrote. “He’s still learning to do the foam writing thing, so go easy.”
”Hello, Zoey,” He created in the air that disappeared so fact I could barely read it. “I’m Michael.”
”Nice to meet you,” I said and started getting up to hug, but he held up a hand along with Viv.
”He can’t hold form long enough for it,” Vivian wrote.
”I have so many questions,” I burst out. “There is no way for you to talk, right?” She shook her head, then stuck out her index finger with an idea. She held out a hand to the bubble, which produced a face. It was a person all this time, just sitting here and waiting. The face nodded. Viv looked to Mike and he also nodded.
”I’m going to merge into the bubble,” Viv wrote. “Then I can use the surface like a screen.”
”That’s so cool,” I said. Vivian reached out a hand to the face still visible in the bubble and looked to feel something with her mouth open. It was soundless, but it looked as though she was enjoying herself with her mouth open as if she was getting off. I looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed. When I looked back to the bubble, she was fully integrated, as text appeared on the rounded surface a lot faster than her writing it out.
”Integrated,” she showed as her first message.
”Did it feel good?” I asked. “You made an O face, so I was curious.” I saw three dots pop up as if she was typing something.
”Integrating my atoms with another does feel good,” a message wrote. “But it’s nothing close to the feeling of human pleasure.”
”Are you ok now?” I asked. “I mean… the sickness.”
”I left it behind in the remains of my body.”
”I’m so glad!” I said. “I learned a bunch about your systems. Turns out I’m a scaly.” I put a hand over my face in embarrassment of admitting it as the whole surface of the bubble erupted with “Ha!” It was sad that I wouldn’t be able to hear her laugh again.
”I promise I’ll do something with the eggs you left behind,” I said. “I’ll make sure there is some part of you in the world.”
”And I’ll fight so the kid can see the stars.”
”So it’s a fight?”
”It’s war, like it always is,” she wrote. “Human beings might become water, and still persist with the struggle. All my technical knowledge only helps me shape myself. The cloud matters, and what goes on in the sky, is more like social engineering. It doesn’t help that most of the people turned into Cloudforme are angry and want revenge. Mike is more attuned to it. He was like me, taking the serum to die rather than being forced to do so.”
”Have you two… integrated?” I asked, smiling at the thought, since she did say it felt good. The bubble was blank to a response, but I saw his form shift to a tall fuzzy wolf with a bushy tail. The three dots showed up again, but I held up my hand and burst out laughing. “Sorry, that was a weird question. Your personal matters.”
”Ready for college?” Vivian asked.
”Terrified,” I replied. “But also excited. I want to be part of your world, but from the ground. Maybe Cloudforme can be a force for good, to keep the environment healthy for humans.”
”I’m trying, sis,” she said. “Gotta figure out the shitty parts first. At least it’s very easy to change shape as a Cloudforme. A bunch of silly human stuff falls away thanks to that.”
“I want to help,” I said.
”The best you can do now is go to school,” she said. “Learn more about the world, well, you already do thanks to my files. At least meet some people, ok?”
”That’s what school is, typically,” I said. “Learning is secondary to social evolution.”
”Not to mention that higher education is beyond reach for most,” she wrote. “I’ll leave that side to you. I have to go, Zoe. Busy times still. Three months?”
”I’ll be away in college by then.”
”Lets make it a year then,” she said. “Stop by after your first year, sis. I’ll watch over you from afar.”
”Thanks, Viv,” I said, as she stepped back into a blobby shape rather than the refined one, and changed her form into a female fox humanoid smaller than the tall wolf Mike still was. They embraced, and waved together, then exited the bubble to become steam and waft away. There was still so much I could not understand about how they operated, but there was plenty of time for it
“Hello,” I said to the bubble around me. “What’s your name?”
I waited for a response, but the bubble was still. I wondered if there was a person in it, but I did see a face before. I looked all the way around and found the three shifting dots of thinking.
”Hello, Zoe,” it said. “I’m not important.”
”You let me talk to my sister, so you’re the most important. Plus you kept me safe from rain the last time. You are valuable.”
”Thank you for saying that. My name is Geraldine. It’s been a while since I died. Or maybe I was reborn. Now I’m holding up this bubble for our glorious leader, your sister. So… you said you like lizards, huh? I had a bearded dragon when I was alive. Sammy. I loved that sandy boy so much.”
”Aww, bearded dragons are so cute!” I said, then realized she might not have understood what a scaly was given how long ago she turned Cloudforme. “I wanted to get myself a gecko for college or something of that nature. Do you think a bearded would be easier to care for?”
”It really depends on what you like,” Geraldine said.
”Can I see how you looked like?” I asked. “The human form you had, I mean.” The three dots of thinking. “It’s ok if you don’t want to, of course.”
”It’s not that…” she said. “I don’t have as much control of that form, so I’ll look naked.”
”Oh, that’s ok,” I said. “If it’s too embarrassing, you don’t have to.”
”I’ll do it,” she replied. “But I’ll have to shrink the bubble, is that ok?”
”Sure.” I watched as the bubble shrunk down to just me within it, and Geraldine stepped into the bubble with a naked silhouette that still had nipples and crotch details. Her hair looked like a wig, but she was maybe in her twenties from the former shape.
”Wow, you’re pretty!” I said. She smiled, motioning her hands to cover up her nipples and crotch. “You don’t need to… I know, I’ll get naked too just so it’s fair.” Geraldine held out her hands in protest, but I was already halfway done and stood up without clothes in the bubble that went dark right away.
”Oh, you didn’t have to do all that,” I said. “See? Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s freeing, if anything.” She dropped her hands, then took a proud pose in the darkened bubble. “There you go! Exactly!”
”Harder to talk,” she wrote in the air. “But you are very pretty. You’d look very… pretty with a lizard tail.” I raised my eyebrows. She DID know what a scaly was. I watched as she changed her body to the shape of a humanoid reptile. I came closer and found her surface to be hardened and touchable.
”Then let’s not talk,” I whispered, then held a hand to her back, as her hand rested on my hip. I smiled. “And to think I thought you were just a bubble. It’s nice to see you, Geraldine, the way you are.” I smoothed a hand over her scaly skin up to her chin and held onto a beard spike to guide a kiss, though we did more than kiss.
My interests were in the ground, taking samples and studying the compositions of earth from all over. It all started from plants, and learning about the hydrologic cycle and how it cultivated the world at just the right temperature. Water evaporated into the atmosphere, condensated, and fell back down at another location, helping plants drink nutrients from the soil to produce oxygen, pollen, and fruit, all while eating carbon out of the air. It was beautiful to be a part of the cycle, especially with humans both adding to the plant cycle and benefiting from it.
Cloudforme was the compound in question. Vivian explained the basics to me when she first learned about it. Being the big sister, she prompted to instill a sense of fear into me of what was coming for me. She enjoyed her title of doomsayer so much that she would come to me with every new thing she learned, all the way up to her disappearance two years ago. She did not seem any different the day before she went missing, still threatening me with orbital lasers and warning of the people listening through my phone.
”There is probably a whole team. tracking your every move, Slick,” she said. “All ‘cause of me.” I remembered her vivid hair that she dyed different colors depending on her mood. When she disappeared, her hair was a deep blue, bleached lightly at the tips to appear like cresting waves. She went into her room like always, but never came back out. She snuck out, and did not come back.
Her systems were under severe securities, and it took me months to even gain access, finding more about Viv than I wanted to from some files most easily accessible. She was into furry stuff, and that meant lots of animalistic depictions in various stages of undress that I was very embarrassed by. Past that distraction, I tried to find anything about where she went, but much contents seemed to be encrypted behind passwords, threatening to wipe the system. I was out of my depth.
Cloudforme was a compound that broke the body down into simple hydrogen and oxygen atoms. All the matter of carbon was extracted, leaving behind all other elements in a sickening sort of pile. The unfortunate byproduct of turning a human into water, was that water joined the hydrologic cycle, having not been in the ocean or in the ground prior. While the cycle cleansed any water that made it high enough, the rain fell through rising water, catching evaporated or fine particles of the new water and bringing it back down before cleansing.
The government did away with any study of these occurrences, seeing as the compound was only public for a day with plans of turning humans to water after their death rather than burning them to ash or giving them to mushrooms and bugs. The leftover pile was still absorbed into nature, but the water joined the cycle. Viv said that since then, the government has been using Cloudforme to disappear people far more effectively than any other method.
”Liar!” I would say, and come crying to mom and dad that Vivian was being mean. “I don’t want to be a cloud! Vivian is making up scary stuff!”
”Oh, Zoey,” Mom would say. “Don’t listen to your sister. She’s a big meanie, even to us.”
”Why?”
Mom only sighed, and looked over at Dad.
”Maybe we aren’t smart enough for her,” he said. “But the smart are very lonely. We have to try to make her comfortable even if we can’t control her.” Viv took over the household in the first year of high school, buying the house from under our parent’s nose. She was too smart for her own good, keeping us more like pets rather than family. She had a lot of money from doing some stuff online, and I worried she would one day get in serious trouble.
When she disappeared, there was a strange sense of relief that felt sickening in my stomach. Her presence was overpowering, removing all parental authority from the household. Mom and Dad were more like a couple living there with their kid, me, while Vivian was on a higher plane of existence in her room.
Even though, she was still my sister, and would make time to doomsay for me in the worst days of puberty. I started enjoying her grim ideas and events, filled with cover-ups and beings that had no right to exist. She did prepare me for the horrible feelings of periods by telling me about them in gory detail. I only realized later that she was feeling those things herself, and just wanted to share it with someone. She was my friend before she disappeared, but did not reach out with anything. So I went looking for it myself in her system.
The first level was easily solved, because Vivian mean for me to get through and claim the info needed for me to take over all the stuff she handled for the family. The second level was where I found her stash of furry content, which surprised me for a time. She even tried drawing her own stuff, with varying levels of success. The motivation seemed to be lewd, and it was a part of her I did not know about. The third level was a lot tougher to get into, figuring out passwords to encrypted files. That took me months of learning about file organization where some innocuous file was actually the key to opening certain encryptions to avoid having to remember passwords all the time.
”Smartass,” I said to myself, finally cracking an encrypted file about Cloudforme.
”Zoey?” Mom asked, walking in without even a knock. “Dinner’s ready.”
”I’ll be right there,” I said.
”Any luck?” She asked. “You’ve been at this for a while. As much as it pains me to say it, maybe it’s time to let her go. She’s smart enough to be ok out there. At least… that’s what I choose to believe.” I grimaced at her dismissal of my beloved older sis. She was just happy to not have to deal with a smartass that Viv was.
“I know, mom,” I said. “I’m still going to keep looking.” I did not want to tell her about the breakthroughs I made. I was nowhere near smart enough about the stuff Vivian was, but I had a lead. She did love telling me about becoming a cloud, and I feared that the people after her either planned to turn her into one, or already did. If that was so, I would take vengeance on them.
“No TV at dinner, Greg,” Mom said.
”Sorry, hon,” Dad replied. “Weather’s all out of whack, and they keep being wrong about predictions. It’s not even big differences, but nature has a mind of its own.”
”It always did, dad,” I said, taking my seat. I stared at the empty seat where Viv would sit occasionally, when forced to be part of the family for holidays. It was hard to tell whether she enjoyed our company, but she bared it for me, at least. “It’s finally telling humans that it had enough.”
”Yes, yes, the environment and stuff like that,” he said. I rolled my eyes at the dismissal. That was the whole reason the planet was like this, the humans being too busy to take a moment and think about the environment. I saw it firsthand in soil samples as they started containing less nutrients, weeding out the more pampered plants to only produce and abundance of weeds that grew in any conditions. The weeds that grew pretty flowers like dandelions were by far the most ignored.
”Let’s not get into it at dinner, huh?” Mom asked, forever the diplomat. She was always there to break up a fight between Vivian and Dad when they got into a heated argument over current events. She knew the more secret details behind events, and hoarded that knowledge rather than share it, which was probably what kept her safe rather than taken away. I wondered what changed.
”I miss her,” I said, realizing I said it out loud. Both of them looked at her seat for a moment. “Sorry. It slipped out. Merry Christmas.”
”Today would definitely be a day when Betty would convince her to join us,” Dad said. “But let’s not focus on that. I am certain that she is just fine, wherever she lives now. Maybe she’s just protecting us from something she’s working on.”
”Exactly,” Mom said. “It’s ok, Zoey.”
It was not ok. They were just happy she was no longer undermining their authority, and dreaded when I would do the same. Eventually, I would have to leave home as well, and I already had college plans in environmental studies to do with soil sample study tied in with the hydrologic cycle of our planet. I absolutely loved when weather events took control back existing with fragile balance at the edges of the land. The smarter humans went further inland, but not too far up the mountains.
The benefits of ports were international, and at most times antiquated. It was not necessary to import produce from other countries, but many rich people paid money to distribute food because they needed to paint with more than just the array of colors available in the land. It was born out of a desire to move around, and a craving to sample the world while others did the work of bringing the world to them. In turn, this provided work for people all over the world that gathered the goods, packaged and shipped them, even if the prices paid were staggeringly little for the labor involved.
I learned far too much going down just two levels of Vivian’s system, along with a strange enjoyment of a lizard tail worn on hips clearly not meant for it. It turned out I liked reptiles more than fluffy animals, and it was crazy that interacting with her clearly explicit material made me realize this. Maybe I could get a lizard pet when I went to college. We certainly would appreciate moisture equally.
It took me months of reading her encrypted files to learn more about her online friends from all over the world, in various stages of destruction from unpredictable weather events that seemed to avoid the place where I lived. Many thought I was Viv and sent me some very explicit stuff they created, and I was not about to tell them that she disappeared, so I became Vivian for them, sorting the new drawings into the folders she already had in place. It was kinda funny to have folders and folders of it all, for whenever her mood struck a certain type.
After a year, I was onto something big that involved the Cloudforme compound. There were studies performed where the water escaped from the dissolved humans was captured and stored. When the condensed liquid was subjected to an electromagnetic field, it grouped up. It was a very strange phenomenon, such as sand forming shapes when subjected to a frequency vibration. Something in the water produced was still aware that it was not just water, like a carbon DNA serial number at the electron level.
The study was shut down and never completed, but the results were clear. Cloudforme did not kill, only changed human beings into a state of matter bound to the hydrologic cycle of the world. It felt like the most campy science fiction, bridging into fantasy of soul and crap like that, but I did wonder about the weather events going on in the world as the use of Cloudforme was further used to disappear people.
By Easter Sunday, I had all the layers of her system under my control, and found a folder with my name on it. Within, was an array of videos, one stood out as it was in all caps. “WATCH LAST” drew my attention far too much, and I decided to watch it first.
”You contrarian dumbass,” I heard her say on the screen. She looked sickly in the recording, and I didn’t know when it was recorded. I hardly saw her, but when she came out of her command center, she looked normal, not like this ghoul on the screen. “I knew you’d go for this first. The only counter to a smartass, is your dumbass, but this is checkmate. I guess… She looked away, and trailed off into a mumble. Her eyes looked tired. It was the first time I saw her like this.
”I’m… I’m not ok, Zoe,” she said, looking right into the camera. I saw it. Something was wrong. “It’s easy enough to pretend for the short bursts of time that we interact, to wear the face, you know? No, I guess you wouldn’t really. You’re more…” She motioned her hand to try and recall the word. “Honest, I guess. And yet you made it here, if you did. That must mean I am not. It’s actually quite a trip to think like that, but… you know, it’s pretty obvious I’m partly there already.” She smiled weakly, cynically, and I felt tears well in my eyes at the look.
”Don’t worry, sis, I won’t… burden? Yeah, I won’t burden you guys with it. It’s not like you can do anything about it. Ideation aside, seeing the world for what it is, I’m dying nonetheless. None of my smartass remarks can save me now. I’ve been thinking about it a while now… dying, you know? I figured I could beat the bastard at his own game, but I don’t know. I kinda… I kinda wanted to live to see where you end up, sis. I love you, Zoey.
”Since you’re seeing this, you’ve probably laid me bare. I like what I like, but you can delete it if you find it weird. Or maybe disseminate it to everyone reaching out on my system. I guess there would be too much of it for that. I don’t know, I guess it’s not important, even though I appreciate everyone who shared their work with me and let me be a part of their lives. It’s a testament of art, even if the world sees it only as smut.
”I’m going to split when it gets real bad. Don’t hate me for it, ok? I don’t want you to see me… well, like this I guess. I don’t want your tears to be my last memory, sis. I’m sure you’re gonna take on the world all on your own.” She held up a peace sign and smiled weakly with tears showing welling in her eyes. “Guess that’s me, Zoe. Have a great—.” She threw her hand to her eyes in a sob, that made me completely lose it. The video ended as I bawled at the keyboard for a solid five minutes, wiping my eyes with my sleeve, and blowing my nose into a paper towel.
She was sick with something. The worst thing was that she knew ahead of time, the smartass she was, that there was nothing she could do. All her knowledge only served to burden her further. She did not even say what the ailment was, but by the look of her face, sullen and hollow, it had to be something killing her from the inside slowly. If only she reached out to me, maybe wee could have fought it.
”Stop crying, dumbass,” she said in the next vid, which was titled with a number as all other videos in the folder. There were six videos. “I’m wearing makeup for the rest of these so you don’t have to look at my… whatever. I don’t want you to remember me like that, got it?” I grit my teeth in anger. She had me figured out to the extent that I would cry. It made me mad, but I also knew she was too smart for her own good.
“You’ve got my system now, so use it for something revolutionary. I’m leaving it for you, if you ever figure it out, that is. If you don’t, then I guess this will never make it to you. There is some kind of kindness to that, I guess. A video that is better forgotten. Heh. I have seen a few of those online. I’m certain you have as well.
”The house is set for the next ten years or so. After that, I have an automated hosting that will send all the info for all three of you so you can take control back. You’ll probably be done with college then. I bet you’ll have someone at your side to help you fight your struggles, and I’m sorry that I’ll be long gone. I guess I won’t be able to see how you turn out. Docs I found online estimate a few months. I did also have them check me out in person, even had a little fun with one who turned out to be into my kind of stuff.”
She sighed.
”Sex is pointless when you’re dying, at least for women. Guys will keep going until the last second, since they just need to leave a bit of it behind. Sorry, getting distracted. I guess I just realized I’m never going to be a mother, you know? Fuck! Sorry.” She covered the camera with her hand for a few moments.
”Look at me, bawling again like a stupid baby. I don’t want to die, sis.” I felt that stab me through the heart. I regretted never seeing through her whe she was still around, not pushing to hang out with her more. I felt the tears coming again, but Vivian had just the remedy.
”I love a furry wolf with a tail buttplug that I can jerk when he’s laying pipe in me.”
I burst out laughing, tears streaming out alongside the super awkward silence the video cut to before cutting out. I hit the table with a pound of my fist to stop enjoying the quip about her kink. I imagined a scaly tail that pulled out of a butt with a pop, and burst out laughing again.
”Damn you, Viv!” I said through my teeth.
”Did I cut the furry bit from the last vid?” She asked in video marked as the second. “If I forgot, sorry. Momentary delights, you know? I’m sure you do. We share a bedroom wall, after all.” I paused the video and thought back to all the times she must have heard me. She hardly left her room, so she was there any time I had a stray thought of that nature.
”Focus, Zoe,” she said. “I was doing some spelunking online, digging into some more covert stuff. Don’t worry, I have all the systems reinforced with counters that brick any attempts to either triangulate or attack my command center. It took a lot of doing, so if these never reach you… damn, that would be quite a loss. I trust you with it, if you get this far.
”Anyways, I found something about this thing called Cloudforme. Folks in power just using this engineered serum that squeezes bodies like a juice box. It wasn’t meant to be used as warfare. Initially, they just wanted a more efficient way of getting rid of people. Chemical bins melt stuff down, but then you need to dump that somewhere. It’s not sustainable.
”Sorry if that’s new knowledge, but it’s pretty common practice nowadays, so gov tracks all chemical supplies and stuff. Anyways, the serum is it’s own organism, cultivated and programmed to replicate in the body fully to dispose of it into a pile of burnable putty and vapor. It’s revolutionary. People become water, and fuel, and water is already fuel plenty if you could just split it on a molecular level.
”It’s wild! I always wondered what it would be like to be a cloud.” SHe laughed. “Guess I’m heading there anyway. Might be a cool way to go, and at least the remains can be burned as fuel, though… that’s morbid.”
I sat back from the second video. Three remained. I knew what was coming, but I did not want to face it. I considered taking a break, and coming back to it later as I hold the cursor over the third video. I grit my teeth, but could not predict what she said.
”I was going to kill myself when you were about five,” she said. I felt that sentence like a sledgehammer to my chest. I remembered the “ideation" she mentioned in the first video I saw. “It was the first time I realized what I would become. You know… a smartass. They say it’s lonely at the top, but that’s the power pyramid. For mental acuity, it’s comparing pyramids to attaining oneness with the whole of existence. It’s far more than just loneliness, it’s madness. It’s a schism, but I know you won’t understand.
”Death being the end of everything is logical on the smartypants brains that barely make it beyond the solar system. It’s the most obvious to the animals that humans are, building the pyramids just to vye for the upper echelons. The truly smart know that beyond the thinking is more thinking, and that just means it’s better to get through the first part as quickly as possible. So yeah, dying young.
”Too late for me now, I guess, but it was important for you to know about that part of my life, since you’re the one who prevented me from taking that shortcut. I wanted to see where you end up, Zoe.” Her eyes welled again, and she dabbed them with a sleeve. I was equally holding back my feelings, replaying her funny confession to throw levity into my brain to stop being sad. It was not working very well.
”Keep living, dumbass,” she said, then turned the video off.
”Fuck you! Then why’d you fucking leave!?” I burst out, throwing the wireless computer mouse against the wall as it splintered into pieces. I could no longer control the videos with a cursor, and I bet the noise would bring over either Mom or Dad, so I jumped up to lock the door.
”Zoey? Everything ok?” Dad asked, trying the handle. “Why’s the door locked?”
”I need some time,” I said. “It’s ok, dad. I just found a video of Vivian on her computer. It made me mad so I threw the mouse at the wall. It’s ok.”
”Oh, ok,” he said, uncertain. “It’s been nearly a year, Zoey. I think you should consider letting her do what she’s doing by herself.” I wanted to tell him, but clenched my fist and held it up against my heart to try and calm myself. It wasn’t working.
”I need time,” I burst out in a sob, then threw myself onto Viv’s bed and bundled up away from the screen at the end of the video. After a few minutes, I slunk out of bed back to the seat at the screen, and used the arrow keys to select video number four. With enter, it played. It was her again, wearing a smile. She waved.
”Hey, Zoe,” Vivian said. “Not much left now. Sorry about the feels. I try to keep them locked away, but you know, it resurfaces when I address it all. When I face it, even though I’ve craved it since I was young. It’s stupid, isn’t it? You go through these things and hope you die soon so you don’t have to think about them anymore, but then you’re faced with a definite end, and you try to live out the rest of your life in those last moments.
”Humanity rears its ugly head once more. I guess I’m not leaving much of anything behind in terms of humanity though. It’s all just use of systems that I picked up along the way.
”Froze some eggs since I had the time, but I think they might be affected by the disease. I’m sure you’ll find the link to them. Maybe a piece of me can live with a surrogate or something. I don’t know. I’ll let you do what you want with them.
”They did a study on that Cloudforme stuff. Something codes itself into the electrons themselves. It’s wild. I wonder if the people who got turned into water are the ones causing all the weird weather events. It’s silly science fiction if that’s true, but wouldn’t it be hilarious? Looking up at the sky and thinking, ‘oh, it looks like rain, I bet it’s Mike dripping’.” She laughed.
”I wonder…” She said, then the video ended. I was confused, but it was nice to see her smiling.
I tabbed back to the folder and pressed the right arrow key to move the selection to the last video in the folder and hesitated. I had half a thought that she would end on some joke again, but I would burst out crying anyway. I grit my teeth and pressed enter.
”Zoe, sis, buddy mine,” Vivian said, eyes aglow with hope. “This is the last you’ll see of me, but if it works out, if this pans out, I’ll drop you a location you should see. Even if I’m no longer there. Even if this is a futile effort. Here.” She motioned to the bottom of the screen where a GPS location tag appeared. I paused the video and wrote it down on a paper towel, then resumed the video. She held her hand pointing to the number for a few seconds, then flashed a thumbs up at the screen.
”If it doesn’t work out,” she said. “I love you, sis. Ya dumbass. Tell Mom and Dad I love them, too. Don’t tell the dredges online though. They will just ask you for feet pics.” The video cut out, and I rushed to look up the GPS coordinates dropped in a map. It was a location in the city where we lived, but too far to walk. It was an hour drive, and I’d have to think up some excuse for driving out in the middle of nowhere.
I shook the messages off, trying to get myself together, but when I got up to leave her room, I felt an ache in my heart that pulled me back to her bed. It was raining by the time I woke up, still locked in her room. I came out to find the house empty. Mom and Dad went out somewhere, blissfully unaware of the amount of suffering Viv was going through while avoiding interacting with us. If her timeline was true, she would have died around Christmas. Maybe that was why she left at the start of fall.
The crazy weather events did not seem to affect our town for a while, as the rest of the world suffered random hailstorms, thunderstorms, even wild snowstorms that ventured into warmer regions near the equator. Nobody could understand, because nobody had the research. Only the people who buried it all knew, and they were not about to say anything, touting environmental efforts and looking for patterns.
I did not want to wait for them. I did not want to have to explain why I needed to go to some distant part of our town. I decided to get there by public transport, taking an umbrella against the rain that seemed to be getting heavier. I hoped the wind would stay gentle. Rain with a gust was inescapable. It was significantly longer by public transport, as there was no direct path. I had to take two buses and still walk ten minutes.
On the other side of the weather events, were the supernatural folks. So many different weather cults sprung up. The spiritual soothsayers kept saying it is Mother Nature coming to take revenge. The worrisome part of that was the strange account of the populace recording strange events that were dismissed as video editing.
They were ghosts in the fog. They were falling humans that splashed against the ground as water. They were humanoid beings standing in the sky. They were rainbows that bent like ribbon bows. They were puddles with people looking up from inside them. There were a lot of weird events that were said to be furthered in a panic of unpredictable weather systems. Everyone was carrying umbrellas at all times, and prepared warmer clothing anywhere they went. It had to do with Cloudforme, but admitting so, would mean explaining that many were turned into water on purpose, adding unstable water particles to the hydrologic cycle.
The part of town where the GPS location was did not feel very welcoming. It must have been one of those sections of town abandoned by the governing body for some reason. When support pulled out, so did the stores, and that took care of people living there. It was cheap, sure, but the nearest store was probably a brisk fifteen minute walk or twenty-five minute stroll. Unsustainable, and still within the dangers of not being supported by the city it was a part of.
The location itself was inside of a building, and I hesitated. I worried about the area, but knew Viv would not send me to a place that would be dangerous for me. I walked around the corner and found the wide open dock to the warehouse which stood silent and empty save for a tiny light illuminating the corner plate sign. The sign was a Roman numeral, or capital letter V, and I went right for it. There was a staircase that looked newly built going to the roof. I followed the possible sign to the top and found a peculiar weather event atop the roof.
It was still raining, but there was a bubble of air that seemed to resist the downpour. The bubble in question was around a metal table with seats attached to it. It reminded me of a memory from long ago, when I was young, and when Vivian was still proud of her smartass self. We sometimes went out like a family, and I almost forgot all those memories because of the other stuff happening in life.
I walked up to the bubble with my umbrella, finding the rain no longer falling on me within it. I looked at the umbrella and tossed it outside before taking a seat at the table. There was no sound of rain overhead. The bubble seemed to be trapped in a soundless chamber. I looked around at the rain pounding down, but it was so weird without the sound of it. It did not feel real without that one sense.
The sound appeared as the side of the bubble opened to a hand which made me recoil at the sight of it. I watched as the hand, which looked transparent, became more like a cloud, or a bubble of fog. A second hand popped up, and I got ready to bolt, but when a face cleared the threshold, I was too stunned to move. It was Vivian, but not exactly.
For one, she was naked, with blobby anatomy that had no details like her crotch or nipples, but still the shape I imagined she was. She also had no teeth, but the face was fully built with detail as a textured surface holding shifting fog. She sat down across from me, and wrote in the air with her finger.
”Hey, sis,” I read. I had no words, only sat closer and reached out to her, but she recoiled. “Form weak. No touch.”
”I’m sorry, Vivian,” I said. “I wish you told us about…”
She shook her head, which then shifted around like a blob that it was. She opened her mouth, and lifted hands to stop the head from wobbling.
”WIP. I am dead. Sorry.”
”Clearly not dead though,” I said. “How are you even doing this.”
”Lot effort.”
”I can imagine. I’m not going to tell Mom and Dad. I think they're better off just thinking you’re living somewhere safely.”
”Thanks. Delete porn?”
”No, I kept everything on your system.” She smiled. “I keep adding to the folders people send you.” She flashed a thumbs up, then drew a lizard in the air. I opened my mouth in shock.
”No limits.”
”Hey, no spying on me,” I said.
”I need to go. Weather troubles.”
”How bad is it?”
”Many. Angry. Seeking revenge. Hard to control.”
”Doesn’t mean you have to be the one who fixes everything.”
”Ya Dumbass,” she wrote, and got up.
”Well, at least I’m not a smartass like you.”
”Love you.” I felt tears spring up out of my eyes and she reached over to touch one, absorbing them into herself. “I will cherish this gift.”
”Can we meet again sometime?”
”Three months.”
”I love you, too, sis.” I watched as she waved her hand, and walked back out into the rain, looking like a humanoid figure walking up to two others. All three then took off into the sky as if climbing up stairs. At a rapid pace. I watched them, and feared the bubble would pop as the rain pummels down on me, but the bubble remained. I would still have to go out in the rain to get my umbrella, but it turned out there was no need to as the sky cleared as soon as Vivian left.
The bubble remained, but it looked invisible now, or as a light aura over the table that displaced air very lightly. I wanted to study how it worked, but it definitely had something to do with someone who was turned Cloudforme. There was still a lot I did not understand, but I knew I could leave it to Vivian. The weather was just as unpredictable for the next month, but it started calming down the closer we got to the promised day three months later. I ventured to the warehouse and sat in the bubble awaiting the blobby hand piercing through it, but instead, it was her in the flesh.
There was a lot more detail to her body, and her skin was dyed to look like clothing now. Even her breasts had points indicating nipples, even if they were “squished” under the clothing which did not exist. Her finger still made text in the air, but this time, it floated like a foam within the bubble.
”Hey, Zoe,” she wrote. “We can try a hug now, but be gentle.”
I went around the table and embraced her lightly. She felt like a very fragile balloon, and absolutely weightless. When she sat back down, I had so many questions, but she held up a hand. I watched as another person walked into the bubble. It was a guy, or rather he upheld a male figure, but was just like Viv. I smiled with surprise.
”Is this your boyfriend?” I asked.
”Partner,” she wrote. “He’s still learning to do the foam writing thing, so go easy.”
”Hello, Zoey,” He created in the air that disappeared so fact I could barely read it. “I’m Michael.”
”Nice to meet you,” I said and started getting up to hug, but he held up a hand along with Viv.
”He can’t hold form long enough for it,” Vivian wrote.
”I have so many questions,” I burst out. “There is no way for you to talk, right?” She shook her head, then stuck out her index finger with an idea. She held out a hand to the bubble, which produced a face. It was a person all this time, just sitting here and waiting. The face nodded. Viv looked to Mike and he also nodded.
”I’m going to merge into the bubble,” Viv wrote. “Then I can use the surface like a screen.”
”That’s so cool,” I said. Vivian reached out a hand to the face still visible in the bubble and looked to feel something with her mouth open. It was soundless, but it looked as though she was enjoying herself with her mouth open as if she was getting off. I looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed. When I looked back to the bubble, she was fully integrated, as text appeared on the rounded surface a lot faster than her writing it out.
”Integrated,” she showed as her first message.
”Did it feel good?” I asked. “You made an O face, so I was curious.” I saw three dots pop up as if she was typing something.
”Integrating my atoms with another does feel good,” a message wrote. “But it’s nothing close to the feeling of human pleasure.”
”Are you ok now?” I asked. “I mean… the sickness.”
”I left it behind in the remains of my body.”
”I’m so glad!” I said. “I learned a bunch about your systems. Turns out I’m a scaly.” I put a hand over my face in embarrassment of admitting it as the whole surface of the bubble erupted with “Ha!” It was sad that I wouldn’t be able to hear her laugh again.
”I promise I’ll do something with the eggs you left behind,” I said. “I’ll make sure there is some part of you in the world.”
”And I’ll fight so the kid can see the stars.”
”So it’s a fight?”
”It’s war, like it always is,” she wrote. “Human beings might become water, and still persist with the struggle. All my technical knowledge only helps me shape myself. The cloud matters, and what goes on in the sky, is more like social engineering. It doesn’t help that most of the people turned into Cloudforme are angry and want revenge. Mike is more attuned to it. He was like me, taking the serum to die rather than being forced to do so.”
”Have you two… integrated?” I asked, smiling at the thought, since she did say it felt good. The bubble was blank to a response, but I saw his form shift to a tall fuzzy wolf with a bushy tail. The three dots showed up again, but I held up my hand and burst out laughing. “Sorry, that was a weird question. Your personal matters.”
”Ready for college?” Vivian asked.
”Terrified,” I replied. “But also excited. I want to be part of your world, but from the ground. Maybe Cloudforme can be a force for good, to keep the environment healthy for humans.”
”I’m trying, sis,” she said. “Gotta figure out the shitty parts first. At least it’s very easy to change shape as a Cloudforme. A bunch of silly human stuff falls away thanks to that.”
“I want to help,” I said.
”The best you can do now is go to school,” she said. “Learn more about the world, well, you already do thanks to my files. At least meet some people, ok?”
”That’s what school is, typically,” I said. “Learning is secondary to social evolution.”
”Not to mention that higher education is beyond reach for most,” she wrote. “I’ll leave that side to you. I have to go, Zoe. Busy times still. Three months?”
”I’ll be away in college by then.”
”Lets make it a year then,” she said. “Stop by after your first year, sis. I’ll watch over you from afar.”
”Thanks, Viv,” I said, as she stepped back into a blobby shape rather than the refined one, and changed her form into a female fox humanoid smaller than the tall wolf Mike still was. They embraced, and waved together, then exited the bubble to become steam and waft away. There was still so much I could not understand about how they operated, but there was plenty of time for it
“Hello,” I said to the bubble around me. “What’s your name?”
I waited for a response, but the bubble was still. I wondered if there was a person in it, but I did see a face before. I looked all the way around and found the three shifting dots of thinking.
”Hello, Zoe,” it said. “I’m not important.”
”You let me talk to my sister, so you’re the most important. Plus you kept me safe from rain the last time. You are valuable.”
”Thank you for saying that. My name is Geraldine. It’s been a while since I died. Or maybe I was reborn. Now I’m holding up this bubble for our glorious leader, your sister. So… you said you like lizards, huh? I had a bearded dragon when I was alive. Sammy. I loved that sandy boy so much.”
”Aww, bearded dragons are so cute!” I said, then realized she might not have understood what a scaly was given how long ago she turned Cloudforme. “I wanted to get myself a gecko for college or something of that nature. Do you think a bearded would be easier to care for?”
”It really depends on what you like,” Geraldine said.
”Can I see how you looked like?” I asked. “The human form you had, I mean.” The three dots of thinking. “It’s ok if you don’t want to, of course.”
”It’s not that…” she said. “I don’t have as much control of that form, so I’ll look naked.”
”Oh, that’s ok,” I said. “If it’s too embarrassing, you don’t have to.”
”I’ll do it,” she replied. “But I’ll have to shrink the bubble, is that ok?”
”Sure.” I watched as the bubble shrunk down to just me within it, and Geraldine stepped into the bubble with a naked silhouette that still had nipples and crotch details. Her hair looked like a wig, but she was maybe in her twenties from the former shape.
”Wow, you’re pretty!” I said. She smiled, motioning her hands to cover up her nipples and crotch. “You don’t need to… I know, I’ll get naked too just so it’s fair.” Geraldine held out her hands in protest, but I was already halfway done and stood up without clothes in the bubble that went dark right away.
”Oh, you didn’t have to do all that,” I said. “See? Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s freeing, if anything.” She dropped her hands, then took a proud pose in the darkened bubble. “There you go! Exactly!”
”Harder to talk,” she wrote in the air. “But you are very pretty. You’d look very… pretty with a lizard tail.” I raised my eyebrows. She DID know what a scaly was. I watched as she changed her body to the shape of a humanoid reptile. I came closer and found her surface to be hardened and touchable.
”Then let’s not talk,” I whispered, then held a hand to her back, as her hand rested on my hip. I smiled. “And to think I thought you were just a bubble. It’s nice to see you, Geraldine, the way you are.” I smoothed a hand over her scaly skin up to her chin and held onto a beard spike to guide a kiss, though we did more than kiss.
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