"Hello Randy" I said to the man walking through the door. He took a seat next to me at the sushi bar and replied "Hello Jon, it's been a while". I know I'm not the prettiest, and without a bandana on I would send tormenting thoughts through people that would end in their asylum, but that's just another reason to love the Matrix. Things can be fixed, written over with new code, humans can never tell the difference. That is, unless their eyes are open. Randy's eyes were open. Everyone saw a lowly civil worker with a name badge, but he saw the truth, black bandana, mohawk, tattooed face, the works.
"It's been a while." he said picking up his menu and opening it. I tapped my fingers on top of mine, I never looked inside, never needed to. I nodded my head to him slowly, acknowledging the past me and him had together. The Army makes family out of people, pardon the cheesy slogan, but it does. He ordered and I sat quietly. Me and the virus had a talk before, we both agreed this was my area of expertise. I could hear it humming a song quietly in the back of my mind, being the never ending headache that it is. To break the silence, and the non, I decided to bring back an old memory. "Remember when we ransacked the command ship of it's supplies and destroyed our first ship?" "I'm still hung-over." he snapped back as if he were thinking of the same memory. We had a laugh that only lasted a moment. It was back to silence again, and the waitress was pouring our glasses of sake. She took his order, and our menus, and we sat silent a moment sipping our cups. "So it'll be just the same?" he asked out of the blue. "Exactly as it was before." I said sternly, this was business to me. "Good." he said with a sigh. He looked at the floor for a moment then began to speak "It's just not..." "I know." I interrupted. He nodded his head.
The cook came out smiling with our meals. He placed them down on the table, smiling and bowing with praises of tanoshimu as he walked back into the kitchen. He picked up his chopsticks and shoved his head into a bowl of rice, picking up a sushi roll in-between gulps. I didn't even look at my meal. Instead I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silver cigarette case. It's reflection from the lights caught the eyes of a couple people in the restaurant, but they paid no mind, it was just a twinkle in their eyes. I opened it up, taking one out and gently placing it down on his napkin, in plain sight. Neither of us smoked. He slowly began to stop eating, and stared down at it out of the corner of his eyes. The white of the napkin making the blue stand out like a patch of sky on a cloudy day.
He set his bowl and chopsticks down, staring down at the pill on his napkin. His eyes rose up and looked directly to me. He looked past the outer shell of code, through the glasses kept underneath, and into the yellow eyes of mine that hid in the dark. He knew it was time, and a nod from me made no difference. He pinched it and lifted it to his eyes, the same twinkle shining bright from the reflection inside the blue pill. He looked back at me once more, "Exactly as I remember, right? Every last detail?" I nodded to him with sincerity. He placed it on his tongue and tilted back his cup of sake. I closed the case and placed it back into my pocket, then placed my napkin on my un-touched food and stood to walk away. He grabbed my wrist and looked up into my eyes again, "Thank you." he said. I nodded, again, and he let go of my wrist and I began to walk out. "I'll see ya around." he said to me with my back turned, trying to get one last response. I reached the door and pushed it half way open, then turned around and faced him. "No, you wont." I responded, and walked out into the rain.
‘Your jealous aren't you?'
"Shut up."