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Sonny’s phone vibrated in his pocket. As he took it out, he peeled off to the side, away from the stream of people exiting the jetway. A text shone onscreen from a number his phone didn’t recognize, but Sonny knew well.
come to my house when you’re free. its the same one its always been. i have something that will revolutionize music.
Joel. Sonny read the number a few times over just to be sure. It was his. After a decade of mutual silent treatment, why would he reach out now?
He found a chair in the terminal and sat down, backpack tucked behind his legs. He read the message over again. Joel sounded almost optimistic for once, strange. Good strange, but strange nonetheless. Sonny furrowed his brow. Another number texted him—his ride had arrived.
“Shit.” He hissed. He completely forgot to change the pickup time when his flight got delayed. Sonny grabbed his bag and made his way down to the baggage claim. A short wait later, he acquired his suitcase and headed outside to meet his driver.
The Toronto air was crisp against his face. His sweatshirt didn’t do much to protect from the cold night, but Sonny found it refreshing. Once inside the vehicle, he apologized for being late, and gave them his destination.
When the car began to move, Sonny had a chance to look at the message again. Everything about it was so weird, yet so unmistakably Joel. It was just that one word that tripped him up: revolutionize. That wasn't the word a pessimistic forty-year-old man used much. Usually, it was part of a larger sarcastic remark to emphasize the opposite, to prove just how insignificant the subject was. Yet, everything read genuine this time.
Sonny’s thumbs hovered over the keyboard.
How does tomorro sounnd ?
He was playing a festival later that day, around sunset if he remembered correctly. That should be plenty of time for Joel to show him whatever he had. If it’d truly ‘revolutionize music’, Sonny would make time to see it.
He arrived at the hotel a little while later, and checked in rather hastily. Dull excitement tugged him on, but the late night was beginning to drag on his limbs. He settled into his hotel room, spread out a few things to prepare for sleep, and went to brush his teeth. As he rinsed his toothbrush off, Sonny felt his phone vibrate on the counter.
yea whenever
The simple response lit up his screen. He finished up and crawled into bed, hearting the message out of habit.
———
At mid-morning, when the pleasant high latitude sun saturated the curtains, Sonny woke. He got up, showered, dressed, the works, and was out the door in less than an hour. It didn’t take long for his hailed ride to appear.
“How’re you doing this morning?” The driver asked as he slid into the backseat.
“Pretty good. You?” Sonny chirped.
“Alright.” She shrugged. “Before we get going, you mind double checking the address for me?”
Sonny leaned forward and read the display on her GPS.
“Yeah, that’s right. Is it giving you weird directions?”
“Nah, just says it’s in the middle of nowhere, way out in the countryside.”
“Huh. I don’t remember it being that rural.” Sonny said, more to himself than her.
“Guess we’ll see.” The driver acquiesced. Sonny could only nod.
It took a few minutes to get out of the city with traffic, and even then, it was a good half hour before Sonny saw anything he recognized. Lots of tall trees, but in sparse arrangements and farther back from the road than he remembered. He and his driver made small talk occasionally, mostly about what he was doing out here in Toronto, and then what he was doing in Canada once his LA accent slipped out. Eventually, a stretch of farmland came into view around where he thought Joel’s house was. Sonny gazed along the picket fence, out over the open field. He caught a large barn in the distance.
“It should be around here.” Sonny said. He was almost worried it wouldn't be there, but just as the thought crossed his mind, a line of trees cleared to reveal the mansion nestled into the country.
The car slowed to a stop in front—well, as close to it as the road would allow. A narrow path led up to the stone pillars holding up the gates a little ways in.
“Is this the place?” The driver asked.
“Yes, thank you! Sorry about the weird location.” Sonny replied with a bit of an awkward smile. When he stepped out, a chill shimmied up his spine. Sonny pulled his hood up and exhaled some hot air into his hands before pulling out his phone to tell Joel he’d arrived. He stood in front of the tall metal gates for a few minutes before they opened with a soft creak. His phone buzzed at the same time.
of course you got up at the asscrack of dawn
Sonny huffed and quirked his lips, stepping past the threshold of Joel’s property. Then another message.
give me a few minutes
A few minutes was at least ten to Joel, if Sonny recalled, so he’d have some time to kill. Frosted dirt crunched under his shoes as he walked farther up. He was scanning the well-manicured lawn when he noticed the barn inside the edge of Joel’s property. Oh, that was his farm? Had he turned into some blue collar farmer since he’d seen him last? Sonny doubted it.
Sonny didn’t see much else over the fence line—just grass as far as the eye could see. He steadied himself on one of the posts and leaned in to try and see any animals. The moment he did, a herd of goats materialized next to him, all bleating wildly. Sonny yelped and nearly fell over, stumbling back as they cantered in various directions.
“How did I miss you guys?” He thought aloud.
The herd ran around for a little longer before they calmed down. Several of them were still turning their heads this way and that, on high alert for something that never came, or perhaps was never there. Sonny was pretty still as to not scare them again, but he kept watching them eat and wander through the field. Out of all the farm animals he thought he might own, goats did seem the most Joel-like. Maybe because of that simulator game he collaborated with. The herd never seemed to fully settle down as long as Sonny watched, so he waved them a small farewell and began to walk back toward the front door. Though, he couldn’t help but wonder what set them off. He didn’t think he was scary, but maybe his unfamiliar presence alone was frightening enough. That didn’t sound right, but he wasn’t exactly a goat expert.
When he neared the entrance, a goat started bleating. Sonny turned around and saw several of them with their heads towards him, all making that shrill noise. It sounded closer to a donkey screeching than anything he thought a goat could make.
He stood there watching them, huddled in his sweatshirt and beginning to shiver. Sonny looked back behind him to see if he missed something they saw, but instead found Joel poking his head out of the doorway.
“Get inside, I don’t want a sonny-sicle in my yard.” His breath steamed in the cold air.
“Thanks, man.” He breathed as he padded inside. Closing his eyes against the warmth of the house, Sonny relaxed and tugged off his hood.
“When did you get goats?” He asked.
“Eh, couple years ago.” Joel said as he passed by him. “When did you get fuckin’ normal hair? You actually look like a dude now.” Sonny chuckled.
“Just the end of last year. I’m really liking the length.” He ran a hand through said hair and tried to fluff it up a little.
A small cat trotted up to Joel and twisted around his legs, purring loudly.
“Hi kitty.” Sonny waved with a little smile. Joel bent down to pick her up, and she promptly nestled into him.
“Her name’s Dizzy. Dolly’s around here somewhere too.” He said, briefly turning his head as if to seek out the other cat.
“Oh, she’s so cute!” Sonny mused, scratching behind her ears. “The Professor and Miss Nyancat are so eternal, I don’t think I’ve ever pictured you with different cats.” Joel visibly tensed.
“I guess. I got Meowingtons’ skeleton articulated, so he’s pretty eternal.” He explained with a wistful look. It took Sonny a moment to put the pieces together. Then his eyes went wide.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I had no idea.”
Joel shrugged.
“It’s fine. The old bastard is probably chasing mice with some cat chick now.”
A sympathetic smile tugged at his lips. That’s refreshingly positive of you. Sonny thought.
Dizzy hopped out of his arms with a chirp, and darted off into a hallway.
“You want food or sommin’?” Joel asked. Sonny shook his head.
“No, I ate before I left, thanks.” He nudged his shoulder. “Show me what you were so excited about!”
A certain light formed in Joel’s eyes. He cracked a smile.
“Yeah, alright. It’s in the studio.” He motioned for Sonny to follow him.
Sonny’s eyes wandered as they went farther into the house. He spotted a few new things here and there: Some new art on the walls; a figurine of a gritty fantasy woman; various pieces of Joel’s own merchandise strewn about on shelves. Nothing Sonny recognized, and he felt a little bad about it.
Despite all the new items around, it was still the same place it’d always been. The same rooms, the same furniture, the same nerdy flair to the decor. Sonny peeked inside Joel’s taxidermy room as they passed. It still had all the same offputting wonders he remembered, along with new specimens that he couldn’t figure out the few seconds he saw them.
When they arrived at the studio, a wave of nostalgia washed over Sonny, more so than anything else there. The setup was just as he remembered, save the updated equipment. Memories of making tracks filled his mind so vividly that they nearly felt like visions.
“This is it.” Joel announced in his monotone cadence, patting something. Sonny rotated his head to the sound and took a moment to understand what he was directing him to.
Tucked in the corner of the space was a chair like ones he’d seen at the dentist’s, with an apparatus hanging over it, connected to a computer by a slew of wires. It appeared to be some kind of overhead lamp, but where a bulb would be, mechanical metal panels were arranged in a radial formation.
Sonny gingerly grasped the side of the lamp-like part and peered closer at the machinery.
“Don’t fuck around too much, I worked way too hard on that for you to break it.”
“I won’t, don’t worry.” Sonny replied.
Joel pulled over his chair from his main table, slid up to the laptop, and started typing away. Sonny’s fingers grazed the edge of the apparatus as he stuck his hand in his pocket. He leaned over Joel’s shoulder and watched him navigate some kind of rudimentary interface.
“Is that it?” He asked.
“Part of it. Hold on, let me…here it is.” Joel scooted back and gestured over the screen. “This is a ‘host’ for the program. It’s gotta have a 3d space to be in for some fuckin’ reason, it can’t just run the way everything else does.”
All Sonny saw was a tab with a gibberish title showing nothing but blackness. There had to be more to it, but he, admittedly, had little tech knowledge beyond music creation.
There must’ve been a certain expression on his face, because Joel made a dissatisfied sound with his mouth before clicking through a few files. He found a folder containing a single file. When he opened it, it began to buffer, before a loading bar popped up. Sonny’s eyes went wide.
“Oh my gosh.” He breathed. “What storage size is PB? How big is this?” He asked with a baffled laugh.
Joel slumped back in his chair with his arms crossed, like he was bored of the conversation already.
“I told you to hold on, man. Have some fuckin’ patience.”
After a few minutes of loading, Sonny curled up in the dentistesque chair, leaning against it. Then, a little later, he tried to make small talk asking about how life had been. Joel offered curt responses to some questions, but generally didn’t bite.
The upload was done after a nebulous stretch of time—maybe twenty minutes. Where the host program’s tab had been pitch black before, a pixelated field now waved in the breeze. An animal came wandering along, until it lowered its head and began to munch on the grass.
“It’s a goat?”
“It’s a goat.” Joel leaned over to put the tab in fullscreen. “The PB is petabytes, that’s how much data a goat brain takes up. Apparently.”
Sonny watched the little ungulate in silence for several moments.
“Sorry, I don’t think I follow.” He said. “You programmed the brain of a goat?”
“No, I didn't program its brain, I converted it into data.” Joel explained.
Sonny’s brow furrowed.
“Like, directly from the goat?” He asked, gesticulating.
“Yeah.”
That didn’t clarify anything, and Sonny expressed as much. Joel sat back and glared at his desktop, fingers tapping his face in thought as he propped it over his mouth. Joel sighed into his hand.
“I’ll be right back.” He said, pushing off against the armrests of his chair.
His mouth opened, but Sonny didn’t get the chance to respond before Joel disappeared around his monolith of a speaker system. The screen beckoned his attention again, however. The animal onscreen, restricted and repetitive as its movements were, evoked a feeling in Sonny that he couldn’t quite place. Some mix between endearment and an impending sense of doom. Its singular pixel of an eye seemed simultaneously to stare at him with unwavering intent, and at nothing at all. All of these feelings were felt only as pangs before Joel returned as quickly as he’d left.
Sonny smiled with excited anticipation as Joel walked in cradling a decent sized box. He sat down, set the box in his lap, and opened up the top. Inside, Sonny spotted a glass case with something inside it.
Joel paused. His hands stood at the edges of the cardboard flaps, and he looked up at Sonny. Their eyes met, yet it was like he didn’t see him, Joel had a distance to his expression that made Sonny’s smile falter. Just barely. They held it for another moment before a trickle of tension started to run over him.
“What?” Sonny asked.
Joel just shook his head. If he didn’t see the slight, dismissive frown as he did so, Sonny might’ve mistaken it for a twitch.
Reaching into the box, he grasped the wide sides of the container and lifted the object slowly. His arms visibly strained holding it with little else but the friction of his fingers against the glass. Distressed fur covered its contents. The head came into view, messily severed from the body, the base of its neck caked in dark, dried fluid. Sonny’s smile quickly dropped as he met the milk-washed eyes of the dead goat. This wasn’t taxidermy. His hand flew over his mouth when Joel set the case down in front of him. Where horns would have adorned the top of its head, they had clearly been removed with force, in line with deep lacerations in its skull, breaking through and boring deep.
Sonny stared at it with his eyes wide.
“What happened to it?” He asked, feeling his hot exhale against his palms. Joel was silent, then spoke in a hushed tone like he was worried someone would hear.
“Me.”
“…You? What…what did you do?” Sonny smiled despite himself.
“I...” Joel drew a pointed hand across his throat. Sonny was quiet.
Joel sat the head down next to him with a huff. Apparently he was quiet for too long.
“Goddamnit, do I have to spell it out?!”
“I don’t know, man! You’re not really explaining your shit!” Sonny had laughed when he said it, but Joel looked taken aback by his volume being matched. He ran a hand over his face. He leaned back against the headrest, taking a deep breath.
“I killed it. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I guess converting brainwaves into data gets rid of them, and the tiny laser I used wasn’t scanning shit, it was turning the thing into fuckin’ swiss cheese.” He explained.
Sonny softened. He mentally cursed at himself—Of course Joel was dancing around it, who would outright share that they accidentally murdered a pet?
“Joel,” He reached out a comforting hand, but Joel rolled himself back in his chair. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t. It’s whatever.” Joel sighed.
“In a way, it lives on in your little program, doesn’t it?” Sonny offered. Joel looked at the gored head in his lap and glared at him. He took that at his cue to shut up.
They sat in silence for a little while. Joel rolled up to his computer again and started doing something in that tab again. Sonny rested his head on his arms and watched him. There had been times when he imagined linking up with Joel again, but never in a million years did he picture this.
That glass case sat on the floor the entire time—facing away from Sonny, thankfully—but it still unnerved him. Despite expressing all his guilt, Joel appeared to ignore the goat with ease. Suspicion was a feeling Sonny rarely experienced, but he could feel it pulling at his conscience with increasing persistence.
Joel was setting up something in the host program, code open on one side and visuals on the other. The text was too small to make out much else.
Then, he entered his finished code. A new blank, pure black tab popped up, and Joel entered a title.
S-K-R-I-L-L-E-X
Overwhelming fight or flight urges blazed through him.
Before he could even fully stand up, Joel was in his face. Sonny raised his hands defensively, instinctually.
“This is still a really cool thing you’ve been able to do though, I’ve never even heard of someone like, uploading living things into a computer. Do you mind if you show me this stuff without the head? It’s kinda freakin’ me out, but I’m still super curious about what your plan is with all of this.” His old performing arts school would be proud, Sonny hardly sounded as scared as he was.
“Sit back down.” Joel said. It was almost a command. Sonny tried to stay calm, but his heart was panicking.
“This shit is super cool and I really want to hear about it in depth, but please could we—”
Tattooed hands whirled towards him. As soon as they brushed the edges of his hoodie, he snatched them and held them in place. Sonny brought his gaze up to Joel’s, but it was like he was seeing out of someone else’s eyes. It took him several moments to come to, and realize Joel was trying to pull his hands free, and become aware of how heavily he was breathing. Sonny let go and stepped back. He was trembling.
“I’m so sorry.” He said, hardly above a whisper. “Joel, I don’t know what happened.”
“I heard you. Can you just sit down? Jesus Christ, you cut off my circulation.” He wasn't looking at him. “I didn’t know you had that in you.” He wrung his hands. Sonny spotted the red marks he’d left on his wrists. He didn’t know he had that in him either. “I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but you need to chill the fuck out.”
Dread shot through Sonny’s bloodstream like a bullet. Something was definitely wrong, but he didn’t know what exactly. He stepped back where he thought was space, but his calf brushed up against something and he stumbled.
As soon as he hit the back of the chair, Joel lunged. In an instant, he got a strap fastened around his wrist, and when he reached over to try to undo it, Joel practically used his whole body weight to pull it to the other armrest. A motion with such frantic intensity that it startled Sonny. Joel tried to restrain his other hand, but was met with a hardy kick to the side and an incoherent shout of alarm.
“Ow! Fuck!”
“What the fuck are you doing!?” Sonny yelled, voice cracking.
“Let me strap you in and I’ll tell you! Sit still!” Joel replied, leaning towards him again. This time, he grabbed his arm and tried to sling his leg over it to hold it down. Sonny contorted and threw him off into the wall next to them. He grabbed the strap, but his palm was so sweaty it kept slipping off. Joel came again but got another kick. Breathing heavily, Joel snatched the goat's head and raised it above his head. Wild fury shone in his eyes.
“No no no! Stop! Stop!” Sonny cried.
Joel gritted his teeth and smashed the glass against Sonny’s legs. He screamed as dozens of shards pierced through his pants into his skin. Throbbing pain cascaded down his thighs. The goat flopped into his lap, its dead eyes staring into his soul. Ragged breaths took him over, he clamped his eyes shut, only to be even more aware of the head resting on him.
Pressure on his other wrist brought his attention back just to find Joel tightening it to the armrest. He tugged it until the leather was digging into him, almost burning. Sonny tried to move his legs but gasped at the pain, he could hardly tense the muscle before the needles penetrated through it. Joel brought a longer belt-like strip of leather across his shins, Sonny could only watch, terrified, and confused, and helpless.
Joel flopped onto his seat and groaned a sigh just loud enough for Sonny to hear. His foot brushed the floor as he gently spun his chair around like he was somehow bored.
“You know how I said I had something that would revolutionize music?”
Sonny hesitantly nodded.
“Once I upload your brain, I’ll be able to access it whenever I want. I could use some of the funky ideas you have, or turn you into a plug-in. Something like that.” He explained it like it was a new software. Sonny opened and closed his mouth several times, not being able to find anything that conveyed the total whirlwind of emotions he felt.
“Was the goat a test?” He finally asked. Joel nodded with an ‘mhm’, but didn’t offer any details.
No wonder the goats were so skittish, he thought, one of their friends disappeared and never came back. He hoped they hadn’t seen the gruesome fate that befell them.
Tears welled up in Sonny’s eyes, he squeezed them shut hard, and felt them meander down his cheeks. Joel’s judgmental gaze bored into him.
“We could’ve just collaborated on something.” He croaked between gasps of pain. That hurt more than anything else.
“Yeah no shit, dumbass! What a fucking revelation.” He snapped with a derisive smile, batting his eyelashes. “If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have gone through all of this!” Sonny watched with a sunken heart as Joel walked off. Leaning his head back, he blinked more tears from his eyes.
Sonny couldn’t help but think that it was something he’d done that led to this. Though, alone for the moment, he got a glimpse of clarity. No sane person would do this. Maybe they’d think about it, sure, but never consider it. Sonny took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting out a small whine at the glass in his legs. This was far out of his control, and there was nothing he could’ve done; that did comfort him a bit. Comfort that completely caved when Joel returned with an electric razor.
When the blade started to run against his skin, he didn’t fight it. Chunks of hair fell into his lap peacefully.
“Stop shaking.” Joel told him, frowning. Sonny didn’t even know he had been.
Within a few minutes, his head had been shaved clean. The absence of weight was strange, but not uncomfortable—only kind of cold. He silently mourned his hair.
Joel grabbed the goat's head by the ear and tossed it into the trash. It clunked against the side of the can and felt down like any other piece of garbage. All that supposed guilt, just to throw it away like that.
He fastened the crown of his head and the base of his neck with a couple of metal clamps, and tightened them to a firm hold.
A few clicks of the keyboard, and the apparatus above him hummed with the gentle scraping of metal against metal. Sonny fully embraced his fate, and expected the blinding pain of the machinery slicing him open, but it didn’t come. After some hesitation Sonny glanced over at Joel, who gazed back as he brought his hand away from a key. There was a certain look in his eyes, not quite sadness, no, brighter. Expectation?
“You’re not gonna say anything?” Joel asked finally. Sonny blinked at him, then turned his head the slightest bit left, then right. He was silent for a few moments.
“I figured you would say some protagonist shit about how it ‘doesn’t have to be this way’ or whatever.”
In other circumstances Sonny would wonder if Joel was seriously joking at a time like this, but his primal fear returned as soon as the apparatus whirred to life again.
Searing heat erupted from his crown, pain, the burn of the blades, streams of warmth trickled down his face, animalistic wails escaped his mouth, and…the…loss…….of………………
———
Sonny woke up. He barked a nervous laugh and ran a hand over his face. A dream! Of course! He brushed aside his windswept hair. He lowered himself onto his knees and planted a few kisses in the waving field. Sonny leaned his head back and closed his eyes to the sky. His face felt cool, not the warmth he expected from the sun. He opened his eyes just a crack, but when he wasn’t blinded, opened them fully, if a bit cautious. Blue stretched on as far as the eye could see, and clouds dotted the view. Sonny turned and looked up behind him. Then to his left, his right.
Where was the light coming from?
As Sonny glanced around, butterflies formed in the pit of his stomach. He stood up abruptly. He patted over his chest until he found his heartbeat. It hadn’t stopped pounding. Sonny took a sharp inhale through his nose and exhaled shakily.
He was inclined to think he was still having a nightmare—this would be a wild first lucid dream—but something felt wrong, even by dream standards. Sonny sat down in an attempt to calm down, and it worked a little. The grass was pleasant under him. Little dandelions danced in the breeze all around him. By all accounts, he should be relaxed, but that vague unease kept tugging at him.
Behind him, something rustled. Sonny whirled around, and watched in horror as a small white ungulate ambled up to him. It inspected his sleeve, nosing his arm curiously before attempting to nibble it. Sonny pulled away, which seemed to confuse it, then it leaned down and began eating grass. There might as well have been bass blasting right in his ears, because that’s what his heart sounded like. Sonny’s mouth was left ajar, breathing ragged breaths. With a shaking hand, he reached out and stroked the goat’s back. The animal paid no mind as he fisted a clump of fur.
Nothing. He knew what it should feel like, but it had no texture, no semblance of life despite the animal wearing it. Sonny’s lip quivered with an unshakable mix of emotions.
“You alive in there?” Joel’s voice resonated. He looked up. Joel peered in through a cutout in the sky, eyes gazing down at him, reflecting the pixelated host program.
“…Yes.” Sonny almost didn’t say. Joel’s eyebrows raised and a smirk tugged his lips.
“Cool.”
Quick as it came, the cutout filled with sky again.
Sonny wanted so badly to believe it was a trick of his subconscious, but it was so vivid and real. He was a digital husk of a man. If he was human in this state, it was a horrible existence; if he wasn’t, then Sonny had no idea what he’d become. Drops of blurred vision fell from his eyes to the grass. He ran a finger across his cheek and found a tear when he took it away. He expected sweet saltiness when he touched it to his tongue. He tasted nothing. Only sight and sound remained, just to perceive a body that was left an artifice without sensation.
The goat had disappeared. Its hide had probably slipped through Sonny’s fingertips the moment he diverted his attention.
He laid back onto the rolling plains, only knowing he’d fully lowered when he was stopped by the ground. Sonny dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. The cry that escaped his mouth surprised him. It began a torrent of sobs that subsided only when his throat couldn’t produce the noises anymore. He wasn’t sure how long he was like that, the time seemed to be seconds and hours all at once.
When his hands came off his eyes, one arm was stopped. The galaxy of floaters in his vision cleared slowly. Fur touched his hand again—the goat was back; so was Joel, watching on haughtily.
His expression faltered, seemingly after finding Sonny. Sonny wiped the tears off his cheeks. Joel looked at him, then peeled away and appeared to look at something else on his screen. He muttered a long string of profanities that soon became louder. Sonny watched the changes in his visage. Brow furrowing, parting and closing his lips, the darting of his eyes between him and what he assumed was code.
Sonny’s mind roiled. What could possibly put him in this much distress while Sonny himself was trapped in this digital hellscape? He wanted to question him but he held it all in. He didn’t need to say anything.
“The goat’s stuck in a loop every time I open it up, but you’re not. Fuck man, you’re alive.”