James 25
James
I step out onto the bustling street, the darkening skies mirroring the slow deterioration of my mental state.
My skin prickles with cold. My brain seems to thud against my skull. I fight through the crowd with increasing impatience, the unexpected crush of bodies and external stimulus making me irrationally angry.
I don’t know how much more I can take.
A neon pink haze has settled over my eyes.
The machine-gun rhythm of a techno beat continues to pulse between my ears.
My shoulders are so tight and my back teeth so clenched I’ve nearly wired my jaw shut.
I’m tired and traumatized and no one is responding to any of my messages and I’m not even sure what I accomplished just now except to initiate a meltdown of my entire nervous system.
I’d given myself what I thought was going to be a simple job.
One task.
A clear directive.
Very likely a waste of my time.
Brisk air bites at my bared knuckles, my fists clenching around the handles of these shopping bags. I thought running this errand would make me feel better. I thought doing something for Rosabelle would make me feel useful. Instead, this ache in my chest is only getting worse.
Fuck, I don’t even know what’s in these bags.
I was in such a hurry to get out of that store that I made impulsive selections with little to no consideration.
I didn’t want to make conversation. I didn’t want to explain my choices.
I didn’t want them to watch me sort out the differences between one scrap of pink underwear and another.
I just grabbed a bunch of stuff in the smallest sizes available and dumped them by the register.
Everything else is a blur of retail trauma.
I can’t even say for sure that I bought anything practical or useful for Rosabelle, and this pisses me off more than anything else.
All I know is that I didn’t think this through.
I thought this would be a low-stakes enterprise.
I was imagining buying Rosabelle some clothes; I went into that store on a whim; that was the extent of my plan.
It didn’t occur to me I might have to walk through the streets afterward carrying a bunch of bright pink shopping bags with the words NOW YOU’RE BLUSHING emblazoned across the fronts.
I didn’t consider the part where I might have to talk to employees with boundary issues.
Or that these employees might exercise the right to be curious about why I showed up all alone in the aftermath of an attack on our city to purchase an assortment of tiny pink things from a store that sells nothing but pink things.
Jesus.
Maybe I am an idiot.
I’ve never been so grateful for the promise of nightfall.
I resist the impulse to glance back at the neon storefront, where Armando, Girl on the Floor (Jessica), and Salesperson #3 are probably suctioned to the glass, watching me go.
Salesperson #3 tried to introduce herself to me at one point, but she mumbled so hard I swear to God it came out sounding like Diarrhea, and now I’m thinking maybe she wasn’t trying to make an introduction.
She might’ve been issuing a prophecy.
That entire experience was a shit show I have no interest in reliving ever again.
I need to get the hell out of here.
I try again to wedge my way through the crush, the scowl hardening on my face.
The moon is rising in the sky like a spotlight as the sun edges closer to the horizon, golden rays tinting everything amber.
Precocious streetlamps illuminate the crowds well into the distance.
If I were in a better mood, I might’ve thought it was pretty.
Instead, everything is pissing me off.
We’re probably thirty minutes out from sunset; these people should be going home, not coming out of their houses.
I don’t understand what they’re doing here.
It’s like there’s some kind of tacit understanding among a cross-section of the population to stand out in the cold and enjoy it.
I think I used to be one of those people.
I think I used to enjoy things like this.
I can’t remember enjoying anything anymore.
Fuck, I can’t even remember what day it is.
A swell of laughter erupts through the streets, and it puts my teeth on edge.
I don’t know why so many people are smiling.
There’s horrible shit going on. End-of-the-world type shit going on.
Of course, they don’t know anything about that.
Warner’s been doing everything in his power to keep current events under wraps for as long as possible.
We don’t want to risk mass panic, especially not until we know exactly what’s happening and, more importantly, how to face it.
As it is, only a select stratum of people have enough clearance to know where I was recently and what kind of souvenir I brought home.
As far as most people are concerned, The Reestablishment is dead.
We know we’re fighting a shadow war, but it’s been hard to convince civilians we’re being targeted by an entity that’s never issued a statement and never claimed responsibility for an attack.
We don’t even have proof it exists.
If we only know a little about Ark Island, the general public knows even less.
We’ve never been able to get aerial shots of the site, because they can shut down our satellites and scramble our tech.
Some people don’t believe the island exists at all; others think it’s a vestigial organ of the old regime, too small and impotent to do any harm.
People are so convinced The Reestablishment is a nonentity that some bereaved parents still hold Warner personally responsible for the deaths of their children at the elementary school.
At that thought, my anger ignites all over again.
We never even had a chance to breathe after the revolution. At first, we didn’t even know where the hits were coming from.
It started with cyber warfare—manipulating electrical systems, shutting down network connectivity, disrupting our satellites.
Slowly, cyberattacks gave way to the mysterious deaths of essential scientists and prominent military leaders who’d once been loyal to The Reestablishment—and who’d been helping us decode the tech and weaponry that underpinned our world.
Key figures were dying off in a stunning series of accidents and sudden heart attacks, setting our progress back by years—over and over.
This isn’t even taking into account the personal blows we’ve sustained.
Juliette was nearly assassinated on several different occasions.
Warner, more than twice as many times. We were forced to find ways to operate from behind shields, limiting direct public engagement wherever possible.
Almost no one understands the work being done behind the scenes to keep the civilians safe, and it’s not their fault.
Things are far from perfect, and we still make mistakes.
I know I shouldn’t expect the average person to grasp the enormity of what we deal with every day.
I know I’m in a shitty mood right now. I know my thoughts are bleak.
But sometimes the ignorance pisses me off.
My pager suddenly buzzes in my pocket, and my heart gives a hopeful kick in response.
The feeling doesn’t last long.
Warner’s been ignoring me. Kenji’s been ignoring me. I’ve gotten no responses from anyone in the past forty-five minutes. I feel like I’ve been banging my head against metaphorical walls for hours—days—months—and everyone is still acting like I don’t fucking exist.
Indignation blazes in my chest.
I’m sick and tired of waiting around. I’m sick of being shunted to the side.
I’m sick of feeling useless.
I shift the pink bags to one hand, my dark mood growing darker, and finally unearth the pager from my pocket.
Bro, what the hell?
Are you in the city right now? Shopping?
I come to a stop on the sidewalk.
The message is from Malick. Malick, who used to report to me. Malick, who just got back from paternity leave.
My frown is so deep I think it’s aging me.
How the hell do you know I’m in the city? I write back.
My pager buzzes in my hand.
Run for your life, man.
You’ve been spotted.
I do not run for my life.
I do a mental check of the weapons concealed on my body before carefully lifting my head and catching a blade of golden light right across my eyes.
I squint against the glare, tugging the bill of my cap a little lower. Of course I’ve been spotted.
I just spent quality time with Girl on the Floor, Armando, and Salesperson #3.
I stifle a sigh.
My interactions at the store were uncomfortable, but I didn’t think they were newsworthy.
I did my best to say as little as possible.
I never answered Armando’s initial question about a girlfriend, but when he followed up a minute later with So, are we shopping for someone special today?
I might’ve made the mistake of reflexively reaching for my gun.
I wasn’t even trying to scare him.
I just wanted to remind myself it was there, just in case I needed to kill someone. But I think Armando might’ve peed himself a little.
Shit.
I do a quick scan of the crowd, catching stray looks in the process, people pausing to do double takes right as I turn away. I remind myself that they could be staring at me for any number of reasons.
I remind myself that I am not Warner.
I might inspire general nervousness in people, but I don’t cause stampedes when I enter a public place. Besides, I’m annoyed; I’m not unarmed. I’ve never had any reason to be worried.
I hold that thought a moment.
Between the mess with my pager this morning and the frantic salespeople this afternoon, my experiences today were a bit of an anomaly. I guess it’s possible that strangers have gotten weirder around me, though I can’t imagine why.
I glance around again, just to test out the theory, and a few more stares land in my direction. This time I can feel them linger long after I’ve looked away.
Huh.
It’s bizarre how much attention I seem to be generating right now.
I’ve never been this interesting.
Why would I need to run for my life? I write back.