2. Cal
CHAPTER 2
CAL
A man—or a male-presenting person at least—with a backpack and a duffel bag walked along a two-lane road in the moonlight. I struggled to see him in the darkness, but he walked confidently, as if it were broad daylight.
There was a set of double yellow lines down the middle of the road, with a break where a smaller road led off to the right. A set of five mailboxes on a kind of U-shaped bracket stood just before the turn off.
I looked around, but any other landmarks were hidden by the night. I could barely make out grass and trees on either side of the road.
Even if I’d been able to see more clearly, I knew I wouldn’t recognize the man. He had a blankness where his face should be that meant I’d never met him or seen his picture. He wore a trucker hat, a plaid shirt open over a white t-shirt, jeans, and some kind of heavy-soled boots.
After a minute or so, the man glanced over his shoulder, then stopped and turned around. He cocked his head and stared. Dropping the duffel bag, he ran for the trees.
I heard his panting breaths, and my heart sped up. He was almost there. He sort of tripped before hunching over, and I could swear it appeared as if he started running on all fours. What the hell?
My vision was suddenly obscured, like a dark fog blotted out what little moonlight there was. But only between me and the man. I couldn’t see him anymore, or the trees he’d been running toward. But to either side, I could still make out the road.
I heard a yelp of pain, but the sound abruptly cut off.
I sat up in bed, my breath harsh in the silent room. The clock read 4:17am.
I would not be going back to sleep.
I hadn’t had a vision where someone was in danger in a couple of years, maybe more. I didn’t see how reporting this one to the authorities could possibly lead to anything, but I wanted to do something .
I forced myself to go down to the apartment gym and work out for thirty minutes while I pondered my course of action, but in truth I already knew what I had to do.
After a quick shower and a mediocre cup of coffee—I was shit at making it myself, but desperate times and all—I opened my laptop and started an email to Penelope Ramirez. Hopefully she was still with the Texas Rangers, but it’d been over five years since I’d last communicated with her.
Still, she was my first choice to contact. She’d never treated me like I was insane or wasting her time, like the Austin Police Department did. If Ranger Ramirez’s email bounced, I’d try the FBI.
I described the scene from my vision with as much detail as I could remember about the road and the landscape, but it wasn’t a lot. Maybe she could at least tell the highway patrol to look out for an abandoned duffel bag on the side of the road. Hopefully the killer hadn’t taken it.
I grimaced as I hit Send , but the email didn’t bounce, so that was something.
I closed my laptop and got to my feet. It was way early to get to the office, but I was still creeped out by the vision, and sitting alone in my apartment didn’t appeal. Quickly I got dressed in my usual uniform of ancient jeans—the new ones weren’t comfortable, sue me—even more ancient Converse—ditto—and a graphic t-shirt. Today’s selection said, “Before you speak, remember I have admin rights”.
The cool weather meant I needed another layer. I had a few plaid flannel shirts, but after this morning’s vision I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to wear them again.
Leaving that decision for another day, I threw on a semi-wrinkled white button-down over the t-shirt but left it open. I still had plenty of time to get a better cup of coffee, and I’d need the caffeine. Status update meetings should not be held first thing in the morning.
I’d stopped going to the coffee shop near my apartment a couple of months ago. The drag queens weren’t too unsettling, but after I ran into the puppy and kitty play group, I hadn’t been back.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t some sort of jerk trying to yuck someone else’s yum. I’d happily drink my coffee next to drag queens and BDSM practitioners any day of the week. But they never consented to me knowing about their alter egos, which was a new twist my psychic ability had added recently.
I’d had the visions at night since I was thirteen years old. At first they only came once a month or so. The frequency increased until now it was rare for me to go a week without one or two.
But earlier this year I’d walked into the coffee shop, and three guys were standing in line to order. I could see their drag personas kind of like a hologram overlaid on top of their real bodies. Initially I was too freaked out by my new ability to think about how they might not appreciate me being able to see something so personal at a glance. But after I calmed down and considered the implications, I rationalized that they did drag in public so it wasn’t too intrusive if I could see that aspect of their lives.
But the puppy and kitty play people were another story. They’d been sitting at a group of tables one Saturday afternoon, just drinking their coffee and chatting in their street clothes like everyone else in the shop. Yeah, I did not want to know that about them, and I was positive they’d all prefer I didn’t know it either.
So I started to avoid going out in public. Work was pretty safe. One person in customer support was not only in the process of transitioning, but they also did cosplay as Raiden from Metal Gear . But I’d already seen them, so all I could do was make sure I treated them like everyone else on the team. They were fun to talk to about gaming when we were in the break room at the same time.
But in every other aspect of my life I’d become very cautious. Takeout food, grocery delivery, and Amazon were my friends. If I didn’t go to restaurants or stores, I wouldn’t run into anyone and accidentally learn their secret identity.
However this morning my need for decent coffee was worth the risk. I decided to try Pour Some Sugar on Me, a bakery close to Bent Oak’s residential area. Hopefully at this hour it wouldn’t be too crowded, and I’d be less likely to learn something I didn’t need or want to know .
In my truck on the way to the bakery, I let Barry Manilow’s smooth voice and over-produced backing instrumentals soothe away my unease from the vision. “I Can’t Smile Without You” might not have had me grinning by the time I walked in, but I was at least more relaxed.
There were only two other customers in the bakery, and neither of them had an alter ego. The scent of pastries filled the air, and the bear claws looked especially delicious. I was feeling virtuous after my workout, though, so I stuck to coffee. Okay, I got a mocha latte, but whatever.
I should’ve picked up coffee or pastries for everyone in the status meeting, but I wasn’t feeling that friendly today. I’d finish my cup before I got to the office, and they’d never know.
By the time I arrived at work, I’d shaken off the unnerved feelings left over from this morning’s vision, and I was as ready as I could be to pay attention to everyone’s mind-numbing but necessary updates.
Up until a couple of years ago, I used to look forward to work. My business partner Steve and I had built Rogues Gallery, a dating app for people marginalized by more mainstream apps, from scratch. We’d had an initial angel investor who paid our salaries while we developed the app, plus another round of investment funding to get us through the product launch. But we’d underestimated the demand, and my first few years as Chief Technology Officer had been a whirlwind of trying to strengthen the system’s back-end storage and processing while also adding bells and whistles suggested by our users.
Those things still needed to be done on an ongoing basis, but I was bored. I needed a challenge, and keeping Rogues Gallery running wasn’t interesting anymore .
I just hadn’t had the guts to tell Steve yet.
I’d met Steve Derryberry in elementary school. I’m still not sure why, but he was one of the few kids who didn’t look at my large body and decide I was unintelligent and uninteresting. Before Steve, I’d mostly kept to myself. Outside of school I’d hidden from my shitty home life by reading, playing Pokémon solo, and working on the computer I was building from spare parts.
Then Steve invited me to his house, where his mom fed me, peppered me with questions about my day, and dropped the occasional kiss on the top of my head. When she died a couple of years later, Steve and his siblings weren’t the only ones devastated by the loss.
He and I had leaned on each other throughout middle school and high school. He hadn’t batted an eye when I’d told him I was gay, and I’d helped him make sure he wasn’t leading on the battalion of girls he slept with but never wanted to date long-term.
We’d still hung out together regularly after he went to college, since he lived with his grandfather while attending the University of Texas at Austin. I couldn’t afford to go to college—I hadn’t cared enough about high school to have the grades to get a scholarship. But I’d taught myself coding, and I’d been able to turn that skill into a job as a freelance programmer.
Steve majored in business, with the goal of us designing our own app one day. After college he moved back to Bent Oak and took a job at a tech support call center. We brainstormed and brainstormed for years, but we couldn’t come up with the right app idea. It wasn’t until five years ago that a casual comment by Cole Washburn—yes, the former actor Cole Washburn—kicked off the idea for Rogues Gallery .
But now I was tired of the day-to-day grind of running a successful company. I wanted the thrill of designing something from the ground up again, the risk of not knowing whether our idea would be successful.
Kurt, my Vice President of Technology, was more than ready to take over the CTO role. And, as much as my childhood made me nervous about the financial implications of going off on my own, I had very few expenses. Thanks to Rogues Gallery, I’d saved up more than I could spend in several years.
I only hoped Steve wouldn’t hate me when I left.
The status meeting went well. No surprises, which was reassuring. Customer satisfaction had risen over last quarter since we’d implemented some new features and response time improvements. The number of users who’d formed long-term relationships through the app, something we advertised, had also increased. No matter whether I liked my job or not, knowing I’d had a hand in helping people find their romantic partners would never get old.
Aurelia, our Chief Financial Officer, droned on about labor costs and expenses, and I tuned her out. I found myself dwelling on the guy from my vision. All of my other visions, at least the ones I’d been able to verify, had come true at some point. Which meant the guy I’d seen was dead, or he’d be dead soon.
It could happen to any of us, really. Okay, maybe not caused by whatever or whoever had killed the guy from my vision, but death coming without warning. We only had one life, and my vision was a frightening reminder that things could end abruptly.
Down the table from me, Aurelia raved about EBITDA, and then Norah, our VP of Marketing, went on about new client acquisition ROI. How many more status meetings did I want to sit through? Was this the best use of the one life I’d been given?
My muscles tensed, wanting to move, to act. I needed to talk to Steve today. Now.
Aurelia finished her report, and Steve said, “Thanks. Does anyone have any new business?”
No one did.
“Great. Have a good day, everybody.”
There was a chorus of goodbyes.
I hung back so I could catch Steve. “Hey, do you have a minute?”
He looked at his watch, and for the first time I noticed he’d developed creases on either side of his mouth. He’d always been pretty, all blond wavy hair and arresting blue eyes. But now he appeared tired, older. We were only thirty-two, for fuck’s sake.
I’d been a little shocked when, right around the time we’d had the idea for Rogues Gallery, Steve had begun hinting he was bisexual. It’d taken him several months to say the words, but he’d ended up marrying a man, Baz, about four years ago. They were happy, I’d thought. Hopefully whatever was causing Steve to look like that didn’t have anything to do with Baz.
“We ended the meeting a little early, so I’ve got a few minutes before I have to meet with Norah to go over the summer marketing plan.”
I nodded and followed him to his office. He went behind his desk and set his tablet down. Before he could sit down, I held up a hand .
“Let’s go sit over there.” I pointed at the sofa he’d put under the window. I had a similar one in my office.
Steve cocked his head but didn’t ask why. We sat, and I angled my body toward him.
“Okay, what’s up?”
I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs. I could do this. I was a big boy.
I looked Steve in the eye—I owed him that—and said, “I’m bored, and I want to leave the company.”
Steve paled. He opened his mouth, paused for a few seconds, then asked in a slightly quavering voice, “Do you have another job lined up?”
I shook my head. “No. I want to get back to designing something new. Maybe a game. I want a challenge, something fun to work on.”
To my surprise, Steve relaxed and smiled—grinned really. He said, “Thank fuck, because that’s what I want to do too.”
I sat there, stunned, before I felt a matching smile come over my face. I grabbed his hand. “Really? Like the old days, just you and me?”
He nodded. “I’ve actually thought about it a lot. We’d have to leave and create a completely new company, though. It doesn’t make sense for Rogues Gallery to have a subsidiary that makes games, or whatever we end up doing. But I can tap Aurelia to be CEO, and we can promote Kurt to your job. We’ll consult for a transition period, and maybe we’ll take board positions, but on a day-to-day basis we’ll be free.”
I lurched forward and hugged him. “Free,” I breathed reverently. I released him and sat back, wiping my eyes. “I thought it was just me. I agonized over leaving you behind. ”
Steve grinned again, though his eyes were also a little watery. “You’re my best friend. You can’t go on an adventure without me.”