Rosalyn(? Name pending) Abrams
~9 hours until arrest
The woman drops her rifle to the ground. Her uniform and skin rip along the spine, staining her shirt red as something gleaming silver in the mall-light stretches out. Thin, diaphanous panels unfurl like fern leaves along her back. (Are they supposed to be wings? They don’t look like strong enough for flight.) The column of her spine shimmers with some internal pulse as it uncoils, pulling out of the woman’s discarded skin and muscle, sloughing it off in bloody chunks as everyone around her watches, frozen in horror.
A barely controlled panic simmers in the static. Looping heartbeats of thrumming fear buzz under the skin. Painful to the touch.
The Imago now standing in the officer’s place gains easily at least a foot of height as it stretches outward. The neck is long and serpentine in how it reaches and bends, its head still distressingly human in outline with empty hollows for eyes, like a plastic halloween skull drenched in blood.
Meanwhile, the officers manhandling that woman from the arcade unceremoniously drop her to the ground, hands scrambling to find their guns. The purple-haired woman, still bleeding, scrabbles backward until she hits the glass window of the building behind her.
All around the freshly hatched Imago, security officers cautiously retreat, rifles raised and pointed. One has a microphone strapped to their vest and yells something unintelligible into it. They’ve spaced themselves such that they can’t open fire on the thing without obvious risk of friendly fire or shooting directly into the crowd of gawking onlookers.
Stuck in the limbo of this moment, everyone wordlessly watches the Imago continue to extricate itself from the flesh of its former host, pulling at the skin like a lizard attempting to free itself of old, partially shed skin.
You risk a glance around the restaurant. Several people have their phones out, recording. Cassandra’s hands are clapped over her mouth, face pale, looking for all the world like she could faint or vomit at any moment. Brayden is holding her by the shoulders, transfixed by the scene below.
Riley manages to catch your eye. “We need to go,” she signs. “Now.”
You shake your head. Even this close, you’re still safer inside a building. Better here than getting stuck out on the walkways with that.
A burst of gunfire and shattering glass yanks your attention back to the window. Someone screams. Multiple someones.
The security officers must have finally gotten an order, or maybe the Imago finished freeing itself and pressed the issue. Stray bullets shatter glass along the walkway below, puncturing walls as the nightmare creature staggers under the barrage. Blood and nanite silver splatters across everything.
Unlike the woman’s previous, human arms, the Imago’s appendages split in two at the elbow, smooth, curling, whiplike. Reminds you of sea anemone tentacles undulating in the ocean currents. If its birth hadn’t meant the death of a person, you’d be tempted to call the thing beautiful.
And then it lashes out. Knocks the closest officer – the one that moments before had been ready to help – down to the floor, yanking the gun out of his hands. Curling tentacle-like limbs briefly grasp at the weapon, pawing awkwardly for the trigger only to give up and launch it towards another officer, bowling him over.
Riley’s hand grabs you by the upper arm – not the injured one, thankfully – and pulls you away from the window. “We’re getting out of here, now.”
”But–“
She jerks her head over to Cassandra and Brayden. Cassandra is pale as a sheet and shaking. Brayden holds her up as much to support himself as her.
“We are way too fucking close,” she says.
Looking around, you can see Riley isn’t the only one wanting to leave. For as many are staying and hunkering down or fighting to get a better view of the action, even more are hurrying out the door.
Fine. Fine!
Leaving it is.
You grab your backpack, slinging it over your good shoulder. Stumble on your way out of the booth seat. “W-wait,” you breath out, turning back to the table. “Masks?”
Riley gawks at you. “Dude, is now really the–”
“Yes!” you snap. “Masks b-back on! Now!”
You grab the discarded masks from the table and thrust one towards all three of them before taking care of your own. Loop the bands over your ears and press the seal down around the face. The glue has lost some of its stickiness but it’ll have to do.
Around you, Riley, Brayden, and Cassandra press their own masks back on. Check their seals. The gunfire continues below. A stray bullet shatters the window two tables over, and that does it. The stunned terror of the observers breaks. As a mass, the diners charge for the exit, screaming.
Just as you feared, it’s even worse outside. Bodies all jumbled together. A vague memory in the back of your head jumps up and down trying to call out the nearest way off the main thoroughfare but there’s too much noise. You can’t think. Can barely manage to keep yourself from dissolving into panicked chaos with everyone else.
Somebody has a grip on your arm, fingers pressing into your jacket sleeve and you’re pretty sure it’s Riley. You hope it’s Riley. The crowd carries you along, caught in a human current of punctured panic.
There’s more gunfire, an echoing report that cuts above every other noise. One burst, a second, a third – abruptly cuts off before a figure, a limbless corpse comes flying up over the balcony. It crashes into the window of a jewelry shop, rolling inside as gemstones and gold trinkets scatter everywhere.
The mob you’re caught up in stumbles, bodies pressing into each other as the front of the tide all pull back, unwilling to cross the invisible line marked by the dead officer’s descent. Massed panic only intensifies as one, two– all four silver-blooded tentacles wrap around the railing, pulling the rest of the Imago up with them as metal creaks and groans in complaint.
The Imago’s head comes into view first, rising above the crowd. Its not-quite-wings, the fern fronds, flutter and beat with its every movement – several are pockmarked with bullet holes. Silver-stained blood leaks from a dozen different entry wounds across its body. Its movements seem abrupt and stuttering, like dropped frames in a video.
The mob is in full retreat now, pushing against itself to spill out back the way you came. Riley’s grip breaks, pushed away and – No. No that’s not happening! You shove back against the crowd, slipping between bodies. If anyone says anything about going the wrong direction, you’re beyond being able to understand it. Pressing yourself against the buzzsaw in your head by your metaphorical teeth.
Riley is where? There. Trying to move with and towards the edge of the crowd. Trying to avoid the crush. You angle yourself to intercept and then all at once, there’s no more mob, no more bodies pressing in on you. They’ve left you both behind and you’re helping Riley up off the floor. Checking for injuries as she cradles her arm.
Gripping her good hand there’s the too-familiar too-intense buzz of direct contact, the riptide pull wanting to take you under. The static from her body a harsh discordant thing threatening to split your head open.
Don’t have time for this. You have to fucking hold it together!
You know who you fucking goddamn are!
Riley looks past you, shouts out a warning – something reaching out towards you both. She yanks on your hand, twisting hard enough that you lose your grip on her and fall first. Hit the floor on your side, your already injured arm crumpling under the weight, the shock of impact jarring your hip and knee.
Turn over just in time to see a tendril whip over head. It curls around Riley’s torso, yanking her off her feet and no, no– Stop–
Nails on slate.
A dozen separate heartbeats pounding in as many chests.
Clenched throats.
Trapped mid-movement. Flash-frozen amber.
What is happening? Why can’t you move!? You need to get out of here! They don’t understand! They’re going to kill you if you don’t move if you don’t get out of here if you don’t get stronger you’ve seen what happens you won’t end up like that you won’t–
Metal flashes against the glare of the mall-light, a pain like white fire blossoming across your arm.
An unearthly sound somewhere between a human scream and a metal I-beam being executed by guillotine makes you regret ever having ears. The tentacle in your hand tenses, no longer attached to the body of the Imago. With no force left to hold her up, Riley crashes to the floor next to you. You don’t catch her so much as dive between, cushioning her fall as her head knocks the wind from your lungs.
The Imago jerks backward, shocked out of whatever stupor it had fallen into. Its severed tendril, still wrapped around Riley, writhes wildly as the two of you fight to wrestle it off her. Scramble away as it thrashes against the floor.
Standing between it and the two of you is a woman half-dressed in riot gear: a tactical vest, her right arm covered in protective plating. From behind, all you can see of her head is her cropped neon-blue hair. Liquid silver flows around the left arm in a constant movement, extending into a long, rigid blade. With a snap of the wrist, her blade breaks and reforms into a longer, spear-like shape that she then immediately jabs in the Imago’s direction.
It tries to dart away, only to get struck in the shoulder, its movements halted. The blue-haired woman grunts and plants her feet, digging in with the tip of the spear which now grows vicious curved barbs directly into the Imago’s flesh. Catching sight of the two of you mid-thrust, she glares.
“Are you kids fucking stupid? Get up and get the hell out of here!”
Her distraction allows the Imago to yank its shoulder free, slapping the spear away with its remaining good arm and leaving a nasty gouge in the process. The woman hisses in pain as her own arm is forced into an odd angle, the liquid metal forming her spear suddenly starting to lose shape. It slides back down her arm and over her suit sleeve, reforming itself into some sort of brace.
“Son of a bitch!” she yells, flexing the injured hand. Seeing the Imago turn to flee, she draws a pistol from her belt holster. Takes aim with one hand, but if any of the shots connect, it doesn’t slow the Imago. It stretches its arms overhead and slithers up to the next floor.
The blue-haired woman curses again, cocks her head against the walkie-talkie strapped to her shoulder. “It’s been clipped, but there’s no sign of it slowing down.”
The response is barely audible, be that the quality of the speakers or the fact that your ears are still ringing. Either way, it only pisses the woman off more.
“You tell Mr. Special Agent Kiss-Ass to get his dick in gear and do his goddamn job already. If he really has some fucking ace up his sleeve he’s overdue on delivering. We’ve got wounded on site, multiple casualties–”
She stops as a fresh round of screaming and gunfire breaks out, echoing down from the level above. With a renewed stream of curses, she takes off running down the walkway, presumably to chase after the thing.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck–” Riley is trembling.
You grab her shoulders and pull her upright with you. “C-c-come on. We– We um, we n-n-need to…”
You wince, one hand finding your head as the floor spins under your feet.
If nothing else, that at least seems to pull Riley out her panic.
“Are you okay?”
Thumbs up. “M-moumentai, right?”
“What? No! No dude, this is not a moumentai situation!” Riley’s eyes widen as she catches sight of your face. “Jesus fuck, dude. What the hell happened to you?”
Huh?
Oh.
You catch a glimpse of yourself through the static. No wonder Riley’s shocked, you’ve got a – fuck what was it called again? A sub– a subconjuct– fuck. You can’t think. Whatever. Your eyes are bleeding. And your facemask is wet with something. You brush a hand against your mask and feel something warm and taste copper against your mouth. Now that you’re aware of it, it’s impossible not to notice.
Your nose is bleeding again.
Gushing, really.
As you crumple to the floor the only thought you can hold onto is: goddamnit not again.
***
“Oof. I got it, I got him–her, jesus. Don’t fucking hurt yourself.” As I pull Morg–Rosalyn to her feet, I have to ward Riley off from trying to help and fucking up her arm any worse than it already looks.
“We thought we lost you guys,” Cassandra says. “What happened?”
“I don’t– I don’t fucking know, dude. Fuck. Shit. Ow.” Riley grimaces. She just can’t stop touching her arm as if it’s going to magically look any less fucked up.
“Is your arm broken?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer right away. “How do you tell?”
A memory bubbles up like heart burn and I have to shove it back down.
“Can you turn palm up?” I ask. “Or back down again?”
She tries, hisses under her breath as she does. “Y-yeah. Yeah I can.”
“Great. Definitely not broken then,” I lie. “Just keep it still. Or as still as you can.”
Rosalyn doesn’t look much better with whatever the hell is going on with her eyes. She yanks down her mask and wipes at her face, smearing the blood pouring from her nose all over her hand. I’ve got her arm slung over my back to help hold her up as the four of us stagger down the hall. Every door on either side of us is shut tight. Pisses me off – doesn’t anyone see we need help out here?
Damn. Either I’m not as strong as I thought or Rosalyn is heavier than she looks.
“Ffffuck you,” she mumbles.
I roll my eyes. At least she’s awake again. Better than still being out cold on the floor.
“What the hell happened back there?” I ask, echoing Cass’s earlier question. “I thought you guys were right behind us.”
“There was a– the thing, you know,” Riley babbles. “The freaking Imago, okay?”
“Imago?” I balk. “You what?”
“It was right in front of us and it, fuck man. If it wasn’t for that security chick we’d be dead.”
“Who?”
“She’s that hot lady in charge of Security. Jun’s boss’s boss.” Riley snaps her fingers, trying to pull some memory out of the pile of scrambled eggs she calls a brain. “Moiré Hu?”
“You know her fucking name?”
“Come on man. Look at me. Of course I don’t just know her name. I want her to step on me.”
In my arms, Rosalyn grumbles at that.
“Why would the head of Praxis Security be out here personally fighting an Imago?” Cass asks, finally speaking up. “Shouldn’t she be in… an office? Coordinating people?”
“Who cares why? She saved our asses.”
“Okay,” I say, “Jesus christ. Let’s not question it right now. Fuck!” We have got to get out of this freaking mall. “Cass, you see anywhere we can go?”
“Um…” She darts her head back and forth, hair whipping around her shoulders. “There!”
She points ahead of her, speeding up a little. Sure enough, just down the hall there’s an open door under a sign of a giant donut.
A woman with an apron on leans out the door, yelling in our direction. “Hurry up and get inside! Do you kids have a deathwish?”
I speed us up, ignoring Rosalyn’s mumbled protest as I pull her along with me.
Once we get close enough, the woman in the doorway tsks in disapproval, eyes narrowing in distaste as she takes us in. “What happened to these two?” she demands, taking in Riley and Rosalyn.
“They got–”
“Crowd crush,” I say, interrupting Cassandra. I ignore the look she gives me and continue, “We went the wrong way and got caught up against people running from the Imago.”
With a sweep of her hand she points at the nearest table, where two guys in business jackets are seated. “You two! Get up and make space.”
They don’t move right away, but under the woman’s glare they stand and shuffle over to the corner.
“Put these girls down over here,” the woman says with a satisfied huff as she lets us inside before gliding over the counter and into the back. “Now where’s my first aid kit…”
Brayden mercifully lets go of you as you collapse into the chair. Tilt your head back to slow the bleeding. Faintly aware of your surroundings as Cassandra has to argue with Riley to get her to take the other seat.
“You’re just as badly hurt – what if that arm’s broken!”
“Brayden said it – fuck, ow! Why did you have to touch it!?”
“Proving my point.”
“Since when are you mean?”
“I do have brothers you know.”
“Children, quiet!” the shop owner snaps as she returns with a hefty looking white case in her hands. “You two,” she says to Cassandra and Brayden, “go sit out of the way somewhere.”
As she drops the first aid kit onto the table between you and Riley you finally realize where you’ve seen her before. It’s the angry cook that yelled at you and Brayden what feels like forever ago. This is that same donut shop.
Of all the places.
Your laugh turns into a cough, spitting out a gob of blood into your hand. Gross. The shop owner glares in your direction.
“Don’t bleed on my floor. I’ll get to you next,” is all she says before turning her full attention to Riley.
By the time she’s satisfied with you two she has Riley’s right arm encased in a temp-cast and hanging in a sling; you, meanwhile, have been browbeaten into accepting some sort of nasal spray before getting a pad stuffed up each nostril, with orders to keep your head tilted back as if you’ve never had a nosebleed before.
You ignore her long enough to swallow another dose of your meds, grateful you still have the bottle of water Cassandra gave you before, kept safely in your backpack. This is not the kind of situation you need to add a migraine on top of.
“Mask. Here,” the cook commands, shaking open a small bag with a biohazard symbol on it. She wrinkles her nose as you drop the bloody thing in. “Disgusting,” she tuts as she ties the bag shut.
“We’re really sorry about this. Thank you so much,” Riley offers as the lady begrudgingly packs her kit away.
“Buy a dozen donuts and get yourselves looked at by a proper doctor and I’ll consider it even,” the woman replies. Having run out of more treatable problems to address, she gives another disapproving frown at the state of your face.
You catch the stare of one of the businessman who was scared into giving up his seat for you. Return it with a glare of your own until he has the decency to look away. If everyone could stop being shocked and alarmed over the state of your eyes, that’d be great, thanks. It looks worse than it is.
Really not that big a deal.
“Yeah, I think I can swing that,” Riley says. She looks in your direction, as if to make sure you aren’t going to pass out on her, or maybe explode, before getting up to follow the woman back to the sales case.
You take the chance to get a second look around the tiny store. It’s just you four, the shop owner, and the two businessmen who have claimed the far table in the opposite corner.
Cassandra and Brayden are sitting on the floor next to the entrance. Color has returned to Cassandra’s face, if barely, but the two have entwined their limbs together so completely that just looking in their direction feels like you’re intruding on something.
What the fuck happened? How are either you or Riley even still alive?
Your ears are still humming from gunfire, another new and distressing wrinkle to the background static of your life.
Also important: who the hell was that woman?
And.. the Imago – holy fuck, you were right next to an Imago. Riley was grabbed by it. It… touched her. But just her shirt right? Not bare skin?
You shoot Riley a covert look while she stands at the counter. The donut lady fills a pastry box while she chatters. Aside from her arm, Riley looks fine.
The back of your throat is sore, as if you’ve been screaming. And there’s the thin coppery taste of blood still lingering in your mouth even though your nosebleed has finally started to slow.
Riley plops back down at the table with you, holding a box full of donuts in her lap with one hand. “This can not keep happening to us.”
“Sorry,” you rasp out.
“Dude, I still can’t figure out how we got out of that one. And you!” She leans across the table, prods your shoulder with her index finger. “You look like you got fucking possessed by the antichrist, dude.”
“It uh, it looks w-worse then it-it-it is.”
“Well you look like a walking biohazard.”
“F-fuck you.” You stick your tongue out at her. “How’s um, how’s your arm?”
Riley takes a chocolate donut out of the box and bites it in half. Still chewing, she says, “I don’t think it’s broken? That’s what Brayden says. Mrs. Mai seems to agree.”
“Wha– who?”
Riley gestures with her hand towards the donut lady, still standing behind the counter. Mrs. Mai has rotated the payment screen around to face her, tapping it furiously in an effort to get it to reset.
“Chattrnet is acting up, by the by,” Riley says. “Don’t know if you caught that while you were zoning out over there.”
That gets Brayden’s attention. He stands up, pulling closer with Cassandra not far behind him. “You too? I thought it was just my shitty phone.”
“Think there’s more Imagos chewing the wires in the walls or something?”
Brayden’s face hardens into a frown. “It’s not fucking funny, Riley.”
“I can’t reach my parents,” Cassandra adds. She bites her lip, looks at you as if you’d somehow have an answer for her.
“It’s– it’s probably just um, just overtaxed? There’s a uh, a network throttle during high traffic p-p-periods,” you offer. How reassuring you can possibly be when you look like this, no idea.
Not very, judging by the lack of change in Cassandra’s expression.
You pat down your pockets, finding your phone. The new one is a piece of junk to begin with so it shouldn’t be surprising that trying to bring up the web browser just gets you a spinning circle as the home page tries and fails to load. It shouldn’t be – and yet. Not having net access feels like missing a limb.
“What the fuck happened to your phone anyway?” Riley asks.
“Um…” All three of them are looking at you. “I– I really d-d-don’t know? It just wouldn’t hold a charge when I checked T-T-Tuesday morning.”
“Everything in this fucking building is falling apart,” Brayden grumbles.
***
There isn’t a lot of energy between the four of you to keep up conversation for long, even with the effective absence of the Chattrnet to provide an alternative.
You massage your temples some more. On a good day this number of people packed together wouldn’t be too bad. Unfortunate for you that today was shaping up to be solidly terrible. The background static threatens any attempt to get your thoughts in order. Buzzing away with a dozen different distractions. The only improvement: your nose bleed has slowed enough to no longer require napkins stuffed up your nostrils. It still leaks a little if you rub it.
You grab another napkin from the table and do your best to clean up.
Riley pushes the box of donuts across the table at you with a judgmental look. Cassandra and Brayden already each have a donut in hand. It’s just you that hasn’t touched them yet. About to turn her down when Brayden’s ill-advised attempt at an intervention flashes in your memory and you briefly get angry all over again.
You don’t have a problem. Fuck him.
As you pull a plain frosted one out of the package, Riley leans in closer to you. She tries to sign at first, only to hiss at the spike of pain that shoots up her injured arm.
“We really need to-to-to get you looked at,” you say.
“Yeah. I know.” She grimaces, dropping her arm back in her lap. “Damn, every time I move my arm the wrong way I kinda maybe want to scream. Just a little.”
She clenches and unclenches her fists. Leans in over the table, careful not to put any pressure on the slung arm.
“Listen, um, if–” she glances towards the other people trapped in here with you, lowers her voice, “–if you-know-what hadn’t frozen up when it did, I don’t think Security Chick would have gotten to us in time. You know?”
She leans in even closer, pressing up against the lip of the table. “Did you… do something to it?” she whispers.
You stare at her, uncomprehending. “What?”
“To the… you know. The thing. Did you, like…” she taps the side of her head.
It takes you too long to respond. The whole moment was a blur. A mix-up of panic and terror. You’d believe you hallucinated half of it. Imago aren’t people. Imago don’t have thoughts like people.
“Roz?” Riley whispers.
“I–” you swallow the blood in your mouth and shudder. “Th-that’s not– that’s not a th-thing, Riley.”
“You sure?”
You make a face. “Extremely.”
You can accept being able to make doors open, or phones unlock. Even if you don’t understand how you’re making it happen. It’s all just… electrical signals, right? Little more than a weird party trick. You just haven’t figured out the right way to introduce it yet.
But influencing something alive?
To make it stop moving against its will?
That’s too far. That’s not possible. It’s mystic bullshit. The kind of pseudoscience that got thrown out hundreds of years before glitches were even possible.
Bad enough that just being near you threatens to have others’ innermost thoughts, feelings, and experiences pried into. How much worse could things get if you were actually a threat?
From his spot on the floor, Brayden raises his voice. “What happened is that you two idiots are unbelievably lucky.”
Riley flips her middle finger at him. “Love you too, B-man.”
Next to him, Cassandra covers her mouth as she fails to stifle a yawn. “What do we do now?”
The thwap of Mrs. Mai smacking her hand against the counter makes all four of you jump. When she’s certain she has everyone’s attention, she fixes each of you a stare.
“Now we stay put,” she answers. “And we wait for security to evacuate us.”
Riley replies first. “Can we get some extra free donuts while we’re waiting?”
“No.”
***
I brush the hair away from Rosalyn’s face and she gives a start, flinching even in sleep. I freeze in place, waiting for her to wake up even as I pray for her not to. If she wakes up then we have to acknowledge how her head ended up in my lap and I know exactly how that it’ll go: it won’t.
“Are you… brushing her hair?” Brayden whispers next to me.
I bite my lip, caught in the act. Running though a dozen different ways I could play this before finally deciding to own it. “Tell her and I’ll kill you.”
“Jesus, fine!” He throws his hands up. After a second he recovers, nods in Rosalyn’s direction.“Is he– she seriously asleep?”
I wince. Glance in his direction. “She told me she hadn’t slept for days. So… not surprised. Is Cass too?”
Brayden looks anywhere but directly at Cassandra, slumped over on the floor in front of the donut counter. “Somehow. Christ. Don’t know what her excuse is.”
“What, jealous?”
A huff. “Yeah, sure.”
Silence that isn’t silence.
The lights still hum while murmured conversation floats in from the other side of the store. The two businessmen deep in discussion with Mrs. Mai. Just far enough away to join the static in meaningless drone.
The addition of Brayden and Riley’s voices is enough to threaten pulling you back to waking. Riley’s hand brushes through your hair again, fingers grazing your scalp.
It’s Brayden that speaks first. “So… what do you make of all this?”
“About what?” I ask, ready for an argument. “There’s like, a dozen different things you could be talking about, dude.”
“All that stuff about Rosalyn’s mom is bugnuts. Are we sure that…”
“No way. She wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
“You really think she can find some way to bully the company into letting her…?”
“I don’t know. I don’t–” I take a deep breath. Try to sound less scared than I am. “Whatever happens, things will work out. They have to.”
“And if they don’t?”
“They will.” They have to.
“Suit yourself. How’s your arm doing anyway?”
“Uh, fine?” Riley stops messing with your hair for long enough to glance down at her injured arm, resting in its sling. You can feel the pain in it if you try, a dull throb only half suffocated by painkillers. “As long as I don’t move it around. If I do then… not so good.”
“That thing seriously touched you?”
“I mean, getting shoved around by the crowd is what fucked up my arm, but yeah. There was that too.”
“You don’t… feel sick or anything do you?”
“No?” Riley snorts. Her good hand idly brushing your head once more. “Way to make me feel paranoid though, thanks. It’s not a zombie bite, dude.”
“I know that, I just–”
“We’ll get out of here, I’ll pay through the nose for the stupid vaccine again, and everything will be fine. Easy. Let’s change the subject?”
Brayden frowns, but he thinks better of whatever dumb argument he probably had lined up and lets it go with a huff. “Fine. What do you want talk about?”
Keenly aware of the sleeping Rosalyn in my lap, I say, “You knew the whole time about her.”
He at least has the decency to look guilty. “Uh. Yeah. Sorry for… you know.”
“It’s fine!” I say, lying through my teeth. “It just makes a lot of shit click together finally.”
“And you thought I was being an asshole this whole time.”
“You were! Or, fuck, I dunno. I mean… I was too, I guess.” I go silent, puffing out my cheeks as I think about what to say. “I thought maybe she’d given up on the idea or something. I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think. It’s not like she ever talked to me about it.”
There’s that bitterness in her voice again. Betrayal.
“I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you ‘give up’ on.”
“Yeah, I’m figuring that out. It’s just… I don’t know dude. She’s hardly herself these days, like he– fuck, she stopped singing–”
“I noticed.”
“–or tapping on things, or giving out random fish facts, and sure it could get annoying sometimes but it was like… you know, comforting annoying? But ever since January, it’s like. Weird. You know? Off. And I’m just sitting here wondering if this is gonna make things better again or if the world being shit is just gonna…”
“You said she tried to…”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. This isn’t the place to start crying. Everyone will just assume the dumb girl is scared of the monster out there and, yeah, I am scared of that too. But I can’t be her. I can’t be that person, I won’t. But– “I mean, okay. Technically, she just stopped taking her meds, but like. Same difference. I was there, okay? When she fucking collapsed. I’m the one that had to call fucking 911. And then afterwards I had to like, pretty much break down her door just to get her to start acting like a living person again afterwards.”
I manage to shut myself up before I lose it.
“I don’t know man, I don’t fucking know anything.” I let go of Morgan– of Rosalyn’s–
Riley presses her good hand against her face, wiping at her eyes.
Hadn’t realized you stopped doing all those things. Not consciously. Even stranger to think they had been missed. And you made her feel like that. That’s on you. That’s your fault.
Brayden doesn’t say anything for a long while; when he does it’s with a forced cheer. “Hey, on the bright side, I guess this solves your identity crisis?”
Riley wipes at her eyes one more time and makes a face. “Huh? Oh. Man, fuck you.”
“What’s the problem? It seems pretty tidy to me. You and her get together, and you get to be… you know, to each other. Rest of the world sees a normal, mostly inoffensive straight couple and all the rest of your problems go away, right?”
“How does that– no, come on man.” Riley’s voice turns sharper, irritated. “Even if that did work, that doesn’t…”
“Doesn’t what?”
I don’t answer right away.
“That doesn’t seem fair. You know?” I say, finally. ”To either of us. Like, example: you really think Rosalyn’s going to be okay with just a single person, like, ‘acknowledging’ her shit and having to keep on as is everywhere else? And what about me? Do you know how hard I’ve had to fight over being what I am?”
“It beats the alternative, right?”
“Easy for you to say. You’re straight, dude. You don’t get it. You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. Me or Roz. That’s not fair. And it’s not enough.”
Riley’s right. It’s not fair to either of you. It’s not enough to just be one thing in private. Morgan’s a dead man walking. Anyone can see that. You can’t spend your whole life shambling around inside a corpse. Sooner or later it’ll start to rot, with you still stuck inside.
Brayden doesn’t have an answer either, lets Riley’s protest hang in the air between them. Maybe you can finally fall back into real sleep instead of just pretending. Or maybe not. An arm reaches around you, grabbing the box of donuts.
“Peace offering. You want one?” Brayden says. Shakes the box.
“Peace offering?” I glare at him, how dare! “Dude. They’re my donuts!”
“Do you want one or what?”
“Ugh, fine.” Reaching fingers pull out a chocolate donut.
A few bites and then Brayden’s speaking again. “You know the first thing my Dad did after bringing me home from the party?”
“…I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“He cornered me in my bedroom. Put his hands around my neck–”
“Jesus, dude.”
“–and he said, ‘No son of mine is going to grow up to be a–’”
“Alright, I get it. Jesus.”
“Yeah.” Brayden’s voice is tight. “Yeah.”
I lean back against the wall. Fuck. I wanna kill two parents now. A mom and a dad. Call that a whole set. “I take it back. Goddamn. My parents are nightmares, but they never did anything like that.”
Fuck man.
“Shit,” I curse. “We have all gotta get out of here. You know, I already had this whole plan in my head? I was gonna make sure Morgan had his shit together, then I was gonna get out of here and go live in the mountains with a bunch of sweaty, muscular dykes.”
“You’re seriously thinking about leaving the arcology?”
“I mean. That was the idea. I don’t know if you noticed, dude, but this place blows chunks.”
“You’re not scared about an Imago outbreak?”
“I mean, I wasn’t. Now… shit, I don’t know. Does it even matter any more?”
“Does she know?” Brayden asks.
I flinch, pulling my hand back.
“…It’s come up?” She’s wincing. “We didn’t really get that in-depth about it. There’s like, these communes out in Appalachia, right? Mostly off the grid, but I’ve been trying to talk to people online and, you know, proving I’m not a cop.”
“Off the grid.”
“Yeeeup.”
“But Rosalyn has to get a job with Praxis to be able to pay for her meds.”
“Yeah.”
“You were just going to leave her here?”
“Once I knew she’d be okay!” Riley says, voice rising in protest. She winces, speaking more quietly she continues, “I wasn’t going to just abandon her, dude. But I can’t stay here.”
“By running away to join the circus?”
“The rainbow circus, excuse you. And you know… it’s probably better this way, right? She doesn’t– fuck, this is so stupid, why I am talking to you about any of this.”
“Maybe you two should actually… talk to each other about it?”
“But what if she doesn’t… I’m sure she’s had this whole future planned out already by her crazy-ass mom and shit and you know. The medical stuff is still an issue and – fuck, what I mean is, I’m pretty sure Rosalyn doesn’t… you know, ‘like’ me like that.”
Brayden barely manages to stifle his laughter.
If you could turn off your consciousness you’d have done so roughly five minutes ago to escape this conversation. Now you can’t even risk feigning waking up.
“Cool, glad me baring my heart and soul is so funny to you, bro.”
“You never noticed how much she hated it when you and Noor were together?”
“That was just, like, normal friend-jealousy. It doesn’t–”
“Riley. Get real.”
“It was!” Riley’s voice pitches up. Softer, she asks, “Wasn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ, you two deserve each other.”