Rosalyn Abrams
~4 hours until arrest
Always knew something was wrong with you. You just had no idea fully how deep that went. Does this make you partly an Imago? If you live long enough, will it be inevitable that you get unlucky one day and turn into a monster?
Into the silence of the room, you lay it out for the rest of them.
“Someone out there – maybe they’re with Praxis, maybe they’re with someone else, who knows – is t-t-trying to make more glitches. And they’re creating Imago attacks to– to–”
“They’re using Imago to spread more NMIV around,” Cass finishes for you.
Brayden’s not convinced. “This is… pretty out there, Cass. Why with the attacks? Couldn’t you just… put the virus in our water and dose everyone that way?”
“There could be something about the transformation process that’s necessary? ‘Silkworm’ would be pretty evocative as an analogy if that’s the case,” Cassandra suggests.
Riley’s shaking her head. “It could just be as simple as there’s already a framework for terrorists fucking things up this way. If someone fucked with our water or even like, the air, that would just make bigger questions.”
“NMIV is all fucking over the place. Even if any of this is true, why the hell do it in here? You could get away with shit way easier literally anywhere else where you don’t have a Superintendent watching everyone,” Brayden insists.
“Who says they aren’t?” you respond.
“Doesn’t doing something like this here actually make it easier, though?” Cassandra asks, pushing back. “A controlled area, full of people with detailed observational records? Clearly they have control over the Superintendent. It’s like the entire arcology is one of those toy ant nests, remember those? With the styrofoam dirt and the plastic tubing?”
From the look on his face, he clearly doesn’t.
“You drop in the new stimulus, then observe how everything shakes out. Rinse and repeat. Nice and controlled. And when you’ve had enough…”
“Rivka was– is against this,” you say, finding your voice again.
“Not this again,” Brayden moans. “She’s a terrorist, Rosalyn. And a total asshole to you. Why are you still defending her?”
“She was… all b-b-but begging the FBI to quarantine the arcology. And she- she- she warned me about things getting worse. She was using Cassandra to quietly put out those other filters. She knows what’s happening, maybe… because of where she works which– which means–”
“Someone at Praxis is probably responsible,” Riley finishes for you. “Fuuuuuuuck.”
Brayden vibrates in place, hands to his forehead rubbing little circles into his skin. “Okay. Okay. Suppose any of that’s true. We don’t know that it is. But. Suppose.”
“I’d love to be wrong about this!” Cassandra says.
“Right. But so like… why? Why do any of this?”
Riley throws her hands in the air. “Pfft. I dunno dude, money? Weapons?”
Cassandra looks in your direction, tilting her head. “Biotique’s research mission is ultimately to reverse engineer glitches, right Rosalyn?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“I don’t think we know enough to say, right? Bad enough somebody’s getting something out of it,” Riley says.
No one else leaps in with any other ideas.
Into the silence, Brayden says, “I think the only thing we can do is what we should have done all the way at the start of this mess. We take everything we found, accept that we’re going to get in huge trouble, and turn it over to the FBI so the professionals can figure it out.”
Riley rolls her eyes. “Oh come on Brayden, you really think those assholes don’t already know? They have access to all the same information. More, probably. That Chrysalis paper was how old?”
“Twenty years, I think?” Cassandra looks to you for confirmation.
You nod.
“They had to have known the whole damn time about all of this!”
“Listen to yourselves, guys.” Brayden’s back to pacing the floor. Raising his voice as he talks to try and mask his fear. “You’re suggesting there’s been a two decade long government conspiracy to do… what? Wreck the entire world and fill it with monsters? What would even be the point!? If this was real, we would know about it by now, people would have talked. This isn’t some fucking spy flick. This doesn’t happen in real life!”
Riley isn’t having it, raising her voice to match his. “Yeah well, if the government somehow doesn’t know about this, then they’re incompetent to such an insane degree that their big dick egos would never let them admit to being wrong.”
“You’d be the expert on big egos, huh?”
Riley flips him the finger.
With a strange calmness, you watch the last of the files copy over before unplugging your tablet. Fold it up and start disentangling the wires. “I think– I think he might be part of it. Agent Lowe, I mean. He wanted Rivka to find him a scapegoat. He’s not looking for an actual culprit. He d-d-doesn’t need one.”
“Okay, but still we should–” Brayden starts.
Riley interrupts, “Dude, rule number one of being a minority? Don’t give the cops any reason to so much as look in your direction. It never ends well.”
He throws his hands up in disgust. “Alright then, your Royal Highness, what do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know, man!”
Riley goes quiet for a moment, drumming her hands against her legs. Every time she steals a glance in your direction you can feel her eyes on your skin. Just as Brayden is about to say something else, she starts talking again.
“Maybe we should find, like, an investigative reporter? Like. A real journalist. Not a press release bot. Someone with real credibility. Let them do the digging and put out some big huge story that can’t be buried.”
Would that even work?
Rivka’s never had a kind word to say about the journalism industry.
As if he’s thinking along the same lines, Brayden says, “Praxis owns every news station in Boston. Who could you possibly go to? Who could you get in touch with without anyone else knowing? If you’re right and we try to talk about this, we’re just painting a huge target on our backs.”
They keep arguing, even after you stop listening. All you can think about, as you disentangle the wires, is that list of people. Every single one of them, glitched. Even the freaking dog. Over a dozen attacks, a dozen different Imago. Former human beings with lives and families and jobs and dreams, all reduced to monsters.
That one you touched today, it did have thoughts. It was scared. It was scared of exactly what happened to it. Crammed into a box and secreted off to who knows where for who knows what purpose. It nearly killed Riley today and all you can do right now is feel bad for it.
Is it enough to just blackmail your way into a bearable life if nothing else changes?
“Rosalyn? You still with us, dude?” Riley waves a hand in front of your face. You’ve been staring at the exposed chunk of wall for too long without moving.
You make yourself look over at her. Get as close to meeting her eyes as you can manage right now. “I– I think I know what we sh-sh-should do.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You got a suggestion?”
“Yeah, um, I–”
A blinding light cuts through the gloom, all the more intense for the contrast. Everyone cries out in surprise, shielding their eyes.
Fuck! What? How? You hadn’t been paying attention to the static. Too caught up in your own head.
Stupid stupid stupid.
Keeping the muzzle of his rifle raised, the Security guard thumbs a dial, turning down the brightness of their flashlight.
“Everyone put your hands up in the air!”
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“You are trespassing on private company property. You are hereby under arrest, do you understand me? You are– what the hell? You’re just kids.”
He shines the light on each of you in turn. Starting with Cassandra and working his way over, only to stop and linger on Riley.
“…Riley?”
Slow dawning horror blooms across Riley’s face. “Oh my god… Jun? Is that you?”
He lowers his rifle, taking his finger off the trigger. Pulls his helmet off with his free hand. Jun’s wide-eyed look of confusion is a perfect match for Riley’s.
“Sis, what the hell are you doing out here?”
“I– I, uh…” Riley stammers, at a lost for words.
It’s Cassandra that saves the day. “We’re getting high!” she exclaims with full enthusiasm.
“…High?” Jun gawks at her.
“Yeah,” Brayden agrees, joining in. “Do you have any idea how stressful today has been?”
Jun tears his eyes away from the two. Steps into the room, keeping his rifle pointed at the floor. “Sis, who the hell are these people? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be wandering around out here? And high? Really?”
Finally recovered from the shock, Riley rolls her eyes. Brushes Jun’s hand away when he reaches for her. “That’s Cassie, and that’s B-man. You already know Morgan.”
You offer a limp wave, still caught halfway in putting your tablet away.
“B-man?” Jun asks, incredulous.
Brayden crosses his arms. “B-man makes me sound like some kind of second rate MegaMan villain.”
Riley smiles pleasantly at him. “Aren’t you?”
“Oh fuck off.”
“Sis!” Jun snaps.
Riley turns her fake smile on him. “You’d already know them if you ever came home, dude.”
“How did you even get out here? No – never mind. I don’t want to know.” Jun takes a deep breath. Rubs his face with a gloved hand. “This is a new low, you know that right, Sis?”
“I think you mean a new ‘high,’ bro.”
Jun groans. “You have to cut that shit out. You’re killing your lungs.”
“It’s just weed dude, so what if my lungs get a little crispy now and then? It’s not like I’m gonna be racing a marathon.” She starts patting herself down, searching through her pockets. “Look, do you want some too before you let us go or–”
“What? No! For God’s sakes, Riley, I’m a Security officer now! Don’t offer me weed! And no I’m not letting you four go, are you crazy?”
“You aren’t?” Cassandra asks.
“Of course not! Do you have any idea how dangerous– no. Of course you don’t. All of you are just teenagers. God. Do you want me to lose my job?” He shakes his head. Puts out a hand to stop Riley before she can say anything to the effect of ‘yes.’
It’s a struggle to get a read on him through the static. Never shared spaces with Riley’s older brother much. How much does he know about what’s going on?
“How did you even know we were here?” Brayden asks.
Jun shoots him a look, not hiding his irritation. “If you’re going to sneak around dangerous places you do not belong in, don’t flash lights all over the place.”
You should probably save telling Brayden ‘I told you so’ for a better time.
But damn if you didn’t tell him so.
“And before you ask, I don’t care about whatever weird drug-fueled argument you lot were having up here either.” Putting his helmet back on, Jun continues, “You’re all coming with me. I’ll explain the situation to my sergeant and we’ll have this all sorted by the end of the day. Okay? Please don’t make this difficult, Sis.”
Riley catches your eye. With one hand she signs, “Get ready to run.”
You nod back, dropping your tablet into your backpack and slinging it over your shoulder. You’ll have to leave the connection wire here. There isn’t the time to finish covering things up without drawing even more attention to yourself.
To Jun, Riley smiles. Steps in closer to give him a hug. The gesture turned awkward by the amount of armor padding he has on.
“Me? Make things difficult for my favorite brother in the whole wide world?”
Jun sighs, exasperated. Allows himself to be hugged but makes no effort to return it. “Riley, I’m your only brother.”
“Oh, well that makes this easy then.”
She brings her knee up hard between Jun’s legs, where it collides with his armor with an odd plastic-sounding ‘thunk.’
There’s an awkward moment where the two stare at each other.
“Um, I thought– fuck it.” She tackles him, knocking him to the floor. A yelp of pain as she hits her injured arm.
You reach down and pull her back to her feet.
“Go!” you yell at the others, snapping them into action.
Riley’s hand in yours, you take the lead down the hallway, Jun already getting up. He curses, yells after you – Riley, really – to stop. Part of you keeps waiting to hear gunshots from that rifle of his.
Your only advantage here is that you know exactly where to go. If Jun does too, you’re screwed.
Slowing down to match pace, Brayden glares in Riley’s direction. “Why the fuck are we running?”
“Because, genius, they’ll check our phones, get it?”
That shuts Brayden up.
You take a few extra turns, trying to throw Jun off before making for the stairwell again. Your descent is slowed only by the twin weights of not wanting to let go of Riley’s hand and every muscle in your legs and back begging for mercy.
As the four you stagger out into the empty transit station panting and wheezing, you take a second with your hands and knees on the floor to focus on the static around and above you. The barely-there hum of distant wires, the much louder presence of three other human bodies sweaty and gasping for air around you.
“I think we lost him,” you announce.
“Oh thank fuck,” Riley exhales heavy, slumping to the floor against you. “How pissed do you think he is?”
“Do you think he’ll still report us?” Cassandra asks.
“What? And admit to his bosses he lost to a bunch of teens high on drugs? Jun’s desperate for this job. He’s not gonna do or say anything that makes him look bad if he can help it.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Brayden says between wheezes.
“Look dude, we’ll burn that river if we come to it.”
***
At the urgent care, the four of you check in with the receptionist at the desk before settling in to wait. With the Chattrnet finally back, everyone has their phones out, catching up on messages and assuring parents. You were worried it’d be packed in here, but no. Maybe busier then normal – there’s barely enough seating in the waiting area, but it’s nothing as bad as the transit stations were.
There’s a video clip of the head of Security – that Moiré Hu woman claiming to have ‘eliminated’ the Imago that rampaged through the mall, but no mention of the FBI being involved, no mention of anyone being so much as injured. Nothing about the Imago being caught.
Barely anything factual at all, as far as you can tell.
Riley is about twelve texts deep into a heavily coded argument with Jun. Maybe the most they’ve talked all week. She finishes her latest text and puts her phone face down on her lap with a sigh.
“Okay, I’ve got us clear with Jun.”
“He’s not going to fuck us?” Brayden whispers.
You make a face. “Gross.”
“Yeah dude, get your head out of the gutter,” Riley ribs. Cackles at Brayden’s reaction. “Look, we’re fine. Just like I said, he can’t exactly fess up to what happened. I’m just going to like… owe him. Maybe forever? Which means you owe me, forever.”
Brayden sits back in his chair, closing his eyes. “Awesome.”
Riley gets called back first. She turns to look at you as she hops to her feet. Winks and throws a two-finger salute before disappearing with the nurse down a narrow hallway. You follow her movement through the static as far as you can before it gets too indistinct.
When the nurse comes a few minutes later to call you back, you hesitate. If the others hadn’t been here to put your name in, you’re not sure you’d have even bothered. You had your mask on most of the time. You didn’t have any open wounds. Sure there was the nosebleed (under your mask!) and whatever the fuck happened to your eyes, and being exposed to whatever was in the Imago triggering air filter, but…
“–Abrams?” the nurse calls again.
Brayden and Cassandra are looking at you. Brayden makes an expectant gesture with his eyes. Fine. Fine, you’ll get up.
She repeats your first name as you step over. You try not to wince.
“Morgan,” you mumble.
She does a double take as she finally looks you in the face. “Oh dear, honey. Are you aware that your–” she points at her face, circling her eye, “–that your eyes are… extremely bloodshot?”
It takes a second to remember to nod.
Knew this was coming. Already cleaned off what was left of the eyeliner in the bathroom on the way here.
She frowns, marks something down on her tablet. “Let’s be sure to check your vitals, and especially blood pressure…”
Is this going to be a mistake?
Are they going to alert Security, or worse, Rivka, that you’re here?
The nurse leads you into a room with an examination bed. After making you stand on a scale to get your height and weight, she directs you to sit on the edge of the exam bed while she takes your blood pressure. You obediently follow each instruction, shrugging off your jacket for her and chewing the inside of your cheek all the while. Once she’s finished, you hurriedly put your jacket back on.
“Well, your blood pressure is a little elevated but otherwise in the normal range. We’ll see what Dr. Franz says. Do I understand correctly that you were stuck in the mall during the lockdown today?” She looks up from her clipboard, her concern plain.
“Y-yeah.” Hate talking to strangers. Every word is a challenge.
Her eyebrows crease. “Pardon?”
“Yes!” you say, raising your voice.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. You weren’t caught up in the Imago attack, were you? Do you think you were exposed?”
You hesitate. You really don’t want to be out for another week dealing with vaccine side effects. Especially now, of all times. And if what Cassandra thinks is true, then it doesn’t really matter either way does it? You’re already partway there.
“N-n-no.”
The nurse looks up from her tablet, still concerned. “Is your mother here with you? We’ll want to talk to her too.”
Of course they do. Goddamnit.
Heart threatening to escape out your ribcage, you grip the edges of the chair.
“She’s– she’s at um, she’s at-at-at–” fuck, deep breath. “She’s at work.” Got there, thank fuck.
“Hm… Okay.” The nurse makes another note on her tablet and then looks back up at you. “Doctor Franz will be right with you, so sit tight,” the nurse promises as she shuts the door behind her. The soft hum of lights and wires around you are still loud enough to cover up the muffled buzz of everything else outside.
You could be trapped here and you’d never know until it was too late. Don’t like it. There should be a rule against rooms having only one exit. At least there was a new update of Super Nova that came out while you’ve been out running for your life. Something to keep you from spiraling into another freakout.
Fifteen minutes into the wait and your phone goes off, vibrating in your hands as an incoming call alert replaces what you were reading. You stare at the name listed. Rivka is actually calling you? Directly? Like, herself?
You bite your lip. A* must have gotten an alert about you checking in. She’ll know you’re here. Do you answer? Do you have to? This feels like some sort of omen. A bad one.
Your phone makes the decision for you before you can work up the nerve.
“Morgan?” Rivka’s voice cuts through the room. As cold and angry as you’ve ever heard. Your throat tightens to a pinch. “Morgan, what have you–”
Without thinking about what you’re doing, you hang up on her. Three seconds of peace before she tries to call again. This time you don’t hesitate in hitting the reject call button.
Fuck.
Well, now you have to do something.
The first thing you try is blocking her number.
Unsurprised when it doesn’t work. Something something parent-child account restrictions – The phone starts buzzing in your hands again, and again you reject the call before it can auto-accept.
Switch to text messages. Maybe you can at least buy some time.
Chattr Log
M: i don’t want to talk to you
R.Abrams@Biotique: You removed your tracker. My tolerance for your tantrum has reached its limit. You need to come home. Now.
M: You’re not the boss of me
R.Abrams@Biotique: You are a child. I am legally obliged to be the boss of you.
M: i’m with Riley, and we’re safe,
M: so call off your stupid missing person alert and leave me alone
Holding the power button down when Rivka’s response comes through. Two more messages follow it in quick succession.
R.Abrams@Biotique: Missing person report? What on earth are you talking about? Listen to me, Morgan.
R.Abrams@Biotique: Do not under any circumstances go anywhere with Arcology Security. Do you understand me?
Dread.
A deep all-encompassing pit swallowing you up from the inside.
Your phone finally powers off, screen black. Shove the thing deep into your pocket. Arms shaking while you wrestle a renewed desire to expel everything in your stomach.
Rivka didn’t put out the missing person alert on you?
Don’t go anywhere with Security?
…why?
Still no sign of any doctor showing.
How long have you been waiting, anyway? Should have checked the time when you stepped in here.
What’s taking so damn long?
You poke your head out the door and there’s no one in sight. No one stops you as you walk out, heart pounding against your ribcage.
As you return to the lobby, Brayden and Cassandra stand up. Cautious smile from Cassandra, suspicious frown from Brayden. Your eyes dart to the matching pair of bandaids visible in the crook of their elbows. Already vaccinated. That was fast. Good.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Y-yeah,” you lie. Automatic response. Out of your mouth before you’re even aware of what you’re lying about.
Brayden raises an eyebrow. “Really? Because you look freaked out to me.”
“I– I’m…” You squeeze your eyes shut. “Rivka tried to-to-to um, to call me.”
“What happened? Is everything okay?” Cassandra asks immediately.
“Are you–” Brayden starts.
You cut him off, “It’s fine.
“It’s fine,” you repeat. Glance around the waiting room to confirm what you already know. “Is Riley…?”
“Still back there?” Brayden finishes for you. “Yeah.”
“Hopefully they can do something for her arm,” Cassandra says, joining you in glancing back towards the examination rooms.
You stand there, right hand creeping up your left arm, nails pressing into your skin through your jacket sleeve as you chew through your lip.
“I’m, uh, I’m gonna wait outside?”
That gets them both by surprise. “Really? Why?” Cassandra asks.
“I just– I just need some space. Air.” In response to their next question, you add, “I’m not going to-to-to go anywhere. Just… hallway.”
“Do you want–”
“N-no! Um, I mean, no thanks. You two should uh, should wait here.” Fake a smile. “Riley w-would be pissed if she th-thought I left her.”
“Yeah,” Brayden says, slow and serious. “She would.”
You nod in agreement and make your retreat, leaving their bewildered concern behind you.
Turning in circles, you pace the length of the hallway outside the door. Force your burning leg muscles to keep moving. Let some of the nervous energy burning a hole through your chest work its way out through your lower body instead.
On your fifth circle around the hall, a pair of Security Guards turn the corner. Walking at a brisk pace, one has a hand on her belt. The other talks into a phone. Your split second of warning you use to duck into a storefront advertising itself as an ‘Oriental Relaxation Center.’
The front desk is unmanned, a basic terminal screen decorated with generic ‘Asian’ themes. One of those creepy cat figurines sits on the desk with the upraised paw that rocks back and forth, as if beckoning people in. The walls are papered in marble grey, a singular dim-lit hall to the left of the desk leading further in. No one around in the static that you can pick out.
You take the first room down the hall, open the door and leave the light off. Find by feeling of your hand against the wall and the buzz of the static an outlet you can plug your tablet into. The plan being to keep an eye on Security, send them running off somewhere else. It’s a blind search in the dark for your tablet, your cable… your cable which…
“Shit,” you hiss to yourself. Left it behind in Zeta. Right. Of course.
Okay. So.
You’re fucked. Maybe.
You’ve never seriously wanted to try Riley’s vape before today, but now you’re wondering if it would help you calm down like it does her. Hell, you’d be willing to try Rivka’s cigarettes if you had them.
We’re already at ‘impending execution’ levels of trouble.
It’s not like you can make things worse at this point.
You zip your backpack up and crouch as far back into the corner as you can manage. Strain through the static for any sign of pursuit, vibrating in your arms with the strain to not throw up right there on the floor as seconds stretch into minutes.
A singular presence moving in the static becomes clear. Footsteps out in the hall, growing louder. The door creaks open and an outstretched hand flicks the light switch, briefly blinding you.
“What the– who the hell are you?”
When your vision returns, there’s a white man in a suit and tie standing in the doorway. Spiky blonde hair that’s been styled heavily with product. He stares down at you, surprise turning to annoyance.
“You have to pay to use these rooms, you know.”
“Sorry,” you sign.
He wrinkles his forehead.
“I didn’t know,” you add.
He stares, uncomprehending.
“What are you, deaf? Great. Just my luck.” He huffs. “Look, there’s a company team building event happening here in thirty minutes that I have to get ready for and You. Can’t. Be. Here,” each word stressed as he raises his voice. He steps into the room, points at you and gestures theatrically towards the door like he’s shooing out a particularly bothersome dog.
“Go! Get out!”
Don’t need any further encouragement. You scramble for the exit, stumbling out of the center and back into the hallway.
The Security officers are gone.
You sag against the wall opposite the relaxation center. Thank fuck.
The doors of the Urgent Care burst open, Riley hurrying outside. Her arm’s out of the sling, sleeve still pulled up to reveal a double set of those therapeutic gel-infused bandages wrapping her arm tight from wrist to elbow. The brief glimpse of fear on her face as she looks around the hall is gone the moment she sees you. In its place is a mix of irritation and relief.
“Dude! What the hell!?”
You watch as she power walks straight at you. Brayden and Cassandra follow her out of the clinic.
“S-s-sorry, just um just– ow!” You take the punch to your shoulder. You probably deserve that.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“I– I needed air. Um.” You swallow the lump in your throat. Mouth still overly wet from your extreme brush with nausea.
Riley hooks her thumb over her shoulder back towards the Urgent Care. “You know there’s a couple of clowns looking for you?”
“C-c-clowns?”
“Security,” Brayden answers for you. “They’re in there fighting with the receptionist to be allowed into the exam rooms right now.”
And here comes the nausea again.
“O-oh.”
“Your mom must be pissed to hell.”
“Yeah. Yeah, uh. Yeah she-she-she is. Look um. Can we get moving?”
Brayden gives you a look. Somewhere between pity and sympathy. “You can’t just stave off this thing with your mom forever. You’re gonna have to go home eventually.”
Riley claps you on the shoulder, sending a spark of pain shooting up and down your body from where you cut the tracker out. She doesn’t notice you flinch.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t have to go right this second. You still wanna crash with me tonight, right?”
Eyes watering, you nod. “Y-yeah.”
“Careful,” Brayden snarks, “don’t break her.”
Allowing yourself to be pulled along, you follow Riley down the hallway. Away from the Urgent Care. Resisting the urge to look back, to run, to appear as guilty as possible, you try your best to focus on Riley instead.
“Your– your arm better?”
“Sure, turns out it was broke. Is broke? I’ve got a bunch of nanites running around in here now along with a fun amount of painkillers.” She holds up the arm in question as if it were possible to see them.
“A fracture isn’t a full break, Riley,” Brayden says.
“Same difference,” Riley returns without looking back at him. “Traded my broke arm for a broke bank.”
“Don’t your parents have insurance for you?” Cassandra asks.
Riley shoots her a look. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t pay for everything.”
“But shouldn’t they–”
“They’ve got their own shit going on,” Riley cuts her off with a wave of her free hand, putting an end to the entire discussion.
It takes a while for everyone to say their goodbyes. A combination of exhaustion and disbelief that today is finally over. An agreement to meet up again tomorrow morning first thing before school or work.
“Look,” Brayden argues, ever practical, “we’re all fucking exhausted – don’t lie to me Roz, I can see you nodding off – and nothing that’s going on is going to be fixed overnight no matter what any of us do, okay? So let’s just… get some sleep. Get some breakfast. And figure it out tomorrow.”
You want to argue the point just on principle of Brayden making it, but you can’t find an angle to contest him with. And so, one after the other, Cassandra and Brayden peel away from the group, until it’s just you and Riley, walking side by side the final few stretches to her family apartment. All the lights have switched over to their darker, late night purple tones, casting the whole hallway into a gloomy ambience.
“Did they make you get the vaccine too?” Riley asks as she pulls you along.
“Uh– y-yeah.” Why are you lying?
“It can fuck you up pretty bad because of your cybercell stuff, right? Are you gonna be okay?”
“Yeah.” Technically true. “I don’t– I really d-d-don’t want to be stuck in bed for um, for a week again.” Also technically true.
Riley squeezes you against her again, protective almost. “Hey, we’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll take care of you if I have to, okay?”
“Your parents–”
“We’ll figure it out,” Riley repeats. As if saying that over and over were the same as actually ‘figuring it out.’
“I d-don’t– I don’t need to stay long.”
That gets Riley to look at you, her pace slowing down. “What do you mean, you don’t need to stay long? I thought–”
“I know wh-what we should, um, what we should do with… Uh…” You gesture vaguely in the air, trying to encompass the entirety of today.
Riley only furrows her brow in further confusion. “You… do? Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Uh. I was going to. And then your– your brother happened. And then uh. We were b-b-busy.” You flinch at the look she gives you. “I’m bringing it up now!”
“No you aren’t, you’re taking forever to get to the point.”
You huff. “Fine. I’m g-g-gonna take everything to, um, to Crow.”
“Crow??? Wait. The superhero?”
You nod. “She’ll know what to do. With it. I think?”
You lay out the argument for her. Crow doesn’t work for any company, she just helps people. She investigates the source of NMIV infections and helps stop them. She is, unlike any of you, an adult that people take seriously. She can shoot lightning from her fingertips.
“It makes perfect sense,” you conclude.
Riley goes silent for a while, thinking it over. “That means leaving the arcology, you know? The city is huge. Do you even know where she lives?”
“Uh, well. No. B-b-but I know where she’s seen the most. So… that’s a starting point.”
“Hm… I don’t, like, hate the idea?” Riley says finally. “But let’s talk about it with the others tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
You’re not being entirely honest and you know it.
There’s really no reason for you to go back to the arcology once you pass off everything to Crow. Maybe you could stay in the city, or maybe you’ll buy a train ticket and go off somewhere else.
Riley would come with you, if you asked. Almost certain of that.
It feels wrong to ask, though.
Selfish.
The two of you walk in silence together. Hard to keep your mind ordered. Especially with Riley so close. Her presence so loud. Buzzing right there just under the surface of your thoughts.
Part of you keeps checking every corner as you walk, every unidentified buzz in the static. Expecting to see more Security officers coming to take you away.
It was impossible for Riley not to notice.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Just– just, um. Just nervous.”
“Hm…” She finds your hand with hers again. Weaves her fingers between yours and squeezes. “It’s gonna be fine,” she says.
Once again, the complete defiance of reality makes you envious.
“Did you see the results for the last Mystics game?” she asks. A change of subject. And just like that the conversation is back on safer ground. The familiar comfort of letting Riley talk, making the appropriate noises to assure her that you’re still listening as the two of you walk the rest of the way to her apartment.
“So, like, do you want to talk about it?” she asks abruptly.
Wasn’t she just talking about anime movies a second ago? It takes you a second to reorient yourself and respond.
“What?”
“About, like, your shit? Figure maybe it’d be easier to talk about when it’s just us?”
You do and you don’t. So much easier to wish for it when you can’t. So much harder to do so when the opportunity is actually in front of you.
Will you be able to keep doing this? Keep dressing deniably feminine? You want to, you’re sure of that now. But how far can you push it before Security steps in? Or Rivka?
Everyone knows anyway and you still can’t even do anything about it. Cutting out the stupid tracker felt good but nothing’s stopping Rivka from putting another one in your other arm the second she gets the chance.
As the two of you pass a PraxMart, you find yourself slowing down. Peering through the glass. Riley slows down with you, cocks her head in your direction.
“What’s up?”
“Idea,” you sign.
When you don’t elaborate, Riley leans over. “And that idea would be…?”
“I want to dye my hair.”
Riley’s eyes light up. “Oh my god, YES. Me too.”
“Really?”
“Let’s fucking do it.”
***
There’s no one home at the Parson apartment by the time you make it back. You toss your backpack and jacket in Riley’s bedroom and she wastes no time insisting you eat something before she’ll allow the two of you to do anything else.
If it makes her feel better, fine. If it further proves Brayden wrong, great. You’ll have a dumb bowl of rice. Force yourself to eat the whole thing despite the insistent little internal voice in the back of your head screaming at you to stop.
You’re fine. You’re normal. So normal. You can eat human food, see?
The actual hair-dying goes… better than you expected but worse than you hoped. Neither of you had ever done this before and the instructional video linked on the back of the box has a frustrating tendency to skip steps or leave certain terms unexplained.
Still, at the end of it – as the two of you clean up the bathroom together to Ysme Wonder tracks playing from the makeshift speakers of your headphones – the results don’t look… completely terrible?
Riley went with purple, which comes out darker than she hoped. You told her to follow the instructions exactly and do a test patch first but she insisted on just going for it. Because of course she would.
Your efforts, on the other hand… You have to resist the urge to keep fussing with the hair, pulling stands in front of your face to see the bright copper red coloring.
There’s so much in the world, in your life, that you can’t do anything about.
But you did this.
You decided on it.
Made it happen.
“What should we do while we wait for it all to set in?” you sign to Riley once she declares the bathroom clean. She looks over at you, thinks about it for a moment and shrugs.
“Wanna just watch some TV?”
“Sure.”
“Cool, lemme just, uh…” She glances down the hallway to her bedroom door. “Let me just clean up a sec, first?”
You blink. “I’ve already seen your bedroom.”
Her face burns. “That’s not the point!”
“I know it’s a mess.”
She sticks her tongue out at you and flips you the middle finger before dashing off. The door of her bedroom slams shut behind her. Can hear her shuffling around her piles of clothes. Something gets kicked under the bed, and then her head pops back out.
“Okay, it’s safe!”
“Safe?” you call back. “Should I, uh, be worried?”
“No? Because it’s totally safe. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
It’s not clean, no, but you can tell an attempt has been made to turn Riley’s bedroom into something approaching presentable. Every errant piece of dirty laundry kicked under the bed – you can still see the hem of a pair of jeans, which you politely pretend not to notice.
Her desk has a new array of crudely shaped clay figurines in various poses, though you don’t see the cup of modeling clay anywhere in sight. When Riley catches you looking, the only explanation she offers is “Oh, those are still in progress.”
You try to place them. Anime characters maybe? What was that popular one from last year with the big lawnmower monster guys?
“Are those… Mowmen? They, um, they look cool.”
“Oh please, they’re terrible!” Riley responds with an embarrassed laugh. “I can’t figure out how to do any of the detailing. I think I need better tools.”
“B-b-better than I could do.”
“Yeah, well, at least it keeps my hands busy.” Riley plops herself down on the bottom bunk of her bed, fishing around the covers to find the remote for her wall screen. You sit down next to her, extremely aware of every centimeter of open air between the two of you.
Pushing a pillow out of the way, Riley raises the remote over her head in a cry of triumph and turns on the screen to start flipping through video streams.
“We’ve still got like… I don’t know, forty minutes until we can rinse this shit out of our hair. So! As punishment for your blatant attempt at flattery, we’re watching Mowman Hunter whether you like it or not.”
“Oh no. Whatever will I do,” you say, voice flat.
It works. Riley smirks at you. “You’ll just have to suffer.”
***
You get through three episodes before either of you remembers why you were killing time this way in the first place, and then it’s a rush back to the bathroom to finish the job.
Rinsing out your hair, you borrow Riley’s conditioner, which claims to be strawberry scented but is more of a generically fruity aroma. Once you finish and put the blow dryer aside, you find your way back to Riley’s bedroom and present yourself. Her head snaps up to you as the door opens, eyes darting up past your face to stare at your hair.
“W-w-well?” you prompt after a few seconds.
She jumps in her seat, jostled out of whatever thought process was running through her head. Nodding, she gives a thumbs up.
“Looks great,” she adds aloud.
You find yourself pulling at your hair again, already starting to curl slightly at the tips. “Really?”
She nods, putting on a serious face. “You could get a starring role as little Orphan Annie.”
With a huff, you throw the towel at her face.
She ducks, barely, and bursts into laughter. “Sorry, sorry!”
“Ass.”
You hover in the doorway, hands finding your arms again. Nails digging in. This was a mistake. You look stupid. Everyone will be able to tell. You’ll have to shave the whole mess off and that will look even worse. Why did you ever think–
I touch Rosalyn on the arm, gently prying her fingers away from attempting to dig a hole through her skin. She freezes up.
Maybe this isn’t the right time for joking around.
“Hey, moumentai.” When she finally looks up at me, I add, “It looks good, I promise.”
“Okay.” She relaxes a little. “Trusting you here.”
“And have I ever steered you wrong?”
Her mouth quirks to one side, eyes narrowing as she stares at me. “Hmmm…”
“Uh, this is the part where you say, ‘no, Riley, in fact you’ve never done anything wrong, ever, in your life.’”
“I’m thinking.”
I laugh and push her away– “Jerk!”
“Earned.”
You let Riley steer you back over to the bed and sit down. She presses the remote into your hands and promises to be back quick once she finishes dealing with her own hair.
“I’ll be quicker than you were,” she says on the way out the door. “Mine’s shorter.”
And then you’re alone. In her room.
You skim through the options the Parsons have for streaming. Riley has quite a few more starred shows than you remember. Mostly anime, but there’s still a few Tubers mixed in there, running the gamut of art tutorials to life-streamers.
The only one you recognize is MelSchmel, the Boston life-streamer that got really into roller skating a few months back. Riley was all set on following suit except for the tiny complication of there being nowhere in the arcology to skate in.
You put her on and find she’s talking to her chat stream while following poorly generated AI instructions for some kind of bean-based meal. She puts down a metal tray on her kitchen counter, coated in an unappetizing-looking crushed brown pulp, and looks up at the camera.
“Okay, Chat, I know Dora says to put the oven to 789 degrees, but I really, really need this deposit back when I move in three weeks so I’m gonna have to overrule her on this.”
A semi-opaque chatbox on the right hand side of the screen is scrolling by almost too fast to read, people spamming emotes over and over.
“We’ll do a penalty round later, okay? I’m not burning my house down for you guys, sorry!”
Remembering your backpack, you pull it over and start digging through it. Find your meds and count out the evening doses. Cassandra’s water bottle is empty, forcing you to duck out to the kitchen to fill it again. As you swallow your meds, you can hear the water running in the shower.
It doesn’t matter what you feel – you can’t act on it.
Better to put it out of your head.
Want Riley to see you as a girl. That needs… time. You’re not sure you can even see yourself as one yet; you can’t ask her to do it first. You have your eyeliner pen in your bag somewhere… maybe you should do something?
By the time Riley finishes in the shower, you’re back in her bedroom, only half paying attention to MelSchmel’s stream. Lost in your own head with a dozen different competing impossible futures. You ended up redoing your eyeliner and changing your outfit – a loose-fitting blue shirt with a matching skirt down to your knees, shorts on underneath. Something you’d chickened out of wearing in public this morning.
“Oh, hey, it’s that skirt. See, I told you it’d fit great,” Riley says on walking in.
Can feel her eyes look you over, lingering on the hem where your legs stick out. Self consciously you fold them up under you, smooth out the fabric afterwards.
“Hi.”
She grins wider. “Hi.”
The two of you stare at each other like idiots for way longer than necessary. The purple in her hair looks a lot better now that it’s been washed. A little brighter, shinier.
Shaking yourself out of it, you tell her as much, signing in ASL so you don’t have to worry about your voice breaking.
“See? And you doubted me,” Riley preens. She runs a hand through her hair and shakes it back into a mess. You clap politely as she kicks the door shut behind her before dropping down onto the bed beside you. “Mom’s gonna have a stroke when she sees this but it’s so fucking worth it.”
You eye the shut door. Just for a second. Just long enough to remind yourself it’s Riley. She’s safe. You’re not trapped here by any stretch of the word.
Riley finally notices the screen and pauses to take in the situation. Mel’s kitchen situation has deteriorated since you last paid attention. Some sort of red foam is oozing out of the microwave, completely unheeded whilst Mel is hopping up and down on her tiptoes, waving a paper towel roll at an unseen smoke detector. All of this while she’s cursing out her chat.
“What the hell happened?” she signs.
Chat is spamming laugh emojis now.
You shake your head. “No idea,” you sign back.
“Okay, well… we got the rest of the night to ourselves. Mom texted me she’s working overtime to make up for the lockdown and Dad’s not gonna be back until like… at least 2am. Shame Cass and B backed out, tonight would have been perfect.”
“Yeah.”
She bumps her shoulder against yours. “This is great too, though.” A thought occurs to her and she snaps her fingers, gestures for you to wait as she bends over, blindly reaching under the bed with one hand. After a few seconds without success she frowns and gets on the floor, reaching all the way under the bed.
“Riley. You d-d-didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did.” She winks, pulling out a six-pack of beer and lifting them into the air with an aura of triumph.
“How did you even–?”
“Oh, I guilt-tripped Jun into letting me borrow his ID card, like… ages ago? I’ve been sitting on these for a while.” As if to underline the point, she starts brushing off a dust bunny that’s attached itself to one of the cans.
“B-b-but we’re not–”
“Oh don’t be a wuss, dude. You faced off an entire big-ass monster today and then some, I think you’ve earned it.”
She pushes a can into your hands before taking another for herself and climbing back into the bed. Fun, she says. You watch as she cracks open her can, releasing a hiss of air. She holds it up to her face, hesitating as the smell hits her.
“Y-y-you’ve never had it before, have you.”
Her cheeks flush. Bingo.
“Sure I have,” she lies, “loads of times.”
“Riley, you d-d-don’t have to–” no, there she goes. Puts it to her to her lips and takes a long gulp of the stuff. She pulls it away from her face with a grimace.
“Well?” you ask when she comes up for air.
“Tastes great,” she answers. Still lying.
You know what, fuck it. What’s one more bad idea on top of everything else you’ve done tonight? You crack open your own can, ignore Riley’s approving cheer and take a drink without smelling it first.
The sensation, and it is a sensation rather than anything as mundane as what could be called ‘flavor,’ is somewhere between room temperature industrial chemicals and liquid fire. You pull back from the can, coughing and sputtering.
From beside you, Riley laughs.
Only laughs harder when you start slapping her shoulder.
***
A second can of beer and an entire movie about the first manned Mars mission later (your insistence, payback for all Riley’s teasing), the two of you are slumped over together in bed while the credits roll to an extremely dramatic orchestral song. Red-faced and fuzzy-headed from a combination of bad beer and generous use of Riley’s vape.
“Okay, that was… pretty cool,” Riley admits, looking up at the bottom of the top bunk.
“I–I–I have g-good, um, good ideas.”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes.”
Truthfully, the longer the movie went on, the harder it was to pay attention to anything in it. Riley’s every movement took priority. Her presence right there buzzing under the static, pressed up against you as much mentally as she was physically by the limited space afforded by the bed. Aware and possessed with the excruciating need to make sure you were being as normal as possible.
As the orchestral score fades into something more subdued, Riley shifts on the bed to look at you better. Head propped up by her elbow. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
She keeps staring at you. It’s starting to make you squirm.
“So like…” she finally looks away, back to the wall screen. “What’s your, um… What are you planning to do after school and shit?”
“Uh.” That’s not where you thought this conversation might go. Have to work to shift a series of mental gears that have been rendered extremely slippery by substance abuse. “I don’t… I mean, before, it was like… die. I guess.” Wrong answer – Riley tenses up. Her hand reaches out for yours.
“I d-d-don’t know now,” you hurry to add.
“Cool, cool, that plan sucks.”
“I know that.”
“Better plan: we go with your ‘tell the superhero everything’ idea but afterwards we just… don’t go back.”
You feel yourself go very still. Aware of every point of contact of her fingers on your hand. The way her leg presses up against yours.
Riley nods to herself, halfway in her own head. Working out the idea as she goes. “We can offer for Brayden and Cass to come with us, but I don’t think they’ll go for it. Cass is, like, a cool weird girl and all but she’s also genetically engineered in a lab to be, I don’t fucking know, like, God’s super-soldier of capital. No way is she leaving this place unless forced. And Brayden, he’s probably got a million reasons already prepped for why it’s a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it.” She makes a face. “Let’s face it, Brayden’s a pussy.”
You snort.
“So. You and me versus the world, just like always. And we can… go wherever we want.”
“What– what about–”
“We’ll figure it out,” Riley assures, willing herself to sound confident. “We’ve got some money saved, don’t we? Maybe we can swipe more meds for you on the way out? Expand your stockpile to buy us extra time? What do you think?”
The warm buzzy feeling suffusing your body makes it all seem so simple. You were bracing yourself to do this on your own. You should do this on your own. You should be pushing back, telling Riley why she needs to stay, why she needs to at least get her high school diploma first instead of throwing everything away, and for what?
You should be explaining it all to her, in exact detail, why you aren’t worth throwing everything else away for. What if she decides she can’t see you as a girl, after all? What if the stress of everything causes you to grow to hate each other? What if you try everything, do your best, and you still aren’t good enough, still not worth being friends with?
What if your glitch – this latent Imago frozen inside you – bursts out while she’s around? You could do a lot worse than just ruin her life.
This is stupid, and wrong, and so, so, so selfish.
“Okay,” you say. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Riley asks, surprised. Hope flickering.
You let out the tension in your chest with a deep sigh. “Yeah.”
She cracks a smile. Laughs anxiously. “Oh, thank fuck, I thought you were going to shoot me down.”
You push yourself up to look at her closer. Study the curves of her face, the way her cheeks dimple against her nose.
“Never.”
We’re not really sure how it happens, who moves first. Just that one moment we’re staring each other in the face really fucking intently and the next we’re kissing each other on the lips.
When you pull away, lips parted, cheeks hot, you’re still not entirely sure what happened. It can’t be what you think just happened. A hallucination, maybe. Or a particularly vivid fantasy. And then Riley cracks a smile.
“You’re supposed to close your eyes when you kiss someone, you goober.”
“Fuck you,” you glare.
That just makes her laugh. “Fuck me yourself, coward.”
“I– Wha–”
And then she’s straddling your hips, a leg on either side firmly pressed into the bed as she leans over you, forced to bend closer to keep from scraping her head against the overhead bunk. Your heart is pounding in your chest, trying to escape. Or maybe that’s her heart doing that. Or both of yours. Who even knows at this point.
Riley beams down at you, triumphant. And then suddenly pulls back, a shard of doubt slipping its way in. “You do like me, right? I’m not… misreading this whole–”
“Y-y-yes!”
What the hell are you supposed to do with your hands like this? Where the fuck do you put them? You can’t just lay here, limp like a dead fish.
She relaxes a little, grinning again. More shyly this time. More self-conscious of what you’re both doing.
“Do, um, d-d-do you like me?” you manage to get out.
She blinks. Looks down at you. “Would I be doing this if I didn’t?”
You squeeze your eyes shut. “Just answer the-the-the question!”
”God– yes! Okay?” Her cheeks are really red now. “Do you have any idea how confusing this past year has been for me?”
“For you!?” Your voice squeaks against your will. “How do-do-do you think I felt!?”
“How would I know when you don’t talk to me about shit?”
“I–”
“You know, I’m so mad at you! We could have been doing this months ago if you’d just fucking talked to me, dude!”
“Stop c-c-calling me dude!”
That throws her off for a second. “Huh?”
“I don’t– I don’t like it.”
“I call everyone–”
“No you don’t! And-and-and even if– I don’t like it.”
Riley doesn’t say anything right away. Is thinking hard about it. “Okay,” she finally says. “It’s gonna be a hard habit to break.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thanks.”
“No prob.”
You start laughing first, and then Riley joins in.
“What are we laughing about?”
“I don’t know. I–I–I think we’re drunk.”
She giggles again. Is holding herself up over you with her arms. “We must be. I think I just propositioned you.”
“You w-what?”
“Sex, dummy. Do you…? I mean– we don’t have to, like– What I mean is I don’t think I have any, uh, you know, on hand but ummm,” Riley babbles, stumbling over her own sentences.
Something between terror and excitement is threatening to vibrate your soul out of your body. If Riley wasn’t already pinning you to the bed, you might have run out the door.
“With the g-g-girl who just called me a dummy?”
Riley sticks her tongue out. “You like it. Don’t lie.”
You relax into the bed, closing your eyes. “Y-yeah. That’s true.”
And then she’s kissing you again. Or you’re kissing her. Or maybe the distinction doesn’t matter so much. The two of you up against each other. Clothes kept mercifully on – don’t think either of us are ready to go that far. Things are intense enough with just tongues and hands and the vibrating tenor of two entire human bodies moving against each other Fuck I slip my hands under Rosalyn’s shirt, wanting her to feel good. To have something nice come out of today. She doesn’t exactly have tits, but it’s all the same basic body parts when you get down to it, right? Riley There’s also down there, and like, stop I’ve seen porn, who hasn’t, so maybe I could Stop Stop Stop!!!
“Ow!” Riley pulls back, one hand slapping to the side of her head.
You push her away. Shove her hand away from your waist band, your breath coming hard, heart pounding harder. Feel the sick burning at the back of your throat. Trapped trapped trapped.
“I– I need to-to-to get up.”
“Huh?” She blinks. Frowns. Still rubbing the side of her head.
“I. Need to get up.”
She can’t hear you. Great.
You repeat it in ASL and her frown deepens. Worry mixed with fear. She pulls off of you, repositions herself on the bed.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” she signs back.
You swallow, shake your head. Don’t give her any further explanation before you’re gone. Out of the bedroom and straight to the bathroom. Lock the door behind you before hovering over the toilet.
You’ll feel better when it’s over.
You’ll feel better, and you’ll explain everything to Riley. Or at least as much as you understand, which isn’t much. And things will be okay. It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.
“Roz?” Riley knocks her hand against the door. Voice weak with fear. “You good…?”
You can’t answer. Vomit turning to retching. Fingers trembling against the toilet tank by the end. Can smell the cheap gasoline scent of the alcohol burning in your nostrils again. You spit out a final glob of bile, wipe the spit from your mouth with a piece of tissue paper and flush. In the mirror as you rinse your mouth out, you look deathly pale again.
Everything had been going so well. You were having fun.
Goddamnit.
Fuck.
Eyes wet as you fold up onto the floor, away from the hideous visage in the mirror. You press your palms against your eyes as if you could physically force the water back into your face while you rock back and forth.
A door slams somewhere in the apartment. You can practically hear Riley jump to her feet out in the hallway. Footsteps stomping closer. Finally through the haze of bullshit you call a mind, you pick out who it is in the static.
Mr. Parson.
Of course. The worst possible timing.
Why not bring Rivka with him too, just really top out the night?
Against your better judgement, you open the bathroom door. Greeted with the sight of Riley and her dad in a rapid, intense argument. Signed out faster than you have the capacity to follow, right now. He looks pissed.
Riley sees you first, argument with her dad completely dismissed as she hurries over. “Are you okay?” she signs.
How the fuck are you supposed to answer that.
Mr. Parson watches from over her shoulder. Takes in the state of your clothes and hair. Lingers on the skirt hanging from your waist longer than strictly necessary. Adding it all together with Riley and coming to an answer he doesn’t approve of.
“I need some air,” you sign in place of an answer. You move past her, out of the hallway. Mr. Parson gives you a hard look as you go by. His expression softening after a moment at the look on your face. It’s not enough to get you to stay. You need space. You need more than one exit. You need to get out. Need to not be here right now.
You’re out of the door and halfway down the exterior hallway before you’re properly aware of what you’re doing. Forced to sit down in the shadow of a maple tree, dust coating its waxy, plastic leaves. You run your fingers through the stone filling of its pot and turn up a collection of bottle caps and cigarette butts before pulling your knees to your chest and screaming silently into your legs.
How long you stay like that, you’re not sure.
Would have been content to keep like this forever, turn to stone and you can be a particularly ugly statue to scare the children with. It’s the presence of two people approaching that finally gets you to raise your head. Expecting Riley and her dad, come to have it out with you.
It’s not them.
Agent Lowe comes to a stop in front of you, one hand resting casually on the gun holstered in his belt. He smiles down at you with pleasant concern. Takes in the entirety of your appearence, a cat considering how best to disembowel an injured bird.
“Rough night, Morgan?” he asks.
Following close beside him is a brown-skinned young woman with black hair, dressed exactly the same with the weirdly old-fashioned black suit. She stares at you, impassive save for the slight eye twitch of recognition. The crash of feedback fills your head and both of you flinch.
As if he didn’t see anything, Agent Lowe continues, “Honestly, I’m glad to finally run into you, Morgan. Agent Vílchez and I have been trying to find you practically all day. You’re a surprisingly hard man to pin down.”
Lowe laughs as if he just made a joke. The woman next to him glances in his direction but doesn’t join in.
“Anyway, Morgan, since you’re here, I’d like for you to join me down at the station. I’ve got a few questions I need you to answer.”