Authors: Dan Marshall
“You’re sure no one was with me when I got here? Did I talk about anything other than being tired?” He asked while rubbing his forehead.
With his head down, Adam thought his voice might have been too muffled for Hana to hear. He wanted an answer, even though he was sure she planned to stick with her story regardless of the truth. He turned to his right to ask again, so she’d have a better chance of hearing him, just in time to see her grim face and a glint of light from the knife in her hand. Hana seemed lost in thought for a moment, then lunged at him. He shoved against the table on instinct, turning away from her, which pushed his chair against her and broke her momentum. Adam’s aching body screamed at him, but he was able to knock her off balance and deflect the blade with the chair, save for a cut down the back of his right arm. He immediately stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her protesting arms and torso. Hana raged and flailed against Adam, trying to kick him and hit his face with the back of her head at the same time.
“What are you doing?” Adam cried, his mind caught between shock and pain.
“You remember,” Hana gasped, her small frame struggling to break free from his bear hug. She still held the knife in her right hand, but Adam evaded her attempts to dig its point into his hip. “You’re not supposed to remember. Just give up—they’re already on their way.”
Blues!
Adam thought. It had to be Blues, just as with Damen. He was fairly certain the outcome would be similar, or undesirable in any case. He had to figure out a way to deal with Hana then get the hell out of there. As Adam struggled to come up with a plan, Hana dropped, having lifted her legs abruptly while his arms weren’t prepared. She hit the floor and rolled, but came to a rest sprawled out on her chest, unmoving. Adam kneeled down to turn her over, aghast. When he did so, she grabbed his sleeve. The knife’s handle stuck out of her lower ribcage, its blade angled upward into her. Blood poured from the wound onto her clothes and his dining room floor. She hadn’t accounted for the weapon clasped in her dominant hand.
Why
? Adam wondered, horror-struck.
Hana blinked her eyes rapidly as her mouth opened and closed, but little sound escaped beyond a gurgled sigh, low and weakening. Adam had planned to incapacitate her or knock her out; he hadn’t wanted to kill her. Her hand on his sleeve was losing its grip. He watched as the light behind her eyes faded and her blinking stopped. It was then he noticed writing, etched into the plastic bubble resting beneath her ear, reading “PROTOTYPE” in small letters. Hana was wearing not a dome but a Lightcap! He pulled it off and shoved it in his pocket.
At least we don’t have to make one now,
Adam thought,
but if she was telling the truth, the Blues are almost here.
He rushed to the window and looked down to the street, but saw nothing more than the usual traffic.
They must want to keep this quiet,
Adam thought.
Can’t have people asking too many questions.
He ran into the hallway outside his apartment and turned into the main passageway. The stairwell door was just beyond the elevator. He was almost halfway there when the elevator dinged.
Shit,
he thought. He was right by Hana’s door, which he tried frantically. The door yielded, and Adam pushed it back against its frame quietly, holding his breath. His heartbeat rushed in his ear, its downbeats filled in by the clomp of heavy boots—two sets as far as he could tell—passing by Hana’s door.
As soon as the Blues passed, he inched the door open. When he saw them turn the corner toward his apartment, he threw open the door and sprinted past the elevator toward the staircase, doing his best not to make noise. As Adam reached the stairwell door, he heard men shouting. Giving up secrecy, Adam threw the door open, slamming it against the wall. He took the steps two, three at a time, his bare feet against the concrete floor, his hands gripping the cold steel of the railing. When he was halfway down each flight, he leapt over the railing to the next floor down, halving the number of stairs in each set. He heard rushed footsteps on the stairs several floors above which indicated he was not yet safe. Nameless Blues pursued him, intent on his capture or worse. He needed time to think.
Adam made it to the ground level, his frantic and desperate descent ended. His feet found purchase against the smooth tile in his building lobby. He flew through the front door out into the street, happier than ever before to live in a part of Metra City boasting an active night scene. He heard the stairwell door bang against its concrete walls and shouted voices echoing after him. Adam took a hard right, headed straight into a crowd of people, his shoulder down and pointed ahead, battering through the group, its cries of outrage failing against his deaf ears and panicked mind.
Crouching low to the ground, Adam made his way through the moving pedestrians in a zigzag path intended both to hide his location and avert collisions. His neck and arm continued to throb, but he decided his stiffness was preferable to a gunshot wound. The Blues caused a commotion behind him as they worked their way through the crowd. One block ahead lay the entrance to the subway. Adam kept as low to the ground as he could while still jogging toward the station. He made it down the steps and hopped the turnstile, knowing the cameras would capture his image as he cleared the horizontal bar, then jumped into the nearest subway car as the doors closed in what felt like one swift motion. Adam turned around to see one of the men chasing him, his partner no doubt still at street level. The man wore a long, dark jacket, and had his hand in his pocket, most likely wrapped around the grip of a gun. The man threw his head left and right, his eyes scanning every face within range. As the subway car screeched away from the station, its wheels on rail, the Blue turned back toward the stairs, appearing to give up.
Adam finally felt safe. He also felt as if he had run for hours, but in reality he had been sitting at his dining room table just ten minutes before. His heart still raced, but it slowed as his adrenaline lost its hold. He became more aware of his surroundings as he observed the people in the car. They were all lost in hushed conversations, in contrast to the detached aloofness Adam usually observed. Electronic games and domes, the typical distractions of city life, sat in pockets unused in a uniformity Adam had not seen before. He strained to hear the muted words of the passengers, most of which were lost amid the noises of the subway as it barreled down its designated path.
Only snippets of conversation were audible. Words like “Blues”, “assassination”, and “affair” popped out against the background. Though the people around him were quiet, he could tell from their nervous energy and facial expressions he had missed important news. Hana’s Lightcap was in his left pocket. Adam considered putting it on so he could read news reports from the mesh, but he was afraid the signal might be traced. He also recognized the importance of maintaining control right now. Thinking of the Lightcap with disgust, Adam decided he never wanted that contraption on his head again, no matter the circumstance. He also reflected that his career at Adaptech had effectively ended.
Being an information junkie was terrible in times like these. Adam struggled to appear detached while he secretly tried to listen to the discussions going on around him. They all clashed together, making it impossible for Adam to follow any one track. Twenty different voices inundated him on the same subject, with words mangled against one another. Unable to contain his curiosity, he got off at the next stop, the soles of his feet slapping against wet concrete, discarded gum, and other trash, taking the stairs two at a time until he emerged at street level. Adam was glad to see an electronics store half a block away, its screens and notetabs behind the storefront window facing out, tuned to feeds from various mesh nodes.
A crowd had gathered around the shop, its eyes aimed at the screens. Adam silently considered the communal response to tragedy, that people were standing together even as they separately processed what had happened, to be the one good thing to come from bad events. Adam chose one of the feeds to watch, a screen containing the overly painted face of a blonde talking head. The precise movements of her lips implied well-spoken words, but Adam had to be satisfied with reading the captioned text, as the audio could not pass through the thick window of the shop.
“We have been able to confirm Tim Montery’s body was found in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel,” the text under the woman’s grave face read. “We’re still attempting to get answers about who else may have been in the room. For now, Metra Corp appears to be in the hands of Cora Slate, though initial reports indicated there was a second victim in the room, originally identified as Miss Slate. A spokeswoman for the Central Provisional Authority denies Montery or Slate was in the room. We’ll have more updates as this story develops.”
As the crowd murmured, Adam felt none of the shock he would expect to feel upon surprising news. Montery was dead. Slate too. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but there wasn’t a shred of doubt in his mind. The pain in his back strengthened, reinserting itself into his consciousness as a blast of light blinded him. Adam staggered back and sunk to his knees. Half of the crowd turned to look at him, the other half still lost in the dim glow of the screens as everything faded to black.
Adam’s vision was set forward, off into the distance. Everything was clear, though he was not focused on any one thing in particular. Unlike before, he had no sense of autonomy, but was instead propelled, inch by inch, along a predetermined path. He progressed down the immaculately appointed hallway, willing himself to stop, only to be answered by the continued sound of his footsteps.
An armed man stood outside an ornate door, guarding its woodwork with his stone face and sidearm. As he gave Adam a knowing nod and opened the door, it dawned on Adam that the man was guarding what was behind the door, not the door itself. Adam’s feet carried him through the open door and into the room beyond. He could see two figures asleep under white sheets, creating a rhythmic rise and fall as they breathed.
The man was on his back, the woman on her side, her right arm draped over the man’s torso. Adam was shocked to recognize them as Tim Montery and Cora Slate. Soft smiles lingered at the corners of their mouths, exhausted and euphoric. As Adam’s eyes were set forward, he saw motion in his periphery: his right arm was lifting of its own volition, his hand grasping the handle of a knife. Adam, a prisoner behind his own eyes, watched as his arm and hand again moved without being commanded, plunging the knife into the necks and chests of the slumbering forms.
Short cries and protecting hands erupted in a brief eruption of movement. The knife quickly dispatched these, slamming down again and again until the motion ceased. Blood ran and pooled everywhere: on Adam’s hands and arms—he could taste it in his mouth. Blood spread on the white sheets and turned them a deep red. The bedroom door opened, and Adam saw the same armed man. The man’s hand motioned and Adam’s feet moved, again without any intent on his part. He tried to speed them up, slow them down, stop them; no matter what Adam tried his feet continued their path of progress, across the room, out the door, around the corner.
Adam snapped back to consciousness, groggy and lightheaded. He opened his eyes to see several people standing over him, their expressions ranging from worried to annoyed. No doubt they thought he was a drug user or a drunk. He struggled to his feet, his head and body crying in protest at the movement.
“Hey look, it’s HIM!” a voice, seemingly disembodied, shouted from somewhere in the crowd. Adam tried to find the voice’s source, but his eyes instead came to rest on one of the vid screens, where the feed displayed his face along with a caption imploring viewers to message the authorities with any information. “Someone message the Blues!” It sounded like the same voice, but Adam didn’t wait around to find out. His feet pushed against the rough pavement, his arms wrenched away from prying hands. He again used the pedestrians to his advantage as the bloodthirsty cries of the crowd faded further away from him with each hurried stride.
Adam needed to make it to a safe place. Aria’s was the only location he could think of which was both close and safe, unless they knew she was involved. He’d have to take the chance. Adam’s head still throbbed with every movement, making it difficult for him to think. He needed a minute to gather his thoughts and figure out the safest way to reach Aria’s, since his face was plastered all over the video nodes. People would be looking for him.
Several bags of trash rested against the wall of an alley to his right. Adam stacked the bags in a way that would shield him from the views of passersby, leaned against the brick wall of the alley, and slid into a seated position behind the trash. He took several long, deep breaths, willed his heart to stop trying to burst from his ribcage, and thought about his very long day full of unexpected surprises. Adam’s ears buzzed; his arm was still tender and bleeding; his bare feet felt both hot from running and stone cold against the cracked cement of the alley.
At this moment, after struggling and losing adrenaline, Adam’s body finally gave out. He was filled with horror as he realized he had murdered two people earlier that day in cold blood. Between his aches, pains, and sorrow-filled sobs, he missed the sound of approaching footsteps until they scraped to a halt directly in front of him.
“Hello, Adam,” said a man’s voice, emitted from a face bathed in shadow. Adam looked up and thought,
Too late to run. This is it. I’ll die in this alley
. The man leaned down, a ramble-jambler in his hand, the side of his face illuminated by a line of light carried in from the street. Adam had seen the man’s face in his dreams and on the subway. The disheveled old man spoke again: “Come with me, it’s not safe here.”