by Jason Luthor
Recording Six
Hey.
Yeah. I dunno. I’ve been thinking about me and Tommy. Not in like a creeper way or anything but, just like, I really have to cut the kid some slack. He’s really trying, and after what he told me yesterday, just, God. Even as bad as my parents have been the last few years, at least I didn’t have to worry about what they would do if they decided to go on a bender. I mean, I thought mom might be taking drugs for a while, but I was never seriously afraid that she’d ever go psycho on me. Crazy sometimes? Maybe, but psycho not so much. So, yeah, I feel for Tommy. There’s no way it was easy growing up with a dad like that. That’s the thing, though. A month ago, you couldn’t have convinced me I had anything in common with that guy. Now it turns out we both had parent problems. The worst part is his were probably worse than mine.
I feel bad saying this, but once I start thinking about Tommy’s problems, eventually I come back to mine. So, I’ve been lying in bed all afternoon just feeling crapsack. All the other Scavengers are acting like life’s peaches, but I keep feeling antsy. It’s not just because of things with the parents, which, I mean, yeah things suck between us right now. But, I really just keep getting jumpy because I thought we’d be in the Deep Creep sooner. There’s no way that’s going to happen though, and you know what that means? It means another week or two of training, which I’m kinda cool with and kinda not. I mean, obviously I don’t want to die in the Deep. The thing is, the longer we wait, the more I’ve got Mike on my brain.
Mike.
People just don’t get what it’s like to be the only person trying to get out of the Tower when everyone’s cool with being here. I mean, I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it. It’s not like anybody thinks we have it easy, but people like Allison think Tower Authority’s got everything under control, and I don’t. Mike didn’t either. So, you know, he was the only dude around that was cool with just chilling and talking about what might be outside.
Like, I remember one time hanging with him down on Floor 13. So, we’re wandering around, which wasn’t the usual for us. By the time I got old enough that Mike thought we could really hang, he was already busy training with the Scavengers. I didn’t know that at the time and back then, I thought it was the universe telling me to maybe not crush so hard. The thing is that, once we did start hanging, it was pretty cool. People from the upper levels never wanted to go down to the lower floors even if it was just to check stuff out. So, I mean, yeah, I liked the fact that he wanted to come with me. Mike did that stuff solo anyway, so it blew my mind that I had a partner to do it with for once.
Anyway, like I was saying, we’re just walking around when he says, “I was going to tell you sorry that I haven’t been around much.”
“Psh. You’re cool,” I tell him.
“Nah, it’s not cool. I’m trying to be straight with people around me instead of leaving them on the hook. Figure it’s got to be better than leaving them hanging.”
“Well, you know I’m completely cool with hanging whenever. It’s not like we used to chill that much or anything.”
“You’re right, but I did tell you I was going to try and come around more.” He shrugs. “Just had things on my mind. Lots of things going on.”
That gets me curious. “So, is everything peaches?”
“Couldn’t be sweeter,” he says as he gives me that smile I’ve had the tortured pleasure of seeing for a few years. “Actually, that’s why I was thinking I’d come around today. Thought I’d try and get in a word, you know. Before things get hectic.”
“Sure, I mean, I’m cool with it. Just not so sure I know what you mean by hectic.”
“Right, well.” Those lips of his shine in the low light and stay curved upward at the edges. “Guess I got something to tell you I thought you might be interested in, but honestly, I’m not sure if it’ll be something you’re down for or not.”
“You’re not about to tell me you’ve done something super tragic, right? Like, this isn’t a warning before you tell me you got yourself in trouble or that you’ll have to go in for Reinforcement.”
“Nah. Nothing like that. Just got things to say is all.”
“Okay?” He just lets the words hang there like I’m supposed to pick them up. “So, are you actually going to tell me, or am I supposed to just guess?”
“I got you,” he says as he shovels his hands into his pockets. “You know we love these talks about the Creep and everything, right? I mean, I do.”
“Well, duh, of course I like them. You’re the only person I know within ten floors of me that will talk about it without freaking out about Security.”
“See, now that’s the thing,” he says as his gaze wanders down the hall. “I like talking about it, but I like investigating it more. I’m a hands on type of guy.”
“You’re handsy. What guy isn’t?”
That gets a quick laugh out of him. “Witty, but you always were, Jackie.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, you know? I think it gets me into more trouble than anything else.”
“You’re good. Better to be thinking about stuff than acting like none of this exists.” He nods over to the Creep. “You’re an idiot if you think this is the way we’re supposed to be living.”
“Totes with you my amigo. I’m not sure I know what this is about, though. Is something wrong?”
“Like I said, I like being hands on more than just talking about this stuff. So, I figure it’s best to let you know I’m actually going to be doing it.”
My eyebrows crush together in the middle of my head. “Doing what?”
“Going down. Into the Deep, I mean. The Deep Creep.”
That makes me stop. When his head hauls around, he sees me staring him down like fire’s about to shoot out of my eyes. “Okay, what is going on here now? Are you saying you’re going to run away? Like, you’re going to try and stick it out down below?”
“Nah, not solo,” he says as his smile creases at the corners. “Not trying to worry you here. Just thought I’d tell you I’m going to be a Scavenger.”
“You’re what?” There’s a stop in my heart, and I feel like hugging him and slapping him at the same time. “Mike, I’m just . . . whoa.” I turn away for a second, and it’s like I’m breathing too fast for my lungs to catch up. “Holy junk.”
“Hey, you alright there, Jackie?” His hand touches my shoulder, and I feel a thousand butterflies flapping in my stomach. Combine that with my sudden hyperventilation, and for a second I’m about to collapse. I’d brace myself against the wall except I don’t want to have a palm full of Creep. It’s not like I have lots of options, so I force myself to stand up straight again, but I’m still feeling like the world’s spinning.
“I’m cool, I’m cool,” I try and convince him, but the heat surging in my cheeks keeps me honest. “It’s just that, I’m completely happy for you. That’s the dream. That’s my dream, and I super want you to go.”
“Except . . .”
My arms flop out and slap against my side when they fall. “Except it’s . . . it’s dangerous. Not a huge mystery there.”
“We both know it is. Thing is, I have to do this.”
“I know,” I say as I hold up a hand. “Believe me, if anyone knows, I know. I’m not even sure how much of this is me being worried about you or me being jealous that I’m not the one going.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’d feel the same way if you’d just told me the same thing.”
For some reason that pushes down the rush of blood and actually gets me to smile. “So, you’d be worried about me if I went into the Deep?”
“What do you think?” His twisty grin makes my heart thump. “Who else would I talk to about the Creep and shadow men?”
I nod too many times as my hands rock my hips while I pace in slow circles. “Okay so, you’re a Scavenger. That’s . . . awesome.” It’s true, but it’s just hard to digest. “Do you even know when you’re going to start training?”
“That’s the thing. I’ve been training, and training sucks. They make you do all these exercises and by the time I get home I feel like dying. Why do you think I’ve been skipping out when I’ve told you I was going to meet up with you?”
“I dunno,” I tell him as I park myself in the middle of the hall. “I just thought maybe you had better things to do. Or something.”
“Better things to do than talk to Jackie Coleman? I don’t think that’s possible.”
It’s embarrassing to admit that my skin starts buzzing. “I’m not that great.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I think you’re cool.”
“You think?”
He shrugs. “Got some confidence issues. But who doesn’t, right? You get older, it gets better. Sort of.” His thumbs hook into the pockets of his pants. “But you say you’re awesome at stuff all the time.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve sort of got this whole aura of false bravado I know how to project. It’s my main weapon against human interaction.”
“That’ll do it,” he says as he laughs. “Anyway, you’re not mad?”
“Mad? Mike Chapman, I couldn’t be more buzzed for someone than I am for you. I don’t want you dying or anything, but, otherwise? I’m completely cool with it.”
“Not going to die. And you never know, one day I might be able to tell you some cool stuff about what’s crawling around in the Deep. This doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on our talks now. I was really looking forward to having a weekly. Never made it happen, but you know, maybe from here on out. Right?”
“Right,” I agree. It’s hard not to when he’s swinging that smile like a weapon. It cuts me down and I can’t be upset. I mean, why would I be, anyway? He’s doing exactly what we’ve always talked about doing. If our sides were reversed, I would be doing the same thing. Happily. And even after that talk in the hall, he really didn’t stay away. Mike never could say much about what he was doing in the Deep like he wanted to, and now that I’m in the Scavengers, I get why. There’s just too much you can get in trouble for knowing. I mean, he was never able to get in those weekly talks either. He was always too busy training. I can’t blame him though, you know? Can’t hate on someone for doing what they love. I’m doing the same thing, right? But we did talk more, even if it wasn’t as much as I’d hoped. Still, at the time, he was the only person of the testosterone persuasion that I was talking to on a regular basis, considering that my dad was still acting like he didn’t know me. So yeah, Mike’s important. I want to rescue him for a lot of reasons. I’m not going into the Deep just for him, but am I making it part of my mission to find him?
Hell yeah.
Recording Seven
This is the story about how Jackie got beat so bad she couldn't breathe right for the rest of the day. So, the commander was leading practices and decided he'd be giving us all a personal whooping, just to let us know how bad we still suck. Anyway, he gets done with a few others before I hear my name called to the mat we practice on. I think I'm there for about five seconds before Abbott barks, “Guard yourself.”
I really don’t have time to think as he swings his fist at me, which comes about an inch away from smashing my nose flat to my face. I barely have time to lean backward before I try and return a punch, my arm rocketing at his stomach. He jumps out of the way before leaping at me again, faking a jab with his right hand before sliding a left hook at me. My body twists to avoid the blow, but I can feel it thunder into my side, and the pain feels like my muscles are ripping under the impact. He doesn’t catch me too cleanly, but I still feel like a vacuum’s been shoved down my throat and all the air sucked out. The hit sends me stumbling to the side, and I try to turn to face him, but he’s already on me. As he pins me to the ground, I realize for, like, the first time just how strong he is. His weight sits on my hips as he hammers a fist down, and I barely get my arms up in time to block it. Even with my guard up, the impact feels like it fractures my wrists, so of course I try and throw a few punches at his face. That’s when Abbott’s hand vanishes and reappears, locking around mine as he turns his body. Before I know it, his legs are draped over my chest, and he’s got my arm fully extended in his hands, to the point that I feel like it’s about to break.
“I GIVE!” I scream, slapping at the mat about a hundred times before he lets my arm go. It feels like fire is spreading from my wrist to my shoulder, and I’m having so much trouble breathing that I can barely get up. It’s so bad, I can’t even use my injured arm to push myself off the ground. My legs go weak, and the vision around my eyes turns black for a second before I feel the floor rushing to pound me in the face. As I plummet toward a blackout, a pair of arms catch me, and suddenly I’m back on my feet. When I have a second to actually, you know, stand, I suck in a breath and straighten myself out. As the air hustles back down my nostrils and my vision clears, I see Tommy and Abbott standing there.
Great.
My two favorite people.
Abbott pats me on the shoulder and doesn’t even notice that my legs almost give out when he does. “Good work, cadet,” he says, his eyes drilling into me as I struggle to look back at him. “It’s always necessary to give new recruits a taste of combat at full speed and full strength. Otherwise, they tend to believe themselves invincible, as if their training has made them supermen and women. That is not the case.” He looks around and stares each of us down. “The Creep moves faster than any man and can kill you in an instant. All it would take is a simple blow, which it could deliver with enough force to break your bones against the wall. You must be fast, and your reflexes must be at their peak. That is why we train. That is why, day after day, we come back here. You will find no greater opponent in the safety of the upper floors than myself. However, rest assured, the Creep is a far more vicious predator than I.”
Geez, that guy likes to hear himself talk. Anyway, I just shake my head while Tommy’s helping me step off the mat. Some other victim is taking my place, but for now? I’m done. He helps me over to the opposite wall, away from where my beat down just happened, and settles me onto the ground. “Holy crap,” he says as I rest my back against the wall. “What the hell was that? He moved so fast I thought I was seeing two of him.”
“Yeah, he had, like, video game mode on or something,” I groan through clenched teeth. “God. God that . . . that hurts so freaking bad.”
“He didn’t pull your arm out of the socket or anything, did he?”
My eyes sharpen themselves on his face. “Are you freaking kidding me? How the hell would I know?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry. Just asking.”
“Ugh. Yeah, I know. Sorry myself. And no, it’s not just the arm, even though it hurts like hell. Abbott’s really heavy so it felt like he was crushing me when he had his fat butt on top of me. Then just, like, the way he slammed me to the ground. Did I at least hit the floor as hard as I think I did?”
“It did kind of look like your head bounced a few times on the mat.”
My hand instinctively goes to the muscles on the back of my skull, and a thread of pain circles around to my forehead when I do. “Aaaahh, shhhhhh, nope, no, I’m trying to cut back on my curse word usage, but my head hurts like a mother.”
“Do mothers usually hurt?”
“I don’t know? Probably, during labor,” I say with another heave as my breath finally goes normal. “Just wait until you have to fight him. It’s no joke.”
“Hey, I’m not looking forward to it! If it helps, you were moving really fast, too. The workouts are really paying off. If it had been anyone but Abbott, you’d have put them down.”
My eyes dart up to him when I smile. “Even you?”
“Hey, don’t go overboard there, Jackie.”
“Hah,” I laugh. “Dude, help me up? God, I am not looking forward to tomorrow’s training.”
His arm is under mine as he helps get me onto my feet. “You didn’t hear?”
“What? Hear what?”
Tommy shakes his
head. “No workouts tomorrow. Bummer for me, but at least you’ll get a chance to recover.”
“Well, what are we doing, then? Weapons training?”
“Nah, something completely new. They’re going to have school classes basically, except for us it’ll be about the Creep. You know, biology stuff, that sort of thing. You should like that, since you’re into all that science crap.”
“Like, only as much as it helps me understand the Creep, you know? Did they at least say who’s going to be teaching the class?”
“Um, yeah. That’s why I’m surprised you weren’t paying attention.”
A grin pries open along my face. “Yeah, well, I’m only listening to Abbott about, like, half of the time. I mean, since the other half of what he says is hot air. So, who’s it going to be?”
“Well, your dad, Jackie.”
“What?”
Dammit.
Recording Eight
It’s, uh . . . it’s about 2:30 in the morning right now.
I . . . I had that dream again.
It started not too long after the lockdown that happened when Creepy Sally went crazy. The first day or two, I was alright, you know? I was . . . I dunno, I was kind of a hero, right? Saved the Tower. Saved my parents. Thing is, I just kept thinking back to the last words Sally said.
“Daddy.”
I’d literally just said the same word a second before, when she was in the middle of almost killing my dad. Then Abbott flew through the air and cut off her arm. She collapsed next to me, still kinda alive, and there was no way to tell if she’d be able to heal herself. So, I did what dad told me to do. I put a needle in her neck that killed the Creep in her body. I mean, it killed her in the process. She couldn’t live without the Creep anymore, and she had a freaking arm missing.