by Mark Tufo
"What am I supposed to do—just go home without him?" Shelley said, distraught.
"What more can you do? If he doesn't want to be found, he doesn't want to be found." A glimmer came to her eyes. "I think you should come with me. Dean's friend is having a party tonight. You two would totally hit it off. Maybe you can even talk to him about a job." Charlotte turned as she heard the Line 120 shuttle slowly come in. "You can always leave if you get bored."
Shelley shook her head. "I can't go anywhere until I find Kurt."
"You've got security looking for him. For all you know, he's already halfway to Housing by now."
Shelley heard someone call her name, but who and from where she could not tell. She turned to Charlotte. "I think he just called for me."
Charlotte gave her a concerned grimace. "I think you need to let the guard associates do their job—and you need to take a few hours to relax and take care of yourself."
Shelley saw a woman who looked ridiculously similar to Virginia, and she nearly choked. Her thoughts felt as though someone had pressed a pause button on her mind. Time slowed. The din of voices all around her fell into an echo chamber.
Charlotte waved her hand in front of Shelley's eyes. "Shelley?"
She turned to Charlotte, a contrived smile stretching across her face in an attempt to mask her sudden confusion. "Yeah?"
"Are you coming?"
Shelley surveyed the heavy crowd once more, the question barely registering.
Charlotte took her by the shoulders and steered her toward the shuttle door. "Okay, best friend here is making an executive decision. I can't stand to see you so stressed out. You're coming with me."
Shelley did nothing to resist when Charlotte led her into the shuttle, ignoring little voice in the back of her head that was shouting at her to break off back into the crowd and continue searching until she had Kurt safely in her custody. She took one last look through the crowd before the doors closed, and then she sat down beside Charlotte as the shuttle began to move. A party was the last place she should have been going, but at the same time, the idea of letting go of every responsibility she had accrued, go off to God-knew-where just for one night, and raise a small bit of hell felt like the very thing she needed to get her head back on straight.
Even still, she couldn't get Kurt off her mind. She prayed he had boarded the shuttle to Housing, causing her to search needlessly long after he had left. Hopefully, he was home, safe, waiting for their dad to get home to try his hand at making macaroni and cheese. And if he didn't go home, then what? Would Kurt really run away? Shelley considered how out of character such a move would be for a timid, anxious childlike Kurt, but then she weighed the fact that she was stepping out of character, herself, as she traveled beside Charlotte to party with thieves and black market thugs.
She fought a hot wave of nausea as a flood of second thoughts suddenly hit her. How would she be able to live with herself if Kurt turned up missing, hurt, or worse?
"How's it going at the Mart school?" Charlotte asked, pretending it was no big deal.
"It's not so bad," Shelley said, embarrassed to be talking about it in public. She looked around, surprised when no one nearby seemed to be interested.
"What are the Mart guys like?"
Shelley shrugged. "I haven't really met anyone yet."
"You've been there a week and you haven't met anyone? They're all going to think you have a chip on your shoulder or something."
"I'm pretty sure they already do."
Charlotte nodded her sympathy, and then fell silent for a few minutes. Finally: "Dean's friends will totally dig you. Loosen up a little. We're going to have a blast."
Shelley gave Charlotte her best attempt at a smile, her anxiety growing as the shuttle slowed and Charlotte stood. She followed Charlotte through the garage, to the tunnels leading to the beach path. Both girls had on heavy jackets, the weather having become cold and the sky grey and angry. It was much cooler outside than it was in the halls, but the girls stayed warm enough by moving quickly. They spoke little through the long trek, both of them winded and ready to collapse by the time they finally reached the beach.
The beach was cold and windy, and gusts of sand kicked up here and there as the two moved past steep dunes in search of Charlotte's meeting spot with Dean. A few other people already stood there waiting, and Charlotte ran ahead to introduce herself. Shelley slowly followed behind her, reservations still swimming in the back of her head. She stopped as she got a good look at them. "Charlotte!"
Charlotte tried to back away as she also realized that the three people waiting for Dean were deviants.
"Did you come here to play, little girl?" one of the deviants asked. He brandished a long knife and a serious face.
"They're here for the party," said another, focusing his attention on Shelley. "You friends with the motherfucker that slit my brother's throat?"
"Run, Shelley!" Charlotte darted off toward the north.
Shelley followed close behind.
"Don't let that bitch get away!" Shelley heard the one with the knife yell.
Shelley shot for the cold ocean, giving herself the last resort of trying to out-swim her pursuer if he got too close. He quickly closed the gap between them, however, and soon she could hear him right behind her.
The familiar sound of the sand-cruisers had her waving her arms as she ran. "Help!"
The deviant gained on Shelley, tackling her to the wet, sandy ground. She thrashed and fought, and his knife went flying before he had a chance to use it on her. The remnants of a wave rushed in and sent near-freezing water over both of them. She fought to get up, but the deviant shot a punch straight to her eye, knocking her back. He threw himself on top of her, pinning her down.
Another wave went over them, and Shelley struggled and choked as the salty water rushed over her face. She dug her nails into his arms, fighting him as he attempted to remove her shirt. He slapped her across the face, stinging her lips, and she fell back with a shriek.
He pulled up her shirt, stopping at her head so that it now served to both blindfold her and pin her arms over her head. She writhed and kicked as the man kissed one of her breasts.
Then, suddenly, he was off her. Shelley screamed as someone dragged her from the waves.
"It's me!" Charlotte said, helping Shelley with her shirt.
Dazed, Shelley watched as Dean fought the deviant in the shallow waves. Dean surprised the deviant with a knife of his own, and he gutted the man with a single, forceful move.
"Your eye!" Charlotte exclaimed.
Shelley felt the swollen mass, her throat going tight.
"You okay?"
Shelley nodded, although her tears betrayed her. She felt dizzy, and she held onto Charlotte's arm as they made their way to one of the other sand-cruisers.
Charlotte helped Shelley onto the back seat, putting Shelley's hands on the driver's waist. "Hold on tight or you'll fly off," she warned.
Shelley held onto the young man's waist, her continued shock over the deviant's punch seizing her trembling body. She turned to Charlotte, wanting to go home, but the fiery redhead had already mounted Dean's sand cruiser. All at once, the sand-cruisers took off toward the north, and Shelley cringed as they passed the dead bodies of the deviants who had chased after her and Charlotte. Both were sliced badly, and the sand beneath them was dark with blood.
The sand-cruisers all came to a stop at the district border, just outside a sizeable crowd of teenagers and young adults drinking and mingling on the beach. Shelley followed, staying as close as she could to Charlotte as the group left their vehicles and joined the crowd.
"Who are all of these people?" Shelley asked.
Charlotte pointed to an older man in the crowd. The man was completely gray, with a receding hairline and a two-foot-long beard. He didn't look like he had the strength to lift a dumbbell, let alone control a group of rowdy, jaded young adults. No one seemed to care that he wore not the conventional pants and polo
or blouse, but a toga, a blue and red striped tie, and a cowboy hat.
"Homer will give us all the details as soon as enough people have arrived," Charlotte said, staring over at the man with a measure of adoration Shelley found baffling.
Shelley looked around, apprehensive about what to expect next. A group of people nearby was gathering driftwood for a bonfire, while others were admiring the blood still on Dean's knife.
"Who could have guessed that deviants didn't have blue blood to match their sickly eyes?" Shelley could hear Dean say, flashing the knife so all could see.
The crowd cheered.
A young man produced a Molotov cocktail from nowhere and lit it, sending it into the teetering pile of driftwood. Shelley jumped as an explosion of flame set the bonfire alight. The crowd cheered, and Shelley worked to recover part of her dignity by joining in on the commotion. Someone handed her a bottle and she took a swig, swallowing with a tight grimace.
Homer raised his arms into the air. Before he could speak his first word, the crowd went silent. The waves crashing into the beach somehow became louder, and shadows fell across the mass of people as the bonfire fought to break the darkness that now surrounded them all.
"I see a couple of new faces this evening," Homer said, surveying the crowd. "It's always good to see new faces. Sponsors, raise your hands, if you will."
Charlotte, as well as two other people in the crowd, raised their hands.
"Come and see me after the meeting," he said, and then quickly shifted his focus back to the entire group. "I just got the latest from a news associate, right before I came here. It seems that the deviants have waged another set of attacks, setting loose another wave of the HD-1 virus and potentially infecting another several dozen innocent human beings. Enough is enough!"
The crowd responded by yelling out in disgust and calling out hateful slurs.
"How many of you have lost loved ones to deviant misdeeds?" Homer asked.
Shelley and a handful of other people raised their hands. All eyes searched through the crowd, tallying the numbers.
Homer hurried over to Shelley. "What did the deviants do to you, my dear?"
Shelley looked around, fighting a new onslaught of tears. Another bottle came to her hands. She took a heavy swig of the moonshine. "They killed my mother!"
"And you would like to see the deviants responsible pay for what they did?" Homer asked, his tone implying that he already knew her response.
Shelley nodded.
Homer turned toward the rest of the crowd. "Who else would like to see them pay?"
The crowd cheered.
"Why hasn't one deviant been arrested for these murders yet?" Homer continued. "I'll tell you why—because Corporate is incompetent! What other choice do we have but to take matters into our own hands?"
Shelley wiped tears from her eyes, hoping no one saw them as they threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. What she heard terrified her, but it also made some sense. Why wasn't Corporate controlling the deviant problem better? If people had acted earlier, might her mother still be alive today? Did she really have any choice but to stand up for what was right and put the deviants back in their place? Still, in the back of her mind, Shelley had to wonder: Was it okay for a person to feel so hatefully vindictive?
"I need three groups of ten," Homer said.
Everyone, save Shelley and a couple of the other new faces, raised their hands.
Charlotte, who eagerly had her hand up, nudged Shelley. "Raise your hand!"
"What are we volunteering for?" Shelley asked, still hesitating.
"We'll find out when he's briefing us." Charlotte grabbed Shelley's hand and put it in the air.
Her overwhelm suddenly became too much, and the reality of all Shelley had seen and done that evening hit her nearly hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She pulled her hand back and began to back away. "I . . . I need to see if Kurt got home! I've got to go!"
Charlotte followed as Shelley hurried down the beach. "Come on, Shelley! Stay just a little longer!"
"I shouldn't have come here!" Shelley cried as she continued south along the shore.
"You know Homer is right."
Shelley refused to turn back, but she also felt the need to say, "I know."
There was the sound of a motor starting up in the distance, and within moments, Dean caught up to the girls on his sand-cruiser.
"Is something the matter?" Dean asked.
"Shelley's just getting cold feet," Charlotte said.
Shelley shook her head. "You don't understand. I left my brother—"
"Let me give you to a lift back to your end of the beach," Dean interrupted, his voice strangely pleasant. "Homer said he'd see you next week, no hard feelings. It's obvious you have been through a lot."
"But the party!" Charlotte sulked.
"Go ahead. I'll be back soon," he said, then he motioned for Shelley to get on the seat behind him.
Shelley got on, still feeling uncertain. She grabbed Dean's shoulders when the cruiser started moving, and it zipped across the beach, toward her end of town. She shuddered as, once more, they passed the bodies of the deviants Dean and his friends had killed. Her mind flashed back to their attack. Her eye was almost completely swollen shut, and it hurt to try to focus. She wondered if she would be dead right now had Dean and his friends not shown up when they did.
Dean stopped at the appropriate landmark. "See you around, I hope."
Shelley dismounted the vehicle. "Thanks for the ride." She turned to start her trek to the tunnels leading to Housing, but she paused when he did not immediately drive off.
"Charlotte tells me you're looking for work," he said. "Is that true?"
She turned back, surprised. "Maybe."
"What kind of work are you looking for?"
She shrugged. "I . . . guess I'd like to find some kind of writing job."
He stood motionless for a moment, watching her, suddenly looking just as perplexed as she did. "Well," he finally said, "I don't think I can get you anything like that immediately, but with your pretty face, I could probably get you into an entertainment job of a different sort." He raised a brow.
"I need to get going," she said then ran off toward the distant tunnels before he could respond.
He didn't follow her, and yet she felt her anxiety grow the closer she got to home. Why did it seem she could never catch a break? Her thoughts began to play against her. What would she do if Kurt hadn't returned? Their father was probably beside himself, and Shelley was sure she would get an earful no matter where Kurt happened to be. She felt her swollen eye, the skin stinging as she touched it, and she cursed her poor judgment. She made her way along the dark trail, and it began to snow when she got about halfway to the shuttle garage.
As the snow began to stick to the ground, the dark trail got slightly lighter and made it easier to follow. Shelley had on neither a hat nor a scarf, and she wore thin-soled shoes. She shivered, keeping up her pace despite the combination of pain and numbness that began to weigh down her feet.
By the time she got to the shuttle garage, she was positive she had frostbite. As she moved through the slightly warmer tunnels, the feeling slowly returned to her toes, and she stopped for a moment as a hot, burning sensation shot through her recovering nerves.
She froze as she heard footsteps coming up from behind her. Not wanting to chance the possibility of running into a security associate—or worse, another deviant—she continued down the hallway as quickly as her aching feet would take her. No one gave chase, but she still felt compelled to run the rest of the way to the shuttle garage. The garage had few people left in it, and the last few shuttles of the evening were boarding. She hurried to catch the last shuttle to Housing.
Chapter 104
GEORGE SAT in the dark kitchen, frozen with indecision. His interview with the deviant in the file played over and over in his mind, interrupted every few minutes by a moment of worry over Shelley and Kurt.
The de
viant was young, with short curly hair and an unkempt face. He sat across a short table from George, with a security associate watching by the door. He was skinny for a male deviant of his age, as most of them bulked up quickly from the manual labor they typically worked. George's initial impression was that perhaps the young man was a job-deserter. Now, he wasn't so sure.
"I was a programming associate for Power-Corp before the HD-1 virus changed me," the deviant insisted.
"And what were you doing snooping around Housing after dark?" George asked him, shaking both because of the quick drop in temperature that settled in late in the afternoon and because talking to this deviant, knowing he would be discussing Virginia, had his nervous system in overdrive. George glanced over at the wall heater, wondering if it was even on.
"I was just trying to get into my apartment!" The deviant said, his face sincere. "My human identification was taken away from me when they admitted me to the hospital. Same thing with my keys. I was locked out of my own apartment! Why won't anyone believe me?"
George scratched his head. "Maybe because you're a deviant?"
"Fine. Okay." The deviant stood. "I guess we're done, then?"
George stayed where he was. "Would you be able to identify any of the other patients?"
"Most of them," the deviant said, feeling the stubble along his chin.
"Do you remember a woman named Virginia?"
The deviant nodded. "Around your age. Pretty features. I remember her."
George rolled his eyes. "Why don't you tell me something about her that you can't just pull out of your ass?"
The deviant thought for a moment, and George was sure he would simply admit he had been lying and send him on his way. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked George directly in the eyes. "Her favorite color is blue. She has two kids—a little boy and a teenaged girl. She's a regular card shark in both Blackjack and Poker, good enough to kick my ass, anyway. Is that enough for you?"
George blinked hard, his breaths getting caught in his throat.
The deviant crossed his arms. "Same Virginia you're looking for?"