The Shades

by Cross, Amy

  "And then we can get out of here?" she shouts back at me.

  I nod. Damn it, why didn't we just do this sooner? Why didn't we use the flares instead of waiting in the subway station? If we'd done that, Cooper would still be alive.

  Caroline Jones

  Fifteen days ago

  Every beat of my heart threatens to tear my mind apart. Pain pulses through my body, and I swear I can feel the hot metal of the bullet as it presses against my collarbone. I can barely even think anymore: the only thought is my mind is pain, which seems to have fused in my consciousness. Warm blood is seeping from the wound and spreading through the fabric of my shirt, and I'm breathing so fast, I feel as if I'm about to pass out.

  "I knew there'd be a few stragglers," John Lydecker says, as he stands over me. The gun is still aimed straight at my face, as if he might pull the trigger at any moment. "I told them," he adds, in the slightly bored manner of someone who's irritated by a procedural error, "but did they listen? Hell, no."

  "Why's no-one helping?" I ask, turning to see that all the other people on this busy sidewalk are just walking past, as if they haven't even noticed us. They're walking around us, so they clearly have some idea that we exist, but they're acting as they can't really see us properly.

  "Help!" I call out, but not one of the passersby even glances at me. "Help!" I call out again, even though I can already tell that it's hopeless.

  "Nice try," Lydecker says.

  Looking back at him, I see that Reed - bleeding heavily from a wound in his arm - has grabbed Lydecker's leg. Smiling, Lydecker turns the gun toward him, but he seems in no hurry to fire; instead, it's almost as if he's amused by Reed's attempts to bring him down.

  "If it makes you feel any better," Lydecker says eventually, "I'll make sure there's a thorough investigation into this whole fuck-up. There'll be forms to fill in, assessment panels to conduct. We'll really get to the bottom of why no-one paid any fucking attention to my warnings. This could all have been prevented if people had just listened to me. Seriously, I'll -"

  Before he can finish, and before I can really think about it properly, I lunge at him and grab his arm, tilting the gun upward. He pulls the trigger and the bullet strikes a nearby wall, and in the confusion I manage to haul myself up and then push down, slamming Lydecker into the sidewalk and sending the gun flying out of his hand. Realizing that he might fight back at any moment, I bend my arm before slamming my elbow down into the side of his head; for good measure, I do it again, and this time something seems different, as if I've managed to knock him out. Out of breath and with my heart pounding, I stare down at him and realize that his glassy, unmoving eyes are staring straight up at the sky. He's dead.

  "Reed!" I shout, turning and seeing that Reed is trying to get to his feet. With pedestrians making their way around us on either side, I crawl over and take a look at Reed's arm, which is bleeding heavily.

  "Are you okay?" he asks, his voice tense with pain.

  I look down at my shoulder and see a bloody mess beneath the fabric of my coat. It takes a moment before I can truly understand what's happened, but finally I'm forced to accept that I've been shot. The pain is getting worse by the second, and I already lost a lot of blood.

  "We need to get to a hospital," Reed says. "Both of us."

  "They won't be able to help us," I reply, glancing back at Lydecker's body. "I don't think anyone can see us anymore. We're invisible to them."

  "Bullshit," Reed mutters, before turning and reaching out to grab the leg of a man who happens to be walking past. Stopping, the man looks down at us, but despite Lydecker's dead body and the fact that Reed and I both have gunshot wounds, it's as if the man barely even realizes we're here.

  "What the fuck's wrong with you?" the guy asks.

  "Can you see us?" Reed asks.

  "Yeah, but you need to get that looked at." He leans closer, peering at the wound on Reed's arm. "You've got..." He pauses, and then a different look seems to cross his eyes; moments later, he frowns, and then he turns and walks away.

  "He forgot about us," I say. "Even while he was talking to us, we just slipped from his mind. It's getting worse. Whatever's happening, it's getting worse. First people stopped remembering us, and now they can't even see us properly, and when they do, it's like they can't form memories about us."

  "Don't panic," Reed says getting to his feet before helping me up. Clutching his arm, he grimaces as the pain continues to strike him. "It doesn't matter if people can see us or not," he continues, "we've been shot, and even if it's not in vital areas, we can't keep losing blood like this." He steps closer to me and takes a look at my wound. "Real bullets would've caused far more damage. I think he used something else."

  "What do you think he wanted?" I ask, turning back to look down at Lydecker.

  "He wanted to get rid of us," Reed replies. "Did you do that? Did you knock him out?"

  "I didn't knock him out," I say, trying to stay calm. "I killed him. I didn't mean to, but..." I pause as the enormity of the situation hits me. I killed a man. Sure, it was self-defense, but I still killed him, and I did it without a weapon. I beat him to death. I guess I had no choice, though; if I hadn't killed him, he'd have killed us. Still, it's hard to believe that in the heat of the moment, I was able to summon enough strength to kill a man. I can still feel an echo of the impact of my elbow against the side of his head.

  "Over there!" Reed shouts, pointing at an ambulance that has slowed in the early morning traffic.

  Figuring it's our best bet, I follow Reed as he runs out into the road. The cars are moving slowly, so we quickly manage to get over to the ambulance. Instead of speaking to the guys in the front of the vehicle, Reed leads me around to the back, where we open the doors and climb inside to find that there's no-one back here. As I pull the door shut, I turn to see that Reed is already pulling open every cupboard and bag he can find.

  "We need help," I say, feeling the pain starting to get worse and worse.

  "No-one's going to help us," he replies, tossing some bandages and tongs onto the nearby bed. "We need to patch ourselves up before -"

  As he's speaking, a panel opens near the front of the vehicle, and one of the paramedics looks back through from the drivers' compartment.

  "You see anything?" a voice asks.

  "Nah," the paramedic says with a frown. "I could've sworn I heard something, though."

  I look over at Reed, and I can see that just like me, he's not sure what to do next.

  "You left some stuff out again," the paramedic says, looking straight through me for a moment before sliding the panel closed again.

  "They really couldn't see us," I say, turning to Reed. "That guy was looking right at me, and he couldn't see me."

  "Sit down," Reed says.

  "It's like we're invisible," I continue, unable to work out how the hell this happened.

  "We're not invisible," he replies. "Now sit down."

  "Then how do you explain the fact that no-one ever reacts to us anymore?" I ask, raising my voice.

  "Obviously they can't register our presence the same way as normal," he continues. "Caroline, please, sit down for a moment. This isn't going to get any easier."

  "What are you doing to do?" I ask.

  "What do you think? I'm going to get that bullet out of you, and then you're going to do the same for me."

  "No way," I reply, even though I'm starting to feel a little faint. "I can't do that. You can't do that! We need to get to a proper doctor!"

  "Just be thankful that Lydecker shot us where he did," Reed replies. "By accident or design, he caused as little damage as possible." He turns to me. "While still shooting us, obviously. Now sit down. I have to stop the bleeding, and I don't see any other way to deal with the problem right now."

  "You're not a doctor," I remind him, even though the pain is becoming excruciating and I've got tears in my eyes.

  "Fine," he says. "What do you want to do instead?"

  I open my mou
th to argue with him, but finally I realize that he's right. If we went to a hospital, we'd just be ignored. "Make sure everything's sterile," I say after a moment, "and try to do it fast. Don't go poking around in there. Just get in, get the bullet, and get out. Okay?"

  "I'll do my best," he replies, sitting next to me. "You'll need to take off your coat."

  With Reed's help, and despite agonizing pain, I manage to slip the coat off my shoulders, and then I sit and wait while Reed unbuttons my shirt and pulls it open. Finally, with the wound fully revealed, he glances at me for a moment before taking a pair of medical tweezers and moving the tips close to the bullet, which is partially visible in the mess of flesh and blood.

  "You know this is going to hurt," he says quietly. "No matter how careful I am, this is going to hurt like a bitch."

  I nod.

  "Okay," he says, taking a deep breath. "Three..."

  "Just do it." Before I have time to react, I feel a searing pain in the wound, and I let out a gasp as Reed starts trying to get the bullet loose. Tears are streaming down my face, and I'm starting to sweat profusely, but just when it feels as if there's no chance that he might be able to get the bullet out, I feel him move away, and I look down just in time to see him dropping the blood-stained bullet onto the bed. He quickly grabs a thick cotton swab and places it over the wound, and although the swab quickly turns red as it becomes soaked with blood, after a few minutes the bleeding seems to have mostly stopped.

  "I think it was a rubber bullet," Reed says eventually.

  "What does that mean?" I ask.

  "It means he wasn't trying to kill us," he continues. "He was trying to hurt us and incapacitate us, and maybe scare us, but he wanted to take us alive. Despite everything he said, he had some kind of plan for us." He pauses. "If it had been a real bullet, we'd be in much more serious trouble. Fortunately, you shouldn't have any broken bones, but I guess we'll both have some pretty messed-up scars."

  "Since when were you such an expert?" I ask.

  "You need to do me," he replies. "Do you think you're up to it?"

  "Sure," I reply, even though I'm terrified by the thought of trying to take the bullet from Reed's shoulder. As I help him remove his shirt, and as the ambulance continues to crawl through the traffic with a driver who has no idea that we're back here, I can't help wondering how the hell I ended up in this mess. There are more than eight million people in New York. Why are Reed and I seemingly the only ones who are experiencing this, and why are we still alive while Chloe died in such a horrific manner? And if we're becoming less and less visible to the people around us, how much longer can we last before we disappear entirely?

  Dr. Stef Grant

  Today

  "So let me get this straight!" Lacey shouts as we make our way along the storm-lashed street, with water flowing past us and rain being blown between the buildings. "When we find the boat, we can just sail off out of here?"

  "We probably have to wait until the storm dies down!" I reply. "It can't last much longer!"

  "But if it doesn't die down," she says, "what do we do? Can the boat handle this kind of weather?"

  "I doubt it," I tell her, "but no storm lasts forever. It's just physically impossible."

  "Okay," she replies, "but if it doesn't seem to be passing, maybe we can find another boat, right? One that's better at dealing with the bad conditions?"

  "We don't need another boat," I reply. "We just need our boat. The one with its own radar system, and with all our supplies. Sutton's an experienced captain. He'll know exactly what to do. It's why we hired him, remember? The company tried to get us to hire a cheaper guy, but Cooper insisted that we needed to have Sutton in case we ran into any kind of problem."

  "The company just wanted to reduce unnecessary expenditure," Lacey says.

  "Doesn't seem so unnecessary now, does it?" I point out.

  "Do you think he can get us out of here?" she asks. "I mean, if the storm just keeps going, I don't really see what he can do."

  "The storm will stop," I insist, starting to get a little irritated by her constant questions. "We have enough food and water on the boat to last for at least a week, and we can always try to scavenge some more from somewhere in the city. As long as the boat's moored somewhere with some shelter, we'll just have to sit it out." As we reach a junction, I look up and see the World Trade building towering a few streets away. Without a map, I'm not entirely sure which way to go, but I figure we just need to head west until we hit the waterfront, and then we can start looking for the boat.

  "Now what?" Lacey asks.

  "This way," I say, hurrying across the river of storm water that's flowing through the street. In truth, I can't stop thinking about the huge mistake we made when we stayed in the subway station. It was Cooper's idea to shelter there and wait for the storm to end, and at the time it seemed like a good plan; in hindsight, however, it's clear that we couldn't have made a worse choice. Still, there's no way we could have known what was going to happen. In all the drama surrounding Cooper's death, I've barely even had time to contemplate the way Jonathan Lydecker seemed to come back to life. Once we're back at the boat, I'm going to have to set down everything I remember. Whatever happened here in New York two weeks ago, and in America in general, it's clearly way beyond anything conventional.

  "Are you okay?" I call back to Lacey as I lead the way along another street. "Make sure your suit's properly closed at the top. If you get water inside, you're much more likely to get hypothermia." I wait for a reply. "Lacey?" I say, looking over my shoulder.

  To my surprise, I see that she's hanging a long way back, and although she's still following me, she seems to be distracted by something on her arm. The storm makes it difficult to see properly, but after a moment I realize that she's got her right arm raised to her face, and she seems to be talking. Seconds later, she realizes that I've noticed what she's doing, and she immediately stops. For a moment, she's like a deer in the headlights, and then finally she smiles and starts to catch up.

  "What was that?" I ask as she reaches me.

  "Nothing!" she says with a forced smile. "So which way now?"

  "What were you doing?" I ask, convinced that she's hiding something.

  "What do you mean?" she replies, trying oh-so-hard to seem innocent and confused. "Sorry, I just got tired so I slowed down a bit. I'll keep up from now on."

  "Show me your arm," I say.

  "My arm?"

  "Show me."

  She pauses. "I'm sorry," she says eventually, "I don't see why -"

  "Show me," I say firmly, "or I'll make you."

  She stares at me, and I can see from the look in her eyes that she knows I'm onto her. Finally, unwilling to wait any longer, I reach out and grab her right wrist, pulling it toward me and then slipping the cuff of the suit down to reveal some kind of electrical device wrapped around her lower arm, just below the elbow. There's a small screen displaying some numbers, and a couple of green lights blinking near the top.

  "What the hell is this?" I ask, pulling her into a nearby doorway in an attempt to get out of the worst of the storm.

  "Nothing," she says defensively, trying to pull her wrist free from my grip.

  "Don't bullshit me," I reply, keeping hold of her arm. "What the hell is this thing?"

  "It's just a small remote communication device," she stammers, clearly trying to think on her feet. "It doesn't even work right now! It's like everything else since all this crap started to go down. With the U.S. out of action, most devices and systems aren't working, but I figured it was worth bringing 'cause, you know, it might start up again or something." She pauses, as if she's trying to work out whether or not I believe her. "All it does right now is flash a bit and sit there looking pretty."

  "You were talking into it," I point out.

  "I was just checking it," she insists, trying once again to get free.

  "You were talking into it," I say again. All my mild suspicions of Lacey are starting to come toget
her, and suddenly I see her not as this naive, fish-out-of-water corporate shill but as someone who's hiding something. "I saw you," I continue. "You were talking into this thing, and it looked like you were listening to something as well. It looked like you were having a conversation."

  "That's absurd," she replies.

  "Is it?"

  She sighs. "I was testing it. That's all. Every few hours, I like to scan for a signal and see if maybe anyone out there can hear me. When we left Europe last week, the company was working flat-out to get these things back up and running, so I keep hoping that eventually the grid's coming to come back online." She pauses. "I'm sorry I didn't mention it before, but I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up. I just figured I'd keep trying, and if it worked, then I'd say something. Unless that happens, however, it's just a flashy little armband that doesn't do anything useful." She stares at me, with a kind of pleading expression in her eyes, as if she's desperate for me to believe her. "Why would I lie?" she asks eventually. "What motivation would I have for keeping something like this back from you?"

  Slowly, I let go of her wrist.

  "Come on," she continues, "you've got to admit, it'd be pretty useful if this thing did start working again. And then I could call for help, and someone'd come and rescue us. Wouldn't you feel better if we could at least talk to someone? I mean, sure, we're hopefully going to find the boat, but still, I'd really like to talk to someone who might be able to tell us when this storm's going to pass. That's all I was doing. I was calling out over the airwaves, hoping that I might hear a voice back."

  "And you didn't?" I ask, still a little skeptical of her claims.

  "Not a squeak," she replies. "It's like the network's still down. I guess it's going to take a lot longer to fix things, huh?" She waits for me to say something. "The battery's good for a couple of weeks, especially while it's just in scan mode, so it's not like I'm wasting any energy. There was no need to tell you about it, so I didn't want to give anyone false hope, but honestly, it's just a small device. I mean, who exactly do you think I could be talking to?"