by White, Ben
"Then they'll be disappointed," Imogen said, still facing away. "I'm not going."
"You are."
"There's no point. There aren't any jobs."
"Trying's better than not."
Imogen's hands clenched into fists, and she turned to fix her mother with a cold stare.
"I'm not going," she repeated. "I don't want to go."
"Too bad. You'll be in that part anyway, it's on the nice side of the bridge."
"Why would I be 'in that part anyway'?"
"Because you're taking your brother to his thing."
Imogen brushed her hair away from her face then let her arm fall limp to her side.
"What."
"His convention. Comics and that other rubbish he's interested in. You're taking him. It's all he's been talking about all week."
"I never—"
"He needs you to go with him. You're going."
"I ... I'm NOT going with him. I refuse to."
"Imogen, you are taking your brother to his convention. You are going to the job centre. You are going to present yourself as well as you can. But before any of that, you are taking a long shower, you are letting me cut your hair, and you are returning your books to the library. They're due back today."
"That—"
"End. Of. Story."
Imogen took a shuddering breath, then turned away. For an instant she considered turning back again, but then she simply clenched her hands into fists and stalked towards the bathroom.
She showered for twenty-nine minutes. It didn't feel like that long.
The haircut was mercifully quick. Imogen's mother wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a professional, but then there wasn't much that even a professional could have done with Imogen's hair—it was thin and long and straight, given to fluffing out and tangling itself at the slightest provocation. The most Imogen could ever hope to get from a haircut was 'slightly shorter hair'. She did not, however, allow her mother to cut it TOO short. She liked the heavy feeling of it draping over her shoulders, and the way it covered her face.
After the cut was over with Imogen spent another half-hour in the bathroom. She hadn't dyed her hair for weeks, and her blonde roots were showing—this was a sight that she always found vaguely disgusting.
Once she was finished Imogen spent some time staring at herself in the mirror, at her black satin hair with the startling violet streak.
She didn't smile, but her reflection was not displeased.
After she'd dressed and gathered the sprawling books into her bag, Imogen walked into the lounge. Her mother was back in her spot, reading one of her appalling magazines, but at least the TV was off.
"You look nice," she said, not looking up. "Don't be away long, you leave with your brother at eleven."
Imogen snorted out a breath through her nose as she walked to the door, then paused with her hand on the knob. She half-turned to regard her mother with narrowed eyes.
"Why are you letting him go? You never—"
"Read about that rich boy, Finley Crayman. He used to go to those things. Said it was his first networking. Could be good for Zachary, he needs more than one friend."
Imogen opened her mouth to reply, then shook her head with a look of disbelieving disgust and left the apartment.
Outside it was cloudy, but nowhere near overcast. The sun shone bright from a deep blue sky, and there were dozens of birds swarming above. Imogen stood and watched them for almost a minute, until they dove down and then up and then down again, and then suddenly, like magic, they all vanished into the sky.
Imogen took out a cigarette as she walked to the stairs, and she lit it on the way down. By the time she'd reached the bottom she was already taking out another—the last in the packet. She smoked this in the alley near the stairs, leaning against the wall, appreciating the shade before braving the sun once more.
"There's Imogen, IMOGEN!"
Imogen let out a sigh as her brother's shrill voice pierced her head. For a few seconds she just kept walking, then she stopped and turned to look back. It wasn't just her brother. He had his best—only—friend with him, a dark, scrawny kid named Curtis. The two of them stopped a respectful distance from her, stood there, and stared.
"What?" she snapped.
"You look SO COOL," said Curtis. Zack nodded in fervent agreement.
Imogen frowned. She was wearing her usual knee-length boots, black and heavy and scuffed, with black stockings and a dark mauve skirt, thickly ruffled. Over that she wore a grey top and her ever-present leather jacket, old and soft and covered in rough repairs, worn at the elbows and too tight across the shoulders. Curving embroidered patterns covered it, the blue and purple stitching attractively bright against the worn dullness of the jacket itself.
"Whatever," she muttered.
"Your hair is wicked," said Curtis. "I wish my mum would let me do that!"
Curtis's dark hair was neatly cut in the 'college' style, short and safe and dull. Quite similar to her brother's, in fact, although Zack's was blonde and irrepressibly spiky.
"Maybe you can show us how sometime," Zack said. "That'd be fun, right?"
"Mum's never going to let you dye your hair," Imogen said flatly. "You're her special boy."
Zack winced and glanced at Curtis, embarrassed and shamed.
"Um," he said. "Um. Um did Mum tell you that we needsomeonetotakeusto—"
"Yes," said Imogen, crisply. She pushed her hair away from her face. "You'd better be ready by the time I come back."
"YES!" said Zack and Curtis together, and the two boys high-fived. Zack grinned at his sister. "That's SO awesome, Imogen! You're awesome! This is gonna be so much fun, you're gonna have fun too, we're all gonna have fun—Curtis, come on, let's go do our costumes!"
Imogen didn't watch as her brother and his friend ran off. Costumes, she was thinking. Great.
Despite the pleasant weather and the fact that it was Saturday, Imogen hardly saw anyone on her way to the library, and she was the only one inside—apart from the security guard.
"Nice hair."
Imogen shrank into herself as she walked past him, heading straight for the romance section—out of the last lot she'd chosen for herself none had remotely satisfied her, and she wasn't in the mood for further disappointment. She grabbed a pair of romance novels for her grandfather, checked-out as quickly as she could, and left. The security guard didn't try to talk to her on the way out, which was the best thing to happen to her all day.
The wind had picked up by the time she left the library, hotter than before. It blew straight and steady and tingled on the skin. Imogen couldn't decide whether she liked the sensation or not, and so erred on the side of caution; she hated this wind.
By the time she reached the retirement home Imogen was dragging her feet and staring down, barely aware of anything around her. The man at the front desk said something as she passed, but she didn't even hear him.
"What's this? Late again! I'll teach you—"
"Just take the stupid books, you ungrateful old idiot."
"I won't be talked to like that! I won't—"
Imogen let her grandfather rant while she gathered up the three books she'd given to him a fortnight ago. She also checked the gun under the dresser, easily fending off his feeble attempts to pull her away. There weren't any bullets, just like last time. Imogen didn't feel completely comfortable leaving the gun with her grandfather, but when she'd tried to take it away he'd worked himself up so badly that she was worried he might hurt himself. There's not much he can do with a gun and no bullets, she rationalised. It makes him feel safer. Besides which, I can't be bothered caring.
"Give it back! Give it back! Give it back!"
Frank was chanting now, slapping his hands down on his knees with each sharp word, halfway between righteous anger and childish enjoyment. Imogen rolled her eyes as she thrust the revolver at him. He grabbed at it like a starving gibbon snatching at a banana, eagerly holding it against his chest.
> "Can't get me while I've got this, eh?"
"Grandpa, I don't want you to play with that—"
"Who's playing? This isn't games, Margo, this is deadly serious! Life or death, me or them—and it's not gonna be them!"
"I'm Imogen, not Margaret," Imogen said, deep weariness in her voice. "Just put the stupid gun away before someone sees you with it."
"No! Have to keep it close, that's how they get you, they wait until you let your guard down then bam! It's a shiv in the gut or a coathanger up the arse—"
"Grandpa."
"You don't listen to me! You never listen to me! I tell you and I tell you and I tell you but it's all about you, isn't it! Always about you! You're selfish! You're a selfish little cow, I see it in your eyes, those horrible eyes of yours—"
Imogen had picked up her book bag while her grandfather ranted. She fixed him with a firm gaze that shut him up in an instant, then huffed out an angry breath and left. He shouted after her but she was no longer listening. With tears in her eyes she left the retirement home, wiping her face on the leather sleeve of her jacket, the embroidery rough and comforting against her skin.
"You all right, love?"
Imogen wasn't sure who had said this, didn't register the words until minutes after they'd been said, and by that time there was no one around. It didn't take her long to get to the library after that; she shoved the three romance novels into the returns slot and left without incident.
A minute later she stopped and glanced up and around. This was where she'd been yelled at by the three young men. They weren't here now. She hurried on.
It was six minutes before eleven when Imogen reached her apartment complex, and two minutes before eleven by the time she got to her apartment. Her mother wasn't in the lounge, but Imogen didn't wonder where she might be; the sound of running water solved that particular mystery. Zack wasn't in the lounge either, but that left only one other possibility. Imogen went straight to her little brother's room and yanked open the door.
Zack jerked around guiltily, an open clothes pin in his hand. His head was covered from the nose up by a sheet of red flannel, eyeholes cut out to make it into a mask. An awkward length trailed down his back. The black pajamas he wore were at least three sizes too large, drawn on with orange and red fluorescent markers, childish floral patterns that meant nothing to Imogen. She was about to say something like 'what are you wearing?', but then she realised that she didn't care.
"We're leaving."
"I just need to—"
"Now."
"But—"
Imogen started towards Zack, and he yelped and shrank back before darting around her—she made a grab for his arm but he was too quick for her, evading her clutching hand and speeding into the hallway.
"Zack—"
"Okay! Okay, let's go now, I'll fix it on the way."
Imogen walked after her brother and did not sigh, nor did she roll her eyes. She was past such petty expressions of discontent; she had sunk into the familiar, comforting arms of nihilism.
"Bye Mum! We'll be back before dark!"
Zack was already halfway towards the stairs by the time Imogen left the apartment. Their mother had left four monorail passes on the kitchen table surrounded by dozens of bright pink and yellow sticky notes with arrows drawn on them, all pointing towards the tickets. There was also an address carefully printed on a piece of notepaper, along with a time, and a name, and a warning.
The warning was this:
Imogen. Go to the job centre. Talk with this man. Give a good impression. Or else.
When Imogen's mother emerged from the bathroom, half an hour later, she was displeased but not surprised to see the monorail passes gone and the note exactly where she'd left it.
The monorail was one of the few things in the city that worked. It was cheap to ride and got you where you were going without fuss, the automated ticket system hardly ever broke down, and for those rare occasions when something did go wrong there was a group of contracted maintenance workers on hand to ensure inconvenience and delays were kept to a minimum. It ran smoothly on its elevated track, and being raised up meant the view was good—even the windows were kept clean.
Imogen sat with her hands clasped between her knees, staring down at the ring she wore on her right index finger. It wasn't anything fancy or expensive, just a cheap bit of dark metal with a regular, angular pattern down its centre—like the crenellations of a castle. Imogen didn't often wear it. She didn't know why she'd slipped it on today.
Down the carriage and on the opposite side sat—or knelt—Zack, staring out of the window with no-doubt wide eyes. He had sulked at first because Imogen hadn't allowed him to put the tickets in the slot, but once the monorail got moving his dark mood had quickly dissolved. Ten seconds out of the station he'd gotten up onto his seat, kneeling with his hands pressed against the window, gazing out in rapt attention at the city going by, and like that he'd stayed.
"Those clouds are moving. Going to be a lovely afternoon."
"Oh, yes, you're right, there they go."
"Must be some high winds up there—hey, if you were standing on one of them clouds you'd know all about it!"
"I'm just glad it's not another awful, overcast day. We've had far too many of those lately."
"You'll not find me arguing! Look at this sky, gorgeous—now this is what you used to get, before they started mucking about with things. Good old-fashioned proper sky, is what this is."
Imogen tried to shut her ears against the banality of the conversation going on beside her, but found it impossible. In silence, she sat and she suffered, her eyes closed and her chin against her chest.
"Now look at that, something's got into them lot."
"Goodness, you're right. Oh, I don't like to look at them when they're like that, all those little black specks, it makes me feel all wrong inside."
"Mm, mm, mm, something's definitely got into them lot. They know, you know? They bloody know, don't ask me how, don't ask me why, but they bloody well know."
To Imogen's immense relief a young man sitting on the opposite side of the carriage turned on his music player, the chicken scratchings of some unidentifiable song providing a much-needed distraction from the conversation going on beside her. With her eyes closed tight and all her focus spent, Imogen tuned out the old man and the old woman blabbering away beside her and instead allowed the tinny half-music to enter her head. She didn't listen to music much, just about the only time she heard any was on one of her rare visits to shops, but the song the young man was listening to seemed strangely familiar. Dum dah DUM, dum dah DUM, dah-dah-dah-dah-DUM-dah-DUM—it repeated like this, over and over, hypnotic in its regularity.
After a minute of this Imogen realised something strange. The monorail made little sound beyond a whining thrum, but this rose and fell with a constant rhythm that was, somehow, perfectly synchronised with the young man's music.
That's so unlikely, Imogen thought, trying to examine the young man without looking up from her ring—an impossible task. She shifted on the bench seat and focused on her arm, then cautiously glanced at a point on the carriage's floor near him—almost immediately a panicky feeling rose up inside her and she returned her gaze to her ring, but she'd caught a brief impression of him—dirty sneakers, baggy brown shorts, green t-shirt with something on it, small scraggly goatee.
It's still synced, Imogen thought. It shouldn't still be synced like this, they should've pulled apart already. They're going to stay together until the song ends.
The song is going to end.
This realisation struck Imogen so harshly that she let out a tiny gasp. The song has to end. The train has to stop. Or even if it slows down, once we're across the bridge it'll turn, it has to slow to turn, doesn't it? Won't that affect the noise it makes? Won't that desynchronise the train and the music? Doesn't anyone else on this stupid thing realise what's going to happen?
Imogen's hands gripped tight together, and she thought of her desk
and the stuck drawer. She squeezed her eyes shut and found she couldn't quite bring herself to open them again, she could still hear the music, she could still hear the train—
"Never get tired of this, every time, just stare out the window like your young lad over there and wonder at how grand it all is."
"It is pretty."
"You know something else? It's never the same colour twice! I've ridden this train hundreds of times, thousands, that water out there has never once repeated itself. Miracle, I call that. Grand bloody miracle."
The music was gone. Even the train noise was just that now; noise. The inane chattering of the two beside Imogen melted into everything else, there were dozens of people in the carriage and so many of them were talking but none could be understood, and even if they could be it wouldn't be worth the effort, they weren't saying anything of any importance to anyone, it was just garbage, it was all garbage, it was—
There was a soft impact beside Imogen, and she became aware of a sweet, soft scent; mint.
"Hey, you okay? You want some gum?"
The music was back, distant and yet closer now and still so strangely familiar, and then suddenly it was gone—but Imogen felt no sense of loss. He's sitting beside me, she thought. He's come over to sit beside me.
"Don't like spearmint?"
Imogen forced her hands to unclasp and accepted the gum with shaking fingers. She didn't put it in her mouth. She didn't even unwrap it. All she did was hold on tight, the hard stick slowly warping between her fingers.
"I like your hair. You just do that?"
Imogen managed a nod.
"That jacket's cool too. Is that hand-stitched?"
Another nod. Then a pause. Then, "I did it myself. Ages ago."
"Yeah?"
Another pause followed. Imogen could feel his eyes on her, looking at the stitching on her jacket, quietly appreciating it.
"That must've taken weeks."
"Thirteen days," Imogen said. Her voice was flat and low. "At nights."
Silence followed. Imogen wanted to let her eyes close, but didn't dare.
"Almost all the clouds are gone. The sky's real clear."