by JA Huss
Starting Over
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - LULU
“Fine,” I say, grabbing my coat and purse and blowing the hair out of my eyes in exasperation. “You know what? I’m sorry I came here looking for the guy I once knew. I’m sorry I—” Everything goes dark and silent as I let the last few words of my sentence fade into the nothingness.
“What the hell?” Case says, storming past me, calling, “Steve? Report. Steve?”
“Your power’s out,” I snap. “Your creepy light-man is gone. Just point me to the stairs, Case. I’ll be on my way.”
“The power can’t be out,” Case says, more to himself than me. “We’ve got backups.”
“Well, obviously, your backups are out.”
“No,” Case says, placing his hands on the smooth metal wall of the far side of the elevators. “The backups are on a private grid. The only way…” He stops mid-sentence and continues to feel the wall.
“The only way what?” I ask. “And what are you doing?”
“Trying to make the wall open so we can access the stairs.” I’m just about to remark on the stupidity of concealing a fire escape when he says, “There it is.” He flattens his palms and pushes until the wall slides open. “Stay here.” He says it with mountains of irritation.
“I’m not staying here.”
But he must not care, because when I follow him into the stairwell and start banging down behind him, he doesn’t bark any more orders.
When we get out into the lobby it’s dark and cold. The sun has disappeared behind thick snow clouds and the flurries are starting.
“What are we looking for down here?”
He ignores me as he makes his way towards a hallway that’s hidden by an artistic curve of a wall, and then slips out of sight.
I follow again and catch him opening a door to what appears to be an engineering room. It’s dark and silent, just like everything else in this building now.
“Where is everybody?”
“We sent them home this morning when the power went out all over town. People needed to go collect their kids and stuff.” Case lets out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’ll walk you to your car. You might as well go home too. Looks like this shit is taking a turn for the worse.”
It’s then that I realize I don’t have a car. “Well… Randy dropped me off this morning so…”
Case is staring down at some lifeless electronic dashboard that should probably not be so lifeless. But he manages to turn his head and look up at me through his hanging blond hair. “He dropped you off? Well… that’s not weird.”
“I told you, I was at the prison earlier. And ToyBox was on the way.”
Case goes back to messing with the electrical equipment. “So how did you think you were getting home? Was he picking you up as well?”
“I figured a taxi would do.”
“During a city-wide blackout?” Case laughs.
“I didn’t realize how widespread it was. We were cut off out at the prison. Are you waiting for me to beg you to give me a ride? Fine. Can you drop me off downtown?”
“Do you really think we’ll be able to get anywhere near downtown right now, Lulu?” He doesn’t look up at me this time. Not even a half-hearted sidelong glance. “Really?”
“Probably part of your plan,” I say, crossing my arms to try to ward off a feeling of dread and foreboding.
“Right,” he mutters. “Because you’re so much fucking fun to be around these days. ‘Let’s make a deal, Case,’” he says in a fake female voice. “‘Just cop out to some fictitious supervillain plan and spend some time in prison and I’ll let you fuck me.’”
Ohhh… I am pissed. “Fuck you.” I turn on my heel and don’t wait for his comeback. Just walk straight back out to the lobby, shrugging my coat on as I go. I know the power is out, so the front doors don’t work, but I flatten my hands on the glass the way Case did upstairs, and they part easy enough.
A cold gust of wind rushes in, blowing small, hard balls of snow onto my face with such force, they sting.
Case pulls me back inside. “You’re letting all the heat out,” he says, forcing the doors to close again.
“We’re not stuck here. My phone still works.” I take it out of my purse, hoping it still has a signal. It does. But when I call the station I get a busy signal. God, when was the last time I heard one of those?
“The phones are out, Lulu,” Case says, talking to me like I’m a small, clueless child. “City Hall doesn’t have SkyEye. And even if you could get a hold of someone, they probably couldn’t make their way all the way over here with the traffic lights out. I’m stuck with you.”
Not, You’re stuck with me, which is how he should’ve said it. But the other way around. We are definitely not friends anymore.
“Sheila?” Case says, talking into his own SkyEye phone. “What’s going on in the city? Uh-huh… Shit… Fuck… No?… All right. I’ll make do. Later.”
“Who was that?” I ask. He mentioned someone named Sheila earlier, right?
“I was gonna have her send the helicopter, but the weather up in the mountains is fucked.” He tabs the screen of his phone again. “Thomas, just what the…” The conversation goes much the same as the last one. “No shit?… Fuck… Dammit… So what do you want to… Yeah. All right. I’ll wait it out at home.”
“That was your friend?” I ask.
“You’re gonna have to come home with me. Come on, we better get a move on before the roads get any worse.”
I follow him, having to run a little bit to keep up because he’s walking with some serious determination. I’m about to protest about going home with him, but it’s pointless. I have no options. If I had my own car I could at least drive myself. But I don’t. It’s either stay here or follow him.
We hike without talking back up the stairs to his office, where he grabs his coat and a briefcase, then stomp back down to the lobby. Case opens the doors the way I did a few minutes ago, then locks it back up with a key from the outside.
There’s only one car in the parking lot and it’s a ridiculous silver two-seater sports car that immediately has me picturing us sliding into a ditch. “I hope you don’t live far,” I say, as he beeps his alarm to unlock the doors.
He doesn’t answer me. So I slip into the soft bucket seat and close myself up from the blowing wind. He does the same, starting the car up before he even gets the door closed. Two seconds later he’s got it in gear and we pull out, the tires slipping on the slick pavement, and I feel a little wave of justification for my negative assessment of his car.
He shoots me a dirty look when I grunt out a laugh. “I’m two miles up the hill.”
“If I have to walk two miles up a hill in the snow because this toy car can’t make the climb, I will be pissed.”
He rolls his eyes and drives around the back of the building to a lone road that winds up the mountain behind ToyBox. And we don’t get stuck. He flips some button on the panel near the gear shift, gives the car a second to adjust, and then we plow upward with the feeling of tires digging into the pavement.
His house really is close, and a few minutes later we’re pulling into the garage of a very modern building that looks like his ToyBox offices, except it’s not a box, but a rectangle. “You’ve got power here,” I say, getting out of the car and watching the garage doors close us up.
“Separate system,” he mutters, keying in a code to the alarm. “After you.” He waves me inside and lights start turning on as I step deeper into his home. Like those lights on the frozen case doors of the grocery store that are all motion-activated.
“Steve?” Case calls out, throwing his keys down on a stainless-steel counter in the kitchen. My eyes immediately track to the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“I’m here,” the light-man says, appearing as a hologram off to my right. He’s definitely not as strong over here. Like he’s too far away from his base. Because he’s nothing but wild flickers. “I’m sorry, the powe
r went out down at—”
“Yeah, I know,” Case says, irritable. “Do you know why the power went out? Did we run out of fuel?”
“No way to tell until it comes back on. I’m sorry, Mr. Reider. Should I make lunch for you and your guest?”
“Sure. Surprise us.” Case comes over to stand next to me. “I don’t know what’s happening. But none of this is good. And before you even open your mouth with accusations, none of this has anything to do with me or my friends.”
I don’t say anything because it will just start another argument. I find it oddly ridiculous that he wants me to believe they’ve got nothing to do with this after we found that Bike Boy message inside the code that stole that money from the banks. And it’s very suspicious that Thomas Brooks owns the only usable phone company right now. The lawyer in me says I should shut up and listen.
So I do.
And I hear nothing but the sound of beeping kitchen appliances.
“How can he possibly make lunch?” I ask quietly, both of us still looking out at the dead city. We’re too high up, and there’s smaller hills in the way, so I can’t really see any roads. Or accidents. Probably most people have gone home by now, anyway. But off in the distance I can see the Cathedrals. The main one and SkyEye, across from it, both in downtown. And up to the north I can see the remnants of Blue Corp. And past all that, I see nothing but mountains on every side.
“It’s all automated, so don’t get too attached to the idea of lunch. Doesn’t taste too great yet. It’s something called an autocook. I’ve been working on it for a while now. But like I said, don’t get excited. The protein is soy-based and the vegetables aren’t worth talking about. The only thing that even remotely passes as food is the pasta.”
“Well.” I sigh. “Here’s hoping we get pasta.”
“You can take your pick of guest rooms,” he says, turning away. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t wander around the house at night. I will be arming the alarms and I’d hate for you to be caught up in it. I’ll find you some sweats and a t-shirt to sleep in—”
I catch up with the conversation before he can finish that thought. “I’m not sleeping here.” I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. The power will be back in a few hours at most. In fact,” I say, getting out my phone, “I’m going to keep trying the cab companies while we wait it—”
“You’re not going anywhere, Lulu. In case you haven’t noticed, the anarchists have taken over my city.”
“Anarchists?” I laugh. “OK. Well, that’s quite a jump in what’s happening down there. But I’ll go along for the sake of argument. What—”
“Thomas,” he says in a low growl, “just told me that there’s riots downtown. You know, those people who wear black ski masks and throw Molotov cocktails through windows? It’s them doing this, not us. So… don’t you feel stupid now?”
I wish I could see for myself. And just as I think that, Case shoves his phone at me and says, “Look.”
On the screen is footage from some kind of drone above downtown, showing hundreds—maybe thousands—of people going crazy. Smashing cars, smashing windows, looting stores. “What is this? How are you seeing this? Is it the news stations?”
“News stations?” Case snorts. “Please. It’s a SkyEye drone. Thomas is watching everything so when the shit settles down, we can run it—” But he stops abruptly. “Put some names to the faceless faces,” he says after the pause. “For the greater good. Don’t worry, we’ll share with City Hall and CCPD. If you guys are even interested in the truth, which I highly doubt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - CASE
I might’ve said too much because Lulu gives me a long, hard look that lasts for several seconds. I shift my weight as I wait out her gaze.
“What are you up to?” she finally says.
“Why are you so interested in me?”
She huffs out a laugh. “I’m asking myself the same question.”
Well, that’s a loaded answer. It implies so many things, I snap into Molly-mode and start a list.
One. She likes me. She’s been thinking about me ever since she left town and now she’s back to… I don’t know, rekindle something. This is the best-case scenario.
Two. She knows something about me, or Linc, or Thomas. And she’s digging for information to try to link us to the robbery and the blackouts. This is the worst-case scenario.
Three. All of it—the chance meeting last night at the cathedral, the impromptu sex, the fact that the city was sabotaged shortly after she came back to town—is a coincidence. This could go either way because it doesn’t imply anything positive or negative.
Four. Someone is controlling everything and we’re both innocent. This would lead to big, big problems.
Two and four are what I think is happening, and neither of them are good. I frown, unable to stop myself from feeling the loss, though she’s not even something I currently have.
“What?” Lulu asks. “What are you thinking so hard about?”
I have several ways to respond. I could lie about everything and just try to get through this night. Then drop her off tomorrow and pretend we don’t have a past history.
I do want to lie, but I don’t want to walk away from her. Not yet. She’s just… what I always wanted, right? And now she’s here and things are going badly. But it’s not past the point of no return. Yet. We could work on it. Maybe put a little more effort into rekindling things.
Or I could tell her the whole truth and take my chances that she will see things our way.
That’s a really bad idea. I think she has some very deep-rooted opinions about justice and the law. She’s kind of naive.
Or give her a little bit of both. Not enough to make her want to hunt us down and lock us up. But just enough to keep her by my side for a little longer until Linc or Thomas can figure out what’s really going on.
I opt for option three. But what can I say?
“Case?”
“I’m thinking, dammit.”
“About?”
“How much I can trust you.” I sigh.
She shakes her head. “You’ve got it all backwards, Toy Man. I’m not doing anything wrong here.”
“Neither am I.” We stare at each other for another handful of seconds. “I don’t have anything to do with that bank robbery. And neither does Lincoln.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re already rich, Lulu. We have more money than we need. Why the fuck would we steal money? If I was going to steal something, I’d make it something I didn’t already have.”
“Like what?”
I shrug. “Like you.”
“You’d steal me?” She laughs. “Like kidnap me? Why would you say something like that?”
“Because… you’re the only thing I want that I don’t already have. I don’t need more money, Lulu. I need things money can’t buy.”
“Maybe you’re just like those anarchists down there?” She nods her head towards the city down below. “Maybe you’re just looking to tip the system. Pull it apart from within. Take it down.”
“Well, it is pretty fucking corrupt. And while I don’t agree with their methods, I do agree with their premise.”
She points a finger up at me and says, “I knew it.”
I slap her finger away, annoyed. “It’s not us.”
“Then who stole that money? Who is this Red—” But she stops, suddenly. Then turns around and scrubs a hand across her forehead.
“Who is… red… what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Stevegetti is ready,” Steve says off to my left. “Right this way, Miss Lulu.”
She doesn’t wait for me. Just follows Steve’s flickering form across the room towards the kitchen. Steve is droning on about plates and his inability to set the table, and then starts directing up to the cupboards where I keep that shit. I don’t move. Something is tingling in my mind. She slipped up just now. She said red.
Red. As in the color of the light ins
ide me.
Has someone seen me up on the roof? It’s not impossible, I decide. I am up there most nights doing some pretty weird shit. And didn’t she just tell me that they have footage of the helicopter raid on Blue Corp? Someone saw us do that. I scan outside, looking for possible vantage points where someone might have set up a scope and taken pictures.
But I live up pretty high on the side of the mountain. I’m way higher than the tallest buildings in downtown, and from that vantage point they’d never be able to see someone on top of the flat roof. Unless I was standing on the very edge. Which I wasn’t. I don’t stand there. Do I?
No, I decide. I don’t. I stand in the middle.
Plus, they’re too far away. No one saw me.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Lulu asks. “Will I have to eat alone?”
I turn to face her. Watch her as she sets down forks and napkins.
Shake it off, Case. Just let it go and see if she slips up again.
I make my way over to the table and pull out her chair. She mumbles a thank you and sits. Then I do the same. We stare across the table at each other. “I’m telling you,” I say. “Don’t get excited about Steve’s version of spaghetti.”
She cracks a smile as she picks up some tongs and drops some pasta down on her plate, then passes the bowl to me and goes for the red sauce.