“Mekha?”
She was trying to speak to him but the windows reduced outside noise and Connor couldn’t hear a thing besides the low rapping. He unlocked the door, and Mekha got inside, breathing heavy.
“Is it done?” Connor asked but Mekha was still concentrating on something outside, and put a finger to her lips, asking him to keep quiet.
In a few seconds, their car was vibrating under the effect of an explosion.
“Let’s go,” Mekha said.
Connor pressed the ignition, and the car launched into drive mode, taking them out of the crowded area. When they were finally in a safer place, Connor fixed the rear-view to give him a better view of Mekha. She looked a little rattled, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to worry about, in other words, she was holding up fine.
“You did well,” Connor said. “Really Mekha, you’ve outdone yourself.”
“What can I say,” Mekha said. “I’m the best there is.”
“And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“What am I?”
Mekha glanced right at him. “You’re the guy I’d go to the end of the world for.”
“Come on,” Connor said. “You know I don’t do sentimental.”
“Someday you’ll find the right person and you will know that that’s not true.”
“As far as I’m concerned you are the right person.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
Connor couldn’t understand how she could be so wrong about this, when she was usually right about everything else, when his phone rang. He saw the number and the name that flashed with it, and put her on speaker. “Arianna?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you again,” the girl on the other end said. “But did you manage to find Lane?”
“I just called him,” Connor said. “He says he’ll be home soon.”
“Dominic and I are at your place,” she said. “Do you mind if wait for him here?”
“No problem,” Connor said. “You guys stay put, I’ll be right there.”
He ended the phone call and tried Lane’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. “I can’t believe this guy,” he said. “There are riots going on everywhere and he won’t even pick up his phone to let people know he’s okay!”
“Let me try,” Mekha said.
“No use,” Connor said. “He’s probably screening your number too.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah,” Connor said. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”
“Home.”
Connor took a left to make use of a shortcut. “Will you be alright?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know, the security situation?”
“You mean the riots,” she said. “That we caused?”
“We didn’t cause it,” Connor said. “We just facilitated it.”
“I practically have bomb residue on my hands.”
“It’s a job. Just like any other job, someone has to do it.”
“Yeah but you don’t have to be in denial about it.”
“What do you want me to do?” Connor said. “Shout it from the rooftops?”
“Connor,” Mekha said. “It’s very important to me that I be honest about this. I know what I am and it doesn’t bother me. Does it bother you?”
“Maybe just a little.”
“Hey,” Mekha said. “We don’t have a choice. We were born this way. It was either this or be slaves to those bloody Zyres. I’d choose this life over that one anyway. We’re not revolutionaries, we don’t have to prove a point. The only thing we can do is survive as best as we can, and that’s all we’re doing. For centuries, people like us didn’t even have a place to live, we didn’t have homes, we were living out in the streets, but for some of us, that’s changed now. We can dream, and we can put down roots, all because of the Mob. They gave us back our identity or we would have been nothing. They took us in, when we needed help. Now, if they need something in return, we have no choice but to give it to them. It’s the right thing to do, Con.”
“I just feel like maybe we’re switching masters instead of getting freedom this way,” Connor said. “Let’s face it, the Mob is doing the same thing to us, making us slaves to get their jobs done. How’s that any different from what the Zyre are doing?”
“The difference,” Mekha said. “Is that the Zyres treat you much worse. If its slavery either way, I pick the one where I get something out of it.”
“The Mob should hire you for the job of their spokesperson, permanently.”
“Very funny.”
Connor grinned.
Soon, they had entered her street. Connor drove up to her house, and stopped the car. “Guess I’ll see you then,” he said.
Mekha leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I hope your brother calls you back,” she said. “I know you won’t be able to concentrate on anything until he does.”
“I’m sorry,” Connor said. “I know we haven’t caught up in a while and we were supposed to hang out today, but I need to take care of this. Find him and make sure he stays home.”
He watched Mekha unlocking the door to her side, and walking up to her apartment, the same tank top clinging to her body, and he could picture her removing it. Hell, he could picture himself doing it for her. If it wasn’t for his brother, he would have. The only thing that made him finally drive out of her home entrance and finally her street was a lot of self-restraint and Arianna calling him again.
Baris Town,
Zyron Region-One
It took Lane twenty minutes to walk back home. It was raining heavily by that time, and Connor was waiting for him in the den and he wasn’t happy about it.
“What’s going on?” Lane said. “Did I do something?”
“You have zero sense of responsibility Lane,” Connor said. “There are riots going on, we’ve been glued to the damn news channel for hours and you can’t even call and tell us you’re okay?”
“Riots?” Lane took off his jacket and set it aside. “What riots? I didn’t see anything on the way here. The protests were supposed to be peaceful.”
“Well they weren’t,” Connor said. “Now the entire region is burning up. They might enforce a curfew.”
“Curfew?” Lane said. “The Zyron Force can’t handle a few protestors?”
“Apparently they can’t,” Connor said. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you’re all staying in tonight.”
“You said Arianna was here?”
“Her parents came for her,” Connor told him. “She said she could give Dominic a drive back home. I told him he could stay here but he insisted he had to go back.”
“Yeah, he…his cousin’s home I think, he must have gone back for her.”
“Anyway,” Connor said. “I’m going to try and sleep. I stayed up late last night getting some work done. I really need to get some rest.”
Connor disappeared into his room and Lane sat there for a while wondering what to do next, and then he picked out Connor’s best bourbon and took both the bottle and the glass outside, hoping for some fresh air and saw Kevin sitting by the front steps, sheltered from the pouring rain. Before Lane could even consider hiding the drink, Kevin gestured for him to come closer. Lane sat next to him on the steps, and handed him the bottle.
“It’s okay,” Kevin said, pouring the bourbon in Lane’s glass. “I won’t tell your brother. You’re twenty-two now anyway, you’re allowed to drink.”
“I know but still.”
“Come on,” Kevin brought up his glass. “Bottoms up!” He swallowed the liquid in the glass in one go and poured himself some more. Lane watched him go quiet, watched the expression on his face become serious. There were very few things that made Kevin go serious like that, but Lane wasn’t sure how to broach that subject.
“Can I ask you something?” Lane said at last, conjuring up the courage to speak.
“Go ahead.”
“Is everything okay? You being out
this late, it’s not like you.”
“I just wanted some alone time.”
“I get alone-time,” Lane said. “Trust me, no one wants alone time more than me, and you know that. But you’re worrying me.”
“Everything’s fine,” Kevin said, in an obvious attempt to make Lane less concerned but it was as if his mind wasn’t allowing him that fake presence he always carried around as a defense-mechanism. “Except for the fact that I seem to be going into space at about a thousand miles an hour and I know I’m going to come careering down to an end, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Yeah, well as long as everything’s fine.”
Kevin grinned and turned to look at him. “God you’ve grown so fast,” he said, a genuine pride in the way he said it. “Feels like it was just yesterday Connor and I were changing your diapers and sending you off to day-care.”
“So you could do scores during that time,” Lane said. “And you thought I’d never notice.”
“Well, you’re smart. No one can fool you.”
“As much as I appreciate your lousy attempt at distracting me,” Lane said. “I still need to know what’s going on with you. Did you have a fight with Lauren? Is that why you’re upset? You can tell me you know, I’m not a kid anymore, you said it yourself.”
Kevin finished the second drink as well, and poured a third. “You know when Lauren was pregnant with our baby,” he said. “I was so excited. Ever since Connor told me we were supposed to take care of you, I’ve loved the idea of having kids of my own one day. And then you kind of grew up without any warning, so I thought when I had my own kid, I could actually enjoy the process more, I wanted it to last. I wanted the excitement of having a kid give meaning to my life.”
“But you do have a kid,” Lane said. “And you love him very much.”
“I know that.”
“So what happened?”
“Lauren happened,” Kevin said. “And she took the fun right out of it.”
“So you are mad at her,” Lane said. “Any particular reason?”
“I just can’t stand her anymore. And there’s not much I can do to make that mistake go away.”
“Why not? You can leave her.”
“And make the boy suffer through a broken home for the rest of his life?” Kevin said. “I can’t do that to him. So I figure, life sucks anyway. It’ll suck when she’s not there and it’ll suck when she’s there, so I choose to stick with her.”
“That’s a terrible reason to be with someone.”
“I know,” Kevin said. “Trust me, no one knows that better than me. Anyway, forget about me. Tell me about you. What’s the deal with that Arianna chick? She seems to be hanging around you a lot lately. Are you screwing her?”
“I’m not discussing that with my brother’s best friend who also happens to know diaper stories about me.”
“What’s the matter?” Kevin said. “Don’t feel like an adult now? Spill!”
“We’re fine,” Lane said, being secretive on purpose. There was no way he was allowing Kevin any information on that topic and give him the temptation of telling Connor. “You’re the one you need to worry about.”
The one drink ended and Lane felt himself getting sleepy. “I should probably get some rest,” he said, standing up. “I have another job interview.”
“Still struggling?”
“I need to find a job fast,” Lane said. “If I don’t find one soon enough, I won’t find it period. Once you’re twenty-four your options of finding a good job in this Region start diminishing.”
“Then maybe you can find one in another Region.”
“Connor will never allow it,” Lane said. “He barely let me go to college in Region-Three and that’s only a four-hour drive from here.”
“You know he worries about you,” Kevin said. “Besides don’t we earn enough for you to not have to work?”
“I can’t not work,” Lane said. “That sounds kind of lame.”
“Find a hobby.”
“Yeah right.”
“Listen,” Kevin said. “I know you think Connor’s a hard-ass and always mad at you, but it’s only because he can’t stand something happening to you.”
“Says his drunk best friend.”
“Says the person who’s known him a few more years than you have.”
“You know we have a spare room, right?” Lane said. “You can sleep there. It’s possible to mope on a bed.”
“I’m fine,” Kevin said. “It’s nice out here. Been a while since it rained.”
“If you say so,” Lane said. “But don’t sleep out here, its not healthy.”
Kevin downed the drink. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
*
Hearing the rainwater bearing down on the canopy took Lane right back to his childhood. The effortless symmetry of the massive art-work that was life on this planet was something profound and took your breath away, and Lane could imagine why people were fighting over it. Connor said there had been riots which could only mean that the so-called peaceful resistance had started to get violent. Lane hated the uncertainty of the times. He couldn’t understand why people couldn’t just coexist. They had suffered through an apocalypse, and an alien breed had taken over their planet, that should have been enough impetus to live peacefully at last, but that wasn’t the case.
People were still fighting, killing each other one way or another. If it wasn’t psychopath killers, it was region-wide riots. Sometimes, when he let these things enter his head, Lane would end up feeling depressed for days. But he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t change the world. He wasn’t the kind of person who led a resistance like that Dyer guy everyone seemed to be talking about these days, and because he wasn’t all that, he tried not let these things bother him by simply pretending they weren’t happening. But they were happening, and sooner or later something so drastic would happen even Lane would be forced to consider it.
His phone beeped and Lane pressed a button on the headset.
“You awake?”
“Arianna?” Lane said, when he heard her voice. She seemed to be whispering. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“My mom was getting freaked out about the riots.”
“Yeah, my brother was too, hope they’re not going to last long.”
“I just checked the news they say The Force has things under control, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I was hoping we could meet up.”
“Right now?”
“Why not?” Arianna said. “Mackenzie has her car.”
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know,” Arianna said. “Just drive I guess. I’ve been cooped up all day.”
“I have an interview in the morning.”
“So?” Arianna said. “We’ll be back by then. You can go to straight to the interview and come back and sleep all you want.”
“Enabler.”
“Does that mean you’re coming?”
“Hang on,” Lane said and got up from his bed, went downstairs and opened the front door a little to see Kevin passed out on the stairs. It was hardly the first time that was happening. He knew Kevin would sleep till morning. When the sun would burn his skin, he would wake up cursing with a hangover. Lane went to the spare bedroom, found a blanket and a pillow and went outside. It had stopped raining, and Lane threw the blanket over Kevin and placed the pillow under Kevin’s head, being careful not to wake him.
He closed the door, went back upstairs to his room and pressed the call button again. “Okay, I’m in.”
*
Lane hurried down the steps of his house, thankful that Kevin was still asleep. Outside, his friends were all waiting in the car that Mackenzie was driving. The rain had cooled the warm weather and there was a gentle breeze. He went straight to the backseat, where Arianna pulled him in the minute he opened the door. Dominic was in the passenger seat with Mackenzie
and the car drove off into the night, leaving the tree-lined houses of the blue-collar suburb behind. Arianna drew him into a kiss and Lane kissed her back. “I missed you,” she said.
“Missed you too. Sorry I’ve been out of touch the past couple of days.”
“Do you still have to hide things from your brother?”
“Well he knows Dominic,” Lane said. “And if Dominic wasn’t a drug dealer I wouldn’t have to hide the fact that I’m hanging out with him.”
“We’re adults,” Dominic said. “Free to do what we want. Not like your brother’s any different. He does all kinds of cons with that buddy of his, the tall guy what’s his name—”
“Kevin.”
“Kevin,” Dominic said. “Right. That’s it, I remember now. Did a score with him a few months back.”
“Could you try not to do scores with my brother’s best friend?” Lane said. “It would make life a lot easier.”
“Hey you gotta let go of those apron strings some time. I’m only doing you a favor.”
“Can we please talk about something else,” Mackenzie said. “Driving is boring enough as it is.”
Everywhere they went they could see officers of The Zyron Force standing together in small batches, and the leftover destruction from the riots. Dominic took out his stash of pills and handed it out to each one of them. Lane took one with Arianna’s bottled water and watched her do the same. They kissed again, and were still making out when Mackenzie abruptly stopped the car. Lane looked outside and saw the entrance to the public park in the distance. It was closed, but he knew that wasn’t going to stop them. “Why are we here?”
“Because we can’t afford hotel rooms,” Dominic said and Mackenzie tried to shut him up by hitting his shoulder. “It’s a park Lane,” she said. “Why do people go to parks?”
“Dude we’re tired of having make-out sessions in the backseat,” Dominic said, and Mackenzie hit him even harder this time.
Arianna got out of the car and Lane followed. He put his arm around her, and they walked up the pathway that led to the fence.
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