Pox Americana 3

by Zack Archer

  I trekked down one of the unlevel and spongy-feeling walkways, then threaded down the long metal staircase that led to the ground. I looked up into the hazy sky and sighed, depressed at leaving the apartment because it forced me to stare reality right in its ugly, fucking face.

  The truth is, I’d lived most of my life within ten blocks of the place and had ventured outside the city only sparingly. My old man took off on us when I was seven, and only twice was I permitted to visit him in Philadelphia before he died in an industrial accident. Could I have felt sorry for myself? Yeah, sure I could have, but in my experience that doesn’t do you any good. The only thing that pissed me off was that I hadn’t yet lived up to my potential, but I was working on that. I mean, it might’ve been delusional, but what other reason did I have to wake up in the morning, other than if I believed the next day would be better than the one before it?

  At the bottom of the staircase, I thumbed in my earbuds, which were absolutely vital if I had any hope of reaching work on time. Ever since I was a kid I had issues, not only with the whole being able to conduct electricity thing but also not being able to block out extraneous sounds. Going back to the time I was six years old, I remember hearing a kind of intermittent white noise, mostly when I was outdoors, a humming that kept me up at night and disoriented me during the day.

  My mom (God bless her heart) did two things to alleviate my issues: she made me wear mittens when I turned eleven (even during the summer) and slapped a set of bulky, thrift store-quality headphones over my ears.

  I was forced to wear the mittens and the broke-ass headphones during the day, even when

  I went to school.

  Guess how that was received by the other kids?

  The only thing that saved me from being constantly pummeled by bullies, was the day I

  accidentally ignited a collection of oily rags at the back of the gym which was the preferred location for beat-downs. Little wisps of blue flame shot from my fingers, sending the rags up in flames, and my tormentors scurrying for cover.

  As I grew older, the noise became something I just learned to live with, although earbuds were really the only thing that allowed me to function most of the time.

  Earbuds securely in place, I flipped on a pair of older model neural glasses, specs developed a few decades before that contained an internal heads-up display, a HUD. Solar panels, especially the PV cells made with gallium arsenide, had grown incredibly tiny, just one micrometer thick, so everything was coated with them, including glasses, which was cool because you could power up your stuff just by walking outside.

  I waited for a stream of driverless cars to streak past, and then I walked through an alley and down the city streets where I was able, either by blinking or the use of a mini-trackball, to control the information on the HUD.

  I blinked repeatedly, scrolling through the day’s news, hitting up all of my tagged sites. I scanned several sports stories, some celebrity gossip bullshit, a few porn sites, and lastly some trending news on yet another industrial accident. This one had happened only a few hours earlier in Wilmington, Delaware, a titanic blast that nearly leveled another tech company.

  I was unnerved, not only because the other company was in the same business as Pythia, but because it was one more in a series of comparable explosions in labs and refineries from Raleigh, North Carolina, all the way up to Hartford, Connecticut. I scrolled through a comments section where readers were convinced that a shadowy group of industrial terrorists was at work.

  Powering down the glasses, I double-timed it, sliding down streets which were deserted because hardly anyone worked anymore and most of those who did flew “hoversurfs,” which were just glorified motorcycles with wings.

  Reaching the Pythia plant five minutes before my shift began, I badged my way past security into the massive building made entirely of red bricks.

  The building buzzed with air handlers and other machines that blocked out most of the noise I normally heard, so I was able to remove my earbuds. Moving briskly, I headed toward my locker, threw it open, and grabbed the tools of my trade: a can of “perp spray” (pepper spray), a little yellow penlight, a security protocol card, and my “psych totem.”

  It’s a little-known fact that everybody in the security biz carries with them some item that’s either been blessed or is just plain lucky. It’s the kind of trinket you keep close to your body to ensure you’ll see the end of your shift. It just so happened that my totem was a tiny stuffed rabbit with oversized teeth whose go-by was “Mister Chops.”

  I pocketed Mister Chops and the rest of my crap, and strolled down a hall toward Leon Banks, the linebacker-sized African-American guard I was relieving.

  Leon stood watch before a metal gate with a retina scanner that protected the building’s inner keep, the R&D lab and various secure locations where unnamed items were labored on by men and women in smocks and goggles.

  Leon arched an eyebrow in my direction. “What it is, small fry?”

  “What it will be,” I replied.

  We slapped palms, and Leon squinted in the direction of the back of my head. He waved a hand over the tiny hairs on the back of my neck which were still ridged because of the electricity. “Shit, those roomies of yours made you do it again, didn’t they, Quincy?”

  I nodded. “They made me play fire starter.”

  “Was it Harker’s lady-friend? That fine ass one with the long pins and the big jugs?”

  I smiled and nodded. “How come she’s the only one you ever remember?” I asked.

  “Cause she’s memorable for two very specific reasons.”

  “What is it with guys and boobs anyway?” I asked.

  “It’s evolutionary, ace,” Leon answered.

  “It doesn’t bother you that they’re fake?”

  Leon grinned. “Easter Bunny ain’t real, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still love getting my hands on his eggs.”

  Shrugging on his backpack, Leon winked and then turned to leave, when I called after him. “There was another one today.”

  He turned and peered back. “Another explosion. This time up in Wilmington,” I added.

  Leon took this in, nodding. “And?”

  “And…does it ever make you nervous that somebody’s targeting places like this?”

  He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing I can do about it. What’s meant to be, will be. Nothing ever happens around here, and besides, you got Mister Chops keeping watch.”

  I pulled my rabbit out and held it up, waving its tiny hand.

  Leon smiled.

  And then the building blew up.