Rachel steps out of the little sedan, the gravel lot crunching under her shoes. She hears the front door to the hostel open. Rachel looks up to see Touch walking out from the front lobby. Arch trots up to her and starts running in circles, elated. She smiles.
“How’d it go?” Touchstone asks. It was more of a statement. An icy hand grips her heart.
She looks around at everyone; Sarah, Stephan, Sal, and Curt were all looking to her like giddy children who couldn’t wait to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. They had fun. They were waiting for her to go first. Rachel feels bile rise up from her churning stomach.
“It wasn’t subtle. But it’s done.” She says, keeping her face flat and her voice even.
Just like me. The thought hits Touchstone quick as lightning.
Rachel notes how Touch’s eyes widen just a hair. He takes a breath to speak, but he’s immediately cut off as the rest of the team erupts in cheering and hollering. Their gleeful chatter stops dead when Rachel strides past Touchstone and Arch, throws open the door, and lets herself be swallowed up by the threshold. The room spins and her chest hurts as the front lobby passes by in a blur.
“Wait here.” Touchstone says, then he follows after his friend. Two people emerge from the back of the main room and scurry down the hall. Touchstone finds Rachel in the middle of the main room, looking around and pacing like a trapped animal with nowhere to go. A low moan escapes her throat as she runs her fingers through her black mane, chest heaving.
Rachel turns to run out of the room, only to see Touch in the doorway. His big sad eyes centered on her.
“What have we done?” she croaks as her vision drowns in hot tears streaming down her face. She shuts her eyes and squeezes out the tears so she can see again, but they just keep coming.
Something warm and firm knocks into her. Touch’s familiar scent mixed with eucalyptus deodorant fills her nostrils as his arms wrap around her. She melts into his warm embrace, digging her face into his shoulder.
This is what you were hiding? This is why you won’t let anyone touch you? I was right, only your skin color is mutated.
Rachel notes how his arms feel hard enough to block a sword. Especially closed in this vice grip. She slips her arms down by her sides and reaches up her friend’s broad back, hands reaching up to his shoulder blades.
Touch readjusts his grip, one arm thrown over her shoulder, the other reaching up to meet in the middle, and he continues squeezing her into his chest.
Touch feels the small woman’s breathing slow and steady itself. He feels his friend relax into him, the bony ridge of her nose pressing into his shoulder. She’s taking deep breaths now. Touch takes in the long forgotten warmth of another person. His mind fills with flashbacks of his manipulative ex from high school. Even those memories seem happy compared to recent years. He brings himself back to his friend.
Nothings changed, boy. Still can’t stand to see a woman cry.
He clears his mind of all his past failures. His friend needs him now.
Why bother? She’s just going to abandon you when she’s done using you. Just like everybody else.
He takes a deep breath. Rachel loosens her grip. The two drop their embrace and step back. Rachel’s eyes stay glued to the floor. Touchstone waits until she lifts her head and stares at him with itchy red eyes before asking,
“What happened?”
“All those people got hurt because of me. Because of my plan. They were just innocent people caught in the crossfire, I never imagined-... A-a woman was getting crushed under a man twice her size, just for looking like me! Who knows how many others got hurt? Who knows the damage we did? I didn’t think we would start a riot!”
Touch collects his thoughts.
“You’re right. People got hurt. There’s no getting around that. And it shouldn’t feel good. It’s not something I would do unless it was absolutely necessary. So tell me, was it?”
She thinks it over, playing everything over and over again in her head…
“Tell me what happened. From the beginning…”
The day’s events came spilling out of her like a crack in a dam turning into a raging torrent. With every word came an elation, a weight off her chest, a clarity that made the nightmare seem more and more like a memory.
They had moved to one of the corner tables, away from the hallway and the doors. Touch listened in silence, his face softening and nodding in understanding as he sat, leaning over the table, his big brown eyes firmly fixed on her.
Finally, she finished.
“It sounds to me like you handled it the best you could.” Touch says, “You handled it better than most would have. Your improvising probably saved the mission. The distraction was necessary to both cause chaos and evacuate innocents if things went from bad to worse. And trust me, things could have gone a lot worse.”
“How do you do it?” She asks, pleads, demands, “How do you get comfortable dragging people into your shit like this?”
“I don’t.” He says, “I avoid it if I can. But we had to get it done. The townspeople know that this is the danger of having militia and criminals clash. Despite what we did, they still tackled the militia to the ground, not you. Maybe what we did wasn’t right, but we were desperate, and we did what we had to do. Those people were understanding of that. The only thing we can do now-”
“Is learn from our mistakes and move on.” Rachel sighs and leans back, sitting up straighter.
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“And set things right when we get the chance.”
She pauses.
“I have to know the damage we did.”
“Of course.”
Touchstone pulls out his tablet.
“Let’s see…”
Together, Rachel on her phone and Touch on his tablet, they research the fallout of their heist. Touch sends a message telling the team outside:
Get things ready, but hold off for at least another hour.
After over an hour, Rachel concedes that this was a mistake. Touchstone knew it was, but he also knew that this was something everyone needed to work through themselves. Many obsessed over collateral damage their first few major jobs; or worse, they block it out completely, growing apathetic and numb to other’s suffering. Or they put the blame on anyone but themselves.
Everyone needs to get this out of their system and reach a satisfying coping mechanism or else it would eat them up inside.
The forums and other free net traffic were a bog of misinformation, conflicting anecdotes, and baseless rumor. Any useful or reliable information was lost in a sea of speculative fiction.
“It’s best to wait for the council’s official report.” Touch mentions.
“I thought of that,” Rachel says, “but they say it won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
So they ask around the hostel, going to people like Larrisa who have contacts in Sancam.
“My guy says shit went down in town while he was on patrol. Plenty of people have been detained, but word is none of them are viable suspects. Several vans and cars were seized and searched and released.” Larrisa says.
They question several other people who say essentially the same thing. There was no word on any injuries more serious than cuts, bruises, and a few fist fights between militia and civilians. But then again, interviewing a handful of people will hardly reveal the whole story.
Four hours after the midday heist, Rachel was about to give up when she has a brilliant idea. She scours Sancam’s public websites and finds an article written by a Sancam Gazette reporter, of one of the few news outlets that followed the township’s money-less, worker controlled system. Corporations made a special effort to control public media throughout these backwater towns. It was rare to find one that hadn’t been bought out. Truth is, this one still be, in secret, but it was their best bet.
Touch is again amazed at her resiliency; most people, himself included, took days to get their head on straight after their first major job. It looks like it will only take her a few hours. And he would never think of trusting a news outlet unless he verified and cultivated a contact on the inside personally. But Rachel was right, these guys would do for now.
There, they learn of the reporters’ preliminary investigation. He and his co-op gathered information, both from their contacts and private snooping, to find there were no fatalities, no one was critically injured. There were plenty of cuts and bruises, a few stands knocked over, and a few fights between militia and civilians.
Sancam had gone into a full lock down and traffic from both people and cars had been heavily disrupted. The article confirmed what little they gathered from their fellow fugitives, backed up by statements from hospital workers, militia, and people close to the council.
After reading the article, Rachel is satisfied for now. She takes a moment to collect herself before Touch invites the team back in.
“I’m sorry. I lost it a little, thinking about the damage we might have caused.” Rachel says.
“This’s nothing. I threw up my first job and didn’t leave my house for a week.” Sal states proudly.
“Yeah no,” Stephan says, pushing up his glasses, “I swear I started losing hair, having to come into work everyday and steal parts. There were cameras everywhere, every part was serialized and tracked. Every day I thought, ‘this is the day they catch on’ but they never did, and after a few weeks I relaxed.”
“Y’all stressin’ me out just talkin’ about this.” Curt cuts in, “I just did part time for the guys back in Tanson. Small jobs like lookout and stash man. I came here after those gangs started getting too ambitious, and the local corporate warlords started dismantling their operation in waves. I think getaway driver is the most stressful job I’ve pulled.
When it rolls around to Touch, he is staring down at his tablet.
“Let’s go outside.” he rises and heads out the door. Everyone looks at each other, then follows. They all see Touch staring down the entrance to the courtyard.
“Well, Golem?” Sal speaks up after a time.
“Wait for it.” He replies casually.
“You just don’t want to share your story.” Sal accuses. Rachel can see a tight-lipped smirk form at the corner of the stone man’s face.
“Just wait.” He says.
They stand there waiting for another ten minutes, according to her phone. But it feels more like twenty. Anticipation keeps Rachel’s feet glued to the brick patio. Everyone waits in silence. Any moment felt like the moment something was going to happen.
Then she hears the sound of an engine coming down from the direction of the main road. She looks around and sees everyone visibly relax and tense at the same time. The waiting was almost over, but the surprise has yet to be unveiled.
“That took longer than I hoped.” Touch sighs.
A blue and gray van with a large flower logo on the side rolls into the courtyard after being stopped and searched by the plain-clothed guards. Rachel recognizes one of Jonah’s drivers from when they broke up the trafficker’s operation. As he walks around to open the sliding side door, Touch, who was on his tablet again, whispers something to Stephan, causing him to come up behind Rachel, place a hand on her back, and gently walk her to the side of the van. She hesitates for a split second, then allows herself to be corralled to the vehicle.
Jonah’s driver looks at the two as they approach, then he looks to Touch, holding his tablet in the fashion of a medieval scribe, who nods. He pulls the van open, and out pops a fiery orange chick, as large as a regular hen. Rachel gasps as she recognizes her favorite div from Tara’s sanctuary.
“Dill!”
The chick chirps and hops up to her, flapping his wings. Rachel goes to one knee and takes the warm fuzzy thingamabob into her arms. Closing her eyes and holding the giant chick close, letting the div melt into her chest.
Rachel turns to see Touch holding up his tablet with the screen facing her and Dill. She sees Tara and James smiling from within the tablet. They both have the same big, dumb grins on their faces that Rachel has.
James chuckles through the screen.
“He really missed you, as soon as you stopped showing up on your usual days.” He says.
“It looks like he wasn’t the only one. Y’all looks so happy together.” Tara beams.
“What is this? You’ve been plotting with Touch behind my back?” Rachel says, mouth pulled back in a wide smile, showing off her teeth and scrunching up her wide eyes.
“Yes.” Touch says immediately.
“What, no! There was no plotting, we just wanted to give you a nice surprise. Touchstone said y’all could afford to take care of him.”
Rachel hugs Dill closer, the top of his head snuggled right under her nose as she peers over at her three friends.
“Thank you.” She says softly, nearly a whisper.