I'd arrived at a coffee shop in Redwood City that Bushra directed me to via text. It was close to 6pm by the time I arrived, alone. The sun had set behind the hills on my drive over, but it was still fairly light out. I'd dropped off Iter at home, and changed quickly into some charcoal slacks and a simple-yet-dressy long sleeve blouse with a Japanese textile inspired asymmetrical print, with some simple black flats. It could seem weird to Jon if Iter tagged along, and Bushra seemed pretty shaken up over the phone. It might be easier all around if I came solo.
The café was a SF chain called Joez that was regularly frequented by tech workers. Odd fact, I'd had my first interview with Complyze at a Joez in the South of Market (or SOMA) area of SF where Complyze was headquartered. The familiarity of the treated cement floors and yellow painted walls, the pungent smell of coffee grounds, and a busy line of baristas behind a tall counter brought back a wave of youthfully exuberant memories. When I was just starting out after college, I often had 1:1s with my manager and senior product managers at Joez to get their feedback and advice. The memories were so contrasting to my current state, I felt a touch of vertigo as if I'd stepped between worlds. It was more jarring than when I actually went back and forth to the Divine Realm.
I swiftly found Bushra sitting at a back table and quickly went over without ordering. She was back in her jeans and puffy parka that I'd first seen her in… yesterday? It seemed like longer. She had a grande cup of something in front of her, but her eyes were fixed on me from the moment I came through the door, wide and tinged with redness.
"Jon wants to meet later tonight. He said he'd text me once his family had left the house. I didn't want to go there alone." It all came bursting out of her in a hushed tumble the moment I sat down.
"I don't blame you. It sounds questionable." I paused as I examined her more closely. After speaking her eyes fell to the table, as if exhausted by the effort of tracking me. She was hunched over, hands in her lap beneath the table. But her overall body language was coiled like a spring. "Does Jon know I'm coming?"
"I told him," she answered, looking up. "He seemed surprised, but he agreed." She bit her lip in worry.
"We should still be careful. I'm not exactly an unbiased witness if it comes to that. Maybe that's why Jon agreed." Dealing with two problems at once, possibly.
"I'm not sure. He almost sounded relieved?" Bushra's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "He said he wanted to make up for what happened. That he'd made a terrible mistake and wanted to put things right. At first, I told him to go to Hell. But he didn't deny anything. He sounded so… " That last part Bushra added quietly – I almost didn't hear it over the din of the café.
"Do you believe him?" I had my thoughts on the matter, none of them kind. But if Bushra believed him, that might change how this played out.
"I don't know what to believe. I'm still so angry I can barely stand it" I saw the muscles in her jaw bunch up and her eyes hardened. Then they visibly softened. "But if Jon can fix any of this, I don't know… I can't go back, I don't want to. But maybe there's a way to salvage something?"
I didn't want to guess at what she wanted to salvage. But this was her life, I couldn't live it for her. I didn't have that right. Not now, not then. Nothing good comes from stepping into other people's problems.
Bushra seemed to notice my silence. "Maybe this can work for you, too? If Jon wants to put things right, seems like your situation is pretty similar." Her tone wasn't quite pleading, but Bushra's face was clearly seeking my agreement.
"It's possible," I allowed. "If he can somehow clear you of the smear campaign, that could throw doubt on their other accusations." I wasn't wholly convinced.
Frankly, I still hadn't figured out how Bushra's and my situations were related. Superficially, we were both framed and let go, but beyond that? The motives weren't the same. I hadn't created anything they wanted, and I couldn't think of any way I was a threat to anyone. Jon could have those answers. And I'd brought a picture of the invoice with Jon's name on it in case I needed some leverage.
"Yeah. And maybe… " Bushra began with a relieved smile, then stopped abruptly as her phone buzzed. She looked down at it, then back up at me. "It's Jon. He says we can come over now." She looked at me, desperation and hope in equal measure.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was rapidly darkening by the time we arrived. Jon's house seemed a modest home for a company executive in Silicon Valley at first glance, at least compared to the McMansions further inland to the south and east of the bay. Until you stopped to think about the exclusive schools, secure neighborhoods, and short commutes that catapulted home prices to orbital heights.
Decorative ivy and jasmine flowed over thick stucco walls to frame and display the well-manicured sculpture gardens and decorative Japanese maple, St Catherine's lace, and Italian Cypress within. In-ground lights lit the plants uncannily from underneath. Some homes had automated metal gates across wide stone paved driveways to protect the egos of their inhabitants – Jon's home settled for a covered, curved driveway with a central stone fountain in a less defensive, if still pretentious display.
Bushra drove us in her car. Mine stayed behind at a fortunate meter, Sundays having free parking downtown. I had to admit that her sporty red electric coupe fit in far better in this area than my aging Mazda. She parked in the curved driveway, and as I opened the passenger side door I was immediately engulfed in the cool scents of grass, leaves, and burbling water, winter and drought be damned. Though the redolent scents of flowers still had a few months to go, even in the south bay, the landscaping was obviously very well kept, and the grass remained green despite the season.
I paused for Bushra to come around the car, before we both stepped up to the large front patio illuminated by a porchlight. I noticed Jon had a video doorbell inset next to the wide, white front door flanked by frosted windows with stained glass beveled accents. How typically tech exec to apply every automated gadget possible. I smiled into the camera with a confidence I didn't feel, glanced at Bushra for confirmation, and pressed the button.
As we waited I checked my map to confirm how many people were inside. I spotted one blue dot toward the rear of the house, which I assumed was Jon. I also saw three or four different question mark indicators in close proximity, and momentarily caught my breath. If that was evidence like I'd found at the IHS offices, this was well worth the trip. Jon's dot wasn't moving toward the front door, though.
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After a tense moment, Bushra looked at me with a frown, and went up to the door to knock. "Jon? We're here," she began, when the door eerily swung inward from the light force of her tapping knuckles. It was open.
Unsettled, we looked at each other. I noticed the blue dot started moving now, but it was heading toward the rear of the house and outside to the backyard. At the same time, we both heard a sound like rattled glass and a door banging from within.
"What was that?" I asked, but Bushra was already pushing her way inside, following the sound. "Jon?" she called out, and I followed behind her cautiously. Tasteful fresh flower arrangements were set on small side tables around the open foyer, but all was still. We moved slowly towards the source of the noise, past a formal dining room on our right, a larger great room on the left, and down a hall that passed to the right of an wide set of stairs leading up to the second floor. My map showed no one else within, the blue dot having quickly left our vicinity, distressingly carrying one of the quest markers with it. Three more remained.
"Jon, are you there? It's Bushra," my companion continued to call out as we inched our way to a half open interior doorway in the rear of the house. A door to what I assumed was a closet or bathroom was set off to our left just past the stairs, and an open arch on the right led to a well-appointed kitchen. We passed them both by, barely glancing within. I saw Bushra pull something from her purse and grip it tightly in her hand. It looked like a stun gun. She took a swift, deep intake of breath, and moved forward.
Peering through the partially open doorway into the room ahead, I could see a pair of French doors. Through them I could see the yard beyond, also illuminated by the same in-ground light fixtures as out front. One of the pair of glass paned doors slowly swung back to rest against its mate with an audible 'click'.
I starting hearing another sound at this point, a kind of hissing, rain-like white noise. A sprinkler? We were getting closer to the remaining markers I saw, but there was no one left inside the room. I was starting to doubt that really was Jon. Why had he left in such a hurry, and why out the back? Alarms were ringing in my head. Was this a trap? Should we leave? I thought about the video camera in the door bell out front. But I kept following Bushra forward, drawn by the allure of those quest markers on my map.
"Jon?" With one last query, Bushra looked back at me. Her brows were bunched up together and her eyes were wide in puzzlement and worry. Then they firmed with determination. I noticed a slight tremor in her left hand as she pushed the interior door open the rest of the way. She moved inside, stun gun at the ready.
The well lit room appeared to be a bedroom suite that had been converted into an office. A large wooden desk took up one end, with bookcases of matching dark woods behind it. In addition to various books on business, technology, and history, I saw numerous framed portraits of Jon and his family; his wife, and three girls at various times and ages. On top of the desk was a large pair of monitors, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, and an open laptop plugged into a docking station on a brushed metal stand. The screens were all lit, reflecting a lock screen with a login prompt in the pained glass of the bookcases. A smattering of papers, pen holders, and sticky notes, as well as a couple more frames were spread out on the surface. Behind the desk was a high-end Herman Miller Aeron chair. One of the quest markers rested on a thin legal notepad to the side of the keyboard.
The other end of the room had a long leather couch that matched the dark wood of the desk and shelves. A rumpled blanket and bed pillow lay there, clearly recently used. A pair of long ivory curtains were open to either side of the French doors – underneath the one on the left was where another of the three markers was located. There was a strong smell of cut grass coming in from the outside, as well as another, fetid smell underneath.
The last marker was past another interior door to the left of and behind the desk. It was also open and illuminated by a light from the ceiling inside. Somewhere within was the source of the sound we were hearing – a shower, I realized. I caught a glimpse of a sink and mirror just inside what was now clearly a connected bathroom.
Bushra started that way with a barely audible, "Jon?" I took the opportunity to check the marker on my map below the curtain. It wasn't easy to notice against the espresso brown wooden baseboard that ran the length of the wall. If I hadn't had the marker to point it out, I might have missed it entirely. It was a single leather glove, laying on the floor just to the side of the French doors. It looked like it was wet with something, and as I wondered whether and how to pick it up, I heard a sharp gasp from the bathroom and something hit the floor with a thud.
I ran over and saw Bushra clutching onto the sink with her left hand for support. The stun gun was on the floor next to her, her right hand covering her mouth as she stared fixedly toward the shower. The foul smell was stronger in here, assaulting my nose with a hint of iron.
Jon sat slumped against the shower wall, head resting against his chest. He was completely naked and pale, and I noticed abstractly a small stack of folded men's clothes on top of the toilet nearby. Jon's legs were tucked up under him, but his arms were stretched out on either side, with horrible red puckered gashes down the inside of each forearm. A trickle of red streamed from both wounds as it mingled with the water, slid down his wrists and swirled in reddish streams down the drain in the floor. Most of his voided bowls had washed away, but some lingering feculence remained. There was an open box cutter resting loosely inside his left hand.
Within my map, I noticed the final quest marker on top of Jon disappear with a blip.
✦ ✦ ✦
After what seemed like a frozen moment in time, Bushra reached out slowly and turned off the shower. I knelt down to check for Jon's pulse. My slacks soaked up the incidental spray from the shower around my knees as I felt around on Jon's wet, warm neck. Nothing, no pulse. His body temperature was still warm, but the heated water from the shower had been falling right on him. That the flow of blood from his arms had slowed to a oozing trickle made Jon's state undeniably clear.
I stood up and shook the water from my hands, and looked over at Bushra in the now silent room. I shook my head slowly. She stared at me unblinking, eyes unfocused.
"You mean he's… " her voice trailed off in a whisper.
"We should call the police." I looked over to the shower faucet, feeling numb all over. "Try not to touch anything else." I moved out of the bathroom and back toward the office area.
I heard Bushra pick her stun gun off the bathroom floor and follow me into the office. I went immediately to the pad of paper on the desk with the quest marker I noticed previously. I pulled out my phone and took a quick picture of the handwritten note on top of the notepad, blocking Bushra's distracted view with my body. 'I'm sorry, first and foremost,' the note began, before I turned away and completed the call to 911.
After relaying the necessary information to the dispatcher, I turned and saw Bushra sitting on the couch. She was staring down at nothing, and as I moved closer I saw her shivering all over.
"Why do you do this to me," she breathed. I sat down next to her and hugged her, trying to at least impart some warmth to her shaking frame. "Both of you, making me see that again." I couldn't understand what she was talking about, but I held her closer through the shakes, my own body starting to quiver now. Tears welled up in her eyes on her suddenly very young and small-looking face. I tilted her head gently onto my shoulder as we sat in silence, waiting.
Unbidden, a series of notifications appeared in the lower half of my vision:
Quest Complete.
Reclaim Stolen Honor!
Level Up!
You are now Level 3.
Level Up!
Your companion has gained a new level!
New Quest.
A Fractured Pride.
Accept? Y/N
✦ End of Act 1✦