Ashton Etrigan
Age: 28
Current Mass: 81 kg
Mental Status: Alert
Physical Status: Tense
The silence in the air just as the clerk hit the alarm button was just like the quiet instant before the explosion at the Lodestar convention. For a brief moment there was complete silence. Then the click echoed through all our ears at the same time, like an explosion of sound that only the three of us could hear. It was a quiet, tiny sound, yet it overpowered everything else in the little store. I saw the clerk's eyes widen in shock at the realization, and I felt the grip of the robber's hand loosen around my neck at the same time. Then he hit me. The robber’s knife hand buried itself in my sternum, thankfully making a fist around the knife handle to punch with, rather than stabbing the blade into my chest. My sight blurred from the impact, and air rushed out of my mouth in a long groan. He was stronger than I had expected. Not as hindered by his cold as I had hoped.
Staggered, I fell to the floor. The robber coughed, then started walking towards the counter and the kid behind it. “You done goofed, asswipe,” he taunted him, a hint of glee in his voice, as if this was what he wanted all along. I lost track of him for a second, for while the pain in my chest wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, the images in my head were more than making up for it. Flashes of fire and blood danced in the edges of my vision, and the echoes of the coughs I heard from the front, transformed into agonizing screams of people being crushed to death by falling debris. I blinked my eyes repeatedly in an attempt to shake off the panic attack I believed I was having. I managed to get a few deep breaths after a second or two, but embers still burned around the edges of my eyes.
A crash from the front of the store shook me back into focus, like a bucket of ice water on a hot day. I heard shuffling feet, hard breathing and thuds of something solid hitting a hard surface. I crawled to my feet, still clutching my plastic bag and receipt, and saw the source of the ruckus. The robber had grabbed the clerk by his shirt and pulled him on top of the counter, where the clerk desperately tried to defend himself from the knife in the robber's hand. The robber’s other hand was going back and forth between punching the clerk and holding him down.
I got up on my feet and took a deep breath. The air tasted stale, and my throat rasped as I sucked in as much of it as I could. A burning sensation appeared in my chest, right beneath where the robber punched me. It hurt a little, but I was too focused on what was going on in the front to care. Up at the counter the robber had fully pulled the clerk over the counter, and was holding on to his shirt while also trying to wrestle him to the floor. The clerk was doing a decent job fighting back, but it was clear he had no chance in the long run.
I dropped my bag of groceries on the floor, and tried to calm my nerves. A dull throbbing filled my ears, so I didn’t hear the clang of the wine bottle hitting the floor. “Fuck!” The robber's voice was muffled, as if he was yelling at me through a wall of sand. I saw the desperation in the clerk's eyes when he noticed me. I also noticed the look of apprehension on the robber's face as he watched me. I took a cautious step forward, and he raised his knife towards me.
“Don’t even think about it,” he snarled. “What did I say about playing hero, huh?” Beads of sweat ran down his face and dripped to the floor. He stopped trying to wrestle the clerk to the ground. Instead he grabbed the kid by the shoulder and spun him around, turning him into a human shield. He lifted the knife up to the kids face, and pressed the edge into the acne scarred skin on his cheek. “One more step, and this kid loses all future chances of getting a date,” he threatened. A trickle of blood ran from where the edge of the blade bit into the clerk's face, and he winced and cried. I froze where I was.
I was no longer in the small convenience store with its buzzing LED lights and sticky floor. Around me were the dancing flames and smoky air of the convention floor, right after I’d woken up. In front of me I could see Deimos, bleeding from two bullet wounds, and the metal briefcase with the logo of Solomon Industries. The throbbing in my ears increased its frequency until it became a constant buzzing of sound, permeating the inside of my head. The fear and rage from that time boiled and mixed inside me, and a pressure began rising behind my eyes. I raised my hands to my head, holding on so it wouldn’t explode. I screamed.
“Woah, what the fuck!?” The words barely registered through the haze of my panic attack. “You psychotic or what? Yeesh, everyone’s so fucking fragile these days.” I understood what was happening in my head, but I had no power to make it stop. The hallucination of the aftermath at the convention was the result of my fractured mental health, triggered by the sight and sounds of the store clerk bleeding.
“Fucking lunatic.” There were sounds of laughter, then a thud and a wet squelching noise. “Ugh- no, p-please stop! It hurts, it hurts!” The clerk was crying loudly. “Yep, but that’s what you get,” the robber said, nonchalant. My mind was burning up from the inside. “Just pressing a little button isn’t gonna give you any power over me, little man. It’s too bad you’re not the one with a weapon,” he continued and laughed. That laugh again, grating against the wall of panic that was my hallucination. In my head, Deimos laughed as well. A hollow laughter with no emotion or force, as his eyes sunk into his skull, and his hair turned ashen gray.
That human garbage dare speak of power, said Deimos’ body, without moving its lips. The voice was strange, almost entirely void of any emotion or inflection. And it was familiar.
Show that worthless insect what Power is. Crush him. The command was like a physical wall, pushing me back out of my own memories. A tiny hint of anger marked its last words, before they faded into nothingness. Like I said. Almost no emotion.
I was back under the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights of the convenience store. Only a couple of seconds had passed since My head felt like it was gonna split down the middle, but my vision was incredibly clear, and my hearing was sharper than I could ever imagine. The burning sensation where the robber punched me earlier had only grown stronger, and steam rose from my skin as heat escaped my body. I heard the scraping of metal against bone, and watched the robber pull his knife out from right over the clerk’s hip. The clerk was begging him to stop, trying anything to make the pain end. I knew that feeling.
The robber tossed his hostage aside, and started walking towards me, a sinister grin stretched across his face. He managed to make it halfway down the aisle before my foot planted itself deep into stomach, nearly lifting him off his feet. I heard the distinct crunch of breaking bones. He crashed into the counter, holding his left rib cage and began coughing violently. The surprise on his face was as clear as my own, as I lowered my foot to the floor, and glanced behind me.
I hadn’t meant to move until he was nearly within grabbing range. I had planned to grab the man by his outstretched knife arm, and try to throw him to the floor, but instead it seemed my legs just took a single step that ended with my right flip-flop buried in the guy’s guts. The distance I covered with that step felt strange, too. It was too far.
“Shit!” The robber spat the word out along with a glob of blood and snot. He staggered to his feet, still holding his side. “You got in, cough, a lucky shot.” He wiped his mouth on his arm, and wheezed as he sucked in a breath. “I’m not gonna let that happen again,” he said, and charged at me, knife point lifted towards my chest. I bent my knees and lifted my hands, took in a quick breath, and prepared for pain.
The robber bent his arm back as he charged, then slashed the knife down right before he would have collided with me. The blade flew towards my face, and I jerked my head back in time, but felt the edge cut down across my chest. I grabbed his arm at the end of its arch, then twisted it as much as I could, to try to make him drop the knife. A clattering of metal against the floor told me I’d succeeded, and I looked down to kick the knife away.
What I found instead was the robber’s other hand clenched in a tight fist, coming up to meet my face in a strong uppercut. The sound of his knuckles hitting my chin reminded me of someone twisting an empty plastic bottle. My head snapped back from the force of the blow and I lost my grip on the robber’s arm, but any pain was muted, probably thanks to the adrenaline that no doubt was coursing through my body.
To my surprise however, the robber screamed. He cradled his left hand in his right, and I saw his mangled fingers sticking out in odd angles. That hand would be useless unless he made it to a hospital fast. I didn’t care.
“Okay, I’m over this now,” I wheezed out in my bent back position. I was done being this guy’s punching dummy, and the world shifted as I felt the power this scumbag had over the situation evaporate. I was the one with the power now, and I saw the robber’s face grow pale as I straightened up and looked down at his hunched over body. He looked so small then, like a dying star next to a blazing sun. There was a trickle of tears coming from his eyes, and snot was running down his lip. Hate poured out of his dull, brown eyes, directed at myself, but it carried no weight to me anymore. I clenched my fist and drilled him in the side, like he’d done with the clerk. His body folded in over my fist, before he was pushed into the shelves.
His flesh felt soft. When my first blow connected, it reminded me of that thing you do as a kid, imitating action heroes from shows and movies with your pillow playing the role of the bad guy. It was the same when I reached down to pull the guy back on his feet. The robber wore a thick jacket, solid looking pants and heavy boots. Around his neck he wore a black scarf tied into a knot under his chin and shoved down under his jacket. I grabbed the scarf around its knot and pulled. Just like my pillow when I was six, I lifted the gasping man off the floor and pulled my arm as far back as it would go.
“P-please,” he sputtered out between a couple of bloody coughs. “Stop, gasp, I’m sorry. I beg you,” he said. “Don’t kill me.” His voice was ragged and weak, but the words reached my ears with perfect clarity. His plea for mercy filled me with disgust.
“Why not?” I asked the robber. “W-what?”
“Why should I stop? Were you not about to do the same to me?” A look of bewilderment formed on his face. “If I hadn’t dodged your knife, what would have happened?” I asked him again. He didn’t respond. “What would have happened!?” I repeated, louder. I shook him, once, as I held him dangling over the floor. “I’d be out of here,” he coughed. “And you’d probably be dead.” Blood from his mouth hit my cheek. “I see.”
The punch hit him in the middle of his face.
Like the pillow from childhood, I’d let go of my hold and sent my fist flying at the same time. I’d been aiming for his chest, but forgotten to account for gravity. I slammed my fist through teeth and nasal cartilage alike, and he whipped backwards, his body doing a half backflip. He landed face down on the floor and skidded to a stop, two meters from where I stood. He didn’t get back up.
A complete calm came over me then. I took a breath and unclenched my fists, feeling the cold air rush into my mouth and down my throat. The burning sensation in my chest abated, replaced by mild exhaustion and stiff limbs. Something mangled fell out of my hand and hit the floor. It was the receipt card I’d held onto. It had somehow warped in my grip, the edges curled and bent, and the text on it had bled out, making it unreadable. I bent down to pick it up, but stopped halfway. There’s no time for this. There are more important things to make sure of. I looked at the still face down body of the robber.
My first instinct was to make sure he would never get back up again, but I halted. The soft wheezing of the clerk’s breathing stopped me, and I passed by the robber’s body to run over and check on the barely alive kid.
“He-help… me,” he whispered weakly. I bent down and put my ear to his chest. Thu-thump… thu-thump. A pulse. It was slow, but it was there. However…
Nope, no time for dark thoughts right now!
“It’s gonna be okay,” I told the clerk, and grabbed one of his hands. “Just, here, hold this here, as hard as you can.” I put his hands over his wound and pressed. He winced, but I just kept pushing his hand down until he stopped squirming. “Good, keep it there.” A sound from outside caught my attention and I looked out through the nearest window.
Nothing down the street.
Then I heard the pulsing of grav-mag engines. The city guard was coming.
Has it already been a minute, I thought and looked at my band. It showed nothing, and I had no clue how to make it display time quickly. I turned back to the kid on the floor. “Hold on, the guard’s gonna be here any second, just stay put, and keep pressure on that wound.”
I didn’t know why, but I had to leave, and quickly. I knew I should stay, help the kid and tell the guard what had happened, but my instincts stopped me. Instead I stood and went to where I’d left my groceries to pick them up. They had apparently rolled or fallen out of the bag when the shelf had collapsed earlier, when the robber had crashed into it. I gathered my stuff, grabbed a new bag from a nearby hanger and stuffed it in. More of my instincts said that time was running out, unless I wanted a whole lot of attention in the coming weeks, so I bolted for the back door and yanked it open. A storage room lit up as the sensor recognized movement, revealing shelves and boxes full of frozen items and non-perishables. And also another door. I jumped over boxes and past shelves and pushed down the handle. It was unlocked! The door flew open, and I found myself around the back of the store, in an unlit alleyway between two buildings. Snow was coming down in waves, and the ground was slippery beneath my flip flops. A chill ran through me as I stepped out into the cold night air. For the first time that night I wished I’d brought better shoes and a scarf, but at least I had the sweater I’d taken with me. I untied it from my waist and pulled it over my head.
Thanks for looking out for me, yet again, Em.
Clothed and protected from the snow, I slinked down the alleyway, away from the street. The blinking light from the city guards vehicles gradually grew brighter as they made their approach to the crime scene, and the little alley sporadically lit up in yellow and violet flashes. “This is the City Guard. Please exit the establishment one by one, with your arms over your head.” Their standard greeting rang out as two vehicles stopped outside the storefront and lowered to the ground. Snow was pushed away from the pressure of the grav-mag pulses, followed by the sound of boots hitting asphalt. That’s my cue!
I hunkered down and tried to run as quietly as I could down the alley, away from the lights and the people. The snow in the alley lay thick, and a bunch got into my flip flops as I moved. I had to clamp my teeth down not to yelp in surprise, as freezing cold shot from my feet and into my stomach. It was like a block of ice had appeared inside me, making my body slow and sluggish. It felt awful. I wanted to shiver, but even that seemed too much for my body as I struggled to pass over a chest high fence at the end of the alley.
Behind me the city guards were exiting the corner store with two collapsible trolleys. I watched through the chain linked fence as they brought out the robber, strapped down and unable to move. It seemed like he’d come to, at least enough to begin coughing again, but not enough to start talking. I hoped. Right after him came another trolley, accompanied by two people dressed in white and red, one of them holding a plastic bag high in the air. There was a tube attached to the bag that ran down to the person on the trolley, and an automatic breathing mask covering the person's face. It was good to see the clerk had made it out alive. I hoped he got some time off and a well deserved raise after all that.
I turned my nose down the parallel street and began making my way back home. It took a little longer, mostly because of the cold and the snow, but also because I kept going into alleys so I wouldn’t get spotted. I felt like I deserved a little paranoia. The streets were mostly empty apart from the occasional car and a few people here and there, but I tried hiding my face beneath my sweater as much as possible anyway. If anyone asked I could just blame it on the cold. Luckily no one stopped me, and twenty minutes of slow walking later I finally locked the door behind me as I stepped into Emily’s living room.
⬨⬨⬨
The residual heat from the oven in the kitchen filled the apartment slowly while I washed my dishes. The ice cube in my stomach had melted as soon as the smell of cooked food entered my nostrils, and by the time I’d finished eating, I even thought about opening the window to let some of that cool air seep inside. I’d stashed the wine and some chocolate for Emily in the fridge for her to find whenever she’d come home the next morning, but other than that I had devoured everything else.
After I’d come home I’d dropped off the groceries in the kitchen before I ran into the shower. The hot water washed away the frosty feeling on my skin, and slowly loosened up my stiff joints. I went to inspect the wound on my chest in the mirror, but I couldn’t find any trace of where the knife edge had slashed me.
Puzzled by this, I checked over the rest of my body, looking for any kind of bruise or cut after my fight with the robber. I avoided looking into my own eyes.
Nothing stood out, not even a bruise on my chin after taking that punch head on, literally. Confused, but relieved, I got out of the bathroom and dressed in warm and comfy clothes, then stepped into the kitchen again.
I spent a full hour preparing my midnight meal, consisting of a tomato soup, a half loaf of toasted bread, fried vegetables, a couple of baked potatoes, and finally, a half kilogram slab of real beef.
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Any other day I’d call it an insane amount of excessive spending, and I would feel guilty for months. However, any regret or guilt I might have had were swallowed among the juicy bites of fats and protein that no synthesized substitute could ever replicate. Afterwards I sat in a daze, simply enjoying the sensation of nearly bursting around the waist, until I eventually got up to clean the kitchen.
Once the dishes were done I thought about taking a shower, but a deep fatigue came over me and nearly knocked me to the floor right there. I dragged my feet over to the couch where a little blanket was bunched up in the corner.
I’d rolled the blanket around me when I’d come home, to fight off the cold, and then tossed it on the couch while I was cooking. It had gotten a red stain from the tomato soup, but I wasn’t bothered.
I laid down on the couch and pulled the blanket up so it covered me from my toes to my chin, and turned on a livecast of the Star Chart. I blinked slowly, and a long yawn escaped my mouth. I looked at my wrist, and the shiny metal band around it.
“Display time?” I tried. A projection shot out, displaying 01:35 in big bright numbers. I jerked my head to the side, trying to shield my eyes from the bright light, but after a second I noticed that the projection wasn’t all that bad. It was bright, but my eyes weren’t bothered in the least, even after having adjusted to the general darkness of night.
“Alright,” I said to the metal band around my wrist. “Is there a way to automatically display the time whenever I want?”
A screen appeared. Would you like to add a simple command for /Display Time/?
“Yes,” I answered the screen groggily. The flat silver color of the projected screen reflected the moving stars and nebulas from the star chart on the big monitor, and the more I watched, the sleepier I became.
Choose type of command: Verbal. Kinetic. Manual. I read the new words on the screen slowly, digesting what they meant.
“Kinetic, I guess?” The screen immediately changed, telling me to input an example of movement to activate the chosen command. I thought for a second, then decided on something simple. I turned the back of my hand towards my face, as if looking at a regular watch, then closed my hand. I had to repeat the motion two more times to properly register the kinetic command, but once that was done it was easy. One look at my wrist, and the current time appeared in big, bright numbers, right in front of my face. Some resizing and replacing, and eventually the time appeared comfortably across one of the segments atop my wrist.
That was all I managed before unconsciousness washed over me, and I was swept into another dreamless sleep.
⬨⬨⬨
“Morning, sleepyhead.” Something wet touched my cheek.
“Mhgf uhgr sthmng gnawf,” I begged the wet thing.
“Absolutely not. In fact, if you’re not up in the next ten seconds, I’m prepared to take drastic measures.” The wet thing touched my cheek again, making sure the threat came across properly.
“Bghu, bghu… Blegh!” I pushed the pillow I was eighty percent sure I hadn’t fallen asleep on out of my mouth, and looked up into Emily’s annoyed face. In her hands was a dripping wet washcloth that was slowly being lowered towards my face, like an old spy movie torture device.
“Okay, okay! No need for the waterboarding, I’m up!”
I tossed the blanket aside and swung my feet onto the floor. I still caught a face full of cold washcloth, as Emily clearly didn’t think I was fast enough despite still having at least two seconds left on her time limit. Momentarily blinded, I wobbled onto my feet and heard the splat of the wet cloth hitting the floor. I used my shirt to dry my eyes, and opened them to see a fiercely angry Emily inches away from my face.
“What on Mäel were you thinking?!”
“Uh… I’m a little lost here,” I said, looking confused at her wide eyed stare. “If it’s about the table, I’m sorry. I got you some wine and-”
“No this isn’t about the darn table,” she cut me off. “Although we will talk about that later.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the kitchen. “What is this?” She grabbed a plastic bag from one of the chairs and held it out to me.
“It’s a bag?”
“Well done, now how about this,” she said and pulled out another piece of plastic, from inside the bag. It was the leftover wrapping plastic from last night's beef.
“Ah, that, well, last night I got super hungry, because I forgot to make dinner, so-” she cut me off again by poking me in the chest.
“You know what I mean,” she said and gestured to the plastic wrapping. “This is real beef! When I gave you that money yesterday I expected you’d be smart about it, not go out and waste it all!” It was clear she was upset. The guilt I’d forgotten about last night came bubbling back up as she berated me, but I fought it down in anticipation of the news I was about to give her.
“-and I don’t even want to know. How are you gonna pay for meals the rest of the week now?” Her voice was hard, but her eyes belied how she actually felt, and the disappointment was almost worse than the fear I’d felt at the store the night before.
“It’s okay,” I said with a careful smile. “We’re not going to have an issue with money for a while.” A small wave of pride rolled over me at those words. I’d always wanted to be able to say something like that. Emily only looked at me with confusion and worry.
“I received a letter from Solomon Industries,” I continued. “There was a settlement, where all the coma patients, like me, were represented in a class action lawsuit.”
I feared saying the next part about the contract I signed, because I knew Emily would have wanted me to consult her first. However, she was gonna find out at some point anyway, and sooner would be preferable to later.
“I signed a contract that prohibits me from profiting off of my story of the accident, in exchange for two-and-a-half million dollars,” I blurted out.
For a moment everything was still. Emily stood unmoving, her mouth slightly agape and her blue eyes wide with shock.
I should maybe have prepared something for this.
“Ahem… As I said, there’s a bottle of wi-”
Emily turned on her heel and walked over to open the fridge, then pulled out the bottle, undid the cap and pressed it to her lips as she tilted her head back. I heard her swallow multiple times before she lowered the bottle again and gasped for air. She reached back in and pulled out the chocolate bar as well. Then she walked past me, into the living room, sat down on the couch and set the wine and chocolate on the table in front of her.
“Explain,” she commanded as she leaned back into the cushion.
I’m dead, I thought, desperately wanting a swig of the wine myself.
⬨⬨⬨
“I’m not mad at you,” Emily sighed as I finished talking. “I’m mad that you didn’t tell me, but what’s done is done.”
Her demeanor had stayed the same during my explanation, even when I revealed the amount of money I’d receive, which impressed me greatly. In hindsight it really shouldn’t have. Emily was never the kind of person to care about fame or wealth, she just wanted what was best for those she cared for.
“Sorry. I should have told you as soon as I opened the email. It was right after you’d gone to sleep, and I had just come home from all that stuff at the hospital, and… I’m sorry.”
I took a sip of my own wine glass that Emily had poured me after having drunk nearly half the bottle. I insisted it was all for her, but she demanded I at least had a glass. Besides, drinking a whole bottle of wine alone wasn’t something either of us ever really did. The chocolate she kept to herself though.
“You’re damn right, you should have told me.“ She took a sip of her wine. “You also shouldn’t have signed that contract that fast. In fact, you shouldn’t even be able to use your armband yet. How’d you manage to charge it overnight?”
“What do you mean, how?” I was puzzled by the genuineness of her wonder. I thought she would know more about the operation of these devices, considering she’d been using one for a much longer time than I had.
“Do you know how these things work at all?” She pointed at her own band.
“Sorta? I know how to use basic functions, like the internet, but that’s it.” I shrugged. Emily chewed her lip, then looked away from me.
“Sorry, that was unnecessary,” she said. “I guess I should have probably taught you how it generally functions, but I didn’t expect it to activate that fast.” She deflated a little, then looked back at me apologetically.
“It usually takes three to four days of continued wear for the bands to fully charge,” she said.
“The bands are powered just like any other bio-tech, converting the thermal energy of our body temperature into electric power inside the bands with a tiny thermoelectric generator. However, it also converts all other types of energy the bands are subjected to, such as kinetic energy through movement, and of course, standard electricity, up to a certain point. Too much heat and voltage will break it, same as hitting it with a hammer would.”
I sat quietly and listened while she spoke. I was honestly very interested in understanding the bands more, considering the incredibly interesting ways it worked.
As far as I knew, no one had developed a similar user interface device, aside from the insanely exclusive Augmented Reality lenses that the super rich wore. The only issue with those were that they restricted the users by not functioning with regular eyeglasses, or sun shading eyewear.
The bands, while not being as private, had no such restriction, and were easier to manufacture, so their prices were at least somewhat reasonable. Still not something I could afford on my own though.
“The conversion of body heat and kinetic energy into the power cells takes some time, which is why the band must stay on for at least three days before anyone is able to use them,” Emily continued.
“Our bodies just don’t bleed off that much heat, and you’d need to run a marathon, or practice boxing for a day straight to charge it with only kinetic energy.” She pointed to the colored bar of light on the edge of the top segment on her own band. It glowed a deep blue color.
“But once that’s done, this little bar fills up and takes on the user’s EyeD, to, uuh...” She trailed off while pointing to her eyes, then leaned back and took another sip of wine, avoiding my gaze as she sheepishly started over.
“Never mind about that, it’s nothing more than a design choice anyway. After that whole deal you just have to do the bioscan to register as the user of that specific band. After that it’s basically like a fully functional computer that you can customize in any way you want.” She put her glass down and broke off a piece of chocolate.
“How do you know all this,” I asked her, doing my best to ignore the thing about the EyeD “design choice”.
“Basic tech training course, for those of us not really suited to new technology. It took me a week just to learn how to send a GIF with this thing.” A soft ding came from my own wrist, and a looping video of an aquily puppy played on a small screen, just as she said the word GIF. It was Emily’s favorite animal, and the video showed one swimming in a pool with a bunch of toys for toddlers, playing with them with its small front paws.
“Heh, cute,” I smiled at the looping video, then paused. “Wait, how’d you do that? I didn’t see you do anything.”
“Voice activated sub-routine,” she answered quickly, as if practiced. “If I say the words "GIF", and "send" in the opposite order of what I just did, my band sends that specific video to the nearest person in my contact list.” She smiled warmly to herself, probably thinking about the aquily. “It’s pretty simple, you just program a trigger for an action, and the band does the rest.”
“You mean like this?” I flicked my wrist, and the band displayed time like I’d programmed it to the night before. It was showing 09:32 in the morning.
Emily leaned on my shoulder to get a look at my band. “Yes, exactly like that… Damn Ash, I’m betting you’ll be teaching me some tricks about this thing within next week.”
“Maybe,” I chuckled, then took a sip of my own wine. It was nice spending some time with Emily like this, despite the way the morning began. On days we both had to work we wouldn't see each other at all. I worked the day shift, which meant I left home while Emily slept, and she would leave before I’d get back home to go get ready for her night shift. She’d just gotten home from the hospital when she found me sleeping on the couch, as well as last night's Big Food evidence. Had it not been for that, she’d probably gone straight to bed.
“Alright, enough of that,” Emily said, stifling a yawn. “We really need to talk about the contract you stupidly signed.” The light conversational tone in her voice was exchanged for a more serious one. “I understand.” I scratched the back of my hand.
“First of all, what exactly did it say? Actually, just send me a copy.” She showed me a quick way to send a copy of the email with the contract, then started reading it. She closed the window after a few short minutes however and let out a sigh that quickly turned into a drawn out yawn.
“At first glance, it doesn’t look that bad, right,” I said hopefully. Emily deadpanned in a rare moment of even her patience running out. I was on thin ice.
“It might not look bad to you or me, but it might be if we’d understand the things that aren’t really written here.” She got up from the couch and stretched. I watched as she picked up her empty glass and the chocolate wrapper.
“I still have some of dads old contacts written down, maybe I can get one of them to take a look at this for us.” She yawned again. “But, I am too tired to do anything right now. I’m going to bed.” She started walking towards her bedroom.
“Do not sign any more shady contracts while I sleep, even ones that are from Orion Solomon.” With that she closed her door, which was immediately followed by a thump of her jumping into bed. A few seconds later I heard loud snoring coming from her room, and chuckled to myself at the duality of my sister. Eternally optimistic and sweet when she wanted, but deadly serious when she needed.
I grabbed a piece of bread from the fridge and some of the leftover butter from last night, and ate a dull breakfast. Then I decided I was still too tired to really do anything, so I went back to my room and crawled into bed. I’d been able to avoid telling Emily about the dramatic events from last night, but they were still fresh in my mind, and the glass of wine I’d just drunk wasn't exactly keeping me awake. As soon as I’d gotten comfortable I was out like a dead crownlight.
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I was sitting in bed and making command shortcuts on my wristband when I suddenly heard sounds coming from the living room. I realized the sounds were from some sort of news broadcast when a familiar vignette played, and a human-like voice presented what must have been general headlines. I couldn’t hear the exact words, the volume wasn’t high enough.
I must have lost track of time, because Emily only used to wake up at around four in the afternoon, and I’d only slept until a little past noon. I stood from my mattress and started pulling on the sweatpants I’d worn the previous night, but then I thought better of it, and tossed them in the hamper. I found a pair of casual dark jeans instead, and put on a loose fitting shirt.
Did this shirt shrink? I distinctly remembered the shirt being large enough to just fall down around my body on its own, but instead I had to pull the hem down myself. It felt a touch tighter than normal, but it smelled clean, so I stuck with it.
Wearing the same flip-flops I’d kicked the robber with, I walked into the living room where Emily sat with a mug of some steamy liquid. I’d been right in that she was watching the news stream I’d thought I’d hear. It was presented by a local studio, with an AI program that researched stories and read headlines. The anchor was a middle aged woman in a beige suit, with brown, curly hair, glossy nails and minimal make-up, and a pair of oversized, cat eye-like glasses. She was presenting what sounded like a pretty dramatic story from over in Elethia, a country on the other side of the Western Sea.
“Sacred black?” I asked out loud as I stepped into the kitchen.
“In the pot,” came from the living room. “cream mix is on the counter, and your mug is in the sink.”
I grabbed my mug and opened the box with cream mix. I scooped a large spoonful of the light brown powder into my mug, and mixed it with water from the tap. It took ten seconds for the mix to react, and a nice thick cream swirled slowly around in the bottom of my mug. I poured the black coffee from the mug over the cream and blew the steam away as I walked into the living room and sat down next to Emily on the couch.
“... and shows no sign of ending, despite having raged for seven days now. We offer our thoughts and prayers to those trapped in the blizzard.” The news anchor lady, whose name escaped me, read her autocue with a serious, albeit slightly monotonous tone.
“Blizzard?” I asked Emily and sipped my coffee carefully. It was steaming hot, probably finished boiling just a couple minutes before I got out of bed, but it felt just perfect to me.
“Yeah, and a weird one at that. It’s been going for days now, and not a single person has been able to go in and check on those who live in the area.” She sipped her own coffee, then blew hard on it to cool it down.
“If anyone tries to enter the area they disappear for a few hours, then come back out, claiming they’ve been walking a straight line.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be summer in Elethia by now?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s what makes it so weird. The blizzard is localized over one specific area, covering about two thirds of a scattered group of communities, and for almost a week none of the people who live there has been seen or heard from.” Emily shivered and pulled her blanket a little tighter around herself. I saw in her face that she couldn’t help but care for the people inside the blizzard, and I knew that if she could, she would have been on one of those rescue teams to try and help those trapped in the cold darkness of the storm.
“In other news, construction of the memorial for the Lodestar Labs incident last week is, and the monument, which is built on the square outside the ruins of the Astral Hall, will be unveiled once the remaining waste has been cleared, and the place reopened to the public.” A tense silence fell over the living room as the news lady spoke. I felt Emily stealing glances at me, checking my reaction to what was on the screen.
“The Luxin City council has ordered the grounds be preserved, and a ceremony will be held at the memorial, in honor of those who tragically were lost in the horrible events that took place at the Lodestar Labs convention.”
The anchor turned and looked into a different camera, which placed her to one side, giving room to a slideshow of pictures and short videos that played as she spoke. Some of the pictures were from the night itself, with the fire department fighting the flames, and the medical corps of the city guard carrying various injured to safety. A clip from the aftermath of the explosion played, where a ragged man with a crazy beard was speaking to an interviewer. The clip had become infamous overnight, and hundreds of memes were generated of the guy yelling about the blast, saying he saw lots of purple glass-like shards and heard what he called the “booming of Gjallarhorn”.
He’d been dismissed as a nutjob by the general public, but that didn’t stop the internet from running wild with the footage. It was free real estate. I’d purposefully avoided looking up the incident, but some things were unavoidable, and memes were omnipresent.
“Rumors claim that Mr. Solomon and The Director will make appearances at the memorial, but these claims have, as of yet, not been corroborated by any official spokesperson from either Lodestar or Solomon Industries,” the news anchor said to the camera as the clipshow ended.
“Regardless, the ceremony will be held in two weeks, on Saturday the twentieth. The gates will open at eleven, and the ceremony itself begins at noon. Tickets are available online to the general public.” The look on Emily’s face spoke volumes in the silence as we watched the stream.
“Bereaved families and survivors of the tragedy will be given free access to the grounds, and a special pass to avoid any lines. We hope to see you all there. Our last story of the day…” Her voice faded as Emily turned the volume down and got up from the couch.
"You gonna go?" She asked quietly. I looked from her to the screen, and then back at her.
"I think… maybe not? I'm honestly not sure. I try not to think about it too much." I took a deep breath. "I… I'm triggered by certain things. They take me back, forcing me to relive the fire and the screams. I know I should probably talk to a therapist about the whole thing. Think you could help me with that?”
Emily grabbed her blanket and started folding it while she thought.
“I’ll ask around at work,” she said, and gave me an encouraging smile. “I’m gonna head out in a few minutes, is there anything you need before I go?”
I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “I think I’m okay. I feel pretty good today,” I said, trying not to think of last night's fight. The rushing sensation of power in that moment had been intoxicating, but also terrifying.
“Physically I actually feel better than ever, especially after the, uhm, expensive meal I had.” I smiled sheepishly at Emily, hoping she wouldn’t start chewing me out again. She eyed me expectantly, but when I didn’t say more she sighed in exasperation.
“Fine, as your medical caretaker, I’ll let you go to the gym. Is that what you wanted?” I nodded excitedly.
“Alright, just don’t overwork yourself, okay? And make sure you wear something warm, the temperature has been dropping fast the last few days.” She hit me with a steely look, making sure I got the message. I clicked my teeth shut before I could say anything stupid and just kept nodding.
“Good. Oh, and say hi to Tyler for me. I saw her at work one day, I think she was visiting a friend. She asked about you, and I told her about… you know. She seems nice.”
I blushed, thinking about the last time I’d seen Tyler, and how I’d very obviously stared at her ass while she was bent over grabbing my drink.
“I’ll tell her you said ‘hi’,” I assured Emily, trying to hide my reddening face. Emily just winked, and left the living room to change. I realized as she closed the door that I hadn’t really spoken to anyone but Emily after I woke up from my coma, at least not properly. I wasn’t usually someone who sought out a lot of social interaction to begin with, but strangely, right then the idea of seeing Tyler and just having a normal conversation made me hurry into my room and grab my gym bag.