“Is it really that necessary to take me off the G7 too Ma’am?”

“I think it is. You’re the most senior of the four of you here and I have a higher expectation of you to make better decisions. Unlike perhaps the decision to also take Otto from his home and-”

“I didn’t take him from his home! Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Well we’ll talk about that in a moment. The three of you can go now,” she said, talking to Dylan, Pan and Tobias. They obliged, hastily leaving before she changed her mind.

When the door shut behind them, The Secretary slouched back in her seat, letting out a big sigh in frustration.

“Guy… Anton… wasn’t your fault Brad. You did what you had to do, no one thinks otherwise. The S.O.B left his family and followed his own path that led to his death. Believe me, if it wasn’t you up there, any one of the others would have done the same. You don’t need to rehome his son out of guilt for killing him, or create some team of kids out of guilt for… I don’t know. It’s not for you to fix. Is this what’s it all about?”

“No,” Brad replied, lying. “No it’s not. The kid is just a kid, giving his mother grief. Going out, being a vigilante. She’s at her wits end. But he’s a good kid, who has a lot of potential and with a bit of encouragement and taking him under our wing, we can all help him to channel that energy into something positive. I really feel that. I also feel that we owe him that much. We owe Dana too. Anton might have been a douchebag but they are still the family of The Collective. And those kids we rescued from the Purification Camp… They have potential too.”

“To get killed. It’s dangerous out there Brad. Purists, Mambas… Outbreak’s on the loose and we have a whole eight other worlds out there and that’s just ignoring the more localised issued in America’s towns and cities. Reuben and Effie are out there fighting a war on drugs, sex trafficking and cartels running all that crap across the southern belt. What are the kids going to do that I can’t pay you to do? Join them up to the scouts or something.” The Secretary shook her head and stood up to walk round to Brad’s side of the desk, perching on the edge. “Just as long as you’re not manifesting some guilt into something that will get you into my bad books.”

Brad got up and looked The Secretary in the eyes. “I’m good, Ma’am.” He turned to leave her office.

“Would you say that in front of Do’Lânqwa for me?” she dared before he got to the door.

Brad didn’t even stop as he ignored her and left the office.

***

Present day.

“I’m good Ma’am,” the voice mocked and laughed. “Look at the state of you. You’re anything but good.”

“Shut up Lucas. You’re not even real.”

“Then who are you talking to if I’m not real?” Lucas said.

“Just go away. Just leave me be,” Brad slurred, shifting on his couch.

“To be? To be what? Guilty? Guilty for your fuck ups? I kinda wanna stick around for that.”

“No!” Brad yelled. “To be alone. You’re here as some sort of hallucination. I can just hallucinate you away.”

“I’m not convinced you know how hallucinations work, do you?” Lucas laughed again. He was sat in the modern looking armchair across the living area from Brad’s sofa.

“Well then I’ll ignore you. I don’t have to talk to you.”

“Sure, you can do that. I’m used to you turning your back on me. Just like the good old days, eh? When I was alive, I mean.” This version of Lucas stopped and watched Brad for a bit, the atmosphere really awkward. “This is so boring. You wanna talk about what happened with Anton? I mean, big plot twist- he hadn’t actually died! He had us all fooled, am I right? Until of course you killed him. Did you make sure he was dead? That would be awful if he managed to escape death a third time. That’d make you feel a lot better I guess if he was-”

“Just shut up!” Brad roared. “I did what I had to do. He was deranged and prepared to kill. One of us. All of us. I don’t know.”

“So you had no choice?”

“Exactly,” Brad said in an almost whisper. “So why do I feel so bad about it?”

For once, this version of Lucas appeared sympathetic, as he got up to move closer to Brad, crouching in front of him. “I don’t know. Because despite his derangement, you still saw your friend in him? Because maybe you’re now two nil up on dead friends because of your actions. Like who is going to die next because of you? Ariadna? Are you going to get her killed? Ferris? Terri?”

Brad rolled his eyes. “I didn’t kill you. You killed yourself.”

Lucas laughed. “Ok, so now I definitely know you’re high.”

Just outside of Austin, Texas. A secure lockup.

“To what do we owe this pleasure, Stretch?” Effie asked as Brad approached her and Reuben.

“We don’t usually see you in this part of the world,” Reuben said.

“No, but The Sec is always going on about the work you’re doing down here and I was just thinking the other day how I hadn’t seen my favourite cow boy and cow girl for a long time.”

“Ugh, I hope you didn’t really think that,” Reuben said, making Brad laugh.

“Yeah, please don’t think of me like that again,” Effie agreed straight faced.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Ok, no I didn’t. I’m just in the area. Feel like I gotta go and talk to Anton’s wife and kid after what happened. I keep putting it off and they need to know,” explained Brad. “But I have been hearing about your war on drugs. That bit is true. The Sec is really impressed. You had a big bust the other night?”

“Yeah, a big one worth millions,” Effie said. “Wanna see what a million dollars of drugs looks like?”

“Sure, I’ve come all this way…”

Effie entered a code on a key pad next to the door and the three of them went through into a little air lock room. Once the door had shut behind them, Reuben offered his eye for a retina scan which unlocked the next door.

“Nice,” Brad muttered in awe.

“Here we are, the latest in opioids. Name is Salprazotipam, but they call it ‘Spat’. Russian for ‘sleep’. Heavy pain killing type shit that can knock out a horse. Junkies take it to relax and they’re out for hours,” Reuben said.

Brad nodded. “Yuck. Nice job guys.”

Reuben and Effie looked at each other with raised eyebrows, clearly confused about, not used to, nor particularly wanting Brad’s praise.

“Err, thanks,” Effie said. “Do you want to see anything else while you’re here?”

Brad looked at his watch. “No, not really. I do probably have to head off to see Dana and Otto now.”

“No problems. Thanks for… coming I guess,” Reuben said, gesturing to Brad the way out.

“See you around guys!” Brad walked away from the pair, sweating and his heart racing. Why on earth did I just do that? he repeatedly asked himself, feeling for the baggies of pills he had just snuck out from the haul under the Rodeos noses.

The appeal of being knocked out for hours was too great at this point to not do something so risky. Sleep deprived since what happened at The Facility, the answers seemed to be in those pills.

***

“Nah, nah. You fucked up and led a murderer to his victim, and you took your life because you felt guilty. Because you were weak. Shall we talk about that? Seems like we have more in common than you think.”

“We can talk about that, actually,” Lucas agreed, nodding approvingly. “I don’t mind. I freaked out, yeah. You wore me down so much, mentally and emotionally. Then in LA when things got physical, I was at my lowest. Then along came a pufferfish and he just made me think there really was no point to being the good guy when I didn’t feel like a good guy. You didn’t make me feel like a good guy. Then, I really felt like a bad guy and suddenly… Suddenly I felt strong.” Lucas paused, and Brad said nothing. “Like the strongest I felt in a long time. I knew what I had to do. It was the right thing for me to do. For me to die. So I disagree. I wasn’t weak. I was strong. I went through with it. Maybe you ought to chuck more of them pills down your neck and kill yourself? Then you can be free yourself. There’s no lying to yourself when you’re dead, Brad.”

Brad shook his head. “Nope, I’m not doing that. I’m just… I’m just taking the edge off. Managing and dealing with my feelings.”

Lucas burst out in laughter. “By popping that shit into you? Yeah… good job dealing with your feelings,” Lucas snarled. “What you’re doing is no different to what I did. You’re just doing it over time and killing yourself from the inside.”

“I’m not listening to this. Not from you.”

“Well by all means, get up and go somewhere else… if you can.” Lucas stood up and looked expectedly at Brad with his hands on his hips. Brad didn’t get up. Couldn’t get up. “No, I didn’t think so. You’re so high, so filled with shit, that you can’t move.” Lucas laughed hysterically. “I bet you couldn’t even stretch out to me.”

“You’re not even real, I don’t need to stretch out to you.”

“So yeah, you cant stretch. How humiliating for you. It’s probably best that Terri takes over from you on the G7 in that case. The press would have a field day if you couldn’t perform in an emergency. It would be a disaster! ‘Nation’s beloved stretchy jock loses ability to stretch!’,” he said, imitating a newspaper editor reading out a front page headline.

“Shuttup!” Brad yelled. “God, you’re almost more annoying dead. Who’d have thought that?”

Lucas skulked over to the windows over looking Manhattan, making Brad feel guilty.

“Look, you weren’t really annoying. I just… I just had less time for you.” Brad rubbed his face with his hands and held them there as he came face to face with the harsh truth. “And I created this picture and judgement of you that you were this annoying waste of space. I was wrong. If I had have rationally dealt with and processed my own grief better, I would have been able to tell you that I didn’t blame you for Tiffany’s death. I would’ve treated you better. You wouldn’t have turned to drink that night and you wouldn’t have told Don where Ferguson was. And then you wouldn’t have taken your own life. And that haunts me. It still does... I’m sorry.” Brad moved his hands from his eyes to look Lucas in the eye.

But Lucas wasn’t there.

“Lucas? Lucas? Where are you? Lucas? I’m sorry, please!”

Brad tried to get up but he still couldn’t. He tried again, more determined, but the strain caused him to black out and fall onto the floor.

When Brad came to, he was sat on his sofa. Once his eyes had adjusted, he jolted back to reality, gasping for breath, dripping in sweat and with a splitting headache.

“Shit!” he cried out. “I didn’t get to tell Lucas…”