“Ah, Mr. Goodwill. We’ve been expecting you.”

Goodie froze, his mind going blank. His passengers, formerly prone to bombarding him with a slew of messages, doing likewise, any help from them vanishing much like the plans that they had come up with on the way here.

A dark bit of fortune then that he was pretty much used to circumstances such as this, his entire life thus far spent being a day late and a dollar short. When you lived with two pathological narcissists—possibly full-blown sociopaths—constantly having the floor swept out from under you was sometimes an hourly event.

“H…,” he started, only to begin clearing his throat. His original intent being to portray himself as the young woman his physical changes now portrayed him to be, the people who had held him having altered him to an extreme degree for some reason. But with his identity already known, he needed to get the damn thing in his throat to sound as close to his original voice as possible.

Possibly a waste of effort; it may have been buried under mountains of trash, but this place was still a city of tomorrow, the presence of scanners or some other device that could lay him and all he hid bare to the world probably both existing and already having done so for whomever the woman on the other side of the desk and whoever else was watching him now.

“Hello?” she asked him after a second of silence, “Yeah, hi; caught you off guard there, didn’t I?” the raven-haired woman asked knowingly, her azure eyes alight with mirth.

“Uh, yeah,” Goodie replied, “a bit.”

The woman thrust her hand forward, her smile growing to a full, toothy grin, “Sandra Miller, Mr. Goodwill. Welcome to the East-coast Kage.”

That name was…he assumed it was the name of the city, but for the life of him could not fathom what it stood for, guessing that it was an acronym. Having read more than his fair share of manga, his mind was immediately drawn to the Japanese word for shadow, but surely…

“Oh…,” the woman started, sensing his confusion; Sandra, pointing her finger up and twirling it, then explained, “It’s the name of the city. Japanese word; shadow or something. They’re all called Kage.”

“Oh..kay?” Goodie replied as he mentally floundered.

“Yes, well, pleasantries aside, we really should get down to business. As I already said, we were expecting you. A pair of men came by earlier, looking for you…”

He visibly tensed at the revelation.

“Oh, no-no,” she told him with a wave of her hand, “calm down—they’re gone. Took off when we found your information already on record. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. You’re apparently the victim of a kidnapping, and we need you to meet with our both our local law enforcement and lawyer to get your details on your record; what happened to you, how you got here, all of that. Again, please don’t freak out, you’re the victim here, not the criminal, we just want to know what happened?”

Goodie just stood there for a moment. He had already been on a rollercoaster of events the past how-many-hours, events that left him tired, exhausted, and now this woman had just hit him with a mallet of information that, though he understood the general meaning of what she had just said, left him more confused than ever.

“Ah, by on record, I mean that…well, it’s a bit complicated, but you’re sort of a resident of this city already, which affords you all services available within…which includes protection from whatever the hell those creeps wanted from you.”

The words were meant to be reassuring, but he had spent years being cut on again and again…possibly, time became a bit iffy when you were isolated in a small room without any way to record its passing—and right now, the city’s protection was about as valuable to him as a politician’s promise, the possible ways that it could in turn be used against him beginning to flow through his mind.

But rather than give into that rising paranoia, Goodie instead said, “Okay? So, what do I…do I go see them, or…?”

“Ah,” the woman hesitated.

Goodie knew it, he knew it before she had even spoken; help never came without a catch.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Yeah,” the woman started, “you see…uh, you’re not from this time, are you? Woke up, right? Me too, so I don’t really understand how things got this way, but no one lives here anymore. I mean, a few people do, but we all came out of a box—there’s no native population anymore. So, when I said you needed to meet our cop and lawyer, I meant that literally. We only have one of each, and the city, the A.I. that controls it…”

Goodie felt his passengers go into lockdown at the mention of another A.I., several of his implants shutting down along with them or going on standby as they did. He understood why, but the distraction made trying to understand the woman’s blather of misinformation all the harder to focus on.

“…is a real stickler for schedules and checkboxes; if this were an emergency, you would be able to meet with our local law enforcement right away, but as I said, you’re safe here—those men are gone, not just from here, but out of the city altogether, and the city is monitoring for their return, and anyone else who might be with them. But that then means you’ll have to make an appointment with everyone for your meeting, and I don’t get off ‘till five.”

“I…don’t…what?”

Sandra pointed two fingers at herself and said, “I’m the lawyer.”

“…slash…receptionist,” she then added a moment later.

“City representative, officially,” she then continued. “You’ll get used to if you stay here. And may I suggest you do? I know you probably already figured this out, but it’s extremely dangerous out there. Especially for people like us.”

“Meaning?” he asked.

“Something to do with us…well, it’s like taking an animal out of its native habitat? It doesn’t necessarily die, but it suffers stress, begins acting weird and such? It sounds trivial, because we’re humans—not animals, but it’s actually worse for us. Instead of stress, we get full-on psychological trauma…and as to how we act? Well, I’m talking total psychotic break, sometimes. And before you do, know that everyone thinks their different. I did, you will, everyone does, and we’re all wrong. Either isolate yourself here or get yourself one of these,” she said as she tapped a small device at the side of her head, “Preferably both. But we’ll have to discuss all that later,” she finished, tapping the watch on her wrist.

“Wow…okay?” Goodie said, mostly to himself. The mallets just kept on coming. But…it did explain some things.

“Sorry to lay all of that on you, but it’s something we all have to deal with, so better now than when it’s too late,” she half-apologised with a wide smile.

“Right—no-no, thank you…uh…but, okay, so you get off…?”

“At five,” Sandra answered.

“And I can’t meet with until then?”

“Correct.”

“So, what do I do ‘till then?”

He had already sent the van off, and had no means of contacting it until it came back at the end of the month, so was he just supposed to sit…or…?

“Oh, you can park yourself over there…,” Sandra began, her head shifting to point to a collection of couches meant for waiting guests, but stopped as a beep echoed out from somewhere behind the counter.

After peeking at what he assumed was a computer screen, she covered her face with that artificial smile she had borne when she had first greeted him earlier, her tone now equally as fake as it took on that sales representative friendliness.

“However,” Sandra began, her words filled with as much humanity as a text to speech app, “if you’d like, the city is host to numerous landmarks, tourist destinations and parks that I am sure would keep you entertained while you wait.”

She non-too subtly pointed to a small nameplate in front of her bearing the title ‘CITY REPRESENTATIVE’ while rolling her eyes.

“No…thank you,” Goodie answered as a frown of confusion crossed his brow.

“Alright then, if you’d like to take a seat in our guest area, you’re more than welcome to wait.”

He stood there a moment, still confused, and a little but angry for being messed around, but then moved to go to where she had pointed, having nothing else to do. And as Goodie awkwardly turned away, he fully expected a classic and cliched ‘Have a nice day’ to echo out from behind, the lack of one feeling unnatural for some reason.

Then, halting halfway to the almost-white leather couches now ahead of him, the woman called Sandra lent over the large reception counter and called out.

“Ah, Mr. Goodwill? I forgot to mention that we also need to go over some personal business. …of yours, I mean. The City is still in possession of some of your property, and there are several outstanding matters we also need to address.”

Without waiting for a reply, she disappeared back out of sight.

Frustrated by the constant onslaught of new and confusing information, Goodie chose to try and ignore it, instead focusing on the furniture to which he now walked. Before leaving the van, he had grabbed some clothing from the back—In particular, a black trench coat just short enough that it did not brush against the ground, though it was not so short that he could avoid the need to readjust it so that he could then take a seat comfortably.

It was a cliché, he knew, but it was not its iconic cyberpunk styling that he chose to wear the garment. As much as some a long-buried part of himself squealed at its presence, he needed something to help obscure the suit he wore beneath. Though broken, or more likely sabotaged, the suit had once been able to render him near invisible, and presumably would do so again, should he be able to somehow get it to work again, and Goodie wanted its presence to remain an unknown to everyone else. That jacket also covered several other items and tools that he had taken from the van upon the suggestion from his now silent passengers, whose presence would also likely raise some eyebrows.

Speaking of which, he placed the large, heavy backpack in front of the small coffee table bearing some nondescript pamphlets and various other light reading materials, backstraps facing towards him.

He did not want to place it to the side, where, out of sight, it could be lost or forgotten, its contents an obvious small hoard of treasure despite his lack of understanding of the current value of things.

It would have been better to have placed it upon his lap, held firmly within his arms. But that would have only served to declare the worth of its contents to anyone looking, though only he and Sandra were present at the moment, and the thought of having that front pouch full of what he assumed were grenades and whatever other surprises lay within it so near him and his crotch left him…uncomfortable.

So, he began to wait, the act of doing nothing after having spent so much energy trying to plan for everything, leaving him more drained now than that harrowing race through the park earlier…yesterday?

His passengers remained on lockdown, their fear of discovery keeping them supressed. He did not blame them, the thought of a citywide entity with presumably the resources to match did not exactly offer him any comfort—a literal deus ex machina, in a sense—but that left him to sit alone with himself, and he was not the best of company.

This whole affair so far had left him even more unbalanced, stressed, and, for the first time in a long time, alone.

But now more than ever, he needed to be on guard. He was pretty sure he had little to no success in fooling the people he had met so far, and he had little confidence in that streak changing with the perky Ms. Miller and whoever this cop was supposed to be, the possible presence of a literal digital god further enhancing his unease. Goodie needed to focus, to remain on guard—to think and come up with even more plans.

So naturally, he fell asleep.