JAMESON : N/A
HOUR 0 : 4:00, MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2122
DOCK 1 : BOAT 1 : GOODBYE
“Welcome to the game.” The robotic words are crisp and clear as a bell. But they don’t actually seem to come from anywhere.
In fact, Jason is sure of it. It’s a pretty easy conclusion to draw, alone as he is in an empty white void. But his eyes are quickly drawn to the 52 face-down playing cards spread evenly along the rim of the round mahogany table in front of him. In that veggie buffet, he can just make out the faint impression of glowing letters. He can’t quite read them though. So, he eats the meatballs in the way.
Scattered haphazardly throughout the jello, each glowing letter is laid out in a clear pattern with the rest to spell ‘Choose Your Class.’ But just as he reads them, the steadily pulsing numbers flash with a blinding yellow light. Then, they get brighter. And brighter. Even brighter still.
It gets to the point where despite his sunglasses, Jameson has to shield his eyes from the glare. Does that mean he ate too many meatballs?
But just as quickly, the letters are back to how they always were. In fact, they never changed.
His attention back on the cards, Jason looks them over for several days. Gradually, meticulously, he devotes week after week to thinking through the pros and cons of each potential choice. As time inexorably turns hesitance to confidence, he finally lifts one of the 52 blue plastic cups along the rim of the countertop. Underneath is the Joker card.
Oh no. Deep in his bones, Jason knows that was the worst decision he could’ve made. He was so sure. So stupid. And it was so obvious… Jason lowers his head, resting it between his arms. He can practically taste the cheap plastic of the glass desk. The more he reflects on his choice, the further filled he is with profound regret. How can he have done this? He could’ve chosen the ace of spades. So why didn’t he? Doesn’t he want to save her? He can’t stand it. The soul-crushing guilt… It’s then that he decides. He’ll fix this if it’s the last thing he does.
“James!”
James wants to address the shrill, yet feminine voice yelling from up ahead. But he’s about to finally solve the Rubik’s cube. This is no time for distractions. He’ll see what’s the matter once the colors are separated. Just as God intended…
“JAMES!!!” There it is again.
Plastering on an expression that practically lists out all the better things he has to do with his time than give any of it to the screaming woman, James glances up.
As expected, Stephanie is at the front of the room. Apparently noticing his mood, she excretes an emotion he’s never smelled from her. Is that what she sounds like when she’s apologetic? “I just want to know what you thought you were doing.” She stands confused, yet unmistakably supportive in front of the chalkboard.
Glancing a little further up, Jason’s eyes widen as he finally notices that above it is a big blinking neon sign saying ‘Detention’. No longer in anything like his rebellious mood from before, he puts down the metal rope puzzle he was working on, resigning himself to explain each and every one of his myriad misdeeds. Time to come clean. “Uhgah-” He stops talking midway through his first non-word. Except that’s nothing like what he tried to say. With a start, he looks down at himself, only to find that he’s currently wearing some sort of ripped-up toga haphazardly patched together from itchy, reddish-orange canvas.
“James dies. It’s that simple.”
At the sudden proclamation, his gaze locks back onto his sister in alarm. “Ugh?” There it is again… He immediately tries to clarify. “Gluh?”
Stephanie looks pissed. “NO.” She says it with a kind of unquestionable authority he never expected to hear from the diminutive, if standoffish girl.
So much so that Jason couldn’t help but recoil. “Woah — Steph, what ar-”
“STOP!!!”
Jason has never seen her this angry. Not even close. Wait a minute, why’s she the one giving him detention? He starts to get up from his yoga mat, but doesn’t get very far before her follow-up makes him hesitate.
“GET BACK!!!” His sister’s voice has never sounded like this either.
Expression otherwise unchanged, Steph’s mouth slowly expands to a rictus before letting out a protracted shriek that only intensifies as her mouth widens. Soon, it eclipses the width of her face. And it only keeps growing from there. In both size and volume.
Jason feels like his head is going to explode.
Clearly having had enough of his insubordination, the girl reaches down and picks up the bucket of water at her feet. The concrete beneath her cracks as she vaults at James with a standing jump covering at least 20 horizontal yards. Midair, her limbs move in odd ways that he might normally associate with being off-balance. But the intensity behind her eyes makes the intent and control unquestionable. At the ten-yard crest of her leap, the seemingly random flailing turns unmistakably purposeful as her arm arcs in a full counter-clockwise circle. At the arc’s conclusion, she slams the bucket over his head. With a sound like shattering glass, the whole world shakes from the impact.
Hold on, did that noise come before the bucket landed? James’ upper back is totally soaked now. Why only there?
Suddenly, Steph yells even louder than before. “FUCKING!!!”
What in the-
“FUCKING!!!”
Why?
“FUCKING!!!”
Jason squints in what he remembers of her general direction from under the bucket. So she wants a contest, does she? Well, he can play too. “Fucking…”
She outdoes him. “FUCKING!!!”
He matches her. “FUCKING!!!”
She crafts a subtle retort. “FUCKING!!!”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
As does he. “FUCKING!!!”
And back. “FUCKING!!!”
And forth. “FUCKING!!!”
And Back. “FUCKING!!!”
And forth. “FMMM!!!” Wait, what? His chest feels heavy now. And there’s something covering his mouth. The bucket? How did he forget about that?
Head pounding worse than from any hangover, he groggily tries to lift it. But it won’t budge. How heavy is this thing?
I tried harder. After a momentary struggle, my desperate grasping for momentum bore fruit as I finally rolled over and proceeded to blink myself awake. I was still so tired… I had to get back to… What the hell was that dream about again?
Stretching my stiff arms and legs, I let out a long, protracted yawn. The bucket fell off my back as I sat up and the world resolved into focus. It was oddly soft. And smelly. And warm and dry and… Probably not actually a bucket, huh?
As though waiting for me to realize my mistake, the body chose that moment to unceremoniously flop face-down onto the boat’s cabin floor.
Half awake as I was, I still did my best to put this all together. The smell… The tattered, clearly oversized green winter coat… The back of it stained an uneven brown in several spots… A homeless man?
As soon as I put that together, I realized how little the details truly mattered as I fully jumped out of the cot. “What?” This didn’t make sense. I had to be missing something? I showed Steph the thing. And then I went to sleep. And then… At that thought, I just stared at the body before amending my previous statement. “WHAT???” Was I still dreaming? I thought that through. No, definitely not. So what in the-
From the stillest silence I’d ever experienced, a loud metal clattering shattered my focus.
It scared me enough to make me jump and slam my head into the cabin roof. “Ow…” Thanks to the distraction of an inexplicable corpse on my boat, I hadn’t noticed Steph standing there until she nearly dropped a pistol on the dead guy’s head. Was she here the whole time? Wait, better question… “Steph, what the hell is this?” My voice came out far shakier than I’d intended.
In answer, Steph only stared glassy-eyed and open-mouthed at the body.
“STEPH!!!” As I would’ve liked an explanation regarding just about everything at the moment, I attempted to simultaneously point both my hands in about ten different directions at once. The result was probably about as spastic as I felt just now. But I reckoned I got the point across well enough. “STEPH, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???”
Steph belted out her answer almost too fast and high-pitched to hear. “IDON’TFUCKINGKNOW!!!” She similarly waved her arms around as though to proclaim shenanigans on the world as a whole. She was panicking too, wasn't she?
At that realization, my mind raced for a way to ask for, and receive, a single sensible answer. Okay, Jameson… One thing at a time. “I don’t even-” Jump-starting my stalled-out brain, I mentally connected a few more dots. “Steph, where are we?”
But she was too far-gone, face completely drained of blood and talking in a constant stream with no room for punctuation. “JustCameInHere-andThen-andThen-andThen-I-triedTo-toCalm-I -I-didn’tWant-wasn’tGoingTo-to-and-and-andThen-andShe-”
I slapped her. I tried to make it light, but firm. Really less of a slap, and more a sudden, insistent pushing of her head to the left. Only with an added crack of impact that sounded far worse than it was. I hope. Hand on her temple, I proceeded to gently turn Steph’s head towards mine until she couldn’t help but look into my eyes. I stared right back into hers. “Stephanie Williams. Where, are, we?”
The question seemed to snap her back, at least momentarily, to reality. “Richmond.”
My eyes bulged. “What?” I was so clear. She was supposed to wake me before we docked. Did I just get betrayed?
My eyes hardened for an instant before softening again. No… No, I just didn’t emphasize the importance of her waking me first. And my mistake led her to ‘surprise’ me with already having taken care of everything by the time I woke. That was actually sweet of her. It really was. She was just trying to help. But this was also bad… Very bad. Worst-case scenario bad.
To make matters worse, Steph’s hose of a mouth was stuck on full blast after giving that single coherent, albeit unwelcome, answer. “I-wantedToSurpriseYouAndThereWasThisLightLike-a-a-nukeWentOffAnd-I-I-calledUn-uh-MikeyToAskAndHe-HeSaidHeWasParkedAndToComeMeetHimButThenSomeGirl-”
From rock-bottom, my heart dropped lower than I thought it could go. The color drained from my face as it stared right into hers from less than a foot away. “Mikey’s here?” This was so much worse than I thought. All the rest of it could wait.
The palpable sense of command I’d forgotten to filter out of the question seemed to snap Steph out of her panicked rambling. Coming out of it, she managed a single, meek, trepidatious nod.
As soon as I registered the confirmation, I started moving. “We gotta go, Steph. Right now.” Every second was vital.
But instead of moving her ass like I told her to, Steph just stood there. “Jason, what’s happening? Who… Who’s the girl?”
I was a little busy to listen though, eyes darting around every nook and cranny I could remember on this boat while I shoved all my stuff haphazardly into the same bag as the matter replicator. Mikey wasn’t supposed to be here. But he was here. Which meant he was making a move. And Mikey’s moves didn’t tend to bode well for anyone uninvolved in the planning. Had I dropped the ball somehow? No. At least I didn’t think so. Well, maybe… Not that it mattered just now. “Steph, we gotta go.”
But she still hadn’t moved from where she dropped the gun.
“STEPH!!!” I stamped my foot harder than I ever allowed on my boat’s deck.
She flinched away from the noise.
“Steph, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” I shook my head. No time. “We gotta go now.” Hurrying along, I rolled and then lifted the heavy handcart over my boat’s lowest edge and onto the dock. Hearing some crunching from its underside, I watched in horror as one of the handcart’s two tires went flat. “Oh. Oh shit. Uh… No time. Hurry up, Steph. I’ll start moving with the BS. You get the guns and anything else you wanna keep.”
But Steph just stood there, staring at the body.
“NOW!!!”
Less than a minute later, we were already several minutes late as we feigned a nonchalant gate towards the relative safety of the crowded pier. Not an easy task while balancing an unstable, unreasonably heavy metal cart over what might as well be a balance beam with water on either side. A single misstep could ruin everything.
Unfortunately, there was half a towel hanging out of the waterproof bag, snagged by its zipper in my hurry to leave. This presented a few problems. First, the imbalance did anything but help me navigate the cart’s half-flattened, rattling wheels down this series of lopsided, sporadically dented, faux-wooden planks. Second, a particular design flaw of the bag seemed to be that it stopped being waterproof with the zipper open. That left us both, but especially me, one false step away from losing everything I just threw my life away for. God I wished I’d figured out a way to save that hover dolly.
If anything, Steph was having an even harder time with the trip than me. Sure, she didn’t have an uncooperative hand-cart to contend with. But that was more than made up for by having to hobble along on an ankle that was badly bruised at best, and fractured at worst. Let alone doing it all the while supporting a big, lumpy reddish-orange canvas bag with the rest of our equipment. Huh…
Deja vu aside, I wanted to help her. But I was barely getting by myself as it was. At least it could’ve been worse. By some miracle, the dock was uncrowded. Not only that, but what few people there were, all happened to be miraculously well out of the way of our straight shot to the pier.
Piling miracle atop miracle, the other dock-goers seemed universally distracted by something happening off to the right, blocked from view by the line of boats. As I finally grew accustomed enough to the awkward trek to spare a tiny bit of brainpower for anything else, I thought through the oddity and why it made me so uneasy.
So all these people just happened not to notice an obviously distressed young couple, barely maintaining balance while panic-running down a recreational boating area? This is strange. No two ways about it. Nor was there any getting around it. What we were doing was, in fact, attention-grabbing. Strange, even. No matter how much I might’ve wished we were unassuming, this was far too easy. Or was it? Could it be a coincidence..?
Oh what, was I going senile? This was Mikey we were talking about.
With subtlety belying all the self-control it took not to panic just now, I jerked my head to the left. “Plan D.” I said it just loud enough to be sure Steph could hear me above the cart’s clattering. Nothing else for it then. Pivoting sharply to the left, I made a beeline in the wrong direction. To reach the pier, anyway…
My relief was palpable when I heard Steph’s two worryingly asynchronous footsteps follow right behind mine as we veered off from our escape to perform a quick home invasion.