JACKIE:

The next morning, Baxter and I set off on the return trip to Life Rite wearing our matching janitor jumpsuits. The blood splatter was still on my knee, a reminder of what I saw yesterday. I had barely slept. My mind replayed that horrific rebirthing scene on repeat all night long.

We hit a thick mob of people waiting to get into the subway station. I craned my neck to see what was going on up ahead. Police cars, Life Rite vans, and uniformed officers clogged the entrance to the underground metro.

“Oh great, one of those virus checkpoints.” I sighed. “Just my luck.”

Baxter's eyes darted around nervously as I pushed my way closer to the checkpoint. I didn’t want to be late since I got enough attention at work yesterday.

Up ahead, a police officer prick someone with a metal device. A green light flashed, and they waved the line forward. This was going to take forever.

“Maybe we should go another way,” Baxter suggested.

“What other way?” I asked. “This is the fastest route to work.”

Baxter scanned the crowd as we inched closer. His body tensed as another woman got pricked, and the device turned red.

The woman asked, “What does that mean? Do I have the PX virus?”

“Please, come with me, ma’am,” the police officer said as he grabbed her arm.

She pulled away and shouted, “No. I've done nothing wrong. I feel fine. Not sick at all.”

The woman turned to run, but the throng of people waiting to get through the checkpoint created an impenetrable barrier. The police officer grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward a Life Rite van.

“Let me go!” the woman cried. She resisted, and he forced her into the van violently.

Commotion trickled through the mob of people waiting to pass. They could subject any of us to the same treatment. Another reminder of how disposable we all were. Not to mention the extra commute time this added to everyone’s already hectic morning. Thousands of bosses would financially, emotionally, or physically abuse their workers for the minor inconvenience of being late. I certainly couldn’t afford a demerit.

Baxter grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here.”

“Pops, it’s fine. I'm sure we don’t have the PX virus.”

Baxter looked around, presumably for a way out. Beatrice’s drone, Alpha, scanned the crowd with its facial recognition laser. It was unusual to see such a high-tech drone around here. I could sense its laser lock in and scan me. Luckily, I wasn’t a person of interest. Those types of people never got far with a scanner around.

“Come on,” Baxter said as he pulled me backward.

“Why? I can’t be late today.”

He led me against the swell of the crowd.

“Trust is the glue that holds families together.” Baxter had a slew of catch phrases. That was one of them.

“I know.”

“So trust me.”

I trusted Pops more than anyone, but I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to go through the checkpoint. Still, I didn’t resist or ask questions. I let Baxter be my guide.

“I’m with you, Pops.”

We made our way through the sea of people, which was no easy feat. Shoulder after shoulder knocked me around as we went against the desperate horde.

Down the street, there was a welcomed open space that was quickly filling with more people waiting to queue.

Baxter paused and said, “Whatever you do, don’t go through one of those checkpoints. Promise me.”

“Yeah. Okay. I promise.” Why was he so shaken? My mind raced with alternate routes to work and excuses for my direct supervisor.

Baxter looked around again, so I followed his gaze. A police officer followed us from the sidelines.

“Hey, you two! Get back in line. Time to comply,” the police officer shouted at us. He had already drawn his gun and pointed it at us.

Baxter grabbed my arm and broke into a sprint. My back tingled with fear as we ran away from the armed officer.

Why were we pinpointed? Why were we evading instead of complying?

I looked back as the officer trained his gun. I think Baxter saw the gun too because he bumped me out of the way as the pistol fired with a deafening bang. Baxter fell to his knees and grabbed his stomach. Blood poured from his fresh wound.

Screams came from all sides. Mine were the loudest. Tears spilled from my eyes as I ran to Baxter’s side. The crowd dispersed in all directions around us.

Stolen story; please report.

“Keep going and never look back,” Pops said with a cough.

I was speechless, surrounded by a growing chaos. The police officer walked toward us, weaving his way through the restless mob stirring around him.

“Run!” Baxter insisted as he bled out in the street.

I froze, rooted to the spot.

“I love you, Pops,” I said through my tears. The stain on my knee was nothing compared to the blood bath all over my jumpsuit now. Sensing more impending doom, I took Pops’ advice and ran.

Someone from the crowd threw a homemade grenade into a storefront next to me. Discontent was so high, any disturbance brought out the riffraff poised to take advantage of social unrest. The bomb exploded, sending flames and debris into the street. The boom knocked me off my feet.

I sat up and looked into the fire. The flickering of the flames took me into myself, and I indulged in the reservoir of my mind for a split-second. I wanted to stay there forever. I needed an excuse to avoid stepping back into the now, and I quickly found one.

A moment I’d suppressed my whole life flashed before me. I must have been three or four years-old when my mother fled. For a moment, I relived that last hazy memory of her when she left me with Pops. I never saw her again after that. The details of her face were fuzzy in my scattered recollection. I desperately tried to recall what she looked like, but there was no time for specifics.

Another homemade bomb went off, shaking me back to my physical reality. I snapped out of my daze, got to my feet, and ran as quick as physically possible.

I looked back and saw the police officer stumble to his feet through the smoke. He searched for me in the fray.

“Freeze!”

As I turned into an alley to my left, a gunshot ricocheted off the wall in front of me. The chase was on, even though I didn’t know what I did to deserve it. Innocence didn’t matter. Justifications replaced justice long ago. I jumped onto a fire escape ladder and climbed up the side of the building as the officer turned the corner.

“Comply!” he yelled.

I ducked into an open window and flew through a dingy corridor. Took a hard turn up the inner stairwell and ran up two stairs at a time. Up six flights, then I burst through another door and spilled out onto the roof of the building.

I stumbled through a clothes line, ran past a chicken coop, and jumped onto the next rooftop. I stopped to look down into the street and saw the raging fire from the storefront below. The flames drew me in, and I lost myself again for a beat.

A strange image flashed through my mind’s eye; I flew over a fiery, scorched landscape. It was a place I’ve never seen before, yet it felt oddly familiar. I paused to experience the memory of this ravished land.

A loud male voice echoed in my head. “Jackie, I’m here to help. Do what I say and you’ll be okay.”

The boom of this mysterious voice jolted me back to reality.

“Who said that? Where are you?” I looked around. I was alone on that rooftop. “Huh?”

I snapped back to my priority and searched for Pops in the street below. I couldn’t find him amongst the restlessness. The crowd must have swallowed him up. Baxter’s gentle nature merited a better funeral than that. I hoped some kind soul grabbed him and took him to an underground hospital, the kind that didn’t ask for insurance. I held onto a glimmer of hope that he was still alive.

That deep voice echoed in my skull again. “You’ve got to move fast. They’re coming for you.”

“What do they want from me?” I screamed.

“If you don’t want to find out, keep moving!”

“Where can I go?” I asked in desperation.

“Jump! Trust me,” the voice answered.

“Trust you? Who the hell are you?”

Sirens wailed. I ran to the edge of the rooftop and surveyed the situation. There was nowhere to go. The next building was too far away to jump.

“No way,” I whispered, half to myself and half to whoever I imagined was talking to me.

The officer burst through the door and stumbled onto the roof. He reached for his gun again. My skin crawled as I made eye contact with the man who senselessly shot my Pops. What was the going salary to be a mindless, trained killer?

“Jackie, jump!” the voice screamed again.

I looked at the next building. Which was better, getting shot or falling to my death?

“Here goes nothing.”

I ran at top speed toward the edge, closed my eyes, and jumped. As I soared through the air in what felt like slow motion, that image of flying over a scorched earth flashed through me again.

I don’t believe in miracles, but miraculously, I landed on the roof of the next building! The police officer was as shocked as I was. Before he could aim his gun, I zagged, kept running, and didn’t look back.

I ran over the roof, past tall ventilation ducts. Cryptic images of an active volcano spraying lava strobed in my mind as I booked it to the next rooftop jump. I landed that one, too. I felt superhuman!

No sign of the police officer anymore, so I stopped to catch my breath and my sanity. The morning sun beat down on me through the Grid as that voice spoke to me again.

“Jackie, I don’t know if you’re ready,” it said, “but I need your help to bring down Life Rite.”

“What? We can’t do that!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I felt certifiably insane with nothing left to give.

“You can!” the voice screamed back at me.

I fell backward from the power of the voice mixed with the mysterious images flashing in my mind’s eye. Visions of my mother walking away from me, never to be seen again, mixed with fields of a fire-blazed land, then that last anguished look on Baxter’s face as I left him bleeding in the street…

“Is Pops dead? Please tell me he’s alive.”

My grip on reality was fading fast. Who was I speaking to?

“Will you help me?” the voice asked.

“Who are you? Where are you?” I buried my head in my hands.

The voice responded, more calm than before. “Relax, Jackie. You can’t see me because I'm in your head, obviously.”

“Well, get out!” I demanded.

“Not gonna happen,” the male voice said. “I need your help. Your mother needs your help.”

“My mom’s dead.” A detail I never wanted to repeat out loud again.

“This won’t be easy, but trust is the glue that holds families together…” the voice said.

“Where’d you hear that? Don’t steal Pops’ lines.”

I sat on that roof and prayed that someone had stopped to help Baxter. I couldn’t accept the fact that he bled to death in the street. It couldn’t be true. He deserved so much better than that. He did nothing wrong. I wished for a different reality, nothing fancy, just a fair chance at survival.

The roof entrance opened, revealing that damn police officer. He was a persistent bastard! He grabbed his gun and said with a smirk, “Evading arrest is punishable by death, and I get a bonus for each of your kind I bring in.”

I jumped to my feet and put my hands up.

“It’s too late to escape, Jackie. I’ll see you on the other side,” echoed the voice in my head.

“Don’t leave me now! I’ll help you,” I screamed. “Sure, I’ll do whatever you want. Let’s take down Life Rite.”

“Nut job,” the police officer said with disdain.

Bang! He took his shot with reckless abandon. I was a statistic to him. A slight bump on his paycheck, barely a blip after taxes.

The smell of gunpowder and the taste of blood and bile consumed me. Pain shook every muscle in my body. I felt dizzy, nauseous, but then a sense of relief took over.

Maybe it was easier to die. Finally, I could stop running, pause in this moment, and relax. I wouldn’t have to deal with the loss of Pops or toil away as a miserable cog in the giant wheel of commerce. The struggle would all be over soon, right?