Rick keyed in the number for his door and smiled. He’d done well today—better than he’d done for a long time. He glanced in each direction before pushing the door open. Robberies weren’t unheard of here, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think his singular performance in a simulated environment had transformed him from a rabbit back into a tiger. Too much swagger would attract the wrong kind of attention.

He stepped through the threshold into the messy apartment.

“How’d it go?” It was Kristina-Anne’s voice, but there was no sight of her. Then it caught his eye—her blonde hair in a bun rising just above the level of the back of the sofa where she sat.

He stepped forward into the room enough that the rest of her became visible. She didn’t look up from her phone.

“I did well today. Got a little extra bonus,” he said.

She didn’t know about his payments or what they were for. Until she was ready—if ever she was—he wouldn’t tell her.

His news had been enough for her to disengage from the glass surface of her device. A soft smile crept up the sides of her mouth. “That’s great, baby.”

Rick took a sharp breath in. Her beauty still shocked him sometimes when it confronted him without warning. The bruise above her left eye did nothing to diminish it, and for the first time in a long time, he felt an urge. He pushed it down.

She’s not ready for that yet. She’d let me, but she’s not ready.

But something in her must have recognized it in him, and her smile became sharper. She put her phone down and stretched, then stood and came around the sofa to give him a hug. She placed her head against his chest, and for a moment it was as if they were still young and in love, as if she hadn’t…

He leaned into her then and kissed her neck. I’ll make it right. I’ll erase it all and build us a castle to protect us from the world. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“I made curry.” She nodded toward the small kitchen where a hot-pot rested on the stove. “I think I spaced out and added too much cumin, but it’s still pretty good.” She shrugged. “Earthy.”

Rick stepped into the kitchen and prepared a bowl of rice from the rice-cooker. To the untrained eye, his wife was just fine. She was so good at that, so good at being elegant whenever anyone watched. He spooned curry over the rice and dipped his finger in, then tasted it.

She’d lied. The curry was fine—better than fine. “Babe?” he called.

“Yeah, honey?”

“Curry’s great. Are you okay?”

She looked at him and blinked. Her eyes became glassy, then she sniffed and put her hand to her mouth.

He pulled the medicine bottle from his pocket. He couldn’t give them all to her…

He fished out a capsule and offered it. “From Hector. Says they’ll help you sleep.”

She raised her eyebrows and blinked away the moisture in her eyes as she strode to the counter, then grasped the pill and examined it. “I know these. They let you sleep without dreams, but you still wake up feeling”—she paused and shrugged—“normal.” A look of concern crossed her face. “They’re not cheap, honey. What did you have to—”

“I didn’t have to do anything,” he lied. “He asked why I haven’t been pulling extra hours like usual.”

She put the capsule on the kitchen counter and her face paled. “You didn’t tell—”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He shook his head. “Of course not. I just said you haven’t been sleeping.”

Hector knew a lot more about her struggles than she’d ever have been comfortable with—maybe more than was safe, but Rick hadn’t had a choice. He’d had to preserve his future—their future. If that meant his boss had to know some of their secrets, well, that was just another part of the price. She couldn’t blame him. Still, he didn’t tell her.

She nodded and relaxed her posture. It didn’t matter that no one in their current lives would ever judge them; she’d grown up in a rich home where appearances were more important than anything else—more important than feelings. More important than children. It was so much the opposite of Rick’s life, and though he’d never understand it, it was important to her, so it became important to him. But their future was far more important.

She sat with him and rolled the pill over and over between her fingers as he ate his curry.

*************************************

Rick woke from where he’d fallen asleep on his chair, then blinked and rubbed his eyes. Though the room was dark, his AR array displayed the news, its sound muted, on an augmented screen only he could see that hovered in the air about five feet away. He unplugged his implant from the internet and sat up. The screen disappeared, leaving him alone in the dark room.

Kristina had gone to bed hours ago; the medicine had worked. Rick panicked and checked his pocket for the pill bottle, then relaxed when the plastic container rattled when he shook it. Not again. Not now. Hopefully not ever again.

But something else had awakened him, and what it was became obvious as the muffled sound of shouting men rose from outside the apartment.

Not my problem.

He did his best to ignore the increasingly loud quarrel. Perhaps he’d join his wife in the bedroom. He shook his head at the notion; she needed sleep and Rick suffered with his own sleep demons, making it nearly as hard for Kristina to share a bed with him as it was for him to share a bed with her. He rubbed the bruise on his hip. His wife was small, but when the night terrors were bad, she really packed a wallop. On more than one occasion, he’d had to explain a shiner that bloomed around his eye in mid-morning. Once, a customer asked if he’d been in a fight. Married life was a struggle, sure, but not that kind of struggle.He chuckled.

A half-finished bottle of cheap lager still sitting on the side table next to him caught his attention. A shame to let beer go to waste. He gulped the remainder and grimaced; the cheap beer wasn’t good when it was cold, but it was truly foul when warm. He killed the lights as he sank back into the chair, then let the room’s darkness stare into him. Sleep conquered him before his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light.

What? He bolted upright in the unlit room, then stood. Unlike the earlier quarrel, the menacing sounds of whatever was now happening outside his apartment set his hair on end. As he approached the window, a sense of dread threatened to overcome him.

“Look at him,” a man’s voice said.

“Come on, man… I’m just trying to get home.” It was another man’s voice, though it sounded thin, like the voice of a much older man.

Another voice, this one also brash, spoke up. “He ain’t even gonna fight back.”

Rick peered out the window. In a flash, his anger rose.

“I just want—” the older man didn’t finish before one of the younger men doubled him over with a punch to the gut.

Fuck this. Rick bolted for the door, but stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

If I could fight again. His heart galloped in his throat as the conditioning took hold of him. His hand shook.

He growled, then closed his eyes as his vision swam. I can’t.

It wasn’t for lack of bravery—the street toughs were kids, really. He’d have been able to clean the floor with them.

The dizziness overwhelmed him, and he crouched to keep upright. He’d accepted his fate—he thought he’d accepted it years ago. His blood boiled.

If he called the police, they wouldn’t come. No one in this neighborhood had the kind of money to pay the police.

He ached to have access to the ability he once did, but they’d amputated him, even if he looked whole. The blood and fire in his mind burned red and gold ,and indignant indigo. They’d left him less than he was, less than a full man, and though he could still run faster than most, that was cold comfort.

He was ten years older because he survived, despite the odds, and that was better than so many he’d known, but was that enough? Did it make life worth living?

He sat with his back against the door and silently prayed the kids wouldn’t kill the old man, but with every passing second, he hated himself more, until his dark mood was a black hole from which he couldn’t escape.

After what seemed a long time, the sounds of the attack stopped and someone—someone new—yelled. Rick stood and checked the window. Another man had come onto the scene. The new arrival now stood bent over the older man, who still lay crumpled on the ground, his body shaking as though he were crying, though Rick couldn’t hear him sob.

Rick watched as the new guy lifted the older man to his feet and together, they hobbled away.

I could have stopped it before it even started if—

But he couldn’t have. He’d had that power once, and they’d taken it, and not for no reason.