From my dad. The last three words stunned me like someone had run an electric current through my body. So, Susie wasn’t looking for gossip but had actually overheard a conversation which maybe she wasn’t even supposed to. The funny thing was that she never answered my question, but I guessed it no longer mattered now since she chose to reveal something to me who she hardly even knew. Come to think of it, although Susie and I had shared the same lessons for nearly six months, we had never spoken to each other until now. The lifestyles of the popular and the rest of us rarely crossed.
I wanted to shut my phone and ignore her because this wasn’t the time to deal with someone fishing for information and I could not trust someone I did not know. Maybe her dad put her up to this or maybe Josh is using her as another way to get to me.
Eventually my heart won over my fears. “Ehhh yeah I was near the area, but I didn’t see or hear anything.”
My phone lit up again. “Ohhhh well I wanted to find out if anyone saw anything. I know we have never talked before and this was probably awkward already.”
I tried my luck to see if Susie would reveal anything else. “Do you know what is going on? We even had Magistrate people come by to talk to everyone on our street.”
“Oh really?” Susie wrote back promptly, “I just finished talking with Jamie about the incident before I messaged you, but she never mentioned talking to anyone from the Magistrate.”
Jamie was one of Susie’s best friends, part of the popular girl clique and everyone in school knew it because basically they were inseparable. If you saw Susie, you could always bet Jamie would not be far behind and someone who didn’t know anything about our school might even think the two of them were sisters. Jamie lived a few houses down from me in the same block and sometimes she would take my bus when her parents were unable to take her to or fetch her back from school.
It only took a few seconds for Susie’s words about Jamie to sink into me and I realized Josh from the Magistrate had lied to me and Felix. I knew it! I was right to dislike him and since he was not going house to house to speak to everyone it could only mean one thing: I had somehow been captured on the camera footage because, if not, there was no way he would make a random visit to my home.
I still don’t understand why Josh didn’t confront me with the camera footage when I lied to his face? It could be the camera footage was not so clear or the footage didn’t show a clear link between me, the woman and the explosion. Either way I should not take any chances from now on because if I was their target they could be watching my every move. I looked out again through my kitchen window and, to my relief, it was still empty.
Another message appeared from Susie and I realized I forgot about her while my mind tangled with the web of lies Josh had spoken during his visit. “You better be careful Marinette. Whatever is going on here is more than it seems. I know coming from me it doesn’t mean much, but I still wanted to let you know. Take care!”
This was the second person who had warned me in the last twenty-four hours and it wasn’t a coincidence.
I ended the conversation with Susie, started thinking of my next move and then remembered the message Oliver had sent me yesterday. I opened the message, stared at the link knowing this was the last message I would ever receive from my best friend. I tried my best to control myself because I did not want a repeat performance of the kitchen incident as my trembling hands clicked the link.
EIGHT
The link opened to reveal an address and a name with the name being supposedly whatever is at the address and most likely it was the name of a building or business. I did not recognize the address but, then again, I don’t travel around Thomson too much to be able to remember such things.
I opened my computer to find the location and realized it was on the west side of Thomson, which was a place I had never been to but had heard things about. There was not much on the west side of town except for a lot of wide-open fields and some abandoned streets and buildings. My classmates always joked about it being a wasteland for the dead because no one lived there, but the existence of abandoned buildings meant there used to be life at some point in time. I didn’t know what happened to this part of Thomson and Felix never mentioned about it and I never asked about it before. It was one of those many topics adults chose not to talk about around us thinking we probably could not handle the truth.
Oliver could have made a mistake and sent me the wrong link and thinking of him again made my mind drift everywhere because I knew I would never see him again. My heart was again overwhelmed with my loss and I tried to recall my last words to him. It was a casual goodbye when I left the bookstore and I remembered he had waved me off in his usual style as he turned to face the trophy of his life: the bookshelves. At least he died amongst his love for books and not in a random meaningless way like the woman in the car.
This was so unfair, and I did not understand how life could be so cruel because everything was going fine until the stupid traffic jam forced me to walk. I did not have many friends to begin with and Oliver was my only friend and now he was gone. Why does life have to be like this? I didn’t do anything wrong, I had always lived a simple quiet life, minded my own business, had no enemies and my interests and ambitions were limited and yet the only friend I had was taken away.
I wondered what Oliver was thinking in his very last moments, but I guessed he most likely didn’t have much time to react to the explosion and was probably lost in one of his history books when everything happened. There was some comfort in this thought since, at least, it was a quick end for him rather than going through a period of suffering because I wouldn’t be able to face him in his suffering.
Oliver was neither the popular guy at school nor an outcast because he had a special ability to make certain friends and, often at school, would be surrounded by a few guys. He never introduced me to his guy friends and, to this day, I was still not sure why but maybe he thought of me as a younger sister and was all protective of me although in reality, he was only like five months older than me.
Then again, maybe the explosion was one of those random accidents which intruded into the fabric of our daily lives, showing us how fragile life really was and reminding us to treasure the important parts of life without taking anything for granted.
My phone lit up and realized it was Felix. “Marinette I heard about the explosion at the bookstore. Are you okay?”
Are you okay? I chose not to reply to him. Why did he have to say it in that way? Those three words were the biggest and most useless cliché to ask anyone at a time like this. Didn’t he get it that I was nowhere near close to being okay? This was the first time I had ever lost someone close to me and I realized I had been fortunate to never encounter such loss in the last sixteen years of my life.
Another message from Felix appeared on my phone. “I am so sorry Marinette. I didn’t know what else to say, but I need you to reply me. I am really worried for you.”
I knew Felix was worried for me and, returning to my senses, I replied to him. “I am okay. I need some time alone now.”
No reply returned to my phone because Felix knew me well enough to give me my space although the reason this time was new territory for the both of us.
I knew Felix understood loss because losing his wife many years ago and still moving forward with me was courageous and I wanted to reach out to him, but I was not sure I should since it might put him in danger too. With Oliver gone Felix was the only one left and I didn’t want to lose him too.
I refused to be trapped any longer in both my grief and anger and decided to do something for Oliver’s sake, so his death would not be in vain. I knew I needed to go to the address in the link he sent me as it was the only bit of information which connected to whatever “the process” could be.
NINE
Sitting in the back the bus ride to school was the usual without any surprises and while sometimes I would meet one or two people from my class most of them either pretended I di
dn’t exist or just downright ignored me. To be honest it did affect me at some level when it happened, but it was something I had gotten used to which was a sad side-effect of high school.
Since the bookstore explosion and the message from Susie I knew things have changed, but today I didn’t recognize anyone in the bus which was good because I was not in the mood for any fake conversations now.
It would only be a few more minutes before the bus reached school but it felt like the longest few minutes ever. The bus came to a stop at school and, as everyone slowly stepped out, I got off the bus and started walking in the opposite direction away from the rest. Fortunately, no one noticed me or, at least I hoped so, because I still did not know whether or not I was being watched.
Once I reached the other side of the road I walked into an alley, stopped, turned around and was relieved not to see anyone following me. I sent a message to my teacher Mrs Wills saying I was not feeling well and would be going back home to get some rest, which was the best lie I could come up with and it should give me sufficient time to do what I needed to do. The school would not report my absence to Felix for about a week or so and as I looked around again I watched the bus I just got off from drive away. I waited a few minutes longer in the alley to check again if anyone was watching me, but it seemed clear.
The alley was clean as usual all thanks to the many years of the Magistrate’s use of robot sweepers which were deployed on the streets and alleys to keep them sparkling clean. Alleys, which I heard used to be the den of shady activities, were now cleaner than even some peoples’ own backyards.
As the bus I had been waiting for approached the bus stop, I walked over, got in, ignored the bus driver’s strange look and found a seat in the back. The bus driver probably knew I was skipping school and by the look she gave me she had seen it done many times over. This time I was really in unknown territory because I was neither your rebellious teenager nor your perfect model student but had always been somewhere lost in between but, as of today, it seemed my neutral stance was changing. I was slowing slipping into rebel terrain and I could not help it because I needed to find out about this “process.”
Initially, unfamiliar buildings and homes passed by me and then these were replaced by a long row of shops and the main mall in Thomson, which I had often heard of but never actually knew where it was. I was not the mall shopper kind of teenager as I preferred to buy my things online because it was so much easier and more efficient with the bonus being I didn’t have to deal with running into my classmates in the mall. I am not saying I was anti-social, and Felix would have clearly debated this point, but I really didn’t want to deal with the clichés of making conversations which started abruptly and ended nowhere simply because I saw someone a bit familiar outside of school.
As the bus continued to pass more buildings people kept getting on and off from one bus stop to another, but I noticed the type of people in the bus started to change over time. When I got in the bus it was filled with those people heading to work all dressed up smartly in their usual office wear, but now the bus was full of older folks who probably weren’t working and either just passing their time by taking a ride or on their way to part-time work. The faces of these folks were like a portrait of history etched by the ebbs and flows on their skin and the irony is even after losing our ability to speak, as a society, we still hadn’t solved the challenges facing the older generation. I tried to smile at the older lady sitting next to me, but she stared at me briefly and turned to face the window. Felix once told me Thomson was a place where, those who were able to, tried to flee away from, and those who were unable to, found a way to survive. There remained plenty of work here, but the intelligent robot revolution had quietly killed the backbone of many peoples’ lives in Thomson.
Thomson wasn’t the center of the universe, but only one of the bigger towns surrounding the main city of Vinder. Each of the surrounding towns had its own Magistrate which was managed by the Council which sits in Vinder but I didn’t know much about the Council except they are very powerful. Vinder has been known as the city of dreams with many opportunities and I had observed many of my classmates indicating their plans to go there to study or work after school, but all of this was out of my reach due to many reasons.
After a few more stops the bus came to a halt, the bus driver stood and motioned to me, “this is the last stop my dear.”
I only then realized I hadn’t been paying attention and there was no one else left on the bus except for me and the driver and I sheepishly got off waving a thank you to her, but she ignored me and drove away quickly.
I looked around and noticed the road I am supposed to follow was dusty, no longer paved and full of dirt. Apparently, this was one place which was out of the reach of the Magistrate’s robot sweepers and there was only a single abandoned building next to where I was standing. I glanced ahead at the washed off green signboard staring back at me, realized even the words on it were no longer legible and then looked at my map which told me from this point onwards I needed to walk.
I sensed something behind me and quickly turned around but there was nothing there. Was I being followed and was someone on the bus with me? I know for certain I was the last person on the bus, but it did not mean there wasn’t someone who got off one bus stop prior to this or even followed the bus. I looked at the blue sky thinking it could have been a bird but there was nothing. Maybe I was being paranoid.
As I started walking I could feel the heat drumming down on me and soon I was passing green fields on either side which seemed to go on forever. This place was really a wasteland, there was no breeze, the air was getting hotter with every step and I realized I did not come prepared for such a walk. Out of nowhere ahead of me a group of worn off and abandoned buildings, which looked completely out of place amongst the emptiness of this place, stood tall. It was as if someone decided to create some buildings in the middle of nowhere or it could be these buildings used to be a stopover for travelers from the simmering heat.
Approaching the island of abandoned buildings my mind began to wander again about whether I was doing the right thing because I was out here all alone in the middle of nowhere, no one knew I was out here and if something happened to me there would be no one to help me and I would die alone. I tried to fight with my thoughts. Did I make a reckless decision in coming here? I was not known to be reckless, neither was I known to be courageous and in fact I was not known for anything, but it was time I was known for something and this was for Oliver. It may not mean much to anyone else, but it meant everything to me because it was about Oliver.
I reached the first building, looked around for a number or name which could help identify it but, seeing none, kept walking as a strange unrecognizable smell emerged from it. It was a bit unusual since these buildings seemed to have been abandoned for years. The next building appeared the same with no sign of any name or number, but after another minute I finally spotted the building I was looking for on the opposite side of the road. The faded red letters scrawled at the top of the entrance to the building was my only clue and it seemed like this building was the only one with such letters.
I walked up to the entrance and noticed, except for the red letters, the remainder of the building looked like the rest. The building has two floors and the windows on the ground level were all boarded up by wooden planks and I looked around for signs of anyone following or watching me, but I noticed nothing. Fortunately, there was no stench emitting from this building but what was interesting was the front door was a shiny wooden one which looked quite solid and not worn down like the rest of the building. It was as if someone had placed a new door onto a worn-out building which was odd. However, I didn’t allow my mind to linger on it too much.
I tried the door’s handle hoping it was unlocked and, to my surprise, the handle turned, and the door creaked open inwards. I peered in, the darkness invited me inside and realized I had no choice, but to go in now because I needed to find out what was g
oing on because this building was the reason I made this crazy journey today. Whatever was in this building had already cost me my best friend’s life so there were no more arguments left in me. I had finally laid to rest all my fears for this journey as I took a deep breath and slowly walked into the darkness.
TEN
As I gave my eyes several seconds to adjust to the darkness I smelled a bunch of different things I didn’t want to and, yet, the air inside was surprisingly not as stuffy as I would have thought, which was unusual.
My eyes finally adjusted, I glanced around the room where I was standing, noticed the emptiness and started walking about slowly as the floor creaked in its own special way to the tune of my footsteps. Some white dots on the floor near one of the windows caught my attention, but then I realized it was because of the light filtering through some tiny holes in the boarded planks on the window. Did Oliver make a mistake in bringing me to this place because it looked totally deserted. Did I break Felix’s trust and lie to Mrs Wills for this empty building? As I turned around to leave the building, I noticed a silhouette on my left, froze momentarily and then started to run in the direction of the door, but as I was about to reach the entrance a hand firmly grabbed my shoulder.
Piercing Through the Silence Page 4
