Wally

by Rowan Massey

  He frowned, finally taking me seriously. “Maybe ask him for a day off. Even I get time off, you know? We could have a day together. Ask him for Thursday.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I leaned my elbows on my knees and rubbed my eyes.

  “My poor guy,” Nando said, rubbing my back. “Don’t worry. Get some rest. Aren’t you supposed to be eternally happy? You keep getting stressed out.”

  “I know. I’ll tell you about it later. It’s the fielders we’re taking…or something.”

  “Well, shit,” he muttered, and kissed my hand where I wasn’t bloody. “Go get a nice shower and go to sleep. I gotta get my shit together and leave, babe.”

  Feeling like I was in a daze of bad news, I grabbed the towel from where it hung on the wall and left. It would be so fucking weird sleeping without Nando. It still felt like his place, not mine, and it was slightly awkward, but also kind of nice to know it was turning into my home. Maybe I would start stuffing my things under the bed the way he did.

  Later on, it was hard to fall asleep in the pitch darkness without him. Without Spitz. Without anybody. It sucked, but I was tired. I let myself cry a little bit and went to sleep trying to find the bright side of things. Nando was happy because he was so ambitious. Who knew where he would get in life, and I was proud of him. Spitz was getting what he wanted too, even if we hated the way he was getting it. Me and Fiona had had a nice conversation and bonded, and she would have an place to live in. And Doc…well, Doc was on a roll. I felt kind of left out. There was nothing I wanted more than to be with all of my favorite folks as much as possible. I was the one losing out because of their gains, but I had to be happy for them. I loved them all.

  ◆◆◆

  Doc was trusting me with the mice, and I’d fed them and checked them for health problems first thing when I got there. Doc was at his desk, staring at his computer and scribbling formulas on paper as usual, so I took a minute and texted Spitz and Fiona.

  Wally: Lets meet erly today. Wat time?

  Spitz: This is Fiona. I’m keeping him in bed until we really have to leave. His face is swolen. Theres no space here right now so u cant come over sry. Miss u.

  Wally: miss u too

  Wally: Tell Spitz I miss him

  I put the phone in my pocket and went over to the doc slowly, hoping he wasn’t cranky.

  “Done already?” he asked, not looking up from his writing.

  “Yup. I have a question.”

  He sat up and leaned back in his chair, looking up at me.

  “Can I have Thursday off?” I asked. “It would just be nice to spend the day with Nando.”

  As soon as I mentioned Nando, I wished I hadn’t. His eyebrows turned down, and he had that fatherly look.

  “I need you here,” he said. “Maybe another time, but not soon, alright?”

  “But doesn’t everybody get a day off sometimes?” I begged, slouching and holding out my hands to show him my desperation.

  “Of course, and you will,” he said. “Just not soon. We just ordered a lot of stock, and you’ll need to redo inventory entirely. I’ve been thinking we need to reorganize, and I have a few small batches I want to get done and send to Manhattan. I was thinking that you should try riding along with one of our delivery guys and meet the dealers you talk to on the phone. It will be a good learning experience.”

  Was he fucking joking? I wasn’t leaving Emporium again. I didn’t even have to say anything. He read my face.

  “Alright,” he said, waving a hand in apology, “forget that idea. Maybe you can learn something from my security team here in the neighborhood instead.”

  “Okay, but when exactly can I get a day off?” I asked, still really wanting to spend time with Nando or Spitz, or shit, just any friend.

  He sighed and looked at his computer. “I’ll take a look at things and let you know.”

  I felt like pitching a fit. Didn’t he see I needed a break? I’d gotten two days after the Manhattan shit storm, but that was weeks ago, and a lot was happening.

  Spinning around on my heels and leaving a scuff mark on the floor, I went across the room and started looking around at the inventory at the opposite end of the lab. I wasn’t really checking things, I was just trying not to explode. It wasn’t just anger. I was getting squeezed by life and wanted a way out.

  After pacing around a while, I went to one of the computers next to Doc, printed out inventory forms without talking to him, and went back to work. I could see what he meant by needing to reorganize. He was doing different kinds of work and things needed to be moved around. I would do my job and get out of there as soon as I could.

  Since we didn’t get a delivery, I left after six hours of work. When Doc was paying me, he noticed how frustrated I was. He put a hand on my arm and gave me a quick rub and a pat.

  “You know how much I appreciate your work, right?” he said. “You and I have been through a lot. I don’t want to treat you like a work horse. And you’re not stupid, you know how I still feel about Nando.”

  He dropped his hand from my arm and sighed.

  “I care about you very much,” he said softly. I was hanging my head, and he stooped down to look me in the eye. “I can’t help trying to protect you, especially since you aren’t operating at a ten anymore and might not be able to bounce back the way you used to. Look, I promise you your day off. Just give me a day to think about the exact date for it.”

  I lifted my head and a smile grew on my face. He smiled back.

  “Put your hat on,” he said. “It’s cold out today.”

  Rolling my eyes, but kind of liking it when he acted like a dad, I made sure to get my hat out of my pack and put it on before I said goodbye. As I left the house and walked down the street, I thought about the rest of my evening and night. I wasn’t tired at all, and thought maybe I could spend time with Spitz on his job to see what it was like for him. I might even go to Red House and use some of my saved up money to get inside the club and just be around him, even if he couldn’t hang out with me. It would be interesting and would make me feel less like we were all splitting up.

  Feeling better about everything, I headed for the field. I’d get there early with a fresh razor and help people out before I took my own fielders, just like Veronica used to do. Like Doc said, I hadn’t been paying attention to my friends. It would be a fun night. I walked faster thinking about it. Things didn’t have to be so stressful. I’d just have to learn how to make the best of things.

  Chapter Twenty

  Being on the field without Spitz was another new experience, but I showed up with a fresh razor, got some alcohol and a rag from the volunteers, and sat on a big bucket next to the trees, waiting for someone to need me. Eventually, I heard screams and ran to help, over and over. I ended up slicing several people’s heads before they hurried out onto the field and danced like the maniacs they were. Two of them were total strangers to me. One guy was a newbie who had only taken fielders once before. We only talked for a few minutes, but I hoped he would be my friend in the future.

  For most of the two hours I sat there, I chatted with friends who stopped by when they saw me sitting alone. They didn’t skip over the fact that I was doing what Veronica used to do. I knew it was awkward, considering my boyfriend had caused her death, but maybe this was my way of apologizing for that. Or maybe it was my way of saying she had been my friend, and that it hadn’t been my fault. I wasn’t sure which.

  Spitz and Fiona finally showed up. I’d texted them about what I was up to, and they seemed happy to see me doing something that was about being a fielder. It felt like going back to my old self because the field was more than a place to do drugs for us. It was a community and a home. We’d started to get so far from it, treating it like a necessity instead of the center of everything.

  We took our pills together in unison, cut each other’s heads when the crawls hit, and enjoyed out dance. It was such a relief to leave the earth and all its ridiculous worries. None of it mattered w
hen you’d been on Pluto farming freaky, multicolored flowers to feed to feathery animals for a couple hundred years.

  After coming off the field to run and hug each other after our time apart, even hugging other fielders and friends who we noticed coming out of their trips, we all held hands and headed out. There were no bodies that night.

  On our way towards Red House in the cart, we sang songs, all of us picking our favorites and fucking up the lyrics. We ate our hot dogs, and Spitz and I swapped silly objects. He gave me a giant safety pin, which I hooked onto my hoodie, and I gave him a handful of mouse food from my pocket. Fiona got the giggles and laughed at us so hard she had to stop pedaling for a minute. It was the best night we’d had in a month at least.

  When we got there, Fiona was tired, but smiling, and took the cart home, but I told Spitz I wanted to see what he did all night. After we wiped our faces clean and covered up the blood on our clothes, pulling our hats low to cover our bloody hair, we walked the streets together.

  “It’s easy to tell who to watch,” he was telling me. “They dress in red and black sexy clothes. The guys do too. I can’t remember their names yet, but they’re mostly nice and tell me if I ask. I’m supposed to get to know them, and they stand around and talk half the night anyway.”

  We were passing a collapsed building that had been only half cleared, leaving places for people to hide out and sleep, or fuck against the walls.

  “The ones who work on that corner up there like to go in here, so I gotta just check to see if anything’s wrong,” he told me. We stopped, and he shyly wandered in, walking all the way to the back of the lot, peeking into nooks and crannies of rubble and still-standing walls. He hurried back to me. “Everything’s cool. Just normal fucking. No homeless.”

  “What do you do if…like what can go wrong?” I asked.

  “Somebody could try to rob them or make them do things they didn’t get payed for. Like ass fucking,” he said, his lips twisting to the side. “Then I text my boss guy. He deals with it. I’m not supposed to risk myself. Maybe yell for help if I’m near the other hookers? I don’t know honestly.”

  “Crazy,” I said, not knowing what else to say. It was crazy. It was a weird job that didn’t fit Spitz at all.

  “If they do things like get in a car that drives away, I have to get the plates and call the guy about it because she might be kidnapped or trying to leave Emporium,” he went on.

  We were walking lazy, like we didn’t have anywhere to go. At least he didn’t have to hurry around.

  “So you cover how many streets?” I asked.

  “It’s about corners, not streets,” he said, not really answering my question.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said, and looked at his bruised face. Usually having bruises meant we’d gotten desperate and jumped someone. Now he was working to keep people from getting jumped.

  “It’s scary, actually,” he admitted, and looked behind us for no reason. “But I’m just new. I’ll get used to it.”

  “Do you have your knife?”

  “Yeah, of course, dude,” he shrugged his shoulders and pulled his jacket forward on his chest. I hadn’t meant to offend him.

  “We had fun tonight, huh?” I said.

  “Yup,” he grinned. “Thinking about eating the rat food. What is it made of?”

  “It’s perfectly engineered to feed carefully bred mice for science accuracy,” I said, mimicking the doc.

  He laughed and took a piece of it out of his pocket. I thought he was going to try it, but he just crushed it with his fingernail. We came near a small group of hookers on the corner, and Spitz stopped and turned to me.

  “I don’t want people to think I’m not taking it serious,” he said. “Better not hang out with you too long. Aren’t you supposed to be sucking dick right now anyway?” he teased.

  “I wish,” I sighed, and explained that Nando was trying for some kind of promotion at Red House.

  Spitz whistled. “Damn. Like a bouncer? Those guys are built though. He’ll have to start working out.”

  “Really?” I imagined Nando getting fit. That would be extremely hot.

  “Have you ever tried to look in the windows and stuff? It looks fun in there,” he said.

  “Doesn’t sound like fun to me,” I said. What would I want with alphabet drugs and hookers? I didn’t even know if I could dance without being high on fielders. “But actually, I’m going over there tonight. I think I might pay and go in. I just want to hang out around Nando, even if he’s too busy.”

  “Oh my god,” he laughed, “you’ve got it so bad. You’re going to be beat for work tomorrow.”

  I grinned, totally ready to admit I had it bad for Nando. He teased me a little more, but wanted to go talk to the girls on the corner, so we said goodbye, and I headed for Red House.

  It was only a few blocks over, and I heard the club before I saw it. The music had a hard, bass beat, not like anything I liked to listen to on my fancy phone, or anything I heard while I was dancing. There were little groups of people heading for the club or walking away from it high as kites. They talked loud and obnoxious. That was because most of them were tourists.

  A group of twenty-something guys ahead of me stopped all of a sudden like they were startled, and I just figured they were on something that made them paranoid. I left the sidewalk to walk around them, but then heard something that got my attention too.

  Gunshots.

  I stood frozen, staring down the street towards the music, trying to figure out if it was part of the the drums, or if there was something going on. But the reactions from people around me told me it couldn’t be a mistake. A group of tourists who had just parked their car and gotten out, quickly turned around and piled inside again, peeling out and driving off in the opposite direction.

  Others started walking back where they’d come from. Two armed guys in red and black ran towards Red House, and my heart dropped.

  Nando was over there. I had to see what was going on.

  My feet moved before I’d really decided. I’d run and hid from gunshots my whole life. Walking, then running, towards the loud cracking was like pushing against a heavy weight. The music stopped, leaving only the sound of guns and screams. I’d never heard gunshots like that except in war movies. Machine guns?

  Heart pounding in my chest at a painful speed, I kept going until I saw the club. It was a big building with lots of frosted windows and bright red paint. People were running out the front door, gang bangers were running in with guns, and there were still people screaming inside. I could see them running and stumbling past the lit windows.

  I came to my fucking senses and ran around to the side of the building, ducking down as I went. At the corner, I pressed myself up against the cold wall and looked around at the people running past me like scattering roaches. Most of them were tourists, hookers, dealers, gangsters…but when I heard a loud car horn that didn’t sound like any I’d heard before, I turned to the front of the place and saw a big armored truck like the ones banks used.

  It pulled right up to the front door, running over the sidewalks. They were trying to block the door. But why? As soon as the truck slowed down enough, men started pouring out of it. They were wearing white. White bandannas, shirts, and hats. It was Ten Block. I’d never seen any of them in person before. Each one of them carried a huge, black assault rifle that looked like it belonged in the army.

  My stomach was turning, and I thought I might puke. Somebody ran into me, forcing me against the wall so hard I hit my head. I didn’t even care. Where was Nando? If he was trapped in there…

  The Ten Block men were carrying what looked like dynamite bombs and they ran around sticking them to the walls with big globs of putty. They were coming my way.

  I got my shit together and ran off towards the back of the place. There was nobody left running near me, but I could still hear some screaming and shouting from where I was headed, and some from behind the windows I passed. When
I reached the back of the building, there was a big open area with tables here and there, benches to sit on. Only ten or so people were making their way over or through the fence.

  The back door was nearby, and I ran for it. The double doors gaped open to show me a short hall with a huge room at the end. A dance floor. There were bodies everywhere, not like the bodies on the field. These were laying in puddles of dark red blood, their eyes open in fear.

  People were still in there. I saw a man behind the bar, crouched with a rifle in his hands, but his eyes were squeezed shut, and he was frozen still. I could hear women screaming at each other to hurry, men shouting at each other to go out a side door. The word “bomb” was yelled over and over by a man I couldn’t see.

  “Nando!” I shouted, and took a step inside. The guy at the bar looked up at me with eyes as round as a full moon. He clenched his teeth at me and shook his head, but I ignored him. I needed to find Nando. If he’d been shot, I had to get him out. The place was about to get blown up.

  Somehow, the guy telling me to stop just made me braver. I walked along the wall until I reached the dance floor, staying flat against it. My pack was just in the way, and I took it off. It gave me the chance to grab my knife out of it anyway.

  “Nando!” I yelled again and again. “Nando! Nando!”

  A roar like a war cry came deep from someone’s throat. “Run!” someone was commanding me. I looked around, then up. It was Nando. He was up in the balcony, looking down at me with an expression that completely transformed his face. I had to stand there looking to be sure it was him. He sounded like a beast and looked like one, his eyes and teeth so fierce that it was like he had turned into a monster.

  While I stood in shock, he was running across the balcony and out of sight. I looked around, trying to figure out how to follow him, but I didn’t know the place. He appeared at the other end of the dance floor and screamed at me again, his teeth bared, eyes wild, gripping his handgun next to his head. “Run, you fucking idiot! Run! Run!”