by Drew Avera
“Hey, what the—” one of the men said but I didn’t notice who.
The group stopped as a single unit, like a hive and it almost made me chuckle as I noted how wide their eyes got seeing me. The surprise deflated some of their egos in a way that suggested they were as spineless as I suspected. What they were going to do about it was on them. Either way, I was ready.
“What are you doing on our turf?” The leader, Creta, said as his right hand reached behind him for whatever unseen weapon he had at his disposal.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I let him marinate in the ambiance of his threatening nature. I could see in his eyes he was feeding on the fear of the others to bolster his resolve. Not seeing it in me attacked his psyche, but it manifested unfettered anger. I wondered if he saw it as strength, instead of what it truly was.
“Boss just asked you a question,” the first one I heard speaking chimed in. He gave the impression of being the leader’s lap dog, though I gathered he was hardly revered as much in the dismissive posturing of the rest of the gang. He would be the first to break during my interrogation. It was probably best not to kill him right away.
“Are you stupid? I asked you a question,” the one they called Boss spat threateningly.
I lifted my chin enough to look him in the eye. “It’s late boys, maybe you should go home,” I said.
My words elicited a benign chortle from the group, but nothing else. I expected them to try something by now, not have a late-night standoff of impotent banter shooting back and forth. I half-thought about jumping them, scaring the life out of them in the process as they were attacked on their “own turf”.
But where was the fun in that?
“Do you hear this guy? Look, I don’t know what part of the city you’re from, but we own this part of town.”
“Is that right?” He looked unsettled by my challenge to his authority. I could tell the way his posture changed, in the broadening of the shoulders, that he wanted to intimidate me. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t within the realm of possibilities.
“That is right, and I think the first lesson you should learn is how to keep your smart mouth shut,” Creta spat, his hand still behind his back. I suspected if he truly had a weapon that it would have been revealed by now. Instead, his lethality was as impotent as his words. Though, that didn’t seem to stop his goon squad from acting on his behalf.
Almost immediately, one of the men swung on me with a right hook. I sidestepped his attack and watched out of the corner of my eye as his fist collided with the building’s exterior wall with enough force to crack the surface, and almost certainly fracturing his hand. Not wanting to waste time, I lowered my stance and sent a quick jab into his exposed right side. The audible snapping of ribs was accompanied by a yelp from my attacker just before his partner reached down and grabbed me by the collar, hauled me upward, and slammed me down onto the sidewalk hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
As much as it hurt, I was elated. I hadn’t felt this alive in years as a rush of adrenaline coursed through my veins. I watched as he lifted his booted foot and lunged downward towards my face. As if on autopilot, my hands reached up and grabbed his foot with one hand and his ankle with the other. I strained to force his foot to turn outward until the bones and tendons gave loose with a loud crunch. He fell backwards, crying in agony, and I grinned as I saw the foot hang loosely from the bottom of his leg.
My reward came as several feet began kicking me while I was down. As much as I wanted to take each man down one at a time, I knew I didn’t have the time, or patience. I was here to send a message, not to be their punching bag.
I rolled backwards in a reverse summersault and regained my footing before charging towards the leader of the group. He stood stoically, his arms now crossed over his chest as his men howled like hounds with a war cry which reverberated around us. I focused solely on him. I was always taught that if you take down the leader, then the rest will fall. It was high time I tested that theory.
I ducked and rolled under another wave of kicks and swinging fists until I was within range to reach out and grab the leader by his face. My thumbs entered his lips as I drove him back, my fingers gripping the back of his head as I clinched my fists. A panicked cry escaped his open mouth as my thumbs sought contact with the rest of my hand despite his cheeks being in the way…for now.
It hardly took as much force as I thought it would to rip his face open from the inside out. The sensation reminded me of peeling a grapefruit once I broke the skin. He choked on his cries as we both fell to the ground. His head slammed into the ground, splitting his skull as warm blood gushed from his face and ran down my fingers. I expected an attack from behind, but all that was left of the gang was spectators as they witnessed what happened when you underestimated your opponent.
“What the –
I glared up at the one speaking, cutting him off as blood dripped from my fingertips as their “boss” lay groaning between chokes. “You have something to say?”
Each member of the gang stepped back as I rose from their leader and faced them. My heart thrummed in my chest and it dulled my hearing to the point I felt like I was underwater. The sensation quickly passed as I stood there expectantly as Creta lay on the ground, trying to hold what was left of his face together through gargled moans.
“He didn’t deserve that,” a gang member replied as he pointed to the heap of trash on the ground behind me. The man was young but appeared old enough to recognize his own hypocrisy. They weren’t exactly about to roll out the welcome mat for me. In any other situation, it would be me lying in a pool of blood.
“Who do you work for?” I asked as I took a driving step forward.
They flinched, but otherwise tried to stand their ground despite knowing what I was capable of.
“We work for ourselves,” he began before I reached out and grabbed him by the left ear and yanked hard enough to drive him to his knees. He yelped, causing a satisfying grin to spread on my face as I watched out of the corner of my eye as his friends stiffened like boards, but were too afraid to come at me. “I asked you a question and if you lie to me again, you’re going to have trouble hearing. Who do you work for?” I tightened my grip and the stammering began.
“He…he calls himself Mr. V.” The man said, his face ten shades paler than it was before I emasculated him in front of everyone.
“Where can I find this Mr. V.?”
“I don’t know,” he replied through quivering lips.
My eyes scanned the others, searching for the one who would reveal what I wanted to know. I found him trying to hide behind one of the bigger men. “Wrong answer,” I said as I yanked downward with all of my weight. My victim screamed in pain as I dropped his ear in front of him and took a casual step forward. Everyone in the group dispersed, running for their lives.
All but the one I knew would answer my questions. He stood paralyzed by fear, or stupidity.
Only time would tell; and the clock was ticking.
Seventeen
Akran
She shuddered as she left the movie theater. Not from the romantic portrayal of two star-crossed lovers overcoming significant odds to be together, but from playing hooky from work. Despite the fact she was allowed a sabbatical, the idea of skipping work for an afternoon of fun was more exhilarating than she thought it would be, though a part of her felt a tinge of guilt. I’ll get over it, she thought as she pulled her jacket tighter.
“What do you want to do now?” Roslyn asked as he fell in step beside her. The movie was his idea, and even though she enjoyed it, it was a story more up his hopeless romantic alley than hers. She wouldn’t argue that the lightheartedness of the film probably did more to calm her after the attack than the alternative movies available. Still, she wasn’t quite satisfied with the entertainment.
“I don’t know, maybe go home?” she replied.
“Why, are you feeling ill?”
“No, it’s just—
“J
ust nothing,” he interrupted. “I was hoping this would get your mind off of things. I know dinner and a movie is usually considered a date night sort of thing, but you haven’t let loose at all.”
His protest sounded more like whining to Akran. She could see his point, but that didn’t mean she had to agree with it. Besides, he hadn’t been through the same ordeal she had. If she wanted to sulk, then that was her prerogative.
What am I thinking, she thought? Wallowing in this pity isn’t getting me anywhere.
“You know what? You’re right. I haven’t been a very good date. I tell you what, you pick the next activity,” she said, forcing herself to smile despite how exposed she felt in the crowd.
“Seriously? I picked the restaurant and the movie. This is starting to feel more like a night out for me than for you.”
“Yeah. Go ahead,” she answered. “A day of not having to make any decisions is a nice reprieve, believe it or not.”
“Fine, are you enticed by some frozen yogurt?” he asked with his eyebrows raised. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he picked it because that was her favorite, but Roslyn could eat a gallon of it and ask for more. How he stayed so thin despite such a healthy appetite was a mystery.
“Perfect,” she replied, smiling coyly as he led her down the sidewalk, away from the bustling crowd exiting the theater.
They walked in relative silence as the sun began to set behind them, creating dim purple hues as the light shone through the dome. Akran thought back to her life in Archea, to a simpler time. She remembered watching the sunset with her father before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That was the biggest life-changing moment in her life, knowing that her father was going to die and not knowing how to say goodbye. He lived for four months after his diagnosis, but in her mind, he died the last time he watched the sun go down with her.
Guilt racked over her when she thought about her relationship with him. Before his diagnosis he seemed like a bitter control freak, hellbent on ruling her and her mother’s lives. He softened so much after he realized the end was coming that he was almost a different person. It saddened her that those few, short months were her happiest memories with him. It felt like betrayal when she thought about it.
“Is there something wrong?” Roslyn asked as he glanced over to her.
Akran wiped a stray tear from her cheek and shook her head. “I’m fine, I just got caught up in a moment is all.” It wasn’t a lie, but she didn’t want to divulge any further. He knew how she was raised and didn’t need to know each time she was struck with sadness regarding her past. She knew he thought it was the attack bringing her to tears, and in some ways, it probably was, but only at a subconscious, psychological level.
Roslyn took hold of her hand and said nothing. It was one of his endearing qualities, the fact he didn’t have to be a talking head about every issue in her life; more times than not he would lend a listening ear and a comforting hug. Go figure that the perfect man had no romantic interest in me, laws of the World Council or not, she thought.
“Do you ever think about your parents?” Akran asked, interrupting the silence. She hadn’t intended to ask the question out loud, but she didn’t have the will to keep herself from asking what was on her heart.
“Sometimes, but I try not to,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, “My mind has been wandering on thoughts of my dad ever since the attack. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but I’m having a hard time shaking the memories away.”
“What kind of memories?”
“Random ones, the hardest are from before he got sick.”
“Maybe your trauma dredged up those memories because of how he passed. Sickness isn’t the same thing as assault, but the fear associated with any life-threatening event has to be similar. Perhaps it’s your subconscious’ way of helping you cope because you’ve endured so much in life already?”
Akran reflected on what Roslyn said but couldn’t reconcile the idea that they could be related. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s guilt.”
“For what?” Roslyn scoffed. “Surviving? I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty about. Pissed off maybe, but guilty, not in a million-years.” She smiled as he embellished the way he said “million”. “Seriously, I think if these memories are coming to the surface, then maybe you need to speak to a therapist or someone who can help you compartmentalize your feelings in a healthy way.”
“Maybe,” she muttered, but the idea of getting professional help put her off. She went through therapy after her father died and remembered how every scribble on the notepad made her feel as though it was a judgmental comment about whatever she said. Of course, she had no way of proving it, but the idea seemed plausible enough that she never went back.
“I talked to someone after I lost my hearing,” Roslyn said. “I spent months in fear of the silence, and even after my cybernetics were implanted, I had a hard time escaping the dread I felt after that explosion disrupted my life.”
“Did it help?” Akran asked, presuming she already knew the answer.
“Yes and no,” he replied, “I got a lot of stuff off my chest, but I talked less and less about my fears and more about my aspirations. Eventually, I didn’t have the crippling anxiety of living in perpetual silence which was the initial reason for my going to therapy.”
“Was there another reason, besides the anxiety?”
Roslyn’s expression changed. “I had a lot of anger built up from watching my parents argue all the time. They were filing for divorce before the explosion. After I was hurt, they came together, and I thought it was an answer to my prayer. I knew praying to a higher power, or whatever you want to call the concept of God, was severely out of fashion—
“Outlawed, you mean?”
“You have your words, and I have mine, but that’s not my point. I wasn’t angry at the people responsible for the explosion about losing my hearing. I was mad at myself for hoping something would happen to bring my family back together. Once it happened, and my life changed the way it did, I resented them even more.”
“I didn’t know that,” Akran said as she placed her hand on his shoulder. They stopped in front of Sno-Gurt’s and he stood stock still for a moment, looking as if he had to dig deep for his words before responding.
“It’s not something I’ve told anyone outside of that therapy session. The only reason I’m telling you is that it gave me a sense of peace admitting it and hopefully talking to someone will do the same for you.”
His words stopped her breathing for a moment as a chill ran down her spine. “I’ll consider it,” she said, surprising herself at her openness to something she held no stock in previously.
He nodded and smiled. “Good. Maybe we’ll self-medicate with some frozen yogurt for now, what do you say?”
“Perfect.”
Eighteen
Micah
Dinner with Elenka wasn’t what I thought it would be. A part of me assumed she would ask a hundred questions about my job with the World Council, but those two little words only appeared a few times in the conversation, neither of which resulted in a line of questioning I felt I needed to avoid.
Strangely, the evening felt more like an actual date than I intended it to be and the feeling made me crave more of it. It was foolish to think any form of a future was possible with a companion, but lust knew no reasoning. This was especially true as I watched her sip on her glass of wine, noticing the way her head tilted, exposing the flesh of her neck.
“What did you dream of growing up?” she asked after setting down her glass and taking another bite of roasted potatoes. She dabbed a napkin at her mouth as she waited expectantly for my response.
“The same thing as most kids, I imagine,” I replied, smoothly avoiding getting too personal. “To be successful.”
“That’s cheating and you know it,” she smirked. “Being successful is an expectation, not a dream.” Her voice lacked any bitterness and I was
struck by how she playfully teased me without showing any effort at all.
“Fine, what did you dream of?” I asked, putting the ball back in her court. If she thought I was going to reveal my secrets without her playing too, then she was dead wrong. I had my suspicions that I already knew her answer, but when she spoke, I realized I could not have been more wrong.
“I dreamed of going to Earth to see what’s left of it,” she replied flatly. I hadn’t expected that kind of response. I assumed she wanted to be a reporter, hence her current occupation; perhaps something similar.
“Why? Nobody has returned to Earth since the fallout,” I said, trying to avoid the smugness to my voice, but her glare indicated I failed at covering it sufficiently. I didn’t want to offend her, but it was difficult not to think her dream childish in nature. After all, Earth was nothing more than a dead rock in human history.
“That’s precisely why,” she said. “I want to know what happened afterward. I’m sure that there’s more to the story than we were told growing up.”
“I’m sure you’re right that there is, but the end of that story came at the launching of twenty-seven nuclear warheads. If there’s anything left, then it’s a wasteland. I don’t think you would see what you’re hoping to by returning.”
“And what do you think I hope to see?” her eyes bore into mine and I blinked, trying not to get sucked deeper into her gaze.
“I think you want to see survivors in a sprawling utopia who put aside the ways of war and live in luxury. Much like we’re trying to create with Clenist,” I added. My words were self-aggrandizing but weren’t fully intentional.
Elenka scoffed. “Is that what you’re trying to create, a utopia?”
Her question caught me off guard…again. “Of course, what else would we be after? The World Council has spent trillions of dollars and many decades trying to get us to this point. It’s my job to see the plan through to completion, if at all possible.”
