Cold Reboot (Shadow Decade Book 1)

by Michael Coorlim

  I finish laughing at something he's said or hasn't said and see a man in a drawn-up hoodie and a white dust-mask heading our way. There's something about him. Something in the way he walks, or the way he's dressed — worn jeans and heavy scuffed boots — something in the way he has his hands thrust into the pockets of his hoodie sets my teeth on edge. I am two women at once, one distant and spacey, one sharp and cold and focused on this man, his pace, his posture.

  Woman One's anxiety merges with Woman Two's alertness into a cold calmness, and I feel my posture relax as I rock on the balls of my feet forward off of the hood, knees slightly bent.

  My peripheral vision narrows and I lose track of Baxter, the man heading towards us occupying my world. It's our world now, his and mine, but don't tell Baxter. He'd be hurt.

  My new partner's gaze is downcast, but I know, somehow, that he's as focused on us as I am on him. I can tell, without being able to pinpoint why, that he's tense. Nervous. Anticipatory. Maybe that's what is putting me on edge.

  I dimly hear Baxter saying something behind me, but his words aren't important.

  I'm watching the man's hands, only an arm's length away now. I watch him pull an ugly little pistol out of his pocket, watch myself moving into him. Hear the shattering retort of the pistol firing.

  ***

  I'm standing above him, the man. He's down. On the ground. I don't know how he got there, or why my hands hurt, or whose blood is sticky on my face.

  Baxter is screaming. Same old Baxter.

  ***

  I find myself sitting in a hospital emergency room in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, and I don't know how I got there. My skirt is ripped, stained with blood, and I'm barefoot. My hands hurt, but I don't think I'm injured. There's a nurse talking to me, repeating something, but I can't understand what she's saying.

  She points at my hands. I'm holding a clipboard and a pen. On the clipboard is a form of some kind, but my eyes won't focus on it long enough for me to fill it out.

  I look back up at her, and she just grabs the clipboard away with a disgusted expression on her face.

  CHAPTER 10: WALK OF SHAME

  At some point someone brought me a cheese sandwich, possibly from a vending machine. White bread, American singles. I remember the texture more-so than the taste. Dry. Not good, but it gave me something concrete to focus on. Something real that helped me return to the world.

  A detective stopped by to talk to me, and while he was asking his inane repetitive questions it all just hit me in a rush. Baxter. The assault. The man in the hoodie. I didn't remember anything more, but it became suddenly real, suddenly overwhelming.

  My hands were shaking and it got hard to breathe. I dropped the uneaten half of my sandwich onto the floor, and pulled Baxter's jacket close around my shoulders. I hadn't even noticed that I was wearing it.

  He must have noticed my teeth clattering because he stopped with the questions. "We'll be in touch if there's anything else we need, Ms. Crawford."

  "What do I do now?" I asked, my voice tiny.

  He'd already lost interest, gone to talk to his partner. If he told me his name, I didn't catch it.

  I don't know how long I spent staring at the floor, at the sandwich, at my bare feet on the speckled tile, but when I looked up again the cops were gone. I was almost alone in the emergency room, a young teen holding a blood-soaked rag to his eye a few plastic-chair rows ahead of me, a nurse behind a semi-circular reception desk.

  The letterhead on my paperwork told me that I was at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I'd never been there, but had heard that it was supposed to be good.

  I rose and walked on the balls of my feet to the reception desk. The nurse — I think the one who had given me the form — ignored me.

  "Do I need to see anybody?" I asked.

  There was no kindness in her eyes. "Do you want to see someone?"

  I didn't know. "A doctor?"

  "Do you have insurance?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Then you probably don't." Her tone sharpened. "If you want to be seen, emergency care rates start at twelve-hundred. Payment rendered at time of service."

  "I don't have that kind of money." The number didn't seem real.

  Her tone lightened. "Then I would suggest you consider carefully whether or not you need to see someone."

  Jesus, did she have to be such a bitch about it? "What about Baxter? The man I came in with."

  She sighed and unrolled her transparent computer screen. "Full name?"

  "Baxter Collins. Can I see him?"

  "He's in surgery." She scrolled through her screen's display. "Are you immediate family?"

  "I'm his... no. Just a friend."

  She closed her screen. "Non-family visitation hours end at eight. If you come back tomorrow—"

  I could feel the tears welling in the corners of my eyes. "Please, I just need to know if he's going to be okay."

  "I'm sorry, I can't tell you any more than that." Her face didn't soften, but her tone lowered. "His wife's been contacted. She's on her way. If you wait around another half-an-hour, she'll be able to tell you what I can't."

  I turned, stiff limbed, and walked with deliberate calm out through the emergency room doors. Call me a coward, but I didn't want to meet Baxter's wife there, then, under those circumstances.

  Or ever. Under any circumstances.

  She'd be there, she'd be out of her mind with concern, and I couldn't maintain this illusion that maybe he'd leave her for me if I saw that she genuinely cared for him.

  I told myself that I couldn't do that to her. Maybe the truth was that I just couldn't do it to myself. Whatever. I just wanted to go home.

  My apartment would have to do.

  ***

  I took a cab back to Canaryville. It wasn't really an expense I could afford, but I didn't want to hazard the public transit system barefoot. Where had my shoes gone? Did I leave them in the parking garage? Did the police take them? Were they evidence?

  Fuck, those were expensive shoes.

  The teens were loitering around the lobby when the cab dropped me off, but I was too tired, too exhausted to even be afraid of them. I could feel them watching me, hear the hushed conversation and mocking laughter, but after what I'd been through — the mugging, the hospital, Baxter — it all seemed so petty, so meaningless.

  Fuck off, kids. I have grown-up problems. Maybe they could tell how much disdain I had for them, because they didn't follow.

  The girl with the chin tattoos was leaning against the rail a few units down from my door. I made brief eye contact with her, but barely registered it. I just wanted to get into my apartment, sleep, forget about the whole damn shitty day.

  I waved my card past the scanner.

  Nothing.

  My frown deepened and I tried again, with the same results.

  Just what I needed, a mechanical glitch and more mockery from these fucking kids. I hung my head and noticed that the door wasn't sealed shut. Instead, there was a gap about half-an-inch wide between the door and the frame.

  Ice-water ran down my spine. Had I forgotten to lock it?

  I wiggled my fingers into the gap and, with effort, slid the door open. Light from the LEDs lining the walkways and the feeble moonlight penetrating the cloud-cover up above spilled in over the threshold into the wreckage beyond.

  My apartment had been trashed. The light smashed, couch cushions ripped apart, mattress torn. The few amenities it came with, the television, the mini-fridge, the wretched coffee machine, they'd been smashed by whomever had broken in.

  Those fucking kids.

  "Hey, lady—" the girl behind me said.

  "You fucking animals!" My spine felt like it'd been dipped in molten lead, and the heat poured out past my lips in a terrible roar as I turned from the doorway, Baxter's jacket thrown over my shoulders like a cape. "What the fuck is wrong with you assholes?"

  The girl took a half-step back, shocked.

  The w
ords kept coming, and I don't even know where from, some deep, dark, and very angry part of my soul. "You don't get enough fucking jollies out of your pointless shit life, you need to pull this shit on someone you don't even know?"

  She backed up another few steps. Some of her buddies had started heading our way, and lights were turning on all up and down the floor.

  I didn't care. Let her friends come. Let them all come. I'd had enough of this shit. "You filthy fucking shits, this is what you are! This is what you fucking do! It's not enough you need to fucking terrorize me all goddamn day? Like my life isn't shitty enough? Now you need to take what little I have and fucking ruin it?"

  There was fear in her eyes. I'm sure of it. She was backing away, and some of her gang had stepped up to get between us.

  "Yo," one of them said, a boy no more than fifteen. "Take it easy—"

  "Take it easy?" I couldn't believe my ears. "You want me to take it easy? After this? After all the shit I've been through, after what you've done to me?"

  "Yo, we didn't—"

  "I don't want to hear it!"

  They were staring at my hand, and I followed their gaze.

  The handgun. Heavy. Black matte. My hand was wrapped around the grip, trigger finger alongside the guard. I waved it in their direction. "Just get the fuck out of my way, or you're going to find out what happens when you fuck with strangers!"

  A woman in her fifties or early sixties, wearing a floral print dress and tattered gray slippers stepped out of the apartment next to mine. She was Pacific Islander, I think, though I couldn't be certain or more specific. Her eyes went from the gun in my hand to my face to the faces of the kids I was threatening. "Please," she said. "Please don't. People live here." I hadn't seen her before. Hadn't met her, or anyone else living here who wasn't in the local gang. Still, her interference infuriated me further, and for a terrifying moment I thought I was going to pistol whip the poor woman.

  That impulse cut into my rage like a cold wind, and I lowered the gun. "Just get out of my way."

  They got, clearing a path for me down the stairs. I slipped the pistol into my purse, trying not to think about how I'd gotten a hold of it in the first place, about how I'd left it hidden in my apartment before I left.

  Fuck those kids. Fuck this place. Fuck me.

  ***

  I made it all the way out of the Block and to the street before I collapsed. Was I going insane? Why was all of this happening? What sort of world had I woken up to, where I'm robbed the same day I'm mugged? Where I brandish a pistol at a bunch of kids, where I come close to shooting someone?

  I couldn't even cry. Nothing was coming from my throat but a half-retching half-sob.

  "Hello?" The voice came from right next to my ear.

  I was holding my ChicagoCard like a phone. I'd called someone. "Hello?"

  "Who is this?"

  I recognized the voice. "Scott?"

  "Is that... Erica?"

  I sniffed and stood up, back pressed against the wall. "Yeah."

  "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

  "I'm..." I didn't know what to say.

  "Are you in trouble?" His voice was so warm, so concerned, so comforting. "Do you need me to come get you?"

  "No, I... I'm sorry." Why'd I call? "It must be after midnight, I'm sorry, I—"

  "It's okay. If you need something..."

  "Can you meet with me?" The words just spilled out, like before, but this time they felt more like my own. "I really just need someone to talk to."

  "Okay," he said. "Where are you at?"

  "Near my apartment. Just outside."

  "Okay." I could hear him checking his Card. "There's an all-night diner just five blocks west of you, at 43rd and Halsted. Enzo's. I can be there in half-an-hour."

  "Okay." I sniffed. "Thank you."

  "It's going to be okay, Erica."

  "I don't... I'll see you soon."

  "Soon."

  He hung up, and I wondered what I was going to say. What could I say? How could I even describe what had been going on? It was just... life being shitty. That's what life did. It was hard for everybody. I began to really regret having called him, but what was done was done.

  God, what a whiner. What he must think of me.

  Wishing I'd grabbed my shoes from near the door, I pulled Baxter's jacket tightly around my shoulders and stumbled down the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER 11: COFFEE DOES IT AGAIN

  Enzo's had that sort of trashy timelessness you'd expect from a greasy spoon, the kind I never visited in 2015 but recognized from old movies. Black and white linoleum tile floor. Stuffed red upholstered booths and stools. Coffee stained counter.

  Of course, the lights overhead were LEDs instead of fluorescents and they didn't flicker, and instead of a gruff-looking old man in a wife-beater cooking behind the counter there was a complicated looking food processor under a Plexiglas shield.

  The place was empty when I arrived, and blissfully quiet. I'd ordered a coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn't feel like eating it, but the novelty of watching it being made distracted me until Scott arrived.

  Concern was evident on his face as soon as he walked in, taking in my matted hair, smeared makeup, torn dress. "Oh god, Erica, what happened?"

  My hand shook as I lifted the coffee I'd ordered from the counter in front of me. "Baxter and I. We were attacked."

  He sat on the stool next to me. "Jesus. How? When? Are you okay?"

  I waved a hand. "I'm just... just in shock. I'm not hurt. I don't think. I don't remember."

  He slipped to his feet. "We need to get you to the hospital."

  "No, I... no. I was just there. Baxter was... I think he was shot or stabbed or... they wouldn't tell me. I... he's in surgery."

  "You need to go back, get checked out–"

  "I'm fine!" He flinched a little, and I realized I was shouting. I lowered my voice. "No, I'm not hurt, and I can't afford the emergency room fees. You know that."

  He lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry."

  "No, it's... I'm just trying to..."

  "What did the police say?"

  "They asked me a lot of questions. I don't remember what I told them."

  "You don't remember?" He asked. "Blackouts?"

  "Yeah." I put both hands on my cup, willing him to drop the subject. Last thing I needed right now was a lecture on how I needed therapy.

  He put a warm hand over mine. "Erica."

  I looked up, startled. The concern in his eyes made me tear up again, and my voice trembled. "The cops. They didn't care about me. Just wanted to know about Baxter, about the man who attacked us."

  He pulled me close, into a warm embrace. His sweater smelled like burning leaves. "It's okay. It's okay. They got him. You're safe."

  I wept, then. Really cried, for the first time in... I don't know how long. I'd worked so hard at keeping it all together, but Scott's kindness, his compassion, it just smashed me open. I sobbed and shuddered into his chest, distantly grateful that the diner was fully automated, that we were alone, that no one was there to see me break down.

  When my shudders subsided I pulled back, away, watching as the fibers of his sweater repelled my tears, sending them running down his abdomen in rivulets to rain upon the floor.

  "They didn't catch him." I sniffled. "The questions they were asking... sounds like he got away."

  "I'm sorry—"

  "No, no, it's good. No, it means that I didn't kill him."

  "What?"

  "I remember him lying there, covered in blood. Hurt." I wiped my eyes on the back of my forearm. "Just this image burned into my mind. One of us... Baxter or me... I think me... we hurt him bad."

  Scott nodded, face serious. "Hey, it's okay. The cops know it was a clear case of self-defense."

  "No, I... I don't want to hurt anybody." I shouldn't have been able to hurt anybody. I've had maybe one self-defense class in my life, and that was about holding keys between your fingers when you punch someone. And I don't
think they even make keys like that anymore. I didn't tell the cops about the gun, didn't know that I'd had it. Wasn't going to tell Scott about it either.

  How could I tell him that I was more afraid of myself than the man who'd attacked us?

  "I'm just glad you're okay. Are you going to be okay at home alone?"

  "No, I went home and..." I hesitated. Scott had already come out all this way after single call. If he thought something else was wrong, he'd do something else incredibly selfless and kind and I just couldn't handle that. "Yeah, I'm okay. Don't worry."

  He didn't seem entirely convinced. "If you're sure."

  "I'm sure." I flashed what I hoped came across like a genuine smile. "Thank you. For coming all the way out here to meet me."

  "That's the job." He grinned.

  "Oh really? Coming out after midnight to meet with a client is part of the social worker's job description?"

  "You know me," he said sheepishly. "If I'm in, I'm all in."

  I didn't know him. But I was starting to. "Thank you."

  "You should eat that." He gestured towards the uneaten sandwich.

  "I already ate, with Baxter, before." I stood, slipping off of my stool. "And I don't think I could eat anything right now, anyway."

  We left the sandwich behind and he walked me out, to the curb. The streets were quiet, though well lit by digital advertisements above us.

  "You taking the train?" I asked.

  He gestured back the way he'd come. "No, I took the bus. I don't live too far from here."

  "Okay." I surprised us both by giving him a peck on the cheek. "Goodnight, Scott."

  He grinned and gave my hand a squeeze. "I'll see you next Wednesday, then."

  "Wednesday?"

  "Your appointment."

  "Right." I stepped away from him. "Wednesday."

  He gave a final wave and walked up the street.

  I watched him go, not really thinking of anything, just grateful that there was someone out there I could count on.