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“Sorry about that,” Ramone said, turning to stare out his window.

“No need,” Blythe answered. “Do you think she’ll do what you said?”

“I hope so. I don’t trust whoever we’re dealing with. If anything happened to her because of me, well—” he broke off.

“Who
are
we dealing with?” Marci asked. Her voice felt thick and the sound of it surprised her. She cleared her throat, trying to push the emotion back down into her stomach.

“They haven’t got a name that I know of. The Organization. That’s what I call them. It’s a loose collective of corporations, mainly. But of each corporation, only the leadership knows about the Organization. I don’t know much more than that. They keep an eye out, obviously.”

*****

It was ready.

Ghosteye didn’t have the power to turn the cameras off. No, they wouldn’t trust the Editors with that kind of control. But he could divert the feed to a location with a blank screen.

He could do even more than that.

“Now what?” Needles’ voice had grown weary, but with a shrill edge to it, as though he was balancing on a sheer precipice, staring down at his death.

“You can do whatever you want. They’re together now. My work here is done,” Ghosteye said, pushing his chair away from the control panel. His monitors glowed for a few seconds more before shutting off completely.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll give you one guess.” Ghosteye said, staring at an imagined after-image on one of his monitors. How long would it take him to get there? He couldn’t be sure. He’d never traveled much.

“What about me?”

“What about you? I’m not your caretaker. You can stay. Stick with your job. I’m sure they’ll reward you handsomely for turning me over. If not, well, perhaps they’ve got a nice camp prepared for the both of us out in the desert somewhere. Or worse.” Before he turned down the track lights, Ghosteye gave the room a once over, memorizing it, ready to say goodbye. Change was uncomfortable. His heart pumped rapidly as he faced the unknown, beyond the studio door, beyond his apartment door.

“Can I come with you?”

“No one’s stopping you. You saw the page I posted. It’s up to you.” Ghosteye grabbed a pack from the closet in his bedroom, shoved a few days worth of clothes in, his toiletry kit—a gift from Beth, back when she naively tried to get him to take a vacation—and some protein bars, a bag of chips, and some apples. It was all he had left from the last grocery visit the kid from the shopping service had done. He paid someone to do that. Leaving the apartment too much disturbed him. All that open space. It was a wonder he’d chanced to ever meet Beth.

“Maybe I will.”

“Do what you want. I’ve made my peace with this,” he said, slinging the pack onto his shoulder and taking several deep breaths.

“You nervous?”

“Never.”

“I thought I heard you panting.”

Ghosteye grunted. Needles was on Ghosteye’s last nerve. But if the other Editor didn’t join, Ghosteye was more at risk. Reverse psychology was tiring him out, yet the alternative– trying to force Needles to join–was out of the question. That would end badly. They needed people with convictions, and a person didn’t arrive at them with a sword dangling over their neck.

“I need a second opinion, man, why won’t you just tell me yes or no?”

“I don’t work that way, Needles. You’re a grown man, aren’t you? Make your own choice.”

“I can’t!”

“You better hurry. Who knows how long they’ll take to get to your apartment.”

“I don’t live in an apartment,” the other Editor muttered.

“Doesn’t matter. Listen, let me know when you’ve made up your mind. At least, if I can expect to see you there. I’ve got to focus now.”

A sudden silence told Ghosteye the call had ended.
Kind of sulky
, he thought, opening the front door, pulse thumping in his throat, fear gripping his stomach like a vise.
This is it.
He wanted to turn and say goodbye to the apartment, the fond shelter that had shielded him so from the big, cold world. But as he told Needles, he had no idea how long it would take them to get to his apartment, if they even knew what was happening. Who was he kidding? Of course they knew. And they weren’t forgiving. Stepping into the dimly lit corridor, Ghosteye gently pulled the door shut behind him without turning to make his farewell. He tried to whistle casually as he strode to the stairwell—the elevator might be more convenient, however it was also connected to a power grid and was therefore controllable—but his tongue was too dry and stuck to the top of his mouth.

His palms left a trail of perspiration on the handrail as he descended to the ground floor, his feet echoing hollowly in the concrete stairwell. There would be a perpetual sensation of being followed now, he realized. The back of his neck itched as the hair stood on end.

He passed through the lobby of the building without incident and stepped out into the spring night, dripping and heavy with humidity. The walk to the train was uneventful, but even so, adrenalin coursed through him as though any minute someone would materialize out of the shadows and stop him. All this would be much simpler if he’d just followed Beth’s advice years ago and gotten a personal transport device of some sort: a car, a scooter, a motorcycle . . . Anything. “But I don’t have anywhere to go,” he told her. “There’s an entire world out there, Gale. It’s waiting for you to engage it. Have you even left this city before?” His answer didn’t embarrass him, then, but if someone asked him the same question now . . . well, it would. What had she ever seen in him?

The ticket he purchased with his slate before leaving his apartment was waiting for him at the machine near the train platform. He punched in his code. Seconds later he gripped the flimsy paper nervously, trying to look nonchalant with his other hand dangling from the strap of his backpack as he waited for his escape vehicle. Was someone watching him, laughing at his delusions of freedom? He was an ant in an ant-farm, scurrying along tunnels, oblivious to the faces outside the glass observing his movements, waiting for the perfect moment to hedge up the way and trap him. Or maybe not.

Ghosteye shared the platform with a few others. A small family of immigrants—their clothing gave them away—standing close together, hanging onto each other and talking loudly in a language Ghosteye didn’t understand. Leaning against a white pillar, a young girl stared at a slate, engrossed in something, while her toe balanced on the wheel of a small suitcase and her free hand clutched the comically long handle of the suitcase. She had strawberry blonde hair, pulled back into a ponytail and from this distance, Ghosteye thought he could see freckles dusting her cheeks. He studied the rest of the crowd, trying to memorize something noticeable about each of them, filing the information away in case it became important later. Piercings, tattoos, scars, the shape of their lips, the size of their noses, the color of their eyes, if he could make that out. Who knew when those things would become useful?

There was still five minutes until the train was scheduled to arrive when he finished the survey of his neighbors. The minutes dragged until finally, he couldn’t help it anymore. His eyes searched the inside of the train station, looking for cameras and “ocular cavities.” But he saw none. They were there. He knew they were. He just couldn’t see them. If they were watching him, they knew he knew they were, versed as they were in the language of discomfort and third-party awareness—their polite term to describe being watched. So the advantage was theirs.

Only, they didn’t know his secret.

The train rushed into the station with a gasping whoosh. Air gusted against his face and tousled his hair as though he were a grinning little boy with punch-stained lips, watching trains coming and going for fun. He didn’t care about the train. He only cared to put distance between himself and his apartment. It was all he had. They could find him anywhere, of course, but they didn’t have a way around the physical laws of the universe. They still had to get to him, and he was determined to give them the chase of the century.

*****

Ramone didn’t know where they were going. The sun began to rise, he could tell, from the way the sky lightened and the stars began slowly disappearing. His eyes felt sticky and he blinked against the discomfort. He didn’t care where they were going. The important thing was that they were going somewhere. And Blythe was beside him. For now, that would do.

The strange girl occupying the backseat had apparently fallen asleep. Ramone glanced behind him. Her torso and arms were draped over the top of her small suitcase, her mouth half open as she snored lightly. Even in the half-light shadows he could tell she was pretty. His eyes shifted to Blythe. She wouldn’t notice. She’d think he was staring at the young girl. The younger girl was pretty. But Blythe, well, she was gorgeous.

Her eyelids drooped slightly; her skin seemed to sag a little in fatigue. But it did little to diminish how attractive she was. And strong. And though she’d seen him at his worst, there was something connecting them, now. It vibrated beneath his ribs and resonated with her proximity. He would feel it forever. He’d never escape it. He was sure.

“Where are we going?” he asked quietly. Blythe spared him a glance before returning her eyes to the unending freeway stretching away from them in an impossibly straight line.

“He said go west on this freeway. That’s it. That’s all I know,” she answered in a tone as hushed as his had been.

“And you trust him?”

“I don’t see a lot of options. Do you?”

He faced forward in his seat, pushed the tire iron off his lap—finally daring to let it go—onto the floor near his feet, and let his head fall back against the headrest, a muted sigh escaping before he had a chance to stop it. He was so tired. But he couldn’t leave Blythe, couldn’t close his eyes even for a moment to rest. Ramone wanted to be there, to be alert, in case she needed him.

“What does your husband think of this?” Ramone asked after a long pause.

Blythe flinched as though the question was unexpected. She recovered and said in a flippant tone. “Don’t know. Haven’t asked him.”

“But will you? Isn’t he worried?”

“I’m sure he’d be concerned if he knew, but I think he went to Hawaii with his girlfriend.” She adjusted the cruise control, suddenly very interested in how fast they were traveling. The engine revved slightly and Ramone felt a tugging in the root of his stomach that said they were going faster. He cleared his throat, embarrassed for Blythe, for trying to be conversational and ineptly trampling her feelings.

“I didn’t know,” he cleared his throat again and coughed into his fist. “I’m sorry.”

“How could you know? It doesn’t matter, anyway. We grew apart.”

Ramone nodded and turned away from her to stare out the window, hoping to eliminate her embarrassment. The gray distance had turned more pastel and he could make out the red lights of a plant of some sort nestled against the crook of two mountains, where they joined in a V-shape. A power station, perhaps, or a fertilizer factory. “We don’t have to talk about it,” he muttered, hoping to spare her the embarrassment. He was certainly embarrassed, for her.

“Why not? Let’s do. Let’s go over it. It’s not as though I’m hurt. Oh. Well, no, I am, hurt that is. But not for the reasons you’re thinking. I hurt for our culture. The culture of self-aggrandizement. The culture of fame-seeking. My husband and I were perfectly happy for a few years, before I knew who he really was.”

“Blythe, I’m sorry. I—I really—” he cleared his throat and coughed again. His palms were damp and he rubbed them on his upper arms in a vain attempt to dry them, “we really don’t need to go over this. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Pry? Who’s prying? I’m giving you this information freely. You think you know someone, right? You think you love them. And then you discover, after an investment of time, that you didn’t know them. That your love was squandered on an ingrate. That what you valued of yourself—the love you gave to them—meant nothing to them, at least, not how you hoped it would. To them it was part of their trophy collection. You were a conquest. They kept you around to remind them of that triumph.” She took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel with both hands before shaking her head and brushing a long dark strand of hair behind her ear that had escaped its loose pony-tail. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone on like that. I’m sorry.”

He was quiet a moment before saying gently, “Don’t be. I think everyone could blame me for the dissolution of their relationships, if they wanted.”

“That’s hardly fair,” she said, giving him a sideways glance. The sky ahead of them at the end of the ribbon of the pale freeway began to purple and blue like a fresh bruise.

“It’s not. But it’s the truth.”

“It’s an excuse. I was making excuses for myself. And if anyone else blamed you, they’d be making excuses also.”

He stared out the window, watching the skyline of mountains rise and fall against the backdrop of star-spangled night sky. It could be an excuse, but did that matter? Ramone’s creation had led to the status quo. Whether or not he did it intentionally could only be said to make him a tool. Only tools did things unintentionally at the hands of someone else. Who controlled him, then? A benevolent Creator or a manipulative devil? So far, it would seem the latter. “For some reason, you’re simply being kind. We both know I started us down this path.” He wasn’t sure if he meant society as a whole when he said “us” or if he meant something much smaller. He and Blythe, for example. Her hand upon his surprised him. He almost pulled away in shock, but caught himself in time and left it there, anxious and frightened. What did it mean?
Don’t be silly, you old fool, it’s a thing people do to convey comfort. She’s comforting you. Nothing more, nothing less. And you’re manipulating her, aren’t you? Trying to make her feel sorry for you.
He blinked, confronting the motives buried beneath layers of insecurity around his heart. Even more shocking than her sudden touch was the absence of manipulation as his central motive.
No. I’m not.
He was sure of it.
But even so. I need this. I need something. I need her strength. I’m not strong right now.