Chapter Five
Mountain View Condominiums, Downtown Seattle
This chapter and all chapters of this work should be considered as explicit content: rough language, depictions of open sexual activity, and disturbing conduct.
Talia Lee
As soon as I walked through the front door to my condo, I was reminded as every time I walked through that door why I paid way more than I can afford for this place: the view from 30 floors up of the Seattle waterfront, Elliott Bay, and the Olympic Mountains behind it. It was dark now, so I couldn't actually see the Olympics, but the waterfront, the harbor and West Seattle across the bay were all lit up. When it was sunset on a clear day? Nothing made me more glad to be alive.
Something I did not always feel. 'Shake it off, Tal,' I told myself silently as I dropped my keys on the table next to the door and kicked off my shoes. My feet exhaled a sigh of relief at being released from their high-heeled torture devices and reveled in the cold marble floor. I padded into the living room and over to the bar, pulled down two tumblers, and poured a finger of Fremont Mischief into each one. Vincent gratefully accepted one from me and followed me to the couch.
Unlike most people's, my couch did not face the TV, because I didn't have a TV. My couch faced the floor-to-ceiling window and that million dollar view. Million-six, to be precise. Anything that gave me as much peace as this view was a better focus than the TV, which would mostly broadcast the same kind of images into my brain that were already tormenting it. Staring at this view allowed me to escape those images for a little while. Some nights I would come home from work, sit here and not move. I would just lean against this arm and stare out the window until I fell asleep. Yes, I confess I slept on my couch more than on my bed.
But who needs to sleep on a bed when you have nobody to sleep with?
I sipped the amber-colored liquid and glanced over at Vinnie. What a waste. Why did someone so beautiful have to make himself unavailable? He...
"So what are we celebrating?" he asked, holding his glass out for a toast.
My hands started to shake. Now that the moment was here, the moment of telling another person and committing myself to it, the doubts rushed in. It was stupid. It was just stupid to think that I could... that anyone would... that it even mattered... that...
"Are you sure this is a celebration?" Vinnie asked. Damn he was always perceptive. "You look scared to death."
I laughed. "Because I am." Confessing the fear made me gather my courage. I straightened my spine and took in a deep breath. Pasting a smile onto my face I raised my glass with him and said, "You are the first person to know that I have decided to run for Mayor of Seattle."
Pure delight dawned on his face. After a moment, he thrust his glass at mine and said, "Talia that's fantastic! I will definitely drink to that!" I touched my glass to his then we did just that. "What made you finally decide to do it?"
He had been bugging me for months to do it, kept telling me that I was just what the city and the world needed. I don't know about all that, but I finally had decided I needed to do it. "My counselor has me doing this exercise, where I list my best moments, the moments that make me feel the best about myself, the most, like, at peace with myself." Vinnie nodded like he knew the exercise I was talking about. He probably learned all about it in the counseling classes he had to take as part of his priest school, so he could counsel his flock. "And in most of them, I'm standing up for people who cannot defend themselves from other people who are taking advantage of them." He grinned and looked down into the depths of his whiskey - probably for restraint. That was how we met: he was being bullied and I stepped in. Kicked their asses, too.
"But not only that. When we were talking about what I had figured out, she helped me to see that other common themes running through my best moments were 'collaborative strategizing ' and 'creative analyzing.' Those were the terms she made up for it. To me it was just what you did in a war zone, you figured out with your buddies how the fuck to survive and get home." I got home, but I still wasn't sure I had survived.
Vinnie stood suddenly and held his empty left hand out in front of me. I looked at him - what was he doing? Then he pointed at my glass and I noticed it was empty, like his. I handed him the glass. He gestured toward the kitchen with his head. "Come on, keep me company while I make us a couple of cocktails," he said. It sounded good. Vinnie was a pretty good amateur bartender, and he was sexy as hell when he was making a drink.
My kitchen was to the left as you walked from the front door to the living room window. It had a breakfast bar where I had put two stools. I slid onto the nearest one while he walked into the kitchen. It was a pretty big kitchen for a downtown condo, because I liked to cook meals with a lot of steps. Vinnie moved easily from the fridge to the bar cabinet to the counter. He liked to make cocktails as complicated as my meals.
He looked up suddenly, right into my eyes. Did he catch me staring at his ass? "Go on," he said, and for a second I thought he was telling me to keep staring, but then I realized he meant to continue my explanation. I liked my first interpretation better.
I shrugged. "I don't know. When I was thinking about it all after the session, I just kept remembering the last conversation we had when you told me why you thought I should run for mayor, and it all just kind of came together. Your arguments seemed to answer all the questions that session had raised."
Every month we would go pig out on tacos at Felipe's in the old neighborhood. Best damn tacos in Seattle - throwback style, not New American Foodie Reimagined. Everybody else in the place was from somewhere in Central America. We knew most of them. Most of them had voted for me. Every time we came in here, it was ten or fifteen minutes before we could get to a table because of all the people who wanted to say hello and catch up. They were all proud of us, me a big City Councillor and Vinnie running the big cathedral up on the hill. "Look at you," he had said to me as soon as we sat down. "You're as white as it gets, yet to them you are one of them, because you feel you are one of them. You represent them, you protect them, you fight for them. And they love you for it. They would do anything for you.
"The whole city needs that, just like this neighborhood. Workers, renters, small business owners, immigrants, the homeless, so many people with little control over their lives, no representation, at the mercy of a predatory elite. Nobody else will fight for them. You will. And they know you will. They've seen you fight for this hood." It was resonating with me and he could see it. He leaned in. "That means they will vote for you."
I had been getting frustrated with being just a single city councilor when the problems that beset my people were city-wide. The rest of the council was concerned only with promoting economic growth and property values. The mayor was practically an employee of Googazon. Everything I tried to do was obstructed, blunted, turned aside. As mayor, that would still happen and the council would still be Capitalist, but I would have the executive power at my disposal, and the diplomatic. I would also have that platform for my ideas - our ideas, Vinnie's and mine.
Vinnie handed me my drink and we clinked glasses. It was a reddish-amber liquid in a cocktail glass with a band-aid-sized orange peel floating in it, and when I put the glass to my lips the smell made me close my eyes and float away somewhere warm with a cool breeze, then the flavor made me moan as if he were doing to me what I always wanted him to do. "Jesus Christ, Vinnie, this drink is amazing." His grin was a kick in the vagina, and I watched his ass in those black pants as he walked over to the window in the breakfast area.
The tower across Union from mine was partially visible out that window. Having been built early in the current development boom, it was taller and burlier than my building, and almost half full - unlike those built more recently. Most of the windows facing me were dark, but did I detect movement in one of them? A slight shimmer of light across a dark surface? I focused on the window.
Full scan
UV, IR, radar, sonar, every scanner implanted into my head reached out to study the space behind that window.
Empty.
Sigh. Just as I thought: it was Him, watching me, warning me, letting me know he was here, waiting for later when I would be alone.
"I have a confession to make," Vinnie said as he stared southward over Pioneer Square and the harbor, chasing the shadow away for the moment. I walked over and stood next to him. The Vashon Ferry was coming in. "I'm a little jealous."
I could not have been any more shocked if he had said he'd murdered a man. "Say what?" I ejected without thought.
"You're making things happen. You're acting on your dreams - our dreams!" He clenched a fist. "And where am I? What am I doing? Giving sermons to self-satisfied white people who are only there paying their Afterlife Insurance premiums?"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh come on, Vinnie. Where is this self-pity coming from?" I snapped. "You're jealous? What about me? You're just about to go travel around the world to the most amazing cities. The only places I've ever gone people were trying to kill me." He was looking at me now, and I could tell he was feeling bad. "This is an amazing opportunity for you to spread the word, to take your message of global self-governance to people all over the globe." I leaned in and put my hand on his shoulder. "What did we always say? 'Words strike harder than bullets. Ideas change the world, bombs don't.' Your ideas will change the world, Vinnie." I took a drink. He was looking out the window again, but his whole posture was different. His spine was straight, his head was up and his eyes were on the stars again. "I can make our dreams happen in one city, and I will fight for that with everything I have, but you can carry them everywhere."
"I'm sorry, Tal," he said with a soft chuckle. "You're right. I am being stupid and petty and I should know better." He turned his head and smiled at me. "We're both making it happen," he said, and we toasted to that.
"Speaking of making it happen," I began, struck by a thought. "Are you going to the Conference this weekend?"
He frowned. "Only some of it. I have duties to attend to at the parish before I leave, and I didn't get that commission I was hoping for from the Vatican." He had sent a report to the grand high mucketymucks of the Roman Catholic Church with an outline of his ideas about the importance of collective action by cities from all over the world, beginning with regional federations, and a request to attend the upcoming 26th Annual Global Conference of Mayors here in Seattle as a delegate from the Church. He was hoping to spread his ideas among the mayors at the Conference and perhaps get the Church involved as the city-state the Vatican was.
"Oh, Vinnie, that sucks. Maybe the Pope isn't as visionary as you thought." Vinnie was a real fanboi. I was not. I mean, yeah, he was better than most popes, but that wasn't a very high bar. "I know!" I exclaimed, suddenly struck by a thought. "You should come as my date!"
His reaction made me giggle. It was somewhere between rolled eyes, a head shake, a chuckle, and a heavy sigh. "I hardly think going as your date would be appropriate." Then he struck back. "If you're so hard up for a date, call Dash Spice. Maybe he's available."
I scowled. "Not fair. You know I can't afford him." Vinnie had the decency to look chagrined. "Besides, he's under Contract to the Empress." I was always up on Dash's availability. I didn't tell anyone, not even Vincent, that I went to Dash's web site every night, and I checked his bookings calendar, looked at his gallery, and I even read his blog. How pathetic is that? The only man I am attracted to other than Father Vincent Biaggi is an escort I will never afford who has some of the world's most powerful and beautiful people as his clients. What does that say about me?
I don't want to know.
"Please tell me you're not going to try to win him at Swords again," Vinnie retorted, and we both exploded in laughter. Swords was my favorite game in the world and I was actually quite good. I used to play all the time before the military, and I still got together with friends once a week for a low stakes game, and trained regularly. I saved up my money every year for one event up at Thugz Mansion where I allowed myself to join a high stakes game. I've played up there three times, and twice came home with more money than I took.
But that other time... We looked at each other and laughed again. "Hey, I'm a good player!" I choked out between gasps.
"Yeah," he conceded after taking in a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. "Except when a certain high-priced call boy is up for Collateral."
"Okay, that only happened once," I retorted. The last time Empress Catherine had visited Thugz Mansion, she had Contracted Dash Spice and brought him to the Swords table as her Collateral. That was my opportunity! I could never afford to pay Dash, but if I could win his Contract? He would have been mine for three days and three nights. I became obsessed. I was so focused on attacking Catherine and trying to deplete her resources - foolishly because they were limitless - that I failed to notice she had formed an alliance with another player across the table. At a critical moment in the game, when I thought I had her at a disadvantage and could take her Collateral, she played a Feint that lured me into making a Thrust, which exposed my defenses to her ally, who Disarmed me. I had no choice but to Yield or Die.
That gave me a thought. "That's why you have to come as my consigliere. Survey the table for me, watch the other players, warn me when I'm becoming too single-minded." He was laughing at me. "Hey, you owe me," I accused. His eyebrows jumped. "You never did pay me back for saving your lunch money that time."
"I've paid you back many times over for that and you know it!" he exclaimed in outrage. It was the time we had met. "You bring that out every time you want to manipulate me."
"And it works every time."
He scowled, then sighed. "All right. I will come for your Swords game."
I grinned in triumph. Gloated, really. Then I grew serious. "What I really need counsel for are the working sessions at the Conference." He focused on my face, all levity gone. "It's a huge opportunity, for me and for Seattle, but I have to do everything right if we're going to get the most out of it. Your observational skills, your wisdom, your quick strategic mind?" I shrugged. "They would be invaluable to me."
At first I thought he was going to object, probably tell me I'm smart and capable and he had faith in me, but then his posture changed and he nodded. "Very well, Tal. That makes sense. Everybody can use a second brain and set of eyes." He tossed back the last sip of his drink, which made me notice mine was empty. "There's more in the fridge," he said, and reached for my glass. I followed him over to the kitchen. "You're right about the importance of this Conference. It could even be historic." He refilled our two glasses, rinsed the shaker in the sink and put it in the drying rack. "And I like how you have managed to back door me into it."
“Now we really have something to celebrate!” I called out too brightly and grabbed my glass off the bar. “I’m announcing my run for Mayor at the Conference and you can make your pitch for the Global Federation to the Mayors!” He didn’t leave me hanging: we clinked glasses and tossed back too much of our drinks, then laughed and slammed them down on the bar. “Then you and Darnell take the message to the masses.” A potent rush of good feeling ballooned inside me. “We’re really doing it, Vinnie!” I grabbed my glass and held it out again. “To the mission!”
His eyes were moist when they met mine and his nose was red. He touched his glass to mine and whispered, “To the mission,” then threw the rest of his drink into his mouth with me. He looked away out the window, like a ship’s captain staring through the fog. His whole body was wired with intensity, as if he were ready to fly out my window and charge at the sky. This meant so much to him.
Vinnie always had made the connections. Even in middle school, he saw in the miseries and struggles of the people in our neighborhood the invisible hands of the men in power. While the rest of us were running around the streets and playgrounds emulating our celebrity and sports heroes, Vinnie was reading and thinking. Even in what Darnell did to his father, Vinnie saw how larger forces were behind it. In college he got a political science degree and studied history and economics, philosophy and archaeology. In his free time, he hacked. He wanted to understand, he wanted an answer. “There has to be another way, Tal,” he said one night. “And there has to be a way to make it happen.” Then he got that look he had now and whispered, “And I’m gonna find it.”
And in his studies, he had found it. He laid it all out for me one night in my room just before I left to start my active commission. “The world has changed but the political systems haven’t changed with them. Three quarters of the people live in cities but the nation states still give controlling power to the rural areas. The populations, the economic production, are all in the cities. That’s where the real power is, but the political power is still distributed as if we were an agrarian society. The cities should have the political power.
“And the nation-state system has outlived its usefulness. Now all it does is allow the ruling class to protect its capital by moving it away from any state that tries to regulate or redistribute some of it, while using those borders to control the people. Liberation will never come through the nation-state system. The ruling class will never allow it. National politics are too difficult to move. But local politics? You can change power in a city much more easily than in a country. The numbers are smaller, and voter turnout is always lower in local elections than national. A relatively small party can win. And if you get control of a city, you can accomplish actual changes. You can do things. Win a few seats in Congress? What can you do? Nothing!
“But it can’t be just one city. Trotsky was right when he said a socialist revolution had to be international because the Capitalist world system would just crush it in one country. And they have. Everywhere the people have elected a ‘leftist’ government – meaning a government that said it was going to use the resources of the country to benefit the people of that country – the Capitalists have made it fail, by coups and mass murder if necessary. Look it up. No, the revolution has to be international, it has to be global.
“And our problems are global. We can’t just fix Seattle. What happens in Vancouver affects us. What happens in Tokyo affects us. Hanoi, Shanghai, Kinshasa, Berlin – they all affect us. Capitalism is global, destroying life everywhere, so the resistance has to be global too. And we can’t just all do our own thing. We can’t just go grow vegetables and help our neighbors. We only have power when we work together. You don’t make a revolution as individuals; you make a revolution by pledging your lives to each other.”
He had jumped off my bed and stalked over to the window, thrown his hands up in the air then turned and pinned me like a rabbit with his glare. “Add it all up and it’s just so obvious!” The only thing obvious to me in that moment was how incredibly hot he was. “A global federation of sovereign city-states!” My face probably conveyed the “huh?” in my brain. He blew out an exasperated sigh and laid it all out in excruciating detail.
He had that same intensity now. “Everything we always talked about, now we can make it happen.” He looked at me. “Thank you, Tal. You’re right, I do need to be there however I can get there.” He was right. With mayors from all over the world in attendance, and members of the Federation of Southeast Asian Cities giving presentations on their experiences, we had the opportunity to bring the ideas to people who could take them all over the world and plant them like seeds. Seeds he and Darnell could water on his tour.
Vinnie reached for his glass, saw that it was empty, looked over at mine, saw that it was empty, and walked around the bar to the refrigerator. I watched him make us another drink and tried to slow my brain. I was halfway through a mindfulness exercise when he set my drink on the counter between my hands.
I slid off the barstool and padded over to the couch. Vinnie followed. I sat cross-legged in the middle, and he settled against the left arm. He put his glass on the side table; I cradled mine in both hands. I was surprised he had made another round. He must be feeling them by now and he didn't like getting drunk. He knew I couldn't get drunk. Maybe he just liked making them and he, like me, loved drinking them. I couldn't get drunk, but the richness and complexity of the flavors, and the rituals, relaxed me, helped distract me from the horrifying visions that floated around in my head. I guess that was why he had made another round.
I leaned over and let my shoulder fall against his. He took the glass from my hands and placed it on the table next to his, then put his arm around me. I nestled into his side. "Vinnie?" I asked, feeling like a little girl. "Will you stay with me tonight?"
"Sure," he said, and shifted so he was lying full on the couch with his torso supported by the arm and throw pillows. I settled into the safe space between him and the couch back cushions. I could tell from his breathing when he fell asleep. I knew I wouldn't be joining him in sleep until He visited. I lay there enveloped by Vinnie's warmth, trying to feel safe, and stared at the window.
The Enhancements could have forced me into sleep, but I had never found induced sleep to be very refreshing. I always woke feeling as if I had been sparring for hours. My eyes didn't feel like closing, and my body wanted to get up. I tried the mindfulness techniques my counselor was trying to teach me, but they just made me aware of Vinnie's muscles, and his heat, and inches away from my hand that Italian penis I had caught one glimpse of ten years ago and been obsessed with ever since. It was not helping.
Frustrated and annoyed with myself, I disentangled myself from Vinnie and slipped from the couch without waking him. I walked from the couch to the window where the view was untroubled by nearby towers. When I looked down, I could see into the top two or three floors of an older condo building between me and the water. Other than that, my view of the panorama was free. I wouldn't have men who weren't there staring at me.
It was when things I had seen over there then transposed over what I was seeing here now that I had problems. Things I had seen in combat over there, I would see them happening here, in Seattle, in my nightmares. If only the nightmares would confine themselves to nighttime when I was trying to sleep, I wouldn't be so afraid I was going crazy, that my time overseas had fractured something fundamental in my mind, but that shimmer I had seen earlier meant I was going to see Him when I tried to close my eyes. I felt better, felt able to survive Him tonight, because Vinnie was in the room with me.
PTSD had been the diagnosis, an honorable discharge had been granted with medical disability and a treatment program. I had learned not to talk about it, but I never conceded that it wasn't real, that I hadn't seen it.
I had to convince myself I wasn't seeing it now, because it seemed even more real than it had the day it happened. I flung open the window, and stood there rubbing my bare arms. Feeling the cold wind on my skin, hearing the rhythmic susurrus of traffic far below me, seeing the ribbons and boxes of light marching away from me to the north, helped me to anchor myself to what I knew. I knew I had to sleep, I knew I had to face Him, but I wanted to feel more tired than I do now so I would pass out more quickly.
A cold breeze whisked my nipples to stiff peaks. I saw the heat signatures of all the people in the six apartments directly across the street. Most of them were sleeping, but one man was watching TV, a couple was having sex, and a person of indeterminate gender was staring up at me. I wasn't sure if s/he could see me or was just staring at something on his/her wall. I switched to EMR view and saw that, yes, the person was watching TV, not me.
Off.
Plain old eyesight was far more relaxing. Sometimes I just wanted to dig it all out. I tried not to think about it. I just shut it off and rested wholly present in my own brain. I was able to feel the sting of cold on my nipples, and the heat that sensation inspired in my human center. So many days I felt so little, because I was thinking so much, that when I did catch myself feeling something pleasant, I tried to enjoy it to the fullest.
I wanted sex. Vincent's teasing about Collaterals was drone accurate. I had been saving for three months to put together a good war chest for next weekend. A weekend of conferences at Thugz Mansion was not to be missed. Brilliant minds and beautiful bodies, mind-blowing surroundings, top shelf intoxicants and high stakes Swords, with lodgings that were cocoons for your soul. And the sex.... I felt myself blushing. Yes, blushing. The reward of winning at Swords could be an incredible night with a hot Collateral.
I pictured one Collateral in particular: a grown man with a lean, solid body and a head of thick, luscious brown hair. His green eyes danced with mirth except when he was focused on his companion, then he was intent and empathetic. His smile was quick and his laugh contagious. And that body.... I gladly paid the forty per month to be able to view the VIP gallery on his site. Unless I were to win him at Swords, it was the closest I would ever get to that beautiful sword. And I read the reviews when it was late at night and I couldn't sleep, so I knew how he could make a woman feel....
Only that one time had I ever been in his presence, but I did have a friend who could bring him as Collateral next weekend, because that friend was the Player who had bested me: none other than the Empress Catherine. She was coming to the Convention. I did the time zone calculation with my own brain and concluded that it was a good time to call. I walked away from the window to my cloud chair, curled up in the fluffy support and closed my eyes.
Call Empress.
The onboard woke and acknowledged the command with a tone.
Calling Empress.
Empress Catherine has connected. Her image materialized in my mental display. Her flawless Asian face was filled with delight. Catherine was made up for a social outing, with her hair in a loose ponytail and the perfection of eyes, cheekbones and lips highlighted. She was seated at a table in a public establishment.
"Talia, darling, what the hell are you doing up so late?" She looked away and responded to something said to her in Chinese. She smiled her dazzling social smile and nodded agreement with whatever was being said. Then she said "bye-bye" and turned her attention back to me. "I am sorry, I'm at dinner with the Royal Theatre before the opening of their new season."
"I just tried to seduce Father Vincent again, and he rejected me again, so now I am sulking in the dark and thinking of your gorgeous Collateral." Catherine smirked. She was well aware of my desire for Dash. "Please tell me you're bringing him to the Convention."
"But of course I am! I would not spend four days in Seattle without my Italian stallion!" Her eyes glinted, and I knew why. My friend the Mongol Empress of China loved sex every bit as much as I did. "And I want to beat you at Swords again!" We both laughed.
"He is your secret weapon!" I cried.
"Not so secret anymore, I guess." She lifted an elegant shoulder and let it drop. Jewels encircled her neck and dangled from her earlobes. She grew serious. "How are you, Jiemei? You look good, but very tired."
"I am," I replied. "Tired. And good, I guess. It's been really busy here, but in a good way. We can talk all about it next week."
"I am so looking forward to the Convention. I always enjoy my visits to your City, and I have great hopes for our discussions. I sense a real determination to make some meaningful agreements and joint decisions. It is time to act for our people." She looked away again to listen to someone off camera. She nodded several times, then laughed and said "byebye."
"I'm excited for you, Sister. Your time is here. I can't wait to watch it play out." Then I grinned and added, "And I will have a big announcement for you!"
Empress Catherine beamed with pleasure and said, "Oh, wonderful! I can't wait!" Then her smile fell and she said with disappointment that "I must return my attention to the dinner here, Jiemei. I will call you from home this week."
We said good bye. Empress Catherine has disconnected. And then I was alone again. I welcomed the yawn that stretched my mouth wide. Maybe it meant I was exhausted enough to fall straight into a deep sleep and skip the whole dream state altogether. I looked over at the bedroom doorway, then at the couch where Vincent had stretched out, still sound asleep. I would be more comfortable in my bed and probably sleep better, but I didn't want to have so much distance and walls between me and Vinnie. I chose the cloud chair at the end of the couch where I could sit and look at Vinnie's face.
I lay my head back and shifted onto my side, curled up and snuggled in. I fell promptly asleep.
I was in full combat suit and plugged in. My teammate was to my right, scanning the three blocks in that direction for bad guys. Little was known of what was going on. All we knew was that a building full of people had just been taken hostage in Baghdad and we were there to isolate the insurgents in the building from all outside support and lay down a sensor array. It looked an awful lot like the Pacific Rim Trade Tower between downtown and the waterfront.
I only saw it because I was doing a 6:00 counter-surveillance visual sweep - looking out behind - and noticed movement on a rooftop a few blocks away. I zoomed the camera in my ocular implants until I could clearly see a figure in full "Storm Trooper" suit sprinting across rooftops and leaping from building to building at motorcycle speed. He ran and leapt until he was standing on the ledge of the building to my left staring at the PRT Tower like the hero from a bad sci fi action adventure flick thirty years ago. I was able to supplement the camera with IR, spectral and satellite readings. His suit was approximately 150% the size of an above average homo sapiens sapiens male.
He stood absolutely still. He watched the building, and I watched him, for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Out of the top of the suit behind his shoulders rose twin columns of spiraling pixels that resolved into mini-drones emerging from their "hangar" in ranks. As I watched, the cloudy columns rose until the bottom hovered five feet above the Storm Trooper, then darted toward the PRT Tower, and vanished.
He stood absolutely still. He watched the building, and I watched him, for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. What looked like a cloud of gnats materialized in the air above his head, spun itself into two ropes, and absorbed into his suit.
A person walked out the front door. A second. A third. Hostages streamed out all sides of the building. I watched in disbelief as the building emptied.
"Secure the building," came the command in my ear. My team member flashed me a thumb's up. We sprinted across the street and to the front lobby. We checked every room of every floor. We found two dead insurgents on the first floor, three on the fifth floor, two on the 21st floor, and four in the penthouse. Each of them was in a heap on the floor as if he had suddenly just died where he stood without a clue that he was about to die. Nobody else was dead. Nobody else was hurt. There was no blood and very little damage.
I came out of the building, and the Storm Trooper was gone. My partner had never seen him. Nobody saw anything. The hostages all just saw the terrorists fall down dead then walked out of the building. He was never there. There was no Storm Trooper. I and my squad had mounted a lightning commando raid with expert deployment of droids. I had faced down a terrorist while he held a weapon on a pregnant hostage, did I not remember? The stress of it must have overcome me. I should rest, let them help me, treat me, hospitalize me.
I stopped talking crazy. I wasn't crazy. They let me go. I went home. I went to sleep. In fact, this was me now, sleeping from then. I woke up in the middle of the night, and the Storm Trooper stood over me, all black, and a cloud appeared around his head, formed into an arrow, and bolted at my face. I screamed
Socially inappropriate unconscious vocalization captured. Discard?
I was awake, sitting up straight in my cloud chair. Calm. I was calm and mildly euphoric. Vincent was so beautiful asleep on my couch. It was unfair. Behind him was the dining nook with its view of the night-time cityscape of my City, his City. Seeing Vincent and the City, thinking about Vincent and about how much we both loved this City, I felt a rush of warmth, of belonging, of purpose. I arose from the cloud and padded across my carpet to the wall of transparent composite film. My blood pressure receded, heart rate steadied. The shaking in my muscles smoothed out.
I hated the way the computer took over. I wanted to scream and have Vincent wake up. I didn't want the computer to flood my brain with sedative and euphoric hormones. I wanted Vincent to hug me and whisper that everything would be all right. I wanted to calm myself down, fall into quiet conversation with a best friend, and then float off to a normal sleep. I leaned against the window and took in the view I spent so much money for every month. It cost way more than I should be spending on housing, but I didn't care. This feeling right now was worth every dollar.
The episode was over. I would sleep now. I would wake up in the morning. I would be a little more fragile, feel a little more crazy, a little more reliant on this cyborg inside me to negotiate with the outside world for me. But deep down, I was ready to fight.