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Euphoria

Chapter 10: Panic

Author's note: Hey look, I actually managed to post an update in an acceptable amount of time! Granted, this chapter is quite short, but I promised the action would be ramping up soon in this fanfic, and I tried to deliver here. So chapters will probably be a little shorter from now on as things begin to heat up and we gather ourselves together for the big finale. Don't worry, still some way to go yet. Thanks, once again, for sticking with me and contining to read and review about the ridiculous exploits of poor little Nahman which I think up in my head. You're all wonderful.

Monday

5:05 pm

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Something was very wrong all of a sudden. Norman could feel it up his spine. His hands were tight around the steering wheel and his fingers were damp. The car behind was drawing closer and closer, and, he noted with an uncomfortable leap in this throat, the vehicle on his right was also angling itself towards him. A car which had previously been far ahead was now slowing rapidly so that it drew dangerously close to his front bonnet. They're closing in on me. They're... herding me. There was an exit left off the highway which he was being forced towards, nudged like an impressionable animal. If Norman didn't turn into it the speeding cars would collide with him. He turned into it. He glanced over his shoulder through his side and back mirrors. Why was the highway so suddenly deserted of other cars? When had this begun to happen, and how had he not noticed? When had his headway been halted? When had all his glowing progress been stopped?

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Nobody stopped Norman as he paced the long FBI halls after his meeting with Raine, halls which had seemingly confined him his whole life, and through which reality seemed capable of slipping away from him. He walked with a purpose in his step that had not been present for some time. There was a lean confidence about him that made the walls shy back and the floor whimper under his feet. Perhaps, he thought, he remembered how it felt to have tangible control over the world around you. No man could live for long without something of that power, without some small spark of impact he could ignite and fan into life. Perhaps those were just the inane dreams of a weak man in a weaker world.

Jayden wanted to leave for his apartment, immediately. He needed to be away from HQ for a while, where he could plan and plot and think on what Raine had said without fear of discovery or interruption, where he could begin anew to redirect the path of his own destiny.

That sounds really grandiose. Small steps, then: to start all he had to do was get out of HQ.

But if what he had been told about ARI was true, then things were beginning to get very complicated. Could he use the glasses without the FBI tracking his every move? Would he even be capable of functioning as an agent any more without his secret weapon? Was he utterly dependent now? Would each of his secret fears and most intimate thoughts be scanned, examined, catalogued?

He returned to his office. Melissa was not there. There was a vacant hole in the room where she had previously stood. It was probably better this way, without awkward explanations or any more of her probing questions. He would not search for her. Norman grabbed ARI, felt the glossy surface smooth under his fingertips, and placed them immediately in his coat pocket. If the Bureau really was tracking him through the glasses, then good luck tracking him in the dark. All he needed now was his car.

When he reached it the engine started smoothly, blissfully responsive to his touch, purring like a cat. Special Agent Jayden drove away from the FBI with deceptive ease. How hard it had been to reach this point in time, and how simple it all seemed now. He almost felt ashamed. There was no pounding in his head, his eyes were not blurry or bloodshot. His addictions were hiding like timid creatures, maybe crouching under the backseat, maybe waiting for him back at home. He would not search for them. The road ahead of him stretched out long and easy, disappearing into the middle distance where the horizon was blurred with mist and the grey promise of rain. Norman turned onto the highway which would lead him to his apartment. It was just a straight stretch now and then he would be free to do some research of his own.

Because his mind was focussed on other things, Norman did not become immediately aware of a car tailing him, driving just close enough to be an annoyance. His hands and feet were on auto-pilot and he only realised the presence of his disruptive company when the vehicle began to loom large in his rear-view mirror. Norman shifted lanes to the right to allow it a passage through which to overtake him, but it did not take advantage of the space he had cleared, instead continuing to match his speed. Several metres of black tarmac passed. The car changed lanes so it was again directly behind Jayden. Norman could not stand D.C. drivers. He wanted to get home.

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But there was no chance of home once he had been ejected from the highway. The three cars which had suddenly swarmed had forced him onto a smaller road running around the back of some terraced housing, although the speed of the vehicles had not slowed: they bounced along the deserted street, premature streetlight slinking off their backs and water from the gutter at the side of the road spraying down in their wake. Norman felt like a caged beast and was beginning to act accordingly. He was enclosed on three sides. The cars bore down on his flanks, metallic predators not afraid to draw blood. Everything was escalating so quickly and he barely had time to react. There was nowhere to go but to follow the terrifying certainty of this straight, narrow road, potholes jerking his tyres and pieces of garbage gusting around the curb. His rear-view mirror was invaded by a huge, tinted windscreen. The car behind him collided with his bumper, sending his Ford Taurus lurching forward with a crunch of metal.

Norman knew he had very little time to get out of this situation, so he would have to let instinct take over. He thought he had enough experience with that. With one hand on the wheel he reached into his pocket and removed the ever-present tube. He inhaled. On both sides of the road houses flashed by in an endless parade of dreary city monotony, but even as they did, Norman felt time slowing in his head, felt his thoughts and his reactions grow and expand until they filled everything in his skull and all illusions of temporal linearity melted away.

For a single moment of superb clarity, the houses on his left vanished and were replaced by the flat expanse of a drenched and deserted plot of empty land. Norman saw his chance and took it. He swerved violently, spinning the wheel under hands which had now stopped sweating. His car was sent flying over the sidewalk until it collided with disused grassland, juddered and veered a little, and then continued on at breakneck speed. It shook like a leaf. The chassis was trembling beneath him.

Jayden's mind was jumping faster than his speed dial. If he could just get away, get somewhere safe, he could have time to coordinate his next move. His apartment was too far now. Spotting a gap through the houses to his immediate left, he swept around it without warning, scraping the side of his door in the process. The scream of tires filled his ears. He risked a glance in his mirror and saw that only two vehicles emerged around the turn to continue their blazing rampage after him. That's one down.

The housing estate looked on like a cold sentinel in the cold Washington air. Three cars flashed past through the quiet neighbourhood, one ahead and two trailing close behind, lighting up the concrete walls with dancing streaks of silver and blue mirrored from their sleek bodies. The sky above was watching and growing restless. Norman knew his pursuers were faster than him. If he was going to lose them, it would have to be through finesse.

He turned right, diving down a street which ran towards a major road. He wanted more cars, more obstacles, more chances for him to slip the net. His entourage would be forced to slow, and if he was fast, maybe he could dodge his way out of a bad situation. The vehicles chasing him down were big broad beetles, large and square-backed and glimmering ominously in silver and black. Maybe his slim, unimpressive sedan would be an asset for once. Norman pulled off the accelerator as traffic started to fill the lanes. The cars were still only a slight way behind but, Jayden noted with a flash of aggressive relief, they were also reducing speed. Norman began to thread in and out of the traffic. His mind, shot with blue, was working at double its normal speed. He switched lanes like an ice skater, constantly re-assessing the dynamic patterns of all the vehicles accelerating and decelerating on the road. The two hulking cars were lagging behind. Soon Norman was several cars in front of them, and he knew before long they would lose sight of him altogether. A quick mental check told him that he was heading back towards the city centre. He wanted to get off this road before they could catch up, before they could know where he had gone. There was a junction turning off some yards ahead. Jayden took it. As he turned, he looked back over his shoulder and was unable to see the cars following him. If he was lucky they would still be caught in the traffic and would not work out where he had left the road until he was too far away for it to matter.

But Norman could feel the shakes returning to his fingers. He suddenly became aware of the weight of his tongue in his mouth. Now that immediate danger had been avoided the adrenaline was draining away, and worse still, he could feel the unmistakeable rush of Triptocaine leaving his system. An overwhelming desire to get out of the car overtook him, running along the back of his neck and down his elbows and deep into his thighs. His apartment was far away on the other side of D.C. He had been driven in a tight loop and was almost back at HQ, right where he had started. But there were plenty of cheap hotels in this part of the city. He could easily check in to one for tonight, or just for a few hours, whatever he needed. It would be quiet and still in that shoddily-cleaned room, the dust clinging to the dry carpet and the air freshener cloying and sickly sweet. He was slowing the car down to survey the streets when he drove right past an apartment block called Washington Heights. That name rang a bell. Agent Donahue had told him about that name just a few days ago, hadn't she? She'd made a joke. If the heights of Washington are right there then why am I even bothering with the FBI? That was where she was staying during her time in D.C. That was an apartment block rented by the Bureau, and she was in it. Norman spun the wheel, turned in the middle of the street, and parked at an awkward angle beside the building.

He shut off the engine. It took him some time to even get out of the car. The muscles in his legs were twitching sporadically. He sat looking out of his side window at the cars passing by, so slowly, so calmly. His eyes were glazed, blinking far too infrequently. His neck was sore where his seatbelt had bitten into it when the car rammed into him. Eventually his arm lifted up and latched itself onto the door handle. He managed to stumble out, slam the door and turn and head away from the road.

Two impassable glass doors were blocking his path. He would have to buzz to be let in. Was Melissa here? When did she leave work? There was only one apartment on the row of buttons without a name beside it, just a plain white slip of paper. He rang the buzzer. Nobody answered on the intercom and the door did not click open. It did not even open on the second, third or fourth ring. Norman leant his forehead against the cold wall. He curled his hands and slipped them under his coat for warmth. The wind was starting to bite.

Jayden did not know how long he would have to wait. Maybe it would be wiser to find shelter elsewhere, but now he could not find the strength in himself to move again. He did not want to get back into the car. From the apartment he could see that some of the paint had been scraped off the side, and its rear end was badly crumpled.

Norman turned with his back against the wall and lowered himself until he was sprawled on the ice-cold marble steps. This place is pretty classy. He wondered, dimly, why it had such a stupid name proudly displayed above its entrance. He thought he was beginning to lose feeling in his toes. After a few minutes his coat was feeling flimsy and inadequate. Norman watched the breath clouding from his lips. The winter sun had set long ago, and the last feeble rays were submitting themselves to the inky throes of night. A streetlamp lit itself belatedly a little way from him.

Melissa, please, for God's sake, don't stay late at work tonight.

The Special Agent closed his eyes and thought about praying. It was not something he did, as a rule. But he had childhood memories of sitting at the foot of his bed, being coerced into praying each night to whatever juvenile God he held in his head, and for some reason they had chosen to return then. In those days God had never managed to chase away the ghouls, and Jayden did not think He would have any better luck today. Now he had no need for God. God had been replaced by a tube and a pair of glasses.

Each time he felt like he was making progress, he slipped back down again. When the clouds cleared for just a moment they would always return before too long, stronger and darker and meaner. It was a weak thing to think, he acknowledged even as he thought it, but he thought it anyway: I don't know how much more of this I can take. Norman felt like someone who opens and closes his eyes in the dead of night and cannot see a difference in the pitch black, who discovers that the darkness of the outside world is no different than the close, organic dark drawn upon their very eyelids.

He waited almost an hour for her. But in the end, she came.