Back to Riley!
I guess I haven't really been clear about this point – Ben and the Blackwells were imprisoned in an entirely different building than Riley. They're about half an hour apart at the moment. Hopefully this chapter will defog some of that.
StriderX – Thank you for the wonderful review, and mentioning that thing about the weird chapter format earlier. I checked it out and it showed normally to me. Hopefully it was just a little temporary blip. Bork. I'll keep an eye out for that sort of thing, let me know if you notice it again. If you would. That would be lovely.
Oh, and I have a minor name issue in previous chapters – to fix any improbable confusion, the guy's name is Finn, not Flinn.
Chinese Man
I was crumpling like a circus tent whose poles had been unstaked. My ethics were whizzing around like severed cords, rabid snakes, unsure of where to land because forces were pulling them too many directions. My mind billowed around me, floating about on wafts of night wind, unsettled and at the mercy of events.
I once again felt like a freshman in college. Thirty years ago had seen me wondering what to do with my life, trying to grasp my values and beliefs, trying to find out who I was. I had resolved myself into a pillar of my own ethics within the first year of college and had stood unshaken ever since. But now…
No longer trying to cling to my past beliefs, I now liberated myself into the empty, lost feeling I thought I'd never return to. Everything I wanted to do now seemed wrong, everything I'd ever wanted to do seemed wrong. I wanted to fire Tomas, shut down this whole operation. I wanted to run away and let them deal with it without me. I wanted to rescue Riley and Ben and the Blackwells.
I wanted everyone to live. I wanted to die. I wanted to see the world reborn. I didn't want to think about who I wanted to live and die right now. I wanted to dig myself out of this hole, jump off this pedestal.
Why was I staring at the video screen? I was immobilized with helplessness, waiting for myself to solve the problem. Since I'd fled the basement Riley's headache had stopped, apparently, and left him exhausted. Tomas was talking to him now, having dragged him back into the freezer. The man paced back and fourth in front of Riley, who, from what I could tell, may as well have been dead.
"Samantha Larson has climbed the Seven Summits. She's 18. Lionel Bringuir is 21 and is the Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic .Alexandra Nechita had her first art exhibit in California when she was eight. Now she attracts tens of thousands of dollars for her paintings. Arabella Uhry is 12 and she's placed in the Empire State Games fencing."
Why he knew these things I could only imagine. He probably looked them up and memorized them just for this purpose.
"And you're a hacker."
He paused in speech and movement, as if contemplating something. Continuing, he crouched down in front of the prone form.
"There are so many people your age and younger actually doing something with their lives. Changing the world, inspiring millions, making money, supporting themselves. All you do is play around on your computer and follow your one friend around. Your one friend who doesn't even care about you. Call yourself a hacker? Real hackers wouldn't allow themselves to get caught. Real hackers actually exercise a bit of caution. You bumble around online leaving a trail a chimp could follow. Now, here."
Tomas settled himself comfortably onto the floor next to Riley, as if engaging him in a friendly conversation.
"Here you have your chance to make something of your life. You know it's the right thing to do. You could save the planet. The planet. Riley, it's the most important thing anyone could ever do."
Riley muttered something about not being a selfish bastard, which only made Tomas chuckle. Once again I was impressed with Tomas. I hoped Riley wasn't having second thoughts about his own beliefs but under the conditions I found it hard to believe that he'd be an island of strength.
"If you join us you'll have a lot of friends. People who actually care about you."
Riley was the one to laugh at this one. It was a wheezing laugh but there was unmistakable mirth behind it. I didn't blame him for laughing; it was kind of an outrageous statement.
"You find that funny. It's true. There would be-"
"We'd all be dead within days," Riley interrupted. "It wouldn't matter." Surprisingly, Tomas didn't seem to have a verbal retort to that. Instead he lashed out with his fist and knocked the breath out of Riley. Tomas left. Riley slumped. I got up. This situation was making me nauseas. I couldn't believe I was the one who had set it in motion.
I made my way quietly to the basement, opened and closed the door as carefully as I could. Put on the vision goggles and approached the black box, keeping one eye on Tomas's door in the corner of the room. I unlocked the door to the freezer and slowly stepped inside, shut the door. Riley hadn't moved from the position I'd seen him in on the tape.
"Riley," I whispered.
"What?" he asked.
"We're leaving." I approached his side and knelt down. He didn't make a move to sit up.
"Why?"
"Get up, come on. I don't know when Tomas'll be back." He still didn't move.
"Why would you care?" His despairing tone was laced with a bit of whine, which was heartening.
"Riley, I'm trying to help you escape here. Move." He lay still for a moment, then shifted, tried to get his arms under himself. I helped him to his feet and he clung to my arm. I reminded myself he couldn't see anything. Poking my head out the door, I made sure Tomas was nowhere to be seen before I stepped out of the freezer. I headed towards where I thought the door must be, a bit disoriented, dragging Riley along. He was walking slowly, which I should have predicted. I opened the door. Suddenly overly sensitive to outside stimuli, I was shocked at how dusty the air down here smelled, how loud my own footsteps were in the silence. Up the stairs we went, through the storage room, past my office, into the co-op, and out the door.
Had Tomas really not noticed?
The door had jingle bells on it, I should have guessed. I walked quickly down the sidewalk to the left, wrenching off my now unneeded goggles and hoping the cheery sound of the door shutting wouldn't be heard by Tomas, hopefully still hidden away in the basement. If it had been anyone else I wouldn't have worried about it being heard, but Tomas seemed superhuman.
A thick blanket of clouds covered the sky. Riley was staring around, bewildered, still clinging to my arm. I couldn't imagine what it was like for him, suddenly being able to see and hear and sense things.
"Where are we going?" I asked myself. Riley looked at me, worried.
"What, don't you have a plan?"
"Kind of spur of the moment, shuttup." I was headed towards my car, but where to go once we got there? There weren't that many places to hide a car. I unlocked the doors and got into the driver's side, Riley crawling into the passenger side.
Flinching, I started the car, but didn't turn on the headlights. The engine revved and sounded like the loudest thing in the world as I backed up, angled out, and took off up the road.
Was this happening? Was I escaping? I had nothing to escape from… Riley was leaning against the door, staring out the window. It was like when we drove here but now he rode next to me, and didn't stare out at the landscape in despair. He now stared in what appeared to be bewildered shock.
"How are you feeling?" I asked. He slowly swiveled his head to look at me.
"I don't know. What's going on? Where are we going?"
"I don't know." I didn't mind that he hadn't answered my question. His question was a better one. Where were we going? Heading North. Through the empty farmlands, past shallow foothills.
"Keep your eyes behind us, will you?" He nodded and glanced at the sideview. I wondered if it was such a good idea to be driving around without headlights – it looked highly suspicious. But I couldn't risk it. Sooner or later someone would come chasing after us and hopefully we'd see them before they saw us.
"Riley, open the glove box, will you, find my cell phone." He did as I asked, handing me the phone. I flipped it open and ran a red light. That and the fact that I wasn't using my headlights probably guaranteed my being chased by the local police. Address book, names, Cell 3. Yes. Ringing. I would call Finn and ask him how Ben and the Blackwells were doing.
"Who are you calling?" asked Riley. I shushed him, feeling justified in my distracted state to do so. He watched the road. Not half a ring passed before the other end picked up.
"Finn?" I asked. There was silence. Someone breathing.
"Hello? This is the supervisor. Is someone there?" Still breathing.
"Who is this?" Riley was staring at me. Why weren't they answering? What had happened?
"Ben?" I asked, speaking the thought before I had thought about it. There as a lengthy pause.
"Yes?"
"Ben, that's you?" I asked, a bit louder than I'd intended. Riley sat up straighter and leaned forward.
"Chinese man?"
"Yes, it's me. Listen, Ben…" What to say? I didn't even know what was going on on his end. How did he have the cell phone?
"Why did you call?" he asked me.
"I'm helping Riley escape," I said. I felt guilty and a bit foolish saying it. No reason to.
"What? Where are you? Let me talk to Riley!" I didn't answer, just handed Riley the phone. He had a smile on his face as he greeted Ben. I heard Ben's excited shout back to him and almost felt good that I'd played a part in reuniting them. But I remembered where I was, what was going on, and that I had been the one to separate them in the first place. I'd never get over that.
"I'm fine." Ben's voice buzzing.
"No, I… I guess." Ben buzzing again.
"They aren't? Where are they?" Buzz.
"Well… where are you?"
"He's in Price," I said. "Tell him we're leaving Cleveland, we're about twenty minutes south of him." Riley repeated the information, listened. Looked at me.
"He doesn't know what to do. Says there are police after him and probably some plaid-shirted rednecks."
"Where is he?"
"Where are you, Ben?" Buzz.
"Says he's in an auto insurance center." How did that help me? I wasn't sure it did.
"Are the Blackwells with him?" I asked.
"No, they're gone. The police found them somehow and busted Ben out and arrested the guys, but the Blackwells have disappeared. And their car is gone too." I cursed. Now what?
"Tell Ben I'm going to drive to Price and find him. We'll pick him up, and then see if we can't figure something out about the Blackwells." Riley relayed the information, then sat and listened. He turned to me.
"Ben wants to kn-" I reached over and took the phone from Riley. Middlemen were rarely efficient when it came to phone conversation.
"What, Ben?" Ben's voice echoed back to me over miles of sound waves.
"Then what? What are we supposed to do after that, we can't just sit around. What are the people in Cleveland going to do, wait for you to show up before they decide to start up anything disastrous?"
"You come up with a better plan, you let me know. I'll feel better once we're all together."
"We now? Once we're all together? How do we know we can trust you, why do you suddenly want us to be one big happy group?" I didn't have an immediate reply to that. They had no way of knowing I wasn't about to trick them. I didn't even trust myself anymore.
"What are you going to do, Ben, hide from us as we try and find you? Even if I wanted to trick you you can't deny you want to see Riley."
"Man, if you're lying-"
"You'll rip my eyeballs out and shove them up my nose, I know. Look…" Rearview mirror. There was a car approaching behind us, still off in the distance. We had been driving through empty desert for a few minutes now. I pressed the accelerator. I didn't know who it was but they were bound to think it was weird that a car was driving through the desert without their lights on. Better to avoid them.
"Look what?" Ben inquired.
"Nothing. We'll get there as fast as we can. Once I'm close I'll call you again."
"Let me talk to Riley again!" I handed the phone over. I didn't know what they were saying. Mostly Ben buzzed at Riley, who 'uh-huh'ed and 'sure'ed. It made me nervous not knowing what they were talking about, but frankly, the car behind us was eating up most of my attention. They were definitely speeding. Did Tomas have a car? No, he had a motorcycle. This was a car. There were two other people at the establishment in Cleveland who could potentially be chasing me. As well as the police. Of course, maybe it was just a random speeding person. That could happen. It was a possibility.
They were still far enough away so I didn't think they could see me yet. I had to pull over somewhere, get out of the line of their headlights. Hopefully they'd drive by without noticing. I yanked the car as far onto the shoulder of the road as I could and slammed on the breaks, turned off the ignition. Popping open the glove box, I fumbled through all the random things one keeps in the glove box, a tire pressure checker and three maps of the southwest toppling out onto Riley's lap. He idly picked them up, still listening to Ben while simultaneously recovering from the sudden stop and worrying about the approaching car. He craned his head around to glance behind us.
There, a map of this area of Utah. I wanted it to look like we were lost, should this person pull over. I unfolded the map, ruffling it out, not paying any attention on what I saw. The headlights started bathing the car in light.
"Uh, yeah," Riley was saying to Ben. "Sorry about that. I'm a little distracted. We're in a potentially terrible situation at the moment… I may randomly start asking you about roads and such, just go with the flow…" My heart fell as the car behind us screeched to a similar halt on the opposite side of the road, weaving madly in the process. How many people were in there, three? Four? All young and unmistakably drunk. Just what we needed. I thought about just driving away at that point, but their car was much faster than mine was and the last thing I wanted was a high-speed chase with certainty of loosing. What was so interesting about a car on the side of the road, anyways? Why had they stopped? Much laughing was being had in the vehicle, and when the passenger's door opened the sound spilled out like a wave, carrying with it a young man with tangled blonde hair and extremely unsure footing. He started for my door, looking curiously concerned. I unrolled the window out of courtesy. He arrived and leant heavily on my door, reeking of beer.
"You guys… need help?"
"No, I think we're good. We just got lost for a moment."
"You… you sure? We got a hook-up thingy in the trunk…"
"No, the car's fine, we were just lost."
"Need directions? I think we got a map in there…"
"I have a map here, but thank you."
"No, I'll get the map. Getting lost out here… not good…" He continued mumbling to himself as he wove his way back to their car. I decided to wait. Accept the map, thank them, hopefully they'd leave. We couldn't stand to pause here for very long. I glanced at Riley. He had an amazed look on his face.
"Ben, you should see this. These guys are so smashed. I give them another hour before they crash."
Voices suddenly rose in the car opposite us. Angry voices.
"He wants our map? Whoy… No! It's ours! He can't have it. Selfish bastard. Where is he?" Well that didn't sound good. This may be where I should have started up the car and driven away, taken my chances with their ability to drive straight. But I paused for a moment, watching. The driver had stumbled from the car and as he rounded the front of his vehicle I was horrified to see that he had a gun. And was pointing it at me, surprisingly steadily. Why this now? What were the chances of this happening? What would this guy want?
"You give us our map back." Should I argue that we didn't, in fact, have his map? Probably not. I folded the map back up and handed it out the window. The driver now stood two feet from my sideview mirror, still pointing the gun, and reached out, snatching my map.
"Yeah, think you can just steal shit… Japanese people… Don't know what you think you're doing here." He leaned down, stared into the passenger seat.
"And who's that, your kid? Man, you did it with a white bitch?" I wanted badly to retort to all he'd said but that's difficult to do with a gun being waved in your face. I couldn't tell how drunk this guy was – his slurred speech and harsh words told me he was rather, but unless he talked about this kind of thing regularly, he was making some comparatively sharp observations about Riley and I. Should I risk knocking the gun from his hand, driving away?
He backed away from my car and nonchalantly shot out the tires on the left side. I cursed loudly in my head. Couldn't anger him. What were we going to do now? No driving away. I could hear Ben's voice panicking on the other end. Riley assured him no one had been shot.
The blond guy had staggered onto the pavement again.
"Come on, Bud. What are you doing?"
"Dude, he stole my map."
"No he didn't, you're map's here."
"Shuttup! Don't tell me where my maps are. I've got the gun, you'd better… you'd better…" He snarled instead of finishing his sentence.
I heard sirens. So did the blond.
"Bud, come on, cops are coming."
"You think I'm scared of the uniforms? Man, I can take any of them."
"Bud, come on!" Bud scoffed. I twitched. This was bad. I could see the lights in the distance and wondered who they were after, us or them. Not much we could do anyways. Bud stood in the middle of the road, muttering about cops and maps, wheels and whisky.
"Bud, we're leaving without you. Goin' this way."
"Fine, go ahead. Cowards. I'll see you later, see what happens." The blond jumped into the driver's side door and soon the car wrenched forward and took off down the road, leaving impressive tire tracks. Bud stared after them. Then he turned to us. Smiled.
"So you guys… lost, eh? Need a map?" Maybe if we played innocent the police wouldn't suspect anything. I'd try to pin everything on Bud here, maybe the cops would pick him up and chase after his friends. The flashing lights were upon us now, slowing down and stopping. Two people jumped out of the car, hands on the tops of their guns. Bud was hiding his gun in his pocket, trying his best to stare around innocently. One cop approached my window, the other cautiously advanced on Bud, asking him what he was doing out there in the middle of the road.
The cop by our door was glaring at me rather suspiciously.
"Will you step out of the car, please?" Oh no. I opened the door, stepped out. He shone a flashlight in on Riley's face, who flinched and turned away. For the first time I noticed he had some pretty colorful facial decorations, evidence of Tomas's attention.
"You too, step out of the car." Riley obliged, slowly removing himself from the vehicle.
"Both of you put your hands on the hood." I moved to obey, mind racing. I had to do something. They knew what was up, they suspected. They were going to take us in if I didn't take action.
A gunshot. All three of us whirled around to see the other policeman fall to the ground, Bud's gun aimed at him. Our policeman whipped out his weapon but I heard another gunshot first. I didn't see it, though.
"Riley, run!" I barked, grabbing his arm as I rounded the hood of the car, and we leapt off of the shoulder of the road, slid down a sandy hill, and scrambled up into the sagebrush. I desperately wanted to turn around and see what was happening behind us but at the same time I didn't want to know, I wanted to hide. Once we were over this hill we'd be out of anyone's range. What if they chased us? Why wouldn't they? I'd think about that later. Run now.
We were cresting the hill; I was grabbing at dead Mormon Tea plants and pulling myself over. I heard Bud's voice.
"Hey, where are you guys going? I just saved your asses. Come back!" We kept running, downward now, towards a tiny canyon a few dozen yards ahead.
"Hey! Come back! Come back you guys! I won't shoot you!" Panting, panic and fear tearing my breath away. The cold air was making my throat feel bloody.
"Come back, dammit!" A shot rang out behind us and we picked up our pace. I could barely see what was in front of me, thanks to the lack of stars or moon. Several times I stumbled over a rigid bush of some sort, or a piece of mysterious driftwood. Two more shots were fired behind us and I hoped he didn't have another cache of bullets on him.
Into the canyon. We jumped and landed hard, even in the sand, spraying granular quartz into the grasses. Both sinking to our knees, rasping for air, feeling the chill of the night eating away at layers of warmth even through our movement.
"We'll hear if he comes," I panted. Bud didn't seem like the sneaky type. Riley sighed and fell backwards into the sand. I hoped he wasn't about to have another headache. He seemed to have a knack for getting them at the worst of times.
"Headache?"
"Not a cluster."
"Good."
"Still hurts like a bitch."
"You still have the cell phone?" Riley unfurled his fingers, revealing the cell. I reached over and took it. No reception. I put it in my pocket.
I wanted to ask, now what? But I didn't know, Riley didn't know, and this desert certainly didn't care. The wind was the only thing that seemed to have a goal. Let's see how long it takes to give these two people hypothermia. At least I was wearing long sleeves. Riley was wearing short sleeves. I had ordered that.
I hated myself for a moment. What had I been thinking? Where was my mind when it decided that doing such a thing would be worth it? Locking him in a freezer, chilling him, depriving his senses. All to kill the human race. Was I crazy?
I hadn't been quite right, no. But not entirely wrong either. I had the wrong goal in mind, the wrong way of going about things. But with some tweaking, I still believed in my vision. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted anymore but I hadn't turned my back entirely on who I had been.
Riley drew a breath and let out a shivering sigh. Why was he here? Why was he cooperating? Did he actually trust me? Surely not.
"Riley."
"Yeah?"
"Do you trust me?" I could have slapped myself. How sentimental was I about to get? I thanked the divine that the stars were not shining cheerily up in the heavens.
"No," was his immediate reply. A short pause stretched between us.
"Well… right now, kinda. I mean -… never mind. I don't know. Awkward."
"Sorry."
"Whatever. What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. How are you feeling?"
"I feel like someone's been trying to brainwash me."
"Curiously, how much has it worked?"
"I don't know. I feel like…like a worthless… spineless pansy, I guess. Why the hell did I tell you that?" He sounded utterly disappointed in himself. He flipped over on his side so his back was facing me. What to say, what to do. I felt accomplished, but also tremendously guilty. And very cold.
"We should move. Get to a better spot."
"Better spot. Right. Out here. Lots of really great spots to be out here."
"A place not so close to the road. We should try to get to those foothills, over where we aren't so exposed. We'll be able to see people coming up there."
"Then what'll we do? Hike to Price? Can't be that far. What, thirty miles away, that's not bad."
"It's about eight miles north of here. We'll hike there in the night. Sun's getting ready to come up now, though. We should find a place to stop. Maybe they'rll be reception up on the hills." That made Riley sit up.
"Wow, eight miles. Not bad. That's what I get for being a negative Nelly, I guess." We headed north.
It was slow going in the dark and through the sand. I could see where the sun would emerge in a few hours; it was hard to perceive through the blanket of clouds. Maybe the wall of cloud ended out there somewhere.
Critters shifted around us. Small reptiles, heaven knew what they were doing out in the cold, skittering over rocks and pebbles. Something galloping away, no doubt a lone mule deer. I hoped. A yipping, scuffling noise, probably a coyote. Did coyotes live out here?
Something exploded from the brush in front of Riley, twigs and sand scattering and a wild thump-thumping of heavy feet escaping quickly. Riley jumped backwards a few steps, hands shielding himself. I wondered at the automatic responses of the human body. At the stupidity of jackrabbits. Riley groaned. We kept walking. Plodding. At least we were a bit warmer this way. I was, anyways.
Riley
I just wanted to sleep. I didn't care if it was right here, in the middle of the desert filled with scorpions and stupid jackrabbits. And the cold. The cold was bad, and making me very nervous. Once we did stop the Chinese man would probably want us to sit together for warmth. As logical as that would be, I don't think I'd be able to handle the awkwardness of it. If these clouds would go away when the sun came up, we should be fine. And we'd get to Price tomorrow, we'd find Ben, and we'd drive away after finding the Blackwells. Preferably we'd be heading to Disneyland. It wasn't too far away, was it?
Two cars were making their way up the road towards us. They didn't seem to be speeding, which was rather encouraging. I knew Chinese man had noticed them, he'd been glancing behind us every once in a while. Now the cars were approaching the site of a double murder and a wrecked car.
"Stop a second," he said. We crouched low, watching. We hadn't really moved any further from the road, just further along it. Maybe thirty yards from the shoulder, we could probably avoid being seen if we lay down behind the bushes.
The cars stopped, headlights turned off. A pause of about twenty seconds, and then a gunshot. I hate gunshots, even from this distance. The sound seemed to echo away hollowly, no-where for it to go but everywhere. Who'd been shot now? Chinese man cursed.
"I knew it, it's them. I think they just shot Bud. He probably told them where we went. Alright, let's go cross the road, approach the foothills from the left of the highway." He got up and started running, keeping low. I sighed inwardly, doubting this would work. Surely they'd see us crossing the road. But, then again, what did I know. Chinese man was most definitely smarter than me. I followed him.
Before we even got to the road we hit disaster. We could hear rapid footsteps running down the road, running like a maniac. We dropped to the ground, eyes straining in the dark. A figure came into view. Pausing not ten yards in front of us, waving a gun around wildly, but with coordination, meaning it wasn't Bud.
"Crandon?" I jumped at Chinese man's sudden harsh outburst. He sat up next to me. The man with the gun pointed it at us, and then lowered his weapon.
"Supervisor. What's going on here?" Chinese man grabbed my upper arm roughly, hauling me to my feet.
"It's Tomas. He doesn't want to go along with our plans. He was going to kill Riley and I stopped him. He got violent and told me he was going to call his gang and kill us both. What was he doing when we left?" What?
"He told us you'd sprung the kid and were helping him escape." Chinese man laughed bitterly. He gave me a contemptuous glance.
"May have looked like that. Had to get Riley to cooperate. Sorry, Riley. It was for your own good." He pulled me down the slope of sand, onto the shoulder of the road. Crandon still held his gun tightly.
"You can put that away, Crandon, he's harmless. Where's Brigham?"
"He went looking for you out in the desert, went the way that drunk pointed."
"Did you kill him? The drunk?"
"Yeah. He was crazy. Totally mad."
"Good. One less to deal with." I was staring at Chinese man in confusion, although trying not to. Was this an act? It had to be an act. It was the only sensible way to get past this obstacle. Although I couldn't see what Chinese man planned on doing in order to get out of this one. Someone came up over the hill, also holding a gun. Crandon hailed him.
"Briggs, I found 'em. Turns out Tomas is the bad egg here. This was the only way to save the plans."
"Well shit, supervisor, and I was all ready to shoot you." Briggs slid down the sand hill and stomped off his shoes on the pavement. He approached us, shoving his gun in his belt.
"So now we gotta drive all the way back and do away with that Tomas fellow."
"By the looks of it, yes."
"What's wrong with the hacker, he looks like a deer in the headlights." Chinese man handed me off to Briggs like a wet, smelly sock. He didn't want to touch me.
"Had him thinking I was rescuing him, poor kid." He walked away from me then, heading in the direction of the car. Crandon followed, and Briggs started pulling me along with him.
Twang, said something in my head. Probably the most rapid onset into a headache I've ever experienced. I bent over, trying to cover my eyes with captive hands, stopped walking, sunk to my knees as Briggs, alarmed, stopped too.
"Hey, guy," he called. My ears were pounding; I could barely hear what Chinese man yelled back at him -
"Just a headache, Briggs. He's going to moan about it now for the next half hour or so. Don't bother dragging him. We'll get the car and come pick you two up. Stay there." Through teary vision I saw two shadowy forms leaving us. Briggs hauled me to the side of the road and threw me down.
"You're the hacker, huh? Don't look like much. Could probably kill you with my little finger." He was mostly muttering to himself. He continued muttering as I curled into the sand, hoping there weren't any scorpions here. I hated that feeling, the way the pain pushed into my eye, the pressure of a non-existent entity ruining the socket and the nerves behind it. Shouldn't these have ended by now? I'd stopped taking the atomoxitine… how long was it going to take to wear off? Where was Blackwell when I needed him handy with an injection? It was too late for me anyways, abortive efforts wouldn't work. I was in for another episode of sheer fun, accompanied by this goon who thought he could kick me in the ribs and cause me to actually care through my own internal anguish. What a conceited dingleberry.
Maybe I really liked having these headaches, then. When I'm having a headache I'm not effected by all the painful things other people do. I don't really feel the stupidity, the abandonment, the betrayal. I'm too absorbed in myself to fall into a pit of melodrama about other people. Too busy with 'poor Riley'-ing myself. It's not like anyone is going to do it for me. Someone has to feel bad for me.
I almost choked on a laugh, amused at where my own thoughts were taking me.
"What's funny?" asked Briggs.
"Poor me," I snickered.
End o' chapter 14. I totally wung this one. Hoo mooch lunger veell thees gu oon?!