No chapter next week as I construct some extended chapters for the future.
I awoke to knocking on my door. I blinked the sleep away as I realized Angela was not in the comfort of my arms. I craned my head up and began to perceive sound more clearly. Angela was in the shower. The knocking didn't cease.
I got up and went to the door. I looked through the peephole and saw Claire knocking frantically. Turning the doorknob, I opened the door. Claire was still trying to knock and bashed me in the nose.
"Fuck!" I held my nose as she kept knocking on my head.
"Are you up now?" she muttered as she rapped her knuckles on me hard. "Having me wait and shit."
"I'm up!" I pushed her arm away. "What do you want?"
"I'm here to see you before you go. Also, Peter couldn't make it, but he said he'd rat you out if anything happened to me. Emma is downstairs waiting on you guys."
"You plan on taking us somewhere?"
"Denny's mothafucker!" Claire was aggravated. "What the fuck is up with you? Trying to start shit this early in the morning when I haven't had my coffee. Look, Claire. You gave him a chance. Go ahead and give him one more before you dump his ass in the sewers."
"Are you talking to yourself?"
"Get your shit together!"
I just blinked in a loss for words. "Give me two minutes."
"Thank you," she said as she closed the door on me. On me! I shook my head and went to the bathroom. Angela peeked her head out.
"Is she gone?" She asked. I nodded and looked in the mirror. I stretched out as Angela turned off the water. She stepped out and came behind me. Her hands touched my shoulders and then she was hugging me from behind as her forearms latched around my chest.
"You know," She looked into my eyes in the mirror. "I've never seen you with hair. Not on your arms. Not on your legs. Nor your face. I thought I found myself an expert shaver, but on the plane, I knew you weren't too prideful."
"My skin won't let me grow any," I said. "It sucks in the winter."
"So… Denny's?"
"She said two minutes."
Angela backed off and walked into the bedroom. She bended over and picked up some clean clothes she'd shrewd around the previous night. She slid her panties on as I picked up my mask. World's No. 2 needed a disguise. I thought one better. My wanted posters probably mentioned I couldn't grow hair. I morphed I to myself and just grew a devilish goatee. Angela turned around and flashed a grin.
"What a diversion? Where could Nyght be?"
"Oh no! What could we so ever do?"
Angela laughed. "I think you look good without the shemagh."
"Really?"
"Need a second opinion?"
"No," I said as I pulled on a pair of jeans and a black shirt. Angela pulled on a bra, a pair of torn jeans, and a spaghetti strap tank top. She went to the bathroom and began to apply a makeup for disguise. Black lipstick and eye-shadow. If I didn't see her put it on, I might've actually confused her with a average white woman in Auburn or Barre.
She looked like she was over eighteen, but indistinguishable between nineteen and twenty. She was stunning, but almost in a sluttish composure. I found it more or less intriguing.
"Do I look different?"
"Maybe we can get you some dyed hair and you'll make Claire and Emma a emo group.
"I'll burn in Hell first."
"It won't be the first time an angel descended there."
"Let's go," she said turning off the bathroom light. We exited after locking the door and we saw Claire and Emma in the parking lot by a car. Inside was a older man. He was maybe twenty four or so. Puerto Rican. Overweight. He was wearing a suit which means he was probably one of the richer men working offices. His hair was cut short.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"Pops!" Claire snapped. "Get the fuck in the car!"
"Why are you so hostile?"
"Whatcha say?!" Claire seemed like she was about to attack me.
Please, Emma mouthed. I put my hands up and we got in the car with Emma sitting on Claire's lap in the passenger seat. Angela and I sat in the back. A cup holder separated us.
"Who are they?" Pops asked Claire as he started up the car and began to pull out the parking lot.
"That's Angela and that's Nyght."
"Nyght?" he said with a faint taste of recognition in his voice.
"The hitman," Claire clarified.
"I've heard so much about you," Pops smiled. "You used to take down people by the tens and twenties."
"I did," I gave a weak smile and looked out the window as we began to cruise through Auburn with it's shiny looks and modernization compared to Worcester. I saw a few white women jogging. Two skinny white boys catcalling to a poor black girl. A few car dealerships. The scent of corruptionists and white privileges being thrown around and the undertone of perverted children. I wonder if the school officials favoured whites over black. I wondered if they knew those who slipped the money in their pockets on "accident."
I can't complain. I used to be frivolous and picky over the pricetags. I might let go of some of the people if the targets did so happen to have a couple more thousands. But that's a lie. I killed them and then ran their pockets and bank accounts.
"You're a legend man," Pops smiled.
"I am?"
"You're, like, wanted in, like, all of America. You should've seen the news. I heard they're planning on making you into some movie like that Zodiac dude."
"That's nice," I really didn't want to talk about my past.
"Whoa," he said in much more of a surprise. I looked where he was looking at. I saw a young man being arrested. There were a couple body bags on the ground. What a life those people in the plastic must of had. Back then, I probably would've asked if I would've hit them or shot them for money, but now, I want to know who they were.
There was long silence in the car until we pulled through Lincoln Street to the Denny's. As the car pulled over, Claire opened the door and nearly threw Emma off her. She marched to the front doors with balled fists. We had to hustle to keep up with her. As soon as we came into the establishment, we could already see waitresses rushing to fill a cup of coffee. We got our table quickly as the waitress instantly gave Claire her coffee. I raised an eyebrow as the waitress was waiting by Claire's side very still. There was a long silence for no particular reason.
"Thank you," Claire smiled and seemed to melt all her grumpiness away. "This is very good."
The waitress was relieved. Pops and Emma breathed out exasperated. I looked over at the other tables where two cops were relaxing from a tense position and taking their hands from their tasers.
Did they recognize me? Was I about to put two cops in the ground? How huge was the manhunt. I knew I was going to be hunted, but was I thus big? Was the disguise not working. I could feel the mask resting on my face lightly. As my heart rose in it's beat, I saw Claire grin.
Then it clicked to me why everyone was so tense. Why they were tense until she got her coffee and enjoyed it.
"Oh, what the fuck!" I rolled my eyes. "How many times have you flipped out over coffee?"
"Six times," a waitress yelled.
"Seven," one of the cops corrected.
"Seriously?" I widened my eyes at her.
"I'm considerably happier than this morning. So, I think we have no beef. Can I interest you in some pork?"
"That," Angela shook her head. "Is incredibly the worst joke I've ever heard."
"So?"
Angela shook her head. The waitress came by and asked for our orders. "A blueberry pancake," Angela requested. Everyone gave their order as I stared into the menu to the point Angela had to touch my shoulder to get my attention.
"Oh, uh, I'll have a plate of bacon and eggs. Fried. And a coffee with milk."
The waitress wrote down the orders and left with a smile. "You okay?" Angela asked me.
"I'm fine," I said with a hint of false honey in my voice. I forced my eyes to turn yellow. Claire sipped her coffee and leaned back. We didn't really have much to talk about.
"Damn," Pops breathed as he was scrolling through his phone. "Something went down in Japan."
"What?" Emma asked with boredom flooding her breath.
"Overwatch assassinated some guy. The United Nation is pissed off at Overwatch. They're demanding that Overwatch hand over all secret files and voice recordings now that some guy named Nyght went rogue."
"Damn," Claire nodded. "I never really liked Overwatch anyway."
"Really?" Angela spoke coolly. "What's not to like about them? Saving people. Fighting Omnics."
"Yeah, but it's funny how we were getting our ass handed to us until Overwatch was formed."
"So?"
"Sooooo," Claire put a finger on the table. "I think that these Omnics are just controlled by the governments and they're making sure everyone is paying for health insurance and hospital bills by their destruction."
"You're suggesting Overwatch was created to strike fear into the hearts of citizens?" I resounded her words in more clarity. I raised an eyebrow. "A multi-billon dollar government organization is meant for the tool of the government to harvest more money."
"Hey, I'm just saying it's weird how humans are made with a pussy and Omnics are born in factories."
"Wait," Angela leaned forward. "You're accusing the government of creating Omnics so they could hurt civilians."
"For money, yes. After all, who created the Omnics?"
"It sounds like a conspiracy theory," I sipped my coffee.
"One that is filled with so much weight that people are probably willing to put lead in it and throw it in the sea and let sink."
"That's ludicrous!" Angela exclaimed.
"Not as ludicrous as the mindset that Omnics should have the same rights as humans."
"That sounds rather more segregative than racism," I said with the image of Zøe flashing into my mind. She would've said the same exact thing. It was now taking concentration to keep my eyes yellow.
"Really?" Claire said a little more aggressive. She pulled out her phone and placed it on the table. She put her elbows on the table and pressed her fists to her cheeks. She was staring down at the phone with a wide sarcastic smile. "Oh, hi Mr. Phone. I was wondering if you'd like to have the same rights as me. I mean, you were built specifically for my purpose of calling emergencies. But I suppose you can just refuse because I know you have rights too. I mean, would you like to have a threesome with me and my coffee. You know, because it also has rights."
"Look, that's illogical-" Angela began.
"And also Mr. Phone, maybe I can call my friend Mrs. Curtains to take a roll on Ms. Carpet and we can make this an orgy. Oh, wait! You won't let me make a call."
"Hey!" Angela tried to get a word in.
"But wait, there's more!" Claire laughed. "Maybe Emma can get Pops to let me get his good friend involved in it too. I think her name is Mr. Pencil Sharpener."
"Dammit!" Angela rose from her seat. She had heat in her eyes. I put my hand on hers to reign her back in, but I see Claire had already put Angela in her place.
Claire had pulled a pistol out and the cops stood up and aimed at Angela and me. Pops had a pistol to my jaw. Emma had two revolvers aimed at the two of us. The waitresses brought the breakfast over to us and then pulled out their pistols. One of the waitresses locked the door and closed the curtains.
"Claire?" I had my hands up slowly. My eyes were red, but not encircled with black. "Are you betraying us?"
"Depends on where you stand. I'm about to give you three options. You can either die here, get handed over, or you can answer some questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"You're probably looking for Sombra and my guess is that you plan on going all the way to Dorado to find her. So,tell me, why you did think for one second, that I had any type of information on what you want."
"Montoya," I said. "She gave me some information when we interrogated her. I was almost confused why you'd come up with such information. But then I thought I'd come to see you for some advice on daughters and fathers."
"I find that you are a perfect father," a feminine voice echoed through the Denny's. "I've always wondered who you were. So many people told me you didn't exist and I was left as a baby with my madre. Then she was killed as I escaped as a toddler with friends. Then Montoya betrayed us. And I heard the whole thing on camera and I do think you get quite frustrated easily."
"What is she talking about?" Angela asked me.
"A mission I did with Reyes."
"And a man named Genji, Jesse Mecree, and Amélie a.k.a Widowmaker" She expressed her pleasure in saying a.k.a. She have a very heavy Hispanic accent.
"Show yourself," I commanded taking off my mask. My eyes were turning darker by the moment. Suddenly, I felt pressure on my nose. A finger appeared on my nose out of thin air. Then the finger got a gloved hand. Then an arm. A torso. Then a whole woman appeared as if she was cybernetic, but not like Genji.
"Boop," said my daughter, Sombra.
