For most of the freshman posterity it was an urban legend. The Shades were a long running horror story to keep the new kids quiet and out of the bullying scene. It had worked, spreading the story, but not nearly to the extent that we had intended for it to work, nor did the end justify the extreme measures we took. I’d been a sophomore in the same year the four of them united into this insane project. After what I would refer to as an “agent” group of silent investors partnered with the Shades I watched them quickly transform, I don’t know what to call them, God’s, the Devil’s tools, superhuman… monsters.I guess after you’ve seen so much, or learned so much, you just kind of turn… and when you turn sometimes it’s not that beautiful glorified grace of fiery spirit, or pretty fluttery butterflies, sometimes it’s that darkness, that genuine evil that you rarely get to witness.
2022 was when I started my Sophomore year at MIT. I’d busted my tail getting in. I had to hook a rocket ship to my grades in my last two years of high school to even qualify with a 3.8 GPA. In the previous eight years the acceptance rate for MIT had decreased by a huge margin, only a little more than five percent of the applicants were accepted. While working part time and depending on my parents for tuition, I barely made it by. Oscar Turner, my room mate, had been my strongest support in the beginning. He was a Shade, he hadn’t been a shade when I’d met him, but by our second year, halfway through, he was gone. I’m not talking gone like disappeared, or vanished, I’m saying lost it, but not lost it enough for anyone to know unless you knew the guy.
You see, Oscar was maybe a year younger than I was, probably 21, built like a linebacker the guy could bench press my 168 lbs easily. Dark, clear skin, always smiling, and funny, Oscar was hilarious. He had a joke or something funny to say every time I saw him. “Hustler,” is what he’d call me. My last name is Hastling, Eli my first. Hustler, sounding similar to Hastling, was an endearing name from Oscar because I was anything but a hustler. I couldn’t talk a pre-grad out of their recyclables let alone hustle for something. But to be sure, a guarantee, whenever he said it I’d have a smile on my face. He wouldn’t say it in a casual way either, his greeting varied in different company. If I was with a girl he didn’t know, my Nickname would then be an innuendo of some kind like I was making moves on the girl. ‘Huuuustler’ he’d say while striding in and then slinging his backpack down with a loud thud. If Oscar caught me with a group of guys he’d shout the name out like we were long time friends and then give me a secret handshake that I’d never really get used to. Just a charismatic guy. When I needed him he’d been there. In my first year I’d been close to starving a couple times and he’d silently noticed. Just coincidentally, on occasion, he’d order pizza and pick up extra wings or cheese bread.“I can’t eat it all, bro!” He’d yell at me, then he’d toss me a box with three quarters of a pizza in it and go on to stare into his large screen, quietly, ignoring me as I consumed the gift with great urgency.I had decided MIT sometime during my Sophomore year in high school, due to the growing performing arts program. I was a cartoonist, or at least dreamed of being a cartoonist. A degree in the digital art program would have set me up for life. It was all I wanted, to write, design and produce animated media. The tuition was killer but every day of grinding twelve hours I reminded myself what it would be like to accept an award, or just walk the red carpet, and every day I got up, seven a.m., walked past Oscars empty bed and got back to the grind, after brushing my teeth of course.The Shades began as a small Media Arts and Sciences study group consisting of about eight students, myself included, just for space to study with my peers. By the second semester half the group had either failed or bailed with lame excuses leaving what would, in only a few short months, evolve into the legend known as the four Shades.
“I’ve noticed a very obvious trend setting pattern online. It seems very easy to control the flow of information if you’ve got control over what people look at.” said Kerry Liaffe a tall, thin, Asian with a brain the size of Tokyo.
We were all sitting around a table at a hole in the wall restaurant downtown. It was the time of year to start considering thesis questions and papers to be published, no one’s favorite past time.“That’s pretty much stating the obvious, Kerry. If you could forecast what trend was becoming a phenomena based on the information you have now then control it, that might be something.” Except Chris Danielson, Chris liked papers.“Yeah, since the beginning of printed media, no.” Lucus stopped, “journalism, no, storytelling in general.” He sat his slender body down between Kerry and Chris, “way back,” gesticulating as avidly as he was accustomed to while his ADD riddled mind scrambled to get to a point, “to songs. You know how traveling groups would write down history in song?”
“Folklore.” Oscar said in between sucking the last of his drink from his straw, rattling the ice filled bottom of the cup.“Right.” Said Lucus, “Forklot. No, Folkto.” He stopped himself, relaxing. “Folk-lore.” He finally breathed out.
“Didn’t they begin with song and move on to traveling players. Actors, I mean.” I said scribbling down a quick picture of a gypsy cart onto my note pad. Apparently a rhetorical question because no one bothered to answer.
“What if.” Lucus started, then stopped shaking his head. He’d lost it.Chris spoke slowly while staring into a table. “I’m sure there’s a way to cause phenomena just by using current trends.” He rose. The tallest in the group, probably of some Nordic European descent, his hair was abnormally blond with blue eyes and chiseled features from head to toe. One of those guys who didn’t have to work hard at being beautiful. One of those guys who didn’t have to work hard at all. Chris was at the head of his class, he had been most of his life from how he told it. Mostly because he knew it was important to be the most intelligent person in the class as well as the most capable. “Wasn’t there some kind of study on the impacts of too much stimuli? Or a study on the impact of news or social media?”
“Which study do you want?” Kerry began typing into her laptop. “There’s been studies on all of them, it’s like fishing in a barrel if you’re looking for individual case studies.”
“I want to know if you can cause widespread hysteria, or widespread intentional change if you actually, effectively control what people are exposed to.” Chris was standing in the center of the room, the group was quiet.That had been the climax of the study group, the initial transition, before the catalyst that sent my world reeling. Everyone left that evening to their own corners of the campus, ready for the case studies to come in and begin the long term project. Everyone except myself of course. I was busy learning how to add simple plug-ins into my animation program. Oscar became less available the following weeks. Initially he could be found in the library with Kerry, strumming away at the keyboard, looking for some kind of psychology report one of the Profs had suggested then, he all but disappeared, the only sign of his existence was the growing pile of laundry next to his bed.
Oscar didn’t reappear until after New year’s break. I’d taken a bus back to Florida where my parents lived with my younger sister. Like any conservative family we were obsessed with the news. Some form of conservative network news was on the television or a satellite radio always. Probably the reason why cartoons were a part of my future plans, other than the obvious Disney influence with exaggerated eyes and comical scripts; I remember reading political cartoons as a kid. Cartoons made sense, and usually, the longer you spent reading them the more they made sense and the actual articles did not. Now the secret to a good political cartoon is dry sarcasm. You take the subjects, then layer them to a point where you can’t see anything but the joke. For example the headline “Politicians Executed By Newsfeed” you would put the subject, politicians, on a ship’s plank facing a tide of what looks like social media news feed lapping at the sides of the boat. On their shirts read their prime talking points or the bills they have to pass or whatever the gossip for the trend is. All jokes but it gets people to think. You don’t write up an entire article and do the thinking for them, you just make a joke.
“Eli, would you turn up the volume, honey?” Terra, my mom, asked while she reheated Christmas leftovers. Lunch would be primarily melted cheese and turkey on toast, nothing exciting. The family didn’t roll out the red carpet for me during the holidays, it was just business as usual.
I hopped up from the stool in the kitchen where I was engrossed in an old comic collection I’d found in the attic. When I’d arrived my parents hadn’t been prepared and I was sent up inside the roof to pull out camping gear to use while my room was being remodeled. Clear plastic covers and brushes were scattered across the floor, all of my things had been shoved upstairs.
“We’ll put it all back together organized for you, son.” My dad had said. It didn’t ease the aching realization that I had reached the level of adult when your parents, not so gently, push you out of the house. I turned up the radio volume and returned to the kitchen island, back my stack of comic books. The box of magazines had almost tripped me when I was digging out my old military issue sleeping bag from upstairs.“What are you looking at, snot face?”
“That’s not very nice at all, Shelby.” I said quietly to my little sister. “Is that what they’re teaching you in fifth grade now?”
“No, they teach us about genitals and hygiene then require us to have a co-ed physical education filled with flopping genitalia and bad hygiene.”
I broke. I had been taking small drinks from my mug while she spoke and finally spewed part of my mouth-full of sweetened coffee from behind my palm while attempting to hush my involuntary laugh.
“Snot face.” She said again and grabbed her prepared turkey melt sandwich.
“Oh!” Mom gasped and hushed us. “Quiet.” She ran over to the radio and turned it up louder.“…witnesses report the student carried the weapon inside the school. As soon as he was in the classroom he began shooting.” We listened to the stable voice of breaking news reporter.
My mom and sister both stared blankly into the empty air.
“Is the perpetrator in custody?” another voice asked.
“Unfortunately, the student was shot dead by local police.”
“That was Massachusetts, Eli.” My mom said quietly.
“Oh, mom.” I sighed with a practiced relaxed composure. She had every reason to be fearful, I could only gently console. Getting up from my seat. “I’m sure it’s a fluke. Right? These things happen. Just one emotionally unstable kid and a gun shop.”
“It’s so close though, E.”
I patted my mom’s back and when she relaxed I made sure to give her a long hug, not letting go until she let go. It had been a while since we’d heard of any terrorist activity or crazy kids shooting up classrooms. More than a little unsettling that it happened in the state of my Alma Mater.
“Did they release the name of the kid?” I asked. “Maybe I know him.” My stomach clenched slightly at he thought of Oscar or one of my classmates carting a gun onto campus.
“Not yet.” My mom replied, turning back to the sink. “Hey!” After a few minutes of silence she said cheerily, “Let’s get out tonight and see a movie.” And just like that it was over. Mom was good at that, moving on. I couldn’t say the same for myself. The story stuck with me, nagging at me from the back of my mind.
By the end of winter break my room had been painted, refurbished and all of my stuff still remained in the attic. Instead of placing the comics back upstairs I hauled them to my dorm room for inspiration. I wanted something to hold on to, from home, kind of a comfort. Other than my thinking group of friends, I didn’t have a lot to hold on to. My comic books gave me somewhere to escape. Upon my return my side of the room was as it had been but Oscar’s was institution level clean. It looked as though he’d taken the whole thing apart, deep cleaned every nook and cranny then replaced it. He’d even cleaned the light switch covers, who cleans light switch covers? He was absent, I started my classes for the semester without a trace of him, then one January afternoon a pale skeleton of what had been Oscar appeared. He hadn’t lost much weight, he was still very muscular, but he was more lean, like he’d been starving. His cheeks were slender and the smile was gone, followed by sad, puffy eyes.“Oscar.” Hesitantly I walked up to him in the hallway near the computer science lab.“Hustler,” Greeting me with the awkward handshake and a soft voice, when our hands met he didn’t let go, instead he pulled me over to the wall, “I need you to follow me.” Stuttering slightly he added, “I need you to see this.” His phone must’ve been in his pocket, I heard it vibrate.
Nodding, I slipped on my bag’s second shoulder strap and followed. Catching a cab down Massachusetts Ave. into Boston’s Chinatown we got out just down the road from a great dumpling restaurant I liked to visit when shopping. Oscar lead me through an alley and around a corner where Chinese antiques, medicine shops and restaurants lined the street. Two doors down the strip mall to our right sat a small electronics and game shop.
Oscar, who had been silent almost the entire twenty minutes since he’d pulled me off campus, suddenly busted a leak, spewing out information as quickly as he could. “All the minute details. Like the name brands of your generic belt lying on the floor, or the small print of your homework text, we all notice. You don’t notice, not with your frontal lobe and conscious brain but your subconscious picks up all those details.” Oscar quickly spat out over his raised anxiety. I’d never seen him like this. He was terrified, excited and in awe at the same time. “This is what the prof in brain research tells us.” He had stopped us both at the red bricked corner of the strip mall just past the alley, keeping his eyes targeted on the window of the electronic shop, his internal tempo slowed. “I’ve seen this seven times so far Eli. And every time…” he stopped and wiped tears from his eyes. “It just keeps getting more accurate, man. At first we didn’t know where it was going to hit. We just watched the news to see where we landed. Then we found the pattern.”
“I don’t understand, Oscar. What are we waiting for?” He sounded so distraught and confused. Nothing was happening. There were maybe three people visible inside the open glass window displaying a few flat screens. A younger guy in a flannel had walked out then a girl had walked in, almost hitting the glass, she’d been staring into her phone.“
Just watch, any minute now.”I waited with him patiently, watching the store fill a little more heavily with patrons. A little odd, it was nearly eleven a.m. on a weekday. There weren’t any new popular game releases. Most of the customers seemed to be meandering to fill up space. Then I noticed something. All of their shirts said something from a small symbol above the left breast to a big Nike insignia. They all said something. “You said the subconscious-”
“Yeah, you see it. I knew you’d see it.” he sounded relieved.I laughed. “You brought me here to look at clothes, Oscar.”
“Nope.” He choked back another onslaught of tears. “Wait.”
If I could accurately describe Oscar’s physical prowess it would strike you as a total and complete contradiction in any stereotypical reality seeing this massive hunk of mortal strength choke back tears. Which is why I waited, patiently listened. In my mind something deeply troubling had to be happening because Oscar was no longer the same Oscar I had met just a year and a half before.
Then, in the middle of the mellow evening, the screaming started. Screaming like she’d been lit on fire, from somewhere within the shop. One of the few that had been inside, followed by yelling. I jumped to go when the massive strength of Oscar’s leading right hand grabbed my arm.
“Don’t do it.” He said, the tears had rushed out making wet trails down his cheeks. I turned back just in time to see one of the only non printed black shirts under a white jacket, soaked in blood, dash out of the shop. Following the kid was a mob of hand held cell phones recording the live video.
“Call 911!!! He’s bleeding to death!” A small voice yelled. Another young man rushed out after the runaway.
“Let go!” I demanded and Oscar released. “What happened?!” I ran over to a young woman posting the video onto social media. The tagline read “Ice picked brutal stabbing.” The girl handed her phone over while sirens and flashing lights encased the shop.
On the small cellular screen I pressed the play button and watched with deep, disturbing horror as a young Asian repeatedly thrust the long end of an ice pick into the left side of the shop owners torso. Blood soaked everything, patterns of tossed hemorrhaging marked everything. Customers, who stood shocked, inched their way against the wall behind the two. The five seconds of video would replay itself in slow motion, mentally, for the rest of my life. I handed the phone to the girl and walked back to Oscar.
I almost passed him by, heading back through the alley, he stopped me. “We did that, Eli. That was us.”
“No. You couldn’t-” I said quickly.
“Yes. I’ll show you.” Dead calm, Oscar placed his palm against my back and pushed.
Before he interrupted me, in my state of vicarious trauma, I was sure there was no chance Oscar could have provoked something so brutal, but then again he knew exactly where and what time it was going to happen, he must have known something. Yet, No one could have caused it, there were too many factors involved like which stabber, the store, the victim, and the circumstances that made him use an ice pick. An ice pick, for crying out loud.“It’s all set up, the whole thing. First we built an algorithm that uses anything it can get on the internet. Anything.” Oscar and I hailed another cab back to the east campus.
From the main room in the computer science and artificial intelligence complex we walked all the way through the building filled with oblivious students moving in one direction or another, focused on this project or that until we reached a dark pastel blue door under the glass breezeway above our heads. Oscar slid a key card into the door making a beep, a flash of green light lit up the card lock.
“People will read anything. They’ll read garbage if they have to just to keep their brains occupied and if it’s free garbage it moves fast. Blogs, small journalist sites, freaking click bait. If it’s got some rhythm to it it gets chomped up.” Oscar led the way into another room, locking the door behind us. Dimly lit by three computer screens, a single office chair was parked in front, several others were scattered around the room against bare walls. I heard the flick of a light switch and the room lit up. Taking the seat in front of the computer screens, Oscar motioned for me to join him.
“We’re connected to this massive quantum computer located somewhere in D.C. I think. I didn’t ask, the guys who brought us in on this were definitely feds though, or affiliated with the Feds. Or maybe C.I” He was talking blankly like his mind had retreated into a storm shelter somewhere in the back of his head and he was defending what wit he had left.
“How did the government get involved?” I asked in surprise, watching Oscar with a balanced acuity I rarely saw from the giant, sweep his hands deftly across the keyboard, waking up the machine sitting in front of him.
Oscar sighed, “So Chris.” He paused to check the USB port and then enter in a few passwords. “and Kerry together are talking to the cognitive sciences division. You know. Because that’s basically what we’re doing, mixing media and cognitive response. So they get told by the professor there that if they can get solid results an independent could take the bait and fund the program so we had more resources.” Oscar turned to look at me, the plastic office chair squeaked under him. “I kid you not, it took them three shots.” He stopped himself, “Not literal shots, but three tests to get a response. Chris picked a local demographic and had junk mail sent to them, offers and stuff. That’s all we could do in the beginning, just harass people with junk texts and emails. You can’t get into Facebook or Twitter without being deputized. Within a week we had a verbal response, almost to the letter, posted on social media.” Oscar returned to the screens in front of him. “It was someone outside of the demographic we chose, but what she posted was like she’d swallowed all the junk mail we’d sent that group of like thirty students and vomited it back into a comprehended picture.”
“That’s not the results Chris had wanted is it?” I said quietly. I remembered pretty clearly something about a passive riot or small public display was mentioned when this project had been cooked up.
“That’s right.” Oscar said looking back at me. “Chris was hoping for a larger reaction creating a phenomenon instead what he got was a singularity. So instead of looking for a larger scale reaction we followed the unexpected results and what we found…”“It was enough to snag a big league backer?” I was reaching. I didn’t know how to describe or properly discuss what I was hearing. I may have been smart enough to have gotten into MIT but these guys were leagues beyond my capacity to comprehend what was happening.
“They’re from this huge corporation that does contract work for the government.” He said quickly. “They responded when we had results. So we narrowed down the pathway and figured out…” He quieted and thought carefully, for a minute, choosing his words. “All we needed was to show how much damage we could do.” His tone hardened and he shook his head. “Didn’t matter if it was one person or a hundred people. They were all over it.”
“There’s a catch, though. Right?” I asked.
Oscar nodded his head. “They bring us these file cases on kids here in the school. Kids who’ve been in the system. Damaged, socially awkward, depressed, unstable, you name it. Oscar pulled up a program on the far left computer. The case file for the kid we’d just seen runoff, covered in blood displayed itself in an old school DOS green with a series of profile pictures.
“Derek,” I said quietly, pulling a chair over from across the room. ADD, possible psychopathy, delusional. “Oh my god.”
“That’s not the worst.” Oscar tapped into the keyboard and a running script of numbers crossed the screen. “We built a monster.” He pointed at a little box in the corner. “We took the processing speed of a computer and amplified it. All we had to do was figure out which button to push. All I have to do is match the action I want with the keywords and specifically target the perpetrator with the target and the program figures out the rest.”
“How…” I stammered trying desperately to figure out what he was explaining. “How does… the computer makes them do it?”
“The program finds all the connecting information and feeds it to points in the dual target zone. Here.” Oscar then tapped the keyboard and on the screen a map appeared. “This is our target zone.” He pointed to a coffee shop then started typing again. “Now I’m going to make sure that at least five percent of the customers get free coffee. A program like this could take a few days to a few weeks.” In the center screen he typed in a few keywords. “There’s no specific human target other than the employees, the computer will find the list and…” Flashing from the first screen diverted my attention. Derek’s file disappeared and number of other profiles popped up.
Oscar was quick and silent while searching through half of the employee list, every time he found a common keyword he typed it into the box on the center computer. I watched intently as his thick, adept fingers raced across the keyboard. “You said seven times.”
“Yeah.”
“How many times did you actually see the… the…”
“The perfect crime, murders, massacre?” Oscar asked with a heightened level of intensity.
“Yeah.” I agreed, “How-”Oscar stopped his typing and turned to me. “Today. Today was the first time. I read about the others, we had to in order to perfect the program. This wasn’t our idea, though. You know? We didn’t set out to kill people. Chris was just following the results he got.”
“How exactly did it turn into this?” Leaning back into my chair I nodded toward the three monitors.
“After we arranged a few interviews with some reps in the Industrial Liaison program with our results,” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the bends of his wrists, a habit he had when he was thinking hard. Oscar would study for exams spending half the time whispering to himself with the insides of his wrists shoved into his eye sockets. “Man, I can’t remember the date but the four of us were called in for a meeting upstairs. These suits and glasses walk in, like three of them, and start asking questions. Questions like, ‘How long have you been conducting sociological experiments?’ and ‘How many successful experiments have you conducted?’. You know? Questions like that. Then they said if we used their equipment and interfaced with their system, we could count on a signed letter from the head of the CIA with the completion of the program they specified, to run the experiment. They’re funding the whole thing too. All the leg work is ours, all the publishing of this paper or that-”
“Recognition, credit.” I interjected, trying to keep Oscar straight.
“Right.” His right hand came down from his eye to point at me, the other one followed. “So our name would be on it, we just had to run a few exercises and take notes. We didn’t realize when we put our name on this it made us the fall guys.”
“What can you do?”
“Technically we’re not breaking the law. There’s no law against psychological triggers that make people kill other people.” Oscar punched the final keys and leaned back. “I’m a murderer, Eli. And I helped discover the perfect weapon.”
“Can you contact someone?”
“As soon as the independents… agents… I don’t know who they are, feds I guess. As soon as they walked in we signed an NDA.”“ND…” I trailed off, I knew what an NDA was but I’d never actually witnessed a scenario where the use of one was necessary. Just a group of kids, college kids, who engineered a weapon and incapable of saying anything.
“A. As in you say anything and we have your butt in cuffs or in a courtroom paying the government for the rest of your life.” Oscar took in a deep breath. “Not taking into consideration that we me Kerry, Chris and Lucus become targets.” A gruff cynical chuckle came out, “We’re not getting out of this alive, Eli. In only a matter of a few years this program could be able to adjust and strategically decide the impulsive moves of anyone.”
“Impulsive?”
“Yeah, this program works off of impulse alone. What you saw today was the impulsive response of some dumb kid who just reacted. People run on autopilot a huge percentage of the time, and when they’re just used to reacting they make decisions that may not necessarily be their own.”
“Tunnel vision.” I whispered still listening.
“Exactly, they don’t see what’s happening outside of their bubble. That kid, Derek, was probably on Adderall or some other narcotic stimulant which makes him even more susceptible to manipulation. Look.” Oscar pulled up Derek’s file again. “Recent recorded signs of disturbed behavior, violent internal thoughts.
”Although believable, Oscar’s story was punctured full of holes, the most recognizable one being that a computer program could program and anticipate the multiple unlimited choices a human could make. “How…” I didn’t want to ask too many questions, but I couldn’t stop from openly wondering. “I don’t want you to think I don’t believe you. How does the program actually work? Like, does it just repeat the same thing over and over again and the kids or targets just do it after so many repetitions?”
“The science behind it wasn’t my forte. That was Lucus, he’s got some double major in biology and engineering or something.” Oscar turned off the monitors and then the hard drive sitting below the table. “Tonight we’re meeting.” He stood up the office chair creaked from the release of his massive body weight. “North Point Park, eight tonight. You can get answers there, if you want to know.” He turned to leave then turned again. “I can’t tell anyone, Eli. I can’t even tell my mom. I’m scared, and then again I’m not. I had to tell someone.” There was a long silence between us. Until then I hadn’t realized, Oscar wasn’t just my support, I’d been his too. He spoke one last time before leaving. “Don’t leave right after me, leave in about twenty minutes so it doesn’t look peculiar.” I nodded my head and watched him walk out.
I spent longer than twenty minutes in the lab. Looking back and forth from the door to the hard drive, back to the monitors and then to the door. Oscar’d introduced me to a weapon, not just a weapon but a tool much like some magical staff that could turn the tide of events previously decided by nature only. All the programmer needed was a few key words and I bet you could decide the next POTUS, or whether a revolution was going to happen, or war. But the question remained how?
I ate alone that night after my four hour shift at the library. The densely packed diner was unsettling, being that at any time a foaming, slack jawed zombie could bum rush me and I’d be bleeding into the maroon, faux leather seats, or as I walked out into the night toward North Point a pilot on autopilot serendipitously crashes the plane right onto my very spot. My heart rate was up, feeling my head spinning from the rushes of fear. I was completely out of control of my own destiny.7:15, on my cellphone. I was going to make it ahead of the group, it occurred to me that I should have asked where in the park they would be meeting. Unlocking the screen, I searched for Oscar’s number, my hands shaking, when the cell rang with a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” Immediately the phone beeped, ending the call. “That can’t be good.” I said placing the phone back into my pocket.
The winter air was icy crisp and fresh, it only exacerbated the needles and pins attacking my guts. Waiting by a park bench I watched the green field around me for a sign of any of the group. North Point’s floor carpeted by fresh snow, the air so thick with silence the sound of my thin sneakers crushing through the icy floor echoed. Cold, and getting increasingly colder every minute, I stopped at the closest park bench and waited. Within fifteen minutes, like dark wraiths, the four of them closed in on me from all four directions. It was similar to a scene in a supernatural thriller, each of them gaunt, pale and dressed in black. Fatally silent, and that’s not an exaggeration, from the minute I’d left the secret hidden computer lab until that moment I’d been terrified. So the movement of them stalking toward me, saying nothing was only amplifying my terror.
“Eli.” Each one greeted me as they stopped.
“Hey.” I didn’t know what exactly to say, or how to move. Each one of these kids who had been, at one point, my peer stood around me like an elitist circle.
“Eli wants to know.” Oscar spoke up as he brushed a pile of snow from the park bench.
“We were meeting to decide our next plan of action.” Kerry growled. “Now you’ve involved an innocent person, don’t you think they know?”
“I don’t know what else to do! Okay Kerry?” Oscar bit back, “look, I’ve got family. Parents. Who haven’t heard from me in almost a year. If something happens to me…” he stopped.
“You don’t think I’m worried too-” Kerry started, suddenly stopped by Chris.
“Hey. No, hey. Kerry, someone outside of our group, someone who isn’t involved in this. We need a witness.” He laughed gently, apprehensively, “And if he’s decided to know more, that’s on him. None of us have any protection, we stepped into this without forewarning, but if Eli wants to be in, at least he knows what he’s involved in.”
“Good point. I guess it’s too late now.” A more demure, soft spoken Kerry replied.
“You gotten the call yet?” Lucus asked.
“Call?” Instantly the unknown number that hung up on me came to mind.
“The ghost call. It’s a call where there’s no sound, just silence. A sign the national security agency is keeping tabs on you. Something they’ve done for… I don’t know, generations. It means you’re on the watch list.” Lucus quieted.
“I got a call on my way here.” I knew it, I thought. It wasn’t good.
“Lucus, would you mind explaining.” Chris said in a hushed voice.
“Well first things first, give me your cell phones.” Kerry walked around and collected all cells, “I’m taking these to my car. You can have yours after we’re done.”
“What?” I laughed handing over my cell.
“It’s no joke, Eli. That thing’s a microphone, a GPS, a ticking time bomb. Your entire life is in that thing and there are pre-existing back doors the government and paying corporations can monitor you with.” Chris spoke up, “Everything you do can be used to create a personal file that makes a fingerprint that specifically encodes all of your personal memories… which leads us into Lucus’ area of expertise. Lucus, if you would.
”I took a seat next to Oscar. Quickly Kerry joined us, Chris and Lucus remained standing.
“I, I’m sorry I don’t have PowerPoint presentation for you, my scattered brain is going to have to suffice.” Lucus’ usual energy was tapped, he spoke more slowly and more frazzled. They all had an air of exhaustion. He started by leaning in on the table in front of us and then stepping back, pacing like he usually did.
“They call them lone wolves. They’re defined in the PATRIOT ACT as a terrorist threat who doesn’t physically contact their recruits… their soldiers or militia, however you want to define terrorist groups. In the early 2000’s a big mud muck was thrown out into the public about a government watch list and why certain people were on it. They had documentaries on women who had no criminal record who were being watched. Right? But the thing is, they are but they don’t consciously create terrorism. Then Edward Snowden leaks some massive data, in 2013, he takes from the CIA and NSA. In that leak there’s these dragnet programs and surveillance that covers everyone in the world who is capable of… well, of communication, essentially.” Lucus paced back and forth next to the picnic table across from the group. “Our societies work like a bunch of bee colonies. When one Queen listens to music somewhere in their colony the bee, so to speak, reacts in some way. The same goes for what they digest literarily, or what they’re exposed to, the small details. The lone wolves are essentially the beacon points that direct informational traffic and that’s what was being monitored since the fall of the twin towers 9-11. Previous to that I’m sure they knew biologically there were queens and those queens were being monitored but with this new information we, they,” he corrected himself. “can now physically move or manipulate, use, anyone in the United States… well, anywhere, really, by just feeding the right person, or Queen, the right information.”
“Like something out of Star Trek.” I said. I remembered back when my parents watched the show religiously there was some kind of colony like what Lucus was describing. Seven of Nine called it the collective or maybe it was the hive. It didn’t matter, the matter was this was some scary science fiction actually brought to life. I refocused myself, “How… okay.” I paused, “So, I’m a bee, right?”
“Yeah.” Lucus agreed.
“Why don’t I hear instructions from my Queen? How does that work?” I asked. I guessed I’d be able to hear thoughts or something that would obviously clue me in on the existence of someone else in my head telling me what to do.
“It doesn’t exactly come out as instructions for most people. Most people receive just random thoughts, like a collection of data that turns into an impulse or a thought.” Lucus began to explain, then Chris took over.
“So the pituitary gland controls all of the subconscious functions of the body,” Chris said, “from your thyroid to your adrenal glands, it also activates the the lower part of the brain they call the pons which connects the brain to the medulla. Once the ancient part of the brain is triggered, conscious information is used as fuel for the subconscious that acts as a direct link to the bees in the Queen’s hive.” Chris moved over by Lucus’s side, “We are all psychically linked, but due to the separation of brain and state we have a stronger independence than that of normal colony type animals. I mean, you hear or read about scenarios where mom’s can hear their baby’s crying from two states away or twins finishing each other’s sentences but nothing like this mutant X-men stuff.” Chris let the moment settle. The air was crisp and deadly silent around us. Our long shadows framed the park table under the empty white light of the lamp posts edging the green. “I’m sure we weren’t the ones to initially figure this out.” Chris started again as though catching a quick thought surfing through his mind and riding it out. “We’ve all seen similar things like Easter eggs connecting movies and theme trends started by the music industry… I think those were similarly used until social media broke in, creating a massive break in stimuli.
”Oscar added, “Once we figured out how to harness it…” he stopped, quieting himself in a humbled silence.
“There are so many things that can be controlled this way,” Lucus stepped in again. “Just by implanting a few key ideas and then controlling the environmental stimuli you could alter anything, any predetermined course of history… you become God.” He trailed off leading the group into a mutual silence. This thought, this revelation of a Godlike existence had obviously crossed their minds and ebbed their conversations more than once. It had been months since the beginning of this project. I wondered how far they had taken it. Far enough to know better, it appeared.
I broke the silence, “So what can you do?”
“We’ve been deliberating-” Chris began but was stopped mid sentence by Kerry.
“Planning and comprising… an escape. Although these two dummies think a dramatic scene is going to get more attention.” She paused and crossed her arms. “I’m researching off grid groups that might be able to help us.”
“Off-grid?” I asked, puzzled.
Kerry laughed, “I know, right? How do you contact someone who doesn’t use modern technology? Believe me, they left a paper trail. There’s a discreet village somewhere in Canada. I’m working on finding a contact.
”Oscar interrupted, “Yeah, better to have an invite than to get shot on the spot.
”I shook my head and rubbed my aching cold hands against the top of my head, then against my eyes. This was too much. My mind was swimming, the day started out with a murder and it was ending with conspiracy and a getaway plan. “What?!” I managed to get out.
“Going up against the government,” Kerry spoke up in her slightly pompous tone. She was scared. “could you imagine what kind of hell life would be if the government wanted you eliminated? Especially if they had this kind of capability? You could lose your job, your security, all of your support. Within days, given the right circumstances, your closest friends and family could very possibly turn from bible thumpers into drug dealers, I kid you not. And with the fast crumbling of our education system and ethics in America the less people understand the easier it is for them to be manipulated.”“We’re being hunted as of right now, I guarantee it, Eli.” Oscar said quietly.
“That includes you too.” Chris added.
The alarm in the back of my mind started again. Pulse increasing, the sharp screaming echo seizing my gut, hands began to shake and vision blurred. “I think it’s time to go.” I said quietly.
“Of course.” Chris said and motioned to Kerry for the phones. He walked up to me and placed a cold hand on my shoulder. “I can’t promise you safety, Eli, but I can promise you the truth, and I’ll promise the truth to the world once we get out of here.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I said while making quick eye contact. His eyes were hollow, crazed, with a dark, iron deficient shadow around the edges. He was still that effortlessly beautiful but in a reaper kind of way, he was terrifying.
Inside of Chris’ head must have been a maze of mine fields. The potential power that this kind of program could allow a person. It was like winning the lottery, if the lottery included control over countries, diplomats, CEOs, major corporations. As he stood there the obvious infusion of venom was slowly penetrating every aspect of him. A venom made up of control, temptation, and power. It hadn’t seemed to hit everyone else as hard as it was Chris. Chris had always enjoyed control in every aspect of his life, but now it was as if he’d wrapped his hands around the neck of the snake that had already swallowed half of him and was struggling to avoid being consumed by it altogether. He was terrifying.
Oscar walked up with my phone in hand. Chris added quickly before Oscar ushered me away. “If you refer to this at all; mention any of us or this project, we call ourselves The Shades. If anything gets passed around from any of us, it will be referred to as Shadow Grounds. Got it? You’re one of us, now, Eli. Keep your head on straight and stay aware.” He gave me a quick pat on my shoulder.
“Awake.” Oscar said.
“Awake.” Chris said finally and then gave me a final hug goodbye.
Oscar and I took a cab back to campus. Neither one of us spoke. Neither one of us had anything to say. It was like reading the last chapters of the story of your life, wanting to know how it ends, and once you’ve finished your mind is so blown that there’s nothing else it can handle. Before I went to bed that night, only to lay there in a cold sweat, I called my mother.
“Eli, what’s wrong?” The strong sound of panic came from the other end of the line, probably because I couldn’t speak at first. She had answered the call with her usual, “Hello?” But I hadn’t said anything. So deep inside this chasm of my shattered reality it didn’t matter anymore, hellos, goodbyes.
“I don’t want to tell you. Well, really I can’t tell you.” I said finally. I waited a long while, in silence with her listening on the other end. Right when she was about to speak I started. “Remember… remember the first day of Sunday school?… Remember… remember how at first I didn’t want to go? I intentionally hid my shoes under my bed so I didn’t have to?” Giving her a weak laugh, I paused. Knowing where I wanted this speech to go, I still wasn’t able to easily order my thoughts. Everything I had depended on as a reality had been torn out from beneath me. “And Dad found them.”
“You liked it. After you got there.” She said quietly.
“I remember the first lesson. The lesson on angels, and how Lucifer was cast out of heaven because he was jealous and how he and the archangel fight-”“Will fight.” She interrupted.
“Yeah.” I said in almost a whisper. “Don’t let go of that, mom. I want you to keep believing in your Christmas stories and your fairy tales. Don’t let go of the magic or the magnificence of the glory of good things, good people.” I couldn’t tell her anything. I suddenly knew what Oscar must have been feeling the minutes before he decided to tell me. All I could get out was a bunch of delusional nonsense. She probably thought I was on drugs.
“Eli, are you on something?” The moment I thought it was the moment she said it. As if some button in my brain had been pushed and she spoke for me, I was too freaked out to say anymore.
“Bye, Mom.” I hung up, terrified. Blinking the tears from my eyes I rubbed them, then frantically rubbed my whole face. My head spun. Living on only a few hours sleep in the past week, I looked around, I was standing in the center of the empty west campus gymnasium. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. Since leaving the park and riding in the cab with Oscar, I’d lost time, I’d somehow lost space too.
Retiring for the evening to my room only to lay there. I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t processing. I was panicked and awake. So awake that my eyes refused to close, ready to bolt or defend myself. Waiting for something. Anything. Shadows, I guess.
The following nights were spent much like this and during the day I walked around like a zombie. So tired I couldn’t think or problem solve. Working proved to be a nightmare, surrounded by books, my mind was on overdrive trying to take in every detail of every book in the library. Each one had a story and each story connected and every time some dumb kid came up to check one out I took an extra five minutes to mentally track down how the information in the book could possibly harm this innocent little bee standing in front of me. It was endless. Huge and overwhelming to attempt, in any degree, to control an outcome so premeditated, so calculated, I was bound to drive myself crazy.
Taking the long walk around the campus from the visual arts center I tried desperately to remember what day it was. Was it Wednesday? Tuesday? I had a calculus class I thought I’d probably missed if it was any later than Wednesday. I needed sleep. Only a few hours here or there in the last several days since the meeting in the park.
If Oscar had been sleeping he’d found another place to do it because since our ride back that night he hadn’t been in the dorm. Not a word had been shared between the two of us. A heavy blanket of guilt and fear gently tugged it’s way up through the subconscious fog clouding my mind. I should have been more worried about Oscar than I was. The guy was in this thing neck deep and I was only deprived of a little sleep. Sleep, I needed sleep, then I needed to find Oscar. This was what my muddled mind had decided half a mile from my dorm, I was skipping whatever class I had on whatever day it was and going to sleep. Turning around with a heavy sigh I walked back to the other end of campus.Our door hung open, hands in his lap, Oscar sat on my bed staring at the floor.
I laid my book bag on the floor next to his desk. “Hey.” I said, sitting parallel from him on his bed.
“Hey, Hustler.” He looked up, his face was puffy and swollen, he’d been crying. “It’s done, man.”
“Done?” I asked, a little jumpy. “What-what’s done?”
“Kerry and Chris took off this morning… they’ve got all the codes, the project, pictures, everything…” He stuttered, “..a-uh… on a flash drive. She thinks if she can get a foreign entity involved then… maybe…”“Someone can stop Big Brother?”
“Yeah,” Oscar laughed, “Something like that. We’re guessing we’ll get federal attention this way… someone will see the program on the computers if they look hard enough. Someone has to stop this. We don’t have much time before they figure out they’ve bailed. So I left you something to release to the public. Only if you see headlines connected to the story.” He nodded to the Manila envelope on his desk. Oscar raised his hand from his lap, a thick, silver gun was in his grip.
“Woah! Wait, wait, wait, Oscar!”
It all happened so quickly. By the time I’d jumped from the bed it was over. From his lap he’d lifted the hand gun and yelled at me as he shoved the barrel to his temple, “Tell my mom I’m sorry!”
And bang…
Slumped, lifeless against my pillow, half of his body still in a sitting position, Oscar was dead. Blood and brain matter splattered the textured wall above him and under his head my pillow slowly filled with the blood emptying from the cavity in his skull. Oscar was dead. My lap was unusually warm, I looked down and pressed my hand against my jeans. I had peed myself.
Campus heads came rushing to our door, then security, then police. Sliding the manila envelope between Oscar’s mattresses during the chaotic aftermath and in between giving statements it didn’t resurface until later that night when I snuck in to grab a few articles of clothing. I was moved into another room across campus until our room could be cleared. The emptiness, the cold white walls and bare closet was worse than sleeping in a room with the remains of a corpse. It felt cold, clinical. I tried to sleep, it had become impossible. All I heard was the ticking of the analog clock hanging on the wall and in my mind the restless processing of events.
Oscar’s hand kept raising to his temple over and over.
“He wasn’t emotionally troubled, no.” One of the several hundred questions they had asked me. “He wasn’t on drugs, no.”… “I’m not sure what could have caused this.”… “Were we good friends?” Oscar had been my best friend.
“We’re told that Oscar was working on some kind of thesis project with a group of friends, two of which are missing and the fourth,” Davis, a young cop, lifted up a few pages of his note pad, “Lucus Feyer, hung himself only an hour or so before Oscar took his own life.” Davis looked at me carefully for a reaction. “Did you know Lucus?”I swallowed hard and nodded, I could feel the blatant betrayal of my tear ducts. Dabbing my eyes, I refused to break.
“Have you heard from or know the whereabouts of Kerry or Chris?”
I shook my head, tight-lipped and Davis knew it.
Pulling his card from his notepad Davis handed it to me adding, “If you hear anything or if you remember anything that might seem important to this case or the whereabouts of Kerry and Chris, you call me asap. Okay?”I nodded. Davis stepped out and spoke to the Dean in a hushed conversation looking over at me a few times. No way. I wasn’t saying a word.
Clicking on the bedside lamp, I pulled out the envelope Oscar had left. I hadn’t noticed until then how heavy it was. Carefully I opened the locking wing tabs in the eye of the lip and slowly let gravity pull out the thick, neatly stacked arsenal of information from within. The first thing I noticed was a letter from Oscar.
Hustler,
If you’re reading this (man this sounds SO cliche!) then we’ve decided a last ditch effort to try and tackle this monster. So far we’ve planned an escape but Lucus and I agree an escape won’t be good enough. We need attention, and if we’ve learned anything one good way to get the attention of the media is for students to kill themselves, or to get killed. If we can just get one curious and determined person to blow the lid off this thing we won’t have died in vain. So, that’s why I’m leaving you this, it’s a type of manifesto but more like an excusesto. (Haha) All of the information is in here, what we did, when we did it, how we did it, the name of the company who partnered with us the names of the men we spoke with. Everything.
Your job is to get this to the first journalist that covers the story. I hope it’s that blonde from Fox, she’s hot. But don’t, I repeat, DO NOT let anyone know you have this information unless the story hit the media first. This is important. I know we run the risk of this never getting out, I also know you’re a really smart guy and you’ll figure something out. Don’t spend too much time thinking about it, just be careful and keep quiet.
Tell my mom I love her, make sure she gets my stuff please.
SincerelyOscar
P.S. Love you man
That was it, my composure was lost. I carefully slid it all back into the envelope and cried until I fell asleep. Sleep. A deep, uncontrolled session. If I’d dreamed I hadn’t known it, I woke up feeling like my brain had had time to find my body.I skipped the day of school. The first few hours of the morning I spent reading the material I had inherited. He’d included everything. The name of the partner was familiar, not just familiar but it seemed to be a parent company of the communications corporation that controlled a huge percentage of digital and wire communications across the planet. Prysm Corps. Like Prysm Communications. The thought of getting into my browser to look it up was like thinking about jumping off the San Francisco bridge. It could undoubtedly lead to my death. That thought in itself made me stop and take a deep breath. How was I going to live? Everything was digital, you couldn’t use the toilet without creating a fingerprint. Everything I did would have to be online and in doing so every click of the mouse was like clicking a second off of my life expectancy timesheet. Every thought that was in my head I had to wonder, is that mine? Or is it a representation of the misinformed or malware programmed Queen Bee convincing me to make the choice that could ruin my entire life. I was surrounded by Zombees. They had no idea, they were just merrily making their way through life completely oblivious to the terrible vulnerabilities they possessed. Everyone was a threat, even my own family.I stood up and paced. I had to put my shoes on but I couldn’t hold the thought long enough to remember why I needed my shoes. I had to leave. I passed my shoes again as I strode from one side of the room to the other. Where was I going? I had to go to the campus paper for a personal statement. Had I written the statement? I may have, I passed my shoes again, toes sticking out from under the bed frame. It was a personal statement about Oscar’s death, just a short note. I bent over and grabbed my shoes, sat down hard making the springs of the mattress recoil. Still I paused. Incapable of the simplest of mechanical deeds like preparing a frozen meal in a microwave and I had to leave? I was literally incapable of focusing and if I did focus it was only for a mere few minutes. I was having a breakdown.I did finally leave the dorm. Quickly passing any possible distraction I made way to the student center in good time, considering the mere size of the campus. Checking in with the office the two students behind the desk were deep in conversation. Pulling out the little white envelope from my bag, careful to not disturb the larger manila envelope that would remain at my side permanently, I slid the endearing goodbye to the younger male student. Without looking up he palmed it.“They were in these dark suits and sunglasses.” The girl said quietly.“Like fed suits?”“No, like maintenance coveralls.” She glanced up at me and back at the kid.“And they took everything?”“Yes. The monitors, the towers, file boxes.”I decided to interrupt. “Was this in the small mechanics room inside the computer science lab?”“Yeah!” She said, her eyes grew wide. “In the middle of the day like they owned the place.”“Were you there?” I asked, heartbeat rising. There was no investigation, there would be no investigation. “What-was-were there name tags or company names or anything saying who they were?”I think I may have frightened her because she jumped and answered in fragments. “I… uh… they… it was… no. They looked like cable men.”“Oh no! No! No! No!” Slapping the counter I bolted out into the lobby and then out the main doors. Running as fast as my tired body would take me I slid in through the corridor of the South East dorms and down the hall to find the door to our dorm wide open.“Ah no! No!”The room was ransacked. Both beds turned over, drawers emptied onto the floor, the closet was nothing more than a pile of mixed garbage, hangers and clothing. They’d cut the Shades off at the pass. I was sure that any trace of the program was gone other than what was securely sitting at my side. No journalist would cover the tragic deaths of two brilliant students and the disappearance of two others , no one was going to ask any question at all. Any last hope I had of someone, some group, coming in and taking control of this unhinged monster, to whip the black budget government programs into submission and put the controlling corporations in their place stood visualized as a defeated cartoon representation of my innocence, bleeding helplessly on the cement floor.The breakdown finally took hold and I locked myself in my new room for almost ten days, until my student counselor dragged me out. Ten days I spent reading Oscar’s material again and again. Sleeping during the day and up at night brainstorming ways to get out, ways to contact a journalist without seeming insane, ways to contact Kerry and Chris. Living on bags of chips and caffeinated drinks. My phone filled up with unanswered messages, emails that I would never respond to. The less human interaction I had the deeper my mind dove into all the analytics of the Shadow program. It was only after Keith O’Hanna broke into my room that reality found its balance.After a shower, a few hot meals from the cafeteria and a long discussion we agreed I needed a break and probably some therapy.“You watched him blow his own head off, Eli.” Keith was in his mid forties, dark hair, really calm guy. The only odd thing about him was his choice in shirts, not once did I see him wear anything other than a Hawaiian button up. It was like he lived in a constant state of vacation. “That’s enough, I think.”We sat in the far corner of the cafeteria, my back to the wall and his to the buzzing community of students and faculty. Since being out of the confinement of my room the idea of everyone on autopilot was further away and moving further, becoming improbable but not impossible. I still kept my guard up.We ended our meeting with the decision that I would take a leave of absence from my classes for an unknown amount of time. I was offered a job on campus as the custodian, one that I could relinquish any time and I did begin therapy. But not a word of what I knew came out of my mouth to Keith or to my therapist and my life went on. Most days were easy, I hid among the mops and garbage bags. Some days were excruciating, terrifying, filled with questions, new students, assisting faculty. I was like a war veteran running from traumatic flashbacks, but these flashbacks were in the flesh with the capability of stabbing me with an ice pick.A few months passed and then a year before I heard mention of Oscar or Lucus.A small group of kids hunched over a Creepypasta memoir, a memoir on suicide hauntings. A short haired blond spoke up quick, “I heard MIT has the highest suicide rate of all US universities.”A shorter, thicker boy to his left shook his head, “That doesn’t sound right.”“There were two just last year.” A girl opposite the blond added.“Yeah, I heard one of the guys shot himself.” The blond said.“MIT’s full of intelligent students, suicide is dumb, it’s not logical.” An African American male sitting next to the girl started to speak. “You have at least an eighty percent chance of succeeding at an endeavor after college even if you fail at a university. A thirty percent chance of succeeding at your choice of career if you complete your degree but a zero percent chance at succeeding at anything if you commit suicide.”“It wasn’t his choice.” I said from my standing position at my mop bucket. I corrected myself when the group turned to me. “I mean, that’s what I heard. He didn’t have a choice.”“How could he have not had a choice? You always have a choice.” The girl said.This was it, this was that moment, that chance Oscar was hoping for. The one curious group that could take the story and run with it. “It started as a thesis project. A group of four of them got together to try a social experiment and everything went wrong. They called themselves The Shades…” I joined the eager group of hungry young minds at the table and gave them only the plot and minor details of what had actually happened to Oscar, Lucus, Kerry and Chris. The program, the deaths, the conspiracy, the truth.
And it moved.
At first like a flicker of a flame beneath the surface of the earth, heating into cinders that eventually grew into a story much more elaborate and far from the truth but enough. Enough to make these new students just a little more aware of their impulsive actions and where, if not kept in check, where their minds could lead them. An Urban Legend.
I never went back to school, I remained a custodian. Eventually I reconnected with my family and let them know it was an emotional breakdown due too much stress and that I’d found a quiet non-intrusive, comfortable life as the MIT custodian. Once I had conquered my fear of the internet, three years later, I began my own cartoon blog. In bit’s and pieces, I was able to fill the plot lines with my story aside from political jokes. As time moved on without the slightest sign of a killer hive coming at me I wondered if the deaths and absconding weren’t a part of the same program. Much like Shakespeare’s Rosencrants and Guildenstern, the events were predestined because the entire exercise had been a part of a much larger program. A play within a play, a program within a program. Fractilian theory at it’s most brutal.“Woah woah woah!” A short haired brunette brought me out of my thoughts slapping my cognition into waking. “You’re gonna walk right into traffic.” She yelled at me over the humming motors on the main Street.
I had been heading toward the natural foods co-op and become lost in my thoughts. I laughed, “I guess I’m on autopilot.”
She laughed in response, “It’s okay,” She said with a wink. “I’m thinking for both of us.”
Just an offhanded comment, probably something I should have brushed off and geared myself back into survival mode. But something happened as I trotted on ahead of the girl, something deep inside me at my very core, a strong warmth like I’d had a shot of whiskey grew just slightly when she had smiled. That was when I realized, in a world full of bees and Queens jumbled up into categories and demographics used as toy soldiers, there must be angels too.
