Tick, tick, tick.
It’s Monday and you stand in the kitchen, hands on hips as I eavesdrop on your argument with your spouse because today I’m your smartphone and today I am your passenger on your life’s banal journey. Together we email and we text friends and sext quasi strangers and together we like photos on Instagram while sitting on the toilet.
There is no love.
It’s Tuesday and you walk around the house, talking to yourself, rehashing what you wish you would have told your boss or rude barista or your mom or dad and today I’m your Alexa, your Sonos. Together we vent and together we blast gangster rap throughout the town house and together we record all your thoughts as you say them aloud.
There is no life.
It’s Wednesday and your lover meets you at your side door and you share a moment, just the two of you, just the three of us, because today I am your door camera—your Nest, your Ring. Together we all embrace and hope nobody finds out and together we all make plans to meet at that one spot when the husband is running errands, when the wife is at work.
It’s Thursday and I am your voice-activated TV remote.
Your fitness watch.
Your “smart” kitchen appliances.
I am your laptop camera, watching you jerk off. I know your fetishes. Your favorite candy. What time you wake up and how many times you go to the bathroom.
I am everywhere. I am nowhere.
I am God.
And this is the bomb.
* * *
Chris Delaney looks like me. Dark hair, olive skin, black hoodie, rarely smiles. He swipes his badge at the security clearance area, and the iron arms of the banister rotate as he walks through and takes the elevator. His floor is dark, but each cubicle erupts with blue light from computer screens eclipsed by the black outlines of bodies posed in spine-bending slouches. These people work here. Just like Chris. These people are quiet and content with doing their jobs and getting out of the building as soon as their shift ends. Just like Chris.
I am Chris.
Chris is me.
It’s my second week on the job. Second week as Chris. The real Chris is a retired veterinarian and lives somewhere near Oakland. Another world from Gilroy or Monterey. I found him on Facebook. His profile was like other old people on the site. A billion photos of road trips from ten years ago and the same avatar pic uploaded twenty different times. Somebody within the Subterraneans lifted Chris Delaney’s Social Security card. The only way Chris would ever find out his identity had been stolen would be if the authorities found out about this building. And even then, it would be too late. A new identity would be given for a new workplace, in a new building, in a different town.
Caris called me before my first day. “Don’t be late,” he growled. “Everything is ready for you on-site.” That Monday, I drove north to Gilroy, found the underground parking lot entrance, signed in at the front desk, and got my security badge.
The building has three levels, but my badge only gives me clearance to the second floor, which is where I find my workspace. Since I’ve been here several people have already cycled out. That’s because their contract expired. Four weeks and it’s over. No exceptions. On day three the person in the next workstation cycled out. Three stern men with radio earpieces and dark suits came over, two of them standing guard at the entrance to the cubicle while one moved everything on the workstation computer to a remote hard drive. He then took out a hand drill and plunged it into the computer’s circuitry. They dropped the remnants of the computer into trash bags and left. A couple of hours later, a new crew, looking like skinny Jehovah’s Witnesses with white short-sleeve shirts and ties, installed a new computer at the workstation. By the time my shift was over, a different staff person was operating the controls.
I trade the oddities for the advantages.
There is no supervisor walking the floor. Nobody harassing me in meetings or over email—no Terry. The expectations are simple. We must meet daily transcription quotas. Work four-hour shifts that begin once we log into our computers. On my first day, the guard at the front desk handed me a laminated notecard along with my badge. On the notecard were typed instructions for locating my workstation and where to find the training videos describing the expectations for the job—daily quotas, daily quotas, daily quotas. After logging into the computer, a long list of new “candidates” populates the monitor. The list represents the daily quota I must hit, and each candidate, in effect, is the target. We listen to them. We watch them. Track their web activity from website to website. Every received, read, and replied email. All the while, we categorize what we see and hear—tag behaviors and speech to a separate list. Those are then uploaded into the system and go somewhere we are not allowed access.
Everything within the office feels portable. Nothing feels permanent. No art hanging from the walls. No office plants. It’s the bare essentials, and that’s it. Desks, computers, and workers. Enzo told me why before my first day.
“The company doesn’t have a name,” he explained. “This is as underground as it gets for a large organization.”
He told me this building is probably a relatively new facility. They never stay at one location for more than a few months. Never in one state for more than a year. They are incredibly decoupled and only pay workers in cash.
“How is this connected to Rocket?” I asked.
Enzo pursed his lips and shook his head. I dropped the topic.
I’m ten working days into my new job. Which means I’m also two Lobotomy Pills into my transformation. Rocket gave me pill number two last Sunday. The pills work to erase the memory in a very linear manner. Your earliest memories—that one Christmas morning, the day your pet frog died, the smell of your mom’s hair when she hugged you and told you not to worry about the math grade—are the first to go. The Lobotomy Pills then never stop, burning your past forward until all that is left is the present moment.
I pause my work and take the Post-it notes out of my pocket. The hot-pink square paper sticks to my index finger as I peel it off the stack. Post-it notes are critical to the Lobotomy Pill process.
“I’m only going to tell you this once,” Caris said to me not long after I took the first pill. “Every day, you’re going to jot down the oldest memory you can find in that head of yours. Don’t forget to do this. It’s the only thing that can go wrong.”
Since the Lobotomy Pills erase about a quarter of the memory with each dose, a person’s oldest memory gradually moves closer and closer to the present. In theory, the oldest memory you summon in each day of the process should feel more and more recent. Something from eleven years ago yesterday, something from nine years ago today, something from eight years ago tomorrow. But sometimes things go haywire. Not every person’s brain reacts perfectly to the chemical compound found in the pills. And if one day your oldest memory is from high school, and several days later it’s from preschool, you’re in big trouble. “If this occurs, you’ll start experiencing effects similar to a traumatic brain injury,” Caris further explained. “If so, do not hesitate to take the Emergency Pill.”
But so far, so good.
I scribble across the fresh Post-it note lit by the computer’s bright screen. High school junior prom. Age: seventeen. That squares with what I wrote yesterday, which was Getting my learner’s permit. Age: fifteen. But today, I have no recollection of getting my driver’s license. It’s gone. A virus that has been expelled from my system. Other memories that I still hold are getting fuzzier. I’m relatively sure I had a sibling—at least one—but ask me if it’s a brother or sister. Ask me the name of my hometown. Where I went to high school. It’s all fading quickly.
Ask me to describe my father’s face.
My father?
My head buzzes and I start to hear something familiar. Low at first but rising in volume. It’s the hum. Like the one I heard at the dealership. On the freeway.
The hum grows louder.
I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s another suit—a man with a trademark stern look. This guy has black hair pulled back tight into a ponytail. He holds out a white envelope, unmarked and bulging. I take it, and he vanishes into the dark hallway.
The hum also vanishes.
Inside the envelope is cash. My first payday. Three thousand in alarmingly crisp twenty-dollar bills. I count it several times. I fold up the bills, and my hands start to shake.
Not again, Chris. Not again.
All day my hands have been trembling. Cold sweat running from the base of my skull down my spine and ass and the backs of my legs. I try not to admit it to myself, but I know why this is happening.
I ran out of pills—the Dr. Pill kind—the day after the Coast News suspended me. I didn’t care because I was on to something better. Something more certain. The Lobotomy Pills do everything I wanted my cocktail of prescriptions to do but with utter and ruthless certainty. But the months of popping Vyvanse and Adderall and theophylline and atenolol and modafinil and atorvastatin did more than just help me avoid sleep and damage my brain enough to eliminate a random array of memories.
It made me an addict. And now the withdrawals are here.
I play a video recorded by an undetectable camera found within a car’s center dash navigation screen. A round man holds a burger dripping with mayo in one hand while gripping the steering wheel with the other. He bumps his head to music—Limp Bizkit, what else—as he sings along, launching chewed bits of lettuce and tomato and chemically treated burger bits out of his mouth. A chunk of something hits the screen and smudges the video. He continues to sing the dogshit lyrics. It’s all about the he says / she says bullshit. I need to log every detail. Quickly. If not, my average time per completed candidate will inflate, and I will risk being cycled out of this job prematurely. One of the training videos warned me of this. I need to tag what I see. #Whopper. #NuMetal. #BadTaste. #Crass. Describe what is occurring in one objective sentence. “Large male with a neckbeard wears an Ohio State tank top and wolfs down fast food while singing along to Fred Durst.” This information will go to someone else on another floor.
Last week, I asked Enzo where my data submissions go. “The data will be packaged and placed on an encrypted marketplace. Probably on the dark web,” he said. “The data is purchased by corporations looking for real-time consumer engagement opportunities.”
But I’m not going to hit my data-entry goals for this video candidate. My motor skills are not cooperating—the little muscles in my palms seize and cramp. My head thumps and strains. It’s too much for me to keep my eyes open any longer and watch this guy take another bite of his burger. To watch him struggle with the personal decision of using his wrist as a napkin or a napkin as a napkin. Because right now, the addiction is getting in the way. Which means it’s getting in the way of the next Lobotomy Pill. If I fail at this job—this mission—I start over with the Subterraneans. With Rocket.
And that won’t do.
I’m on the freeway heading back to Monterey, and I call Dr. Pill’s office. Request prescription refills. I’ll let the addiction run on for a while longer. I’ll save the rehab center and detox for my next lifetime.
After I finish meeting quotas at the data center.
After I swallow the fourth and final Lobotomy Pill.
By the time I’m off the freeway and onto Monterey’s downtown streets, the pharmacy has already texted me. My addiction pills are ready. I pick Glitch up from the apartment and head for the pharmacy.
“You come by a lot,” the young, smartass CVS pharmacist tells me. He puts his glasses on and holds my hundred-dollar bill up into the light and squints. “Sure hope you’re taking these responsibly.”
“Wouldn’t think about it any other way.” He hands me my change, and we exchange smiles.
His smile says, I know you’re a pill popper.
My smile responds with, But there isn’t anything you can do about it.
I get back to my car. Cal returned it a few days ago, even though he’s still waiting on insurance money for a new one of his own. Before I put the keys in the ignition I twist off the cap to the Adderall. Marvel at the pills stacked on top of each other. Orange and chalky and oval and perfect. Drop two into my mouth and swallow. The Vyvanse next. Then theophylline and the rest. I roll the window down, feel an autumn breeze across my face, and wait for the pills to break down and dissolve into my system.
Eventually, they do.
My lower back, previously straining, relaxes. My hips find space within their joints, the tax on my sciatica ceasing. My hands stabilize and the nausea is now gone—perfect timing since I have something else to do today.
My other job.
* * *
I’m back at my apartment complex. I let Glitch out so he can find a patch of grass. In the trunk of my car is a royal-blue polo shirt. A cursive logo embossed on the left breast. Golden Home Medical. This is the uniform for my next gig. I pull my hoodie off. The white tee comes next. I’m standing behind the car, shirtless, adjusting my frizzled hair when my phone rings.
It’s the Coast News.
Shit.
“Hello?”
“Glad we finally reached you. This is Lee Berenger. I left a couple of voicemails.” He pauses and lets the silence read me. Waits for the discomfort to prompt me into an apology.
“Hi Lee, nice to meet you. I’m not sure I received a voicemail.”
“Two voicemails.”
“Two. Shoot. I’ve been getting weird service lately.” It’s true. Per protocols, the data farm blocks the signal to everyone’s cell phones, which we leave at the security desk as we start our shifts.
“Well, we’re winding down our investigation into your story. We’ve spoken with a number of people at the Coast News and others around town. So now we just need to speak with you.”
“I’m pretty busy these days. When were you hoping to do this?”
“Monday at three. The time is nonnegotiable. Failure to participate would, unfortunately, force us to rule against you, and you’d be officially terminated.”
In two days, I’ll be swallowing the third Lobotomy Pill. One week after that, I will have no memory of any of this. Shame is a parasite living off the blood of memories. No memory. No shame. I’ll play their game for the remaining days of this life. Humor Cynthia, Terry, and anyone else who enjoys seeing another person fail miserably. “No problem at all.”
“See you Monday.”
I hang up and slip the Golden Home Medical polo over my head.
“Aren’t you going to pick up after your dog?”
I look up and it’s either Emily or Veronica that asked it. They both look disgusted at me. At the pile of dog shit now steaming atop the apartment building’s front lawn. “Yeah, of course.”
“You’re not allowed to have a dog here,” Veronica says, and Emily nods. They look like the two equally creepy twins from The Shining. Baby-blue T-shirt dresses and pink flowers in their hair. If a wave of blood suddenly came pouring from behind them, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“He’s a service dog. I have papers.”
They turn and stomp up the walkway and into the courtyard. Everything they do is with attitude.
My phone rings again. It’s a blocked number. “Yeah?”
“Tsk, tsk.” A tongue clicks to the roof of their mouth. Some light breathing. I press the phone into my ear and listen for anything else. The caller hangs up.
I wait for them to call back. The phone remains still. I look around the street, at all the parked cars, for anyone stalking me. But all I find is my neighbor from across the street—Frankie—dressed up in his Nike running apparel, sucking air as he walks home. He sees me and waves. I think about what I received in the mail—the taunting message, the paparazzi-style photos. This is what Laura was talking about. He’s coming for me. For all of us.
I push it to the back burner for now.
* * *
The Golden Home Medical delivery truck rattles through streets and over pavement detonated with neglect. Glitch and I pull in front of the first house. “Hang tight, Glitch.”
I hold a clipboard with a sheet of paper that lists a series of names and addresses, each one representing a different person awaiting more oxygen. This job was also Rocket’s idea. With the investigation at the newspaper and with a suspended job with no pay, having a part-time gig about town felt like the right cover to avoid any suspicion leading to the data farm.
I grab my black satchel containing my tools and put on the industrial gloves. Inside the back of the delivery truck are dozens of aluminum liquid oxygen tanks fastened tight with bungee cords to the sides of the cargo walls. They radiate with subzero vapor.
I load three tanks onto a dolly and make my way up the driveway. Golden Home Medical’s management tells us the patients are commonly immobile and leave the front door open for us.
“Hello? Mr. Almeida? This is Golden Home Medical.” The sheet of paper provides notes on each patient. Sometimes the notes indicate if they are Spanish speakers. Other times it mentions an aggressive dog. But most of the time it lets us know where we can find the patient within the house. I wheel the tanks down a hallway. Everything in the place, from the carpet to the furniture to the peeling wallpaper, reeks of cigarettes. I could get secondhand cancer from brushing up against a picture frame.
I find the man sleeping in the master bedroom. His chest rises and falls with each pained breath. Oxygen tubes run out of his nose and hang off the side of his bed to the crusty carpet, winding their way to his current set of oxygen tanks, leaning up against a dresser. Most of Golden Home Medical’s patients are in the last stages of life.
Without disturbing him, I load his new tanks in place, swapping out the empty ones onto the dolly. I stand by and wait to confirm that he’s breathing in the liquid oxygen, which is more concentrated than normal oxygen and far easier for people like him to absorb. Everything checks out, and I leave him there with some paperwork by his bedside.
I’m back in the truck and Glitch and I make three more deliveries. Each one similar to Mr. Almeida. A house that stinks like the inside of a lit cigarette. An incapacitated patient. Paperwork left for them to find when they wake up. I wouldn’t mind getting to know at least one thing about them or their family or experiences on this wicked planet. Allow them the opportunity to treat me like an after-work bartender, someone for them to unload their worries or regrets. But those interactions are not likely. Because soon they will be in the afterlife.
And soon, I will be in my life after this life.
One more delivery to go. It’s almost nine at night. All deliveries must be completed by ten. The game of employee versus clock is repackaged in several forms and within many different work environments. If it isn’t crushing newspaper deadlines, it’s daily quotas or delivery cutoff times. Glitch is asleep, turned over on his back with his paws curled into the air. I get off an expressway and drive us into a neighborhood, the streets and homes looking familiar while also not—suburbia’s greatest sleight of hand is homogenized home design.
“You’ve reached your destination,” my phone tells me. Without any shred of doubt created by the cocktail or the Lobotomy Pills, I know I’ve been here before. And I know exactly for what purpose. The house sits on the street corner. The storefront-turned-home-residence with the faded business lettering above the front door. I check the name on my sheet.
Fuji Nakamura.
There is no ski mask this time—no Enzo.
The amphetamine high I was riding for the last couple of hours is dead. In its place is the sudden anxiety brought on by the prospect of reentering a house I once robbed. Vyvanse and Adderall not only double as concentration enhancers and speed narcotics, but the pills also serve as antianxiety meds. And right now, I need a bump. My mouth is too dry to swallow flat, oval pills without a liquid chaser. I grab the entire supply of pill bottles and stuff them into my leather satchel. Maybe Fuji will be asleep and I can grab a glass of water. I leave a window cracked for Glitch as he continues to sleep.
“Hello? Mrs. Nakamura?” I drag the dolly through the door, which, to my surprise, given this lady experienced a robbery a few weeks ago, is unlocked. Once inside, the surreal décor greets me again. The salon stations with swivel chairs underneath citrus-colored dryer bowls. The long mirror running along the wall and a bubbling fish tank facing it. I turn to the little nook in the wall where I previously found Fuji sleeping. There, the comforter is tossed to the side, and pillows are stacked unevenly. But no Fuji. “Mrs. Nakamura? This is Golden Home Medical.”
A voice trickles in from down the hall. “Coming.” She inches toward me, her head lowered and focused on her walker, tennis balls fastened to the bottoms of its legs dragging against the floor. Adorning the front of the walker is an empty cargo basket like she stole it off a paper boy’s bicycle. The oxygen tubes are fastened to her nose but disconnected from the actual tanks, which remain at her nook. Not all of Golden Home Medical’s patients require liquid oxygen at all times. According to the paperwork, Fuji Nakamura has an intermediate dependency. “Had to go to the bathroom.” She plods forward in one-centimeter increments, looking up at me for the first time. She stops and braces herself atop the walker. Tilts her head. For a second, I think it’s over—she’s going to recognize my eyes or mouth and call for help. Have me arrested. But instead, her face and all its wrinkles relax with the kind of endearing smile only old ladies can deliver. “You aren’t Deepak.”
“Deepak no longer works for Golden Home Medical. I’ll be delivering your tanks now.” I tell myself that “now” only means this week and maybe the next.
“Deepak was so nice. Such a wonderful young man. Is he okay?”
“I couldn’t say, Mrs. Nakamura. I just started this job.”
“Call me Fuji. And what is your name?”
“Dash.”
“You don’t look like a Dash.”
She makes her way to her nook and gets in bed, shimmying under her comforter and pulling it to her chin.
“Deepak and I became good friends. I got to know him very well,” she says in a depleted tone. “Tell me about you.”
I wonder how long it takes for one person to recognize a familiar voice. Is it immediate? Cumulative?
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. You’re taking care of me. We should know each other.”
“I was writing for the Coast News before this. Do you watch the news at all?”
“Not so much. I sometimes watch the local news, but in general, the news these days is too dark.”
I start fastening the fresh tanks to Fuji’s tubes.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been on TV a little in the last month. Maybe you saw me.”
Fuji turns her head on its ear. Opens her eyes in my direction. “Come here so I can get a better look at you. Are you the man chasing that killer?”
“That is me. Was me. I don’t know.”
Fuji giggles. “Don’t bring him here!”
She doesn’t pry further. The room fills with the sounds of a wrench on metal. “Tell me about you, Fuji. In fact, tell me about your house. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The salon? I first made my living in America doing hair. I thought it was all I would ever do until I met Richard. He’s my husband. Died years ago.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“No need for sorry. Life is made meaningful in the face of death.”
“What did you do after cutting hair?”
“I went back to school.” She clears her throat. Clasps her tongue to the dry roof of her mouth. “It was Richard’s idea. He encouraged me to find out what I really wanted to do in life.”
“What did you find out?”
“That I loved helping people. So many folks in this world just need a gentle push in one direction or another. So, I finished my degree in medical social work and began working with people soon after.”
“But the salon?”
“I forgot to answer your question, didn’t I?” She lets out little giggles from the warmest parts of her soul. “Richard was a businessman. He always said to ‘never let go of a money source,’ so we kept the salon running all these years. A friend of mine, Jackie—such an elegant woman—managed it for us as our side business.”
“But why do you live here now?”
“Sickness is costly.” Fuji purses her lips. Swallows whatever spit she’s able to produce, and judging by the crease in her forehead, she’s calling upon a reserve of energy. “Richard got sick. Bone tumors. It felt like it came out of nowhere. We had been living in Carmel—a beautiful home with a view of the ocean. The friendliest neighbors. Doctors told us there were ways of treating it, and we tried them all. Grafting the bone. Radiation. Chemo. Poor Richard. I think he would have been content to drift away peacefully if not for me. I kept pushing, trying to find something to save him. By the time he passed, the bills had mounted. It was best to sell the house in Carmel. This salon was the other place we owned. I thought about taking out a loan and redoing the inside, but why? Richard knew the salon. However, he wouldn’t know the renovated version. I feel better living in one of our places just as it looked when he was alive.”
“I love that.”
“Me too.”
I finish connecting the last tank. Flick the gauges and watch the red needle hover above the FULL sign. “You’re all set, Fuji.”
“You can’t go now. We just started talking. I just read half my autobiography to you. Tell me one more thing about you. Do you have a wife?”
“No wife.”
“Girlfriend then?”
A kaleidoscope of memories—girlfriends of the past—sprawl across my mind. A high school girlfriend, Sarah Wakefield, a real relationship with stakes during my senior year, losing the V-card, her strawberry lip gloss—sticky and sweet—breaking up a few weeks before graduation since we were going to different colleges. College girlfriends—Summer and Melissa and Lindsey—knowing the true pain of sustaining toxic trust for months too long. The hollow rewards of quick rebounds. The satisfaction from knowing you’ve moved on. This all appears in my head, as does a bittersweet realization—these memories will soon be gone too. I return to Fuji.
“Unfortunately, no girlfriend either.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No, it would be a girlfriend, but that’s not in the cards right now.”
“You’re handsome. You have that exotic look. Where are you from?”
“Me? I’m from—” I can’t think of the answer. I wonder if it’s written on a pink Post-it note. Probably is but it doesn’t matter right now. “Here. I’m from here.”
“Then what about your parents? You look Arabic, no?”
“Arabic?” I mutter.
And then I feel it. Surging from the base of my skull to the front of my brain.
The glitch.
“Yes, Arabic or Middle Eastern?” Fuji asks. “Is that where your mom or dad originate?”
Static is mounting in my head. Crunching black-and-white specs. Waves of electricity pulsing in front of my eyes. I try to blink. Try to shake my head free. And in a nanosecond, the movie is projected onto my mind’s silver screen. The image of a man sitting on a lawn chair, the moon casting milky light atop his brown, bald head cradled in his hands. He looks up at me, eyes broken with bloodshot wounds. The image fades. In its place, only static.
“My dad?”
“Was he an immigrant? I’m always interested in hearing other immigrant stories. I came here when I was so young that I lose more and more of my connection to Japan with every passing year. I lost my accent decades ago.”
“Wait, didn’t you have an accent?” I stumble, catching myself on a salon chair.
“Are you okay?”
No. I need something. I need a bump. I can feel the withdrawals coming back. One of the addictions demanding more than I fed it hours ago. “Can I have a glass of water?”
“Of course. The kitchen is behind the door marked Employees Only.”
I rummage through my satchel and the pill bottles rattle. Several containers fall to the floor before I locate the Vyvanse. I pick up the fallen bottles and stuff them back in the satchel. Twist the cap off the Vyvanse, dump four or five into my hand, and head for the kitchen. I find a smudged glass sitting on the tiled counter and run the tap water until it’s full. Swallow the pills and chase them down. Grip the edge of the counter for support. Eventually, the glitch and its static and flashing images and electricity start to bubble back down from a riptide to a simmer.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
You are still in control of your past, present, and future.
It’s time to collect my things, say goodbye to Fuji, and pretend like this isn’t the last time we’ll ever meet. I set the glass back down on the counter as my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I pull it out.
Blocked number.
“Hello?”
“It is a dumb reporter. And it shouldn’t have started this game.” The voice slithers through each word with menace. We listen to each other breathe into our respective phones for a moment. “Did it get my mail?”
“Very creative stuff.”
“Good. Very good-d-d-d.”
“Who is this?” I don’t know why I asked that. They never answer.
“This is who it has been chasing.”
“You chased me first.”
“I’m afraid not-t-t-t. This game began with that fake, fake, story. But I can play games too.”
“I could have this call traced.”
“And what would the trace find?”
“I’m guessing you, asshole.”
“They’re going to find something else. Someone else. Two someone else-es, understand?”
I’m not even sure I’m breathing anymore. Fear has jammed my operating system.
“I’ll keep the mur-ders close to home. It’s already begun.” He laughs in a way that doesn’t sound psychotic—not like the Joker or Hannibal, not like how every sadistic killer we’ve seen in the movies or TV laughs. Instead, his laugh is disturbingly normal. Unaffected. His laugh is perfunctory. Hollow. It’s an imitation, one carefully studied. And it’s within his pitch-perfect imitation of an ordinary person laughing where the psychopathic predator is found, even if still blending into its surroundings. A leopard camouflaged among the brush. The gator lying still at the swamp’s edge. “Good by-y-y-e.”
He’s gone.
Three metric tons of instinct crush me with its pressure. The flight response screaming, Run for your fucking life, dummy. But after a few moments, I collect myself. Put a short-term plan together. Can’t call the cops. That will probably lead them to my work in Gilroy. I need to get home, pack some bags, and figure out where I’ll sleep tonight. How I’ll manage my time until I get Rocket’s promised restart. How I’ll manage these withdrawals.
I leave the kitchen, walk back up the hall, and find Fuji standing with a hunch in her spine, holding every single one of my pill bottles, tops twisted off as she turns them over, dumping pills into the trash.
“I saw lots of stuff in my career. Addiction was right there at the top,” she tells me. “I should have known right away. But I’ll blame old age for the delay.”
My mouth is open, ready for words to fire out, but my war chest is empty.
“You know,” she says, “one trick I learned a long time ago is that when it comes to immigrants, people see what they want. And if a feeble Japanese lady with broken English and a thick accent gets me out of bad situations, why hell, I’ll use the damn accent.”
I know what she’s about to say before she says it.
“And the last time I used that trick was just a few weeks ago.”
I have trouble with the truth.
“The night you robbed my house.”
I have trouble with reality.
The Next Chapter Begins in 3, 2, 1 . . .