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“You sure there is no one here?” Catch whispered, nervous.
“No doubt,” said Summer.
She entered the sequence of numbers on the electronic lock of the solid unmarked door. The two-story windowless building was in a rundown part of town. To one side was a plumbing warehouse, Joe’s Pipe. On the other side buzzed a pink neon sign, Luzy’s Joy, a sex shop with kinky outfits displayed in the barred window decorated with Christmas lights.
Morgan had dropped them off several blocks away, where they had hurried off, trying to not attract attention—easy in this part of town where people avoided eye contact. They had waited quietly around the corner across from a boarded-up convenience store, for the sex shop employee on her smoking break to return inside. They didn’t want to be seen going in.
When the streets were clear they hurried across. Summer entered the code in the numbered lock and entered the warehouse. Catch closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. They didn’t. It was pitch black in there. He remained by the door as Summer walked away. The way she moved without hesitation made it clear she knew the layout of the room by heart. Moments later, guidelights on the edge of a sloped floor switched on. The lights in the ceiling buzzed as they warmed up, casting a glow that revealed the room filled with rows of seats. She hadn’t told him they were going to the cinema.
“The popcorn machine is broken,” she said. “I found some soda. If you want? Lukewarm good, yeah?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” he said. He walked to the back row of seats and waited for her. She joined him, handing him his drink.
“What is it?” she asked. Catch was clearly pondering something that bothered him.
“When you were talking with the man in the van, how’d you know we were going to escape.”
“Think about it, Catch,” she said. “The crashing of the drone into the house. The van leaving the site on its own. He’d done these things. I had watched him carefully the whole time. I could tell his mind was racing to find a way out. His eyes were constantly checking the details, scanning their guns, the door, the van’s interior. It was just a matter of time before he’d get us out of there.”
“How’d he do it? A hacker from the inside?”
“That doesn’t explain the chains suddenly falling to the ground.”
“Magic.” Catch laughed, but she didn’t.
“You ever do shrooms?” she asked. He shook his head. “I did a few times,” she continued. “From those experiences I realized that I don’t understand very many of the things around us, or how this world really works.”
Catch tried to decipher what she meant. They drank their soda while in mutual contemplation.
“Something else is bothering me,” Catch said. “He said my mother was like a sister to him...”
“And...”
“When I first met him, he didn’t recognize my mother at all.”
“Don’t overthink it, Catch,” she said. “Thinking about it won’t make it make more sense. What do you want to watch?” she said, getting up and going to the control room in the back. The velvet curtains opened to reveal the screen.
It was the first time Catch had been in a cinema. The Virt had made cinemas obsolete. People preferred the three-dimensional immersive experiences. Even the classics had been adapted to The Virt experiences where one could choose to watch a scene from any point of view. Two-dimensional media remained in the household for live communications and news broadcasts.
“I don’t know. What do you recommend?”
“Hank Returns Home. Something light, but sad,” she said. “It’s the story of Hank the Dog. We follow him through the city as he tries to find his owner, a girl who had to give him away because her sister was allergic. I cry every time they are reunited.”
“You grew up here?” he asked.
“Damn,” she said, “he erased everything, the bastard.”
“Don’t worry, I’d love it if you told me all about it,” Catch replied.
“I can stream the news on the big screen,” she said. “Not something I care to watch, but who knows, perhaps our faces have made it onto primetime. It’d be funny, yeah?”
The lights dimmed, and the image projected onto the screen. Summer returned to Catch’s side.
“...California Farm industry continues to describe a difficult situation as farm workers suddenly walked off the job and disappeared, leaving behind thousands of tons of unharvested vegetables to rot in the field. The situation started when the Red Masks announced new upload locations in Santa Barbara. Several witnesses confirm having seen the workers enter these locations. A similar situation is unfolding in New Delhi, where one of the largest leather tainting production lines was closed down because seventy percent of the workforce had disappeared into a Red Masks location. The authorities are looking into ways to close them down and...”
“What is this place exactly?” asked Catch.
“My dad bought a rundown tobacco warehouse to create this cinema when I was two.”
“Nice, it must be great to grow up with a cinema.”
“...a statement from the White House urges the public to avoid the Red Masks locations. They remind the public that the Red Masks are a dangerous terrorist group who have destroyed a metropolis and killed thousands in the military. The danger cannot...”
“I hated it when my dad put the news on. I didn’t want the screen to be spoiled by the shit of the world. It was for Hank the dog and my other childhood favorites,” she said.
“...international intelligence agencies are cooperating to try to understand the implication of the Red Masks and how they managed to create a sophisticated underground network in total secrecy. The situation remains uncertain. The public is asked to remain prudent...”
“How’d you know your dad wouldn’t be around?” Catch asked.
“Come, I’ll show you something.”
Catch followed Summer to the control room where the projector played the news. In the back of the room there was a door with a PRIVATE sign on it.
She entered the code in the lock pad, and pushed it open while saying, “Come see this playground.”
The back room had cameras set up from different perspectives along the walls. One of the walls was lined up with hooks with a variety of leather harnesses, straps, handcuffs, and whips hanging from them. The furniture was made of black leather, including a love seat and other contraptions that Catch could only guess as to what they served for.
“My dad did this for my mom,” she said, pausing. For the first time since meeting her, Catch could tell that Summer didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to press her to say more and stayed silent. She continued, hesitantly. “Catch, I like you. You know...a lot. There’s something between us...like we talked about earlier...magic of some sort. I don’t want to mess it up, but you need to know that I come from a fucked-up family.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”
“No, I want you to know who I am, really,” she said. “My mom worked the streets. You know, she was a prostitute. My dad was one of her clients. She told him she liked him differently—not like her other clients—he didn’t have to pay. My dad was the same with her. Totally crazy about my mom. Too much for his own good. Guys get that way sometimes.
“Then I came along, the little pesty me who wanted a foot in this world. After talking it over they decided to keep me. My dad convinced my mom to quit the streets to raise me. She did, but it only lasted two years before she’d had enough of the homelife. She wanted to go back to the streets. She missed the thrill of it.” Summer shook her head. “Like I said, the more you think about stuff, the less sense it makes. But that’s what she wanted. There is no understanding of it. My dad didn’t like it one bit. Guys he didn’t know touching his girl drove him crazy. As a compromise, he bought this place and created this playroom for her. She could star in movies and get the attention she craved by playing them on the large screen. She loved it at first. Kept her off the streets, with my dad having a say about the guys who she filmed with. But it only lasted for a few years. I think the street work punished her in a violent way that she thought she deserved. Don’t think about it, Catch, just don’t.” Summer closed the door to the room and wiped a tear away. Catch held her against him. She continued, “One night she didn’t come back...She disappeared.”
“You call the police?” Catch asked.
“We did. They searched for a day or two, but they don’t care much for people like my mom. They knew her, you know, some of them had used her services. They dropped the search after doing a minimum of effort. My dad has never returned here since. He works, drinks, and sleeps while trying to keep a close eye on me. He wants to control everything about my life.”
“He’s worried about you, Summer,” Catch said. “He doesn’t want to lose you.”
“It’s too much for me. He’s suffocating me.”
“I’m so sorry, Summer.”
They returned to sit in the last row seats. Summer rested her head against Catch’s shoulder. The news playing on the screen had been muted.
“We should go,” she said. Catch didn’t know what she was talking about and remained silent. She continued, “Go to one of the safe locations in New York.”
He examined her. “You’re serious...”
“This world has nothing for us, Catch. Don’t you see, unless your parents have some generous heritage to leave you, we will be picking up the crumbs.”
“With a good education—”
“Your mother brainwashed you with that nonsense,” she said. “Education is an ass-licking servitude. Don’t you see what the Red Masks are doing?”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“They’re flipping the world upside down. That’s what they’re doing. The people in power are panicking. They can’t stand to see their workforce running off to live better lives. Why wouldn’t the underpaid farmworker go relax in The Virt if they can?”
“The Red Masks are terrorists.”
“Who says!? They killed the military, sure, that’s the danger of being military. The Red Masks are offering a new beginning. Why deny it?”
“How do you know all this?” Catch asked.
“When you live in the streets, you learn things that school doesn’t want you to know; either you fuck the world, or the world fucks you.”
“What happens if the government succeeds in stopping the Red Masks and they close down the locations?”
“So, what? You think the government will kill us for entering. Stop to think about it. Your life isn’t going to get easier, always on the run. With your criminal record, Catch, it will be a constant struggle. The FBI will find us, eventually. They’ll link this place to my dad and find us here. What happens then? We’re locked up in a high-security prison for kicking agents out of a rolling van. That’s what happens, Catch.”
“Yeah,” said Catch. “And with my injured leg, I may never play a decent game of basketball again.”
She laughed and said, “Imagine that! Being in prison and not being able to play a solid game of ball.”
“Summer, you are quite a number...” Catch said mockingly. She pushed him aside, laughing some more.
“So, are we doing this?” she asked.
“Seems risky,” he said.
“Risky either way, that’s life”
“It sure is... It sure is.”
