Page 82 of Static/Cling

“Rog?” a faint voice asked in his head.

“Just…” That voice. Roger’s voice, he knew. “There it is,” Roger said softly. “That’s good.”

The image returned, a little clearer, and he opened his eyes.

“Jesus fuck!” His toes hung over the edge of the stairwell. “How the hell did I get in here?”

“Focus,” Roger said his voice quiet, calm, but cutting through the noise despite that. The image this time was of himself again, backing up, backing up, backing until his ass fetched up against the crash bar on the door.

He did what the image suggested, and a few backwards steps brought him to the door. He pushed, the metal of the bar stinging his palms, and continued to back up until he was outside the door again.

Stumbling, he made it back into the storeroom and almost collapsed onto the floor.

“No,” Roger whispered.

Leif focused, glaring at Bjorn’s boots, still lying on their sides in the middle of the room. He couldn’t leave them there. Bjorn was an idiot, leaving them behind. Was he wandering the building in his sock feet?

“Leif,” Roger said, his tone firm, and Leif blinked.

The boots were in his hand, now. He’d lost anther second or two in thought. It was weird, going blank like that. Bjorn kept him in the moment. Only his recent bouts with the weird, untethered thoughts and memories on the stairwell had him off balance, and Bjorn wasn’t there to sort any of it out.

“Pay attention, now,” Roger said, and he blinked, because he was back out in the hall, standing there, plain as day, unsheltered, completely out in the open, with no conscious idea how that had happened.

Another image pushed his thoughts into the corners. It showed him running, down the hall towards the far corner of the building, around it, and out of sight.

“Go,” Roger demanded. “Now!”

He turned and fled.

Rounding the corner, he could hear footsteps behind him, but they weren’t chasing. They made their way down the hall, stopping at each door, opening them, and he realized this was the same procedure as had happened earlier.

“The door must be alarmed,” he panted.

“Probably,” Sal agreed. “On the off chance anyone makes it to the top.”

“They’ll look harder this time, won’t they? Since it’s happened twice in one day?”

“Doubt it. They’ll probably assume there’s something wrong with the alarm.”

“Keep moving,” Roger said. He sounded tired.

“Rog—”

“Just get away from that nightmare.”

“Thank you,” Leif said.

“I didn’t do anything.”

But he had, and Leif knew he had. He smiled, though it would be invisible to his two companions. “Talks to dogs my ass.”

Roger grunted. “Dogs are easy. People are difficult. Whatever is going on in your head is… impenetrable.”

“Not quite, apparently.”

“I have to rest. Go do your part.”

Since there was no more chatter in his ear, he figured Sal had turned him off so they could talk to Roger in privacy. That was fair. Roger sounded like Leif often felt when he hadn’t slept for a few days because the chatter in his head got to be too much.

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