Page 111 of Coldwire
I breathe out, closing my eyes when I lean back against the wall.
I let the pill take effect and drag me under.
I wake before Nik does, sometime in the evening.
Slowly I lift onto my elbow, coughing dryly. At some point while resting in a neat, upright position against the wall, I must have tipped over and ended up splayed on the floor. I wheeze an inhale. I feel fine. Healthy.
I rub my eyes. I realize my mistake instantly when dust slathers onto my face, having collected all along my arm. The floor is disgusting. It’s hard to see anything in this muted light, the world beyond the boarded windows hovering at a raw umber.
“Hey,” I whisper. I kick my foot, nudging Nik. He remains unconscious, but groans, which is enough for me to confirm that he’s alive. He’d been nursing the virus for some time before I got him Eveline, and he’s practically unvaccinated, so it’ll take longer for the cure to work. He’s going to have to sleep it off.
It’s cold in the apartment. I slowly clamber upright, brushing my hair off my face. Evening air blows through the gaps of the boarded windows. There’s no glass, only two hollowed panes that the boards are trying to cover. I shake my arms, getting my blood flowing again before I go over and grasp one board in the middle. My strength hasn’t entirely returned, but I gather my conviction. The board comes free with two rusty nails on either side. A better glimpse of Threto comes through in the sliver. I toss the board onto the couch, working on the next one. Within minutes I’ve cleared the windows, the glittering city winking its hello from a thousand different buildings.
I breathe out, my slow exhale forming a cloud of mist. The billboardsare coming to life again. The constant barrage of subscription tiers for upcountry, the property insurance companies, the pills that promise different eye colors and new hair colors sprouting from the root. Threto’s metropolis beats a pulse as the bull’s-eye center of the country, the only resting place for those running from desolation in every other direction. It isn’t coastal Upsie, where people can afford to shut themselves in their Pods and the billboards go unwatched. Here, even lockdown doesn’t make the city go quiet. Every mumbling television in the apartments harmonizes with the droning advertisements outside, emitting a racket that shapes the skyline. It’s thunderous.
I turn back around, eyeing Nik carefully. His chest rises and falls. His bag sits at his feet. He was smart enough to have put a cushion beneath himself when he chose his spot on the floor, and his head stays lolled on half of it for support.
I scan the rotting couch, the broken tables. At one point in time, this residence must have been well decorated. Opulent, even. The walls underneath the thick black mold are a rich red. The skeleton of a chandelier hangs overhead, long harvested for parts and its wiry veins taken. If the window hadn’t been smashed to let in the elements, I doubt the furniture around us would look like this, drooping and tired. There are no traces around the apartment to identify its former occupants anymore. No pictures on the shelves, no belongings scattered over the counter. It might have been years since someone was last living here, its former homeliness lost to time.
Nik doesn’t stir when I return to his side and grab his bag. The scratch pad I saw earlier is still there, hidden in the lining. Writing on paper prevents the likelihood of getting hacked and having his notes read by law enforcement seeking his whereabouts. Too bad he didn’t account for me being a snoop.
I flip through rapidly, finding various diagrams and sketches. I’m not sure what I expected an anarchist’s personal notebook to hold. There are some pages with rough outlines of the Atahuan bases he targets. Other pagesseem to be his stream-of-consciousness thoughts, jotting down numbers to do quick arithmetic. There even seems to be a lunch order in here.
I scoff beneath my breath, flipping all the way to the back. I stop short.
EIRALE SULLIVAN
“What?” I say aloud.
There’s nothing more. No context, no further elaboration. Nik asked the very same question up in that helicopter the first night too.Does the surname Sullivan mean anything to you?
“Who do you think I am?” I ask him quietly.
Nik breathes in. Breathes out shakily. He is at no capacity to respond. I hurry to return the scratch pad to his bag, then feign nonchalance once I’ve zipped it back up. It’s not as though he will know. There’s no reason I should bother putting on an act. I clear my throat anyway.
Nik’s shoulder jerks hard.
“Nik?” I try.
His eyes stay closed. A strong gust of wind sweeps into the apartment, howling through the open window. The sun falls fully under the horizon to leave the sky dark. When Nik twitches again, I catch sight of the sweat glistening on his forehead, which is good because it means his fever is breaking.
“Don’t,” he mumbles under his breath. “Wait.”
I hesitate, inching forward on the dust-covered floor. I should wake him. It feels wrong to watch him have a nightmare.
“Hey.” I reach out. Shake his elbow.
The shudder of helicopter blades suddenly comes into earshot, a rapidthud-thud-thudheading toward the apartment. This is the penthouse unit: the aircraft will pass dangerously close. I don’t move while the sound is directly overhead, as though its spotlight might catch sight of me through the broken window. I watch the helicopter continue on its path. Its blinkingyellow taillight gets farther and farther away. The roaring sound fades, and I’m still holding Nik’s elbow.
“Somehow,” I say, “it’s hard to believe that dangerous criminals are capable of having nightmares.”
His arm flexes out. He’s saying something under his breath, though I can’t parse anything coherent. I don’t often have nightmares. When bad things happen in my dreams, I feel the falseness of the world immediately, and I only have to blink to wake up. I have little in my life to lose. The moment a dream casts a feeling of impending doom over me or my loved ones, I remember I have no loved ones, and I wake up.
“Don’t,” Nik murmurs again, his head twitching. “Please.”
Whether out of the kindness of my heart or the sheer practicality of making sure he doesn’t panic himself into a coma, I slot my hand into Nik’s open palm. His fingers close around mine immediately.
“I’m here,” I say.
