Chapter 324

Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one-car garage. 2000 square feet, though the real estate listing failed to mention how much of that was closet space. Behind the peeling eggshell paint and suspicious dark spots creeping down from the roofline—mold or otherwise—lay what passed for prime real estate these days. In the suburbs, even a rat’s nest could be gold, for one reason alone.

I’d gotten a deal on the property through a contact but it still cost a solid chunk of selve. Pre-dome dwellings had to be updated within system stipulations to be bought and sold for selve, and while the houses and properties with system add-ons could be quite luxurious, civilians, who couldn’t interface with most of those user-styled luxuries, preferred houses like this one, the only real update coming in the form of registration. Which unfortunately, also wasn’t cheap.

It was a scam, but let’s be real, to some extent, the housing market always was.

Jackson was still alert in the driver’s seat, though he’d relaxed enough to pull an old-world magazine out of the glove box while we waited.

Leaned against the hood of the car, I lit a cigarette—the third that I’d bummed so far from Jackson since we met—and smoked it down to the filter, orange corona hovering at the edge of my vision, mirroring the sun as it bled out over the horizon, threatening to slip behind the cookie-cutter rooflines. Nothing special about it, except that it might be the last time I’d draw breath to see one.

Annoyed at the thought, I dropped the cigarette to the cement and stamped it out.

Rubber ground concrete as a large white-panel van came to a full halt at a T intersection fifty feet away and turned towards me. Jackson clocked it immediately in the rearview, then looked over his magazine at me, eyes asking a silent question.

I pushed off the hood and made a “we’re good” gesture to him. Jackson folded the magazine as the van approached and started the car. I’d told him to wait at the nearby 7-11. Close enough that he could pick me up easily if there was a problem, far enough to give a semblance of privacy. Once the taillights disappeared around a distant corner, I removed my mask, then my hood.

The door opened and a man’s head popped out, dreads trailing with the movement as he examined his surroundings with a great deal of trepidation.

To be fair, it made sense. One of the first things I’d learned about Greg was that his cheery, carefree disposition was only partially real. There was a craftiness beneath the surface. Solid instincts. Instincts that were likely at this very moment reminding him that the suburbs were generally an unsafe place for him to be. In the old world, the white panel van alone navigating the neighborhood at a reasonable speed, would prompt no less than a dozen pearl-clutching posts on Next Door, at least a few calls to the cops, a percentage of which would jump at the opportunity to bust a few socioeconomically disadvantaged heads.

It was different now, but the instinct, and the fear, remained.

“Matty?” Greg approached cautiously, constantly looking around him, as if danger could come from anywhere.

“Hey Greg.”

“You okay?”

I cocked my head, then nodded. “I’m alright.”

Greg visibly sighed relief, deflating a little. He peered at me in something approaching irritation. “Not like you to make plans last minute. Not like you at all. Got me worried something was happening. Spooked me.”

“Appreciate you showing up, regardless of the scare. Something is happening, but that’s not what this is about.” I went to take another drag, then belatedly, remembered I’d already stamped the damn thing out. “Got a smoke?”

Greg pulled a black and green pack from one of the pockets of his cargo shorts, smacked the bottom against his palm a few times before drawing one out and handing it to me. “Menthol?”

I hated menthols but who gave a fuck. The small buzz, as rapidly depreciating as it had been throughout the day, was still enough to serve as a distraction, the smallest balm to my nerves. After I nodded, he lit it for me, and I pulled deeply, ignoring the feeling of frost that settled deeply into my lungs.

My request sated, Greg looked around. “There a reason we’re here?”

“Yeah.” I answered.

“You mind uh, telling me what it is?”

He was right. I was dragging this out. It was difficult to say why, exactly. There was probably a part of me that still didn’t want this day to end. As shitty and stressful as it’d been, it felt like the end of an era. The sum of the equation. Time was up, pencils were down, and now all there was left to do was pass in the Scantron and pray.

I’d always been good at that part. Accepting that what was done was done, and no amount of worrying or stress or regret would change the result.

But in that moment?

I would have traded almost anything for one more day.

In lieu of that option, I gestured to the house. “What do you think of the place?”

Greg turned, rotating so we stood side by side. “This place—the house?”

“Yeah.”

He crossed his arms and took it in. “Not bad. Nothin’ too flashy but that’s your style if we’re keeping it a hundred.”

“Yours too.”

“Ha. True.” Greg scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Looks nice enough. Can’t say too much without seeing it from the inside, but I think, based on where it is, what’s inside don’t matter much.”

“How do you mean?” I asked him.

“Location.” Greg nodded seriously. “Everybody been real uninspired about city living since the transposition. Tryin’ to move away from the center, be on the fringes when the next one hits. Surprised you lookin’ though. I know you’re technically in the city but you got plenty of protection being around your guild and associates. Out here might actually be more dangerous.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“True. Then again, it’s not for me.” I withdrew a small weighted manila envelope from my pocket and tossed it to him. Greg caught the envelope with weathered hands that trembled slightly as they tore open the seal. He stared at the contents for a long time before he looked up again.

“This a joke?” He asked, something close to betrayal heavy in his voice.

“Not even a little.”

“I—I ain’t never worked you for a handout.” Greg said slowly. “Even on the devil’s nights, when it flash froze outta nowhere and I ended up crashing on your couch, you always invited me. I never asked. Outta respect.”

“That’s true.”

“Got a better hustle going these days. Something solid. Don’t have my own place out of frugality, not because I don’t have the means—”

“Again, that’s not what this is about.” I went to take another drag off the menthol, found it spent, and tossed it away. “Some part of its recompense, sure, but mostly it’s me keeping promises I’ve made to myself.”