Dani
took the route she’d used when she was on her jog, headed alongside the river
going east until she entered Downtown. In the daytime, one could say it looked
quaint. It was comprised mostly of older buildings, but even those were made in
the sixties at the oldest. Dani’s stepparents had shown her pictures of the
older buildings that had been there before the Great Fire of Fifty Seven, or as
Dani liked to call it, The Gentrification Conflagration.
Most of the people that were out on
a Saturday afternoon were walking quickly from one location to another. The night
life in Downtown, Dani had found, usually started just as the sun started to
set and died out a few hours before midnight. The streets got pretty empty
then. It wasn’t late enough for all of that though. Most everyone was hurrying
at this time of day, going on errands.
She got a message from Mary,
something about a party. She told Mary she was busy, but that she might come
much later.
Dani passed the stores that two kids
had been loitering outside of the night before and eventually found her way to
the bridge. She’d seen some men that had fit the description, all except for
the glove. She pulled out her phone and saw that fifteen minutes had passed. On
the first ring, Bren picked up, “I was about to call you,” she said, “His path
just went cold by the bridge. It looks like he was about to loop around but I’m
not sure. You see anyone?”
“No one with the glove,” Dani said,
“I did see a lot of people though so maybe, like, he slipped through. Do you
want me to ask around down here for him?”
“I don’t think he crossed,” Bren
said, “I asked a few people near the bridge and they didn’t see anyone. We have
a few hours left before the streets are going to be packed so we should hurry
up. I can wait a few minutes and meet you there, and then we can keep searching
up here.”
“Should one of us stay by the bridge
to make sure he doesn’t pass?” Dani asked.
“It’s not important,” Bren said, “He
might have gotten in a car somewhere up here and driven away.”
“You don’t sound very happy about
that,” Dani said. She started up the stairs.
“Do you think I should be happy that
someone got away with it?” Bren said, “I should have known… I should have
guessed it as soon as I went chasing after Frank.”
“Frank?” Dani said, “Your boyfriend
or something?” She was on the bridge, headed across. She kept an eye out for
shifty eyed dudes.
“Fuck
no,” Bren said, “He was a plant. He was the lure. I let slip about the
secret societies but I guess he already knew. He wanted to do a circuit of all
the centers. So I put my glove on to go out and save him, I guess because I
figured I wasn’t done saving everyone like a goddamn…”
“Hero?”
“Heroine,”
Bren said.
“Well, I mean, it was good of you to,
like, try to save the kid,” Dani said, “You did good, Bren.” She came to the
end of the bridge and sighted Bren staring at the river, leaning against the
rail. Dani had only seen someone look wistful once before, and now she mentally
made a note to say that Bren was being wistful and so she could put a second
tally by the word in her mental dictionary.
And then she didn’t actually do that
because it would have been lame. She
laughed at herself in a way that bordered on the self-deprecatory. Haw, haw.
“It sure don’t feel that way, Dani,
but thanks, I appreciate you trying to be supportive and all. It’s weird that
you have sort of been my best friend through all this.”
“Not a problem,” Dani said, “I’m
here, by the way. I’ve been standing on the other side of the street and waving
and stuff.”
“Oh,” Bren said. She turned.
Dani hung up, looked both ways
across the street, waited while a bus passed, and then crossed. Bren was still
there, except she looked very tired. There were three or four holes in her
shirt and jacket. “When you said you got jumped…” Dani said.
“I got shot a few times,” Bren said,
“But I already told you I have the Sepulchral Autarch on my side. ‘S why I’m
always getting hounded by The Scanners.”
“Right,” Dani said. She didn’t
actually know what any of that meant, “So, lead the way.”
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