Return to Brilliant Instability

“Why are they calling on you?” my roommate asked. I didn’t blame her that much. Lucy was a lot, most of the time, but she gave a shit about me, which was more than I could say for many of my so-called friends.

I sighed. “Listen, Luce,” I replied, “You know damned well why.” I had a past. The company knew that, the complex knew that, my friends knew that. So, when things went sideways, it only made sense to look in my direction. After all, I had fucked up my friends lives before.

“No, Jase,” she said calmly, “I don’t know. You’ve been on the straight and narrow for years, taking your meds and everything. Those bitches can’t come and blame you every time shit goes wrong.”

I laughed. “Sure, they can. All I gotta do is show them that they’re wrong, and we can continue going about our lives.”

“I still say fuck ‘em.” Lucy was very adamant about that. They’d forgiven me on paper for what I did, after I told them why and sought treatment for the how, but they had never forgotten. Lucy didn’t appreciate that. She thought it was some sort of slight to my character.

I, on the other hand, completely understood where they were coming from. Personally, I stopped trusting myself years ago, and it was a distrust that never faded. With a smile, I made sure to emphasize, “Remember, those bitches are my friends. I can suffer a bit of indignity to help them. It’s the least I can do. I’m not gonna let them down. Not again.”

Lucy shook her head at me. “Fine,” she said, “But once you’re done, we’re taking a week off.”

“You and I both know we can’t afford to do that,” I joked. We could, but it’d cut into our early retirement nest egg. Smiling and picking up my bag, I headed over to the makeshift elevator. Pressing the button for the lobby, I let the elevator close as I waved to my roommate.

The elevator ride was slow and laborious. It trundled its way down the many floors of the crudely constructed tower in which I lived. Towers like this are what people get when buildings got constructed after the flood. Boats and RVs and containers stacked atop one another, with mechanical lifts to move people between the levels. It was one of the earliest tower apartment complexes, which basically meant it was the most cobbled together of structures. Eventually, things became standardized and buildings looked like they meant to go together, but not my building. My building really did look like a massive tidal wave shoved a bunch of things into a pile and someone decided to weld everything together. As the elevator made it to the lobby, I stepped out into the small area and waved to the waiting friends, who sat in the circle of chairs by the door. They waved me over.

Sitting down in one of the spare chairs, I greeted the two old friends. “Keith, Rose, how are you two doing?”

Keith shook his head at me. “You know why we’re here, right?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said, “But I could probably guess. It’s started up again?”

“Yeah,” Rose told me, “And it feels like you.”

I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean, feels like me?”

“She means, whoever this guy is, it feels like they’re toying with us,” Keith answered, “Like they have some greater agenda than mere torture.”

I nodded. “Like I did. Alright, why come to me?”

“Honestly?” Rose piped up, “Because we wanted to make sure it wasn’t you.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m still taking my pills, and I have no reason to do so. I’m just a friendly neighborhood newspaper editor now, so no massive conspiracies or interregional incidents to deal with.”

Keith didn’t laugh at that. “You understand that we needed to check, right?”

“Perfectly understood,” I answered, “Don’t sweat it.” Then, thinking a moment, I added, “How bad is it?”

Keith shook his head silently. Rose, however, answered, “Very.”

“Like death, prison, losing jobs, breaking relationships, what?”

“Like, Em levels of bad.” M was the incident that I’d tortured them in preparation for. If it was that bad, they were royally fucked. They hadn’t had to deal with anything anywhere near that level in years. And in those years, they’d grown soft. I’d seen it, from their monthly check ins to make sure I wasn’t about to do anything. They weren’t ready for this.

I looked at Rose, then Keith. The somberness that lingered behind my eyes could be felt by all in the room. “Do you want my help?” I asked. I knew the answer already, but I needed to ask the question all the same. They needed my help, but they certainly didn’t want it. They feared my help, because they knew the one prerequisite to me being helpful. I’d need to become my darkest self again, stop medicating for my addiction and psychoses, and stop caring about my future. They were afraid of the result for them. I wasn’t, but then again, one of the many drugs that I took was a very powerful anti-anxiety medication.

Keith shook his head. “We’re good, Jason,” he said.

Rose nodded to emphasize that. “We don’t need you’re help. Really.”

It almost sounded like they believed that. I smiled at them. “Alright,” I said, “Good luck then.” And with a plastered-on smile, I walked right back to the elevator and pressed the call button.

Keith looked at me, confused. “You’re not going to fight it? Tell us we’re wrong?”

I, maintaining my façade of contentment, faced him. “What use would that be? You have clearly made up your minds, and I’d hate to antagonize you. You’re my friends, after all.”

“Right,” Keith slowly replied.

“Try to enjoy yourselves,” I said as the doors opened. Getting in and ignoring their continued talking to me, I pressed the button for the tenth floor, and waited as the elevator made its way up.

Upon arriving, I stepped out into my apartment. Lucy looked at me. “They believed you, I take it?” she asked.

“Yes.” My voice was calm, collected, but disconnected.

She could tell immediately that something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked me.

I sighed. “They said this was a good one.”

“Did they ask for your help?” she asked.

“As good as M was, back in the day,” I continued, ignoring her question. I also walked over to my closet and pressed a button hidden on the back of my shoe rack.

“Did they want you to help?” Lucy pressed.

“They aren’t near ready for someone that good,” I continued ignoring her questions. The dresser in the back of my closet slid up, revealing a hidden container. Inside was a wetsuit, sweats to cover it, a mask, and a waterproof bag. My equipment. I was supposed to have gotten rid of it year ago. I hadn’t.

Lucy stepped into my closet and stood between me and the hidden area. “Did. They. Ask?” Her voice was intense and forceful.

I sighed. “Nope.”

“But you’re gonna help anyways,” she added. She knew me well enough.

“I don’t give a fuck if they hate me, and don’t trust me. I don’t give up on friends.”

“If they hate you, I don’t really think you can call them friends,” she countered.

I smiled and replied jokingly, “If I disqualify everyone who hates me from being my friend, I’m not sure I’d have any left.”

“I don’t hate you,” she shot back, “I just really, really don’t like you.”

I laughed, then, while she still refused to move, I added with a sigh, “Please.”

She looked me in the eyes. She could tell I was in pain. She nodded. “Alright, fine,” she said, “But I’m gonna monitor you.”

“While you’re at it, do you got anything that can flush the current inhabitants of my bloodstream out? I’d hate to wait a whole eight hours for scheming to commence.”

“’fraid not, Jase,” she said, “See, as a doctor, I can’t encourage your behavior, and as a friend, I can’t give you any meds. That’s the deal, remember?”

I sighed. “Fine,” I said, “Now then, get out of my closet or you’ll end up seeing me naked.” And, as soon as I finished that statement, I began to take off my shirt.

“Give me a fucking second,” Lucy said, rushing out of the closet and slamming the door behind herself, “I don’t want to see none of that.”

Chuckling to myself, I finished getting undressed, and pulled the wetsuit on. Leaving the hood of the suit down, I pulled on the sweats over it, and put the swim gear and mask into the front pocket of the backpack full of my equipment. Stepping out of the closet fully clothed, I smiled and put in the earbud. “Alrighty, Luce,” I said, “Do you hear me?”

Lucy, from the office room, said, “I can hear you. And your suits giving me readings, too. Don’t die or nothing.”

“NO promises,” I joked as I walked out onto our balcony and looked out over the ocean. I could see Rose’s boat, already motoring away form the small, getaway town, towards the nearest true City, where my friends had taken up residence because of my actions in the past. With a quick, “Wish me luck,” I hopped, spun, and dropped down from ledge to ledge, all the way to the base of my building. One of the many reasons I loved these old tower apartments was that the makeshift nature of their construction made it easy to rapidly descend them.

I rushed to the town docks, and once there, I slipped under them, to the small platform I’d installed when I first arrived in town. It was just in case I needed a getaway. I stripped off my sweats and put them into the front pocket, pulling out my diving gear in its place. I pulled my wetsuit’s hood over my hair, then placed the diving mask over my face, attaching it to the oxygen tank on my back and attaching the CO2 side of the tank to a scrubber unit. It would be enough to make the swim. I hated boats, which isn’t great when the surface of the world is ninety percent water. However, swimming was a brilliantly fun activity. Cracking my shoulders and neck, I put my backpack on over my tanks, and dove into the ocean. I had an approximately seventy-hour swim ahead of me, with two four-hour naps in it, and I wasn’t going to be my most efficient self for the first seven hours of it. Slowly, staying underwater the entire time, I made my way through the depths of the Metropolitan shallows, from the small town in the former bay, to the city that sat atop the former city that never slept.

The swim was uneventful. I made sure to nap efficiently, attaching a line to a fishing trawler around the twenty-hour mark to let myself sleep, and to a sailboat at the fifty-hour mark. By the time I’d reached New York, I was completely clean, somewhat sore, very determined, and in the throes of a dangerously unstable mental state. I switched back into my street clothes, putting the diving equipment into my bag again, and began to walk through the city.

The underground of Newest York was still run by the same groups. The local gang of hackers owed me more than they could ever pay off. I’d get my lodgings there and use their access networks to reacquaint myself with the city. The Mob had taken over the South end of the city, which meant they were my best chance of taking whoever was fucking with my friends down. Finally, I pulled out my mask and put it on my face. The game was afoot, the players all set. And, importantly, none of the players knew the master of this world had returned to it. The reading began to run through the lenses of my mask, giving me all the information that I’d missed in my years of seclusion. I smiled behind my old mechanical façade. Pulling my hoodie’s hood over my wetsuit hood, I walked to the Empire. The ruin of the old world that still managed to tower over the entire city marked the border between the South end and the South-Central district. For some reason, the hackers of Newest York based themselves in the slowly sinking tower’s upper stories. I preferred to stay in the lower levels, specifically whichever level was closest to sea-level without being waterlogged. From there, I’d set up my equipment, and from there my hunt would begin. I entered the ruin through a broken window and tapped on a new security camera. With a smile behind my emotionless mask, I told the hackers, “Guess who’s back, bitches.”

#firstperson #sciencefiction #SF #nsfw #fiction #story