“What if she arranges to hurt or even kill you?”
“There are worse things than death, Mom. We are all going to become slaves, controlled by a central AI, if Helena’s side wins. I make this sacrifice willingly.”
“And Maddy?”
“I think I know how to get help for Maddy too. Let me work on it then I’ll tell you all about it.”
We say nothing until we get back to the apartment. When we get in, I turn to her. “Are you hungry, Mom?”
“No.”
“Shall we just have some chocolate ice cream?”
“Yes, lets.”
We sit together at the kitchen table and eat our ice cream. This is the calm before the storm. Soon the police will come to interview me and the whole merry-go-round will start. They will arrest him. They will charge him with murder. Their plan is to break the alliance. I remember the story of the poor little Dutch boy who put his finger in a hole in the dike to stop the water from rushing through and bursting open the old dike, and drowning his entire country. I am that little boy. It is only my finger in the leaking dike that stands between the alliance winning and the end of humanity as we know it.
Suddenly, my mother’s hand shoots out and grasps mine. “I’m proud of you, Raine. Very proud.”
I smile at her. I don’t let her see my heart is shattered. The man I love is lost forever.
Raine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM213aMKTHg&ab_channel=LadyAVEVO
Need You Now
* * *
Three weeks pass. I go through the days in a daze. The police call me to come to the station and take my statement, and I find out that Konstantin is out on a five million bail.
At first I keep looking at my phone, thinking, hoping Konstantin will call, but he never does. By the middle of the second week I know he is never going to call.
There is another change in me. I have started to view my phone with extreme suspicion. Now that I understand it is recording my conversations and locations I treat it as a necessary evil. In fact, I am even thinking of getting an analogue phone. That way I can communicate with people, but my conversations won’t be recorded and used for nefarious purposes. I go to Lois’s home and see that she has an Alexa, and my first instinct is to immediately suggest we leave.
But it is when I see how utterly entranced my sister is with her phone, that I feel real pain. I actually feel the same way someone must if they see their loved ones shooting heroin into their veins.
I know I must bide my time. Be patient. She is ill and other than the small walk she is allowed every day to give her some fresh air and keep her muscles exercised, she has nothing to look forward to in her life.
Once she is better I will wean her away from that device and back to the real world.
Mom doesn’t give her notice. She is unsure of our future and she wants to carry on working for the time being. I just nod even though it breaks my heart to see how tired she is.
“Maddy, isn’t it time you were in bed?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” she says, and uncurls herself from the sofa.
“Goodnight,” I say, switching off the TV.
“Nite, nite,” she calls as she disappears into the room where she and Mom sleep in. I lean back and close my eyes. I can hear our neighbors arguing. They have taken to arguing a lot these days. Mom won’t be home for another two hours tonight. She was offered overtime work and she took it.
I hear the ping of my phone and I am curious who would be texting me at this time of the night as I go to my bedroom and look at it. It is an unknown number. I open the text and stare at it with my heart racing.
It is just an address and the words. Come now.
I don’t even think it could be a prank or a hoax or even a dangerous plot that could get me raped or murdered. Intuition tells me exactly who it is. I knock on Maddy’s door and tell her I’m going out for a bit. As I make my way to the elevator, I send a message to my mom to say I might not be home when she comes in. I run into the street and hail a cab. I give the driver the address and sit back.
My stomach is in knots with sheer excitement. The address is not in the best part of town, in fact it is only a few blocks away. Under normal circumstances I would have walked. I pay the driver and run to the door. On the shiny surface of the elevator I see that my hair is a mess. I was in such a state I didn’t even brush it before I left the house.