…it may not exist in our reality at this time. What did that mean? And Vagott …was that a name?
There was a knock on the door, and I jumped in my chair. I screwed the cap on the bottle and stowed it under the desk, then headed over to the door, stumbling a little. I was drunker than I thought.
I got on my tiptoes and looked through the peephole. It was Penny. I opened the door.
“Hi,” I said. She looked around. It hadn’t taken me long to mess up the place. There were pizza boxes stacked up on the floor next to the door, and clothes draped over all the furniture. The boxes with my notes, still taped up, were stacked along one wall. The sink was filled with dishes, and I hadn’t made the bed in days.
“Sorry about the mess,” I said. She didn’t look pissed or even surprised, though.
“It’s homey.” She nodded over at the computer. “Reading up?”
“Yeah.”
She walked over to the computer and sat down. When she did, her foot clunked against the bottle I put underneath, but she didn’t say anything. She just reached under and grabbed it, then took a swig before putting it back down on the desktop. She looked at the entries I had up.
“It’s a head full, huh?” she said. I nodded.
“Did you ever see that room?”
“No. It ruled me out as a potential. I don’t survive long enough. Almost no one does.”
She tapped the screen and an image appeared of an intense-looking guy with stubble and thick black hair. He had on a white shirt and tie, but he looked like he hadn’t slept or bathed in a couple days.
“That man is Element Zero,” she said. “His name is Samuel Fawkes.”
I’d never seen him before in my life. This was the man I was supposed to stop? I looked at the screen, not quite sure I believed it.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Look, I know it’s hard for you to swallow right now,” Penny said, “but believe it or not, you stop the event.”
“How? I don’t even know what it is.”
“The amount of data they’ve been crunching would make your head explode,” she said. “Most of it is still varying degrees of probability, but some things are pretty much certain. Element One stops the event. Ai’s been looking for that person. She thinks you’re it.”
“Thinks?”
“It’s not easy to pinpoint one person in a city this size when you don’t know their exact identity, but like I said, we have a ton of data on this.”
“She’s been wrong before, though?” I said it kind of hopefully.
“Not this time,” she said.
I looked at the strange man on the screen, and wondered what he was thinking when the picture was taken. His eyes looked wild, scared, and determined all at once, and they shone a little, like they had started to tear.
“What happened to the first Element One?” I asked. Penny frowned just a little.
“She did something she shouldn’t have done,” she said. “Just stick to the plan. You’ll be fine.”
Don’t cross Ai.
“Right now, this is the important part,” she said. She touched the screen and brought up an event that was close to the current date. I looked over her shoulder at the screen, and saw a big block of text written there. Something about a boat. My eyes jumped to the end:
This alignment may represent our best chance to circumvent the disaster.
“That looks like it’s soon,” I said.
“It is.”
“Will I be part of it?”
“In a way,” she said, “but that’s not why I’m here tonight.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. She snapped off the computer, and the screen went dark.
“Sorry to do this,” she said, “but we’ve got to go out.”
“Go? Go where?”
“It’s a surprise,” she said. “Come on, get your coat on.”
I stretched and cracked my back. The room spun a little, and I stood there for a second until it passed and I could make my way to the closet. I really didn’t feel like going out, but she had me curious. I grabbed my coat and shrugged it on.
“I don’t usually go to bars or clubs or anything,” I told her.
“That’s not where we’re going,” she said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a smoked-glass flask in a leather case.
“Ouzo, right?” she asked, holding it out. I took it. “You can keep the flask. Come on, let’s go.”
She walked to the front door and opened it.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked.
“No. This is a good surprise.”
On the way out, I saw two guys in suits. They were against the wall on either side of the door, where they’d been standing out of the range of the peephole. Penny started down the hall and I followed her, while the two men followed me. She took us down the elevator and outside, and one of the two men held an umbrella over my head as we walked over to a big car with tinted windows. He held the back door open, and I slid into the warm interior. Penny scooted in next to me; then the two men got in up front. The driver started the car and pulled out.
“When we get there, don’t freak out,” Penny said.
“Freak out why?”
“I can’t say. Just don’t.”
“I won’t.” I opened the flask and took a swig. “I haven’t seen you around here much.”
“You miss your friend.”
I didn’t say anything. My ears got hot and I shrugged.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I just meant to be there for you a little more, that’s all. She’s got me doing something, so I’ve been staying somewhere else for a while. I would have come by sooner.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
She was looking out the window while she talked. She actually looked a little upset.
“It’s okay. I’m always alone.”
“Not anymore.”
She looked over at me then and smiled a little, which she didn’t usually do.
“Believe me. I’ll be glad when it’s over,” she said. “I’d much rather be getting loaded with you than doing the other thing.”
I handed her the flask, and she took a big guzzle off of it.
“Thanks.” She handed it back.
“Can’t you tell me where we’re going?”
“Sorry. I’m not trying to be a bitch. It’ll make more sense once we’re there. Just enjoy the ride.”
I decided to go with the flow and just watch the city go by out the window, until after a while, I lost track of where we were. We went through some really nice sections, filled with people, and I felt giddy as the neon trailed by over my head. The inside of the town car was big and comfortable, and talking with Penny was easier than I was afraid it might be. She was a lot like me. We even joked about the visions, and when the flask ran out, she had the driver stop at a corner store so we could pick up more.
It was almost an hour before the car finally slowed down, and by then the lights had tapered off. It got darker outside and the rain was starting up again when I saw a concrete train platform up ahead. It was lit with a single light, and there were three men—one big guy in the middle, and one to either side of him—standing at the edge of the tracks, facing us; there was a black limousine parked in the small area next to the platform.