The meal doesn’t feel like it did before. I don’t feel part of the world. I feel separate from it. The diners around us are carrying on their conversations. Nearby, a small human whines something about wanting nuggets, whatever they are. I feel numb.
Tom reaches out, and his big hand covers mine. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. She couldn’t even let me have one night. One. Night. She had to ruin it with her stupid face.”
“Is everything to your satisfaction?” The waiter is back with his pasted-on smile. I can’t meet his eye. Tom comes out with some pleasantry that most people know how to perform and the waiter moves on to ask the question to another table. Everything is not to their satisfaction. The pasta is cold. It’s not acceptable. They’re sending it back.
I watch the plates go pasta me, wondering if I should send something back. If I could, I’d send my whole life back.
“Try not to let it bother you,” Tom says. “We’ll deal with the issue in the morning. We have every right to have a night off.”
“Do we?”
“Yes,” he says firmly. “We do. She doesn’t own us.”
“She owns me.”
“No, she doesn’t. That’s not legal. I know it’s the way you’ve been made to feel, but it’s not real. This is real. This. Here. Now.” He squeezes my hand and lets it go. “Try the shrimp cocktail.”
I do not like the shrimp cocktail, though I smile my way through it anyway. I keep glancing around, wondering how many spies there are here, how many of the customers are plants. Is this even really the outside world? Or have they made some hyper-realistic facsimile to trick me?
Tom wants this to be a ‘nice night’ so badly. This matters to him. I don’t know why, but I know that it does. I try to smile when he smiles at me, and laugh when he looks at me with those expectant eyes which tell me he has told a joke.
“Would you two like a dessert menu?”
“Yes, please,” Tom says. He winks at me and makes a comment about how I’ve been a good girl. He likes to speak to me like I’m a dog or something, praise me for my behavior. But my behavior doesn’t matter. My life has always been on rails. There’s been a plan for me from the beginning, and that plan is still in progress, even if we are at a nice restaurant.
Over the other side, people burst into a sudden cacophony of screeches.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
“Why are they screaming?”
“They’re singing,” Tom says. “It’s… a ritual that’s done around special occasions.”
“It sounds awful! Do they not like the person?”
“Actually, they probably like them very much.”
“Oh. What’s a birthday?
He gets that pitying expression in his eyes. The one I hate. I grab a handful of the nearest soft foodstuff and mash it in his direction, and he only just manages to stop me from filling his eye sockets with gravy laced potatoes.
“Cut it out,” he growls, grabbing napkins to clean his hands, and mine. “Go to the bathroom and wash your hands, and stop acting out. I know seeing the Head wasn’t pleasant, but neither will getting your butt whipped if you don’t start behaving.”
“Oh, so stern,” I say, a little mocking. I like teasing Tom. After we’re done with dinner, I want to go to bed with him at his house. I want to see where he lives, be included in his world. I want to become real.
We finish the meal without further incident and leave the restaurant hand in hand. That is when the trouble starts. Crossing the threshold makes a chill run down my spine. It’s not instinct. It is electronics.
The implant in the back of my neck has been activated remotely. Bastards. I almost forgot it was possible for them to take manual control of me. They can’t make me do anything, but they can stop me from moving. My feet lock on the ground, and every attempt to move results in incredible pain. It is as if every muscle in my body has become stone.
“Run, Tom, run!”
It’s too late. We are surrounded, and he would never leave my side. They overpower him and drag him away from me. He is strong, but not stronger than six highly trained agents. I hear him trying to reason with them in that calm way he has, but this is bigger than him. The city goes on around us as we are abducted. Nobody stops. Nobody cares. If they see this happening, they do not notice it.
“Electra! Be good!”
Those three words are the last I will hear from him in a very long time, I know that instinctively. I do not intend on following them.
The North Pole
Tom
I open my eyes slowly. Reluctantly. It doesn’t feel as though they should be opening. It feels as though I should be sleeping for a very long time. I’m clearly heavily sedated. Last thing I remember was being slammed into the back of a van and injected with something. Now my mouth is dry, my head is throbbing, and I feel sick to my stomach.