This choice: Get help from the experts • Go Back...Chapter #37The Angst of Anticipation by: Seuzz   Stephanie is already examining the keypad at the door. "You know the code to get in?" she asks.
You decide to temporize. "They told me, but, uh ... Seven eight nine five, maybe?"
She gives you a look, but gamely punches it in. "Nope, not it." She tries again. "Still not it."
"Oh yeah, wait, that's the code for the gate." You brush your nose and avoid her eye. "Four eight—?"
"How about you text Carlos? Find out when he's going to get here."
Beta-Carlos, you're pretty sure, isn't going to be any help in making the substitution, and you cuss Stephanie's quick thinking even as you tap in a message to him: need u here or mike to help with mask.
y? comes the reply. get the real guys asshole
His back-talk staggers you. Is it a malfunction? "What's he say?" Stephanie asks.
"That was someone else. Hang on." Furiously you resume tapping. whats code for climate unit door? Then, a separate text to Fairfax: need help w mask of stephnie.
4956, Beta-Carlos replies. Then Fairfax: just get mask on her. i can text u thru it after that.
You flinch when you catch sight of Stephanie out of the corner of your eye. She's leaning against the wall of the unit, arms folded, kicking the ground. She arches her eyebrows at you, and that faint sneer she gets—parted lips and tilted chin—appears on her face.
"He wants us to wait for him," you tell her. "Something about, he should be here at least since it's his unit."
Stephanie sighs and looks around. "Is there a handcart at least?"
"Inside."
"Fuck." She kicks the wall once, then heaves herself onto the hood of your truck and sits, legs crossed Indian-style, like a giant hood ornament. She hunches over her own phone.
* * * * *
While she's busy with that, you argue with Fairfax on yours. He insists that you can do it yourself with his remote guidance, and that you need to do it that way because he got caught at home. And Mike and Carlos—the real ones—have apparently turned their phones off, maybe to avoid getting drafted into anything before their new memories and personalities have come online.
But you still can't bring yourself to move on Stephanie. Instead, you pace the parking lot, watching her out of the corner of your eye. Even huddled up on the hood of your truck she conveys a graceful, athletic power. She'd struck you as "feline" back at her house, and now you've time to muse over the exact shade of that feline power.
It's not the sleek power of a panther, or the liquid grace of house cat. "Lioness" is also not quite correct—she's intimidating but not particularly majestic. A leopard? you muse as you start down the list of all the cats you know of. No. She might be fast, but she's not lithe. A tiger? No, she's too light on her feet for that. Besides, when you think "tiger" you think of Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, and that's totally wrong.
A cougar? Possibly. Yes, if it weren't for the slang connotation on the word, that would fit her pretty well. Like a cougar, she's powerful without being big, and strong without being muscle-bound. And there's definitely something "Rocky Mountain western" about her. You can easily picture her hiking mountain trails or clambering up sheer rock faces. She'd look good in a cowboy hat, probably. That's something to remember, you muse, and wipe your sweaty palms on your jeans.
Yes, a cougar, definitely. Even now, she looks like a big cat perched high in a tree, concentrating hard on something of interest.
You continue to pace. You wish she hadn't changed into long pants and windbreaker. She looks good in short garments. She has a girl's arms and legs, being shapely without a lot of muscles, but her limbs are still hard and rounded and smooth, like solid rubber—and like rubber there's give and stretch and bounce to them.
She tugs at her ear, and that draws your attention to her head. Her nose is small and regular, but glimpsing her in profile now you notice it has a slightly upturned tip that gives it a faintly boyish quality. Her eyes are widely spaced and pull down a little at the corners. It's odd the way that gives her face a slightly sleepy quality. Her green eyes are always hard and alert. Maybe that's part of what makes her seem cat-like—the shape of her eyes makes her look relaxed and poised and confident even as their emerald-like hardness makes her seem watchful.
There's nothing "girly" about her hair, either. She keeps it cut very close, so that the ends only touch the top of her ears and the top of her neck. She doesn't fashion it that you can tell. It curls up stiffly at its ends, and refuses to rustle or wave in the evening breeze.
A low sigh rumbles in the back of your throat. You really wish Fairfax or somebody would just come out to help you. There's a body sitting on the hood of your truck—a body and a personality that you want to wear, like armor.
You want to be perched there, like she is. To stretch, like she's stretching now. To hop down and bounce lightly on the balls of her feet, like she's doing now. To turn to someone with a tip of the chin, like she's doing now, and say—
"What's the code for the front gate? I wanna get my brother out here with some homework. Beats sitting around here."
Shit!
Luckily, before you have to answer, your own phone chimes. It's another message from Caleb, asking if you're free for supper, but you croak out a lie: "Hang on, this is Carlos, he says he's stuck at home and we should just take the stuff in without him. Door code is four-nine-five-six." You snap your fingers, like this text has just jogged your memory.
Stephanie's eyes narrow, and her jaw works. But with a shrug she acquiesces and in three steps is at the door, jabbing at the pad. She pulls the door and props it open.
* * * * *
"Yeah, I think we can do it with this," she says as she brushes the handle of a large, four-wheeled dolly that sits in the entryway. She pronounces herself similarly satisfied with the "gym" unit, and the way she's looking it over you have the impression she's memorizing every detail of every item it contains. "We might leave him crowded in a little, but— So Carlos leaves those doors open so anyone can get into them?" she asks as she strides back down the hallway. As ever, you toddle after.
"I think it's 'cos he thought he'd be coming back."
"He's awful trusting. Get the door, I'll get the cart." You hang your head and obey.
The table and chairs come down first and are set aside. Then you and Stephanie strain yourselves with the bureau. "Careful there," she says through gritted teeth as you tip it off the gate of the truck and into the air. It slips and falls with a heavy bang onto the cart. She gives you a cold look. "You this careless when it's your stuff?"
Fuck you, Stephanie. I can't wait until it's me who's working your mouth and giving people shit.
Leaving the table and chairs behind, you help her wheel the bureau into the facility. A little maneuvering gets it into the bay and onto the floor.
And while she's pushing it into the corner, getting it arranged to her satisfaction—leave it to a girl to want to get a storage unit arranged like a sitting room—you open the foot locker. It contains a couple of masks, and you push through them until you find one that's blank. "What are you doing?" Stephanie's voice, though not loud, cuts through you.
"Just looking for a drop cloth or something to protect it," you improvise. "Huh. Check this thing out." You show her the mask.
She grunts at it. "What's that? Something for their videos?"
"Dunno. Maybe."
"Well, put it back before you break it, and let's get the rest of the stuff."
You're almost grateful for that last dig—the implied insult that you're a clumsy harebrain who can't be trusted with anything that doesn't belong to you. It gives you the strength to spring after her and grasp her from behind while smothering her face with the mask.
She topples forward, and only by wrenching her to the side and taking the brunt of her fall do you stop her from braining herself on the concrete floor. Together, you hit the door of the unit opposite Carlos's makeshift gym, and a rattling boom, like a tympani struck by lightning, echoes down the hallway. You both slide to the floor.
There's no sign of the mask on her face, and her eyes are wide and staring. Your heart pounds rapidly against your ribcage.
With trembling fingers you text Fairfax. gotmask n her what do now?
Seconds pass. More seconds. A minute. Two minutes. HWERE R U? you text him.
Your phone rings, and you almost drop it.
It's Fairfax. "Sorry," he says. "I'm— Look, is she unconscious?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay, thing is, I forgot a really important step until just now. I should have told you to wait until—"
"The fuck?"
"Keep calm and carry on, Will," he says. "It's fine, it'll be better than fine. You just need to look through that footlocker for the mask with my name in it. When the blank mask reappears, put that one on her."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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