Chapter Fourteen - Lincoln
“This is a mistake,” I say to my reflection in the mirror. I flatten down my hair, trying to make the unruly mess conform into some semblance of respectability. Then I scrub my hand across my newly clean-shaven chin, already missing the days-old stubble I usually find there. “She’s a cop. She’s been with Blue Corp all week for an investigation. She’s gonna figure me out if we play this wrong.”
“You need to get out of this cave,” Sheila says from the main cavern. This is my room and there are no optics in here for Sheila to project herself into her holographic form. I did that on purpose. No one wants a hovering nag in their bedroom. So she stands just outside, ready with an answer for my misgivings. “And you’re a partner.”
“A silent partner,” I growl, still pissed off I had to shave. “Which means I don’t have to show up for shit like this. I don’t have to play nice, or pretend to care, or any of those other things that Case has to do. That’s why he takes an extra five percent. I pay that fucker to do this shit for me.”
“The detective will be useful once things start happening, Lincoln. You need to make her acquaintance tonight.”
“And what if she recognizes me?” I walk out and stare her in the face. “What then? What if the drugs didn’t work? What if they wore off? What if—”
“Then it would be optimal for you to be there when that recognition happens, don’t you agree? If she wakes in the night and remembers what happened, what do you think she will do the next day?”
“If she sees me tonight and starts to remember, we get the same ending, Sheila. She’ll get on the phone to her boss and have me arrested. I’ll be in jail and then the whole fucking thing is blown. Someone will have to come bail me out. And you certainly can’t do it. You’re a fucking lightshow. Case can’t do it, he’ll be implicated. Thomas…” I laugh. “Well, fucking Thomas wouldn’t do it. So who the fuck is gonna bail me out if she catches on? This is so beyond stupid.”
“I think,” Sheila says, turning her back to me and walking over to the engineering lab door, “you just proved my point. How useful would another friend be? And a detective, at that?” She turns back to me and smiles. “And don’t insult me with the remarks about the lights. I’m working on it.”
“Working on what? And since when is calling you a lightshow an insult? That’s what a hologram is.”
“I’m not a hologram, Lincoln.” She lifts her chin and crosses her arms. A gesture that resembles defiance and hurt.
I sigh. “I know that better than anyone, Sheils. Remember?” She tries not to smile, but she can’t help herself. “I built you first.”
“You did,” she concedes. “And it’s a good thing too. Because if it wasn’t for me you’d be all alone in this world.”
I nod in understanding. She’s right. But I’m right too. “She’s gonna figure this stuff out, Sheila. I have a bad feeling about things tonight. I’ve been running on luck for fifteen years and now that everything is starting to happen, that luck is about to run out.”
“Then make friends with her, Lincoln. You don’t really have a choice, anyway. She has a place in all this. You know that. Molly is the missing piece you’ve been waiting for.”
She’s not though. She’s the one piece I’ve been counting on never coming back. And now that she is… well, my days are numbered. “I’m taking the bike tonight. The old bike.”
“It will mess up your hair.”
I laugh. “Like I care.” The old bike isn’t the one I wrecked last weekend. The old bike is the one my dad used to ride. Nothing flashy on it. And it’s not ever been connected to Sheila. So it’s a punishment of sorts. For her making me go in the first place. I know she’s interested in Molly and was probably hoping she could eavesdrop, if only from the periphery. But not gonna happen, you bossy little lightshow.
I’ll go, because I do need to figure out if Molly Masters is getting some of her memory back. And I could use another friend, although how Sheila thinks Molly will forgive me after what I did to her is beyond me. But… if Molly is going to remember, it’s better that I be there for it. Talk her down. Calm her down. Manipulate her into staying quiet, and maybe, if I’m lucky, into seeing the big picture.
Thomas is Thomas. And whatever his reasons for coming back with a bang are, they’re not anything I can control. He does what he does, when he does it. He’s always been that way.
But everything else feels a little too much like luck running out.
And if she does remember what I did to her… well, I don’t want to think about that yet.
Maybe I’m just paranoid. I’ve used the drugs on other people. They’ve always held. I’ve gotten away with a lot worse things than what I did to Molly Masters.
“Luck,” I mumble, walking back through my bedroom, grabbing my keys from a drawer in a small table, opening a door that leads to a long tunnel, and stepping through. “Stay with me tonight. Just one more night and I swear, I won’t ever ask for anything again.”
It’s a child’s prayer. One I’ve muttered for decades. And luck has always held up its end of the bargain. But I feel like a liar. I feel like I’ve been asking for luck my whole life, always coming out the other end whole, yet unsatisfied with my gift.
Because I always come out just as empty as I went in.
I feel like Molly Masters will be my downfall. She is the opposite of everything I stand against. She will make me weak. Make me fail. Make me lose.
And isn’t that her job?
Right.
I come to a stairwell at the end of the tunnel and start climbing. When I get to the top I press my palm against the pad and a laser swipes across my print, granting me access to the house.
I end up in the garage, looking at the heap covered by a thick canvas tarp, stained and weathered by age.
Maybe the bike won’t even start? It’s been a while since I took it out. And I can’t go into town using the car. Not for something with so many witnesses. And my truck has been decommissioned for… personal stuff.
I rip the tarp off with a whoosh, dust filling the air and probably settling on my robot-starched white shirt, and get on.
But it starts right up. And I can’t help but wonder, as I give it some throttle and pull out of the garage, if that means my luck is still holding… or if it just ran out?