Quill
“I’m going to make this very simple for you,” Lee said as I shut my apartment door. I immediately noticed the mess from when Ronnie attacked me was gone.
“Did you clean?”
“No. Now please pay attention, I don’t enjoy repeating myself.” I watched as he walked over to the small table beside my TV and lifted a little black box. I wanted to ask him about my apartment and who had cleaned it up, but he started talking again. And because I didn’t want to inadvertently summon the fire department by hitting the wrong thing, I listened.
“There are three buttons in here. The blue one sets the system up. You hit it, it all turns on. You hit it again, it turns off. Don’t turn it off.” Lee was nerd-scary. I felt like he could make the world burn with a switch.
“The white one arms your defense, so…”
“Whoa.” I had to stop him. “Arms my defense? What the hell have you done to my apartment?”
Lee rolled his eyes as if my question wasn’t a good one. It was a great one. “We are monitoring you around the clock. Small cameras are in place everywhere, minus the bathroom. If we see something, we will come. You hit the white button when you’re leaving or going to sleep. Whenever you or your place will be most vulnerable. It’s programmed to avoid your DNA, so don’t feel like you can’t walk around your apartment when you hit it.”
I had to sit down. “I have so many questions, Lee.”
“Hold them until the end. Now, the red one is the ‘holy shit’ button. You hit this and everyone is notified. Black, the police, fire, ambulance. You name it. Whoever gets here first wins.” He smiled creepily and while I marveled at the technology, I was worried too.
“What do the defenses do and how’d you get my DNA?”
Lee shut the box and placed it on the couch beside me. “I’m very good at what I do, Quill. I don’t much believe in guns coming down from the ceilings and shooting people down. I prefer subtle. Let’s say Ronald or your landlord comes here and gets hostile. If you have the white button pressed, the defense is monitoring the situation. Talking is fine. One of them puts a hand on you or pulls out a weapon, it will react.”
I sort of thought that was cool, but what if Mel hugged me or something?
“Darts will fire, rendering them unconscious in a matter of seconds. In a situation where there is more than one person and it’s more hostile, the defenses will be more severe. I wouldn’t worry about that.” He took a vile out of his pocket. “I retrieved your blood from the hospital, that’s how I got your DNA.”
I nodded in disbelief. “And what if someone touches me in a not hostile way? A hug or something?”
Lee smiled proudly. “That is a great question. If someone enters your home while the white button is engaged, just speak the words, ‘Ally disengage.’ What that will do is only excuse the one person. However, if there’s more than one person, you need to say, ‘Party disengage.’ When the door shuts, it will stop assessing invited guests.”
“Maybe I should write this down,” I mumbled, and began to stand up to grab a piece of paper.
“No. It’s not hard to remember. Never leave a vulnerability like that around. In the wrong hands, your own protection can become your worst enemy.” He handed me the box. “Let’s practice. I will step out. You hit the white button. I will go to attack you. Watch what happens.”
“And what will I do when you’re out cold on my floor from the snooze darts?”
Lee smirked. “I am prepared.”
I watched him leave and as soon as the door shut, I opened the box and hit the white button.
“Engaged,” a lovely female voice said. Fancy.
Lee knocked and I got up to answer the door. He stepped in, smiling, and waited until I shut the door. Neither of us spoke. He lifted his arms and went to strangle me. I flinched because that was just what I did these days, but it didn’t deter Lee. He had just gotten his hand on my neck when I heard two whistle sounds as darts shot out from I didn’t know where, hitting Lee in the arm, and would have hit his neck if he hadn’t dropped to the ground.
“Go hit the white button again,” Lee said as he laid on the floor, unmoving.
I did as he asked, then heard the female voice say, “Disengaged.” As I ran back over to him, he was removing the dart from his arm.
“I wear a special material under my clothes. The darts can’t penetrate. The darts will need to be replaced every week. I will come by and do that.” I nodded as he stood. “Now, go hit the white button again and when you open the door, say, ‘Ally disengage.’”
I did as I was told and this time, it went way differently, as in nothing happened. A half an hour later, Lee was gathering his things and bidding me farewell. I thanked him, but he didn’t acknowledge it.
I was in desperate need of a shower. I could still smell the hospital on me. I grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom, glad there were no cameras in there.
The cast on my arm was removable. It wasn’t for a broken arm, it was on because I’d sprained my wrist. Thank god, because I had to work at Joker’s Sin the next day and a cast would have Atlas showing me the door.
As I stood under the warm spray, I thought about Black. I was like gum on his shoe constantly. Suddenly, he gets wind that I was roughed up and he turned all terminator on me. Did he genuinely care or was he protecting his delivery boy? That was likely it. I ran all over the place delivering packages for Black. That was the agreement. When I had seen Mace and Bill kill a guy, I could’ve been next. Black saw something in me the day I had sat in his office. It was scary how he knew I wasn’t going to say anything. There hadn’t been too many deliveries, but they always needed to be dropped off way out of the way or in a weird place. I was sure there weren’t a lot of people who want to do grunt work or would do it without questions. I wasn’t the best choice, it was a lack of options sort of thing.
After my shower, I dressed in just pajama bottoms, brushed my teeth, and plopped on the couch. I didn’t have much, but I had my PS4, music, and now a kickass security system. I never shut the white button off, so I knew it was all engaged.
It was weird knowing at any time, Black could turn on the monitors and watch me, but it also made me feel safer.
It all slipped away as I began to play awkwardly since my wrist was sore. It was well past one in the morning when I shut the TV down and went to bed. I took some pain meds for my headache that had gotten worse from playing video games, drank some water, and passed out.