The sunlight was slanting through the front window almost horizontally by the time Tristan pushed his long-since-cold drink aside and slid a thin tablet from its spot inside his bag. He muffled the sound of it against the table with two fingers and looked around automatically, trying to gauge whether or not anyone else in the cafe was looking at him.
Almost every face was still turned towards the windows, towards the rain. The buzz of conversation around him had climbed in intensity, brimming with anticipation and excitement. Nobody knew what to make of the weather, really, but at least it gave them something new to talk about.
And, to Tristan’s advantage, it provided a very effective distraction. He tapped the tablet’s power button and moved his fingers across the panel of shortcut keys that shimmered into existence on its screen. A box popped up with a note that read like any casual correspondence between workers in this part of the city.
He read it again and again, focusing on the timestamp in the corner. That was the time he was supposed to be here. His eyes shot to the time readout at the top of his screen. Two minutes now. His skin prickled with sweat.
“Do you want another?” The waitress rasped suddenly from behind him. He jumped as if she’d shouted, and she raised her hands defensively. “Woah, hey. Just asking.”
Tristan relaxed a bit, forcing an awkward smile. He had gripped the tablet so tightly that he’d accidentally turned it off. “Er, yeah. Yes, please.” He woke the screen back up with a tap and let out a slow breath as she walked away.
One minute.
A girl near the counter laughed loudly at something her companion must have said, and Tristan heard another voice ask about the rain. The low hiss of an industrial dishwasher started up in the back, adding a baseline to the hum of activity around him. It seemed insufferably loud as he waited.
Thirty seconds.
Swallowing nervously, Tristan leaned back in his chair with his hands splayed across the screen of his tablet. He had to fight the urge to stare at all the people surrounding him, to search each face for some sign of fear. He desperately wished to know which of these strangers was risking their lives with him tonight.
Who was it? And why? He knew that these things worked only because of the anonymity, but he still felt a deep sense of bewilderment that anyone would put themselves at risk of so much, for someone they didn’t even know. He often wondered whether or not he would do the same if the roles had been reversed.
Fifteen seconds.
He focused on the scents now. The smell of bodies, the recycled air, the weakly brewed coffee cut with chicory root, and the heady, foreign smell of the rain drifting in each time the door was opened. They jostled for his attention with each breath.
Ten… He smelled the chemicals wafting from the dirty mop bucket by the door. Nine… The offputting smell of sickness and perfume that blew at him as the waitress approached with his refill.
Five… She looked at him with borderline disgust as she plunked the cup down and picked up the empty one. He tried to smile in thanks but his eyes were glued to the tablet’s clock. Two… The waitress hurried off.
A soft buzzing from the tablet nearly made him jump again. His heart was pounding as if he had just run up a flight of stairs, and he could smell his own sweat.
The vibration meant he had received the file right on time. Hardly daring to believe it, he gulped down half his drink in two gulps (hot this time, to his surprise), and shoved the tablet back into his bag.
He was shaking all over now, almost losing control entirely. He kept having to reel his senses back in. He counted his breaths and took his third sip more slowly. Staying calm was more important than ever now, and he did not intend to blow everything by getting too excited. When he had wrestled the nerves down, he felt a new, unfamiliar emotion seeping up in its place. It was eagerness and- in spite of himself- hope.
The file that had just been passed to him by whatever stranger had dared to take the risk contained information that, with any luck, would help him find his family at last. Or at least what remained of them. The idea that he might finally see any of them again was something he hadn’t dared consider before. Now, he allowed himself that hope at last. Just a little… But it was enough.
He tried to relax into the seat, taking another slow sip and smiling a little in spite of himself. To disguise the odd smile he needed only turn towards the window, towards the rain. The window was hard to see out of now, especially as twilight stretched the shadows and dampened the already cloudy sunset through the wet glass.
Figures moved outside in the rain more and more as the day shifts ended. People, vehicles, lights began to swirl about behind the sheets of rain. Tristan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so content. Even the bad coffee felt comforting.
The urge to rush out the door and to a place where he could safely check the file faded as he gazed out at the darkening street. Something about the rain, he guessed. It made him want to stay and stare.
Until the front door slammed open. Two cops, armored from head to toe, barely visible behind their head-height riot shields, burst into the cafe. There was an amazingly long moment of silence, and then everything fell to chaos. The customers in the cafe began to flood out the back door, completely disregarding the “FIRE EXIT ONLY” sign and the alarm that blared as soon as the first person pushed out.
Tristan shot to his feet and grabbed his bag, doing his best to melt into the crowd and feeling extremely thankful for the seat he had chosen when he’d first come in.
“EVERYONE FREEZE!” One of the cops shouted. His gun was drawn now, and those closest to him, cut off by the front counter, had no choice but to comply. An older gentleman was shoved to his knees by the second officer, and Tristan guiltily turned away and continued towards the back door. As he reached it he heard a short scream and turned back again just in time to see the officers had donned gas masks and tossed something out onto the floor.
The waitress was one of the people pinned between the officers and the counter, with nowhere to go. Her arms were up and her eyes rolled with fear, lighting on Tristan’s for a moment before darting back to the gun in her face. He shoved through the door and stumbled out into the crowded back alley where the cafe patrons were now scattering like roaches.
The rain made the ground slippery and Tristan nearly toppled over as he skidded to a stop outside the back door, squeezed between the mass of bodies still shoving their way through the door. He turned to the left, balance regained as he slipped out of the crushing line, and sprinted away as fast as he could. He had barely made it to the end of the alley when a percussive thud shook the ground under his feet.
This time, he did fall. He landed hard, clutching the bag to his chest too furiously to break his own fall. A hot wind blew the rain away for a moment and he looked over his shoulder to see black, smoking ruins where the cafe had stood seconds before. It, and the buildings which flanked it on the left and the right, were engulfed in flames.
He gaped at it for a moment, shock rolling over him in waves as the rain and the fire combined to throw out stinking, oily smoke in massive plumes.
Tears sprung to his eyes. Not tears of anger or sadness, he was embarrassed to find, but tears of relief. No doubt that bomb had been meant for two people in that place: Whoever had dropped the file onto his tablet, and Tristan himself. He of course felt the familiar rage at the amount of collateral damage the Powers That Be were willing to cause, but more than that he was just sickeningly, giddily happy that he had somehow managed the luck to scramble out in time.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He was new to this level of risk, where it seemed his life had been shrunk to such minimal importance that it could be batted aside thoughtlessly at any moment. This was his brother’s territory, not his. He had been passed the torch and had taken it proudly if not confidently, but my god, the reality of this risk was new. And it shook him to the core.
He got unsteadily to his feet, the whole front of him soaking wet, and turned out of the alley and towards home. He could dwell on the questions of whether or not the deaths of all those people were his fault later. Now was not the time to philosophize. He focused on his feet, which felt oddly numb. One step. Two. Three.
The smell of smoke was already tainting the air and— he shuddered— under it the faint smell of burnt hair and a cooked-meat smell he could only assume was smoldering flesh. He felt ill, and again silently cursed his preternatural senses. Sirens began to wail in the distance as he pushed on.
It occurred to him as he neared the grey slab of a building that housed his flat that perhaps the waitress had been the connection back there. He thought of her face, trying to remember if there had been any fear in her features. There hadn’t, but his stomach sank as he realized that someone without long to live was exactly the sort of someone who would risk their life to help a stranger just to exact a little bit of revenge. And hadn’t his tablet pinged just as she had left his table? No, he couldn’t think of that now.
He looked up, surprised to find that he’d already walked the six blocks home and made it to the door. He couldn’t quite remember any of the walking, he had been so lost in thought. Possibly in shock, he told himself, taking a deep breath.
The heavy security door buzzed as he swiped his wrist across the keypad set into its center. He squeezed through as it swung open and again waved his wrist at the next door. It beeped but didn’t open on its own. Tristan shoved his shoulder against it and pushed it open manually, grunting with effort.
He was absolutely drenched from head to foot now, and when he stepped inside out of the rain he became suddenly aware that he was freezing. He tried to slick some of the excess water from his hair and clothes and gave his bag a good shake before heading down the entryway hall towards a set of very large, very old looking elevators.
The cheap laminate flooring was slippery enough to make him walk in short, shuffling steps that he probably would have found comical in any other circumstance. He’d had enough falling on his ass for one day.
“Byrne, K,” he spoke into a speaker between the elevator doors, holding his wrist up once more. A loud rumbling told him the elevator to the right was on its way and he stepped right, shaking all over now. Shock, he thought again.
There was a small, deep-set window on either side of the entry and he could just make out a ribbon of dark smoke through the one on the left, though through the rivulets of rain on the glass it looked surreal and dreamy.
The elevator doors slid open and Tristan climbed in, hugging his bag so hard that his arms were starting to ache from it. The cozy contentedness he had been feeling just a half hour ago seemed like another life; a happy daydream totally separate from the harsh reality he lived in.
Instead of hope, he now felt only terror when his mind strayed to the file waiting on his tablet. He almost wished he hadn’t gotten involved with any of this. What had he been thinking? And what had Cody been thinking?
The door to his flat had never looked so appealing. He stumbled towards it, numb with cold, and whacked his wrist on the knob in his frenzied attempts to scan the key. The lock clicked open and he yanked the door open, snagging on the warped floor panel as it always did.
Tristan dropped his bag at last, right on the floor, and made his way to the bathroom to change into dry clothes. He felt sick and didn’t know if it was from fear, from the thought of all those cafe people in ashes, or just from the cold.
Either way his mind was spinning out into a dissociative blankness, and he knew he was near the point of passing out. Dressing quickly in some dry pants and a too-big shirt, he kicked his bag under the bed and collapsed onto the sheets into a deep and dreamless sleep. His last waking thought lingered on the distant sirens. Was it the fire crew, or an ambulance?
Did anyone inside survive?
By the time he woke up again, the rain had stopped. The first thing he noticed in his haze of semi-consciousness was that te high-pitched whine of sirens still continued. They were far off now, but insistent, and though some base self-preservation instinct bade him stay in the blank cloud of sleep, he found the sound soon pulling him out. Slowly, memory of the previous evening’s events trickled back in.
The face of the waitress swam behind his eyes. Then the explosion. The grey plumes of smoke drifting up into the lighter grey sky. His backpack, innocent enough on the outside but now containing a file so dangerous it had gotten a whole building full of people killed.
The file! Tristan bolted to his feet, his head spinning for a moment at the sudden movement, and frantically spun around in place as he tried to remember where he’d set his bag. It was there, though, laying on the floor. Vaguely he recalled letting it slip from his shoulders when he came home.
“Shit,” he murmured. He kneeled beside the bag and pulled the tablet out, giving it a cursory once-over to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in all the commotion and running around last night. It looked fine, but the power button didn’t work when he pressed it. He felt icy with fear then immediately relieved. “It’s dead, you idiot.”
The moment of terror had flooded his system with just enough adrenaline to bring a wave of nausea. He walked to the small, deep window on the southern side of his flat and set the tablet down on its dock. He tweaked it to better face the sun, adjusting the angle to account for the fact that the southeastern corner of the building would hide the bulk of the sunshine for another hour or two yet.
Still he found himself clenching his teeth as he waited for the charging light to flick on. It did without delay, and Tristan sighed. He went to the kitchen to make some tea while he waited for it to charge.
He had just settled down with his mug and a piece of bread he told himself he had to eat when his watch buzzed. Just a phone call. He hesitated, but thought that not answering might be even more suspicious than the current state of his face. He steeled himself, setting the mug down and balancing the bread on top.
A quick search yielded his glasses on the floor beside the bed. He slipped them on, schooled his features into a less terrified expression, and answered the call with a tap.
“Tristan!” A coworker that was somewhere firmly in the grey area between real friend and obligatory work friend appeared, his face filling most of Tristan’s vision for a moment.
“AJ, back up. I can see up your nose,” Tristan said, trying for the easy humor that he normally had at work.
“Tristan!” AJ shouted again. He pulled back slightly, and Tristan could see their shared office suite in the background. But AJ, far from the calm and care-free expression he usually wore, looked stressed. Tristan sat up straighter.
“Jay, what’s up?”
“Tristan, I don’t know what the fuck is going on but, there’s people here at the office looking for you. Everyone on the main floor is in uproar. They haven’t made it up here yet but, man, I have to ask, is this about your brother?”
Tristan’s stomach tightened with fear again. He was suddenly grateful he hadn’t yet eaten any of the bread. He blocked the camera with a thumb and found himself near gasping for air. “Jay… look. I know you don’t know me very well, and I know you have absolutely no reason to do anything for me but, please for the love of God, when they come upstairs, don’t tell them you talked to me. Don’t talk about my brother. Jay, don’t-” He was cut off by the sound of a knock on the other end. He dug his fingers into the arms of his chair, panting outright now. Ajay’s camera went black.
“Jay!” Tristan whispered. He could still here the mic feed from the office. Whether or not it was intentional, Ajay had killed the camera but left the call on.
“Mr. Mills?” A new voice came over the tiny speakers built into his glasses.
“That’s me,” Ajay replied. He sounded tense but not frightened. Tristan began to tremble.
“We won’t take up much of your time. We are here investigating an attack that occurred at a cafe in the city center last night. Are you aware of that attack?”
“N-no,” Ajay stuttered. “Well, yes. I heard that there was a bomb, on the newsfeed this morning.”
“Wasn’t a bomb.” A third voice responded simply. “But that’s why we’re here.”
“You work on this floor, correct?” The first voice asked.
“Yes. Myself and three others. Document security.”
“Are you familiar with Cody Byrne?”
“Uh, I work with a… Tristan Byrne. He sits over there.” Tristan felt gratitude wash over him. He silently promised himself that he would do something nice—something very nice— for Ajay if he ever saw him again.
“Tristan…” The second voice repeated. He seemed to be mulling over the name in a way that chilled Tristan to the bone. Like he was memorizing it. Or like he had heard it before. There was a moment of silence in which Tristan held his breath.
Ajay finally broke the silence. He cleared his throat. “Do you gentlemen need anything else from me?”
“No,” the second voice said slowly.
“No,” repeated the first voice. “We don’t. Sorry to have bothered you. You have a nice day. Enjoy this weird weather, huh?” The sudden bright levity in the voice sounded incredibly fake. There was a click as the door closed, and seconds later the camera came back on. Ajay was sitting at his desk now, peering solemnly into the camera.
“Who the hell… They didn’t even introduce themselves. Cops? Fucking FBI? Why are they asking about Cody? Tristan, what the fuck is going on?!”
Tristan rubbed his hand across his mouth and sighed. Outside, he heard the rain start again. His head was beginning to throb.