Code Junkie

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I am awake, but my eyes are closed.

No alarm assaults me. There is no warm body belonging to Sara next to me. I am not dreaming. I am awake and remotely aware of a distant throbbing in my head; not pain, no, just a simple awareness of alteration. Still in the world of darkness, under blankets, I raise my hand to my head and feel a recently showered head of hair. I feel a bump and the tender tissue of abuse, but I am not on the highway. I am not in the back of a car. I am not bleeding.

I bolt awake and am sitting in my bed, at home, alone. The clock says two pm. The stack of nurses' notes and health charts still sits on my end table. I feel like I did after I woke up from my two-month coma. I reach over and expect my bottle of medicine to be waiting for me. I remember that it was basically poison and causing me to lose time and memories. I also remember some fucker in a black suit is carrying it. What happened? Was it all a dream? Was this all a bad dream? Was Sara about to come in and tell me that the guys were coming over for a party this weekend? Fuck. Jerry?

I stand and run to the bathroom. I wash my face off in the sink and stare at myself in the mirror. The bags under my eyes and the distant pain on my skull let me know that the past wa

s real. Jerry was dead. He was dead because he was with me. I back into the wall and fall to the floor, breathing. There is one object on my person, in my pocket. Someone bathed me and changed me into my pajamas, but made sure that I had this in my possession: DCL-34.

"Kevin?"

I start and glance up.

"Mitch?"

Mitch is standing my bathroom doorway. He looks tired. He's in a dirty hoodie and jeans. He leans down and lifts me up. He leads me to the living room and sits down on the couch next to me. He has his hand on my shoulder.

"What... what day is it?" I ask him.

"You didn't miss any time. That was last night. I was there. I'm sorry."

"You were... you were with that... fucking crazy group—"

"Kevin, listen," he inhaled. "You know Deptford's a small place. The Conservation Society, they're... we're a close-knit group. They're not evil—"

"They murdered two people close to me. They're not evil? What the fuck, Mitch—"

"Kev, please," he looked like he was on the verge of tears. "Just bear with me. Tonight is the commencement of the County Fair, just come with us and we'll—"

"The. Mother-fucking. County. Fair. Are you jacking me, Mitch? The fucking Fair – who gives a flying fuck about the county fair? People are dead—"

He slaps me.

"Kevin, do you want it straight?"

"...Okay?"

"You're not going to walk away, touting 'bullshit'?"

"...No promises."

"There's a cycle in play. You would not directly know of it, but you do have extensive knowledge of it, locked up. We've had you on medicine forever, even before your accident. You're... an asshole, Kevin. You're too arrogant, free-thinking, and complacent to help us naturally. So the Elders have been having you drugged for years. High school therapy, your college psychiatrist, all of them. Your college doctor was a bit harder to swap out... that's exactly why you were a pain in the ass. You were never supposed to leave Deptford. That's a large component of why you were fired from your job.

"You still lived here, but you were always at risk of leaving for the big time. You're an excellent programmer, man. And we all know this. But you have... royal blood."