JAMES
It was the third week of March, or the second half on the calendar. Give or take.
Battered keys beat over paperwork crammed for a degree nobody actually gives a shit about. An ordinary Sunday on a hectic café where no one runs away from loaded guns at nightfall.
But that's when they came for us.
"Stupid! They might trace and kill you!"
Buzz coming from a serious circle of sophomores died down as they ogle Regina who's gripping her glass of lemonade on a chokehold.
"Regina. No one's dying," I replied, fixing my strewn eyeglasses and pouring on my encoded essay.
"Yes, you are, James!"
Looser now, her hold dissipated as she laid it down the center table. Pools of liquid trickled towards Kiko's hot surface. I brushed it away using Regina's unused tissue paper as she began to ramble and chew on Kuk Café's special panini, all the while a tall collegiate from the band of Regina's oglers peers over us before returning to the others, murmuring about a 'red book'.
"You mwean to say they can't twrack you? How do you think you can pwrotect you'self? Kikow's VPN?"
"Gin," I exhaled, nibbling at the insides of his lower lip as he traces his thoughts for a synonym of 'subjugate'. It's somehow hard to think with all the hubbub of a busy venue.
"No."
Gin's face spelled disbelief. She turned to the old man scanning the animated group in front of them with an important stare and rattled on.
"Oh, I see it now. Ywu want to gwreet Kamatayan you'self. Go on, thewnm," she said, furrowing her eyebrows up and down and went on to sip on her drink. "But have you been attending your classes?"
"Hardly," I confessed.
I have been lagging around university work for all my misadventures on and off campus with the Delphic club, but not that it's so much of a trouble. I'm actually doing well in class. Hadn't Regina been my closest friend since time immemorial, I would have left her to toil alone on this assignment which is due within an hour.
"See, that's why I told you not to go hanging around them!" Gin chided, about to jab me with her unfinished snack. I smirked.
Closely, she reprimanded me again, "You think leaking confidential information about high profile persons going to do you any better than working hard for your degree? What do you think wasting your talent for—,"
"Everybody knows that political clan is full of shit. How is exposing them for more shit going to make any difference?"
"Now you're talking! What's after, Superman? You're going to save the world?"
"Please. It wasn't for justice." I looked up from my screen, skimming over the important-looking customer hovering between a couple garbed in white. Student nurses, I suppose. The waitress delivered their orders after being tipped by a striking woman with a suitcase who rushed for exit. The man beckoned to the staff.
Teasingly, I turned to face Gin, "Seeing you like this, no doubt— It was for fun."
"I hate you."
"And we both know I fare best in cyber-security department, so—," I raised my index and pointed at yours truly, "—safe."
"Whatever, genius."
Regina rolled her eyes, probably done arguing. Kuk Cafe's head manager strutted towards the man, stoic and icy while the other party seemed to be in a deep query. Some guy fiddling with his pant's garter glanced at them. I shrugged, going back to my task.
Might be an unsatisfied consumer.
"Hey, Gin. Do you know another word for 'subjugate'?"
For the first time since our arrival, my escort was silent.
"Nevermind. Got it."
Oppress, I typed.
It was also the first time I heard her scream.
"This is a violation, Sir! You are not restraining me like this!"
I bolted up right as she was pinned face down on the center table by masked men. The band of sophomores raced for the door. Others got away; others chased by bullets.
Onlookers sat frozen on their seat. Some crying out to the violent men and documenting with their fished out gadgets were also restrained, while I was caught by a loaded gun pressed close to my chest.
"Don't move, dirty scum."
"What are—," I started to resist.
"I said, don't fucking move!" my captor's voice angry yet distant on my ears.
The nurses in clean white are now soaked with blood red. Shaking, the lady clutched her boyfriend's defaced nape while also tending to the waiter's leg wound. She yelled for the manager in a sea of bleeding anatomies. She's nowhere to be found.
"James, a'ight, buddy?"
Gin, once resistant, gaped at me dead in the eye. I turned around to face another man wearing a soiled mask which I suppose to be soaked with his filth. He brought out a black cloth and started stringing my head with it, my abductor keeping me from struggling against his posse.
"Oh? Hold up now, pretty boy," the other unknown assailant pored unto me with his snake-like stare while Gin's protests rang out once again.
"Easy, or we'll take it out on the lady," he hissed.
Slowly, Gin began to sob.
"Now, be a good sissy and not fret your cunt."
They resumed tugging at the blindfold with little constraint now, their complacent eyes heightened above hidden sneers.
Not too long after, I was engulfed with pitch black.
For what felt like weeks, it was all I've come to know, coupled with occasional bursts of inquisition from an automated machine.
Then, it stopped.
Straining to recall under a sudden interplay of light doesn't a good memory make, but I know what happened to us won't permit me be rested on a modern deco mattress laden with a silver tray full of exquisite cuisine, overlooking the entire city.
"Welcome to the suite, James."
Better yet, it would not make sense subsisting opposite to a strange woman seated on a lofty ottoman, several inches away from Regina holding a glass of wine in front of the metropolis' tallest high-rise.
"I see you've met Gem," the lady said, smiling.
