For a moment, Adam heard a distant wailing.
Must be the wind, he thought. Maybe it groans between the towers when you are this high. He stepped into the living room as Vera walked past him to lock the door, making a hollow click sound each time she turned the key. Her perfume's oversweet smell induced a lasting disgust as if the typical odor of older people it tried to mask had changed its fragrance into something foul.
Vera had been jittery, almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown, when she met him by the emergency exit. Now, in her apartment (the only one occupied on that floor), with Nordic minimalist furniture and interior design influenced by Japanese decoration, she seemed more serene, in control.
Uncomfortable to touch anything, let alone sit down, Adam felt the place looked more like a photo shoot set than somewhere you want to live in. There was a beech coffee table near a snowy sofa—two ikebana floral arrangements on both sides of a large shadeless window. Three floating bookshelves with a few adornments next to a 65-inch 4K TV mounted on a wall. And on its screen, the same corrupted video that had infected his computer.
The sight of this weakened his already tired legs; he perched on the right arm of the sofa. He expected Vera to sit by his side, but she remained standing, piercing him with her gaze.
"Is this worth an Emmy or what?" she said, pointing at the television with her thumb.
"Jesus Christ, it is real!"
"Would you have preferred it wasn't?"
"Not sure."
If he hadn't imagined the video, it meant he still had most of his marbles accounted for. But knowing that recording existed opened a whole new can of alien millipedes.
"It's only bits and pieces of the whole thing, however. I haven't been able to fix it." She glanced at the screen, paused it, and turned to him. "Who sent it to you?"
Adam took a moment to reply. He had a closer grip on reality now, and he didn't want to lose it by saying something insane out loud like, 'My dead girlfriend emailed me that file.'
"Evi."
"Yeah. Me too."
He sat bolt upright. "And you say it just like that?"
"Why? What's so weird about it?" Her face, thick with wrinkles, tilted to one side. "Let's not waste time on nonsense. How deep are your pockets?"
"I didn't come here to compare credit scores."
"This has always been about money. We handed over the country for thirty silver coins."
Adam looked around at the beautiful white walls and the kind of furniture that requires several months of the minimum wage as a down payment.
"Yours must be deeper than mine. Why is that important?"
"Well, you look homeless. No offense. And I need to know if you will be another boulder on my back."
"Someone robbed me, okay? Everything I had."
"Great," she rolled her eyes.
"I do have a few K's on my PayPal account."
"That's better." She moved to the window and leaned on it. With the bright blue sky behind her, it became impossible to make out anything but her looming silhouette. "Since our mutual friend is a stripper, and you were crashing at her place, I assumed you were beyond broke."
"I am broken," he joked, showing her his bruises and scratches.
"Dad jokes..."
"Are bad jokes," they both finished the sentence together. Santiago would often say that when Adam tried one of his infamous puns.
For a good while, neither said anything. Is she deciding whether to trust me? Because of the intense sunlight coming through the window, he couldn't read her facial expressions. She hasn't taken her eyes off me since I walked in. Unbelievable! He crossed his legs and relaxed his shoulders to appear less edgy. I should be the one worried.
Their silence turned stranger with every passing second until that same muffled wailing from before came back.
"What's that sound?" he asked.
"The Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Funny! Is he haunting you because of your lack of snowmen figures in December?"
"Have got to get my Zen where I can," she explained. "Is it a crime to have a nice place?"
"No." He didn't feel like small talk anymore. "But some may not be as open-minded as me."
"Is that so?"
"I heard someone crying," he dropped his voice, making it more menacing somehow. "Who's the person in the other room?"
"We are the only people in this apartment."
Even though he still couldn't see her reaction, Adam had the impression she expected that question. Then why is she pretending we are too old friends catching up? He thought of asking her that but changed his mind at the last second.
"No," she moved forward. "Say it."
"Fine. You are here hiding in your ivory tower, literally, while our former employees dragged the country in front of a gigantic fan to make sure the shit storm we unleashed fell on every corner of the map."
"Don't be a hypocrite. You've been ghosting everyone. Even your relatives, from what I've been told."
"That's... not fair." He sank deeper into the sofa.
"At least I got my family out."
"That is my plan too. They are moving before new years."
She arched an eyebrow. "You convinced your grandma to leave her house?"
He shook his head. "No, her stuff owns her as much as she owns her stuff."
"If your grandmother is not..." She raised her arms in frustration. "I can't trust you when you say crazy shit."
There was a sudden cry of anguish coming from the bathroom, much louder than before. They both froze and listened hard until it ceased.
It sounds like a man in deep pain or grief.
"You cannot trust me?" Adam leaped to his feet. "What that hell is that? Who's in there?" An urge to find something to defend himself with overcame him. "You are one of them! This is a trap!" He headed toward the door. "Let me out!"
"No!" She shouted, her face stony and blank. "I..." Her lips shook as she struggled to speak. "We are the same, you and I. You've seen them too. Something's wrong. When we worked for Rafael, we did nasty shit, but this is worse than we could have ever imagined." She took a deep breath. "Things are living in our brains, things that are not from earth."
"What are you saying?" he mumbled.
"It will be easier to show you."
To be continued...