The Moxy Byrd

Chapter 1

May 6th, 2043 5:30

5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Tony's pager went off. Groaning, he rolled over to look at it. Code 15; he was getting called in to work. He gave an exasperated sigh and sat up. One of the EMTs must have called off again. Stretching deeply, he cursed Monique for suggesting he get an EMT license. Like being a nurse didn't keep me busy enough.

"Fifty cents more an hour, but when am I ever gonna have time to spend it?" he muttered as he stood up. He yawned and stretched again before taking a glance at himself in the mirror. He grimaced. Nothing but boxers apparently only looked good on models. Or maybe he was just too skinny. Man, I really ought to put on some weight. At just over six-foot and weighing at most a hundred and fifty pounds, he was basically a lanky skeleton wrapped in tattoos.

He groped around his room for his glasses. Not finding them on his dresser, he staggered over to his desk. A random shirt wrapped around his foot, and he nearly toppled over. There was a moment when he thought he was definitely going to face plant into the wall. Instead, he managed to only stub his toe on his dresser. His yelp woke his mom.

"Why're you up, Tony?" his mom called from her bedroom. Her voice was muffled by blankets.

"Sorry, mom. Just got paged, gotta go to work," Tony said, finally finding his glasses under the burger wrapper left over from his dinner last night.

"That's ridiculous, Sweetie. Call them and tell them you just worked a double." Her voice now clear, Tony knew that she was sitting up, ready to call his boss for him.

"It's fine, Mom. Not like I got anything to do today anyhow," he shouted back, hoping to evade the flood of nagging that could come at any moment. "Love you! See you tonight," he quickly added, hopping around as he hurriedly put on a pair of jeans.

"Didn't you and Yuna have plans?"

Tony flinched. Yuna. He'd forgotten that he was supposed to take her to brunch. She was going to be angry, but what was he supposed to do? He couldn't just say no to work. They needed him. Digging through a mass of hip-hop magazines and comics, he found his cell phone. As he slipped on his sneakers, he quickly typed out, "Gotta work today. I know. I suck. Sorry. I'll try to get off early. Just don't be too mad." He slid the phone into his pocket and headed into the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat.

"Bye, Mom. Love you."

"Love you, too, Sweetie."

Not surprisingly, his seventy-year-old grandmother was already awake, sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. She looked up as he walked in and smiled warmly. "Good morning, little puppy," she said.

"Morning, Halmoni. Any good news?" he asked in halting Korean. His grandmother, who actually spoke decent English, had refused to speak to him in anything other than Korean since she'd moved in nineteen years ago.

"Doesn't seem like it. Why are you up so early?" She stood and walked to the fridge. Opening it, she began pulling out plate after plate of Korean side dishes. "Here, let me get you breakfast."

"Thanks, Halmoni, but I..." He paused, grasping for words. "Late. Just cereal."

"That's not real food, you know," she grumbled, shuffling the contents of the fridge around as she tried to stuff the banchan back into their places.

"I know, but I don't... time." He gave up on the sentence as he reached up and pulled a box of generic cereal from the top cabinet.

"Your Korean seems to be getting worse," she said, sitting back down with a loud sigh. She picked up her coffee mug and looked at him pointedly.