A MAN WITH NO HOME
Tell me, sweet stranger, do you know the story of Normant Lumensky, the man from a mystical land universes away from Earth? Making an ark out of his chains, he turns from a prisoner of war into a fugitive.
A WOMAN AGAINST THE WOR...
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23 July 2018
JASMINE PLANNED WITH CARE, but when the time came to execute the plans she had spent days working on, she turned feral. All morning I watched her calling reporters she had partnered with a long time ago, back when she had just started forming the plan of taking down Pioneers; back when everything had been a wild dream, a shot in the dark, not something real, something we could touch.
It was still only seven a.m., but today was the day and sleep was a luxury we could not afford. We had been up since before dawn. We had not gotten four hours of sleep before we had started pacing back and forth in the small hotel room, making phone calls, getting ready. I wrote everything down in the journal I kept with me—things of importance and stupid fear—so that I would not go crazy, so that I could fill up my time with meaningless shit in order to ignore the urgency of this mission. It did not work.
I opened the window. Warm air washed over my skin and a cacophony of construction noise came in. I closed it again.
"You've made it to Greece, right?" Jasmine asked the reporter she was talking with. I leaned against the wall and watched her write something down on a piece of paper. "Great. Make sure you are there on time. And make sure to stay in your car."
She hung up the phone, flashing me a smile. I wanted to help. I wanted to do something, not stand there like an impotent fool. But Jasmine was better at diplomacy than me, and so I went to buy us coffees instead. Coffees and a few other—illicit—things we would need. When I returned, she was still on the phone.
"I want everything to go viral. I want the video to make it to the television and on every social media platform at three in the evening sharp," she whispered in the old Nokia phone she used for protection. "Not a minute earlier. Not a minute later. Have I made myself clear?"
On and on she went, leaving rambling message after rambling message, order after order. She called Austin, told him to make sure there were enough police forces outside every Pioneers office. She ended the call with words of encouragement, telling him that we would make it, that everything would be executed according to plan, which was an alarming promise in itself because whenever people were sure of their success, they ended up failing. Then, she called Christine to ask her how everything was going at Clairvoyant's office today. I did not get to hear the reply. It was my turn to talk on the phone.
"How's everything going, Mr. Starkey?" Clairvoyant asked, her voice cold, almost uninterested.
Fidgeting with my cigarette, I replied, "Everything is going according to plan. We'll be having constant video calls once the project begins to see it for yourself. I—"
She cut me off. "Don't bother. I need you focused. I'll send someone else to watch over you and Mrs. Nicholson."
Fuck. But since I could not show my frustration, I only said, "As you wish, ma'am."
