The Letter T

Seven

It was a hot day in the middle of the summer and wearing  gloves could attract unwanted attention. Of course it was better than showing her sign out right, but it was still dangerous. Just wearing gloves could get you killed in some places. This was one of them. They needed to find one of the safe houses that had sprung up with in the city's underground. She knew just the place: the basement  of a night club who's owner was sympathetic towards her people. She had been there before with her parents before they...

The thought was cut off by Drake voicing the same concern. " There are too many people out and we've already gotten stares. We can't stay out in public like this. If one of them gets too ancy and calls the guards then..." His voice trailed off before he could finish the thought.

He didn't need to. They both understood exactly what was at stake; they had seen the thousands of televised executions.

"I know a place in this district. It's safe as far as I know. A night club owned by a man named Targ. Let's us in through the back, no scanners. We can hide in the basement. Visited it once when I was a child. That was years ago though. It might not be safe anymore." She kept her words quiet and concise for fear of eavesdropping, that could get you killed just as easily as anything else.

She led the way through the twisted streets. This was one of the nicest city slums she had ever been in. The housing though small and cramped seemed to be structurally sound, which was unusual of places like this. As she approached the club which was on the outskirts of district D, she noticed that the districts seemed to bleed into each other rather than the stark line that seemed divide most districts of poorer and wealthier people. This was a strange place, one that didn't hold as much to the segregation between the classes, but one thing was certain. It was always certain; her kind was not welcome here.

They walked around a corner and the little club came into view. Despite it being the middle of they day, it was packed. They could hear the fast paced dance music, and almost smell the sweat. A large wooden billboard above showed that it catered to Ds and Ns. That was very unusual, normally the two classes didn't interact. But why not? This city was weird, maybe even better than any others she had been to.

They pressed themselves into the depths of a narrow alley very close to the club. Drake watched the streets around them cautiously, waiting  to see if anyone had noticed them duck quickly into the alley.

She had to admit she liked this place, just a little bit. Staying was of course completely out of the question; you either moved or died. However this place reminded her slightly of a childhood fantasy she had once had, a dream she had for some reason clung to. A perfect world, where nobody was hated. Where no one was less than anybody else. Where they all had the sign of N wether they were diseased, telekinetic or even royal. A perfect world, it was something she prayed for every night, but knew would never exist.

She snapped herself from her thoughts. She needed to concentrate. If the club was safe it would bear the sign of her people somewhere on the building. She would need to look closely because it wouldn't be obvious. It had to be somewhere normal humans  wouldn't notice it, somewhere slightly hidden, discrete. If the sign was too obvious, then the place would be discovered and its owner and all the employees would be executed.

She searched the walls for any marks, any graffiti that could discretely bear the feared capital T. The walls were clean. She searched the rest of the building's exterior with her eyes and came up with nothing. She was beginning to worry that the place was no longer a safe house, when the sign practically slapped her in the face. It was obvious, yet she was certain that no one who wasn't looking for it would ever notice it. 

The sign was literally in the buildings wooden sign its self. There was an extra metal cross beam just below the wood of the building's sign that intersected the vertical beam holding up it up. It formed a capital T, but anyone looking at it would just assume it was there for support.