The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter twenty-six

I rushed through my debriefing process as fast as possible.

  The man who was helping me had given me a fat packet, and a golden rule.

  “No sex until you are twenty.”

  I had said yes only to satisfy the man as well as hurry things along, but there was a weird feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t shake.

  He continued by explaining where my apartment was, and how Cyrus had requested one bed instead of two. When I told him that I had no objections, I stepped outside, in a rush to get to Cyrus.

  I didn’t know what I would do first, hug him, or scream at him for taking us to the Society.

  Quickly, I picked up on the organization of the buildings, and I found myself running. Mostly, I was running because it felt so good to have a functioning leg.

  Just the other day I had thought I was going to die. I had little faith that I would survive, and even if I did, there was no chance of any motor functions in my leg. But in contradiction to my beliefs, I was now running down a street in the Society, and very much alive.

  Every once and a while, I would have to wait at a curb until the bikers had cleared. There seemed to always be a steady flow of them, always knowing where they were going.

  While waiting at another curb for a gap in the crowd, one of the bikers biking past had seen me. I wasn’t hiding, and of course I didn’t need to. But, upon seeing me, the man on the bike had screeched to a halt, and backed up.

  At first, I didn’t recognize him. It had been years since I had seen him. But it only took a second for me to identify those vividly green eyes. That black shiny hair.

  “Brother?” I whispered.

  It felt strange to be addressing people like this again, I was so used to calling people by names.

  I looked into my brother’s eyes as his suspicion had been confirmed. Indeed, I was his sister.

  “Sister.” he breathed.

  With no time to spare, he tightly embraced me.

  Unlike my relationship with my parents, my brother and I were inseparable. Even though the last time I had seen him was when I was nine, and when we lived together I was only six, I remembered every moment with him.

  When we pulled away, I took in his face. He had aged so much. Not only had his voice dropped a couple octaves, but he was extremely tall. Maybe 6’0”. It was hard to believe the last time I saw him he was only 5’8”.

  “How was your Journey?” he asked.

  I laughed. He didn’t know the half of it. “It’s complicated to explain, Brother.”

  “Nothing is too complicated for me.” he countered. “We should definitely meet Saturday on my free block. We can catch up. I’ve missed you terribly.”

  “Yes, we should! I’ve missed you so much as well.”

  Without my consent, or even a warning, he pulled something from his pocket and grabbed my hand. He pressed my index finger onto a screen that was most likely one square inch. Once I pulled away my finger, I saw that the screen was extremely thin and aerodynamic.

  When I gave him a perplexed look he said, “This is a Finder. It’ll let me be able to contact you in your home. Now I have access to any of your files.”

  He tapped something on the screen. “Building thirty-eight, apartment 33J?”

  He grinned widely.

  “Cool! When can I get one of those?” I joked.

  “Probably never.”

  “Why not?”

  “Only people with my job can have one of these.” he explained.

  As if this was obvious, I nodded my head.

  “Well I have to get going. You know, got to stay on schedule.”

  He climbed onto his bicycle, and rung the bell. “I will see you on Saturday, Sister.”

  I didn’t say anything, and I just waved at him as he disappeared into the mass of bikes.

  It took me a moment to even believe that I had seen my brother.

  I returned to waiting on that curb for a gap large enough to walk through. Finally, a gap came, and I crossed the street, still feeling as if the past moments were a dream.

  Who would I be seeing next, then? Mother? Father?

  To be frank, I didn’t want to see them. After my stay with Cyrus, I had lost a lot of respect for them.

  Looking up, I saw that I was just passing building thirty-two.

  Would Cyrus be waiting for me at the apartment? I hoped so.

  Seeing Cyrus would be even better than seeing my own brother. Seeing Cyrus would be happiness itself.

  Time seemed to pass slowly as I walked by the last six buildings, but soon enough, there it was. Building number thirty-eight.

  As I stood by the elevator doors, I noticed the rugs with the HQ seal on it. Suddenly the symbol didn’t fill me with pride, but with disgust. My stomach flipped.

  When the elevator arrived, I pressed the button for the tenth floor and waited impatiently for the doors to slide open once more. When they did, they revealed a small hallway with red carpeting and pale yellow walls. Engraved into the wall were small little curly-cue’s and flowers. Fancy.

  33J was only the second door on the right. I didn’t hesitate to swing open the door and dash inside.

  I was too busy searching for Cyrus to even care about the five-star kitchen, or the giant screen that hung on the wall in front of a squishy couch. I didn’t even care about the small little hot chocolate/ coffee maker that sat on the counter.

  All I cared about was seeing Cyrus’s face.

  “Cyrus!” I screamed, not even caring if the neighbors heard.