Copy That

Chapter 3

                 Where the light glows from royal blue to fiery red.

                                                   xxx

I didn't buy him bananas. He deserved it after cheating on me by recording my discussions with him on his phone. Impressive but prickly deceiving.

After lashing a few words of wisdom on him that involved a lot of swatting and curses, I forced him to buy me a treat, some sort of peace offering as I call it. In our early days as partners, we had this argument where it led to a little agreement where someone will forcibly get someone a treat after he/she committed a fault on him/her, and there's no chance of escaping when one of us is even asking for it because whether we want to lengthen the tension between us or not, the choice always lands on the second. So, that may halfly mean when one of us is asking for a treat, one of us may have already forgiven the sin committed by a person to him/her but not just yet, until the offering was given.

After protests and rolling eyes were bombed off, we left the office and we're on our way outside the massive building of Exana headquarters. Might take five minutes of our time on the way out and then we're clear. I didn't think comprehensively that a lot could've happened between the prescribed time. Well, maybe I hadn't given it a second thought.

We passed a lot of people wearing their most casual of their clothes, because that's how we disguise ourselves in this society. My eyes travelled to the people we passed by. Most of them are drawn in their systems and talking to their bugs, some of them are just chatting about average things, like pizzas and relationships.

I saw a teen flashing someone her newly tattooed trademark of Exana, a letter X that was being revolved by a circle. She set her index finger lightly on it. It emerged in a royal blue shade of light at the surreptitious back of her right ear, the required spot of where to put the concealed mark. All of us were demanded in Exana to have the invisible mark, where they could keep track of our identity and to secretly showcase ties between fellow workers.

I got mine a year ago, where I had hit the required age of obtaining it. I was a bit giddy because after Blythe received hers when I was still ten, I would crawl behind her back and touch the invisible mark at the back of her ear until she would feel ticklish and the heat coming from the blue light would warm her ears up.

We use the tattoo when we enter the premises of Exana by standing in front of the security door and let the scanner detect the mark. Sometimes, when we meet with other relatives or people coming from the other half of the globe, in order to recognize ourselves, we would just sneakily touch the flesh behind our right ear and then after that, we're secured and clear to each other.

That was the advantage of the mark. It was thrilling and we could easily identify who's who and who we can trust by the single caress of our fingers.

And, the disadvantages? Were a lot.

We are prohibited to tie our hair up in public. We're not allowed to show the mark or, let us or someone touch the tattoo to the outsiders. Considerations were also given like we could tuck our hair behind our ear or we could wear a head accessory that would cover up the area. When I received mine, I was really upset about the rules because I used to tie up my hair all the time when I was a kid.

 I break the rules at times when the area is not that surrounded by a mob of people, especially when I play tennis, where I would start playing at the first streak of sunlight in the morning. The only safe place I was allowed to tie or bun my hair up is inside the Exana premises, which is, you would guess, pretty grunge.

That's why you would spot my dull black hair always streaming in the front of my chest and it would be a miracle if you would find it flowing in my back. Or maybe there would be a time where I don't really notice it.