The Leaf

Alarm

Raymond

Claire Wesley had her mouth too close to traitorous body parts not to notice her husband wanted her. She did not insist, in a subdued silence punctuated only by deep breaths. She tensed in Raymond's embrace.

"I'm... going to the bathroom," she ended his torture. He let go of her.

Claire got out of the bed, wrapping herself in a black silk robe that matched the nightgown she had on, thin straps holding the almost transparent fabric together. Still transparent, even after a new layer, showing off firm legs all their way up to a matching set of underwear. Small and useless.

Raymond could see in conditions most pre-modern humans would be blind in, it was why he saw her feel her way on the table to take her phone with her. Another consequence of Raymond being an enhanced human was that he could hear through the door the frantic press of three keys, betrayed by the rudimentary technology beeping to alert of keypad input.

911, the current national emergency number.  

Raymond raced to stop his wife from causing a time altering incident. There had never been a call to 911 from the Wesley home, not once in all their decades together. It would trigger an alert to the bureau, probably their agents were already being ordered to solve the crisis. Raymond's rebellion would be the shortest in refactored history.

Claire had locked herself in the bathroom, and although he could easily get past the door, he decided against terrifying his only ally. In order for his plan to work, Raymond needed her cooperation, but would not engage in behaviors that would deem him unworthy of the new life he had obtained. He would not force her to help him, and he would not lie.

"Please, put the phone down," he used his own voice, hoarser. He had a suspicion that his predecessor in the art of begging Claire for patience had used his charms too often on his wife, and she was now immune to them. Maybe even afraid of the lies beneath.

"Who... are... you?!" 

The voice sounded strange, climbing a new octave at the end of each word. The one thing Raymond could not prepare for when embarking on his mission was the low tone Claire Wesley used. The laziness that kept her thin lips as close to a line as possible, her voice calm. Not anymore.

She was terrified, and that alone could cause a clerk to check the logs. A police crew showing up at the house? Definite level three alarm. All those enforcement officers, their History Logs inconsistent. 

"Please, listen to me! Just close that call", he said over the operator issuing a standard perfunctory greeting.

"Where's Tony?" she asked, not bothering to state her emergency.

Not caring if he could be heard through the phone, he was already too far gone, Raymond went with the truth.

"I killed him."

After a second of absolute silence, Claire answered the phone's increasingly desperate attempts to get her attention.

"Yes, there's been a mistake," she laughed, not a trace of fear in her voice. "My husband pulled a prank on me, and I got scared. Please don't send anyone. I mean, send them if that's the protocol, but I would hate to keep you from actual emergencies. Please know that I have never -- and would never -- call you if I didn't actually think I was in danger. It's this YouTube thing..." she played embarrassed with ease.

After closing the call, neither she nor Raymond moved. They were more comfortable with a door separating them.

All the AI programs on which Raymond tested the possibility of him telling the truth to Claire Wesley had agreed on one thing: she would never be convinced he was from the future. She loved her husband, The Evaluators said, so she would never side with his killer. Never tell her, was the consensus.

Raymond disagreed. He knew it when he saw Tony Wesley on a millennia-old video: his body stiff with anger, although the conversation with his wife seemed benign. He and Claire hated each other -- Raymond knew how he himself looked when annoyed. He could easily recognize it on his clone. Wesley had hidden his temper well, but if The Blackout hadn't happened Raymond was convinced that there would be traces of verbal abuse. No sound on the logs meant their rapport remained unchecked.

All in, Raymond was the first to break the silence.

Claire

"Please, we have to get back into bed and talk there."

The lunatic that somehow was a copy of Tony had managed to break Claire's mind. Sobriety was rough on her. Clearly, it was all a hallucination.

"I'll answer anything you want to know, in full honesty, but we need to lie down. We need to be on opposite sides of the bed and spend the night like that. Please," he begged. It was Tony's voice when pretending to be honest.

Knowing she should be more afraid, Claire still had some strength inside of her, derived from the many times she felt cornered and escaped by pretending not to be in danger.

Whatever it was, it would be the end of her anyway, so why bother trying to stop it.

She opened the door, light pouring on Tony's features, arranged the same, yet he could not be more different. It was so obvious on her face that the stranger put out his arm in defense, convinced she was going to hit him.

On the floor, supported by the wall, he did not look threatening: his eyes focused to read what she was thinking.

"I need a drink," she told him exactly what.

Claire rushed on the path she knew so well: a descent with her hand gripping metallic rails downstairs to the well-maintained bar, despite her less than respectable habits. No one had ever said anything to her about her drinking, not even the maid who had to remove empty vodka bottles from under the bed every morning. Tony only commented on it after she got drunk at his work party.

The man followed her, not in a hurry, but with a desperation that made his frown intense. Dark coals went over her as if extracting vital information to control her. At the bottom of the staircase, he stopped, waiting for her to make a move. Claire hesitated in front of the cabinet that helped her dilute so many lonely nights. She crossed her arms to better protect herself from his stare.

"Please don't drink because of me," he said, as if concerned.

The locked drinks cabinet, set a little too high for her, reminded Claire every day of her status in Tony's house. She fumbled to open it.

"I would feel guilty," he continued, same monotone. "If I hadn't shown up you would've spent your entire life sober."

Her back to him, Claire was choosing the orange juice that would wash her tumble off the wagon. His words hit her, blocking her hand on the bottle.

"What?!"