Panoptic

Panoptic - Chapter 03

 He turned left at the corner of a textile warehouse, shot down a road lined with maple trees, their fresh green leaves waving in a gentle breeze, and drove to the end of the road, then turned left onto a dingy lane.

"Do you know where you're going?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"Well that's just splendorific," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Here and I thought I was being rescued, and instead I've been kidnapped by captain clueless."

"They had a parking lot back there."

"And trees and buildings and a pretty path."

He eyed her sideways. "They could be following us in those cars."

It was her turn to shrug. "If they are, they've got cars with cloaking devices. God!"

He looked startled. "You feeling all right?"

He knew, as the words passed his lips, he'd made a mistake.

"Feeling all right? Feeling all right? My uncle's car's a wreck, I'm being chauffeured down the winding road to Hell, I was chained up by a gang of steroid junkies with shotguns, who are maybe hunting me right now, and just to make sure I get the absolute day of my dreams, I couldn't even get the photo I risked everything for!"

She slumped back in her seat, her chest heaving.

Soro tried to think of something he could say. "Umm... If it makes you feel any better... You can have mine."

She winced, and flared her nostrils. "I can have yours."

He flashed her a smile. "If you want it."

She looked at him with narrow, suspicious eyes. "Just why in sweet Hades were you there at all?"

"It's what I do," he said.

"What you do."

"Always have." He held out his hand. "My name's Soro."

She flinched, then her lips pressed together, and she slapped his hand aside.

"Hey now," he said.

She punched his shoulder.

"W-"

"Soro!" she said.

"Every day of my life," he said, his eyebrows fighting to raise and lower at the same time.

"I thought it couldn't get any worse."

He turned left on a much larger road, flanked on both sides by abandoned waste ground. The tarmac was rough and pitted, and a heap of junked cars sat in an open space on his right, no signs, no fences, no reason they should be there. The wrecked cars, dumped on the wasted earth, made him feel an odd sense of lonely loss.

"You're not cuffed to the wheel of a dead car," he said. "That's not so bad, I guess."

"No, I'm not, I'm stuck in my car, sitting next to the sell-out of the century."

"That's harsh."

"Of the millennium!"

He chewed his lip. Maybe if he turned around, he could give her back...

"I've seen your pictures, Mr Soro the Sell Out."

He perked up "Oh good!"

"I loathe them."

His shoulders slumped, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"You've got a gift, a genuine gift. Oh, people yammer about talent and promise, but you've got the it."