Save Yourself | Petekey | Danger Days

Ten - The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You

It hurt.

Pete had to admit it. Kobra didn't want him there. He wanted him gone. Honestly, Pete just didn't know why it hurt so damn much. What had he expected, really? That Kobra would see him, come to his senses, and leave with him? No. That's silly. Stupid.

Kobra didn't care. And why would he? Who was Pete to him — to any of them — anyway?

Even the knowledge that there was no chance of... whatever it was he wanted coming true, it still hurt like hell when Kobra cast him aside like a burden.

So, as Pete sat there next to him, curled in a little ball staring out the window at the boring passing scenery, he bit his lip until he tasted the bitter iron taste of blood. When he caught sight of himself in the warbled reflection of the window, he cringed at how pouty he looked. In the ragged t-shirt with a faded black and white smiley face above a black rectangle printed on the front and the ripped jeans that fit too loosely on him now, Pete looked the complete opposite to Kobra, who was adorning the professional-looking suit he wore the day they picked up Pete, only his helmet was nowhere to be seen. Pete remembered seeing it on the Jeep when he had awoken, the first sign that things here weren't normal. Good Luck the visor had said. Yeah, we could use some of that right about now.

After two hours, give or take, of silently watching the unchanging mountains pass by, Pete had nearly begun to fall asleep. But a bump in the road and suddenly smooth terrain alerted him and he jolted awake. He looked around, expecting to see the same boring scenery he had been surrounded by for most of the day, but the brown mountains and sandy dunes had been replaced by a series of trees that looked almost plastic-like with their perfect green leaves and amber bark, each standing straight up from the long patch of grass below. Each was placed in perfectly spaced rows to either side of the road, which had materialized from the dirt path they had been on for so long. At the end of the tree-lined road, a woman stood just outside a metal shed. The silver of it and the fence which stretched for miles each way glinted in the sunlight. Everything behind it was blurry.

"Uh, Kobra?" Pete scooted up in his seat and glanced around nervously. "Aren't you, like, wanted? This place seems very... police-y and official." The car slowed.

"Behind my seat there's a bag. First pocket."

At Kobra's instruction, Pete reached back and searched for the bag, unzipped the pocket, and dug around for something to grab. His hand came across a small black container that fit in the palm of his hand. "This?" he asked, skeptical.

Kobra nodded. "Open it. Take one. Behind your ear."

Inside the container, after popping open the clasp, Pete found two identical sticker-like circles. He peeled one off its plate and, pushing back his hair (which hadn't been cut in months and was now at his shoulders), stuck it on as directed. When he pulled away, the sticker shocked him and he jolted.

"What was that?" he asked, massaging his neck with one hand and holding up the container to Kobra with the other, who took the remaining sticker and stuck it on the same.

"Neu—" He seemed to realize whatever he was about to say wouldn't make any sense to Pete, and reconsidered his explanation. "Makes your face look different."

"You guys have that here? Damn..."

"Of course. Don't you?"

"No."

The woman stepped forward as they closed in.

"Click it," ordered Kobra, tapping the sticker behind his ear. Pete obeyed and felt an air woosh over his face, but nothing else seemed to change. "It's calibrated to the four of us, and you, so we'll be able to see and recognize each other... I hope."