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For a moment, he didn't answer. She waited.
Then,

"No."

Of course not.

She shook her head. Of course he didn't want
to talk on the phone. She didn't either, when it came down to it.
Her phone, unlike her profile and her generic avatar and all her
communications with Nomad, was registered and identified.

"Right," she typed back, "never mind that.
So... TALK?"

"Like over lunch? Monday?"

"So you
are
in New York?"

There was silence for a moment then,

"..."

Oh damn, he's
offended
. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."
So not a liar then.
"Sorry, it's just some people on those sites..."

"I know. It's okay."

Again, her fingers hovered, frozen, above
the keys then, her fingers rushing ahead of her brain, her words
tumbled onto the screen.

"So what did you have in mind?"

"Well, there's a cafe on 8th..."

**********

He smiled. It was nearly completely dark in
the tiny apartment. The curtain glowed eerily with the
streetlights' light on the other side, and the computer glowed
happily in front of him. He hadn't turned on a single light and
everything else was pitch black, as if he had blinders on. He
didn't care. He wasn't even remotely tired.

Monday's lunch plans glowed on the screen,
and he smiled at them.

Somewhere in his stomach there was a tendril
of unease, but as he looked happily at the plans, he didn't really
care. Besides, he was used to the unease by now. At least now,
there was a happy edge to it.

He flipped through a few pages of news, but
he couldn't concentrate on any of it. Eventually, he watched the
sun come up on Sunday, and for once, he couldn't wait for the next
day to come.

SIX

She shivered, but shrugged to cover it up.
Under her bright smile and wave no one would notice anyway. The
non-waving hand lay flat against the cool desk top, fingers pressed
against the fake wood grain to stop their trembling. She kept her
eyes wide and friendly over her big smile and stared innocently up
at the coworker leaning on the cubicle wall.

"I'm fine" she said, and waved a nervous
hand again in an attempt to look not nervous. "Go on without me,
I've got tons to do anyway."

"Are you suuure?" The coworker tugged at a
long strand of red hair and tilted her head. "Are you on a diet,
or...?"

"No, I just have a lot to
catch up on."
Dammit!
She tried not to roll her eyes at herself.
Now I'll have to actually get work
done....

"Okay. Well... okay."

"Have fun." She waved yet again at the posse
of coworkers headed out the door.

Finally, they were gone, the office was
empty, and she let the smile slide off, and shivered openly.

Skipping lunch was just the first
hurdle.

Missing out on lunch with the coworkers
she'd gone to lunch with every day for the last year was sure to
raise a red flag. She glanced at the clock. Her hands absently
shuffled papers on her desk.

Should have gone with the diet excuse.

She looked around her cubicle trying to
figure out something to work on, because she'd said she had
something to work on. Her eyes slid over the disarray of paper and
office supplies.

Could use some cleaning.

It was a messy desk, and cleaning it seemed
like a plausible and responsible thing to do. She picked up a
stapler, put it in the corner of the desk, shifted the papers so
they resembled a stack.

She looked at the clock.

Nomad...

Her hands trembled, and all of a sudden
putting the stapler in place and piling papers and maybe even
sanitizing the fake wood-grain desk seemed immensely more appealing
and her stomach twisted, nerves wriggling, palms sweating at the
thought of abandoning the mundane tasks.

But she smiled.

She chewed on her lip and blew out a shaky
breath and tightened her hands into fists to stop them from
shaking, but she smiled.

One hand moved to the back of her chair
where a taupe trench coat was flopped. The other idled towards the
purse at the corner of the desk. And then the coat was around her
shoulders, then the belt done up, then the strap of her purse – red
suede and matching her shoes – in her hand, and then she was
walking out the office door, away from the stapler and the fake
wood-grain desk top.

And then, outside, she headed towards
8th.

Her arms crossed, reflexively tightening
around her chest, pulling her coat close around her as if her kind
of contraband were on display, hanging out for all too see.

Which.... it kind of was.

A light turned green, and she paused,
hunching into her coat, waiting for the walk light.

A chunk of bangs slid into her eyes and she
swiped them aside. She turned, out of habit, to the dark window of
the corner store to check her reflection. Her reflection stared
back at her. It was perfectly neat, but–

Why?

The image of her own avatar, glowing in a
tiny square next to her dialogue, rose in her mind. It had the same
short brown hair she had. Brown eyes. White. She'd even tried to
replicate her makeup in the bland, cartoony face.

Why the hell had she made it look anything
like herself?

She shuddered as the light changed to red,
the WALK sign came on and she crossed the street.

At least avatars weren't admissible in
court.

**********

Ow.

Someone laughed. He glared in their
direction and rubbed his toe where it had whacked into the
doorjamb. The yellow folder slipped out from under his elbow,
landed upside down and open on the floor and spilled white paper
over his throbbing toe.

Just sit down... just sit in the chair and
don't make trouble.

He squatted down for a moment, one hand
massaging his sore toe, the other pretending to shuffle the papers
back into the folder.

He steadied himself, his fingers pressed
against the grey carpet.

And he took a breath.

Just sit down...

He shook his head and blinked a few times to
unstick his eyes, which were staring blankly, somewhere in the
direction of the carpet and the papers. He made his hands move
around the fallen papers, shuffle them into order, tap the stack
against the ground to even out the edges and slide the pages neatly
back into the folder. Then he pushed himself up.

His hands were shaking, he was sweating, he
was distracted to the point of utter klutziness, and he would cause
a lot more attention than a few laughs if he didn't just sit in a
corner, shut up, and pretend to work for a while.

So he did.

He took in a long breath. He let it out
slow, through pursed lips.

He opened the yellow folder, slid out the
papers inside, flattened them against the desk to have something to
do with his hands, and mindlessly eyed the rows and rows of
numbers.

Despite all the shadowy figures he'd met
under his many fake names carousing on the news sites, he'd never
actually brought the communications offline.

One by one the smells of processed
vegetables, boxed Asian noodles, and leftover whatnots filled the
office. Microwave beeps and humming punctuated the quiet. The door
slammed as a few people got up one by one to go get lunch out.

He looked at the clock.

Again, again, again.

Then he got up, zipped up his hoodie and
walked out. No one looked up from their takeout or noodles or
leftovers.

Outside in the chill wind, he dug his hands
deep into his pockets. His fingers closed around the sleek case of
his phone, but shifted around awkwardly in the pocket - more roomy
than usual.

He'd left his other accessory at home in the
nightstand. He didn't need another liability.

~~~~~

Mr. Broccoli @BrocColi

Nov. 16

NDII = morons. Fuck off and die.

~~~~~

SEVEN

She flinched as the door slammed behind
her.

Relax.

She took another step into the cafe.

A poufy chair without a back sat in a corner
facing the door, and she went towards it and sat down. Her own back
curved a little like she was sitting at an invisible keyboard. She
pulled herself up, but after a few minutes found her shoulders
rolled back into the comfortable position. She put her purse
between her feet and leaned her elbows on her knees, playing with
the straps.

She leaned back against the alien green
cinderblock. Her head rolled to one side, stretching her neck,
attempting to loosen the tension there. Then to the other side. She
tilted her head back, her hair catching slightly on the rough wall,
and looked up. A bare tree with long fingers reached overhead on
the other side of a skylight.

Bells tinkled and she shivered in the cool
breeze from the door.

She breathed in the grassy smell that wafted
over to her on the breeze. She closed her eyes and took another
calming breath. More bells tinkled overhead and the metal frame
clanged against the closing door.

Grass?

There wasn't much of that in New York.

She opened her eyes and looked around the
cafe. Her gaze rested on the homey details she had nervously
skittered over on her way in.

Grass grew in long narrow boxes beside the
picture windows on either side of the door. Marigolds, bright
orange balls like handfuls of crepe paper, bobbed slightly in time
with passing coffee-drinkers. She wanted to hold them.

A machine screamed and customers chatted. A
cheery barista bobbed around behind the counter.

Something pattered overhead and she leaned
her head back, looking up at the skylight.

A sun shower.

Blue sky shone above the drops of rain,
above the skeletal tree. She smiled.

Stop it.

Her neck stiffened up again and she stifled
the smile, looking back down at his chosen meeting place,
remembering that she wasn't here to relax with a coffee and watch
the rain. She couldn't afford to relax.

She was here to... talk.

The thought sent shivers down her spine,
even as the smile began to creep back onto her face, just a little,
despite her efforts.

Nomad... It's not a dark alley.

She wanted to laugh at his choice of meeting
place.

The cafe was so bright. The blue and green
antique lamps threw dancing light around the cafe, onto the poufy
chairs, onto the bright walls, onto the grey streamers of rain
still streaking down the windows. The picture windows and the
marigolds and the cheery barista were a far cry from the dark spots
that were supposed to house these sorts of dealings. But of course
that was the idea. Clandestine locales drew scrutiny.

Nomad... who are you?

She looked around carefully at the visitors
and wondered what kind of man it was that chose this place.

No one looked her way, all filing into line
bending to look at the pastries under the glass counter, or
squinting at the menu that spanned the entire wall behind it.

Her stomach grumbled.

Shut up.

She would have brought lunch but that would
have attracted questions at the office. She was all of a sudden
thankful that Nomad had chosen this place and time. In a busy place
right in the middle of the noon rush, no one was bothering to
notice that she wasn't ordering.

Her stomach grumbled again.

She ran her hands reflexively over the edges
of her ID card in her pocket.

No,
she chided herself.
You'll eat at
dinner.

Buying anything would be moronic. With both
of them here, together - it would be a stupid risk.

The door slammed again.

A silver watch peeked out from under a grey
hoodie sleeve. A grey eye peeked down at it, then up at her,
studying her, moving over the hair, the clothes she had described
in chat. The dark circles under the grey irises said he wanted to
be at home in bed, alone and asleep.

He sat in the poufy chair that nested in the
corner beside her own.

She looked at him but didn't say
anything.

He didn't look like the creatures that
crawled in the dark nests of the internet – or so the warnings
went. He was tall, but not much taller than her. A few years older,
but still young. He had a backpack and a university sweater. NYU it
said. She was shocked that he wore such personal info. She would
never have asked. Maybe there was no point in hiding personal info
at this point.

Or maybe it was fake.

But she would never ask.

"Evade?"

Her heart thudded. "Nomad?"

"I have something to tell you," he said.

He shifted towards her on the poufy chair.
He leaned on his fist as one elbow rested, crooked, on his knee.
She mirrored the movement, at the last minute reflexively turning
her head, moving her ear towards his lips.

His voice was a low whisper under the
screaming machines and the chattering lunch crowd.

"My name's John."

Her heart stopped. She felt herself break
into a smile, but she couldn't... she couldn't say anything. Would
he? Would he ask?

And his whisper continued,

"What's your name?"

Author

Blythe,
Aelius
: (1987–)

North American scribe,
timid, nomadic. Female of the species
H.
sapiens.
Also wrote:

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