Flash Point (3 page)

Three

F
RIDAY

GRAN HAD EXPLAINED
Amy’s phantoms. Before the Collapse and her long illness, Gran had been Dr. Amelia Whitcomb, working in a genetics lab, decoding how genes determined personality. Amy, she said, just happened to have a combination of genes especially good at assimilating unconscious observations of people’s body language, subtle facial shifts, tones of voice, and perhaps even pheromones. Lightning-swift, Amy’s brain put these all together and, because she also had genes for strong visual imagery, translated these observations into metaphorical pictures.

The only thing problematic about Gran’s analysis was that it felt wrong.

Amy knew there was more to the phantoms than genes, although she didn’t know what. She sensed it. There was more. If she could have gone on to college, it would have been to study neurology and investigate that “more.”

None of this was on her mind the next morning as she loitered outside the warehouse at nine thirty. Fortunately, the weather was much warmer than yesterday; you could almost believe spring might come to the city. The air held a sweetness unaccounted for by the polluted river and uncollected trash. Where did it come from, that mysterious spring sweetness that always seemed to promise so much? It made your heart ache for something you couldn’t even name.

Amy was early because she hadn’t wanted to take a chance on the bus schedule, which could be wayward. Also, from her position across the street and partly hidden by a Dumpster, she hoped to catch a glimpse of other candidates for “her” job.

Was that boy a candidate? Wiry, only a few inches taller than she, dressed in jeans and a faded brown sweater. He was twenty minutes early but marched right up to the door, knocked, and was admitted. Amy prepared to follow him when a bus stopped and a girl got out. Violet Sanderson! Was
she
Amy’s competition? Amy figured she might as well go home right now. Violet, her long black hair so gleaming it practically reflected the building, wore high-heeled sandals and one of the new dresses set with tiny mirrors. Not a designer original, Amy’s expert eye decided, but a decent copy. Violet disappeared into the building. Amy crossed the street.

A guard guided her through security; no sign of Violet or the boy. This time she was led in a different direction, down a long cinder-block corridor to a small room containing only a metal desk, a chair, and another door. “Wait here.”

“Is there a mistake?” This looked nothing like yesterday’s luxury. “I’m here for an interview with—”

“Wait here.”

Amy waited. The room was cold. The chair was cold under her ass. The desk drawers were all empty. The second door was locked. There was nothing to look at on the walls. Amy was just about to go back to the corridor and shout for somebody—anybody!—when the guard returned, crossed the room, and unlocked the second door.

“You can go now.”

“Go?”

“They picked somebody else.”

Amy stared at him: his impassive face, his hard eyes. No phantom came to her, but outrage did. “That’s it? That’s
it
?”

“That’s it.”

“Not even a . . . a courtesy of some sort? ‘Thanks for coming in, we had only one slot and there were so many great candidates’? Nothing?”

“You need to go now, miss.”

Amy glared at him. But he was probably just doing his miserable job. She lifted her chin and stalked out the door, hearing it lock behind her.

And she had hoped for so much.

She faced an alley, so narrow that looming buildings darkened it to shadows, lined with high, closed blue Dumpsters. Trash littered the ground. Amy picked her way through, keeping a sharp eye out for rats. She passed the largest Dumpster and came upon a man lying on the ground, moaning. Blood soaked one sleeve of his ragged jacket.

“Hey! You all right?”

“Help . . . me . . .”

“OK, yes. I don’t have a phone but I’ll run to get—” Fresh blood gushed from his shoulder.
Apply pressure to the wound before he bleeds to death
.

She knelt beside him. “Stay still. I’m going to stop the blood flow. Just stay still. . . .” She yanked off her sweater, an old one with a hole in one elbow, put it on his shoulder, and pressed hard.

The man screamed in pain, then began to gasp for breath.

“Oh God . . . Just a minute, I’m going to—” He passed out and stopped breathing. Keeping one hand on his shoulder, her own heart gonging in her chest, Amy pushed down on the man’s chest with her other hand.
Keep the rhythm going, breathe breathe dammit breathe.
 . . .

He seemed to be breathing again, but his face was still slack. Unconscious. The shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding, too.
Should I go for help now?

The man reached up and grabbed her.

Instinctively Amy threw him off; he was in an awkward position without much leverage. She scrambled to her feet but then he was on his feet, too, and from somewhere he had pulled a knife. No breathing difficulties, no wounded arm. She’d been played.

“You fucker,” she said.

He smiled.

His body blocked her from running down the alleyway. She hadn’t brought the pepper spray she carried when she came home from the restaurant at night. Wildly she looked around for something to use, anything. A broken piece of lumber leaned against a Dumpster, short but thick, a four-by-six. She snatched it up. “Let me go by!”

“Not a chance.” He didn’t move.

If she went toward him, he could probably get the wood away from her before she could hit him with it, since it was a clumsy weapon and he looked strong and fit. So she stood still and tried screaming. “Help! Help!” That went on for a full minute. No one came. The man kept smiling.

“I’m going to do some interesting things to you,” he said.

All at once she put the stick of lumber vertically on the ground by the nearest Dumpster, set the ball of her right foot on it, and leaped. The wood wobbled under her weight but by that time she was on top of the Dumpster.

“Hey!” the man called. He started toward her.

Amy leaped to the next Dumpster. The blue plastic was slippery and she barely kept her footing. She was now a short distance farther down the alley than he was, and above him. He grabbed for her, but the Dumpster was too wide to reach across and by then she had gone to the top of the next Dumpster. One more, leap,
dismount
. A perfect landing and she was running, ahead of him by a few feet. A blank wall ahead but the alley turned and Amy turned and—

Another wall, with a recessed door. Amy grabbed the handle. It was locked. “Help!” she screamed again, rattled the lock. Nothing. He was right behind her.
All right, if it’s a fight, then it’s a fight—go for the eyes, the instep, the crotch
—

He had stopped several feet short of her. “Hey, Amy,” he said.

She gaped at him. The door behind her opened and the kind-faced, middle-aged woman stepped out. “You did very well, Amy.”

“What—”

“That was the interview, dear. And you did very well.”

Amy thought she’d known rage before—at Kaylie, at hunger, at fear—but not like this. Not like this. “You fuckers—”

“Now, dear—language. Yes, this was perhaps unfair, but it was an interview and the young man there is of course an actor. You were never in any real danger; we wouldn’t permit that. You were carefully observed. And you did very well.”

“I—”

“We would like to offer you a job with TLN, on a new show we’re developing, aimed at young people. It’s a rather unorthodox show, but I can promise you it will be interesting. And of course, as I mentioned before, it carries full union salary and medical benefits for your entire family.”

The phantom slammed hard into her mind:
a mountain of glass, with tiny figures sliding helplessly down the mountainside to fall onto sharp mirrored splinters
. But . . . full union salary. Rent due Friday. Mrs. Raduski. Gran, too weak to get to the clinic.
Medical benefits for your entire family
.

“How much salary?” she choked out past the rage.

The woman told her.

Amy gaped at her. The actor said, with sullen envy, “Take it, idiot.”

Amy said, “I’ll take it.”

“Good,” the woman said briskly. “Then come inside. We have contracts ready, and a lawyer for you.”

Lawyer? “Why do I need a lawyer?”

“Just a formality,” the woman said. “Nothing you need to worry about at all.”

She gave Amy a friendly smile.

* * *

A long polished table in a small polished room. Legal papers. Legal talk. Hurry, hurry, hurry, the job needed to start right away. Why? Amy couldn’t seem to get an answer; so many people talked so fast on so many topics.
You want the job, don’t you, Amy? Sign here, initial here, sign here. . . .
A few things she did get straight.

The lawyer worked for TLN but she signed something that said she accepted him as her representative.

Since the Collapse, sixteen-year-olds were considered adults, so she didn’t need Gran’s signature. Well, no one needed to tell Amy
that
—she knew sixteen-year-olds had been declared adults in order to save the debt-ridden government billions of dollars in welfare aid to children.

The woman who had hired her was a producer, Myra Townsend.

The job was for three months only, a probationary period. “To see how you work out,” they said.

“Thank you, Amy, you can go home now. Report for work on Monday,” Ms. Townsend said. She and Amy’s lawyer and the other people—more lawyers?—all stood.

“No, wait! I have some questions!”

Ms. Townsend said, “I thought I said that your duties will be explained to you on Monday.”

“Other questions. Please. I need to . . . to know some things.”

Ms. Townsend shot a look at the other people, who all left the room. The woman sat down again, frowning. Even then, her face looked kind. “How can I help you?”

Amy said, “Are you the person who called me on the phone?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re my boss?”

“Yes, I am. Myra Townsend. You report to me.”

“What will I be
doing
on this job? Just generally, not the specific duties.”

“You will be testing products which we hope appeal to young people. Video games, mostly.”

“In that alley why did you—”

“It was a game scenario, obviously,” Ms. Townsend said. “Amy, I have another meeting now.”

“With other candidates? Did you hire more than just me?”

Ms. Townsend hesitated, then smiled. “Yes, we did. You’re quick, Amy.”

“If the thing in the alley was a video game, why test it on me in real time?”

“Because that’s the way we do things here. Now, I have another meeting. See you Monday.”

“Wait, I—no, please, one more thing . . . I need an advance on my salary. I’m sorry, but I do. Today. Now.”

Ms. Townsend turned back to gaze at her. Amy, to her intense discomfort, felt herself redden. “I’m sorry, but I need the advance. Our rent is due Friday. I’m sorry.”

“Of course,” Ms. Townsend said with sudden and bewildering gentleness. “Just stay here and I’ll have the guard bring you a check.”

“Cash,” Amy said. “We . . . I don’t have a checking account.” Banks charged fees.

“Cash, then. And on Monday we’ll open an account for you.”

“Thank you.”

The cash appeared with startling promptness, along with a family health-insurance card. Amy signed a receipt—at least this paper was short enough for her to actually read!—and was ushered out. The money and her precious card both safe in her bra, Amy treated herself to a bus ride home.
I have a job, I have a job, I have a job
—but like hell it was “testing video games.” They were testing something else in that alley. What? And why lie about it? Well, whatever it was, she hadn’t been hurt, only scared. And for this amount of money, the scare was worth it. Whatever else was going on, Amy would discover it eventually. Meanwhile, she had the rent for Mrs. Raduski and health care for Gran and money for groceries—

I have a job, I have a job, I have a job!

The words sang in her head all the way home, acquired a beat, and then a tune. Her foot tapped on the bus floor, her head bobbed in time. Amy couldn’t stop smiling. She didn’t notice the boy with the sunglasses and heavy backpack. She didn’t notice the woman emerging from the grocery store as Amy got off the bus. She didn’t notice any of the microcameras.

* * *

“So we have our five,” Myra Townsend reported to the gray-haired man in his exquisite hand-tailored suit in his penthouse office. He sat behind an antique mahogany desk, the city forty stories below like his own personal carpet. She stood on the actual carpet and held up one manicured finger after another. “The slumming socialite that viewers can despise, the desperate little climber they can root for, the gorgeous hunk they can drool over, the dummy they can laugh at, and the geek they can be confused by. Plus Lynn, of course.”