EPISODE 5 - PART 2

- FOR THE FUTURE -

[WHITE]

Their steps echo throughout the narrow streets, going closer and closer to the great wall, where fewer people are around.

(“It’s better to take a risk knowing the consequences than blindly following the safe path,” Andriel says.)

Vincent isn’t dumb, he knows that following this strange man in striped clothes is dangerous, but he needs this money. If there’s a small chance of this being true, he’s going to grab it, and if it isn’t, he is going to grab that man’s head and break his fake glasses on the floor.

“So, young one, if you want a job, I’m hoping you’re willing to work hard for it, you know, some people forget that work is time-consuming.” The man straightens his glasses, looking back at Vincent.

“Sure, if it’s past the Academy’s schedule…”

“Sure, sure, I won’t make you stop studying, that is the most important thing, after all.” He grins.

‘I didn’t want to say those things to Zack and the others, but I won’t bring them to something this risky, even if there were some truth of my mind, I wouldn’t say those to their faces. But I do need this money, so I got a little jumpy.’

“Here we are!” The man smiles, presenting an old wooden door.

“I don’t know your name yet, what’s it?” Vincent asks in a serious tone.

“Oh, my apologies, I’m… Patrick Hodge, and you are, young man?”

“Vincent, you can call me Vincent.”

“Yes, Vincent, I hope we can sort things out.” Patrick turns the key and pushes the door, opening to a vision of a dark room.

Patrick smiles, waiting for Vincent to pass by, but he quickly changes his mind and goes in first, and so Vincent follows.

The old floor squeaks louder as they go in. The noise of wood dragging is sudden and the room gets brighter.

“Sorry for the bad environment,” Patrick says opening another window. “Hope you won’t mind.”

There’re two doors to each corner at the wall in front of the exit, in the middle of them there’s a big display cabinet, which has two-doors-wardrobe-like on each side and multiple photos on the middle shelves, with a man and a kid smiling near the great wall.

“Do you have a daughter?” Vincent asks.

“What?” Patrick organizes a chair at a table near the two windows. “No, no, that’s my niece, she’s so cute, isn’t she?”

Vincent looks closer, everything’s dusty, not like it’s abandoned, but more as if he doesn’t care that much for this part of the house, maybe he cleans it once a month, probably less than that.

“So, Vincent… are you liking the Academy?”

“Yeah, I’m just in the first week, but it’s cool.”

“What made you go to it?”

“So the interviewing already started. Well, the thing is… I want to be strong enough to protect this fortress… It kind of sounds silly when I say it out loud, doesn’t it?“

“No, no, that’s all right, all young people like you have a dream, and that dream of yours is noble, this I need to agree.”

Patrick stops organizing somethings at the table, and so he goes to the door on the right side of the room.

“With that, I’ll show you some of what you would need to be working on. As I said before, I work on selling clothing for collectors or special events…”

“Special events?”

“Yes, like dress-up parties.” He opens the white door, going into the next room.

Vincent glances back to the dozens of pictures a last time and follows him. The next room is a large corridor with hundreds of clothes, wigs and hats.

The place would be beautiful with so many colors and styles if it wasn’t for the morbid dark room and the silence.

“And you sell them for a lot of money?” Vincent asks, looking confused at some kind of a fluffy scarf in a memberless mannequin.

“Sure I do, there aren’t many people around that sell or rent those, so it’s an opportunity in the market, the only problem is to find clients, keep them organized and find merchandise, all at the same time. That’s going to be your job, to help me with those.”

“I see, looks alright for me, just teach me how you generally do it and I’ll copy that.”

“Good, good, if you can keep up with me, then you’ll have the job, that’s simple as that.”

“And about the money?”

“Ah, yes, yes, it’ll depend on your sales, but the base for a monthly earning is a thousand.”

“A thousand?” Vincent says surprised. “But adding up the average sells I would make; how much would it be?”

“Maybe double it, or even triple in a good month.”

“Alright, if that’s it, then I’m in.” Vincent grins.

“Good then, what about you coming here tomorrow? I’ll start your training right after your Academy’s done.”

“Can’t you show me the basics today?”

“Well… The truth is, I wasn’t ready for an assistant today, so I’ll prepare things for tomorrow, you know, no clients ready and all.” Patrick scratches his hair.

“Sure… So that was it? The interview that is.”

“That’s it, you can go home now, just one last thing… Why do you need the money, young man?”

Vincent hesitates, “It’s for my father, he’s sick, and we don’t have any money, actually we’re in debt, so we really need this.”

Patrick nods. “I see, life is difficult. I brought you here to show you can trust my words, the only thing I want in return is for you to show me your trustworthy, but I see you’re a good boy, so you won’t have any problems taking this job. Say what, maybe you can even get a raise faster if you work hard enough.”

“I’ll do.”

“Let me show you the exit.” Patrick walks back to the main room, and Vincent follows him hesitantly.

“So, what happened to your last assistant?” Vincent asks.

“Well, my last assistant left the job. He was planning to anyway, so you don’t need to worry… he as well had a dream just like you, and he’s following it right on this moment.”

Patrick opens the front door with a sad smile on his face.

“I look forward to working with you, Vincent,” Patrick says.

Vincent nods, leaving the house. It’s near the middle of the evening and the streets are basically empty, everyone is working at this hour, money is important, after all.

The door behind him closes and step by step he distances from the strange man’s house.

Everyone in the fortress has dreams, that’s how humans work, without them, we are just empty cells, superficial as the stone ground we’re stepping on.

Time passes, minutes after minutes, to hours after hours, Vincent’s still walking. From yellow to orange to dark blue the sky changes.

Vincent steps on a bunch of journal's news with headlines like:

‘TO SPACE! Liberty plans to launch the first communication satellites at the end of this year.’

‘POVERTY: Mines collapses have safety measures revaluated, and it might end up in firing more workers.’

‘BAILEY FAMILY ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION.’

Sometimes things always look worse than they actually are, or maybe they are just all shit, but one thing I learned from Andriel, is to always expect the worst.

He steps and kneads the yellowish paper’s image as he goes forward, ‘TERRORIST ATTACK LEAVE 21 DEAD.’

Sure, I don’t have the concrete proof of it, but his manner of speak, always delaying and thinking what to say with double words, expressions and questions, always afraid at the beginning but smiling at the end.

His area of work, being compatible with terrorism camouflage; his ‘house’ being more like a warehouse; his strange clothing, just like the ones he sells; broken glasses in one lens; he using a wig; gathering ‘merchandise’ for collectors on the streets, but then he completely forgets about my uniform; talking about exchanging trustworthy when he clearly wanted to take information off me.

Sure, I might be overthinking it, all of those arguments have a resolution other than someone involved with terrorism.

But always expect the worst.

It’s already night, and he’s still walking, a door of a shop starts to open, where a skinny man is getting out, Vincent looks at it, as the door opens, the reflection of the other side of the street moves to himself and then to a figure far back on the street, a tall muscular man in black clothes and a black hat, one that’s following him for hours.

Vincent passes through the skinny man, which drops a couple of trash bags on the street’s can. Sweat drops from his temple, he’s still on his academy’s white uniform, and it isn’t as light as his casual clothes to be walking a marathon.

It can be a coincidence, maybe a misunderstanding, but always expect the worst.

The skinny man goes back at the door, opening it again and going in, and in a swift move, Vincent is gone.

The tall man in black continues walking, he doesn’t change speed, passing by the shop’s door slowly in heavy steps, going a little further, he turns to an alley to the right.

Keeping the same slow speed, he walks through it, glancing to the sides, as he goes forwards the darker it gets, until a stopping point, where there’s no exit. He looks around, there’s nothing besides a door on the side, he reaches the handle and turns it, but it won’t open, he sighs tiredly, hesitating as he looks to the metal door, then he turns back to the alley’s entrance.

Always expect the worst, but just expecting things isn’t the solution.

(“Vincent, what is the most important thing?” Andriel asks.)

(“Be aware of my surroundings,” A younger Vincent responds in sweat.)

The tall man steps on a glass bottle, breaking it in half.

(“Well, that isn’t completely incorrect, but how can you be aware of what happens around you?” Andriel asks.)

(“Ahm… just look around?”)

The man bends down holding his hat, taking one piece of broken glass and inspecting it.

(“Not physically, the thing is, what’s around you is important, yes, but what you should be concerned about is what can be around you.”)

(Young Vincent frowns, “What do you mean? Is that to ‘expect things’ part?”)

The man in black drops the piece to the side, and steps over the hundreds of broken glass, continuing to the exit.

(“No, expecting for things to happen is flawed, what you need to do is to know what is going to happen.”)

(“And how the hell I’m going to do that?” Vincent raises his voice.)

(Andriel smiles. “Easy, by collecting information.”)

Vincent runs towards the tall man, his steps make the giant look back, in a jump and kick, Vincent uses his entire body against the upper back of the man, and in a second his target is on the floor, and Vincent is on top of him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Vincent whispers, grabbing the man’s hand and pressing against his back.

The man grunts, “What are you doing?” He responds with a bulky voice. “I’m passing by, I just forgot my keys.”

“Inconsistency, were you passing by, or you forgot the keys? You should think better before lying.” Vincent presses the man’s hand with his boot. “I’m repeating myself, who the fuck are you?”

“Alright, alright, I’m telling you.”

Vincent softens his pressure, instantly regretting his decision, as the man uses his other hand to get up and unbalance Vincent’s footing. In a single move, the tables were turned, with the only difference that Vincent was now on the wall being pressed by that huge man’s back.

A dry grunt comes from Vincent, as he feels his chest almost exploding by the impact, sliding to the ground after being released. The man in black get back to his feet, fixing his clothes from the dust of the floor, he looks down to Vincent, seeing he getting up and starting to flee, he extends one of his big hands to grab Vincent’s neck, but a swing cuts the air and he retracts it quickly.

“I’m not… going to… let you go…” Vincent speaks trying to catch his breath at the alley’s entrance, with a small piece of glass in his hand with blood on it.

The man in black looks to the cut on his palm, opening a grin. “And here I thought you were trying to run away.”

“Who the hell… are you? Why are you following me?”

The man closes his grin. “I guess this is a lost case… I thought this could work out, but…” He raises his hat, showing his blue eyes and a bald scalp. His appearance isn’t familiar, but his bone structure and that smile being formed are, that’s Patrick, “things are never easy, are they?”

“You weren’t that tall, or strong, what the hell…”

“Oh, it’s incredible what the perfect costume can make. If you know how to do it, you can have different eyes colors, nice hair, a different body, anything you want. But I want to ask you one thing in return, how did you know I was following you? I’m pretty sure I did a good job on the first hours, but you just kept walking in circles, so I made myself visible for you to do something.”

Vincent recomposes his posture, to a fighting instance.

“I expected your moves, if you would do something, it would be today.”

“ ’Expected’ my moves!?” Patrick laughs, “That’s amazing, you’re just too stubborn, anyone can tell that you’re not that smart.”

“You didn’t even have a training or a job, right? What would you do? Kidnap me when I was going to sleep?”

“Yes, kidnap you,” He continues laughing, “are you joking?” He closes his face completely, to a dark disappointed expression. “Maybe you weren’t the right fit after all.”

Patrick reaches his hand to an inner pocket, drawing something metallic, which after it’s completely out it’s possible to see that’s a pistol, being aimed directly at Vincent’s head.

“You see, Vincent, this fortress is going to fall, not you or anybody can protect it, not if we don’t join together.”

“Okay, what do you mean by that?”

“Do you know about the SAE, right?” Patrick asks coldly.

“Of course I do.”

“Everyone knows we are going to be overrun one day, but no one does a thing. Do you think that’s right? We are just living like fools, while the military has their weaponry, vehicles, aircraft and Vis, I’m breaking their laws just by having this pistol. What do you think they are doing? They already have a plan to survive, but that doesn’t evolve us.”

“So you are the one who’s going to save everyone? If what you are saying is true, you aren’t different by killing people for your cause.”

“No, that’s not it, Vincent,” He lowers his gun, opening a hopeful smile. “I’m not the only one, we are the population’s will, not an order made only by the elite, we accept anyone who wants to join. So, what do you say?”

Vincent lowers his guard, there’s nothing he can do, a single move and he’s going to get shot, the only thing he can hope is to run and Patrick doesn’t shoot him for being afraid of drawing too much attention. But you should always…

…expect the worst.

In a single swing, Vincent throws the piece of glass on his hand at Patrick, which raises his pistol again to aim forward, but his vision gets blurred and then red, followed by the pain of having his retina perforated by the broken glass.

Vincent starts to run. At his left, the skinny man is opening the door of his shop.

“What’s going on?”

“Call the guards!” Vincent runs to the right, aiming at another alley.

“What happened?” He asks afraid.

Patrick gets out of the alley, putting his hat up to cover his bleeding left eye, he aims at Vincent and shoots twice, but he misses them for an inch, and so Vincent disappears at the alley’s corner.

“G-Guards!” The skinny man screams, “Guard-”, a bullet explodes his head before he could continue.

Patrick’s steps are heavy, but now quick.

This gone worse than I expected, the kid is better than he looks.