I take a seat at the table of a
fancy restaurant in the city. Both myself and the woman sitting across from me are
well-dressed to match up with the upper-class setting. This woman contacted me
anonymously and told me about working together in some secret organization to
take down the Owls.
She leans forward and tells me, “I’m
so glad that we're meeting. We can work together to beat our common foe.”
I smile and put my lips on the tea
we are served. She smiles back and I already know what’s going on. Without showing
that I know, I calmly put down the cup of tea and get up from the table.
“Thank you, miss, but…” I walk to
her then slam her face into the table and her cup of tea, “I don’t work with
the enemy.”
Some people in the restaurant look
at me, while others take quick glances.
“Good job, kid. You saw right through
that one. The tea was most likely poisoned,” I hear J say in my earpiece.
“I’m used to it their tricks by
now,” I say as I exit the restaurant, “This game is getting stale.”
“Stale, but profitable. That outfit
isn’t cheap, and neither are the hotels we stay in nor the phone you have. Good
phones without tracking devices are hard to come by.”
“The expensive stuff was your idea.
I was fine living plainly.”
“Okay, hermit. You need this
expensive stuff for protection. Your outfit has a layer in it that can protect
you from bullets and the hotels we go to are safe zones where the Owls can’t
set up any triggers for you.”
“Right.”
“I think you meant to say thank you.”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
It’s been a while since this whole game
started. It feels like it’s been a year, but I think it’s really been a month
or so. I’m such an expert at recognizing triggers and Owls that I’m not as afraid
as I once was. J helps me out a lot and is one of the reasons why I haven’t
lost all hope because I at least have him keeping me company even though he
really doesn’t care if I die or not. I’ve been going from town to town, city to
city across the country as I try to avoid making myself an easy target for the
Owls. It was exhausting at first, but like everything else, I’m used to it now.
The only good thing about it is that I get to travel and not worry about bills
or working.
“I don’t think you want to head in
that direction, kid. There’s a trigger ahead of you,” J says.
“When isn’t there?”
“True, but this one is a little
hard to see. It’s a small piece of blue gum on the floor.”
“Got it.”
It isn’t surprising that the Owls would
make something that a trigger. I’ve seen lots of people activate them unknowingly.
Not sure if any of them survived though. Ah, I see the piece of gum now. It’s
in the middle of the floor, so all I have to do is stick to the side to avoid
it and-hey! There’s a baby crawling to it! I’m too slow to try to stop her from
touching it.
“Damn it,” I hear J saying in my
ear, “Well, at least you didn’t add anything to your bounty.”
“I’m not going to let this baby get
killed for money!”
“What are you going to do? Take the
kid from her parents to protect her?”
“Yes.”
Before her parents get to her, I quickly
run to her pick her up and run away.
“What the hell are you doing, kid?!
You can’t just interfere with another bounty like this.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not the Owl’s target and
not allowing them a good shot at their target.”
“Good.”
“According to the rules, I’ll have
to stop being your help because you aren’t making it easy for my fellow Owl.”
“That’s fine.”
“More Owls are coming for the big
combined cash prize that’s on your heads!”
“Leave if you aren’t willing to
protect this innocent child.”
I hear the noise cut out in my
earpiece. Dang it. I knew J would do this, but I hoped he wouldn’t, not to help
me, but to show that there might’ve been something good in him. I don’t know
where the Owl who left this trigger is at. He or she could be anywhere. I’m
trying to use as much of the city crowd as cover as I can, which sounds bad,
but I know Owls don’t take big risks.
Speaking about the crowd, it seems
to be getting really crowded as I get deeper into the city. I know that I grew
up in the suburbs and that I don’t spend much time in the city, but this is
getting ridiculous. Right now, I’m stuck in a crowd at a crosswalk. This is
good cover, but I really don’t know if any Owls will make a move. One of the
people in the crowd looks up at me. There’s nothing around me of interest, so he’s
definitely looking at me. He’s probably someone I have to avoid. The light
finally turns green and I walk with the crowd through it. Wait, a lot more people
are looking at me. Me walking into the green light might’ve been a trigger. I
also stepped in a crack in the road and stepped on a colored line. Dang it, I’m
activating all the triggers. That’s three Owls after me.
Three Owls usually mean death as J told
me once. I’ll find a way to beat them all. I have to. The sewers seem like a
good place to lose the Owls. They don’t really have a time limit to kill us in
since it’s a day, but if we can escape the city via the sewers, we might have a
chance of living. I enter the sewers via a manhole in the alleyway and enters a
mazelike series of tunnels. It’s dark and smelly back here and the baby doesn’t
like it. She’s been calm for the most part, but now she’s really getting
nervous and starts to cry.
“Shhh. Calm down,” I saw as I caress
her head.
Covering her nose a bit helps her
to calm down-ah! Someone almost landed on, but they missed so that allows me to
push them into the running sewer water. Come on, that’s one down! Two more to
go! When I go further into the sewers, I find a series of tripwires. I carefully
go through them and manage to go through without touching them. In the distance
appears to be an exit. Yes, we’re almost there! Ah! Someone shot me from behind.
I’m fine, but I need to keep going. Turning around to see who shot me, I see
that it’s…J.
“Give up the kid, kid,” J says as he
points a gun at the baby.
“Not a chance.”
“I’m giving you another chance to
take the easy way out. I’m sure you put two and two together and figured out
that I was the one who made the trigger that piece of gum on the floor. I’ve
been placing triggers and claiming bounties while I was traveling with you.”
“I don’t believe that you killed
other people while you were with me.”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t
notice the dead bodies you walked past. Of course I was going to do a little
side work while helping you. I wasn’t just quiet for long periods of time just because
I trusted you to take care of yourself. I’ll say it one last time. Give her up.”
I kick J in the nuts as he walks over
to stand over me then kick him in the face. Since he won’t stay down long, I quickly
take the gun from his hand and run towards the exit.
“Kid! You’re not going to make it
out there. You’ve activated more triggers than you think and the bounty on your
head will attract more Owls than you can handle. Give the kid and you can get
off easy or join the Owls.”
“I may be an idiot for sticking to
virtue, but I’m going to keep fighting against the Owls. It doesn’t matter if
it’s useless. I’m going to die one day, so I’d rather die doing what’s right
than living to survive. I’ll see you later, J.”
With determination, I climb up the ladder
to face my fate. No matter how bitter it may be, at least I know it’s the right
decision to make.
The
End
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