And now things were weird. We were friends. We were making music together, hanging out together, talking for hours. Talking to her made me feel nice, made the hatred go away. I smiled, content to just be near her. She did too. But there was this wall of awkwardness between us, an invisible barrier keeping us apart. We both knew it was there, and tried to pretend not to notice.
It sucked.
She was seeing Sam now, and it sucked even worse. Sleeping with him, probably. He was often around, smug and handsome. I was friendly. I was smiling, and listening to all the interesting things he was talking about, asking questions in proper places. I was also fantasizing about ripping his head off at the same time, but hey, no one's perfect.
This was one part of my life. The guys, the band, philosophical debates in the university cafeteria.
The other part of my life was much less blissful, and much more deadly.
#
I was stalking Tanya Duncan.
I was smart about it. I learned how to from the PA.
It all started the next day after the party. I was on my way to meet Mickey, holding my phone in one hand, a string of angry messages shining in the chat window of his special app.
'WTF man where are you?!!'
'She's in the car!'
'Where r u fuckface?!'
'Fuck Matt answer me'
'I'm going w/out u, shit'
And then, an hour later, sometime around the time Nelly was calmly letting me know that she'll kill me if I keep bothering Claire.
'Matthew, buddy, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT ANSWERING ME?'
'You know that, forget that, prick. I'm fine flying solo.'
'Actually, I'm like real life fucking James Bond.'
'Shaun Connery, not this new asshole.'
'I tracked her to her house.'
'It's a nice house.'
'Fucking answer me goddammit'
'Fuck'
At that point, I was home and turned my phone on.
'I'm here.'
'Where the fuck were you?!'
'Long story. Any sign of Zero?'
'No.'
'We need to think. Let's meet tomorrow, at the diner, 9:00AM.'
And then it was tomorrow, 8:30AM, and I was walking to the diner after dropping off Ted's car at his place.
That was when I felt someone watching me. It was a strange feeling, somehow... muddy. Weak. A second later, it was gone. I stopped, frowning, then continued walking. I thought: 'It was probably nothing. Weird.' Then I thought: 'But what if it wasn't?'
I was strangely calm. My mind didn't start racing; instead, things came into focus. Fact: I felt like someone was watching me. Possibilities:
A stranger for some reason stared at me for a second.
I imagined the whole thing.
It's the Disease, I'm losing my mind, and I'm going to die soon.
Someone is following me.
I reached into my pocket and touched the Rubik's cube hidden in it, then left it there. My paranoia was ringing the bell, pushing me to consider possibility D. I continued walking, looking relaxed, nothing out of the ordinary. But really, I was looking around, tuning the reflexive properties of different things around me to see for three hundred and sixty degrees. My mind was like an octopus, with invisible tentacles reaching into shop-windows, shooting into the shiny cars driving past, brushing sunglasses of pedestrians walking towards me. Changing the reflections to see what's behind me. The strain of it was enough to tax my mind, but I also had to look into the reflections, perceive everything, compile it into a comprehensible picture, and spot a person spying on me... if they existed.
My head had begun killing me in thirty seconds.
I walked. I bought myself a cup of coffee at a street cart. I stopped and pretended to look something up on my phone. All the time studying the morning crowd, every face, every gesture, near me, a block behind me, two blocks behind me. Where are you? Who are you? Mitchel? One of his goons? The Protector herself?
... April, Abby, Alex?
I was almost ready to give up when I noticed something. A face that for some reason caught my attention. It belonged to a woman in a grey trench-coat, busy looking, brown hair. How do I know her?
I continued walking, thinking. It was 8:45, and I was almost to the diner where Mickey was supposed to meet me. Who was that woman? Why did she caught my eye?
I reached the diner, looked in the windows, and kept walking.
The woman was still behind me.
Now that I knew who I was looking for, I could release most of the Affects I was holding in my mind. The relief of it made me exhale sharply, alleviated. But it wasn't time to relax yet.
I reached the end of the block and turned. Ten seconds later, the woman made the same turn. Two blocks later, she was still following me. I crossed the street and walked on its other side. The woman continued on, trailing me from across the road. I made another turn, walked a bit and stopped, pretending to fiddle with my phone. For a while, nothing happened. Than she appeared from around the corner, made a few steps and looked at the shop-window displaying brightly colored mannequins dressed in expensive clothes.
Holy shit. Fuck me.
How was she doing that? How was she spying on me without my Ability sensing it? Who was she?
I opened the app and wrote:
'Change of plans. I think I'm being followed, can't risk a meeting. Stay low.'
After that, I walked for a couple of hours, aimlessly turning left and right, slowly approaching the lakeside. The woman was still there, always a block or two back, inconspicuous, calm. Sometimes she would disappear, only to show up again in ten or twenty minutes, sometimes wearing a different wig or clothes. It didn't take long to realize that she had a partner, a balding man with thin lips and dark eyes, with whom she would alternate. There was probably a third member of their team, following unseen in a car.
Soon, two things became apparent.
First, I realized why my Ability wasn't able to sense them. I understood it after watching the woman carefully for a while. She was never looking directly at me, like any person would. Her head was always turned away, this way or that, with me hanging somewhere on periphery of her vision. Her attention must have been unfocused, too. The man did the same. I've never heard of anything like this. Doing it must have required some serious mental training. If it weren't for that one slip, two seconds of focused intent aimed my way, I would have never noticed them.
It was ingenious.
After that, the second thing came easy. They knew how to trick my Ability, which meant that they knew what I was. As soon as I realized it, I was finally able to place the woman. She and I had met before. Well, more like walked pass each other, in the hospital lobby, near the former PA facility that was now a pile of cinders. It was almost a year ago, but I was obsessive about observing my surroundings to the point of paranoia, and good at remembering faces.
That's why my subconscious had noticed her in the crowd of pedestrians. It knew what she was.
She was a Protector. The PA was watching me.
I accepted this fact calmly. It made sense, really. They knew that Zero might try to contact me, otherwise why show me the photo? And now that he had allegedly attacked them, they must have been in a rush to strike back. So they put a tail on me.
They showed the photo to Mickey, too.
I wrote:
'Being followed for sure. It's the PA. I think they're watching you too. Act normal. Don't go near Tanya Duncan.'
One minute later, he responded.
'WHY ARE THEY FOLLOWING US?'
'Looking for Zero? Don't panic. They don't know that we know, let's keep it that way.'
'... What do we do?'
'For now, just watch.'