Part 73
Prologue, Part 4
Several years prior.
The SI’s must be a green group hunting me now, because I haven’t done anything in a while that would bring attention. Being too cautious is what kept me alive and in secret for this long. Now that the wool has been removed, I’m going to need to rely on that old distrust.
The same kind of paranoia that keeps them in business will be the same kind of paranoia that keeps me alive. It’s not until you realize that no one can be trusted that you can consider yourself safe. Everyone has a price, no matter how close to you they are. Always watch over my shoulder, always think someone is there. That is the only way I can stay alive.
Once an SI is at my back with a gun, there’s no slipping the noose. Kids bump into me as I cross the dance floor to a spot by the speaker. I let them inflict a couple bruises, to make me look genuine. Anything that could disguise me in the end. My sixth sense says the Secret Inspectors could be coming soon, so I slip out a different back door, turning the handle with my shirt sleeve.
I abandon my car and run. In my own vehicle, they wouldn’t even need Secret Inspectors to hunt me down. Alert the local police in some neighborhood they divined. I could get picked up and locked away for “Special Extradition.”
No self-respecting SI, no matter how dedicated to the job will follow me on PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. The bus is filled with homeless people and junkies. I keep my head lowered. They are the ones most likely to sell you out for a few cigarettes, and I can’t really blame them. It’s better than starving to death. I sit in the front, close to the driver, who is the least likely to remember my face amid the sea of human tragedy he experiences every day.
A junk-head under hypnosis can still describe faces in detail with the encouragement of a little torture. SI’s employ junkies with money, smack, day-old doughnuts, or even the promise of acceptance. The SI use anything to their advantage, and a good junkie can prove more valuable than a security cam. Unlike a camera, which can be set to rotate, the junkie will face forward and shoot as much smack as possible with no question, no care, no desire.
That should have made me suspicious of the junk-head that had been sitting on my front steps for the last week. I knew he was there to keep tabs on my comings and goings, so I started going in and out the back door. The junky’s allotted job was to watch the front door, and they are lacking the cognitive ability for rational thought. Even though he hadn’t seen me in days, he didn’t move from that appointed spot on my doorstep.
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