Joss
2012-05-18 12:51:18 UTC
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Loud whizzing came from my pocket and got louder the longer I let it go on. Cell phones always annoy me, because in case you hear it the first time, phone manufacturers want to make sure everyone else hears it the second time.
“You should turn off your cell phone,” Sharon said from across the table. She smiled and glanced at the other tables and gave off a small sigh when she turned back to me. “Well?”
I took the phone out of my pocket and looked at the number: Unknown. Anyone calling me on an untraceable phone wouldn’t have an unknown number. Chances of it being the wrong number were nil. I hesitated about answering because I knew how the authorities were. They’d be here quicker than it took Sharon to look around to see if anyone was annoyed by my ringing phone.
“Let me take this,” I say to her. I winked when she bounced back in her chair and folded her arms. “It’s important.”
“Ted,” she called out, but I pivoted and walked away.
The phone station sat in another room. As I walked past the waiters in their fancy black and white tuxedos and waitresses in their black dresses and hair pulled back into buns, I was already thinking about what’s going to happen next. Either I’d been caught or maybe it was one of my contacts calling. But that wouldn’t be right.
An exit sign flickered green to my right and I knew of another one in the back of the restaurant, past the lounge and through the hallway with the funny curtains. The only other exit was the front doors, and I wouldn’t be going through those if shi.t came up. For the first time, I paid attention to the windows. If need be, I’d be crashing through one of those suckers; I always wondered if it would be like the movies where I’d land clean on my feet, unbruised, with two guns cock.ed in my hands.
The red phone station was waiting for me. I walked inside and shut and locked the heavy, brown plastic doors. Breadcrumbs dotted the wooden bench. I needed to find out who had my cell number and why they were calling me from an unlisted number. I brought up the phone again and saw it was a video message. No lie, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The phone dock sat in front of me, I loaded my phone into it, pressed the video message, and delayed the activation time by 5 seconds so I could step back to the bench.
A circle in the middle of the floor shot up streams of muted white light, and seconds later, flashes of color streamed through. Then words formed: Delpunk Technologies swirled red, green, and purple in the center of the lights before disappearing.
A loud beep signaled the message was about to begin in five, four, three, two …
The white lights disappeared and an opaque image of a woman appeared, smiling, shoulders straight, sitting in front of a bookcase. My mother.
My jaw set and I cock.ed my head. My heart rate sped up and sent out waves of convulsions that settled in my arms; my fingers twitched, ready to feel the full impact of the jolts.
There was no reason for my mother to call unless it was a dire emergency.
Her thin lips smiled at the camera, increasing the wrinkles around them. Her hair was grayer than the last time I remembered it, but it was still in her trademark low bun and long bang. The DelPunk technology was top grade in this place. Even mom’s eyes looked exactly the misty gray I remembered, and twinkled as she stared at the wall behind me. She put her hand to her mouth and coughed twice and then she spoke.
“Solice, this is your mom speaking.”
Just like her. She leaves a video message and has to remind me that it’s her. I chuckled.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t spoken to you in a few years, but…”
Now my heart pounded and I balled and unball my fists. I couldn’t take my eyes off the person in front of me. Not even if I wanted to.
“We need to see each other. Now. I can’t give you the details, but we need to see each other. I know that you’re on the run, but this is important, Solice. We need to talk. You know the number. Call me.”