back a nice little chunk of the jungle. Sure, we lost a few, but those cold-blooded Ideology Five fanatics, may the Young Savior curse their name, lost even more.”
“Seven hundred casualties,” Lorrie mumbled, “is not ‘a few.’”
Lance elbowed her, and the two of them shook hands with the landlord. He had no idea whether the number of dead referred to citizens of the Homeland, Foreign, or both. A feeling of relief passed over him that he didn’t read the newspapers.
Inside the apartment were pots and pans and even a pair of jeans that Lance found fit him quite well. The two of them slipped right into those other people’s lives. Lorrie put up a new pair of curtains and slowly began to toss out the old occupants’ things and replace them with their own. Lance wanted her with him at all times.
2.
Outside, the air was warm; the deep-red sun burned hot and luminous. Joe and Benny were both broke, but their empty pockets were the least of their problems. They could hear the landlord on the stairs, showing the empty apartment below. Both knew that come Monday, they would have nothing to offer to the wiry old man with the harsh teeth and pale scalp when he tapped on their door to collect. Their imaginations had been stunted, and Joe and Benny had censored their thoughts away from what they were sure was unthinkable. Now they had nowhere to live and much bigger worries. The Registry had found them.
“The girl sounds hot,” Benny whispered.
The two of them sat on their old couch, doing their best to limit all sounds of life.
“Be quiet,” said Joe. “I think he’s showing the place to two girls.”
“Yeah, and one of them sounds hot.”
“You know that ‘sounds hot’ is a stupid concept, right?”
Benny shrugged. Insofar as Joe was concerned, a Benny shrug was a concession to the rightness of his own point. They waited for the landlord’s footsteps outside their door, for the terrible knock, but when they heard him mention heading out for lunch, the two of them began stuffing clothes into bags. They would take only what they could carry.
“So we’ll meet on Friday, right?” Joe said.
“Right,” said Benny. “At the Blue Unicorn.”
Joe felt a serious terror when they parted because he knew their carefree times were gone. Not that their time together had always been so great; the fear came because Joe had no idea what kind of life might replace it.
Benny headed out first, his cracked leather bag slung across his shoulder.
First, the familiar sounds of Benny’s hard footsteps, clunking down the stairs. But then a pause, the chiming voice of what could only be one of the neighbors. Joe had seen the guy and his girlfriend around for a few days now, and had even run into them a few times in a coffee shop, but with each encounter, he had made sure to be as bland and quick as possible. Destroy all references, the saying went. Leave no images behind. He overheard that the couple had moved to Western City North from elsewhere, that the guy was some sort of artist, and that the girl was interested in hosting political meetings for some cause or another, but that was it.
Pressing his ear against the glazed glass of the doorway, he heard Benny and the male neighbor exchange greetings. Benny was careless like that. Had Joe encountered someone on the stairs, he would have lowered his eyes and mumbled a soft greeting without breaking his stride. But Benny wasn’t the type who might stop and think that for anyone with an exacting eye, a living, breathing young man with a well-stocked bag around his shoulder was unlikely to return to wherever he was departing from.
Through the door, Joe heard the guy introduce himself to Benny. Lance . Just another name, just another roadblock. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed Benny the smarts to give a fake name back. He did, and Joe let out a long breath he did not realize he had been holding. Why make it any easier for the Point Line than he had to? Whoever this