Radical-9

Intermission IV:

February 23^rd, 2022

10:23 pm

My mom is asleep. I wish I was so lucky as to be unconscious right now, I lie in my bed and stare up at my ceiling. I can hear her snoring through my wall. Always with the thin wall, I heard and hear everyone and everything. I was able to hear Andy practicing for his debates in his room back then, cursing at himself whenever he messed up or missed a beat. Andy's really self-conscious about how he presents himself. It's almost like he has a second pair of eyes that are watching all of his actions so he can judge. It's kind of funny to hear him get flustered every once in awhile, it kind of makes me remember he's human.

What I’d hear from my mom’s side is a bit more sad. It's a tense silence that is only sometimes broken by quieted fits of crying. She doesn't like to show it, but she's terribly upset. Even as upset as she is now it seems to get worse at night when she believes that nobody else can hear. Ever since our dad died she's been like this, at least, Andy said so. I really only remember the past few years, it feels like eons ago since I was little, like another person had lived that life. I'm still little now, but at the same time not. It's really a weird age, fourteen. You're past the boat of finally being a teenager, but you're still not sixteen yet. Still not eighteen yet, even. It makes me feel little.

My mom's room is a lot more loud ever since Andy got stuck in that stupid game. She doesn't even try to hide it, she sounds like a wailing animal just waiting to be put out of its misery. I'm not going to lie, I've been a wreck myself, but I realize that we can't both be wrecks. Someone has to hike up her jeans and provide for us.

It sure isn't Mom.

I haven't been to school for the past three days, work has kept me so busy. The store is owned by a neighbor of ours, Edy Hankton. He keeps one of the two open grocery chains in Aurora alive by employing kids at school who need to help their families out. After I got home from seeing Andy I sat on my bed and began to drift away and then-

Tap.

The smallest of sounds, my eyes dart open. I wouldn't even have heard it even if I'd been speaking out loud. I listen, and there it is again.

Tap. Tap.

I look around my room, my eyes fixate on my window. I see pebbles ricocheting off of the glass.

Tap. Tap.

More pebbles join the ones before. Confused, I walk over to the window and prop it up, my arms screaming for rest as I try to shake myself awake. I look outside, hanging on the pane by my armpits and reach my head out. I feel a small sting as a pebble smacks my forehead. I look down and see my best friend Jake standing in my backyard with a handful of pebbles in his grasp. He’s dressed in his dark red blazer and a pair of blue jeans, a grin plastered on his face that emanates his love for being a thorn in my side.

“What the hell are you doing? And where did you get that many pebbles in the middle of winter?” I call out to him.

“What, aren't you glad to see me? I mean, you only haven't been in school all week or anything!” He calls back.

“You didn't answer my question,” I say.

“Come down and maybe I will,” he grins.

“What about curfew?” I ask.

“Curfew shmurfew, you do remember who my dad is, right?” He says, laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, Chief of Police. I know, but I also know you'd never actually pull that card,” I say.

Jake is very particular about his dad's work. He had some issues growing up with people only being friends with him because his dad is the Chief of Police. Putting that in perspective along with the shit Jake normally has to deal with is also adding onto the pile. Deep down he wants to be as low key about his dad as possible.

“You're right, call it a trump card, then. Now come on, it's cold out!” He calls.

“One moment,” I say.

I walk over to my bed and lean up with my ear to the wall. I hear silence from my mom's room, she must be asleep. I grab my coat from my closet and throw it on. In any other situation I'd feel the need to make myself look all pretty before heading out, but it's different with Jake.

I feel like I can go out after spending an eight hour day at a grubby grocery store and be totally fine. He's always been a little different. Jake has this disease called Vitiligo where patches of skin on his hand and his hair have lost their color. His hair is completely white and his hands have small patches of almost toneless color.

You ever hear of the saying that if you lose one sense, like your sense of sight, then your other senses are heightened? That kind of happens with Jake, although he really doesn't notice it. His eyes are a really bright green, almost a natural neon like color. They seem to work so well at capturing moonlight that they glow in the dark. That's what I notice first about him, and what I did when we first met. Everything about Jake sticks out like a sore thumb and that’s why he’s my best friend. Well, not just for that reason, the main reason is that he stuck up for me in elementary school. That is when I knew he and I would be best friends.

I'm back in my elementary school classroom, November of 2016. I am eight years old.

“It's about time you gave it up, huh Jennifer?” Miss Keans would say. Her face always looked like it was being pulled back by two clothespins, either that or being wound up like a towel you were trying to wring out.

“Yeah! Give it up! Give it up!” A small Italian boy calls out.

“Give what up?” I asked.

“You took Tony's pencil, didn't you?” Miss Keans asks.

“Yeah, I saw you! I saw you take it and now you have it!” Tony screams.

“Okay Tony, that is enough screaming,” Miss Keans says, facing the small child. It only seems to make him more agitated. His face turns three shades darker. Miss Keans turns her attention back to me, “Now Jennifer, it isn't okay to lie, especially to an adult.”

“I am not lying! I didn't take his pencil!” I say, I remember my cheeks getting redder by the second, becoming more flustered with each passing second.

Miss Keans kneels down beside me and her tone becomes more hushed, “Now, you know how we all have to respect each other's things, right?” Miss Keans says.

“Y-Yes,” I say in between sniffles.

“If you don't admit to taking that pencil, then you would be breaking our code of respect, right?”

“But-”

“There are no buts here. You have to-”

“Stop!” A voice calls out.

The whole class turns to look at the boy in the back of the class, the boy who, up until this point, has been eternally quiet. The boy who had freaky white hair, the kind you couldn't ask about because it would be rude, but at the same time you were just so curious...

“She didn't take Tony's pencil!” He calls out, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve.

Miss Keans turns and stands back up, “Well, what do you mean, Jake?”

“J-Jennifer didn't take Tony's pencil because I did. I didn't know how to a-ask him, so I took it. I am sorry,” he says, taking the pencil off of his desk and holding it out.

Tony walks over to Jake and roughly grabs the pencil out of his hand. He then sticks out his tongue and does anything any kid would do to someone they don't like, “Pbthththth!”

“Now, Tony, you know that is uncalled for. And you, Jake, you're going to take a trip down to the principal's office. Maybe he can teach you some manners on how to effectively ask your friends how to borrow their pencils.”

Jake nods his head slowly and leaves the room, trodding with each step seeming like a journey of a million miles.

Later that day I saw him out on the playground drinking from a juice-box he had in his lunch sack. I walked over to him, to thank him for standing up for me.

“I didn't take his pencil,” He began.

“What?”

“Tony's always losing his things, don't you notice it?”

“Well, he is a little weird with his pencils,” I say.

“Yeah, but I was watching him, he tucked it away in his backpack. When he went to look for it he didn't remember as much, so he pulled out the card of it being stolen.”

“Why were you watching him?” I ask.

“What else would I do?”

I don't answer him immediately, if I had the mindset of me now I probably would have pushed him on it, but my eight year old mind didn't think of it.

“If you saw him put it in his bag, why didn't you just tell him he did?”

“He would've called me a liar, that's how he is. You would've gotten in trouble for it just the same.”

“So, it was to stop me from getting in trouble?”

“My dad is a cop,” he says.

“Yeah? That's pretty cool.”

“I learned from him that sometimes people lie, they lie to get other people in trouble. I want to be like him when I grow up, I want to stop those who lie, I want to save the people who get in trouble.”

The memory fades back into my mind, I smile back on the two children sitting next to each other in the playground. I open the door behind me and begin to tiptoe through the hallway, making an effort not to step too hard on the creaky floorboards. I take each step of the stairs as if I were two years old and just learning to walk. Once I reach the first floor I am almost free. I slip into my shoes and ease the door open. Jake is standing there, his back up against my porch railing. The very same grin I saw out on the playground stands on my front porch.

“Hey, ’Sup?” He laughs, his face grows into a sarcastic grin.

I punch him in the arm.

“Hey! Ow!” He rubs his arm.

I walk out into my front yard, which is completely illuminated by moonlight, Jake follows, “Okay, what's up? Why the whole Shakespearean act?” I ask.

“Well, I have a jar of pebbles sitting on my windowsill from my trip to New York,” Jake says.

“What?”

“You asked where I got those pebbles from, I gathered some in a jar with my mom when we visited New York when I was younger. You remember that trip in the summer of '17, right?”

“Okay, I know you didn't come here to show off some pebbles, what's up?” I ask.

“I was worried. You haven't been in school,” Jake says, standing straight.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I've been so busy. With Andy and this whole situation I've had to pick up a job at Edy's,” I say.

“Ah, so it is about Andy.”

“Of course it is. I've been meaning to get word to you, but between work and Andy I've just been so busy I can barely even breathe.” I say.

“Then you might want to hear this, I think I know somewhere where we can find out some information on his situation,” Jake explains.

“How the hell did you find that out?” I ask.

He smirks, placing his hands in his pockets, “How else but dear old dad? Well, okay, not specifically him, he's been really busy lately, but I think if we sneak into his office we might be able to find out some information on that company, Adata.”

“What about the other one, Technodome?” I ask.

“I think we might find some info about that too, but I have a gut feeling about Adata,” he says.

“Why's that?”

“Nobody has seen hide nor tail of this mysterious Adata. Technodome is all out in the open, but this mysterious producer company is hidden from the public eye, something has got to be going on there,” he says.

“I can understand that. How are we going to get there, to your father's office?” I ask.

“I'm a little surprised that you're so open to breaking into the office of the Chief of Police,” he says, laughing.

“I assume since you brought up the idea that you had some sort of plan in mind. And I'm willing to do anything to find some answers on how to save my brother,” I say.

“Well, you're right on the plan, we're going to take the light rail!” He says, his arms outstretched.

“Would they really let us on this late?”

“It's automated, now, the whole system they've got going on. There's nobody willing to keep up with the job so they set up a system to allow certain people through after curfew.”

“And how do you know we'll pass the check?”

He smiles and pulls out a card that's hanging on a chain around his neck, “Dad's ID,” he says with a grin.

I stand there for a moment, a puzzled look on my face.

“Lead the way,” I begin.

He begins to walk into the darkness and crazily enough I follow. I'm done waiting around, hoping for answers to pass me by. It is time I take this bull by the horns and do something about it.