Page 61 of Anarchy Missing

Starting Over

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - LULU

“Fine,” I say, grabbing my coat and purse and blowing the hair out of my eyes in exasperation. “You know what? I’m sorry I came here looking for the guy I once knew. I’m sorry I—” Everything goes dark and silent as I let the last few words of my sentence fade into the nothingness.

“What the hell?” Case says, storming past me, calling, “Steve? Report. Steve?”

“Your power’s out,” I snap. “Your creepy light-man is gone. Just point me to the stairs, Case. I’ll be on my way.”

“The power can’t be out,” Case says, more to himself than me. “We’ve got backups.”

“Well, obviously, your backups are out.”

“No,” Case says, placing his hands on the smooth metal wall of the far side of the elevators. “The backups are on a private grid. The only way…” He stops mid-sentence and continues to feel the wall.

“The only way what?” I ask. “And what are you doing?”

“Trying to make the wall open so we can access the stairs.” I’m just about to remark on the stupidity of concealing a fire escape when he says, “There it is.” He flattens his palms and pushes until the wall slides open. “Stay here.” He says it with mountains of irritation.

“I’m not staying here.”

But he must not care, because when I follow him into the stairwell and start banging down behind him, he doesn’t bark any more orders.

When we get out into the lobby it’s dark and cold. The sun has disappeared behind thick snow clouds and the flurries are starting.

“What are we looking for down here?”

He ignores me as he makes his way towards a hallway that’s hidden by an artistic curve of a wall, and then slips out of sight.

I follow again and catch him opening a door to what appears to be an engineering room. It’s dark and silent, just like everything else in this building now.

“Where is everybody?”

“We sent them home this morning when the power went out all over town. People needed to go collect their kids and stuff.” Case lets out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’ll walk you to your car. You might as well go home too. Looks like this shit is taking a turn for the worse.”

It’s then that I realize I don’t have a car. “Well… Randy dropped me off this morning so…”

Case is staring down at some lifeless electronic dashboard that should probably not be so lifeless. But he manages to turn his head and look up at me through his hanging blond hair. “He dropped you off? Well… that’s not weird.”

“I told you, I was at the prison earlier. And ToyBox was on the way.”

Case goes back to messing with the electrical equipment. “So how did you think you were getting home? Was he picking you up as well?”

“I figured a taxi would do.”

“During a city-wide blackout?” Case laughs.

“I didn’t realize how widespread it was. We were cut off out at the prison. Are you waiting for me to beg you to give me a ride? Fine. Can you drop me off downtown?”

“Do you really think we’ll be able to get anywhere near downtown right now, Lulu?” He doesn’t look up at me this time. Not even a half-hearted sidelong glance. “Really?”

“Probably part of your plan,” I say, crossing my arms to try to ward off a feeling of dread and foreboding.

“Right,” he mutters. “Because you’re so much fucking fun to be around these days. ‘Let’s make a deal, Case,’” he says in a fake female voice. “‘Just cop out to some fictitious supervillain plan and spend some time in prison and I’ll let you fuck me.’”

Ohhh… I am pissed. “Fuck you.” I turn on my heel and don’t wait for his comeback. Just walk straight back out to the lobby, shrugging my coat on as I go. I know the power is out, so the front doors don’t work, but I flatten my hands on the glass the way Case did upstairs, and they part easy enough.

A cold gust of wind rushes in, blowing small, hard balls of snow onto my face with such force, they sting.