When you said you were going off the grid, I didn’t think you meant completely. Couldn’t have given me a heads up? And what’s with sending me to Boston to meet with a blind guy? In case you didn’t know, I’m mostly deaf, not blind. Don’t try to tell me I can still live a full life. Not until you’re walking around without your fucking arm too.
Don’t contact me again.
-Griff
Austin and I were neverclose.I was part of his security detail. We had beers once a week. At the occasional lunch together. But after the attack, he was there for me. At least for a few days. Until they transferred us from Bagram to separate hospitals in the States. Me in McClean and Austin up in New England somewhere. That’s when he went dark, and I tried to ignore how much his silence hurt.
My watch buzzes on my right wrist, and I glance down at the text message.
Open the door.
-Dax
The hell? I didn’t tell Holloway where I was staying. And I sure as shit would have noticed someone following me back here.
Sliding off the bed, I check the peephole. Despite being mostly blind, he’s staring right at me—or so it seems—so I open the door.
“Want to explain how you found me?” I ask as I step aside to let him in. His cane sweeps back and forth across the garish carpet, and I add, “There’s a chair at your four o’clock.”
“So, you’re not a complete dick, then.” Finding the chair, he sinks down with a grimace and rubs his thigh. “Just angry as fuck.”
“Are you going to answer my question?” Closing the door and taking a seat on the bed across from him, I lean forward so I can watch his lips. Why is hotel lighting always so awful?
Dax reaches into his jacket pocket for an eyeglass case and tosses it to me.
“I don’t need glasses.”
“You do now. Put them on.”
There’s no arguing with a man like him. He carries himself with a presence that fills the room, and despite his lack of sight, I have a feeling he could still kick my ass. So I do it.
The black frames aren’t particularly stylish. Or prescription.
“They’re on. Happy now—holy fuck.”
Across the top of the lenses, my own words appear.
“They’re a prototype,” Dax says. Just like on the tablet, his reply is in a different color. “The software’s glitchy, the glasses weigh a ton, and right about now, there’s probably too much text on the lenses for you to read—or see.”
I don’t register that he’s stopped speaking because seeing the words appear right in front of my eyes with almost no delay is like fucking magic.
“Griff?”
Everything else scrolls away, and my name snaps me back to the present. “This… How?”
“Told you. I work with some of the best in adaptive tech. You got a notepad around?”
I scramble for the pad of hotel stationery and a pen. “Yeah.”
“Write something. Anything. Doesn’t have to make sense. And hand it to me.” He scoots to the edge of the seat and holds out his hand.
I scribble my childhood phone number followed by a handful of random words: cheeseburger, plane, cat, Venus—then pass him the note.
Dax taps the frame of his own glasses, and in under a minute, reads every single number and word back to me.
“How the fuck did you do that?”
His laugh is rough and seems to surprise him. Pulling an earbud from his right ear, he shrugs. “Optical character recognition. Lets me read menus, documents. Slow as fuck, but better than relying on someone else to do all that shit for me.”
