“Cipher,” Kitten said again. “Stop thinking what you’re thinking. This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Of course you should tell me if some creep is creeping on you.”
“All he did was try to get a blowjob.”
“From my boyfriend.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“Everyoneknows that.”
Kitten rolled his eyes. “He didn’t force me to do anything. He only made the offer. You told me before that’s how things worked at The Admiral.”
I regretted having told him that. Kitten asked too many damn questions, usually when I was high. “Your point?” I said huffily.
“Are you going to get over yourself and talk to him? In a nonviolent way?”
I took a deep breath and tried to regain my composure. Kitten was making some good arguments, and it wouldn’t help our mission to get my ass thrown in jail. “Yes, I’ll talk to him, but if he tries anything with you–”
“I know how to defend myself.”
I channeled Artemis’s gift for diplomacy and elected not to argue.
“Promise me you’re not going to do anything reckless and get shipped off to Timbuktu,” he said with a pout, his not-so-secret weapon. “Promise me,” he insisted when I was slow to answer.
“I’ll be civil.”
“You’d better be.”
* * *
Know thy enemy,or at least know the fool who’s been hitting on your boyfriend and clearly has a death wish. I stalked the two-bit hustler for the better part of three days, seeing where he lived, who he talked to, and where he spent his time. Ansel was his name, a resident of the fifth floor. What he was doing on our floor was a mystery, unless it was for the sole purpose of seducing my boyfriend.
Ansel worked at the Coca-Cola bottling plant that was just down the road. In packing, I presumed, as I watched him unload crates of empty glass bottles from the back of a delivery truck. With the collapse of the global economy, oil–and by extension, plastic too–was in short supply, which was not only good for the oceans, but it meant that people actually recycled their glass bottles nowadays.
Cities and rural areas had also gone back to their roots, growing and manufacturing whatever they could to feed their dwindling populations and trade with other local economies. Atlanta used to be a logistics and supply chain hub, but because oil and gasoline were scarce, most of the trucks and airplanes sat empty. Around here Coca-Cola was king. Also peanut butter, since Georgia grew a shit-ton of peanuts.
But in the case of one Ansel from the fifth floor, his lunch break was approaching, and after he ate his PB&J sandwich, he’d likely go off on his own for a smoke–we happened to have that particular vice in common–and that was where I planned to appeal to his better nature in giving me the information he may or may not have regarding Kitten’s brother.
“Hey there,” I said to the youth, roughly my age, though still with all of his limbs. It wasn’t as if I went around constantly comparing limb counts, but a potential rival, certainly. He was, in fact, the same straight-toothed suitor from the day I got bamboozled into watching a Tom Hanks movie, and I couldn’t help but wonder, who was better equipped to care for Kitten? Here was a seemingly well-adjusted young man, holding down a steady job, probably slept at night like a normal person rather than haunting hallways and fire escapes, smiled like he meant it and likely wasn’t low-key addicted to opiods.
Who would I become if I stayed here in Atlanta? I didn’t see myself toiling at the daily grind for loose change or joining any sort of government entity. I could trade in the black markets, figure out the criminal underbelly of who was truly pulling the strings in this city and do odd jobs for them–nothing too violent or murderous. Stealing from the robber barons who’d managed to hold onto their fortunes sounded right up my alley. A modern-day Robin Hood perhaps?
“You roll your own?” Ansel asked, spying my own choice of slow death.
“Yeah, got into the habit out in Rabid Country.” I used to smoke cigarettes, but when we started scavenging, cigars were sometimes easier to come by, so I’d empty out the tobacco and stuff it in a Ziploc to keep it fresh.
“Out there?” he asked, nodding in the general direction of the chain-link fence that surrounded the city.
“Yeah, I’m from D.C. originally.” I held out my hand. “Cipher.”
“Cipher. Cool name. I’m Ansel.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re the guy who tried to get my boyfriend to suck his dick.”
His brow dipped as if trying to remember, and I wondered if he made a habit of soliciting pretty young things for sexual favors on the regular.
“Oh, yeah, well, I’m not sure what he told you–”
