Sebastian didn’t know what Mia had told Britt, over coffee and after, but he knew what she shouldn’t have told Britt, because it was the same things none of them were supposed to tell anyone. The cythrax bomb was definitely one of those things. He’d only told his mom because he figured all nondisclosure agreements had mom clauses, even federal government ones. He took a long drink from his whiskey and coke and pretended like Britt had said something normal instead.
A waiter passed with a tray. Britt snapped at him while looking the other way. It worked. The waiter stopped and lowered his tray of vegan jalapeno poppers.
There it is, Sebastian thought. A moneyed bohemian. Most bohos were, these days. The culture and the counterculture grew from the same seed of privilege. Who could afford to be genuine anymore? No one Sebastian knew, not since the new recession. He’d sold out to Homeland Authority and wasn’t afraid to admit it. That’s the difference between me and the boho sorts, he thought. Honesty. Britt ate the vegan jalapeno popper with a neatness that could only be taught, rigid fingers and tiny, minute chews and a paper napkin folded in half like origami, not one crumb escaping. He pushed away a joke about it and asked where home was.
“Been in Gypsy Town awhile,” Britt said. “We’re originally from the Federal City area, though. Little suburb called Troy.”
“Right. Of course.” Every war journalist on the planet had christened her brother the American Hector. Wasn’t it stranger than fiction, they all asked? Something to be considered, certainly! No art in propaganda anymore, Sebastian thought. Just blunt force. He asked if the Volunteers were still in Hollywood.
“You don’t know?” Britt asked. She sniffed in confusion, crossing her arms again. The omega tattoo disappeared into her body. “They’re here.”
“Here where?”
“Here here.”
“Here here where?”
“Here. Empire City. The movie’s over. They’re on leave until they deploy back to the Mediterranean. Finally convinced the War Department to let them be soldiers again.”
Something between wonder and panic dropped through Sebastian. The Volunteers were here, in the city here? And going back over there? Nothing about that made sense to him. They were supposed to be in Hollywood or touring the country, raising money for the government. That was the deal. He was figuring out how to ask particulars when a digital jingle sprang from within Britt. She pulled a phone from an unseen pocket and looked at it. “Boyfriend,” she said.
Sebastian nodded and pantomimed smoking a cigarette. He headed outside for the patio, focusing on the ground as he walked. He needed to think, and wanted air and smoke for that.
A dozen or so partygoers had pushed out to the patio as well, but they all seemed the same to Sebastian. Faceless and prim, fatheaded and fake. He grabbed a seat in a corner where no stranger could sneak up, and took out a thin pipe shaped like a cigarette and packed with weed. A gray sun, masked by a grayer sky, hung on the horizon like a dreary disco ball. The sidewalks swelled with noise and angst. Where they all found the energy to do it, to do any of it anymore, Sebastian didn’t know. He watched and smoked, content to be detached, detached to be content. The Volunteers were here, somewhere. Sebastian knew he should find them. He hadn’t seen any of them since the hospital in Germany. They’d gone on to do brave things, incredible things. They were using their powers for good. He wanted that, too. Not just the brave or incredible parts, but the going-on. That matters, he thought. It matters a lot.
On his phone, Sebastian skimmed through fan theories on a Utopia message board. He hated giving any time or attention to state TV. But the show challenged the old rules. The cinematography, especially. If Bobby Kennedy had lived to become president—a genius conceit. River Phoenix mostly pulled it off, the accent notwithstanding. Sebastian never missed an episode.
Sebastian was trying to figure out how to repack his one-hitter unnoticed when Mia found him.
She sat next to him and pointed to his pipe. “Really? Here?”
Sebastian held his fingers to his throat. “It is medicinal,” he said like a robotic voice box. “Please don’t tell my boss. My pension isn’t vested yet.”
Mia laughed, a bit too easily to Sebastian’s mind, which put him on alert. “How are you, See-Bee? I’ve missed you.”
Sebastian readjusted his sunglasses and stuck the pipe into his pocket. “You’re asking if I’m seeing anyone.”
“Sure.”
“It’s your engagement party, Mia. Not the place to confess an undying love.”
She sighed the sigh of someone playing a part. “You know what I mean.”
“I met Britt Swenson earlier,” Sebastian said. He wasn’t quite ready to ask the question he’d come here for, so he asked the question he’d found here instead. “You know the Volunteers are in the city now? And going back to the war?”
Mia tilted her head. “My handler told me last week. Yours didn’t?”
That made Sebastian grunt. “Mine’s been busy.”
“You look skinny.”
Sebastian considered telling her about what had happened at the subway the previous night. Instead, he said, “I’ve always been skinny.”
“Jesse likes you, you know. Despite my trying to convince him otherwise.”
“He’s cool. Good choice, senorita.” Sebastian scratched his head and leaned close to Mia. “Curious,” he said. “You fly anymore?”
“Of course not.” Mia paused for a beat, then another. It’d been three years since Tripoli. She raised her eyes to meet his and narrowed them to splinters. “You disappear anymore?”
Sebastian laughed, quick and short. “Just teasing,” he said.
“I’m not. Don’t play around with what you can do, Sebastian. They’ll crush you.”
Sebastian clenched his jaw and felt his chest seize up. He looked back out into the maze. Mia was right, of course. But he didn’t like the way she’d suggested he didn’t understand the stakes. Was he being sensitive? Perhaps, he allowed. We all have our vices.
Mia patted his knee and said she needed to get back inside. He apologized for forgetting a gift and said he’d see her in there. A minute later, he decided to ghost. He walked off, concentrating on his feet moving along the sidewalk, counting each step silently until he got to twelve. Then he started back at one.
Anytime someone came up too close behind him, he stopped and let them pass before continuing. He knew he was a cliché, maybe a couple different ones, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to be by himself. A block from the restaurant, he hailed a cab by stepping into the street.
“The Village,” he told the driver. “Take the expressway.”
This proved the wrong choice. Traffic piled up a half mile north of the Jubilee Bridge. Cars crept along in sleepy monster fury, and Sebastian’s legs began cramping, then twitching.
The driver pointed to the radio. “Crazy shit,” he said.
“What now?” Sebastian asked. He hadn’t noticed the radio was on.
“The consul who collapsed in Federal City yesterday. He’s a deader.”
“Damn.” Sebastian had seen some scroll somewhere about it. “Steps of the Nixon Memorial?”