THE COLOR WARS

chapter two: a reason

Hey, this is Vance. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks!

BEEP.

"Vance, I don't know if you got any of the messages I left you yesterday, but please- just give me a text, or something. Anything. You don't have to explain. Just let me know you're okay."

Hey, this is Vance. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks!

BEEP.

"Please just call me back, okay? Please."

Hey, this is Vance. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks!

BEEP.

ERROR. THIS USER'S MESSAGE BOX IS FULL.

"Shit."

I flopped down on the bed with a groan, my comms sliding off my wrist and clattering to the floor beside me. It had been like this since yesterday. I had taken the opposite train, to Center instead of Florline, hoping to catch him at his place. No one home. I'd come back here, I'd left him a message, I'd left him another message, I'd cleaned my pod until the floor shined and everything reeked of chemicals. I'd paced. I'd second-guessed myself, thought, it must be a mistake, it must be a different Vance, I might've seen it wrong, but it didn't take much research to confirm what I already knew to be true. Ten pilots had been announced so far, and number three on the list was none other than Vance Harding, my best friend in the world.

What reason did he have to do this, ever? He himself had called these games suicide. We'd looked down on, pitied, remorsed over people stupid or desperate enough to enter. But he wasn't like them. He had a good job, he had friends, he had so much to live for. More than me, which wasn't saying much, but still. And he'd lied to me about it. Was he just hoping I wouldn't find out? Or did he know that I would, and was just too cowardly to say it to my face? That didn't seem right. Vance had always been the up front one in our relationship, was always the first to tell me about what was on his mind. Maybe he was afraid I would have called him an idiot, begged him to call it off- of course I would have. Of course I would have.

I curled up into a ball and stayed that way until my alarm chirped and I was forced to roll out of bed.

All day at work, I felt restless and distracted. I kept checking my inbox, like it was even possible I would miss a call in this state. Nothing new. Just the six old messages from Moragans, two from Vance, one from my boss.

"Micah?"

"Huh?" I snapped my head up from the surface of the breakroom table, the unpleasant tackiness of it pulling against my cheek.

From across the room, my coworker Ness stood, pointing at the wall vendor. The rows of menu items on the screen blinked colorfully. "I asked you if you wanted a sandwich." She narrowed her liner-encircled eyes. "Like, three times."

"Oh, sorry. I'm not really hungry."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the machine. A minute later she plopped down into the chair beside me and slid a plastic-wrapped sandwich in my direction.

"You've been kind of out of it today." She began tearing open her own lunch, which reeked of garlic.

"Have I?"

She laughed. "Yeah, dude."

In the corner, the newsfeed returned from commercials. The anchor was superimposed below a close up-of a cockpit, and she silently mouthed the subtitles: Contestants are still being accepted for the competition. Those interested in participating can fill out the application at..."

"Sorry," I said again. I clicked the comms on my wrist on and off. "I guess I am."

We sat in silence for a few minutes as Ness devoured her garlic monstrosity.

"Do you know anyone who's done that?" I asked, nodding towards the newsfeed as I peeled open my own sandwich wrapper.

"Oh, yeah," she said, but it sounded more like, "Ow, yaw," with her mouth full. She swiped at her lips with the back of a tattooed hand. "Tons."

"Really?"

She swallowed. "Really. Mostly people I went to school with. A few even survived." Her laugh was only slightly bitter.

"That's rough."

"They knew what they were getting into. They were just idiots. And desperate. Mostly desperate." Her wrapper made a loud crinkling noise as she balled it up in her first. "I've thought about it. I mean, there's a reason so many people go. Lot of money. Lot o' fucking money. But my luck's not good enough for that. I mean, I got my first sandwich stuck in the vendor while you were zoned out over here." She tossed the crumpled wrapper towards the trash. It bounced off the rim and landed on the floor. "I guess you didn't hear me."

"No. I was... thinking about something."

Chair scraping, she stood, an eyebrow quirked in my direction. "You're not thinking about applying, are you?"

"What if I was?" I'd meant it as a joke, but it came out heavy on my tongue.

"Well-" she stooped over to scoop up the wrapper- "I'd tell you you were stupid, but I'm sure you already know that. And then I'd wish you good fucking luck." She turned to face me and tossed the wrapper over her shoulder, where it landed squarely in the receptacle with a soft crunch.