The Cracks in the Labyrinth

Chapter 17 (Part 1)

Adam saw his distorted reflection on the dead computer screen. Unshaven, wearing whatever clothes Lili had brought him, he felt hollow, an empty shell of his former self.

"Am I awesome or what?" There was such enthusiasm in his neighbor's voice. "So? Go ahead! Turn it on!"

"That's not my PC."

"What? No." She bit her lip down hard, worry lining her eyes. "It can't be. Papa Smurf wouldn't mess with me."

"Whatever."

"No, don't say that. I'm going to kill that little asshole."

"He kept his word. The computer is the same."

Puzzlement crossed her face as frustration turned to anger.

"Is it the same or not?"

After what happened last night, Adam couldn't remember why it was necessary to find his PC. The email his dead girlfriend sent him? To finish what Zhang expected of him? I'm not so sure I can wait for the next payments, he thought. Not when aliens are invading us.

He daren't say it out loud. It sounded crazy enough in his head. But was there any other explanation? Those millipedes were everywhere, and he now remembered what had happened on the subway train. The man wearing the red mirror sunglasses jumped on me and forced me to the ground, gripping my wrists with uncanny strength, pressing his knees against my stomach before puking on me. A wave of nausea hit him. He didn't vomit half-digested food, however. A few millipedes slithered out his mouth, each of its thousands of little legs crawling slowly on his lips until they fell with a thud on top of my face, its wet, slimy long bodies coiling and recoiling until they found their balance and crept over my neck and spiraled down into my ear.

The memory of that moment made him whip back his head, trying to avoid something that had already happened.

And that was before the bug bit me on the ankle at the baseball game.

"That was no hallucination."

"I asked you if you wanted Cheez Whiz or butter."

"I'm not hungry."

"Adam, I can't keep doing this. You're making it hard to help you. You don't have a fever anymore; I fed you, you even showered."

"What do you want me to say?"

"How about, 'Hey, Lili, thanks for finding my fucking computer?' Is it too much to ask?"

She folded her arms over her chest, waiting for a response.

Adam gawked at his wristwatches and said nothing. Doubt had him paralyzed. What if he had gone insane? If he couldn't trust his own memories, how could he trust her? Call Bianca. Make sure they're okay. It was goddamn hard to think past the headache he'd had since yesterday, and nausea was only making things worse. That's not what you need to do.

"I have to know if I'm mad."

"For fuck's sake!" Lili grabbed the pan where she had been warming the arepas and tossed it into the kitchen sink. The clacking noise was terrible enough to make the next-door neighbor bang against the wall and shout an intelligible complaint. "You won't answer me, but you talk to yourself. Don't know if you lost your marbles, but you sound cuckoo." She stared at him for a while, white-lipped. Then, with a sigh of sadness, she turned around to get his breakfast ready. "You are just like him. Why do I even bother?"

There it is again. Just like him. Who is she talking about?

"Listen, Lili—"

"Here's an arepa." She put a plate on the dining table in front of Adam. "It's yesterday's, so it might be a little hard, but I warmed it up. The medicine the doctor left for you is over there by the dishes." She took a deep breath. "Sorry I yelled. I'll take a shower before they cut off the water again."

"Who are you?" he said.

"Excuse me."

"You're loving one second, and then you blow up, putting La Sayona to shame."

"You've asked me this before." A smile lightened her features. "Complexity is sexy, Mr. Comedian."

"Sometimes, it feels like you are two different people."

She headed towards the bathroom. "Well, who would want a woman who's always the same?"

"You are something else, aren't you?"

"Me? I'm out of this world."

She winked at him and closed the door behind her.

By the time Adam heard the water running, he'd already figured out what he needed to do next. There was a way for him to find out if he had to buy a straitjacket or not. The crimson light in the subway, the noise coming from the speakers—I've lived through those things before.

"The Red Christmas," Adam whispered to himself as he rummaged around for Lili's smartphone. She mentioned all of her client's phone numbers were in her cell, and that one of her regulars was a member of the Mission Phidias. He checked the couch. Under the cushions, Adam looked for battery chargers plugged to the power outlets in the living room. Where is it? Even going through her bedroom yielded the same results. "Come on!"

He was aware of nothing for a while but the constant sound of the shower running. That's why when something caught the corner of his eye, fear closed tight around his heart. Time is up! He'd wasted his only chance.

"You scared me," Adam said, breathing again after a moment. The ruby eyes of the rabbit were staring at him, his nose moving up and down. "Shh. It'll be our little secret."

He then fumbled through her purse, and there it was, finally in his hands. An iPhone? Fuck. He hated them. Everything Apple was so foreign to him, it might have as well been technology from another planet. He'd made the mistake of buying an iPod once after college and would later describe his iTunes experience as 'medieval torture.' Why it was almost impossible to add music to the cursed device eluded him.

"Shit." The brand of the phone was the least of his problems. He hadn't considered she would it lock with a password. "What do I do now?"

"Adam!"

With an icy knot in his stomach, he gaped over his shoulder, expecting to see Lili under the doorway, wrapped in her towel, ready to shout at him.

She was not there, however.

"Yes?" He asked.

"Could you do me a favor?" she said from the bathroom, raising her voice to make herself heard over the running water. "Turn off the stove, please."

Not stopping to think about it, he made his way back to the kitchen and did what Lili had told him.

And then the phone in his hand rang.

Once more, his chest froze, and he almost dropped the iPhone. Without wanting to, he silenced the call with his thumb and pored over the screen, not believing his eyes.

He knew the caller. It had been among his best friends during college and one of the few survivors of the Red Christmas.

To be continued...