"What the hell?" Diego furrowed his brow, looking at the TV.
Dawn cackled as a blue turtle shell came out of nowhere, hitting Diego's cart and covering his part of the screen with a blue tint. Her vehicle on the lower part of the screen overtook him effortlessly, and a few AI players followed her. He could only watch helplessly as he fell from the first place into the sixth.
"How do you always get the best stuff?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen. "When I get those boxes, it's always a shitty mushroom or something like this."
"I told you, it's a secret," she said. Her car reached the finish line; an ordinary green shell missed her by inches. "I'll tell you when you're older."
Troy looked up from his book.
"You finished your little competition already?" he asked.
"Yup!" Dawn stood up and stretched. "Diego cleans up the kitchen as always."
Diego put his controller on the sofa, noticing a new scratch on the leather padding. They should stop letting Goldie sleep on it if she would treat it as her scratching post.
"A rematch?" he proposed, knowing well the answer.
Dawn snorted. "In your dreams. You lost fair and square."
"And you two were supposed to help me with the soup," Troy said. "Those carrots won't peel themselves."
"One moment," she said, going toward the door. "Gotta paint the porcelain."
"All right, what's her secret?" Diego asked as she left her room. "How is she always doing this?"
Troy sighed. "I don't even play this."
"But you watched us playing."
"No, I was reading. I was bored to death playing it once; why would I watch you?"
Diego sighed, disappointed. It was always the same with Dawn: in one moment, she was losing; in another, she pulled some bullshit and won. Their rivalry continued for several weeks after they bet for chores the first time, and he was stuck cleaning the toilet. The more he lost, the more he wanted to win; at this point, it wasn't even about that stupid cleaning.
"Could you maybe ask her?" he proposed.
"She will know I'm asking for you," Troy said. "I don't even like this stupid game."
"Dead skin everywhere."
They looked behind.
Dawn stood in the doorway, her usually fair face pale as a sheet. She walked into the room, looking around and sniffing like a dog. She seemed tense as if something was about to attack her.
"What?" Troy asked.
"Shedding your skin cells, dropping your hair, dripping sweat all around," Dawn said indignantly. "They despoiled this room with their excretions. And it was so pristine!"
"The fuck are you talking about?" Diego cocked his head, trying to figure out what was happening.
"Are you high?" Troy stood up from the chair, his brows furrowed. "Just before you were supposed to help? What the hell, Dawn?"
She went around the sofa. Her gaze slid past them as if they didn't exist. It stopped in the corner of the room where an open toolbox lay on the floor.
As they watched her, she went there, bent down, and grabbed a large hammer.
"The head is for bandersnatches. The peen is for humans," she announced to no one in particular as she went toward the door.
"Don't just sit here!" Troy hissed to Diego. "We have to take it away before she hurts someone!"
Diego stood up, his heart pounding in his chest. He sprinted toward the door just after Troy, accidentally kicking an almost empty glass of tea he left on the floor. It rolled on the old parquet, hitting the wall and breaking into hundreds of jagged shards. He paid it no mind.
Dawn was sneaking down the corridor, the hammer still in her hand. No, not sneaking: tip-toeing like a cartoon character. She opened the door to a renovated room, looked inside around the corner, and then left the apartment for the staircase. Troy and Diego looked at each other and went behind her.
She stopped at the stairs, looking through the dirty window. Troy looked pointedly at Diego and waved his hand left. He pointed at himself and waved right. Diego nodded; he hoped he got the general gist as they slowly walked toward Dawn.
A door opened a floor down, where they set up the communal kitchen, and Phan appeared in their field of view, carrying a massive crock-pot. Diego opened his mouth to warn him, but his quarry reacted first.
"I smell a human!" she wailed and ran down two stairs at a time.
In his entire life, Diego had never moved so fast. It took him only a few steps to get behind her, grab both her forearms from behind, and squeeze them as if he wanted to wring them dry. Forcefully, he pressed her towards the wall. Troy was already there, snatching the hammer by the head and whipping it off Dawn's hands. She made a piercing scream, thrashing in his arms.
"The fuck?" Phan winced and almost dropped the crockpot. "What are you doing?"
**
Roxy looked at the dashboard and muttered a curse. The bane of every driver on a budget, the "check engine" light didn't go off with all the other ones as the car started. It was still shining angry red, warning about some imminent catastrophe. Most likely, that catastrophe would hit her bank account after she took it to the car mechanic.
She took a glance at the door to her one-story house, making sure she actually closed it. It was more out of the habit because there hadn't been anything worth stealing there for months. Some stuff she took to the community center, but most home electronics went to the pawn shop. The owner probably thought she was a junkie. If he only knew the truth…
She drove through the streets of Medford, OR. The winter was pretty harsh, but the spring came early this year: it was still March, but the temperature reached 70 degrees today. Despite the occasional clouds, the sun was shining brightly through the windshield. All in all, it was a lovely Tuesday.
It didn't start lovely. Her card was rejected when she was at Walmart, the same one where she used to work as a middle manager several years ago. As she scoured her purse for spare change and tried to figure out what she could afford to leave, she hoped no one recognized her. There was little risk, given how extensive the layoffs of 2008 were, but the thought still stung.
Still, she got most of the things she wanted. Sleeping bags, foam mattresses, cat kibble, and litter, as well as the glass jars Troy wanted to make pickles, were safely stored in the trunk of her car. She would spend the day on work—honest work for the community—and later blow off some steam with her friends. She'll make the most of this day and consider her problems later.
The car reached the high-density part of the city center. Four massive bikes were parked before a KFC restaurant, and Roxy couldn't help but shoot a glare in their direction. The Lucifer's Own were recent newcomers to the town, having established themselves a year ago. They were an outlaw motorcycle club, officially under the protection of Hells Angels. They flooded the city center with drugs, picked up fights, and generally made a nuisance of themselves, yet the pigs behaved like they didn't exist. Par of the course, but still disappointing.
Finally, she drove to the community center. She had to admit it didn't look like much: a dilapidated four-story building made of red brick. Over half of the windows were either broken or outright missing; they were temporarily covered with cardboard. The front of the building was covered with graffiti, most of it being shitty gang tags. Still, seeing it filled her with warmth that her own house couldn't ever bring out.
She ignored the front entrance, closed off with an enormous chain with a rusty padlock, and went for the rear one on the back. A homeless woman in a bomber jacket and a beanie was sitting on the steps, smoking a cigarette. As she saw Roxy, she looked up and smiled.
"Oh, Hannah!" Roxy beamed. "How are you?"
"Good, good," she said. "Glad to finally feel some warmth after that hellish winter. I thought it would never end."
"You sure you can smoke already?" Roxy admonished her. "You just pulled through the pneumonia."
Hannah shrugged. "Eh, it's definitely over. Sometimes, I cough, but you know how it is after a nasty cold. You get a runny nose for a week and then hack your lungs out for a month straight. Post-viral cough, the doctors call it."
"Never mind then. You're not coming inside? The crew is going to make some soup."
"I came, and they were having some spat, so I thought I'd wait it out here." She puffed her cigarette. "The weather's nice, and I've enough drama in the shelter."
Roxy raised her eyebrows. Conflicts happened in their little community, of course, but Hannah wasn't someone to be blown away by a mild quarrel. A bit alarmed, she nodded and went inside the building.
As it turned out, Troy was waiting for her at the staircase. He was a Black man in his early thirties. As always, he was dressed boring but practical: military surplus cargo pants, a blazer, and steel-toed sneakers. He paced around, obviously nervous or angry. When he saw Roxy, he pursed his lips.
"We need to talk," he said.
**
Not everyone was in the room, but it had to do. Ten people, around half of the collective, sat around a table that was too small for all of them. The atmosphere was heavy.
"Three's a charm, as they say," Troy's voice was harsh. "I told you, people, I don't care what you use as long as you don't make this someone else's problem. And this happens the third time."
"Wait a minute," Viola stared him down. "Dawn said she didn't take any drugs. Isn't that right, honey?"
Dawn, her eyes red and puffy from crying, nodded weakly.
Viola nodded. "That's enough for me, and I think it should be enough for everyone. At least until we see any reason to believe otherwise."
"You didn't see her," Diego said. "I thought she was going to bash Phan's head in."
Everyone's gaze went to the Asian teenager, who was currently sitting propped up with both hands. His face was pale, and every time he moved his head, he winced.
"She didn't hit you, right?" Viola seemed confused.
Phan shook his head and made a painful grunt.
"Migraine," he said.
"Do you want another Tylenol?" Roxy asked, worried.
"Nah."
Tara nervously picked at her earlobe and the earrings that pierced it.
"Stress, most likely," she said.
Troy made an annoyed grunt.
"You're not taking this seriously. I'm sorry, but you can't just take someone at their word that they're not using. My brother could get home high as a kite and still argue that he wasn't."
"And it happened with the others, remember?" Diego said. "Dex had that outburst at the gas station, and he turned out to be using. This shithead Neo was selling, and he almost brought the pigs to our doorstep."
Roxy remembered that guy, all right. An insincere smile, a ridiculous trenchcoat he wore all the time, the gaze that always seemed to linger on her tits. And he got creepy and weird very quickly. When they found a stash of some designer drugs in his backpack, she wasn't even surprised. He was kicked out and told never to come back, and good riddance.
"I think if Dawn used whatever Neo had, we would have known," Viola said.
This was getting nowhere. They hadn't reached anything resembling a consensus. Dawn just sat there, frightened and ashamed. Troy and Diego were getting more and more frustrated; it didn't help that the former had already decided that Dawn was a hidden addict in their midst. It hadn't turned ugly yet, but it definitely could.
What did Roxy do?
[ ] She tentatively agreed with Troy and Diego.
Dawn was behaving completely normal, got to the bathroom, and returned… different, which seemed to suggest drugs were involved. Roxy suggested she shouldn't be shamed but that she needed to be sincere with everyone else. Everyone here was her friend and would offer her any support she needed.
[ ]She suggested to take Dawn to the hospital.
Drugs aren't the only or even the main reason why someone might behave erratically. It could have been something that needs medical attention. Roxy tried not to mention a brain tumor or epilepsy but tried to stress that behavioral change and hallucinations might signify some neurological problem.
[ ] She tried to hear Dawn's point of view.
Somehow, no one asked Dawn what made her behave the way she did, or even if she remembers it. This didn't seem fair to Roxy. Understanding her perspective could not only be crucial to figuring out what really happened but should also make her feel heard. Right now, she must have felt like a child whose parents were discussing how to punish her.
[ ] She suggested keeping an open mind.
The truth was that no one knew what happened; even Dawn seemed at a loss. Roxy stressed that accusing Dawn without any proof was unfair and violent. This wasn't how a proper anarchist should behave. The truth crushed to earth will rise again.
[ ] She didn't say anything.
Roxy was neither in the building when this happened nor had anything constructive to add. Besides, she had no idea what to think about this. She let the discussion follow its natural course, hoping to be able to talk to Dawn later in private.
