As the sun set over the streets of Ardmore, Lucy ambled up to David’s door.  She paused for a moment to look behind her, and then knocked.  She heard no sign of life behind the door.  She shuffled her feet against the doormat and raised her hand a second time when David opened the door with a blank expression on his face. He looked down at Lucy and frowned as if he were hoping to see somebody else.  She looked up at his face and noticed a glassy, bloodshot look in his eyes. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but immediately noticed a sensation of dryness.  She licked the corner of her lip, and looked back up at David.  “Hey, ah… I’ve got your money,” she whispered.

 

               David’s expression did not change, nor did he say anything.  He gave Lucy a sharp, abrupt nod and motioned for her to come inside.  She shuffled in with her eyes darting from side to side. She stopped beside the stairwell to lean against it and she stared vacantly at David, waiting for him to speak.

 

               David let out an exasperated sigh.  “So, what’s with the dawdling? Where is it?”

 

               Lucy’s eyes widened and she chewed her bottom lip as she reached into her bag, fumbling for the envelope.  Her expression relaxed when she wrapped her fingers around it. She removed it and held it out to David with a nervous smile on her lips.  He took it from her hands abruptly and tore it open to count the cash slowly and carefully.  When he was done, he gave an affirming nod, folded the money, and placed it in to his pocket.  He cleared his throat.  “Thank you, Lucy.”  The name was an afterthought – an unsettlingly sour taste left on his tongue.

 

               Lucy nodded, still smiling.  “Ya need me to move more of it or anything?”  She asked with childlike earnestness.

               David shifted his eyes to the side and looked down at the floor.  “There’s nothing for you to move at the moment.  I’ll let you know.”  His voice was rife with gruffness, which Lucy chose to be deaf to.  She ignored how he stood with his arms crossed in impatience, as well.  All she could see was her desire to win his favor.

 

               She allowed her eyes to dart momentarily towards the floor. “Okay.”  She looked back up at David and forced a warm smile through her nerves.  “Are you, like… feeling all right?  You look like you’ve been pulling all-nighters for a week, and last I checked, it’s been some time since you’ve been in college, heh.”

 

               David grumbled under his breath.  “I’m fine. I’ve been watching over Brenda. It’s a heavier task than someone of your lifestyle could fathom.”

 

               “My…lifestyle?” Lucy asked with a confused cringe both in her voice and on her face.

 

               “You know.  When have you had to care about anyone but yourself?”

 

Lucy bowed her head.  “I see,” she muttered.  “I’m just saying… you’re not looking so good.”

 

David turned his head and rolled his eyes.  As he turned back towards Lucy and stepped forward, his voice took on the shrillness it always would when he dropped his strictly-professional façade. “I appreciate your concern, as much as the framework of this society obligates me to, but I assure you, I do not need it.  Please go.” He made a shooing motion with his hands.

 

Lucy’s mouth turned downward and skewed to the side.  “You’ll call me if you need me for anything, right?” She squeaked.

 

“If.”

 

“And I should call you if I hear any more from Meredith and Alina?” She asked, her voice trembling with desperation.

 

“Again, if.  Listen,” he said, raising his voice once more to a shrill pitch. “I do not have time for the childish, shirt-tugging games of a spoiled, self-indulgent little girl who clings to this world with disdain for the world to come. We are not friends – you have connections and skills that are useful to me.  That is all. Furthermore, this interest of yours in me is completely irrational.  Find someone your own age.  Someone whose priorities are closer to your own to live out the rest of your doomed life with.  Now, leave!” He stomped his foot on the floor while making more shooing motions, this time with more intensity.

 

Lucy stood stock-still by the stairwell with her blue eyes wider than ever and took a deep, uneven breath.  “All right.  Bye,” she said in a rushed whisper.  She slunk out of the house as quickly as she could and clenched her fists tightly as soon as she was outside.

 

 She made her way through the streets, now lit faintly by street lamps.  She choked back bitter tears as she turned her head upwards to the rooftops.  As she saw the small shopping strip that marked her proximity to the train station, she forced herself to steady her breathing.  She was thankfully alone at the station, and she sat down on a bench on the platform with her face buried in her hands.  As rationalizations for why David’s attitude should not have cut so deeply raced through her head, she heard her phone rang.  Wondering if David was calling, she reached for it immediately only to see Derek’s name on the caller ID.   With a deep, heavy sigh, she answered the phone.  “Hey, Derek, what’s up?” She asked with as much cheerfulness as she could manage.

 

               “Not much, how ‘bout you?”

 

Lucy sniffled slightly.  “Same. Just waiting at the Ardmore station. I dropped off David’s money.”

 

“You all right? You sound kinda down.  Let me guess, he said some self-important douchebag shit to you.”

 

Lucy snickered through the faint remainder of her tears.  “Does the sun rise in the East?”

 

Derek responded with a chuckle.  “An’ there you are! Hey, wanna come over?  It’s Friday night and nobody’s invitin’ me out.  I’m bored as shit an’ you seem like you could use some distraction.”

 

Lucy paused.  She wasn’t particularly feeling up to spending time with anyone, but she figured some company would be better than none.  “Guess I don’t see why not.  Give me about a half hour or so. You know how shitty these trains are at just about everything.”

 

“Yeah, that Septic SEPTA.  A’ight, I’ll see you in a bit.”

 

Lucy hung up the phone and waited for the train.  To distract herself, she played with her blue laser-pointer keychain, imagining that she could use it to burn holes in the windows of the nearby shops so she could reach inside and grab whatever she wanted.  Her fantasies were broken by the sound of the train’s whistle and the rattle of its wheels against the tracks.  She got her belongings together and stood up to board the train.  She sat down in an empty seat with few people in the seats nearby and rested her head against the window as carefully as she could that she wouldn’t muss her hair. When the announcer called “30th Street Station”, she slowly rose up from her seat, waited for the train to stop, and made her way out of the station.  She walked up to the intersection of 32nd and Arch Street and rang the buzzer for Derek’s apartment.

 

Derek answered the door and immediately pulled Lucy into a tight hug despite how Lucy tensed up in response.  As soon as he let go, he looked down on her with a broad smile. “C’mon in, c’mon. You look stressed as shit, can I getcha anything? ” He was still wearing the sunglasses he wore last time Lucy saw him, but she took no notice.

 

She shuffled inside, looking around the apartment.  She had seen it before many times, but this time, she could not help herself from comparing his apartment to David’s suburban home.  “A drink, maybe.  You know what I like,” she groaned as she sat down on a small sofa.

 

“Gotcha,” he remarked with a smile and nod as he strode off to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of vodka with seltzer water and handed it to his friend.  “An’ here you are, Miss.”

 

“Thanks,” Lucy muttered with a subdued nod.  She took a sip and stared into her drink.  Her brows suddenly furrowed, and she looked up at Derek’s face. “Uh… hey.”

 

Derek put a hand on his hip.  “Yes? Drink not strong enough?”

 

“You have your sunglasses on again.  It’s almost 10 PM.  Is your eye strain really that bad?”

 

“Oh, this again,” he said, rolling his head back in exasperation.  “Look, they been sensitive for a while now. What’s the big deal?”

 

Lucy arched an eyebrow and took another sip of her drink.  “It’s not, I guess, it’s just… I mean, how long have they been so sensitive?”

 

“Since I took that Proteus stuff.  David said this’d happen.  Awareness bringin’ things the eyes ain’t used to seein’ an’ all that.”

 

               Lucy huffed, placed her drink on an end-table, and stood up.  “Take ‘em off.”

 

               Derek sucked a tooth.  “Seriously?”

 

“I just wanna take a look,” Lucy said, softening her tone.  “If they start to hurt, you can put them back on.”

 

“Fine,” Derek said with a grunt.  He removed his sunglasses and revealed a strange discoloration in his irises. They once were the color of charred wood, but this darkness was now mingled with pale, bright streaks of silvery teal.  

 

Lucy scoffed and slapped a palm to her forehead. “Oh, come on.  You invite me over to fuck with me like this? You just stuck some contacts in there to freak me out.  Typical troll, I should’ve known.”  She marched straight up to Derek and placed a finger in his eye.

 

Derek jerked back with a flinch and a cry of pain.  “Yo, get off me! What’s gotten into you?”

 

“Your eyes are changing colors!  It’s really weird looking and everything but, uh… Uh, maybe it’s just a pigmentation disorder!”  Lucy rambled nervously.  “I mean… you know.  Can you get that in your eyes? I’ve never seen it in an eye, but, what do I know?”

 

               Derek cocked his head to the side.  “Never heard of any that’d do this shit.”

 

“So what do you think it is?” Lucy asked flatly, picking her drink back up and swallowing a mouthful.  “You think it’s from the Proteus?”

 

“More’n likely, yeah.”

 

Lucy’s eyes filled with fear.  “So did this happen right away, or –"

 

“Nah.  I first noticed it before we sent that stuff out to Boulder.”

 

               Lucy frowned as her breathing picked up.  “And… this is it?  Just the weird eye stuff?”

 

               Derek paused and lowered his head.  He turned away from Lucy slightly and shook his head rapidly, as if he didn’t want her to acknowledge his answer.

 

               Lucy kicked the floor slightly in frustration. “Then what else is there? Be honest with me!”

 

Derek put his sunglasses back on and stared down at the floor.  He wrung his hands slightly and sighed as he gathered his words.  “Well, I was tryin’ to tell you ‘bout the electronics thing, but you wouldn’t listen! It’s not just that, either.  Every night since we sent that stuff out, I been havin’ dreams of angels – no, the Zelishem.  Chasin’ me, eatin’ me alive.  Can’t move for an hour after I wake up.”  He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck.

 

               “Could it be sleep paralysis?” Lucy asked with a tinge of hope in her voice.

 

Derek shook his head.  “Nah.  Ain’t no weight on top o’ me.  There’s somethin’… pullin’ me apart.”

 

Lucy crossed her arms.  Her expression grew increasingly more exasperated and anxious.  “And you’ve sent a sizable amount of this stuff to a stranger without warning her about any of this.  Brilliant!”

 

Derek shrugged.  “Hey, I told her it was one hell of an experience.  She wanted in on it, I di’n’t think there was much I could do to stop her. ‘Specially not after I already sent it out.”

 

Lucy let out a half-growl, half-sigh.  “Please.  You just don’t want her to think you can’t handle your shit. You just want to impress her at any cost.”

 

Derek sneered.  “And what you been doin’ with David? Not trying to impress him by puttin’ yourself in danger?  My choices are mine, and Kelly’s are hers.”

 

“Right,” she purred mockingly before draining her glass. “So, what do you wanna do about all this, if it’s causing you so much trouble?”

 

“I wanna talk to David.  I know he don’t like me, but he might know how to get everything back to normal. I just wanted to change shit up for a night and then have everything go back to normal, like with any other drug, ya know?  Like, I thought it was cool knowin’ all this new stuff at first, but it’s just gettin’ weird.”

 

Lucy paused and chewed on her lip.  She felt a burning sensation spread from her chest to her face and she took a deep breath in order to pull herself together.  “You’re not gonna have any luck with him,” she spoke in a slow, measured tone.  “He doesn’t like me, he doesn’t like you.   If he could do anything to reverse the effects, he wouldn’t.  This drug of his?  It’s like the chemical version of those pamphlets those Evangelical types and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and whatnot pass around on school campuses.  As far as he’s concerned, reversing its effects would be the same as rejecting truth and burying your head in the sand, and I know he’ll have none of it.”

 

Derek rubbed his temple.  “So, what can I do?  I got a bad feeling this all is only gonna get weirder.”

 

Lucy forced a smile of consolation.  “All I can suggest is that you notify the girl you sent the drugs to and tell her not to take them – Kelly, right?  Unfortunately, it may already be too late. But, really, other than some weird parasomnias and eye issues, what’s the worst you think’s gonna happen?”

 

“Shit, I don’t know.”

 

Lucy smirked wryly.  “That’s right.  David might be trying to brainwash students with this drug, but who’s to say anything will really take hold without his so-called guidance – that is, his mind games?” She saturated her words with a deliberate bitterness.

“You’re right.  Heh, seems like his hold on you is loosening,” Derek said with a gentle smile.

 

Lucy looked down at the floor and scoffed.  “I wish.  I’m just a little pissed at him right now.”  She looked back up.  “Another drink, please?”

 

   “Sure thing.”

 

               Derek fetched Lucy another drink, as well as one for himself.  He then set the bottles on his coffee table and sat down on the couch.  The two sat in silence for some time, sipping intently from their cups until Lucy grew restless and began to fidget.  “So, hey, what’d you think of what that girl said in Linguistics the other day?”

 

               “Oh, ‘bout how prescriptivism exists for a reason and how if there wasn’t one correct way to speak a language, everything would just be chaos? Pssh,” Derek snorted.

 

               “Yeah.  What’d you think?”  Lucy finished her glass and then refilled it, this time with straight liquor.  “A little behind the times, wouldn’t you say?” She tossed her drink back casually.

 

               “If I said ‘a little’ was an understatement, that’d be an understatement of its own.”

 

               Lucy let out a raucous laugh.

 

               “Hey now, it wasn’t that funny.  Maybe you should slow down a bit,” Derek snickered, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

 

               “I am getting pretty tired.  I guess I’ll go home.  Thanks for having me over.  And good luck with… whatever’s going on with the Proteus,” she said as she grabbed her purse and stood up.

 

               “A’ight.  Take it easy.”

 

               “Yeah, yeah, you, too.  Think you need it more than me, I’m not the one slowly turning into a freak of nature.”

 

               Derek shook his head and gave a breathy laugh. “Right.  Goodnight.”

 

               “Goodnight.”

 

               Lucy walked steadily down the stairs of Derek’s apartment building, holding tightly to the railing as she did. She ran a hand down her face, not caring about the black and gray makeup she smeared down her cheeks – it was dark out anyway.  She pulled out a cigarette from her purse, lit it, and smoked as she walked back down to Market Street, debating whether to get on one of the Market-Frankford trains or to walk home.  She hated the smell of the subway stations and the way the men on those trains would look at her.  She decided sore feet would be the lesser of two evils and began walking towards her apartment on 40th and Spruce.  Once she finished her cigarette, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled out her flip phone; the spare phone she used only for customers she was not on friendly terms with.  She found David’s name in the contacts and pressed “send.”  As the phone rang, Lucy’s pulse sped up and she cleared her throat, gathering up her best recollection of the voices she recorded while monitoring Alina and Meredith.  

 

               “Hello, David Abernathy speaking, who is this? Your number's restricted.”

 

“I think you know.  You’re the smart guy,” she rasped, affecting Meredith’s voice to the best of her ability.

 

“…Ms. Meredith?!”

 

“The one and only.”

 

“Why are you calling me?  It is very late.  You should be resting, what with all of these changes you’re going through.”

Lucy paused, taking a moment to internalize the sort of language the Silva family and their followers used.  “You are using me to poison the world. You are disgusting.  You see me as a light, but I will make sure the rest of your days are lived out in darkness.”

 

“And how can I make amends? I only ever wished to spread your word and do your will, Dear Conduit.”

 

Lucy smiled broadly as she heard the panic mounting in David’s voice.  “You only wished to be part of something influential.  You only ever wished to change this world on your own terms.  You are filth.  You want to make amends?  Sacrifice yourself in my name,” she hissed.

 

“Well, that isn’t going to happen – I can’t do that.  Your father is counting on me.  There is so much more I wish to see, and to learn!” David stammered.

 

“See? You know no will other than your own,” she intoned.

 

“That’s not true! Ms. Meredith!” David howled.

 

               Lucy immediately hung up and threw her phone into the street.  She laughed to herself all the way back to her apartment.  

    *****

               David rushed into Brenda’s bedroom with wide eyes and sweaty palms.  She appeared to be soundly asleep.  “Brenda! Brenda!” He called to her.

 

               She turned over sluggishly.  “What is it, David? ‘M trying to sleep.”

 

He crossed his arms tightly in front of him and tapped his foot as he hovered over the bed. “Meredith tried to call me.  She told me to sacrifice myself…” He began to pace.  “Oh, I told Richard that after one week with Alina, she’d be out of control.  He didn’t listen, controlling bastard that he is.”

 

“It wasn’t Meredith,” Brenda slurred.

 

“And how would you know? You’re three-quarters out of your mind and counting!” He whined.

 

“It wasn’t,” she croaked as she faded out of consciousness.

 

David clenched his fists.  “God damn it!” He growled through gritted teeth and kicked the leg of the bed. Brenda’s body rocked slightly from the impact, but she did not wake up.  He loomed over her, staring at her slack face in disgust, and then turned away. “You’re useless,” he spat as he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

 

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