Rebecca had known Miss
Marcy was there the whole time. She was careful not to betray that knowledge by
looking at her, though, even as she hit the bottom of the stairs and ran
straight in her direction. She had anticipated a host of enemies lying in wait for
her, in fact, and counted herself lucky when she could only make out one. The
bright white shirt and the camera-flash light of the videophone identified her
easily.
The
devil you know, she thought, steeling herself, telling
herself it could only be worse, going the other way. God only knew how many
people waited to spring on her around back. She didn’t think the cop could be
there, not so quickly, but there was no way to be certain.
She kept running, full
tilt, as though making for the woods. But she was ready all the while, and when
Miss Marcy came for her—thinking to roll her in one quick sucker-tackle, no
doubt—Rebecca lowered her head, let out a cry, and drove herself right into
Miss Marcy’s stomach.
They went to the ground
together, but Miss Marcy had already lost. Nary a sound—other than sucking
breath—escaped her lips as Rebecca pinned her arms with her knees and punched
her in the face. Once, twice, three times…
Then, scooting back
over her middle as Miss Marcy’s hands flew up to protect her face, Rebecca
punched her twice more, this time in the sternum—straight punches, not
uppercuts, leading with her two prominent knuckles, just as she’d been taught.
And finally she stood,
turning a full circle, suddenly panicking again. Surely there’d be an army coming for her by now. But there
wasn’t. Not yet.
Miss Marcy just lay
there, curled into a ball, gasping.
She saw the videophone
Miss Marcy had propped up on the windowsill.
I don’t have time for this, she thought, going to it anyway.
She saw her own face in
the screen as she drew near, growing bigger and bigger as she picked it up. It
was taking live video of her and feeding it to Miss Marcy’s personal Omni page.
The Views line at the bottom indicated there were currently six people
watching.
“My name is Rebecca
Riggs,” she said to the screen, and suddenly found tears were threatening
again. It annoyed her because she was not
a crier as a general rule. She fought them down. “This is what the truth is:
Second Salvations murdered my parents, and I’m running away.”
She couldn’t know, as
she tossed the phone aside and started running again, how famous those words
would ultimately become. It wasn’t her name at first—nor her accusation, nor
even her admission of deliberate flight—that would catch the attention of so
many people. But the video, still in record mode, was already being shared by
all six of the anonymous watchers on Miss Marcy’s Omniscience page.
By the time Rebecca
made it to the scooter between the road and the edge of the woods, one of the
watchers thought to add the caption: This
Is What the Truth Is.
Marcus Damanda lives in Woodbridge, Virginia with his cat, Shazam. At various times throughout his life, he played bass guitar for the garage heavy metal band Mother’s Day, wrote for The Dale City Messenger, and published editorials in The Potomac News and The Freelance Star. Currently, while not plotting his next foray into fictitious suburban mayhem, he spoils his nieces and nephews and teaches middle school English.
Website: http://www.marcusdamanda.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarcusDamanda
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