The group on the roof top had all been arrested after some sort of online scam or cyber-attack or something along those lines. The one news report he saw was short and very vague. It only mentioned several people hiding in a roof top living quarters had been taken into custody for cybercrimes. It had been three weeks now and no one had contacted him or questioned him. He had such a short window of contact with them that he doubted anyone outside the room of 8 could identify him and he was confident that none of the 8 would talk.
He felt safe… but not all the time. He knew the authorities could track him down if they had an image of him or a fingerprint. The only thing he had touched was that air fryer, it would be enough to track him down and charge him as a co-conspirator in the scheme. He had thought ahead. If he was questioned, he would say he was taking the old unwanted air fryer from work to a charity shop, the one on Washington street, only to find it was closed when he got there. So naturally he left it in a collection bin in the alley… anyone who wanted could have snagged if that night. It was a good alibi but there would be no video evidence at the store if they bothered to pull the recordings. At this point even if the authorities came calling the store would have probably cleared the drives with the security videos. That shop was a small operation so it was unlikely they would have more than a few weeks’ worth of video saved. He could buy even more time by saying he forgot which store it was or which day it was… It had now been about a month since he dropped off the air fryer. Aat this point surely a fading memory from a walk home and some confusion over a mundane chore was normal.
Then there was the issue of his phone. That one guy with the shaved head had reformatted it or something the first time he met them. He had said not to take it back to the store, that if he did there would be questions. Maybe that could not be linked back to the group, jailbreaking devices was frowned upon and voided the warrantee but it was not illegal. It probably wasn’t worth worrying about.
But these thoughts just kept haunting him, he had trouble sleeping for the past two weeks. Despite all his planning and his plausible deniability there were loose ends and a long list of unknowns that lingered uncomfortably. As much as he had planned and rehearsed his responses, he was still a bit worried. An unseen security camera on the roof top would be enough to screw him over.
The more he thought about the incident the more he had regrets. Not only about the potential for trouble bur even more so he had a creeping sadness. He was sad that the whole thing had fallen apart before he could make any sense of the group or their peculiar life style. He kept thinking about that rooftop greenhouse. It was a thing of beauty and the tomato and cilantro on the taco they gave him was some of the best he had ever had. Picked right before his eyes. He wished he could go back one more time, he wished he could say goodbye but it was too late now. It was too late for a lot of things. Even thought there was not much he could do he still remembered.
He needed to calm down, the café was just down a side street, now seemed as good a time as any to get a coffee and a snack. The place wasn’t cheap but it could be his well earned treat for week. He hadn’t treated himself to any indulgences in weeks, so he was overdue. He shuffled his way there and took a seat ordering his usual. The place was busier than usual, not exactly packed but louder than he remembered it being, it occurred to him this was the first time he had stopped by in a month or more. The last time he sat in the same room he had studied that strange little book. He searched his jacket pockets to see if he still had it. He had been so busy that it had not crossed his mind in a while and he feared he may have lost it in the wash. It was absent from his pockets, he knew he had stashed it somewhere to keep it safe, he just couldn’t remember where. Maybe it was at home in a desk drawer or a box, maybe it had received the royal treatment for his most treasured trinkets and was in the metal box in the wooden bed tucked under his bed. He would check when he got home, for now he would enjoy his iced coffee and doughnut.
After some time snacking and watching snippets of a program on wood working playing on the muted TV screen he decided it was time to go. He flagged down the waitress to pay his bill and pulled out his wallet. As he reached in, something caught his eye it was that dammed booklet. His fingers dug around it to grab his card that he hands over the waitress smiling. He felt a sense of excitement he still had a souvenir from his strange encounter on the roof top. It was garbage as far as most would be concerned but to him it was almost a certificate of sanity. My rantings aren’t madness I have a selection of sayings and crude drawings to prove I had a rendezvous with a den of underground criminals! Yes, that was surely a line he would share with his children someday.
That all seemed nice but he thought what if he had been there when the raid happened? Haunted him, not because he didn’t know what he would have done, he knew he would have run. What if the authorities had evidence against him and had picked him up the same night of the raid or the day after when most were unaware? He would not have been prepared and he would have told them whatever they wanted. He was a hero and a rebel only in hindsight, in the real world, in the breathing heart pounding moment he was a coward.
They were not nice thoughts, they were frightening. The situation was bad, something he did not want to be embroiled in. That was only on the surface. His fear went deeper. What really scared him was his response. It was his inability to act that was the most frightening thing. He has slinked away safely but in shame. And this wasn’t the first time. The worst part was it wouldn’t be the last time either.
He thought back to Sandra in the office. Maybe he should have just told her to fuck off. Maybe he should have shouted “Go home for a day! How about I go home for a decade! I Quit.” Smashing the computer and tossing the cans of Pryamsn across the office on his way out the door. That would have shown them all… or was it just running away while making a scene. No, that’s exactly what is was.
Something needed to change. Not his job or who he hung out with on the weekends. It was something in him that needed to change. Maybe all of him needed to change. That task was so big it was hard to imagine what to do, where to start and how long it would take. Was such a change to his being even something he could do? Maybe when he was young but his youth was past and he felt set in his ways as pathetic as they were.
That stupid book came to mind again. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at it. He felt disappointed he would never see vol. 1 or 2. He really knew he was disappointed he would never see the roof top 8 again. He would never get a chance to stand in the greenhouse. He would never go on any silly little errands for them again. Looking at the book, he knew there would never be a vol. 4. He lifted his head trying not to spin into another existential crisis. He gazed across his room to his tiny desk with the stack of stolen printer paper and pin still sitting on top, unmoved from when he wrote the letter a month ago. If they can’t make vol. 4… why don’t I do it in their stead. I am a professional writer and editor… well in a marketing sense. They might appreciate the effort, even if it is not completely on target with their agenda. My art will suck but theirs was nothing to write home about. Sketching a little mouse or some character with a triangle head was within his limited skill set.
He stopped for a moment. What exactly was their agenda? They seemed to have plans and were organized to some extent but that didn’t necessitate an agenda. He had spoken to them for a while on the two days he met them but they never really preached an ideology or pushed an idea. They weren’t anarchists judging from their level of organization and cooperation. They couldn’t be luddites since they used computers and air fryers. Were they just some odd type of counterculture? They didn’t seem to have a band, but maybe a counterculture could be more than a band and a clothing style. Their clothes were very out of style, maybe they just didn’t care about anything the world had offered them. They were definitely making their own way in the world. Why didn’t he do the same thing, just with his own twist on it? Not an agenda per say, just a message. He could keep a similar style of drawing and writing. He could easily mimic the simple production method of several small pieces of white paper stappled together.
Yes, just start writing what he knew, take on an anti-advertising message. No one liked ads anyways so no need to worry about offending anyone. He could expose some of the tricks marketing teams use to take advantage of people. That would piss off some people. The kind of people who needed to be pissed off and knocked down a peg or two. He grinned to himself twirling the pen in his fingers. He was excited, he felt he had some power, it was the first time in a while he had felt this way.
Dictating your own rules, someone had said that at the lunch he had in the roof top greenhouse with the 8. That sounded nice. For now, it was all he had to work with, so he would have to lean hard into writing the rules for himself. Not just a couple of rules but the whole rule book. The more he thought about it the more the task seemed daunting, even overwhelming. He paused and took a deep breath. No there was no reason to get flustered, this was all on him, he was in control. He would set the schedule, dictate the work, write what he saw fit and edit it for accuracy and clarity.
He set pen to paper and began to write. He kept writing well into the night.
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