Home > Axiom's End

Axiom's End
Author: Lindsay Ellis

PART ONE

....

THE OBELUS EVENT

Torrance, California

September 20, 2007

NASDAQ: 2,679.05

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,242.85

 

 

1

On the morning of the second meteor, Cora’s 1989 Toyota Camry gave up the ghost for good. The car was a manual transmission with a stick shift its previous owner had wrapped in duct tape years ago, a time bomb the color of expired baby food that should have gone off sooner than it did. At $800, she had paid more for it than it was worth, but back then, she had been a freshman in college and desperate for a car. In the two years since, she’d grown accustomed to the ever-loudening squealing of the fan belt, but on this morning, after she put her key in the ignition and the engine turned, the squealing turned into a hostile screech. A disheartening thunk thunk thunk followed, then a snap, then an angry whirr, all before she could react. But by the time she turned off the ignition, it was clear that the car, her first and only car, was dead forever.

And she was already late for work.

As the Camry went into its final death throes, Demi, who was locking the front door on her way to work, froze mid-motion as she beheld the scene, wearing an expression of disappointment, but not surprise. Cora’s feeling of horror that this was even happening quickly hopped to embarrassment before settling onto her old standby: numbness. She got out of the car, with no choice but to leave it on the street despite it being street cleaning day, approached her mother, and asked, “Can you give me a ride to work?”

Demi looked at her like she had just lost their house in a drunken bet. “Sure.” It was the last word she said to Cora for about half an hour.

In short order, Cora was suffering the indignity of her mother driving her to work through the vehicular sludge of the 110. In any other circumstances, Demi would have told Cora she was shit out of luck, that she should have gotten the car fixed months ago, and that she could find her own damn way up to downtown LA. But it had been through PMT, the temp agency Demi worked for, that Cora had her temp job, and it had been Demi who had vouched for her. And so, here they were, crawling under the 105, Demi sacrificing her own punctuality for her negligent daughter’s.

“What happened to that $200 I loaned you?” asked Demi just after they passed Rosecrans, her anger now cooled enough that she was capable of speech. “You were supposed to replace the belt and get your hair done, and you have done neither.”

Cora resisted the urge to pull her hair behind her ears, as though that would hide her mess of a dye job. She’d bleached it blond several months ago, before she’d dropped out of college, but about six inches of her natural wet-hay hair color had grown in since.

“I had to use it on gas,” lied Cora, keeping her gaze on the passenger-side mirror. “And I had another credit card bill I needed to pay off.” The truth was she had used that money on a Neko Case concert, her third this year, but Demi didn’t need to know that.

“Sure you did,” said Demi. “After today, you take the bus.”

Cora did not retort or offer excuses. She knew it was absolutely on her that she had not fixed the car. The fan belt was just the last in a long line of events that only tightened the spiral of powerlessness that was coming to define her existence, and by this point, she was getting used to it. Trying to exert some control over her life was an exercise in futility, so why bother? A good concert was the one place she could genuinely lose herself, have an out-of-body experience and detach from the deteriorating morass that was her life. And if it meant getting bitched at by her mother and an indefinite period with no car, then oh well. That’s life.

That was when she noticed the black Town Car tailing them. It was close, like it was being dragged along on a hitch, so close she could see the faces of the two men in the front seat clearly. On the driver’s side was a younger-looking man of East Asian descent, seeming to curse whatever cosmic force had made him be awake this early. His passenger was a slender-faced white guy with black wavy hair, maybe late thirties, though it was hard to tell, as his face was obscured with a cartoonishly large pair of aviators.

“Jesus,” said Cora. “What is their problem?”

“What?” Demi looked in her rearview mirror. “Oh, Christ. Those assholes again.”

Suddenly, Cora was on alert. “What, you know them?”

“Well, I’ve seen them,” said Demi. “More than once on my way to work. They always tailgate.”

“Holy shit,” said Cora, a little shocked at Demi’s blasé attitude. Did it not occur to her that these people might be stalking her? Cora had been on guard for that sort of thing well before she dropped out of UCI.

“I’ve never seen them anywhere else, though,” said Demi. “I figure they leave for work around when I do.”

Cora turned around to study them, but they didn’t seem to notice her at all. Probably just a couple of guys who were late for work, thoughtlessly tailgating Demi’s car like it would get them there any sooner. That wasn’t so abnormal, but the fact that the car didn’t have a front plate caught her attention. Only out-of-state cars lacked a front plate, and a commuter wouldn’t be from out-of-state.

She hadn’t really been paying attention to NPR’s Morning Edition, which had been reporting something about the previous day’s wild fluctuation of the Dow Jones, but their next segment made her shoot to attention. “In the three years since it was founded,” said the newscaster, “The Broken Seal has gone from fledgling website to the forefront of the transparency movement.”

The words “The Broken Seal” sent a sharp icicle through her chest, and she momentarily forgot about the tail.

“But one month after the website’s most infamous and controversial leak gave The Broken Seal and its founder, Nils Ortega—”

Demi reflexively slapped a button to change the station, and a Fergie song piped innocuously from KIIS-FM. Cora shot her a look. “I’m sorry,” said Demi, smiling coldly. “It’s too early.”

Cora didn’t know how to respond. On the one hand, she felt like it might be a good idea to know why “The Broken Seal and its founder, Nils Ortega,” were in the news, but on the other hand, there was no subject she wanted to hear about less.

“It’s okay,” said Cora, glancing again at the Town Car behind them. “I don’t want to think about it, either.”

She turned to face forward, watching the tall buildings of downtown LA sprouting up like distant spires in the haze, and tried to put thoughts of The Broken Seal and stalkers from her mind. But the tailgaters, bored though they looked, were not letting up.

“Mom,” she said, “ever feel like we’re being spied on?”

“By who?”

“I don’t know,” said Cora. “Like … paparazzi or the government or something.”

Demi blinked hard but didn’t look at her daughter. “What, because of Nils?”

“Yeah?”

Demi snorted. “Maybe, but anyone who follows us would be on the wrong trail.”

“Well, I know that,” said Cora, unconsciously bopping along to “Fergalicious,” her movements restrained by her too-small business casual button-up shirt. She had bought it for an interview a year ago, but she had gained a size since then. “But maybe they don’t. Maybe they think we know something. And that’s why they’re, you know, spying on us.”

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