RD AUTO Message: CCCC, CCC 26, Octobre 2089 - Washington D.C.Main-Line USC-CAMBIAN City Territory: ‘CAMBIAN CITY’ |

The morning was still a bit nauseated and Camille’s eyes were trying to stay open.

Her body had collapsed on the dark wood booth seat, her head lay slapped atop folded arms.

“You okay girl?” This was the soft, deep voice of Dave, the head cook at Coswa’s.
“Huh?”
“I said, are ya aight?”
“Who?”
Her face sprouted up for the briefest of moments though her eyes that looked punched shut.
David said nothing but looked over her with a fond smirk. At least he did at first, then seemed to be inspecting her with his eyes as his body gradually lunged over her back and head, as if he were about to pounce her. He quickly retreated when he heard a loud noise and figured the rest of the wait staff was probably at the door.

“Okay, yeah, I’m fine,” Camille said, finally.

Dave now sat upright, stately, reading the paper. The silty ink and newsprint was a consistency David always made into curling edges, caressing the texture with his thumbs.

Adam, the Manager, clopped into the office, flicked something on and headed back toward the door to let the servers in.
A loud clank of the bolt in the bottom of the door came loose and Camille’s mouth seemed to barely move. She let out a tiny murmur as if to call for Una, but stopped in realizing the oddity of having to actually go to a door in such a public place. Actually have to use your hands to open it...

“You are a beautiful girl.” David whispered to her in a very round, nice deep bass. She could feel his breath, which was not as bad as she’d expected, but loved the deepness of his voice.
She then turned her head over in Dave’s direction, rising from the depths...

“You really are,” he said as her eyes met his.
Pause.
“Thank you,” Camille said sincerely back to him sort of astonished, but not. She finally straightened her body out and shivered, releasing energy into her limbs.

Finally her head rested back on the softness of the fabric from the huge derrière of the booth.

Then she saw rows. The visions again. Many rows. They were stomping in unison.
No. They’re marching. She was the only one at the front, coming up the immense staircase to the colossal podium. The red and white of the banners were far above her head. She knew of the world she’d made.

Coming up from under the hood, Camille decided to get more dressed and ready when she saw a number written on a piece of paper right on the bar.

On the front page of the paper Dave had been reading read the morning’s top headlines:

“Ant Day!” “Cruelty to Ants' and the 'Have a Heart for Ants and Maggots Society”

“Student Without Hands or Arms, Awarded for Writing”

“Chimpanzee Has Art Show”

“Pentagon to issue Directive 25655 to Indonesia and Papa New Guinea”

Running her fingers across the typography of the newspaper, she noticed it felt especially raised today. She touched one of the articles. Nothing happened. “Raised Type should fuckin’ work!”
She’d read it every morning shift so far.
“Oh” She said, lifting from under it, an old, old issue of Finally Fourteen. “Woah, wha!?”
She’d brought it in her saddlebag, with her, one of the few items she’d happened to run away with when she left home. The old issue she’d kept from nearly two years ago. She looked at the date. It was indeed that November issue she was trying to recall.
Good old Janus then came to mind...She couldn’t then figure out why...
“Goldstein!” she recalled, from somewhere specific, a night she remembered, from out of nowhere.
“I remember now, the night of course, the night I met the Real Una!”
“But where’s the Goldstein shitz?”
She looked everywhere, all over its back and front covers. The name, nor its advertisement was nowhere to be read or found on either of its front or back covers--where she’d remembered seeing it that night...

Then, in that moment of a vague and slight floating anxiety, she began sort of instinctively rooting through her bag for her Switch Light and stumbled on Beatriz’ profile.
She then saw her number hovering above a pic of her face: ‘2565533328-9546’
“Wait a fuckin second!”
“Camille, come on, let’s get this place ready for morning guests!”
“Wait, just wait, I have an emergency call from overseas!”
Camille’s lies fell out her mouth so naturally sometimes it made her proud.
She then rushed to the bathroom.
“Okay, this is not a coincidence, Una is talking to me, but how this time??”
The first five numbers matched.
I mean this is Beatriz’ fuckin’ phone number for Christ’s sake, it matches the first digits! No, it isn't, wait yes it is, but where do I remember this number from anyway?!
Faintly something was coming together...
She remembered the other night with Beatriz. She remembered running out of there. Hadn’t called her since. And that was about it, she tried her damnedest but couldn’t remember anything else. She didn’t even remember why she had run from Beatriz that morning, and almost thought she might have dreamt it, and really had been at home from before the sun came up that day.
Anyway, there’s something crazy here. Maybe Una knows about Beatriz, following her, or something...I don’t know!
The article, the Article!
She’d brought it with her and started to read the article on this Pentagon thing.
“The Pentagon issued a statement today outlining progress made on a directive to further bombard the Indonesian and New Guinean governments occupying both those territories. Terror Cell operations have been linked between China, and these two countries. Strikes have started as of Monday, the 21st. Massive U.S. aid is passing through the UN to the civilians of both governments.”

Camille knew for a fact that there had been strikes against New Guinea for a long time, “And wait!” She was beginning to remember something. “...little girls, why am I remembering little girls? And glass, some kind of glass. Talking through glass. No at glass. At glass! Fuck! Portals again!”
She’d lost it, the memory had slipped and faded.

***

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