Neither Aerek nor Iasmin knew how to answer her question about the watchers, and Danyana herself knew no more than they did. They were in a full trolley, but thankfully the crowd had thinned somewhat and they were able to breathe in air that still contained some oxygen. A few stops later, they could even sit down in empty seats. Aerek noticed a poster, which had been plastered on the ceiling. It was dark and crisscrossed with complex diagrams of orbits and trajectories and calculations. Slapped over the intricate background were the words “Planetica, World Tour” in a strange lettering that utilized the planetary symbols wherever it could. Smaller writing of the same font, which described the time and location, followed them.
“Hey, guys? I know going to Mensan’s is the most important thing now, but it is possible that we are still being watched. We should not go directly ho his place; it would be suspicious. Besides, I think I found the perfect opportunity to lose our hypothetical guards in a crowd. Look!” Aerek urged them.
They agreed to stop by the square where the concert would take place. Though it was not scheduled to begin until later that day, they knew that the pre-concert festivities would be popular even this early in the morning. They needed to exit the trolley at the coming stop, and could see that they would be able to walk to Mensan’s afterwards to avoid nighttime busses. It should be easy enough to fit into a crowd of teenagers at a concert, should it not?
However, when they climbed down the trolley’s steps and saw some specimens of what the crowd was composed, they realized how wrong they had been. It seemed that the world had turned black and silver, and their jeans and school shirts were no longer in style. They would never fit in this way, especially not Danyana. She was dressed in a violently lime green t-shirt.
They observed a souvenir stand operating next to the buildings that bordered the south side of the square. Aerek walked up to it. “Dani, look at those band shirts. I know we would still not fit in, but you, at least, would not be wearing lime green. It makes you an easy target. Which one do you want?”
She examined them and chose the one with the symbol of Venus printed on the front. It was the simplest of them all, but she liked it better than the other skull-speckled ones. She handed it to the man behind the register as she and Aerek searched their pockets to find enough change.
Iasmin stood to the side and looked around. Something as simple as buying a shirt could not distract her from the fear that was closing in on her. She looked around, trying to locate the source of the strange feeling that she was being watched. Under normal circumstances, any person around them would be suspicious, but here she noticed the people dressed regularly and scrutinized them. Could it be the Russian woman in bright red lipstick who was smoking a long, thin cigarette? What about the businessman reading a newspaper? Or the young mother with a stroller?
A dark figure standing in the shadows on the step of a building caught her eye. He was wearing a tight gray sweater with the hood pulled over his head, but he looked too serious and purposeful to be a careless bystander. He also had not moved since she first noticed him.
She grabbed her friends’ shoulders and urgently hissed “We need to get out of here. I think someone was watching us, but chose to allow us to escape. There is a man in a gray sweater in the alcove to the bank and he has not stopped staring in this direction. I think he may have been at Mensan’s last night as well.” Her voice shook as she finished the last sentence.
“We need to split up. Try to get to Mensan’s if you can.” Danyana concluded heavily. She dreaded the though of being alone, yet they would likely lose each other in the crowd anyway, and they had the advantage of numbers. At the moment, there were three of them and one man following them. He would have to choose one and leave the rest. With their head start, they should get to Mensan’s.
“Goodluck” Aerek choked out and turned away.
~.~.~.~.~
Sariel watched them from where he stood. They were scared, allright. They were all scared. The girl may put a brave face on it, but she was trembling inside. He could see it. And the boy. He had to be the gentleman and be brave. Yet Sariel saw how he looked at his friends’ retreating forms and could tell he wished that he had held them in an embrace before he left. “He will wish that again, before he dies,” he thought. He was certain of it, and knew that if he were wrong, it would mean he had failed.
He smiled to himself. It was all too easy. They walked into the trap without a word. He would get them, pick them off one by one, like the dirty scabs that they were. The obscene hindrance that they had become. It was unfortunate that their guard had slipped up at the party and allowed humans to encounter the Window. It would never happen again. The man who had been responsible had already suffered for his mistake personally, but when any one of them failed, they failed as a group also, and would suffer the consequences as a group. It was his personal goal to repair as much as he could. That was the reason he had been sent on this assignment. It was simple and he was determined to carry it out well.
He could tarry no longer. He bowed out of the cover of the building and slid into the mass of people in the square. He could see one of the girls in the crowd on the left, and the boy brandishing his elbows through the worst part of the crowd. The one who interested him most, however, was the girl running down the steps on his right. She pulled on her hoodie and jumped down the last three stairs simultaneously, making her jacket stream in the air behind her like a black banner. He could see the sun glaring off her back as she ran, and hoped she could feel his hateful stare on the back of her neck along with it. She was alone.