Seattle - day by day

Thursday June 21st 2057 - Rusty

I probably shouldn't have stayed up as late as I did last night. I mean...I should have been in bed, sleeping, not reminiscing.

I paid for it today, and not the way I'd expect either. I was tired enough that my mind kept going back to the fire we had last week. The fire and the eyes that had stared out at me from the flames.

I'd almost forgotten the call I'd placed to 'Rusty' over the Fire Department.

I don't even know his last name-- just his designation, HTR-1. He was there, and he had access to our video feeds. If anybody knew what was going on-- my bets were on Rusty.

He called me back today around 1500hrs.

We ended up meeting for coffee-- it was an interesting meeting to say the least. I didn't know what to expect since I really hadn't seen 'him' in the fire, just his drones. I found out why-- there really isn't anything else to see. Turns out the humanoid drone that had accompanied us through the fire was the closest thing Rusty had to interacting with the outside world.

I can't imagine being stuck inside a shell-- inside a truck. He doesn't seem to do too badly though, man's got a wicked sense of humor. He actually bought a quart of 30 weight just to mess with people's heads.

Anyhow-- we talked about the fire-- and I finally told him about the eyes. I didn't like the turn things took after that. It was enough to make a conspiracy theorist happy.

I have to admit, talking to Rusty didn't really made things better-- but it did at least give me a direction for my obsessive worrying. We were both too close to unraveling a neatly tied up package-- and some people frown on that.

I really wish I could have kept my mouth shut about the fire-- about the eyes staring back at me, but I couldn't. To be honest I'm surprised I managed to keep my curiosity in check this long.

I'm learning, just not particularly well.


Copyright 2000 - M.T. Decker



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