Code Sign Omega

I felt my sister's warm body. We were on a mattress on the floor under the covers. The warmth was spreading into the cold feathers and getting reflected back to us. I was caught in a dilemma of feeling her body, relaxing into the warmth of bedding, and pulling away from my own blood, getting physically too close.

The door yanked open. Our mother stormed in. She ripped me up to standing and out of the room by my hand. Standing dazzled and receptive for the surely coming admonition, I saw her push a young, tender faced man of the age of my sister into the room. I was surprised because I knew what was going to happen with the two spending a few nights together.

"Mom, do you know what's going to happen between those two?"

She nodded. She knew. It had been her plan all along. She was sexually open and wanted people to experience healthy, happy sexuality. I nodded accepting of the plan. Getting sex would be good for my sister.

And so it happened. They ended up in a committed boyfriend and girlfriend relationship. The young lad was from a high political family. My parents soon ended up on the campaign trail for political office. I became used to a lot of people in the house. Being a son, I had to put up with being part of it as well. A staffer with slacks, jacket, and red tie in my room was a familiar sight to me. I simply ignored the people working in my space and did my casual things like playing computer games or mopping around in messy clothing with untamed hair. I'd even go to sleep in my bed, middle in them working, discussing, and making phone calls. I didn't care. If they needed me for some kind of magazine piece to win poll points by writing about the son, they'd interrupt me. I'd talk with them how they wanted it and would go back to my world: a messy, unkempt room in the middle of super clean and extremely neatly dressed campaign aides.

One day a campaign staffer with a tool belt around his hip and hammer in hand stopped me from entering my own room. He had the balcony glass door already removed and resting against the wall. "We are going to install guerrilla defenses around your room."

I could picture the armor plating that would be embedded into the wall and the anti-personnel spikes that were going to be installed to the outside walls. We were still in our rental apartment from the "poor" times. Not that we were poor. We were normal middle class. However, now were suddenly invited into high class events and had luxury cars pull up that I had only seen on YouTube before. The idea of messing up our rental apartment and getting the landlord deathly exasperated put a joyful smirk on my face. "Yeah, go right ahead!" I said. "And the more you can stiff it to that dick landlord, the better!" I added silently.

Today, I found a group of three in the little storage room next to my room. All my things were gone from the storage room. A partially disassembled naked shelf was left behind. One suit took careful notes of my belongings on a clipboard. The campaign was sucking me in deeper. They set up a cramped conference room in what wasn't much more than a walk-in closet. The sacrifice for the family was reasonable. It was late evening. I could tell that they were ready to go home. I myself turned to my messy and unmade bed.

Music! It fucking hit me. The amplifier and DAC for my sound system had been in that walk-in closet. They were gone. The speaker wire from my speakers still ran across the room and ended in nothing. The gold fiber was naked and exposed at the tip of the pink cable. They are only doing their job. They achieved their assignment's objective. I was the only one who cared about the music. I put down my frustration to grab that young staffer in a demure skirt by the arm. She was dressed neatly, yet in a simple way to avoid drawing attention.

"Hey, where did you put my music equipment?"

She looked at me with these keen "how can I help you?"-eyes and that fully focused face that's ready to drop anything at a moment's notice. That's how campaigns were run: crazy skirmishes, direction changes, and whim of the moment fancies. And the staff had to always be ready to jump on the next bullet train at a moment's notice. Her reaction set me at ease. She was on her downtime. She wasn't in the frenzy of something. She'd get me my sound equipment back. Ah, music! It's the one thing that I enjoyed while all these people were working around me everywhere. I could escape into it, dream about mystical places, and find happiness.

We walked to the ground floor, which was busy with other tenants arriving and going to the elevator. We went to the mailboxes and walked back to wait for the elevator. I don't know where we were going. Though, this young staffer seemed organized. She walked purposefully. Another ten minutes or so and I'd be listening to music again.

There were two people waiting for the elevator with us. One of them was Asian. He wasn't an FOB Asian. His facial expressions had relaxed and oozed into standard American pudgy shape. Probably the fat that he had added to his face from the calorie rich American diet had helped that. He looked like your average dad who's about to watch TV. He was in saggy sweatpants with a big round belly. Something stirred me about him.

The elevator had moved a couple more floors down. I couldn't take my eyes away from the guy's face. He looked like an average dad going home. Yet, there was something that I caught in his facial expression that didn't match. He tried to make an impression of a dull look, staring straight ahead. His face looked 95% tired from a full day of work. Yet, there were 5% that I couldn't put a finger on. Those 5%, as I kept looking longer at them, raised the hairs at the back of my head.

I did not comprehend how this man could alarm me so much until the elevator door opened. I saw the bright yellow elevator room. In a violent impulse, I raised my elbow and punched him as hard as I could in the chest. He stumbled backward into the elevator. I grabbed the young staffer's hand and jerked her around as I was running to the back exit of the building. My breathing exploded with adrenalin. This had been one of these split second reactions that only sank in a few seconds later that it had happened. For me that was half way from the elevator to the back exit: I had assaulted a guy out of the spur of the moment! In the corner of my eyes, I could see the elevator door close on the guy before he could get to his feet and scramble out. The elevator started moving up. I felt the safety of a few seconds before he could return down.

There were two big chubby guys walking side by side in through the backdoor. They looked so normal. Yet, they walked so tightly side by side and with such coordination. Their feet and arm movements were way too much in step for casual, untrained acquaintances. They spooked me as well. I did a 180 turn on a dime and pulled the staffer with me back towards the elevator or possibly the front exit. Had I gone completely paranoid? Had I come unhinged? Is this what it feels like to go crazy? Run away from imagined dangers and conspiracies? Would I next refuse to drink and eat because I thought people would try to poison me? Did I have to block this impulse to save myself? Was the reality shift from normal bum life to marrying into a political dynasty too much for me mind to handle?

I stopped for a moment to look at the staffer. She had short hair that was layered. The hair was smooth and had a copper red hue. Her face was white with even proportions. She looked like the girl that liked to go party, yet was the responsible kind that could have a deep conversation at 3am while everyone else was passed out with booze or drugs. There was something neat, compact, and arranged about her makeup and body postures, like she could handle herself well on a traveling adventure. She definitely had a minor in art. There were subtle hints in her clothing that she had trained and developed aesthetics. Because of overall demure look of her clothing, I hadn't taken a closer look at her. Though veritably, she was completely my type. This couldn't have been a coincidence. "You were chosen because you are my type!" I told her directly. I grabbed her hand again to pull her out of this mess that was hopefully simply my paranoia. I wasn't going to leave this girl behind. She had been put near me by people with more calculated motives.

When I could see the front door, she yanked my hand sharply. She was strong. She had purpose. She had direction. I could feel that every second counted. And we might be one fatal second too slow. We hurried down the stairs to the basement. After the first half floor down, the stairs turned left. There was a brick wall. Someone had decided to gut the basement entrance for safety with something as solid as a ten inch brick wall. It hadn't even been painted yet. There was this narrow space of two feet between the corner and the brick wall.

The young staffer pushed me against the wall hard with her body. We were trying to squeeze into that barely two foot space to avoid being seen by anyone looking down to the basement. Her face was right in front of me. Her cheeks were a little rosy. Her eyes had a calmness and earnestness. We held our bodies motionless against each other and tried to stop breathing. I could feel her slender ribs holding the air in.

The building was utterly empty. The front door opened. A single man walked in. The leather soles made a small yet distinct sound. They walked very focused and direct. I could see the black pistol with a silencer in his hand, so sure was I of it despite us hiding out of sight. The elevator dinged. The door opened. Some more steps sounded. The elevator door closed again. The utter silence was back.

The staffer had switched sides. In the last moment, she had decided to save me. Something inside of her had been touched by me. That something had made her decide to save my life and to be on the run from her organization or employers. I didn't know whom. Frankly, I hadn't paid much attention to the campaign and politics. I was the son that was kept in the room at the back of the apartment. If I didn't get caught in the headlines for doing drugs or something crazy, I had done my family duty. And I kind of had enjoyed being without purpose and a job. I had gone from one self-entertainment like watching TV to the next, like playing a computer game. The occasional family magazine piece had always made me feel really proud about myself. Though, now that I'm woken up from that stupor, I hadn't deserved it. That amazing one-in-a-million-son image had come from the skill of the writers not from the real life material that I presented to them.

We kissed. I didn't know who started it. I was sucking on her plumb lips like this was the only moment ever and the only moment in the whole universe. I felt her fluid tongue against mine. She was a fugitive now. Should I bring her to my family and tell everything that happened? They'd clear up this trouble for her, wouldn't they? Should I go on the run with her? Get into the car and drive away as fast and furious as possible to an unknown destination? For now, I was taking in her kiss and body pressing against mine.