Sleepy and half-drunk, Sebastian Rios tried to reason with the message carved into the wall of the subway tunnel. He’d spent the evening with friends and coworkers, celebrating the republic’s birthday, and was attempting to get home. There’d been many toasts and his mouth tasted of rye. His head swam slowly, like an eel. “Defy,” he sounded out to himself. “De-fy.”
He ran his fingers over the word. Someone had spent time with it, he thought, given the depth of the notches that formed the letters. He appreciated that the message was both plain and mysterious, at once grounded and a bit mystical, too. Just above it lay a small, pale sticker of the American flag, its corners frayed and colors bleached by time. Sixty stars and thirteen stripes. It didn’t strike Sebastian as odd, anymore, all those rings of stars in the blue canton.
It was a Friday, late, languid midsummer in Empire City. Sebastian turned around and set his back against the wall. He’d intentionally stood away from others but a man had neared. The stranger wore rags and a vacant smile and held a dull metal pole. He began waving it around like a sword, something everyone noticed while pretending not to. Sebastian adjusted his earbuds and cycled through songs on his phone.
The stranger’s pole whizzed by a few feet from Sebastian, close enough for him to feel a light draft. Sebastian looked up, taking in the stranger’s mesh cap with the words CRETE WARFIGHTER in bright yellow on it. He was old enough to be from that war, Sebastian thought. Why wasn’t he at a rehabilitation colony? Veterans with troubles lived there. But—bureaucracy. Mistakes happened. Sebastian understood that.
A bell sounded through the station. “The threat index is blue,” a woman’s automated voice said. “Homeland Authority reminds citizens to remain guarded.”
Blue was good, Sebastian knew. No change.
The stranger in rags felt otherwise. “Defy!” he shouted, pointing to the message on the wall and hopping into the tunnel. Sebastian ignored him and so did everyone else.
“Defy!” the stranger repeated. He lifted his metal pole. Then he plunged it into the third rail, cracking the protective casing. The stranger’s body lit up like an illum round. The stranger fell. Smoke rose.
Oh, Sebastian thought, looking up. This is different.
The citizens on the platform screamed while Sebastian moved into the tunnel to check on the stranger. Rigid and red, the smile had remained on the man’s face.
“Masha’Allah,” Sebastian said. “Be easy, dude.” Then he made the sign of the cross with his phone over the stranger. He felt stares from across the platform. They didn’t understand and, to his mind, never would. Then Sebastian walked home. Whatever powers he had, they didn’t include resurrection.
* * *
Sebastian woke in his studio apartment the next morning, hungover and alone. He drank from the glass of water he’d placed on the nightstand hours earlier and checked the calendar on his phone. A commitment waited there like a blister: Mia Tucker’s engagement party. Could’ve sworn that was next weekend, he thought. Time seemed to be speeding up to him.
A gift, he remembered. People like this notice.
It was with such a resentment that Sebastian showered. He changed into a pair of slacks and the only unwrinkled dress shirt in his closet. Deciding against a tie—he wanted to make clear he was not of Wall Street or Connecticut—he threw on a sport jacket and a pair of aviator sunglasses and stepped into the day. Monitor drones hummed from above, ever-steady, summer light beating down. Sebastian squinted into it, wondering when the absurdities of life had turned into something else.
An anxious minute passed until a cab pulled over. “Uptown,” he told the driver. “Park and Sixty-Fifth.” He took out his phone to avoid conversation. The cab smelled of old potato. Sebastian lowered his window. Boiled air rushed the breach.
On his phone, Sebastian read an article about Congress repealing an amendment to allow the president to run for yet another term. The parties of the governing coalition cited wartime precedent and extolled the move. The parties in the minority argued that it brought the nation closer to authoritarianism. Sebastian thought the president grimaced too much in his photos, which called attention to a protruding vein in the center of the man’s bald head. He was dour enough as it was. Sebastian wanted a political leader who’d smile every now and then, even if they didn’t mean it.
The cab arrived at the restaurant. Sebastian had never eaten there, but a web search