I will shine my light of hope and change and everything that might have been...if you'd only hear my warning...if you'd only hear me calling...
Six: Walking the Wrong Path
Julia arrived at the bar before Spike did, so she helped herself to a drink, watching a heated game of pool. She was worried about Spike, worried that her friend had gotten into something that he couldn't handle. She would help him; of course, if he needed her to, she just hoped that it didn't require her to do something she wasn't prepared to do. And if he was as deep into the syndicate as she thought, that was a possibility.
The door to the bar opened with a rattle and Julia turned, leather jacket crinkling, to find Spike walking in, staring strangely at her. She smiled slightly and he slowly returned the smile. He looked confused and scared and happy and she couldn't help but want to comfort him. But the look passed almost as quickly as she saw it and right behind him another man entered, face emotionless. Julia was struck with the strange feeling that she had seen this man before, under different circumstances, probably a long time ago. And then she remembered: she had bandaged his head when he and Spike were brought into her hospital after their car accident. He was the man with the icily cold voice that intrigued and scared her. How did Spike ever fall into company with this man?
"Hey, Julia. I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Vicious." Vicious stepped forward, extending a bony cordial hand to her. Julia shook it, hoping none of the apprehension she was feeling showed up on her face. "Vicious, this is Julia."
"We've met before," Julia stated blandly, trying not to look directly into Vicious' cold eyes. Eyes that seemed like they could make a person tell every sin they ever committed in their lifetime with just one glare. And it wouldn't be an act of repentance; it would be an act of survival.
"The woman has a good memory," Vicious replied with what would have been a grimace on someone else, but probably a smile to him. Spike seemed confused but either did not want to know or didn't care for he let the comment go.
"Julia used to work for Annie," Spike said as though this was perhaps the most important tidbit about Julia's history that he could think of.
"Really."
"Annie's a good person," Julia blurted out. She didn't know why she did it, it just felt like it was the right thing to say. After she thought about it she knew that it was a stupid thing to say and she cursed herself for losing her cool in front of this mysterious creature.
"Yeah, she is," was Vicious' answer to the nonsensical comment. Julia almost breathed a sigh of relief but caught herself before she did. "How about we sit down and get something to eat? I'm starved."
"They serve food here?" Spike asked as they made their way to a table in the back, pool players watching them out of the corner of their eyes with either envy or fear radiating from them. Julia couldn't tell which.
"Yeah."
"Hm. I never knew that."
"Because you're always too busy drinking. Among other things." Spike chuckled knowingly. So they actually are friends. Vicious didn't just kidnap Spike and come here in hopes of another hostage. Then again, that wasn't something Julia thought was an explanation. As intimidating as Vicious was, nothing about him screamed "criminal!" Although the only possible way Spike would know him would have to be through the syndicate.
"Spike says you two have been friends for a while," Vicious said, breaking Julia's contemplative concentration. Vicious also didn't look like a small talker, so this must have been a statement of consequence, not just an observation.
"Well yeah, a few years. He used to harass me at the shop everyday for a while. Then I'd seem him every so often." Julia watched Spike more than she paid attention to Spike. Something was going on and now she was inadvertently involved. She wanted to know what was up and she wanted to know immediately. Beating around the bush was not something she enjoyed.
"And you're a nurse."
"No. I'm a candy striper."
"Same thing," Spike cut in.
"Not really," she snapped.
"But you're basically a nurse or a nurse in training," Vicious said before Spike could retort.
"Sort of, yeah." Vicious sat back as the server came, asking what they wanted. Julia didn't order anything but the guys ordered possibly everything the bar served. After the server walked away, they talked amongst themselves, aggravating Julia to no end. There she was, thinking Spike had some life or death situation that he needed her help with, probably meeting in a public place so he wouldn't be easily spotted to beg for her aid, ask her to stay at her place until the heat died down, something. But no. He wanted her to meet his creepy new friend in a dingy bar for no conceivable reason other than lunkheaded Spike thinking he could set the two of them up. She wanted to smack herself for concocting melodramatic situations that could have only been a product of extreme boredom on her part and the fact that she hadn't seen Spike for so long before he came knocking at her door with two different colored eyes. It was his eyes that bothered me the most. How did they get that way?
When Julia was thoroughly annoyed and prepared to leave them sitting there to eat their garbage food and joke around or whatever they wanted to do, Vicious turned to her which made her freeze in place.
"How would you like a job?" he asked.
"I already have one," she responded.
"A better job then."
"Doing what?"
"The same thing you're doing now only somewhere else and with more pay." Julia thought about this. Furniture would look great in her apartment. Besides, she was starting to get that familiar itch she got when it was time for her life to change. Regularity got boring after a while and two years at the same hospital with the same people was as much routine as she could take. Working somewhere else would be a welcome shake up. That is, depending on where this else was.
"Who's hiring?"
"That doesn't matter."
"It does to me. Who's hiring?" Spike leaned forward, focusing that dizzying gaze on her. How did they get that way?
"Our boss," he said softly. Too softly. And from the way he looked at her, he didn't want her to push the matter further. Though that was all she needed to make up her mind.
"Not interested."
"Why not?" She cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering if he really wanted her to voice aloud the reasons why she wouldn't want to work in a syndicate. Even as a syndicate nurse, she'd be a criminal.
"She has the right not to want to do it, Spike. We can find someone else," Vicious said easily. During her and Spike's confrontation, he had been calmly eating. Spike looked like he wanted to argue more, but not in front of Vicious. He sighed slightly and leaned back again, taking a bite of his disgusting looking meal.
"No wonder I didn't notice they served food here," he muttered as he chewed. "I'll never be hungry enough to eat slop like this."
Julia wasn't sure if she was still welcomed at the table. Vicious appeared to have forgotten she existed the moment she declined the job offer. Spike was fidgety, poking at his food as though it were alive. When Vicious finished eating he glanced at Spike briefly before standing up. Julia finally met his gaze and almost flinched. She couldn't figure out what about him made her queasy and interested at the same time.
"Goodbye, Julia."
Spike decided that he wanted to walk Julia home and she didn't have the energy or a good reason to tell him not to, so she let him. They walked in silence until they were about halfway there, then Spike cleared his throat uneasily and motioned to a bench at a bus stop they were about to pass. She sat, sort of reluctantly, and he sat next to her, sort of sadly.
"I've never asked you for anything before," he said slowly.
"True."
"Except for working with us."
"Yeah."
"Can you consider it a favor?"
"Why do you want me to work there so badly?"
"Why do I need a reason?"
"Because you know that I don't want to be apart of the syndicates. You've known that for as long as you've known me. Why would you ask me to join?"
"You won't be in the syndicate per say, you'll just be working for it. And all you'll be doing is stitching wounds and bandaging cuts; all stuff you're doing now."
"I'll be helping criminals."
"You'll be helping people," Spike argued. She sighed. He did have a good point. Even though they weren't honest people, they were still people. And more money was so tempting.
"I have to think about it." Spike brightened slightly.
"Really?"
"Yes. Can I have until the end of the week?"
"How about until tomorrow?"
"Spike—"
"Please, Julia." Julia sighed, playing with her sunglasses. She didn't know if she could make a decision like that overnight. But Spike seemed like her desperately wanted her to answer (and agree) as fast as possible. The anxiousness he had when he was in her apartment was back, and she wondered how he was able to turn it on and off like that. She'd have to ask him one day.
"Your eyes are two different colors," she said quietly. Not the first time she'd said the comment and it wouldn't be the last time either.
"I know." She stood up. Spike gazed at her with his two toned eyes and she could see something new in his stare. Something new and unwelcome. It was an element of seriousness that had never been present in his personality before. It was as though in the two years she hadn't seen him, he'd had a whole set of life experiences that had somehow scarred him. Scarred his formally carefree, joking, innocent stare that Julia had grown to enjoy. Where is the Spike I used to know? What happened to him?
"Come by my apartment this time tomorrow. I'll have your answer then."
Julia couldn't concentrate the whole day she was at work. All the patients started looking alike, all the nurses, doctors, everyone was just a blur of hair and eyes and facial features. Nothing was solid anymore and Julia couldn't figure out why.
Could I really work for something I hate? Could I be on the side I was against for so long? But really what did the syndicates do that she herself hadn't done before? She lied. Lying was second nature to her. She cheated her way into this job and many jobs prior. She pretty much stole the transport ticket from that cop back on Ganymede who thought she was an abandoned child looking to get home. They only thing she knew for sure that they did and she didn't was deal drugs and kill people. And those were probably the biggest things out of all other crimes.
Julia stared at the ambulance worker clones distantly as they rushed in a bloody mass that was supposed to be a woman who had somehow gotten in the way of a truck. Nothing was as it seemed. Anyone around her could have been working part time for a syndicate, selling drugs on the side, getting large sums of money to do so and keep anyone quiet who suspected something. What killed her though, was that Spike was one of them. She always knew eventually he would be, that eventually his boyish curiosity would get the better of him and he'd talk to the wrong person and find himself in a job he couldn't get out of.
"Julia! Julia!" Julia snapped out of her trance. The mass of unrecognizable human flesh was gone and in its place was a nurse, glaring at her in irritation. "Go prep room 42." Julia felt her feet carrying her but not toward room forty-two. She was moving toward the door, grabbing her purse and coat on the way. It was all mechanic, she hadn't thought about leaving the hospital, her feet just somehow knew that she wanted to. She walked slowly, purposefully, to the dimly lit dark streets of Tharsis City. It was almost ten o'clock. "Hey! Where are you going?"
"I quit," she said softly, unsure if the clone nurse had heard her. She didn't care, though. The woman would understand when Julia never came back. She would understand that Julia had set aside her morals to help a friend. She would understand that Julia couldn't be in one place for too long, that she had no one to keep her in one place for too long. And she would understand that Julia had slipped into some sort of waking dream that had taken hold of her and wouldn't let go. Julia would understand that she put her life on the line for Spike and always would, without meaning to. Her feet would know where to take her, her hands would never take the gun, and her fingers would tear his location apart, take away his existence just so he could live. Julia would understand someday, even if she didn't understand at that moment.
--P
Lyrics from "Julia" by Fefe Dobson