Chapter Text
“What did you say?” I mumble, my voice deep and shaky through clenched teeth. My heart is beating out of my chest, filling my already ringing ears with more noise. It’s too loud. I must have heard him wrong. I’m breathing too hard. It must have been the wind. Anything, it isn’t what I think it is. The words he uttered before are impossible, not even probable in any sense. I’m wrong. I heard him wrong. He didn’t say it. It’s too unfair. Too cruel. I shift anxiously, making sure not to move my pointer finger even a millimeter from the thin glass film on a boxy, complicated machine about three feet tall, connected to the wall and other machines by wires, like threads leading to the center of a spider web.
I watch the doctor's lips closely this time, hold my breath and make sure to hear every word he says now. I’ll hear him right this time. He’ll tell me their name right now.
“I’m sorry sir, but you don’t have a soulmate.”
5 Months and 19 Days Later
The city is alive and bustling. At this time of the day, the city feels energetic and alive. As if the city is breathing. It inhales in the biggest, busiest places, sucking you in and making you lose yourself. Down in the deepest, darkest parts of the city, it exhales curious fumes that made the lower parts of the city humid and less inhabited. If you didn’t know your way around, the city would eat you alive. To a guy like me from Columbus Ohio, that is what New York City is like. If it’s not the people that will get you, then the city will.
I walk the streets of New York almost expertly, avoiding the groups of migrating people like lifeless masses. I had dreamed of a place like in the past, the impossibility of it. Now it's just my life. So many impossible things seem to have happened. I can barely keep up. I’d ask myself how my life got to this, but I don’t want to think of that right now. I just have to keep walking forward.
After many twists and turns through dank, rat infested alleys, I make my way towards my new home in the abandoned downtown of New York. In front of me stands a completely cement building rectangular in shape with graffiti covering almost every inch, even several feet in the air. Rusted pipes now filled with cement stick out of it in clusters, remnants of a plentiful past. The industrial garage door is also rusting, holes repairs with more metal sheets and wooden boards. Never seems to keep out the cold though.
In the middle of the door are the initials "SZ" on it in colorful bubble letters which stand out due to their freshness. Though I lack any artistic talent, it is quite fun just coloring in the lines from time to time. The newest looking thing on this building is the main door, with new dark gray paint and a shimmering silver handle and lock, though obviously a bit worn. I pick off a metal shaving on my key before jamming it into the lock, pushing it open and announcing my presence quickly with a mumbled greeting.
“You're late,” A deep, serious voice says as I trot in. The inside is quite spacious, echoing the words ominously. Though the outside of the building is tattooed with a rainbow of graffiti, the inside is gray, bleak, and barron, save for the area that is occupied by myself and my partner and a bright yellow light hanging haphazardly ten feet down from the ceiling by a single wire.
“Yeah yeah, I came here as fast as I could. It’s happy hour by now and the city is impossible to navigate,” I groan, placing my backpack on a worn out couch near our work space. I run my hand through my dark brown, styled up hair, scrunching up my nose as I wipe the unnecessary amount of sweat on my hand. This really is the peak of summer.
“Skeppy, you can’t keep making excuses for sleeping in all day. I swear the bartender at Wilbur’s Bar Boys knows you better than I do,” My good friend sighs, turning his chair towards me and lifting up his wielding mask, revealing his pale, lightly freckled face smudged with dirt around his .jaw. His hair is a dark cherry brown, it’s normal fluffiness slicked down with grease and sweat, pointy and crisp at the ends.
“And when was the last time you took a bath, Spifey?” I shoot back jokingly but with slight concern. I don’t have the energy to attack his insecurities, though I know them well.
“And who has me working almost twenty-four seven on his dirty work?” Spifey responds smuggly, turning his back to me and rolling his chair over to his computer desk. He takes off his wielding mask, the indent from the strap on the mask staying in his hair, and he places the mask on the desk.
“Touché,” I hum, going to his side and staring intently at the screen, “But you know all too well you benefit more from this than I do.”
“Do I now? Finally seeing power overshadows soulmates?” Spifey hums, looking at me and raising an eyebrow smuggly.
“Yeah right. You’ll find that one person that melts that greediness out of you,” I counter playfully, getting a click of the tongue in response as he turns back to his computer. Pulling up an overhead map, I immediately recognize the area from my reconnaissance trips for Spifey.
“That old junk yard? It’s basically picked apart by now, it’s not like you can get much from there. You know this,” I point out, confused. Spifey sighs as if I should already know what he’s thinking. Simple sighs or glances from Spifey can somehow make me feel much dumber than I actually am.
“I know, but that’s exactly why it’s a perfect base.”
“You think a gang is staying there?” I question stupidly, a bit shocked but seeing his logic.
“I don’t think so, I know so. Finnster said there's some promising movement there. He thinks it could be one of the big groups.”
“Isn’t Finnster doing undercover work at Techno’s base uptown as a house maid? Named Daisy or Rose or something, right? How did he have enough time to help us out?” I ask curiously, remembering how convincing Finn looked in just a wig and a bit of makeup. Of course I'm not really attracted to him since I still have my soulmate out there, but damn.
“Nah, after a month Techno revealed he knew the whole time and Finn didn’t find anything interesting, so he left. He still does part time work for Techno here and there. Finn says The Syndicate was too big for him when anyone asks,” Spifey explains in faint amusement. Though it's getting easier, I still find it hard to discuss these criminal organizations so casually. It's all so foreign to me.
“Huh. With such a huge criminal empire in the palm of his hand, I would have thought he had some shady business going on, though I never thought of him as a villainous man to begin with. Techno, I mean. A criminal genius sure, but his sins stay surface level and even just in some areas.”
“You’re getting off topic again,” Spifey states bluntly, breaking off my tangent.
“Right, the station,” I say critically, squinting my eyes a bit at the location, “Are you sure right there? As I said before, that place is stripped clean except for rusted down train carts and overgrown weeds. There’s nothing valuable there for Scavengers.”
“You say 'Scavenger' like it's a bad thing,” Spifey states with an edge or irritation when hearing my distaste with Scavengers.
“Right right, because stealing and glorified dumpster diving is the pinnacle of human activities,” I say sarcastically, getting bored of leaning over Spifey’s shoulder. I plop myself on the worn couch, which shrieks in surprise.
“Watch your tone,” Spifey huffs, still sounding upset but not upset enough to face me anymore, “Us Scavengers steal what we have to, which are almost always thrown out already, and usually make something new from the scraps we get if we don’t sell the parts.”
“So you're glorified recycling bins?”
“Inventors. Most of us are inventors. Or collectors. Now watch it or my ‘garbage’ made inventions will be the last thing you ever see,” Spifey threatens, glancing to his complicated machines and piles of metal before looking back to me.
“Fine, jeez, I’m sorry. I get it. Just, wish it was different is all,” I huff. So much has changed in my generation's lifetime. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. If you or your family makes under $50,000 a year, you're not counted as a citizen legally. It would be more valuable to burn that money for fire than keep it. Jobs are impossible to get with the huge population. Though the president doesn’t say it, keeping businesses from opening up more jobs is purely for population control. “Now, about this gang? Are they Scavengers, revolutionists? What, you think they're gang is like, top twenty?”
“No, even better. I think they're in the top five.”
“Top five?!” I exclaim in shock, standing from the couch, the smirk on Spifey’s face making me sit back down.
“That’s what I thought too. They are probably making millions, but staying in such a shabby place. For now anyway. Wanna know why? People have nicknamed the group the Robin Hoods. Led by a man with a heart of gold, the group steals from huge, greedy businesses and gives to the poor. Since they were created the economy has switched exponentially. They are trying to fix what the government has destroyed. And, even crazier, they only have around five members, though no one has seen or knows anything about them except for some rumors. Trust me, I looked.”
My face lights up as I blurt out, “So probably none of them have their fingerprint in the system.” Spifey looks at me with doubtful pity. His glance feels like a gunshot.
“Don’t,” I try to say, but Spifey knows he has to give me a reality check. He doesn’t want my hopes up.
“Everyone’s fingerprint is put in the system almost immediately after they’re born and is renewed every year. Even if they run off to do crime as a one year old, their fingerprint will still be in the system. Even if a kid is born at home somehow, they can’t go anywhere without having a fingerprint check. These criminal’s fingerprints are-”
“Shut up! Just shut up already!” I snap, my breathing ragged and harsh. I keep my head down so he can’t see my teary eyes, but I can feel him looking at me with a worried and slightly guilty gaze. My soulmate is out there. He has to be. I can't be Soulless. I can't be alone...
“I never said it was impossible,” Spifey states simply, turning back to his computer screen. And with those words I feel calm again. Such simple words reassures me more than anything.
“Tomorrow at eleven. Central Park. Don’t be late,” Spifey instructs simply, putting back on his welding mask to get to work on the next machine that came to mind.
Honestly, if he had said that it was impossible, I wouldn’t have backed down. Both him and I know that. But still, his words meant a lot to me. I’ve only known him for around four months now ever since I went scouring for someone to help me find my soulmate. After the day the government told me a blatant lie, something I will never forgive them for.
“I’ll be there.”
I will find my soulmate no matter what. We are connected. Connected by fingerprint, something so unique that only we have, out of the billions of people who walk this earth. Tied together by fate and fingerprints, I will find you.