Artistikem

> This is a nightmare I had and it’s written as raw as it came out when I tried to remember it. Thought it would be nice to share it with all of you in an effort to make some sense out of it. <

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Bit by bit I opened my eyes to a dim, kind of strange light. Wherever I was, whatever I was inside of, it was moving.

“Are you okay?” a voice, one I thought I know who it came from.

“My head…” I started to remember some details, how I was having dinner at the Luis Muñoz Marín airport with… “Judd? What the fuck did you do to me?”

“I knew you wouldn’t come even if I asked nicely.”

I could see now that we were inside a limousine with blackened windows. We were sitting next to each other, two guys on the other side. They were at the dinner, I remembered their faces, especially the one of the left, the bald one.

There was a slight pain on my right arm, “that shot you gave me, what was it?”

“Just something to ease your transportation.”

“Where are we?”

“That is not the point, Kathleen, the point is that your life is in danger.”

“In danger? Why the fuck would I be in danger?” I patted my pockets, the seat around me, “where’s my phone? Where’s my bag? My computer?”

“I can’t take any chances with you. They are looking for me and they will be looking for you in no time. You know everything I know. I’ve taught you everything I know, since you were twelve, you’ve been beside me all the time. You know it all, Kathleen, catching you is like catching me and I can’t let that happen.”

Oh, yes, I knew that. I was like a huge information dump for him, had been for the past ten years. Ours was a weird story, I’ve never told anyone the whole thing because I knew they would all go ‘Pffffft’ on me and well, I don’t like when people go like that on me. But, given the circumstances I must tell you at least the important parts:

Judd was a mogul of the media and computing fields in Puerto Rico. I worked in his IT consulting team, but it wasn’t always like that. I was eleven years old when we met, he crept up on me while I tried to hotwire his car. The door open, he held unto it until I realized someone was watching me. I froze, then looked round and none of my friends were in sight. He asked me what I was doing, I told him I was challenged to steal his car. He was surprised I had neutralized the security system of his luxury car and asked me where my parents were. That was when I uttered the sarcastic response that would change my life: ‘what parents?’

“Who are they?” I tried to sit straight but my body was still numb.

“People that don’t like what I do. What we do.”

“Nobody likes to see their bank’s website is down, much less know it was a deliberate attack.”

He gave me the first sideglance of the conversation, a half grin showed his back teeth, “we used to do this before Anonymous, Kat, that is why they want us.”

The car stopped and one of the guys in the front seat opened the door for me.

I turned to Judd, “you’re not coming?”

“You’ll be safer without me.”

And, apparently, his idea of safety was dumping me in a hotel I had never been to without a room to stay. One of the guys, the one that pushed me to the entrance gate and shoved a backpack to my hands told me not to leave the hotel complex and to make myself invisible.

I had no idea what he meant by that and once the gate was shut behind me I was more angered than anything else. I had read about some Anonymous members being arrested, however, I thought Judd had nothing to do with them. Yes, we used attack websites and break into servers and stuff, but all in the name of research, à la Murdoch (right?), even when the information we collected was never published.

The place was huge; there were canopies, tiki bars, stone trails and palm trees around the pools. The words ‘become invisible’ kept repeating themselves in my mind. How the fuck was I going to manage that? I had to hit the rewind button on my life, go back to those days I spent living in the street, how I sneaked through the back doors of restaurants in search for food, how I curled up next to trash bins in dark alleys to try and get some sleep.

The first day I managed to stay away from the crowds around the pool and stuff. It helped that the backpack I was given had everything I needed (except for any kind technology, of course) and, after some hours walking around, I noticed that all staff members ignored me completely. ‘Good for me’, I thought as I walked through outside corridors looking through the windows of every room searching for a vacant one I could use. It was funny that everything looked as if it was a beach hotel in the Caribbean, yet the air felt cold and I could distinguish only European accents from the guests. There were even mosquito nets over the beds, something I hadn’t seen in a long time, even coming from Puerto Rico. It was late when I walked through the lobby looking for a place to crash and saw a bronze plaque on a wall with a welcome message from the hotel owner, Mr. Judd Valentín.

“Bastard,” I muttered before having to take my hands to my mouth and suppress a scream, “London? How the fuck did I get to London?”

No wonder he drugged me. That son of a bitch told me he was flying that day, that was why the dinner was at the airport. I loved him like a father loves a daughter, yet sometimes he would get on my nerves, times like these when the information was almost nonexistent and the stakes were high.

Finally, I crashed in the corner of one of the terraces facing the pool. The floor was hard, the backpack not the best pillow, and the flood of thoughts on my mind didn’t help when it came to falling asleep. I had just shut my eyes when the first rays of light hit my face. Ugh, what a horrible feeling is that, to know you had slept but not rested. Also, the arm where I got the shot still hurt.

I managed to make it to a bathroom near one of the pools without being seen by the janitors. However, when I came out, a staff member, a young man with black silky hair down to his ears, approached me and told me I could have breakfast with him and some of his coworkers. At first I was skeptical on taking his advice, then he told me to ‘talk to the eggman’ while pointing at the guy that made the omelettes inside the jungle themed, open air restaurant.

“The eggman?”

“Yeah, the eggman, we all call him that way. All guests get free breakfasts but don’t get in line, go through the side and tell him what you want. We’ll be at this table.”

Some faces smiled my way from the table he pointed. Judd always thought of everything, and he had a twisted sense of humor to top it all. So I went to the eggman, got my plate of hot breakfast and sat with them. Cool, since I wouldn’t have to sneak into the kitchen again. They were all nice and cheerful and I thought being among them I’d still be almost invisible to the patrons and guests, because, well, most of them don’t really care about the employees that make their stays pleasurable, and, above all, possible.

‘Hang in there’ I kept telling myself, ‘Judd will come for you and it’ll all make sense once more.’

Hours passed and nothing happened. Nothing good, nothing bad, just plain nothing.

More hours. More nothing. Fuck this shit.

Backpack ready, I studied the walls around the place. There was no way I was getting to the front gate. One of the walls called my name, yeah, like old times, it called my fucking name and it was a breeze to climb it thanks to a palm tree –which, to my surprise, were all real–, my feet against the tree, back against the wall, the backpack on my chest, I pushed and slithered my way up.

And landed safely on my feet in a place completely different to the one I had been in for the last two days. Now I got a sight of England instead of a wannabe Caribbean getaway located right in the middle of the city. I walked around the street and was suddenly pushed by a swarm of people and ended up inside a theater.

A quick glance around told me I wasn’t going to remain invisible for long inside that crowd. They were all dressed in formal attire, apparently it was a black tie event and I would never pass as an attendee with my jeans and T-shirt.

That was when I found the only other person that looked as out-of-place as me. An old, fat man wearing a green suit that resembled the ones leprechauns use. His hair was light auburn and he had a thick beard. He was an odd fellow, if you ask me, carrying a suitcase and notebooks when nobody else was.

“Can I help you?” I approached him near the stage.

The lights were on, fact I think helped when he turned to me and saw me. Somehow I felt being young got me out of getting punched in the face or something worse.

“Do you need help with that, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” he rushed to hand me some of his notebooks and a handful of pens.

“What is this?”

“It is a survey, we must get answers from every man and woman here. See here,” he opened one of the notebooks and showed me the form printed inside, “you write the answers under each question and sign on the bottom. But don’t make a fancy signature, just your name, so you can go on with the next one.”

“Sure, okay.”

“Here, so you know,” he handed me a card with his picture.

The name read ‘Christ Poo Kahn’ and I was about to start laughing in his face when he plucked the card from my hands and shoved it into his pocket. Not wanting to hurt his feelings (why should I even care, I don’t know), I took a deep breath and went on to read the first question on the form: ‘Do you have any diagnosed diseases and do you know how much it can affect your real estate? Did you know it can mean a £500 to £600 difference in your income?’

You guessed what came to my mind right there: WHAT THE FUCK!?

Then it hit me why he looked so out of place. Okay, I had to keep my cool because I was on the loose. Sooner or later Judd would know, or the ‘bad guys’ would know and come to get me.

Nobody, and I repeat, nobody was interested in the survey. I felt bad for the old fellow, even when he kept his poise and acted like it didn’t matter, I knew it would, but I had to go. I gave him back the notebook, patted him on the shoulder and left. Not without walking into a girl about my same age that, apparently, worked at the theater.

She had red hair and reminded me of a character from Mike Leigh’s Life Is Sweet (the cook to be exact), so I decided to follow her. She noticed and started talking to me.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we ran down the front steps of the building, the same ones I didn’t remember going up.

“To the bank, I just got paid,” and showed me a bag of money that was actually filled with coins.

We were about to cross the street, she stopped and I cast a glance at the white buildings around us. Notting Hill, I knew it was it, I had seen it on Google Maps. ‘If only I had my phone with me,’ I thought, ‘even without a carrier I could use some public WiFi spot and try and find my way here. Damn you Judd and your stupid precautions.’

We, the girl and I, went into the bank that looked nothing like a bank but like a shady pawn shop. Glass doors with big letters on them, a neon sign outside, suspicious.

“What? You don’t know what a deposit is?” she frowned at me when I pointed out the fact that the place looked nothing like a bank.

I decided to keep my mouth shut. If I got lucky maybe she would invite me to her house, or flat, or whatever, and I could take a shower and maybe even sleep a little. While she made her ‘deposit’ I focused on a candy machine propped on the wall to my left. When I got really close I noticed it had the smallest pieces of candy I had ever seen on the left, and the smallest packs of cigarettes on the right. Fun sized was ‘big’ for those. I wondered how could they smoke such little cigarettes without burning their fingers. What cheapskates those guys from the so-called bank were.

She was out in no time, made me go around instead of walking down the same sidewalk because it was supposedly dangerous. Maybe she was nuts and that was why she was letting me follow her. Then, out of nowhere, I see a Puerto Rican flag, and another, and another. A place where they made Puerto Rican crafts in the middle of fucking London. There was salsa playing on the speakers, making my heart beat so fast with joy that I ran up to the window and shouted:

“Wepa Boricua!”

The two guys inside the shop stood, stunned, and turned to me slowly. The girl held her breath for a moment before they smiled.

A nervous kind of smile. There was something.

Shots were fired and I had to duck. A black limo drove towards where I was and Judd’s bodyguards stepped out, Uzis in hand, and unloaded them on the two guys. It was as if the world was ending right above my head. Even with my ears covered I could feel them reverberating in my head, giving me a kind of nausea I only felt when I was truly scared.

The firing ceased, the girl ran away. I was picked up by the back of my shirt and shoved into the limo.

“Now you believe me?” Judd was enraged.

“It’s people like you that keep the stereotypes alive. How the fuck did you find me?”

“The shot included a GPS transmitter. I’m not fucking around, Kat, this is real.”

I looked out the open window while we drove away and saw the two shop guys’ dead bodies dangling from the window.

Shit was real.

****