Free In Your Dreams by Gina Ardito Page B

eyebrow arced. “How little a while ago?”
    “I saw him when
I brought Mercedes—”
    “Mercedes?”
    “The drag
queen,” he reminded her. “Mercedes Bends. My last bounty.”
    “Oh, you mean
Harris Walcott.”
    He twisted his
lips and leaned his head toward his left shoulder. “He prefers his stage name.”
    “Doesn’t
matter,” she replied with a dismissive wave. “Would you believe me if I told
you, in this go-round he’s slated to be the first openly gay President of the
United States?”
    “That should take
the sting out of his last life disappointment.”
    “Oh, it gets
better. He’ll be a female.”
    He fumbled
against the desk in mock surprise. “A lesbian president? What year are
we talking about?”
          “I don’t have access to
that info—no matter how much power I secretly wield here. I only wish I was
there to see it.” Shaking her head, she stared at the silent crowd with no
interest. “You think you’ll ever get out of here, Sean?”
    “Who knows?” he
replied with a careless shrug.
    The Afterlife
was a weird place, and not just because the inhabitants were all dead, which,
in itself boggled the unimaginative mind. The best comparison Sean could come
up with was to JFK or any hectic international airport: arrivals from
everywhere on Earth en-route to a multitude of different destinations. Some,
like Mercedes, would return to Earth to begin new lives. Others, like a lot of
the bounties he used to wrangle, moved on to new incarnations in different
realms, realms he knew nothing about. No one knew what criteria determined a
traveler’s destination. The Afterlife didn’t exactly have charts with gold
stars like elementary school. Fill up the column and graduate to the next
level.
    Samantha fiddled
with a dashboard of blinking buttons and the familiar purple characters glowed
across a black screen. While her fingers absorbed the data, she kept her gaze
pinned to the newcomers, her expression unreadable.
    “Sammie?” he
prompted to refocus himself as well as her. “The kid?”
    She looked up,
her eyes hooded and her mouth twisted in a grim line. “You’re gonna hafta be a
lot more specific than that. Do you have any idea how many kids pass through
here?”
    The kid’s name
hadn’t left Sean’s lips since the night he died, though it was emblazoned on
his conscience. “The kid I shot.”
    Banality fled,
replaced with utter disbelief. “You shot a kid?” she said in a shocked whisper.
“When? How?”
    “In my Earth
life, Sammie. Not here.”
    “Oh. Right.” She
returned her attention to the black screen. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m
not proud of it.” An understatement.
    “Is that how you
wound up here?”
    He offered her a
half-hearted nod. “I couldn’t deal with it. It’s not exactly the kind of
mistake you can just say, ‘Whoops. Sorry,’ and move on, you know?”
    “Uh-huh.” She
reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a pristine snow-white clipboard.
“Here. You want to put your hand on this right now to activate it.” Her
light brown eyes glittered with intensity.
    An odd request.
Still...she seemed adamant as she held the board flat and continued to glare at
him.
    “O...kay.”
    He laid his palm
on the center of the field and impulses jumped into his synapses. Let’s get
out of here. We need to talk .
    Samantha knew
something.
    “Okay,” he
repeated—this time with more certainty despite his doubts.
    Rising from her
desk, she said aloud, “Sherman’s been delayed, but I’m sure he won’t mind if
you wait in his office. Come on. I’ll surge you in.”
    Curiosity
burning, he followed her past the queue of newcomers, beyond the fantasy
garden, around the fountains to the double doors that opened with a soft snick  at her approach. More proof of that electrical field, unique to each
Afterlife employee, which ensured the ultimate security in this realm beyond
death. No one ever fell “off the grid” or gained