Free The Anarchists by Brian Thompson

me?” Her left cheek went numb and then her right followed. “Troy?”
    “Come back to me, Q!” No longer masculine, the voice sounded like a woman’s calling after her underwater. “C’mon Q, don’t go out, not like this.”
    Quinne’s eyes fluttered open. Cee Cee hovered over her in the bathroom and stopped slapping her cheeks. A female policeman read Quinne her rights.
     

 
    CHAPTER SIX
     
    January 4, 2050
     
    The tightly-wound bandages around his head and arm startled Damario, as did the throbbing. Stinging, dull metal barbs in his right eye socket shot waves of lightning through his brain. Frantic, he thrashed everything he could move until a medical droid named “Ellis Murtaugh” anesthetized him.
    Madison sat to his left. He wished she hadn’t. While the details of how he got into this particular predicament were fuzzy, the reason why remained clear. In the quiet moments, he pictured Justin Rochester, Yvette’s ex-husband and a police medical examiner. He and Justin played basketball at the gym. They had conversations about women – with lurid details. Justin spent time at the house and ate from Damario’s table. Justin slept with Damario’s wife. He wondered if Justin bothered to use protection with her, given his proclaimed “allergy” to it.
    He did not know the attendant at the hotel, except by his bulky physique. Damario caught his wife looking at the boy on more than one occasion. Summer, 2049 was the hottest recorded season in a century and the four-star hotel relaxed its dress standards. As such, the young man handling their luggage had rolled up his sleeves. She spotted the tattoo on his forearm and nearly swooned. He thought nothing of it, until he mistook her holophone for his and received a graphic picture message. Shell-shocked, he marked it as unread. When Madison confronted him about the mix-up, he claimed that he had been signal-free most of the day and did not notice.
    The private investigator he hired found another, but suspected one or two more before Damario called him off the case. It certainly explained why Madison had been cool to intimate touch for half a year. He’d wept over his broken marriage. Thinking about it made him tear up again. He fought it. Madison did not need to see him more vulnerable and damaged.
    The tube in his throat itched so badly that he had to be restrained from bothering it. He’d tried to scratch it once, before anyone could stop him, and paid a steep price. Now, with his wrist limited to a range of motion not exceeding more than a few inches, he had to swipe his fingers on a glass pad to be understood. This frustrated him, as he was not ambidextrous. Also, the machine did not have a volume control function. 
    “Hey there.” A cheery Madison approached his bedside.
    His fingers pecked Hi into the keyboard. The male voice he’d selected sounded like that of an old-time game show host.
    “Can I get you something?”
    “Date.”
    “It’s the fourth, 3:05 p.m.”
    Three days had passed. When not in surgery or semi-conscious, Damario requested for the time followed by the date. Though he intended to ask a question, without punctuation, his requests sounded like commands. Madison compressed her frustration and irritation at it, but extra sweetness bothered them both. Keeping this part of her vows – to love him for better or worse – challenged her will infinitely more than the others. 
    Immediately after the accident, she notified Justin and her other lovers not to contact her; that she must devote herself to the recovery and wellness of her husband. At first, it felt like a morally-binding duty to her. From the litany of injuries – the collapsed lungs, the broken nose, right knee contusion, and the right eye and arm they had to replace – she owed him loyalty. Betrayal helped put him in there, and love and devotion would bring him back. Perhaps he would not forgive her, but she must try. She did love him, and hoped that merited