Will

September 26th, 2016

There were three things that Jaime Rider never left home without: her flash-drive, her pocketknife, and her red headphones. Even a quick trip to her grandmother’s townhouse required Jaime to gear up. She never knew when she’d have to jump into action.

Jaime was young, but she prided herself on her self-reliance. She knew how to navigate the city, both above and underground. Jaime and a few of her friends from school spent their afternoons exploring the urban landscape. They’d start fires in abandoned buildings or sneak their way onto rooftops. Jaime still remembered the night they slept on the roof of a high rise across from the heart of the city.

In fact, she had walked past that same high rise today on her way to the subway. Jaime was on her way to visit her grandmother, who had been a well-renowned researcher back in her younger years. She was no longer as spry as she used to be, but she claimed that she could live alone in the city just fine. Jaime knew for a fact that she kept a handgun under one of her couch cushions. Totally against all gun regulations in the state, but in Jaime’s eyes, the illegal gun just made her all the more cool. The woman lived in a more upscale part of the city, a far cry from the crowded apartment Jaime shared with her mum and older brothers. Her grandmother had offered to help the Rider’s along, but Jaime’s mother had refused the assistance. Something to do with what her grandmother called “sour grapes”.

Either way, Jaime had to visit her grandmother today. She had a nasty cold and Jaime’s mum had made soup.

As she stood in the muggy subway car, clutching her backpack close to her side, Jaime played with the flash-drive in her pocket, taking the cap on and off of it with her index finger and thumb. She couldn’t afford a computer at home, and so all her important documents were saved on it.

The subway flew into a station. Jaime checked the time. Seven minutes before noon. She was going to be late, even if she did take the shortcuts.

The car slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Jaime shuffled over to get out of the way. As the doors closed, one of the conductors entered the car and started checking tickets by scanning the microchips embedded in the passengers’ wrists. Jaime held out her wrist as he walked by, and tried not to look at the scar that was still visible on her dark skin. Implantation had happened over the summer, and Jaime still wasn’t used to the new regime.

If anything, she was against it. Her mother reprimanded her and told Jaime not to voice these opinions, but Jaime had never been good at keeping her mouth shut. She had already been suspended from school twice for “disrupting the new order”.

As the train conductor continued his pass though the crowded car, someone bumped into Jaime. She instinctually pulled her bag closer and turned to glare at the perpetrator.

“Sorry hun,” a voice said.

Jaime turned to see a young man standing behind her, possibly in his mid-twenties. He had dark hair and fair skin, with strange, grey eyes.

Jaime ignored him and turned back around. What a creep.

“Hey, kiddo, are you Marilyn Rider’s granddaughter?”

Jaime froze at the mention of her grandmother’s name. Who is this?

Jaime looked back at him. “Depends who’s asking.”

“Aiden McKay. I worked with her in the labs back in the day. She used to have pictures of you up. How is she?”

“Sick,” said Jaime, cautiously.

“Oh, are you on your way to visit her now?”

“Look, I’m not supposed to—”

“—talk to strangers. Right, right, I know. She was just a huge role model for me. You know.”

The train arrived at Jaime’s stop and she stepped out. “I gotta go.”

“Hey, you should pick her up some clementines before you get there,” yelled Aiden. “She loved those when she was sick!”

The doors shut and Jaime quickly exited the platform. Clementines?

There was a supermarket on the way to her grandmother’s place. It did seem like Aiden knew her grandmother. And she was already late, a few clementines never hurt anyone. So, Jaime stopped at the market.

On her way out, she called her grandmother to let her know that she was still coming.

Two rings later and her grandmother picked up.

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded off. God, she must really be sick.

“Hi, it’s Jaime. I’m late but I’m on my way.”

There was a pause before her grandmother answered “All right.”

“How’s the cold? You sound… different.”

“Oh, it’s all in the chest. My nose is running, too. Better in than out, though.”

“Right,” said Jaime. “Anyways, I’m two blocks away. Subway was really crowded.”

“It’s okay. I’ll see you in a bit, fam.” said her grandmother.

“Fam?” echoed Jaime. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Of course!” said her grandmother quickly. “I’ve just been learning some new young-people words these days. Better to understand you kids.”

“I’ll be there soon.” Jaime hung up, her pulse quickening. Was it another stroke? What if something was wrong and she would be too late?

Jaime started to run now, pushing past pedestrians on the sidewalk. She leaped up the stairs of the townhouse and pushed open the door. It wasn’t locked.

“Gran? You left your door unlocked.”

Silence. Jaime crept through the elegant foyer and into the living room. “Gran? I said you left your front door unlocked.”

“That’s right,” said a low voice. “Better to catch you—”

Something slammed Jaime back and she fell into the coffee table. She turned to see the face of Aiden McKay standing near her. His hands were covered in blood, and behind him Jaime saw the motionless body of her grandmother on the floor.

“What did you do!” screamed Jaime.

Aiden balanced a small microchip on his red thumbnail. “They sell good, the microchips of moderately famous people. Or you can reprogram these boys to suit your identity, with all the credentials of the person you took it from.”

“What did you do!” screamed Jaime again. “Did you—?”

“Unfortunately, she tried to fight me,” said Aiden.

Jaime pushed herself back away from him, her mind reeling. Oh my god. What now? I did this.

There was the flash of light reflecting off metal and suddenly, Aiden rushed for her with a knife. Wait a minute. It was her pocketknife. The same one that she carried everywhere.

He took it when he bumped into me.

He made a slash at her chip wrist and Jaime pulled her hand back. “You can’t remove these! You’ll hit an artery or something!”

Jaime already knew that Aiden didn’t care about arteries. He had the will to kill.

What happened next was so jumbled and confused in Jaime’s memory that she could never quite explain how it all went down.

Her hand reached under the couch cushion and pulled out her late grandmother’s handgun. As Aiden took another slash at her, she raised the gun and he bristled back.

“You wouldn’t do that,” he taunted. “You can’t.”

Anger bubbled and popped inside Jaime, like molten lava. This man had taken her grandmother. She wasn’t scared anymore.

The next thing she knew, the gun’s kickback had thrown her down and Aiden was falling to the floor, a crimson trickle flowing out right below his heart. Jaime gasped and looked away from the gory sight. Her hands were still clenched around the gun and her ears were ringing and it all had happened too fast.

Aiden sputtered and gasped on the ground. Jaime tried to stand, but her legs had gone weak with the adrenaline of the moment. She had to run. She’d surely be arrested, right? Am I a killer?

Get up, get up.

And then Jaime was running, out the back door, through alleyways and side streets. Far away from the dead in her grandmother’s parlor.

The gun was slipped into her backpack. She had taken Aiden’s wallet. Jaime would need the money. Sirens wailed in the distance and Jaime decided at that moment that she would run away.

They can track your chip. It needs to be taken out.

But she couldn’t take it out. It was her life. She would need someone to hack it. Just like Aiden did. She’d need a new name, a new identity.

Just turn yourself in. They’ll understand.

What if they didn’t, though? What if she was sent to juvie, or worse? What would happen to her?

No. She’d run.

The thirteen-year-old ran all the way to the public library and this was where she opened Aiden’s wallet.

Of course, Aiden wasn’t his real name. Mason Wolf.

She pulled out old receipts and loose dollar bills before her hands seized a piece of paper with an address to Aiden’s chip hacking contacts.

And two weeks later, as she evaded the missing person alerts and desperate pleas from her mother to turn herself in, Jaime worked on her new mission.

Mason Wolf’s partner in crime had been his brother. Jaime was ready for revenge. She’d find this accomplice. Mason had underestimated her ability to kill. Eli Wolf would pay for his brother’s sins. Gran did not deserve this.

Jaime had changed her name and her appearance. Her very identity was new to her. As she logged into an IRC chat on a public library computer, her screenname flashed on the display.

Red_Rider has entered the chat.

It was time to go to work.