The sun was mostly up before I felt ready to go back into my apartment. My Honda was pristine…or at least as pristine as it had been before it morphed into a murder machine, and I used it to slam a guy into another vehicle over and over again. As I walked across the street, I saw myself in the light of the morning, and it wasn’t pretty.

  I could see and feel dried blood under my fingernails. My rumpled gray hoodie and jeans had come out of the river with a lingering pink color that made it look like I’d accidentally washed my clothes with a bright red towel. I hustled up the three stories to my front door.

  I moved through The Central and showered quietly, though I knew I didn’t really have to worry about Cam waking up. He’d clearly been a mess the previous day, given the little sleep he had gotten on Thursday night, and knowing Cam, he’d be out until noon. Probably a good thing, because I had no idea how I would have explained the state of my clothes.

  After drying off and getting dressed, I shut myself away in my room and stretched out on my bed. I wasn’t tired, though, and found myself just lying there, my eyes wide open. After contemplating a NyQuil-induced slumber, I decided against it and instead began going through my phone again.

  The text at the top of my Elysium Pro read:

  Level Up! Congratulations, Max! Your license is now D2. New Vehicle Unlocked!

  It gave me the option to switch to a Ford Pinto. Fuck my life. That definitely seemed like a downgrade, but I remembered Dan saying that he frowned upon Axel using the same vehicle for every “fare.” A Ford Pinto it was.

  In addition to the new vehicle, I had the option to equip a new upgrade called “Duct Tape Patches.” I thought about the Duct tape on the windows of the infamous Ramcharger and decided there must be some benefit to it.

  I upgraded to the Pinto and installed the Duct tape. It was possible my car was miraculously changing out on the street, but I doubted it. The last time it transformed, I had already accepted another fare.

  Putting down my phone, I thought back to last night and what I’d done. There would, of course, be an investigation, but the Chevelle tire prints would be a dead end. There were no witnesses that I knew of, except for Axel, but he wouldn’t out me. I was almost 100% sure of that. Dispatch would punish any behavior that would draw the authorities closer to one of her Endrs.

  My mind went over the events of the struggle and the subsequent disembowelment. I had been uninjured in the struggle. But… it was possible there was skin under Johnson’s fingernails. He did try, feebly, to strangle me, after all. Feeling around my neck, I couldn’t feel any scratches. Oh well.

  I decided then and there that if I were caught someday, I would go silently with the authorities. I would deserve it, after all. I mean, what was I going to do, try to explain to them that I wasn’t REALLY killing these people? No, I would accept my fate, whatever that might be.

  Then… nothing. The weekend passed, and nothing at all out of the ordinary happened. No trooper came to my door. No new fare vibrated my phone. No letter from the academy arrived to inform me that I had been kicked out.

  I left my Elysium Pro at home when I went back to the academy on Sunday night. I didn’t need to get caught with it when I went in, and I was sure that, at this point, if Dispatch needed to get in touch with me, the phone would show up where I could access it.

  Monday came and went, and I was allowed to continue with the next stage of the curriculum. I wasn’t even called down to medical. The medical officer and all the drill instructors pretended that the initial bloodwork had never happened. At first, I was confused, but I decided the best course of action was to remain silent. No news was good news in this case.

  Phase five of recruit training was Advanced Tactical Training, or A.T.T. We quickly learned that this was the most intense and defining portion of the 25-week program. It’s where we stopped being students, and we started living the job. We’d already passed our law exams, firearm qualifications, defensive tactics, and the wonderful EVOC exam. During the six weeks preceding graduation preparation, recruits integrated all these skills through real-world, high-stress simulations. Cam and I had been looking forward to this since we’d started the program.

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  Our instructors would evaluate our decision-making under stress, tactical communication, and team effectiveness. They would be studying our decisions and judgment in using force when necessary, our ability to be mindful of our surroundings, and our ability to manage our emotions in intense situations.

  Before I knew it, the six weeks had flown by. I excelled in almost all the areas I was tested on, except for a single incident right after the Johnson situation, when I reacted a little more forcefully than I should have. But apparently, shooting civilian dummies the first week of A.T.T. isn’t all that uncommon, and I rallied quickly after that day. I knew I needed to keep my emotions in check.

  Speaking of Johnson, there had been a small to-do when we first came back to the Academy. Several recruits were interviewed about Johnson’s plans the night I ran him over, but Cam and I hadn’t made the cut. I guess they figured Johnson wouldn’t have shared that information with us. After that, however, I had heard rumors that they were blaming this new killing on the Ramcharger Killer. That must have chapped Axel’s asshole, considering how he had caught me literally red-handed mid-act. Then again, maybe he didn’t mind the extra infamy.

  Throughout A.T.T., we studied the various specialties we could enter after our first year in the field. Everyone had to spend at least a year on the road, responding to calls and conducting stops. Afterward, new troopers would have the option to specialize in mounted, marine, or motorcycle units. We could even choose the Special Tactical Operations (STOP Team), similar to a SWAT team; the Dive Team; the Air Wing; a K9 unit; or the Truck Team.

  The Truck Team, also known as the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Section, was the specialty that Cam and I were most interested in. They were responsible for enforcing commercial vehicle laws and safety regulations throughout the Commonwealth. Their focus on large trucks, buses, and hazardous-material haulers had always piqued my interest.

  If we were eventually selected for that team, we would conduct roadside inspections, enforce weight limits, investigate safety violations, and examine truck-related crashes. Cam was in love with the idea of the two of us driving huge pickup trucks around the state. He said it reminded him of when he got his first car, a beat-up Corolla, and the two of us cruised between Ball Square and Davis Square, looking for something to get into, whether that was trouble or girls.

  When we finally finished A.T.T., we were given another free weekend. It would be our last one before the final three weeks of graduation prep, and weirdly enough, it started on Halloween night. When we were dismissed from drill, I hopped into Cam’s geriatric BMW E36. I hated the thing, but he insisted that BMWs lasted forever, when really, he just loved the idea of actually owning a BMW, despite it being older than he was.

  Cam fell into the driver’s seat. “We did it, dude,” he said, slapping me on the arm. “A.T.T. is finally over!”

  I grinned back, wondering what kind of hijinks we might get into that weekend. My smile fell when I felt my leg vibrate. Cam heard the phone buzz, too, and we both looked down at my left pocket, where the phone's screen was visible through the fabric of the uniform.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

  I didn’t respond. I hadn’t even thought about the phone in weeks. I motioned for Cam to drive, and slowly took out the phone.

  fourth_wall: I hope you enjoyed your little reprieve. We need you again. I will be assigning you another fare soon.

  I read it, sighed, and put the phone face down on my lap.

  “What?” Cam asked.

  I put my hand up to my mouth in the universal sign of “shut the fuck up,” and we drove the rest of the trip in silence.

  We pulled in across from our apartment just after trick-or-treat had finished. There were still some people out and about, likely doing what normal 20 or 30-somethings should be doing on Halloween night, dressing up like the dead and drinking until they wished they were.

  Someone in a Grim Reaper costume was walking up Central St. to the Highland Kitchen bar next to our apartment. I chuckled, watching the man in black try to avoid the young sidewalk trees through the tiny eyeholes of his mask.

  I briefly thought of the irony of dressing up like the dead, given I didn’t age. Then, of course, there was the irony of me now being an actual instrument of Death. My phone vibrated again, and I mentally prepared myself to see who would be my next fare.

  - - -

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