Hand back into the bowl for the teal pill, a perfect teal caplet against a smooth white palm. Too smooth to be the hands of one of Karina’s tough-mudder race buddies. “And this is the Fortress of Solitude.”
“Fortress of Solitude?” He repeated it when they didn’t explain further, though he thought he understood.
“It dampens the effect of your Pilot. Tamps it down. Mild euphoria.”
The floor sitter said something again about one pill making you larger, like it was a reference to something, oh yeah, Alice in Wonderland. Calm, smiling. Fortress of Solitude.
He wasn’t a drug person never had a chance he had gotten his Pilot so early and everything he tried had just made it louder louder who would have thought even weed would make it louder but it had so there had never been a point he got paranoid and he was still on guard and he got stoned and he was still aware and he had tried one thing after another just once just to see before he stopped bothering because it was always the same so aware amped hyped noise everywhere same as always. If he was smart he’d take a minute and look these up see what they really were if he was responsible and not five beers in and having a lousy night even though he’d barely been there how long maybe an hour.
He opened his hand, palm up.
“That’s not how it works,” said the cute one.
He waited again, and this time they explained without his prompting. “You close your eyes and reach in. It chooses you, not the other way around. You swallow it without looking. Ride whichever wave hits you.”
“That’s why it’s a game,” said someone from the floor.
There was a crash from the living room, then quiet, then a smattering of applause.
David crossed to the bed. Closed his eyes just for a second he hated closing his eyes around strangers in a strange place hated closing his eyes ever really when there was nobody on watch but he closed his eyes he heard everyone breathing he heard the murmurs that were noise when the door was open he closed his eyes and put his hand in the bowl and took a pill. Put it on his tongue and stuck his tongue out so they saw what he got even if he didn’t. It had a sweet coating. He swallowed.
When he opened his eyes, the others in the room nodded approvingly. He put his beers on the nightstand and lowered himself to the floor next to the bed, not the worst place in the room to be situated, he faced the door if anyone came through it anything that came through the window at least the bed would be in the way. For whatever reason nobody in this room asked his name or said they recognized him and he took that as a part of the experience whatever the experience would be.
He waited. Now that the novelty of his appearance had worn off there were two conversations going in the room, the two on the bed chatting about a show he had never heard of and the people against the dressers chatting about a mutual friend he didn’t know. Only the alert person against the wall was silent, and she was closest to him.
“How long does it take?” He thought that was the way to go, stay on the topic at hand.
She shrugged, eyes wide. “Fifteen minutes to start feeling it, usually. Half an hour for full effect.”
“How far behind you am I?”
“We’re all at half an hour.”
He looked around. It wasn’t that different from a room full of stoned people when you were the sober one.
“You got Superman,” he said. “And they all got the other.”
She nodded. He tried to imagine an amped-up version of the Pilot an even more aware awareness molecules moving through space dust through the air. He couldn’t picture it.
“Friend of Milo or friend of Karina?” David asked.
“Karina’s big sister,” she said. “Alyssa.”
“Oh, cool,” he said. “I didn’t know she had a sister. I’ve been friends with Milo forever.”
“Are you David?”
“Yeah.” He waited for the inevitable questions about the war or the commercial.
“Karina thinks you’re great.”
He was completely surprised by that. “Really? I always figured I’m the guy making Milo drink too much and dragging him away from her to sort out my problems.”
“Nah. The way she sees it you’re a practical influence with a good job also you have amazing curls.” Her sentence ran on but he had no problem following.
“Thanks.” He ran a hand through his hair, still short but already ignoring orders. “I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the curls. This is the first time in ages I’ve let it get this long.”
She looked like she was maybe going to reach out a hand to touch his hair, and she was cute and he would let her if she did, but he turned and straightened the two haphazard pairs of shoes that had been kicked off by the people on the bed, to interrupt any move she might have made before it had a chance to happen. Karina’s big sister. Cute but a bad idea unless he checked with Karina and Milo first. If Karina actually liked him he wanted to keep it that way, since he needed Milo. Milo was the closest thing to a person who understood him, who believed him about the noise.
“Do you want to step out on the balcony? I want to go outside.”
The balcony, in full view of the people in the room, seemed like a better plan than this intimate corner of the floor. Alyssa sprang to her feet like someone who thought she was moving like a cat. David followed, watching the others watch them go.
The balcony was two feet wide, not big enough for furniture, just a couple of potted plants, one flowering one green,
