Welcome to Agora, an anthology of super short stories set in a world where the public sector is dead. A universe that’s governed, not by ineffective politicians, but faceless corporations.
🧹 HOUSEKEEPING:
1. To all the people who signed-up this past week, welcome! 🥳
2. This story is part II. Check out Part I, here.
3. Not required (but helpful) to read beforehand:
Episode I (David & Maisey)
Episode II (The Officers)
Read Time: 5 Minutes
Maisey wiped the mixture of blood and tears off her face. Short, sputtering breaths, which felt as laborious as her stride — each step pulling what seemed like one thousand pounds. The cold night air tingled her face. It was all she could feel — all she allowed herself to.
Mr. Saleh was dead. Before her very eyes, he just sort of exploded. Maisey could not recall what exactly precipitated his demise, but without a doubt, knew she was to blame. Another fatal accident added to her tally.
Maybe this is a sign, she thought. Not from the Agora, but perhaps something even bigger. What that could be, she didn’t dare conceptualize. It lingered, though. This feeling of inevitability. There was a path being drawn by Gods of another world. All she had to do was follow it.
By the time Maisey got home, the first bit of shock had marginally subsided. And counterfactual reason nudged its way in.
If only I had…
But the list of mistakes were so vast, she couldn’t bear to name them. It started with a water filter. And ended with two bodies. The Agora had turned their back on her after the first. But now, with this crime — they’d do just the opposite. They’d come after her with everything they had.
It was only a matter of time before the police arrived. The bodega was empty, the streets vacant. But once authorities found the body, all it took were a few clicks into the surveillance network to trace it back.
After a few hours of deliberation, Maisey realized her only real option. She entered her Bean Cruiser™️ — the first time since that dreadful day.
The day the pundits would call The ANTICO Massacre. It seemed the mysterious left-wing group was the scapegoat for all of Agora’s crimes. Most people didn’t see it; the rest didn’t want to. Only those who truly lost everything could really understand. Maisey was part of that cohort now; not through any choice of her own.
Maisey had one final decision to make, and the rest would be, quite literally, out of her hands.
She went into the back-end of her Bean Cruiser’s interface, and inputted coordinates for the middle of Lake Bezos. Normally, the safety protocols would deny such a request, but there was a well-known “hack” built into the system to override these guards. If users knew the code, Bean™️ allowed the command. It was overall cheaper than physician assisted suicide.
The vehicle started, and pulled out of the driveway at a comfortable fifteen miles per hour. Maisey took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. It’d be a serene three minute drive before destiny dragged her into the abyss.
***
Jared Freeman took a swig of synthetic ergot. The legalized hallucinogen was extremely powerful; it required just one sip to get you where you needed to be. The actual product was revolutionary in that it never caused an upset stomach, even if the artificial strawberry flavoring did.
The former cop walked under the streetlights of his neighborhood, thinking about the night that just transpired. He discovered Saleh’s body with his partner, Priya Singh. She tried to cover it up. He tried to stop her. She went for her gun.
He shot her dead.
Afterwards, the global police force’s CEO told him to put it all behind him. That he’d take care of everything. To come back in next week, or whenever he felt ready. But the disillusionment had mounted past the point of no return. Whatever Jared did next, he’d do it as a standard issue Agorian consumer — not a police officer.
He noticed the headlights first. Approaching steadily, like a kaleidoscopic spectre. It could have been the ergot, but there was a heavy presence to the vehicle coming around the bend. He noticed the shape of someone inside, not much more than a dark haze. A haze from which he felt unease. Or maybe the unease came later.
When the Cruiser submerged headfirst into Lake Bezos.
***
Maisey could tell the lake was near. Her stomach was in knots, but she dared not open her eyes. The calmness that came over her when she entered the coordinates had now vanished.
But she was strapped in, like waiting for a roller coaster to make its first descent. Committed. Resigned.
Suspended in midair, all she had time to think about was really just one word.
Regret.
To Maisey’s surprise, the car didn’t immediately sink; it floated on the surface. Water poured in from the bottom. It was cold on her feet.
She thought of David. How much pain he was in. How his true murderers would never face justice.
The water reached her waist.
And thinking of her son gave her courage. Courage to try. To join with others who the Agora had made enemies with.
Shoulders.
Maisey wanted to see them pay one goddamn time. She went for the door, but the unequalized pressure made it impossible to open. The constraint she had shown up until now turned into full-blown panic.
She pounded on the windows to no avail. Maisey heard the Bean Cruiser™️ ad play in her mind. It blared, lingering in the hippocampus. Her son dying, trapped in this very car that refused to open. She was there again. Fogged windows, remnants of wasted breath.
Under.
The water flooded her eyes and throat. She was losing consciousness quickly in an encroaching vignette of black.
But then she felt something. A vibration. Hands wrapped around her waist. Pulling. Pulling forcefully. Unbuckling her seatbelt. Pinching her skin. Until she crossed the horizon of an oxygenated world.
Baptized anew.
Maisey gasped for breath as she stumbled onto the shore. She rubbed her eyes — finally able to see her savior.
He’s just a kid.
“Th-Thank you,” she managed to say.
Jared nodded back, bent over, hands-on-knees, gasping for air himself.
“How did you break through?” Maisey asked.
Jared waved his firearm, still collecting his breath.
Maisey realized this wasn’t just some kid. He was a cop.
A cop that would want to take her in. To question her, try to get her help. Maisey couldn’t handle the thought of being handed over to the police, even if not for the crime she committed.
She was exhausted, angry, helpless, and on a psychological crusade all at the same time. These feelings compiled to form an unproductive sludge of confusion. She started to cry.
“Wait, I know you,” said Jared.
Maisey burrowed her face into her hands.
“I’m sorry about your son. It wasn’t your fault,” he continued.
Maisey looked up at him now.
“And it wasn’t ANTICO’s either,” he said. “But you probably know that.”
Was that a real acknowledgement? The validation felt so foreign, yet cathartic. It was a small gesture, but it greatly replenished her soul.
She smiled at him. The first smile in what felt like an eternity. Jared smiled back. He took off his badge, and launched it into the lake to lay to rest with the Bean Cruiser™️. Maisey didn’t fully understand the meaning of this action, until he said it.
The phrase she had heard for the first time only hours ago. The one Chanae Yodel™️ had warned her about.
“Do you see the maelstrom?”