Anomalies: Control
Chapter 18

The remaining two days to Friday passed too quickly, and before he was ready, he was in his best suit and standing on the steps in front of the Pravitas building, waiting to be waved forward by Lewis to make a greeting speech to the crowds. There were more people than he’d expected; other government officials of course, but regular people too, white and blue collars filling the street in front of the building, waiting to see what was going to happen, what new and rare excitement they had to distract themselves with.

“We have been making great strides in our Vario program as everyone is aware, but this is something revolutionary. For the first time since discovering the Vario Disorder, we are employing individuals to bridge the gap between ourselves and our affected brothers and sisters…”

He was trying to pay attention to Lewis, he really was, but Talia was whispering excitedly from next to him, and there was a dark haired figure lingering on the opposite side of the street, half hidden in an alleyway. If he hadn’t been actively scanning the alleyways hoping to see her, he’d have missed her. But he was scanning for her, and he paused, everything going muffled as he met her dark eyes. He couldn’t tell if they were dark brown or black, couldn’t tell how mad she was from so far away, but she definitely was mad to some degree. Her face twisted angrily, and if they hadn’t been black before, her eyes were almost certainly black now. He wanted to apologize, wanted to beg her not to hate him, but the time for that was already too far past. He could only live with her hate and hope that someday she’d see that he was doing this for all of them.

“They’re so excited. That’s because of you, Cole.” Talia’s voice drew his eyes from Rune and back to the girl at his side. Her hand was squeezing his arm, thrilled and excited herself as she scanned the crowds, missing entirely the silent death glare being thrown at Cole. “You’re giving everyone hope.” She sounded amazed by the fact and the turnout, and her enthusiasm made him smile and reach to cover her hand with his own.

“And without further ado, I present to you our new protégé, Public Liaison for the Department of Vario Research.”

He looked up to see Lewis gesturing to him, and took a deep breath and trotted up to the podium, scanning the crowd nervously, his eyes trailing back to Rune out of habit. But there was no one there. She’d vanished, decided it wasn’t worth her time to watch the final bit of transformation into a government employee. Trying to push aside the stinging hurt, he took another breath and smiled widely out at the crowd.

“Hello everyone. I’m Cole Callahan, and it’s an honor to be here in front of you today...”