They Both Die at the End: Part Two

Andrea herself, one of Death-Cast’s top reps since their inception seven years ago, has made her fair share of End Day calls.

Abide by this one and only rule and you won’t find yourself wasting hours with the company’s counselors.

And now Malcolm and Tagoe will be tagged as juvenile delinquents.

I shut up, cringing from the phantom pain you get when you think about falling face-first onto spiked fences or having your teeth punched out of your mouth.

Rufus doesn’t elaborate.

I’m looking both ways, getting ready to cross the street, when I spot a dead bird in the road, its small shadow cast from a bodega’s lit awning.

I even imagine that this tree was once a person, some Decker who was cremated and had asked to have their ashes packed into a biodegradable urn with a tree seed to give it life.

I even imagine that this tree was once a person, some Decker who was cremated and had asked to have their ashes packed into a biodegradable urn with a tree seed to give it life.

I know many people won’t agree or understand this sentiment.

This has gotta be taboo for a Last Friend to say, but I’m not wrong.

Now we can safely rule out falling onto the exposed tracks, getting stuck while rats run by us, and straight chopped up and flattened by the train—damn, Mateo’s grimness is already rubbing off on me.

He grins and rambles so hard: “It’s going to take a while because evolution is never fast, but the robots are already here. You know that, right? There are robots that can cook dinner for you and unload the dishwasher..."

Doctors work closely with Death-Cast, obviously, receiving instant updates about their terminal patients who’ve signed off on this agreement.

The awkwardness of it all makes me even more antsy to listen to music, to hide away with something that has always been very solitary for me.

“There’s a chance he’s not even homeless. I’ve been duped before,” he says.

He releases me, and I don’t know if his eyes are red because he’s possibly without a bed and really tired, or if he’s tearing up, but I don’t pry because he doesn’t have to prove himself to me.

“Hopefully karma takes care of you later for that one.”

“If that’s your call, I back it. I don’t know if she’ll resent you or not, you know her best. But look, we gotta stop caring about how others will react to our deaths and stop second-guessing ourselves.”

Rae nods vigorously, and she hands us a check.

I can’t front, Mateo is cool and neurotic and fine company, but it would’ve been really dope to have one last sit-down at Cannon’s with the Plutos, talking about all the good and bad things that have gone down.

“This isn’t a tandem bike,” he says.

“Lidia didn’t want him to go because she was having all these hysteria freak-outs, but Christian swore the money would be worth it in the long run. They could buy a better crib, diapers and formula for the next couple months, and clothes. He took off, stayed overnight in Pennsylvania, and woke up around one-something to the alert.”

Lidia groggily answers.

I hail Rufus over and we walk to her apartment.

It’s in the kind of projects where the superintendent sits on the stoop reading a newspaper when there’s clearly more work that can be done—like mopping and sweeping the floor, fixing the blinking lamp in the hallway, and setting up mouse traps.

There’s some gibberish I’m sure makes perfect sense to her, and then she returns to her bottle.

“Because I want her to live forever, obviously.” I smile. “And make minions of everyone else.”

“Look, I’m not gonna hit you with some impassioned speech. I don’t have one in me and that’s not what I’m about.”

He puts his glasses back on, and, I don’t know, if you wanna put together some analogy on how he’s seeing the world with new eyes or something, be my guest.

Crossing the street is pretty instinctive at this point.

Her own parents, locked up for robbing a family-owned movie theater, inspired her kleptomaniac urges, but Aimee discovered working on herself made her feel more powerful than stealing from others.

Maybe he was hoping to use me as some alibi.

I met this kid a few hours ago because some creative designer somewhere developed an app to forge connections.

“Welcome to Make-A-Moment,” Deirdre says, not too cheery, not too distant. The right amount of solemn.

Deirdre gives us a six-page-long waiver, which isn’t uncommon for businesses serving Deckers, but it’s also definitely not uncommon that we skim the form, because it’s not as if we’re going to be around to sue them if something does go wrong.

Our room isn’t very large, but there are huge vents, safety mats leaning against the wall, and an instructor who’s dressed like an aviator, with her curly brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

I still want that same exhilaration Rufus experienced, so I put the goggles back on, count down from three, and jump.

“I’m kidding, dude. It was interesting, but low casualties are the one thing this place has going for it, and that sort of risk-free fun isn’t really fun at all. We should’ve read reviews before dropping bank on it.”

Tagoe suppresses his tic often because his neck jerking around every other minute is not only uncomfortable, but it also makes him look unapproachable and wild.

“Could’ve been at the cemetery sooner if a hearse carried us.”

I want to get lost in the deserts of Saudi Arabia; find myself running from the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas; stay overnight on Hashima Island, this abandoned coal-mining facility in Japan sometimes known as Ghost Island; travel the Death Railway in Thailand, because even with a name like that, there’s a chance I can survive the sheer cliffs and rickety wooden bridges; and everywhere else.

But I gotta immortalize this dreamy look on his face.

I’m about to call out for someone on the train who might know what to do if he’s having a seizure when Mateo mutters “No,” and repeats it over and over.

Rufus wheels his bike around a stone cherub.

“Oh! And there’s also this transcript of everything you’ve ever said since birth and—”