Kevin Wade Johnson
2021
Excerpt I: Meanwhile, the predator was stalking me, faking being an ordinary stationer. The corridor stretched gray and rust before and behind me, with occasional hatches and cross-tunnels interrupting. No shop windows here, vacuum-strength glass cost too much. I could count a handful of people walking it aside from me and the faker. A full-time hydroponics gardener in green, a ventilation duct cleaner in brown, a cafe wait-staffer in blue, a nurse in white, and another unemployee in the same nondescript gray as mine. The faker's body language, walk, and the rest, down to the scruffy haircut, were all perfect. His only mistake was the charcoal gray of anonymity. It was the only acceptable disguise; maybe I'd happened on him while he was on his way to where no one knew him and he could change into something else. Meanwhile I acted like I hadn't seen him, hadn't realized he followed, hadn't realized I might be getting victimized shortly. Because there was no innocent reason for following me. The poncho and my hard-won body language covered all the cues giving away my gender, if he was herm-hunting. Glimpses of the gray jumpsuit beneath showed I had nothing worth stealing, including my free-issue phone. What did he want? He didn't stand taller or beefier than anyone else in the corridor. But I had to look up to see the face of everyone else, here and pretty much everywhere. So whatever he wanted, I didn't want to find out. Because I couldn't stop him from getting it. Because I'd never had creds enough to manage a weapon. Between that and my size—and not knowing judo or anything—fighting was out of the question. What do you do if you can't fight? You run, or you hide. Excerpt II: I looked around at the kind of kitchen I hadn't known since I was twelve, all neutral cream with swatches of blue, when a huge man in indigo and black came through doors on the other side of the room, and, working his way past the appliances and the cooks, came to me. He stood as tall as anyone
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