Rocco's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The crowd was gone. Rocco locked his door and stood before his twelve screens. Each one showed a lens, and behind each lens waited a point of red light. Sue's words stuck in his head. The lenses were doors. He could not watch a single feed without the thing on the other side watching back. He needed to cover every lens before he could use his system at all. His phone buzzed. His father called. Tony ran the corner grocery, and his voice was quick and worried. "Son, that bagger boy is stirring people up. They want to smash your gear. Whatever you're doing, do it fast." Rocco thanked him and hung up. He had less time than he thought. He remembered what Sue had said about the black wax. Cover the reflective surface, close the door. But his cameras were scattered across town, hidden under eaves and behind gutters. He could not reach them all himself. He needed help, and he needed a car with a badge. Officer Cassidy Brooks arrived at his back step within the hour. She was his lover, blond and blunt, still in her blue uniform. She dropped a bucket of black wax on his floor. "Sue gave me this. Said you'd know what to do." She looked at his screens and the red eyes staring out. Her hand went to her holster. "Rocco, those things are looking at us right now." "That's why we have to seal them," he said. He grabbed his coat. "Every lens. Tonight." They drove her cruiser through the cold dark streets. Rocco climbed ladders and reached behind gutters. One by one he smeared black wax across each hidden lens. Cassidy held the light and watched his back. At the tenth camera, something moved in the wax before it dried. A red glow pressed against the seal from inside. Rocco pushed harder and covered it. The glow died. By midnight they had sealed eleven. Rocco checked his phone. On his home feed, eleven screens were black. One still showed a red point of light. The twelfth camera. He could not remember where he had hidden it. Cassidy drove him home. Rocco sat before his monitors. Eleven were dark and safe. He could watch them now without being watched. But the twelfth eye still glowed, somewhere in town, a door he had left standing open. And on that single feed, the red light was not still anymore. It was moving. It had climbed down from its hiding place. It was walking through the dark, and the camera turned to follow it. Rocco leaned close to the screen. The thing on the feed lifted its head. Behind it, in the dark, he saw the shape of a house he knew. His father's grocery. The last open door led straight to Tony.