Chapter Two: A Dark and Troubled Sky
Days passed and nothing happened, letting Raven settle back in his normal routine, but he avoided the Weslyn building for a couple of blocks in every direction. He did look over his shoulder a little more often, but that was perhaps a normal reaction to having narrowly escaped being drugged and imprisoned. When informed of his experiences there, Mr. Montoya and all their friends did very much the same. None of them could likely think of anything they could do about it at that time, but they could do their very best to insure no one they knew and cared about would fall into whatever nefarious plans were taking place. Mr. Montoya was quick to assure him, and probably everyone else, that there were avenues he could take up within his vast circles of friends and contacts, but the details were not forthcoming. When the 25th of the month rolled around, it was perhaps the only thing able to distract him from his other problems. That was the day he had scheduled to meet with his publisher and agent, and the two of them together had a remarkable capacity for wearing on his nerves. Despite the fact that they should not have anything to complain about, since his latest book was doing extremely well with a peak of 16 weeks on the top ten list, neither of them had ever seemed fully satisfied unless they had something was going wrong. Raven woke up and immediately stalled for as long as possible, taking an extra long shower, and pretending to debate what he would wear that day. Gathering up the hard copy of his new novel, he shoved it hastily into the bottom of a black backpack, and with a reluctance tantamount to one who was unwilling to go to their own execution, he got ready to depart.
Slipping on a pair of sunglasses, he stepped out into the hallway and nodded to his passing neighbors politely while he wandered down the hall towards the elevators. Having long since seen the futility of driving his car anywhere in that city when he wanted to be on time, he walked along the sidewalks towards the subway entrance. The subway ride was quiet, thankfully, but it had the added side effect of making him feel just a little paranoid as he kept looking over his shoulder, as if expecting to catch someone following him at any given moment. The publisher’s office was near Wall street, insuring that the sidewalks were packed with those he referred to as 'corporate clones'. While he had nothing against them personally, he simply could not imagine being a part of their world, since it ran so very contrary with his own sense of self. It was always a surreal experience to walk through such areas, since in odd and amusing ways, he could almost imagine that he had somehow stepped across the borders between two different realities, especially since he so very much clashed with ascetic of such places. Following the flow of the crowd, he entered the publisher's building and nodded towards the guards. They waved him through, after all there were very few people, including other writers, that looked and dressed like him. The tallest of the fellow writers he had ever met was still a foot shorter than him and was as skinny as a rake. Raven got onto the elevator with a bored sigh and pushed the button for the twenty-fifth floor, knowing that the day was going to be long and painful, he was all but certain of it.