The street preacher was shouting over the jeering crowd that surrounded him

Being stuck at Milliways had its downsides beyond just being stuck. Jim had said something — he’d said a lot of things, actually — that got under Wilford’s skin and stuck there. Wilford had to find out what else Jim knew, since he was apparently in his world, ready to cause all sorts of problems.

Walter was easy to find, and indeed had some big watermelon farm out on the west coast. Wilford had always assumed Walter had gone back to Korea with their parents, but now he wasn’t even sure about the initial assumption that their parents had even gone back to Korea. He tried a few searches, but only himself and Walter turned up. And it took him entirely too long to figure out why. Obviously if they had disappeared into the unknown, they would have done so in a way that they wouldn’t stand out so much. They had ready-made aliases before they even made the decision to leave. The problem is Wilford either didn’t remember, or was never told what they had changed their names from. He barely remembered what the name on his own birth certificate had originally been. Though, that wasn’t exactly a problem. It would have been a matter of public record. He fished around online for a little bit, eventually getting bored because when it came down to it, he just didn’t care enough to put any real amount of effort into it. Ultimately, it was that Jim had got one over on him that pissed him off so much. But now he at least knew where Walter was, and therefore which areas of San Andreas to avoid like the goddamn plague in the future.

Wilford pushed away from his desk and leaned against the window to watch the growing scene on the street down below. It was going to come to a riot sooner or later if nobody did anything. Wilford wished his phone had a decent camera so he could film it when it happened. Damn clamshell phones and their pre-megapixel cameras. The future could not come soon enough.

Nichola walked up, running her hand over his shoulders to get his attention. When he looked up, he was presented with a fresh cup of coffee. Wilford took it and went back to watching the show outside.

“What’s going on now?” Nichola asked as she sat down at her desk. She looked at everything piled up on it and sighed.

“Street preacher,” Wilford said, wishing the windows in the building opened so he could hear what was going on better.

“Anything worth listening to?” Nichola asked.

“Oh, you know. God hates fags; we need to protect our white women from all the brown-skinned terrorists. Nothing new.” Nothing new didn’t mean boring though, as the preacher below had amassed quite the crowd already.

“I want to see,” Nichola declared, moving her chair over next to Wilford so she could look down with him. The street preacher was shouting over the jeering crowd that surrounded him, ignoring their shouts and thrown stones in his direction. Finally, one of the stones hit him in the face, sending him reeling to the ground.

“Ow, that had to hurt,” Nichola said.

“He’ll get up again,” Wilford said, craning to try to see him now that he was hidden behind dozens of angry people still shouting at him.

“Who was that cute little thing I saw you with outside earlier?” Nichola asked, sipping on her coffee as if she wasn’t watching the beginnings of an angry mob forming.

Wilford shook his head dismissively. “Nobody. Just some girl I used to mess around with in college.”

“I didn’t think you went for that,” Nichola said.

“What, college?” Wilford asked.

“Girls.”

Wilford snorted. “Not this one anymore. She dropped by to tell me she’s pregnant.” And damn her for it.

Nichola forgot all about the street preacher and turned her full attention to Wilford. “Oh. I thought you said you were dating in college?”

Wilford wanted to bang his head into the window. Was Nichola so starved for scandalous gossip that she wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. “It’s not mine. She’s closing her restaurant. Apparently she wants to have a life that doesn’t revolve around resisting the urge to spit in peoples’ food.”

Utterly selfish. Where else is he going to eat when he can’t get the door to Milliways to open?

“Oh,” Nichola repeated.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Wilford said.

There was an uproar of shouting down below, and Wilford noticed that the preacher had got back up again, and was back to shouting his sermon at anyone nearby. He had blood running from the bridge of his nose, but didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping.

“What are your plans tonight?” Wilford asked.

“No,” Nichola said before he could get any farther with that train of thought.

“Free booze,” he tried anyway.

“Nice try. Still no. I am so not going to anything where my job does not depend on my showing up and looking complacent.”

She smiled at him over her coffee and leaned back in her chair, still watching the scene down below. At once, the crowd parted in every direction as a large jeep bounced over the curb and into the square below, mowing down a few of the screaming protesters as well as the street preacher. For a moment, everything down in the square was silent, with nobody moving as the crowd tried to figure out what was going on. Then, like a switch had been flipped, everyone realised at once that nobody would be resetting, or likely even respawning, and the crowd scattered in all directions as the driver of the jeep stumbled out to survey the damage.

“Ooh, that’s going to be on the six o’clock tonight,” Nichola said, cringing down at the scene below. Already, a team from inside the building was rushing out to cover the scene, getting in the way of police and paramedics. Wilford didn’t envy them. The ambulance chaser beat was one step above the kitten circus, and just as likely to grind your career to a halt.

“So, tonight?” Wilford asked.

“No.”

Wilford rolled his eyes and got up, taking his coffee with him. He wasn’t sure why he expected to be able to talk Nichola into going to the stupid award thing he’d been avoiding all month, since she never went even when she was up for one herself. Somewhere, he’d forgotten that there had been a time when blowing these things off wasn’t an option for him.

Maybe if he was lucky, he could catch Jim on the wrong side of the door, and get rocketed ahead three years without having to do anything about it. He’d like that.

He found Jess hiding in a hallway, avoiding doing any work, and decided to try his luck there. He couldn’t remember what he did the first time around, aside from likely wandering around doing exactly what he was doing right now. Maybe this was what he did, for all he knew.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked her.

She looked up at him and shrugged. “I have a date with my couch and a frozen pizza,” she said.

“Cool. I’ll pick you up at six. Wear something nice.” He started to walk away before she could protest, but he wasn’t fast enough.

“Oh, no. I’m not going to that thing,” Jess argued.

Damnit. “All the free booze you can drink,” Wilford said.

“I really had my hopes set on that pizza,” Jess said.

Wilford sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll pick you up at six.” This time, he walked away faster before she could protest.

-

He was surprised she was actually ready at six, and didn’t low-key try to bail on him by still being in her underwear when he knocked on her door. In fact, Jess had actually put more effort into her appearance than Wilford had, although he did make a last-minute decision to swap the candystripe jacket for a black leather one. The audible ‘oh thank god’ from Jess seemed to suggest this had probably been the right choice, though he didn’t feel the need to investigate that any further.

The event was every bit as dull and pointlessly stupid as Wilford remembered these things being. He and Jess spent their entire time there casually sharing insults about everyone they crossed paths with and decimating the bar before it became busy enough that they could sneak out unnoticed. Wilford had shown up, made his presence known, and got the hell out before anyone had a chance to shove a microphone in his face for a quote. He almost thought he’d be able to get away with skipping the pizza, but at the last minute, he changed his mind. If he wanted someone to go to these things with him again in the future, he’d have to play nice and uphold his end of the deal. So she got her pizza, and Wilford got garlic bread and a glass of beer. By the time he dropped Jess back off at her place, he was starving, and just drunk enough to be not even close to drunk enough.