Previously on TMO: Ophelia tried to just buckle down, pretend the protest never happened and commit to a normal work week, but she discovered a flyer near her office for LADIES NITE—a coincidence or did someone put it there? And remember, if you’re just tuning in, you can always jump to the beginning. I won’t mind.
I KEEP FINDING REASONS to get up and pass by the windows. Restock the printer paper tray. Pour myself some lukewarm coffee and shake in the powdered almond milk creamer that doesn’t dissolve right and floats. Water the spider plant that’s been on its last legs forever. When I’m stuck at the desk, my foot taps, taps, taps on the plywood floor until someone gives a look and a polite cough. Impossible to think when you’re surrounded by people in library silence, because silence = working and working = paycheck.
I half expect to see MadHatter stroll in with her rolled-up yoga mat, Walkman, and old-school headphones. Buzz of a tape rewinding. Firefly pose.
Was it her? It must have been her. Unless it was a coincidence.
Beneath that, dark memories like a flurry of butterflies, gathering.
No such thing as a coincidence, my father says at the television that’s going on about a plane that crashed at 11:11. Tinkle of ice in his sweating glass of Coke.
That’s what they want you to think.
By the afternoon, I’m on my fourth cup of coffee, and the quiet is suffocating. I pull my cell phone out of my bag, pretend to look at it, mutter something about King 5, grab my jacket and head for the roof.
When I get there, the cold air, the rain, feel right. Scattered puddles collect on the sagging, asphalt roof, defunct air conditioners rust, patches of moss try to make a stand. I pull a crushed pack of emergency Pall Malls from my inside pocket and a lighter. Take a cigarette out and lean forward for the flame.
His brand. The smoke feels like home. Stole my first cigarette from the pocket of his worn, woolen coat, took it out to the coop, snow pockmarked by chicken scratches and frozen droppings. But I didn’t light it, didn’t dare. Just put it to my lips and exhaled into the winter air, creating a cloud of mist, pretending.
He’d probably take MadHatter’s side. I can see them now in the kitchen, oiling pistols together.
And if they’re right? Because from what I’ve seen of the world, the real, outside the homestead world, is that to girl is to trust a system that never has your six. Would it be so bad for MadHatter to unload a wall of bullets on some perp who was trying something?
Wouldn’t I secretly enjoy it?
Beep, from the street. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeepppppp.
My cell buzzes in my pocket, the cell I haven’t looked at all week but keep on me in case of emergencies, the cell I know has stacks and stacks of unloaded, unread messages. I could ignore it. I should ignore it.
Beeeeppppppp. Be, be, be, beep, beeeeppppp.
I know who it is. I inhale another puff of smoke, let it seep deep into my lungs. Exhale a cloud.
Pull the cell out, tap in my password.
don’t think for a goddamn minute I’m going without you
so you better hustle your sorry ass down
i don’t want to get stuck in this goddamn traffic cause none of you morons in this city know a goddamn thing about driving and I need you for the carpool lane
and bring me something to eat cause there’s shit to get around here not that there’s shit to eat anywhere
like is it so hard to make a fucking decent pizza
SlyDevil.
FOUR-CAR PILEUP on the freeway, so we take the streets in SlyDevil’s ancient, dented Volvo, headed north to Lake City. She’s got one hand on the wheel, another on an oat-nut chia granola bar I scavenged from the office snack stash.
—and we don’t know who MadHatter really is—
The bookstores, bocce ball lanes, and community maker spaces give way to the old, blue-collar city—bars that call themselves taverns, strip clubs (Boeing Night!), neon-sign massage parlors and abandoned gas stations.
—with the current administration, I bet they’d love nothing more than to label us all—
I nod and make listening noises. So many crows. The sky is filled with them. All flying in the same direction. Crows above us, behind us, like a shoal of fish.
—terrorists. And then what? Huh?All they’d—
Crows perched on the light poles. In the barren, still trees. Clustered on power lines.
—need is one stupid act of extreme violence to pin on us—
Haven’t seen so many crows since the neighbor across the farm died, leaving his fields of corn to go to seed.
—and suddenly we’ve got surveillance up the ass—
Why did MadHatter have a gun on her anyway at the protest?
—with no community support. Which is—
It’s not like The Fairmont is in a high-crime area. Sure, we get troll-style threats every once in a while on the socials, but hardly anyone ever sees our posts. I know, I check the metrics.
—just going to play right into the hands of—
So what was she really up to?
And why didn’t I question it before?
I’m about to tell SlyDevil to turn around and go back, but then she slows down and points at a low, flat building that looks like it might have been a bowling alley once.
“There’s OddsBots’ goddamn Mini Cooper,” says SlyDevil.
And a sign, Puget Sound Rifle and Pistol Club. A few scattered crows swirl above it, drifting north to some mysterious destination of their own.
SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE mostly empty parking lot are a few older cars missing hubcaps, one rusting Cadillac where the rear window is piled high with junk, the telltale sign someone’s living in it. The newest cars, along with OddsBots’ Mini Cooper, are clustered near the entrance’s glass doors.
SlyDevil cruises past a couple of minivans and pulls into a spot right by the Mini Cooper, an incongruous bright and cheerful yellow. Darwin fish emblem on the rear bumper along with a BLACK LIVES MATTER STICKER.
“We need to have a serious talk,” SlyDevil mutters.
The doors to the gun range entrance are protected by a silver metal grill. Above the handle is a sign: THIS PROPERTY IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE AT ALL TIMES. To the left, an American flag sticker WELCOME PROUD AMERICANS, and under that, the LADIES NITE flier.
SlyDevil puts the car in park. “They can’t even fucking spell ‘night’ correctly.”
I let her seethe. She’s going to need that anger to go inside. I think that of everyone in the group, SlyDevil’s the most sensitive. More even than OddsBots. She just hides it better.
The golden sky has turned a bruised blue. Six steps between the car and the entrance. Six steps between who I am now and who I used to be. Maybe MadHatter senses it, this other me under my skin. If only I could scrape it out and burn it.
I grab my backpack from where I stowed it and put it on my lap. “I need you to let me go in first and don’t ask me a single question. Like not a single, solitary question.”
“Okay,” says SlyDevil. “Not being nosy is antithetical to my New York roots, but I can manage for a few hours.”
I find the hair tie and roll my hair into a bun. Pull out a black, bobbed wig and slide it over my head.
“Um…” says SlyDevil. “Okay, right, no questions.”
Tuck the loose strands under the wig and pull out a red baseball cap. Put that over the wig, then root around for the black Lennon sunglasses. “My name is Janet. Got that?”
“Janet. Right. You realize the suspense is fucking killing me.”
I drop the visor down for the mirror, dig around in the pack until I find the stick of red lipstick. Quickly apply it. “If you want to leave, we can leave now. Otherwise, I go in first. You give me three minutes—exactly three—then come in. Call me Janet. You’re Lisa. And for God’s sake don’t say or do anything that draws unnecessary attention. If anything, try to seem a little shaky and spooked. Got it?”
“Shaky, spooked,” says SlyDevil. “Got it.”
I pull out a red running jacket. “Good.” Give myself a final look in the mirror, then put the shades on, the jacket. A little over the top, but all they’ll remember is my hair color, red lipstick, jacket, and hat. I stash the pack under the seat.
Not that anything will happen. But there are too many variables.
Without saying else to SlyDevil I open the car door, get out, and shut it behind me, hard. The air is chill.
I can feel it, a tide starting to creep back toward the coast. And there’s even the faraway sense of my father watching, like he’s deep in the woods waiting for me to catch up as I trudge through the snow with the rifle over my shoulder.
Walk up to the entrance, open one of the glass doors, and step inside.
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© 2026 J. Lincoln Fenn. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction published as a serialized novel on Substack. No part of this work may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the author’s prior written permission. First publication rights reserved by the author.