The Angel of Death

Howard and Marbella Roanoake’s first mistake was making their daughter smart. From the moment Julissa Anne Roanoake was born, she was taught. She learned from the best tutors in Helvetica all the things a child of privilege should know. When, at age eight, she first hacked through the government censors, she learned all the things a child of privilege shouldn’t know.

Her parent’s second mistake was making their daughter kind. She volunteered for all the right charities, and did the service a child of privilege should do. When she figured out that hacking could alter reality as swiftly as it altered the virtual world, Julissa began to do the service a child of privilege should never do.

This was how Julissa became more than a girl; more than the heir to fortune and power. She became a myth.

Incidentally, in the process of becoming a myth, she had also become a criminal. Julissa didn't feel like a wanted felon, even as she walked the streets of her city with a mask concealing her face, and shadows concealing the rest of her. Maybe it was her privilege; maybe it was naïveté, maybe some intoxicating combination of the two. Behind her mask, Julissa felt invincible.

They called her the Angel of Death. At first Julissa had blanched at the grim moniker. After all, she was not a specter of doom to those she visited, but quite the opposite. She brought life to those she met.

Officially, Helvetica had eradicated death. People still died of old age, a “natural death,” if any death can be considered natural, but death from disease, or violence, had been conquered- for a price. It had been 10 years since society had decided that lifespan could be bought. Julissa was a thousand lifetimes rich.

Julissa walked through her city, going to all the usual places looking for tonight’s target. She searched on the sidewalk next to the homeless shelter, among the unlucky souls who had not won tonight’s lottery for a mat and a warm place to sleep next to 500 other bodies. She looked in between the skyscrapers, in the run down churches and local shops that were relics of another city, one that had long since been swallowed by steel and glass. She looked in the places usually at the periphery of her averted gaze. Finally she heard it. A muffled cough, followed by uncontrollable hacking. A soft groan, the sound of disease. Someone’s time had run out.

Julissa approached the woman gently. “I am the Angel of Death. I am here to help you.” She loved saying that part. She loved the rush of the announcement, the knowledge that she was, for a moment, the uncanny. She loved being impossible, and bestowing impossible grace.

The woman looked up at her in tears. “Please don’t hurt me.” Hurt was all she had known for so long.

“I am here to help you.” Julissa repeated, and set about hacking.

It was so easy. Anyone could do this, Julissa thought, self-righteously. They just had to want to.

She gently grabbed the woman’s wrist, using her scanner to read the microchip she knew would be there. Her scanner showed what she already suspected, that this woman was dying. The hardware in her body that had the capability to detect and heal any wound or ailment was inactive. It had been for some time. There was another message, one that detailed what the woman would have to pay in order to renew her subscription.

Julissa used her tablet to perform the transaction. First, the money. $20,000 seemed about right given the woman’s current age. Then she went about altering the woman’s information, erased any pre-existing conditions, altered her credit score, and disappeared any record of a lapse in coverage. Layers of bureaucracy melted away. It took less than a minute for the color to start coming back into the woman’s cheeks. She noted the date and the amount that she’d transferred in a little black notebook- the only record of her escapades.

The woman looked up at her, confused. Julissa had seen this look many times before. It was the look that people gave you when they weren’t sure you were real. Julissa smiled and turned to go, gone the way she came, back into the shadows.

She was almost back uptown when she noticed she was being followed. She wheeled around, bracing for the sight of flashing lights, the sound of sirens; a hood over her head and cuffs around her wrists. Surely, she was caught.

Instead she saw a child. Startled; surprised to be noticed.

“Why are you following me?” Julissa asked. She couldn’t decide whether to make her voice sound gentle or intimidating. It came out all wrong.

“I saw what you did with that lady.” The child said. This was not, strictly speaking, an answer to Julissa’s question.

“What do you want?” Julissa asked. The child didn’t answer.

Julissa took in the child’s appearance. Baggy clothes, worn shoes, the muted look of someone for whom it is dangerous to be noticed. The child must have followed her from the other side of town.

“Do you need help?” Julissa asked, gentle now.

“Why do you do this?” The child answered her question with a question. It was then that Julissa realized that while she had been observing the child, the child had been observing her. Suddenly, she could feel every soft thing she’d ever owned.

“So I can sleep at night.” She was surprised she had said it out loud. Anyway, it was the truth.

The child nodded, not reacting yet, just absorbing.

“I’m Kip,” the child said, and offered a hand by way of introduction. Julissa took it. “I want to help you,” Kip said. Something about the fervent idealism in the child’s eyes made Julissa cringe, like she’d seen an old picture of herself.

“You can’t,” She said, with more gravitas than she expected. “I work alone. It’s better that way.”

Julissa waved to Kip as she walked away. The way home was a blur.

She climbed in through her dark bedroom window. It always amazed her how her home remained exactly the same even as she came back completely changed. The girl that left that evening was a stranger. She turned on the light.

Her mother was sitting on her bed. She blinked and looked again, sure her eyes were mistaken. It was impossible but real, her mother was sitting on her bed.

“Julissa Anne Roanoke,” She said coldly.

Julissa’s heart pounded in her ears the same word over and over caught, caught, caught. She tried to say something, but her mouth was too dry.

“We need to talk.” Her mother said, eerily calm. On the bed next to her rested several small black notebooks; damning evidence of Julissa’s charity. “I’ve tried to give you space, give you freedom. But I can’t treat you like an adult if you’re going to be so inconsiderate of this household.”

“I’m trying to help people, mom.” A million questions burned in Julissa’s ears. How much did she know? How long had she known? She was keenly aware of the mask on her face. She was ready for this moment, right? Her parents were always going to find out eventually.

She raised her chin, the mask shielded her trembling lip.

“I’m not going to stop, if that’s-“

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Her mother interrupted, content to monologue without her daughters response.

“What… time?” Julissa asked.

“It’s one thing to stay out past curfew but it’s nearly two in the morning!” Julissa’s mother continued. “And you’re running around, God knows where in this city. I always worry when you’re out so late.”

“Always…worry,” Julissa echoed dumbly.

“Come sit by me Julie.” Her mother seemed to deflate a bit then, relieved to have vented her worries. “And you can take of the mask, no need to hide your face here.”

“Are you mad?” It was the only thing she could think to say. She felt like she had been caught sneaking extra dessert.

“Mad? I mean, your father and I were a bit surprised, yes. But why would we be mad? You’ve always had such a big heart,” her mother said sincerely.

“Dad knows too?” It was all she could stupidly say.

“Of course. All the donations you’ve been making, how could we not know? Now, we’re not upset with you sweetheart. You’re nearly an adult and that money is yours as much as it is ours. What you’ve been giving is a drop in the bucket, nothing to fuss over.”

“What I’ve been doing, its illegal,” Julissa said, defensively.

“Oh Julie, don’t be so dramatic,” her mother responded breezily. “I mean it’s all a bit sensational, but you’ve always been so creative. We support you one hundred percent.”

“You do?” She felt motion sick, like the earth was turning too quickly beneath her.

“Of course! I know teenagers never tell their parents anything, but I can’t imagine why you’ve been so secretive about this. I mean, I know its not the point, but think of how this would look on your college applications, hmm?” Her mother squeezed her shoulder warmly.

“I’m not doing this for college, mom,” Julissa said, shrugging her mother’s hand off her shoulder. She was trying very hard not to cry.

“I know it’s not cool to think about,” her mother winked, “but someone has to be looking out for your future. Anyway, you’re father and I decided it was time you knew that we knew. We want you to know we’re here to help you, whatever you need.”

Julissa stared transfixed by her bedroom carpet. It was plush and purple.

“You should come talk to the garden club ladies on Monday. They would love to hear all about your adventures, and I’m sure they would be happy to donate.” Her mother said gleefully.

Garden club?! Something inside Julissa broke.

“I have to go.” She grabbed her mask and started towards her bedroom door.

“Julie, don’t be upset,” her mother said, but made no effort to follow her out.

Julissa ran. She felt that some crucial part of her was still stuck 20 minutes ago, somewhere out on her city’s streets, and if she was fast enough she could find it and things would make sense again.

She ran until she saw a familiar shape dark in the streetlights. Kip was not so far from where they had parted ways.

“You came back,” Kip said, wonder in their eyes.

Julissa felt hyper aware of the mask on her face. She wondered, bitterly, if this had just been another activity to keep her busy. She imagined the puff piece that would air on the local news. “Local Teenager Revealed as Masked Hero- Accepted to Her First Choice College!” She thought of the people who would feel warm hearing that story. It’s nice to know that everyone gets what they deserve.

She hadn’t changed anything at all.

She took off the mask and handed it to Kip. To Julissa’s surprise, instead of looking at the face that had been hidden for so long, Kip studied the mask, turning the strange object over. They held the mask up, and peaked through the eyeholes.

“You can't see much in this thing,” they said finally.

“Yeah, you can’t.” Julissa answered absently.

Finally Kip’s eyes turned to Julissa’s face. She felt Kip’s stare as sharply as she felt the wind cool the sweat around her eyes where the mask had met her skin moments before.

The child’s gaze felt too heavy to hold. Julissa turned to go.

“Don't you need this?” Kip said reaching to give her back the mask.

“If they're looking for a mask, I’m safer without it. Keep it. I'll come back for it,” Julissa said with a hollow smile. But she knew she wouldn’t.