Wes Castor

“53 to table F.”

Wes looked down at the piece of paper in his hand and eyed the number printed at the top-

74.

He heaved a great sigh, sucking on his teeth as he rolled his eyes. Great. He smacked his stack of papers against his thigh in irritation before he slid further down in the hard chair he was seated in, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

Why the fuck he had to come back here every freaking six months, he had no idea. Just because he was born a certain way, able to do certain things if he wanted to, the government had to keep track of him every second of the fucking day, Uncle Sam’s fist shoved right up his ass.

If he had a choice, he wouldn’t be a Key - if there was anyone in the world that didn’t want to be one, it was Wes. It was too complicated, and Wes tried to live life as uncomplicated as possible.

He irritably looked at his papers again to look over them, sighing again for what was probably the tenth time in an hour.

There were a lot of terms for all that Key stuff, but Wes had only learned them long enough to pass the tests so he could pass the exam. If you didn’t pass it, you basically couldn’t join society as a working citizen. He didn’t bother getting licensed as an official Key, because fuck it. He wasn’t ever going to do anything with it, so why bother?

The whole idea of being a Key was just awful to him - going into someone else's head creeped him out beyond words. He’d done it once with a classmate to fuck with them when he was young and one other time to pass an exam, and on both occasions, he had gotten the shakes and thrown up until he passed out. It wasn’t a good feeling - like stepping off a cliff and falling, falling, falling into oblivion, being completely absorbed by the other person. He didn’t get how people could do that for a living. Wes was just fine making pizzas! One day he’d probably even manage the place if he got his act together. If they’d let him.

Admittedly, job options for Keys were pretty limited because no one trusted their asses - the whole mind fucking thing kind of putting most people on edge, which he got. If anyone understood why people either didn’t trust or were afraid of Keys, it was Wes. He’d seen firsthand what Keys could do to people, and as people had almost no defense against the influence of Keys, most of the world was completely vulnerable to Keys and their abilities.

A Key could go into your mind and make you do whatever they wanted and you’d have no control over it.

Most Key’s could only do one of those things, some could do two, few could do all three. Many Key’s could only do it to one person at a time. Others could do it to several, or even dozens of people at the same time. It just depended on the key.

Wes was somewhere in the middle. He could do all three of the Key gifts, and while he had never tried to do it on more than one person at a time, he suspected he could, given his reach and given his family's record.

So he got why people didn’t want anything to do with Keys.

But Wes was still paying rent and still able to afford some fun shit, so until he started hurting for it, he was fine with his life. Jobs could be hard to come by because he was a Key, but right now, he was comfortable.

In fact, life was great, living under the radar.

He went to work, made pizzas, got free pizzas to take home most nights, played video games, went to the gym...on the weekends he got shit-faced and occasionally got laid. Fuck, most nights he got shitfaced and got laid. He was currently single because no one wanted to stay too long with a guy who could read their minds or alter their emotions, and though he insisted he wasn’t trained to do any of that, they would all ghost him.

But he managed. He was starting to get into the whole cybersex thing. Plus, you know, porn.

So life - life was good!

Until they passed that stupid B11 Bill.

The stupid fucking B11.

Now he was being forced to register his status as a Key and his abilities, or else he’d get a black mark on his taxes. And other shit. He wasn’t sure, but there was a lot of fine print in the packet he got in the mail, and that probably wasn’t good, so here he was, waiting in line and in a foul-ass mood.

It was fucking ridiculous. You get a couple psycho Keys running around causing issues, and now he and five percent of the population all had to come down and register, get a new ID or driver’s license stating clearly what they were...so the entire world knew he was a Key.

And yes, technically he was, but no, he didn’t identify as one and sure as fuck didn’t do anything with his ability. He didn’t like to go anywhere near anyone’s mind. He didn’t study for it, didn’t want anything to do with it. He just didn’t. In fact, one might even go as far as to say he went out of his way to avoid doing any of that stuff - he didn’t want the responsibility, he didn’t want to have that control. He didn’t want to leave his mark on other people, thank you very much.

He just wanted to eat pizza, get drunk, and have sex. He was twenty one for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t even keep a fish alive for a week, let alone keep someone like a Lock stabilized!

And why the fuck didn’t Locks have to freaking register!? They were the crazy ones! They were the ones with the freaky strength and speed, the ones that could tear off a guy's fucking head, but somehow he and other Keys were the villains of this story!? Nuh-uh. That’s some serious BS right there.

In fact, if not for Keys keeping Locks in check, Locks would set this beautiful big world on fire!

Because Locks were fucking nuts. They NEEDED Keys to be sane, and if they didn’t have Keys, they went full crazy and hurt themselves and everyone around them. So maybe society should be a little bit more grateful for Keys.

And okay, maybe behind every Lock that went nuts there was almost always a Key pulling the strings, but, really. Locks at their core were the problem. They were the beast, which is exactly why they all were all militarized at fifteen, every single one of them. A blood test could determine right away if you were a lock because they regenerated super fast, so the government make sure every baby was tested to keep an eye out for their next super-soldier.

But Keys? There was no blood test to determine that. It ran in families, but it was pretty easy to disappear and go under the radar if you didn’t want the world to know you were a Key. Which is exactly why Keys had always been able to do whatever they wanted until they caused trouble.

Up until now.

Because apparently, they all had to register. Who knows. Next, they could be militarized. Good fucking luck with that one.

“54 to Table F.”

“Fuck!” Wes hissed, sinking lower in his seat and nearly tripping an older woman trying to walk by. She gave him a scathing look and he slid back up in his seat, crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he stared pointedly at the monitor, where it directed everyone with a ticket in the 50s.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed through it irritably, texting his grandpa before getting into a full-blown texting shit fight with his older brother, King Bag of Dicks himself. He got so into it that he almost missed when his number was called, which would have played right into his highness’s hands.

He leaped from his chair and scurried over to the table he was told to go to. The woman there was helpful, but gave him entirely disappointing news. He hadn’t filled his paperwork out correctly. Typical. So he had to go back, get new forms, get back in line, and wait another hour. After that he got a stamp, and then right into another line he went, where he had to pass a written test, which he failed. He got another chance to take it, and after some googling and panic studying on his phone, he took it again and squeaked by. Afterward, they had him take a picture that he had to remove his baseball cap for, and one awkward smile later he had a certificate that said he was licensed and was told the rest of his paperwork would be in the mail.

When it was all done, he treated himself to a beer bought from the change he found in his jacket. After two bus connections he was home and immediately he toed out of his ratty sneakers, drank his beer in front of the tv, drank the rest of the vodka that was chilling in his freezer, and then promptly passed out.

All and all, not a bad way to end a day.