“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do that.”
“Stay safe, Nate. Don’t forget who you really are.”
The call ends.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, staring at the watch. Then I walk outside into the night, onto on to the deck as it totters under my weight, and I crush it in my fist. The metal groans, crumples, the screen shattering. I keep squeezing until there’s nothing left but fragments.
I toss them into the dark lake.
When I go back inside, Mia is still asleep. I ease onto the bed beside her and I stare at the ceiling, and I don’t sleep for a long time.
CHAPTER 46
VANGUARD
In the morning,I tell Mia about Danny’s call.
We’re in the kitchen, Mia wrapped in her robe, at the table while I make coffee. In the background, the laundry machine spins with her dirty clothes. My Vanguard suit is dry but I dug around in the closets and found a pair of jeans that are a little too short and tight but comfortable enough, plus a cream cabled fisherman’s sweater where the sleeves go halfway up my forearms. I don’t want to put back on my uniform unless I have to.
She listens without interrupting, her face pale and drawn, and when I’m finished she’s quiet for a moment.
“What if Julia is alive?” she finally says.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t count on it. I think the whole company would collapse if they knew she was dead, they’re probably holding that information classified for now.”
“Then who is calling the shots?”
“I don’t know.”
She scrunches up her nose, though the movement looks like it pains her. “How can you not know? You’ve been with that company forever.”
“I only know Marsh, Julia, and few others that aren’t that important. You know them, media people, specs people, IT people, other doctors, but none of them have the power that they did. Shit, I only met Elron Masters once. I’m sure he’s about to appoint someone to come forward and lead but I have no idea who that could be. Honestly.”
Though as I say it, I can’t help but think of my dreams, those fragments of the doctor with the mustache, the one who told me he was sorry as I lay there on the operating table. I still have no idea who that person was, but I no longer think he is a figment of my imagination the way that Julia wanted me to think.
How many lies was she keeping from me?
What else is there that I don’t know?
“Besides,” I say to Mia as I sip my coffee. It tastes like shit and there’s no cream but it will do. “You said she was dead.”
She has a sip of her black coffee and makes a face. “I did. I kissed her and she started reacting to it right away before she collapsed. It takes four minutes until they’re dead.” She glances at my face. “Sorry. I know…I know she….”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I tell her. “You did what you had to do. And if you say your kiss kills, I believe you. Julia Van Veen is dead, which means we have a little bit of time to figure out what to do next. First thing’s first though, I think we should see what they’re telling the public.”
We find a television in the living room—an old flatscreen, dusty from disuse—and I turn on the news while Mia curls up on the couch. We watch for hours. At first we try Global Prime, which is Global Dynamix’s network, then various other networks, we even hold our noses and turn on the conservative ones for a moment before switching to local channels, then Al Jazeera, CBC, the BBC. Nothing about Global Dynamix except a story here and there about new tech. Nothing about Marsh or Van Veen. Nothing about a security breach at a facility in NewJersey. There isn’t even anything about Vanguard, but I guess I haven’t really been newsworthy lately.
“They’re suppressing it,” Mia says.
“For now. They can’t keep it quiet forever. Dead bodies always rise to the surface, eventually.”
But by evening, there’s still nothing. We eat dinner in front of the television—more canned soup, crackers, the dregs of a box of stale cereal—and we watch the same stories cycle past. A late-season hurricane in Florida. Political scandals in Washington. Celebrity gossip that feels like it’s from another planet.
Nothing about us.
Mia falls asleep on the couch around midnight. I carry her to bed, and lie beside her without touching, and I listen to the voice in my head whisper things I can’t quite make out.
The next morning, it’s everywhere.
