Deliver Us From Data

CHAPTER ONE

Ryan Park rolled over in bed, his hand grabbing for the source of the buzzing with a blind man’s accuracy. A thin strand of light peaked around the corner of the window curtains, his fingers brushed against the cold metal and glass of his phone. Squinting against the bright light of the screen, a swipe, a tap. “Damn,” he whispered groggily under his breath, then dropped the sleek rectangle back onto the mattress. A message on the screen read:

“Thank you, Mr. Park, for your interest in QBW. We’ve decided to go with another applicant, who seems like a better fit. Good luck in your future endeavors.” Ryan pulled off the covers and walked to the bathroom as the screen on his phone dimmed and then turned off.

“I just don’t get it. I'm hands down more qualified than most of those clowns.” Ryan shoveled a bite of quiche into his mouth, and his audience, his ex-girlfriend Claire, nodded her condolences. “My book was good. It had some solid work in it.”

Claire snapped an overhead photo of her omelette, then tapped on her phone and shared it with world. Ryan responded with a skeptical look.

“Sorry,” Claire said, “I forgot that you—”

“It’s not a big deal,” he cut in, “but just sort of creepy, don’t you think? That anyone browsing your profile can know where we are at this exact moment?” Her nodding mocked his fatherly tone. “Anyway,” he continued, “the lady that did the interview, she and I hit it off.” A question appeared on Claire’s face. “Not like that, she was at least 40,” he shoveled another bite.

“It’s all politics, you know that,” Claire replied. “Someone was probably the CEO’s second cousin or something, that’s always the way these things go.”

“Well it sucks,” Ryan replied, and he handed his plate to the waiter. He picked up his phone, which had been waiting patiently next to his plate, and scrolled through the latest headlines. Claire checked her omelet photo for comments.

“I wish I could help somehow, but . . .” Claire's voice trailed off as she became hypnotized by the multicolored screen. Ryan didn’t notice as he flicked through the notifications that had collected on his watch. For a few minutes they sat in silence. It was Claire that finally broke it. “Well, should we go? No, don’t worry about it,” she said as she saw Ryan bring up the payment screen on his phone, “I got yours. It’s your consolation prize.”

Ryan laid on the couch and stared at the yellowed ceiling above. Ryan held his phone above his head as he flicked through a handful of messages; one from Claire, a few junk messages wanting this and that, and lastly one from Professor Kirby.

Professor Kirby was Ryan’s mentor and the man most responsible for his hot-off-the-presses degree in advertising; today his message was terse, a simple, “Any luck?” followed by the usual university boilerplate. Ryan swiped the message off the screen, turned off his phone, then turned it back on and replied: “Nope.”

This was the fourth consecutive "Nope" that Ryan had sent to his Professor, but it wasn’t the quantity that made this specific reply so painful. He hadn’t cared about the other firms, his application and subsequent interviews were more, "Why not?“ than anything else. But QBW was different; for several years it was the agency he had dreamt of kicking off his career at; it was, after all, where Professor Kirby launched his.

Ryan looked back down at his phone, thinking he felt it buzzing, but it was a false positive. Professor Kirby wasn’t the kind to mince words.

Twelve hours of unadulterated self-pity later, and Ryan was once again in his slightly-too-tight suit, clutching his tablet and pouring on the artificial enthusiasm. “So my team, we put our heads together,” he said, swiping the screen of his tablet to unveil a black-on-white logo, “and came up with this. A simple execution that, above else, embodies the quality of the food that Fuel Right sells.” The man across the tablet from Ryan smiled pleasantly, tapped a few notes into his own tablet, then looked back up.

“And what's the line?” the typer asked. Ryan’s smile rivaled that of any gameshow host.

“Ah, yes.” He tapped the tablet, and a string of words appeared underneath the logo: “Embrace taste.” Ryan spoke the words slowly, carefully, the same way a first time father reveals the name of his newly born child.

“Not bad,” the man typed a few more quick notes, “not bad at all. It definitely seems like you know your stuff.” Ryan’s appreciation showed itself as a single nod.

“But here's the thing,” the man countered, “there are plenty of kids with potential, with an eye for art direction and an ear for copy.” Ryan adjusted in his chair in a way that, were he not wearing a suit, would have qualified as a squirm. “At Jaded Media, we want creatives that live for advertising. And not in a superficial way, not in a way that can become tarnished over time.” Ryan nodded respectfully.

“Yes sir, I definitely understand.”

“I’m not sure that you do, Mr. Parks.”

Ryan’s stomach sunk seven stories. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m not sure what I’ve done to give you that impression,” his face had gone from grinning to gaunt.

“It’s no secret that we screen all of our job candidates carefully, that we use Freely to test how their personality matches up against what we’re looking for.”

“Of course.”

“As you might imagine, the content that exists on a social network can actually paint a much more accurate picture of someone than any other part of the screening process. And unfortunately, those that perform this screening have found some things that are worrisome, things that have led us to believe that you might not be the best fit for our agency at this time.”

His words were a sock to the stomach. QBW was prestigious, he could accept their rejection by justifying their history and caliber. But Jaded Media? They were unqualified hacks. They hadn't had a reputable client in years.

“Why?” Ryan said flatly, “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand; what did you discover that led you to this conclusion?”

The man shook his head in regret. “I’m afraid that I can’t disclose such information, Mr. Parks. But I will let you know that what we found indicated that you might not quite have, uh, respect for the field. It’s always important to mind what you say in public."

Helpless frustration surged through Ryan’s body, he cycled between the desire to punch the man in the face and the desire to lay down on a soft bedspread and cry. He shook it off, squared his jaw, and stood up. This move proved a surprise for the man, who jolted back and immediately tried to play it down by also arising and extending his hand.

“We appreciate your understanding, Ryan, we really do.” And with that, Ryan shook the man’s hand with an intensity calculated not to turn bone completely to dust, but almost.

CHAPTER TWO

Diane Park boarded a train to the city. She sat her purse down on the seat next to her, and sighed when she had to pick it back up two minutes later to accommodate another passenger. It was a large man with a pony tail and a personal odor that rivaled the time Mrs. Park’s husband had forgotten, for two weeks, to remove the leftover Thanksgiving turkey from the oven.

Diane hated the city, and she hated packing onto a train, “elbow to elbow with strangers like one of those marshmallow peeps.” But as the train jolted forward, she forced her disdain into that junk drawer in the back of her mind; Ryan needed her, and she was coming.

At the exact same moment, Claire attempted to chat with Ryan for the 23rd time that week. Yes, she was technically his “ex” girlfriend, but that didn’t currently matter. Each consecutive failure made her all the more certain that something was seriously wrong, that his leg must be caught in the modern-day equivalent of a bear trap. Once again he didn’t accept her call, and she dropped her phone to the couch cushion beside her. It wasn’t just her inability to contact him that fueled her worry, but the timing. The last she had heard from him was four days ago, with a simple message that read, “No dice with Jaded Media. Can't believe this. I’ll explain tonight.”

But he didn’t explain that night, because he never came to Patty’s apartment, even though Claire brought rolled salami and cabbage appetizers so Ryan could pass them off as his own. It was approximately an hour and twenty minutes after the start of the party that Claire sent him message number one, and here she was, 22 messages later, unsure what to do next. Yes, the sensible thing would be to make the trip downtown and go to his actual apartment, but that would cost more than a train ride. Claire still cared for him, and she could admit that to herself. But only to herself. In her mind. And she was quite sure, regardless of how obvious her feelings were to anyone else, that leaving someone 23 messages and frantically showing up at their apartment would communicate more than, “I’m glad we can still be friends.” There’s no hiding a move like that; the trip would be the tipping point.

She sat on the couch for a few minutes and expended way too much energy in an attempt to focus on the television hanging on the wall. It’s funny how caring about something, whether it’s a person or a dollar, can reduce a calculated diversion to indiscernible babble. But after half an episode of imagining Ryan in a series of horrific scenarios, the buzzing of her phone about made her leap to her feet.

Rather than seeing Ryan’s face on the screen, however, was the face on an older woman, a face that seemed distantly familiar. She accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” said the disembodied voice on the other end, “sorry to bother you. This is Ryan Park’s mother, Diane. I am on my way to the city, and I’m wondering if you can help me.”

CHAPTER THREE

After leaving Jaded Media, Ryan made his way to the street, where he immediately pulled out his phone and began flipping through Freely, not registering the photos and videos that his friends had posted over the past hour. Their calculated happiness was rage-inducing. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and began walking down the sidewalk.

He passed a hotdog vendor and was briefly tempted by the smell, but his stomach quickly voiced its current objection to pork byproducts. No matter, as the man running the cart didn’t even look up from his phone to see Ryan staring at the cart. Ryan continued walking, for the first time truly seeing all the people hypnotized by the screens of their phones. Theirs was a demonstration in distraction, they were masters of weaving through life without glancing up. Ryan’s optimism reared its head briefly, making the argument that they all had busy and important lives, but his pessimistic side proved victorious as he pulled the door to enter a forlorn coffee shop filled with beards and horn-rims.

He sat down on a stool by the window, and stared at his, “Medium coffee, cream and sugar,” intently. He felt a buzz, and submitted to the pleading of his phone by scooping it back out of his pocket and glancing at the screen. One new ominous message, from another agency where Ryan’s application for employment was pending. He held his breath and imagined the worst, then confirmed it by flipping through the infuriatingly vague rejection message.

He stared out the window, absolutely sick to his stomach. He watched as people of all ages and classes tapped and swiped their way around a blind man in the middle of the sidewalk. No one acknowledged the man’s presence, he was just another obstacle in their path, a distraction from whatever glowed on their little windows to another world.

“Out of everyone,” Ryan thought, “I would rather be the man who can’t see.” Just then, the blind man moved his hand to his obstructed ear, Ryan looked on, curious. The man began talking to himself, then turned around and revealed a glowing earpiece in his ear.

That night was littered with junk food. Ryan knew that, were he a proper adult, he would counter his despair with a bottle of liquor, maybe a six pack of beer. But as he walked home from the train he passed the liquor bottles in the window and instead stopped at the bodega to buy sugary cereal, two bottles of soda pop, and a gigantic bag of potato chips. He spent the following hours gorging on corn by-products and Red #5, watching episodes roll by of a TV show he didn’t really care for.

Holding his phone sideways as he laid on the couch, he flipped through the Freely profiles of his friends, then kids he went to school with, then people he had never met. As vacation photos melded with presumptuous soapboxing, Ryan leapt to a hasty conclusion: his life was over. After thirteen years in private school, and five more at college, he had been blackballed from advertising for an unknown reason. He was shutout from the only career that, from the time Charlie Paskell’s father had spoken to his sixth grade class, he had wanted to do. He thought of Professor Kirby, his assurances that Ryan’s book and education would quickly lead to at least an intern position at a big agency.

Caught in the rusty bear trap of pessimism, Ryan realized that he hated Professor Kirby. Deep down, Ryan knew it was ridiculous to blame the man that had supported him, but that didn’t keep him from doing so. The pessimism seethed with every swipe and tap on the screen of his phone, with every smiling wedding party and exotic plate of food from that little dive restaurant with “the best” pork dumplings. How did everyone else have their lives together? Why was he the only one who was absolutely and completely lost?

But then, in the midst of this self-pity, Ryan noticed something on the profile of a friend’s friend that made him almost puke up the preservatives sitting heavy in his stomach: himself.

The video was dated two months earlier, and it was was grainy and poorly lit. Despite the picture quality, however, Ryan immediately recognized the location. It was Pat’s Bar, which had served as the backdrop for nearly every stage of he and Claire’s now defunct relationship. As the video began playing, it was obvious that the video’s poster, a girl named Victoria Lightbody, didn’t have much going on that night. She pointed her phone at Ryan and Claire seated at the bar, then over her left shoulder to a group of unknowns, then to her drink, something pink and ostentatious. Ryan heard his voice rise slightly above the bar noise. “It’s crazy, the marketing budgets that some of these companies have. If there’s any uncertainty about anything, they just throw money at it.” Video Ryan paused as Claire asked him a muffled question. “Who cares?” Video Ryan's voice raised even louder, “it really doesn’t matter if their advertising amounts to anything at all. They are morons, because they’ll just keep pumping more money into their campaigns, without anything to show for it. Of course, no one at the agencies are complaining.” It was at this moment that Victoria seemingly had to go to the restroom, because the video ended with a trip to the back of the bar, then cut to black as the bathroom door opened.

Ryan laid there, staring at his now silent phone, attempting to digest what he had just seen. It wasn’t particularly shocking, his string of pretentious psychobabble. Sure, he sounded like an ass, but such was the nature of having some drinks at a bar. His finger hovered above the play button, tempted to re-watch his debut performance as an idiot, but he stopped. The words of the the man from Jaded Media bubbled up from the wellspring of his mind: “You might not have respect for the field . . . always mind what you say in public.”

Ryan dropped his phone onto the couch cushion, both dumfounded and angry. He was angry at himself, sure, but he was also angry at Victoria, for filming him, for being a loser and spending all her time eavesdropping on the conversations of others.

Ryan sat up on the couch and the phone slid down the cushion with his shifting weight. “As long as this video is on Victoria’s profile,” he realized, “I won't be able to get a job.” And with that he went from disliking and pitying Victoria Lightbody to absolutely hating her. Ryan dislodged his phone from between the cushions, and clicked it back on. He returned to Victoria’s profile and scrolled to the listed address. He then grabbed his shoes and slipped them on, shoved the phone into his pocket, grabbed his jacket, and was on his way to fix everything.

Three antsy train rides later (Victoria lived deep in the bowels of Brooklyn, of course) and Ryan was walking down a dark Flatbush Avenue past the lights of laundromats, delis, and cheap Chinese food restaurants. Every so often he glanced down at the glowing map on his phone, which led him to Elmore Place, seventh building on the right. According to Victoria’s latest activity on Freely, she planned a “chill afternoon of reruns,” so Ryan wasn’t surprised when, upon ringing the buzzer to her apartment, she replied right away.

“Hello?” came the groggy voice of someone who had likely spent the entire day accomplishing nothing.

“Hello,” Ryan replied, feigning friendliness, “This is Ryan Park.” He peaked down at his phone, now a cheat sheet to help him gain entry. “I am friends with Andrea Knight and Kyle Coleman, and I’m a little lost. I can’t seem to find Turnover Bakery.” The door buzzed as the lock released, and Ryan tromped up two flights of stairs and to the door of a dicey two bedroom apartment.

Victoria answered the door in sweats, unaware of her appearance, “Hi,” she said, “so here’s something strange: I was actually just stalking your profile yesterday.”

“Really?” Ryan replied.

“Yep,” she said, “I was at this bar almost a week ago—” She opened the door wider, revealing a cluttered apartment interior.

“Pat’s,” Ryan interrupted.

“Yes,” Victoria said, confused, “you saw me too?”

It was at this point that the anger that had been welling

up inside of Ryan came to a head. But instead of giving into the urge to punch her in the face, he took a single deep breath and forced a smile. “Yes,” he said, “I did. Or, well I actually stumbled onto the video you shot.”

“Ohhhhh, right!” she replied, her nervousness fading. “By the way,” she added, “Turnover Bakery closed a couple months ago, it should have said that on—”

“Ah, well bad luck on me,” he interrupted, “I should have checked. But it’s okay, I was actually down here visiting a friend.”

“Oh really? Is it anyone I might—”

“Hey you know what?” Ryan cut in with mock spontaneity, “I just remembered that I wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Nothing much. Just if you might remove that video of me at Pat’s from your profile, that’s all.” The request immediately closed Victoria off.

“Why?” she said the words without asking them.

Ryan could tell that he was losing her, and decided to employ the secret weapon: truth. “It’s no big deal, but I say some things in that video that I probably shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t know, I never delete things once they’re up.”

“I understand completely,” Ryan replied, starting to sound more desperate, angry. “But if you could remove this one, just this once, as a favor to someone trying to get his first job.” He mustered up his saddest, most pathetic eyes. “Please.” For a brief moment she was silent, and Ryan thought his pleading might have had its intended effect.

“No! I'm not going to do it. If you don’t want someone to know you said something, don’t say it!” She tried to close the door. “Please get out, and don't try to talk to me again.”

He shoved his foot in the way. “You know, this whole thing is a lie. A social network run by the government? Give me a break.” He spun around and descended down the stairs; she slammed the door. He turned around. “I hope you die in your disgusting sweat pants.” He knew the words were unnecessary even as he spoke them.

Ryan was on the street when a horrifying thought hopped into his mind. He pulled out his phone and looked at his Freely feed. Sure enough, Victoria had surreptitiously recorded the entire conversation to her profile, using a phone strategically positioned in her left hand. Ryan watched himself in disgust. The angle was harsh, but the source of the anti-government rant was unmistakable. “Damn,” he muttered.

He stared at his phone, turned it off, then hurled it to the cement. The treated glass refused to shatter. He started to walk away, then slowed down.

He turned around, picked up the phone, and put it back into his pocket.

There were signal problems on the blue line, so returning to his apartment took nearly an hour and a half. Ryan spent the entirety of the ride staring at a man and woman sitting across from him that refused to look at each another. It was disgusting. He could tell they were a couple because every so often the girl would reach out with her non-phone hand and rub the man’s knee affectionately. Nevertheless, they remained hypnotized, mosquitos staring at the glow of their personal bug zappers.

Ryan didn’t once look at his phone, not even a glance. He did, however, stare at the outline of its sleek rounded rectangular profile on the leg of his jeans. There was nothing that he wanted more than to open the window of the train and catapult it to the tracks below to grapple with the wheels of a hundred-ton steel monster. But he had to be smart, and the worst thing he could do was be hasty.

He thought back to the morning when his phone had buzzed with a news alert about the explosions, the tens of thousands dead. Everyone was in disbelief, the older folks especially, the ones that remembered 9/11. “The best way to fight the terrorists,” the President said, “is with information. Information will lead us to who they are, where they are, lock them up, and keep us safe.” When the government announced the unveiling of Freely, people cheered. A clean interface, easy uploading, and, most importantly, the benefit of being able to say that every photo of your breakfast or video of your friend dancing was part of the solution. Ryan realized he was sick to his stomach. “We’re painting ourselves into a corner,” he lectured himself, “one byte at a time.”

He wasn’t interested in becoming a vigilante, a screaming soap-boxer, someone set apart from a bum only by the quality of the sign. Despite his friends and college degree, he remained a very hesitant and worried nine-year-old. And when a nine-year-old discovers a grave injustice, even though they might throw a rock or kick a wall, they are quickly won over by ice cream and the reassurance that everything will be okay. He realized that, even if he could do something, no one was likely to listen.

He thought again of Claire, his mother, Professor Kirby. He was certain their allegiance to the country ran deep, as deep as Victoria’s, and that any suggestion of abandoning their data duty would be seen as an affront to the security of America, and insult to those that lost their lives a couple years earlier.

As the train snaked through midtown, Ryan debated the merits of sticking it out, putting up with self-inflicted totalitarianism. “No,” he quickly concluded, “I can't accept that life.” He took a deep breath, realizing what admitting this meant. He was alone, a panicked fish flapping on the shore, and he had no idea what life was like when disconnected from technology. He had begun an intricate game of chess, and he sat at both ends of the board.

He was in the throws of a spectacular stalemate when the train screeched to a stop and he stumbled out. Every move he thought of, whether it was escaping by plane, or holing himself up as a hermit, faced one primary obstacle: it would be impossible to distance himself from the ever- watching eye of technology. Even more disconcerting was the realization that there were many tasks that he hadn’t ever performed without the technology of his phone. Something simple like paying for a candy bar relied on a phone, which then automatically posted a discount code to his feed to encourage any friends to partake. Flying in an airplane was even more impassable, with every stage of the flight monitored and automatically posted to his feed. Then there were all the phones he would pass in the airport, all the people absent-mindedly recording their entire lives just like Victoria.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lawmakers reacted to the largest terrorist attack on American soil as you’d expect. 35,000 people were dead, 35,647 people to be exact, and the blame was quickly placed almost as much on the American public as it was on those, “son of a bitch terrorists.” Instead of rightfully rejecting responsibility for the tragedy, however, most took Uncle Sam’s criticisms to heart. They supported the Liberty Act entirely by signing up for Freely, the first ever state- owned social network. The fact that the network’s name alluded to the first amendment was no accident. “By using your location and habits to automatically update your feed,” the President explained, “you are dealing a direct blow to the enemies of America. Simply by exercising our first amendment rights, we can defeat terrorism.”

The service was lauded by tech pundits and joe-schmo users alike, and soon the government was subsidizing the distribution of communication devices across the country in hopes of getting near 100% adoption (a goal which it was impressively nearing). With public opinion soaring, lawmakers didn’t waste a minute. They quickly pushed a bill through congress that required every new phone sold in the United States to come pre-installed with Freely. It was praised by the press as a great bipartisan victory, and the President, who signed the bill on a live video stream just four days after the bill’s initial proposal, basked in an approval rating higher than any modern president since JFK. Soon other countries raced to show their support by passing copycat laws, and urging all technology manufacturers to unite with “America’s effort to end worldwide terrorism.”

It was in this climate that Ryan Park now found himself lying on his bed, trying to figure out how to escape the city, or even how to live his life, without the use of a phone. There were a handful of people without one, mostly the crazies that had dropped their government-sponsored device in a sewer or toilet long ago. But Ryan couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone pay for lunch with cash, much less travel across the country. There was a way to buy an illegally-produced phone that didn’t come with Freely pre-installed, but how did he know that a black-market phone would be any more secure than one with Freely onboard? No, the only option was to go without a phone altogether.

He couldn’t travel by air, or by rail, and he definitely couldn’t rent a car. He realized that his best bet might be to leave the country entirely, but he quickly dismissed that option as well; as much as he hated the idea of his actions being watched and recorded, America remained one of the safest countries in the world. Not to mention that if he ever wanted to return, the requirement of showing his electronic passport at the border would definitely get the attention of U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

It was in this moment that Ryan saw the spine of a book on the shelf, installed a year ago with plastic dry wall anchors and using his phone as a level. The shelf was populated with a variety of books, some sacred, some chosen for the eye-pleasing design of their cover. One of the books now caught his eye, as though it were new; it was a temporary lapse in the proximity blindness that often curses the pictures and trinkets that adorn our homes. The book didn’t have a work-of-art cover, but it had traveled with him since childhood: My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. Ryan had read it endlessly in his youth, especially after his father became ill and then passed away. Ryan would escape from sadness or frustration within its creased and smudged pages, imagining that he too could survive in the wilderness, a bird of prey as his only companion.

As he stared at the book, Ryan suddenly realized that the solution to his problems as an adult might lie in a lesson he had learned decades earlier. Somehow, someway, he had to return to the land.

CHAPTER FIVE

The door to Ryan’s apartment squeaked loudly as it opened, and Claire reached over and flipped the switch that filled the room with unflattering fluorescent light. Beside her, Diane anticipated the worst; she was prepared to see her son’s body hanging from a rope or in a crumpled heap on the floor. But her flinch was for naught, and things in the overpriced studio were boringly normal.

“Do you see anything out of the ordinary?” Diane asked. Claire shook her head.

“And you?” Claire returned the gesture. Diane walked over to the desk and passed her fingers gently over the surface as though she was expecting dust.

“I’m relieved,” she turned to Claire, “but at the same time I’m not. All this means is that something may have happened while he was walking to the train or grocery store.” Claire made eye contact with Diane, but remained quiet. “I think our only option is to involve the police,” Diane said. Something caught Claire’s eye, and she shot over to the kitchen counter and picked up a small piece of paper. Diane shuffled over and read the words over her shoulder.

“C,

I’m safe, just needed to do something. Might be gone a while.

Don’t worry, I haven’t been snatched or

Deliver Us From Data 20

anything.

R”

Diane looked to Claire. “Snatched?”

“It’s an inside joke.”

Diane’s eyes widened and she made one of those, “I

guess I’m not privy to such information,” faces.

“It’s his way of saying that what he is writing is coming directly from him, like a password or something.” This explanation pacified Diane, whose knees popped as she sunk into the navy blue cushions of Ryan’s couch.

Ryan hadn’t planned on leaving any sort of correspondence behind, but ended up doing so on his way out. Despite his desire to stay under the radar, he knew that at some point someone, probably his mom, would become anxious with his lack of communication; this would lead her to contact either the police or Claire. If she went to Claire (the only person with a spare a key), the note would hopefully delay how long it took her to contact the police.

If his mother went to the police first, the note would provide the justification for them to begin an all-out search of Freely for any sign of him. Put simply, he knew the note was a gamble, sentimentality the ante, but nevertheless it seemed that scrawling it on the way out was the right decision.

CHAPTER SIX

Blake Phillips was a snake. To most people that knew him, this statement was as much a fact as terminal velocity or gravity. Everything about him was charming, cunning, but something undefined kept most from trusting him. He was reasonably good looking, his parents were still together, and he had gotten good grades in every subject except math. He didn’t understand the reason he behaved the way he did. Most girls, however, weren't turned off by Blake’s attitude, but drawn to it. As is often the case, his jaded exterior made his interior mysteriously irresistible, which led many girls to eventually be discarded like the paper from a sub sandwich.

Though Claire denied it insistently, she too once fell into the doe-eyed trap that was Blake Phillips. Unfortunately, this happened while she and Ryan were still together; Blake was the thread that unraveled her relationship with Ryan.

As is often the case, the time Claire spent with Blake quickly devolved into something much less exciting, and her goodness soon clashed with the arrogance that sat just beneath his charm. Weekend brunches became a silent affair, and their Freely communication went from continuous to occasional.

In the midst of this souring, Claire found herself alone at his apartment, waiting for him to return with Chinese food and wine. As the minutes dragged on, Claire practiced juggling her ring across the tips of her fingers. It was a skill that she had always wanted to master, but never remembered to practice enough to make any real progress. The third time the ring fell, its metallic bounce sent it rolling across the hardwood floor, drawing momentum from the floor’s unevenness. The ring somehow navigated a slight left and snuck through a crack in the bedroom door.

Claire jumped up and pushed the door all the way open to reveal decor that matched the rest of the apartment: dark, deep colored wood, and a red comforter on the bed. The ring remained hidden, and Claire got down on her hands and knees in hopes of sneaking up on it. She realized that it was probably under the bed, and swept her arm underneath, fishing but not expecting to catch anything. She was surprised when her hand made contact not with nothingness, but cardboard. For someone as meticulously organized as Blake, the mere existence of a cardboard box stashed under a bed was strange. Claire whipped out her phone to check the time, rationalized that she probably had at least a few more minutes, and plunged her arm back under the bed.

The box was old, the flaps wore thick creases and a few small tears. Claire opened them carefully, like an archeologist uncovering the ancient treasure of a long-lost civilization. A baseball hat sat at the bottom, gray and equally aged. She removed it and found that it was a child’s-size Yankees cap. Underneath, an old polaroid had been hiding. She picked it up and was met with a picture of a smiling boy, no older than six or seven, wearing what appeared to be the same Yankees cap. There was just one more item in the box: a small yellowed square of paper that Claire picked up and verified as a newspaper clipping. The headline read, “Franklin Tragedy: 5 Year Old Dead.”

Claire skimmed the paragraphs, suddenly very aware of every passing second. The story was a sad one: two boys had been playing baseball after school, when one inexplicably began a session of batting practice on the other. The coroner estimated forty to fifty hits, though it likely took just a fraction of those before the poor kid was bludgeoned to death. At the end of the article was a single sentence that mentioned what became of the miniature murderer: he was admitted to the state mental hospital.

Claire sat in silence, her gaze jumping from the hat, to the photo, to the article. Why would Blake keep these macabre memories under his bed? Perhaps it was a childhood friend, his first unforgettable brush with death. Or, perhaps—

The door creaked open, and Claire knew she was caught. Footsteps approached the room, then became still, then walked back away from the room. She quickly and carefully returned the items to the box, then slid it back under the bed to the exact location from which it had been excavated. She walked out into the living room to find Blake dishing up his plate in silence.

“Sorry,” Claire said after several tormenting minutes. “I didn’t mean to snoop around, I just dropped my ring and it rolled into there.”

Blake stopped scooping and stared directly at her, his eyes narrowing as he did.“Get out of my apartment. Now.”

Ryan buzzed apartment 4C, and a distorted, “Yes...” shot back from the speaker. He wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get up to Blake’s apartment, but “Ryan Park” might as well have been “open sesame.” The door buzzed open, the sound of the electric locks seemed like a miniature electric chair.

Ryan thudded his way up three flights of steep stairs, and found Blake himself expectingly standing in the doorway. “I never thought I’d see you again,” Blake said, his words slathered with the superficial suave that was his trademark. After a welcoming extension of the right hand, Ryan found himself in a large two bedroom with decor that matched Blake’s personality. The image of his own measly one bedroom with mismatched furnishings came to Ryan’s mind, then curiosity about whether or not the box was still sitting underneath the bed in the other room.

“Your visit’s a surprise,” Blake said with an unhappy smile.

Ryan forced his own, “It’s a surprise to us both, believe me.” Blake opened his mouth to ask the purpose of the visit, but was cutoff by the words, “I’m here because I need a favor.”

The smile on Blake’s face became even larger, and the disdain grew accordingly.

“Not that I won’t help you,” Blake slithered, “but why would I?” Without hesitating, Ryan leaned in, “I know about your childhood.”

Blake recoiled, then laughed aloud. “Congratulations. We both had one. Why would my childhood produce favors?”

“Look,” Ryan replied, “I know about the box, I know that it was you.” (This was a bluff. Claire’s research and intuition had come to this conclusion, but Ryan had no way of knowing for sure.)

Blake’s facial expression didn’t change, but his complexion grew pale. At the same time, the gravity of the situation materialized in Ryan’s mind: he was blackmailing someone who could very well be criminally insane.

Blake turned to face the wall, the rapid up-and-down of his shoulders revealed deep breathing. In one swift motion, Blake rotated his body and swung his right arm back like a pendulum and directly into the taupe wall.

White dust and small pieces of drywall fell to the ground as Blake slowly removed his fist from the impact crater. He had evidently struck a screw or nail, as blood now dripped down the knuckle of his middle finger, a small red river carving its way through the dust. After a slow, Exorcist turn back to face him, Blake made frigid eye contact. “What will it take to keep you quiet?”

“I have no interest in telling anyone, neither does Claire.”

“She told you,” Blake muttered.

“That’s true, but that was only to get it off her chest. After telling me she said she wasn’t going to tell anyone else.”

“What do you want?” Blake growled in a deep pitch.

Ryan held out his phone to Blake, then proceeded to explain the plan: as Blake progressed through his day, he would occasionally post a photo or a location check-in from Ryan’s phone. This would make it seem that, although Ryan’s actions were sporadic, he remained within the city. Blake was not to reply to the firehose of messages and chats sure to come, and in seven days Blake would destroy the phone entirely. “The whole idea,” Ryan said, “is just to buy me some time before anyone starts looking.”

“Where are you going?” Blake asked. “Nowhere important.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Claire sat down at the little hotel cafe table, and almost upended the coffee cups by bumping it with her knee. Mrs. Park steadied the table, smiled formally, and abandoned the morning newspaper she was reading on her phone. Necessity had formed an unlikely partnership, and discovering the note had delayed them in contacting the police. But with the professionals out of the picture, that left only the two of them to put together the clues that surrounded Ryan’s disappearance, and the duo was more Laurel and Hardy than Sherlock and Watson.

It didn’t help that the only real clues they had to go on (aside from hunches) were the scattered traces Ryan left behind on Freely. He had never been so unpredictable as he had been the past few days; the few bits of information he did leave behind were disjointed and random. A photo of a building, a check-in at a random place. They tried to intercept him immediately after a new location appeared on his feed, but somehow he always managed to have just left. They sent him messages, chat requests, anything they could think of, but each went unanswered and served to only make Diane more infuriated.

“I don't understand it,” she said, shaking her head with disgust. “It doesn’t seem possible that he has been able to avoid us for so long. Maybe it’s finally time to contact the police.”

“But we can’t.” Claire repeated. “We have no evidence that he’s in any sort of danger, and we don’t want them to start snooping around. He might be blocking or deleting some of his updates. Getting the police involved could lead to an investigation—”

“I know, I know,” Mrs. Park replied dismissively. “But it would be nice to have someone doing some investigating, instead of our guesswork.”

“We will soon,” she conceded, “just not yet.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Whitney Call almost quit her job every day for two straight weeks. She was tired of the long days, the frequent nights, the mundanity of it all. But every time Mr. Murphy walked by in his oversized oxfords, one thing held her tongue: she was late, and there was a chance that she might soon be on the hook for a never-ending supply of diapers, formula, and onesies.

Whitney had wanted, all through junior high and high school and college, to be a professional musician. She had started playing the violin when she was six, and quickly ascended the ranks of her school’s respective orchestra’s programs. But Whitney’s dreams were introduced to college, which smashed them to bits. The bulk of her freshman year passed without occasion, and finals were near. She would often go over to her friend Jamie’s apartment after a day of cram-studying, for a jam session in her poorly lit basement. Jamie played a mean piano, and the two of them would go for hours, escaping time as their fingers effortlessly produced a crisp stream of staccato.

That night passed as many had before it, the rhythm tight and loud. At last Whitney packed up her instrument and departed, and her footsteps on damp cement were the only disrupters of the street’s still silence. The fingers of her right hand held tightly to the handle of the worn case, her other hand held her felt peacoat tight to stave off the chill of early spring. She didn’t see the beat up old compact car curbed halfway up the block, nor did she see the glow of two cigarettes hovering in the darkness. Had Whitney walked home fifteen minutes earlier, or fifteen minutes later, there would have been nothing to see, the maniacs- in-waiting would have moved onto a different neighborhood. But Whitney’s timing was perfect, spot-on 6/8, and the two doors whipped open as she passed the car on her right.

In the months following the incident, Whitney would torture herself with an inability to recall any description of her assailants, but truthfully she didn’t have the chance to capture anything worth recalling. The fists seemed to multiply as they assaulted her scrawny body, and the tool of musical mastery fell to the ground with a stomach- dropping thud. She quickly followed suit and attempted to cover her face. But the prostrating failed to deter her predators, who deftly introduced their boots to the mix. The coda came as boot soles met knuckles, and Whitney nearly fainted as the bones in her hand snapped like a Turkey Day wishbone. She managed to glimpse the glowing rectangle of a phone as the attackers returned to their vehicle; they filmed the entire wordless event.

Whitney awoke later, blood pooling in her mouth and dripping down the fingers of her wrecked left hand, her beloved heirloom violin was gone.

Whitney’s attack changed her life in just about every negative way possible. When the cast was removed from her hand two months later, the first thing she did was go to the Sherman building, where the school’s music department was located. She checked out a loaner violin, a sad hunk of wood without finish or personality, and brought it back to her spartan apartment. She tightened the bow, tuned the strings, and slowly raised her arms into position. The first note sounded mightily, all her anger and frustration escaping as a cool C. But, as her fingers attempted to glide into a B flat, her greatest fear was confirmed: the agility of her fingers was completely gone, and with it the ability to play her sweet violin.

Whitney’s story wasn’t one of perseverance, of overcoming challenges and working hard in the face of devastation. She soon lost the scholarship that brought her to college in the first place, and she could no longer afford an apartment or tuition. Sure, she probably could have worked hard and reconditioned her hand, but she would have had to do so from within a cardboard box in the park. Self pity festered and fueled her refusal of any offers of assistance, even from Jamie. Eventually she cut her losses, took whatever job would have her, and accepted a life free of dreams.

Her job-hopping progressed customarily, from making pizzas (her hand couldn’t lay down pepperonis fast enough) to selling used cars (she sold just two the first month, and one of them was returned to the dealership the next day). In the midst of failure she met a boy, an unfortunate type of boy, and they filled their nights and weekends fighting about whose turn it was to do the dishes and the cost of adding an appetizer to their cheap takeout.

It was soon after that the federal government embarked upon their great social experiment, and Whitney quickly acted on the poorly designed flyer she saw hanging outside a coffee shop. In exchange for passing a level one security clearance and a urine test, Whitney was promised a solid $24 an hour and a handful of paid days off each year.

And now she sat, nearly two years after that first urine test, imagining how much force it would take to remove Mr. Murphy’s fat head clean off his stubby neck. She hated everything about the job except for the adequate paycheck. She swept a few bucks a week under the rug to put towards a long-overdue replacement violin, something to occupy the sparse time when she was home, but her pathetic nest egg grew slowly.

A notification popped onto the screen of the computer,

and she immediately clicked on it. Whitney had learned that the faster you open the notification, the better your employee metrics. Once the case had been viewed she could slow down, as the monitoring system was programmed to allow time for a thorough investigation. Her job was simple; she was a twenty-first century detective, someone the most powerful nation in the world trusted to keep it safe. But Whitney didn’t wander around the shadowy streets, mingling with seedy dock-workers and an occasional femme fatale. No, she spent eight and a half hours a day in her cube, including twenty minutes for lunch, with a tiny space heater humming to keep her feet from getting chilly.

Once you remove a hardboiled detective from the streets, and strip away their grit and fearlessness and sit them at a computer in a lumbar-supporting chair, they’re reduced to nothing but a sleazy snoop. Whitney realized this three days into her new job, and it quickly combined with everything else that she hated, especially Mr. Murphy’s endless condescension, until the result was a diseased, ugly dissatisfaction with life.

When she clicked on the notification and saw the face of a smiling twenty something named Ryan Park on her screen, it was almost the last straw, Whitney almost pounded her fist and stood up and threw her chair aside and told Mr. Murphy she was done. But her period was late. So instead of releasing her internal typhoon, she swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and got to work.

CHAPTER NINE

A buzz in his pocket pulled Ryan away from the up and down roller coaster of yellow lines. For a millisecond he thought it was a phone, but then he realized that the vibration was only a phantom, the only thing in his pocket was a token stack of money. He had just $2,000 in savings, which reflected the birthdays and Christmas’ of much of his life.

He had given $500 to Blake to help with “expenses,” though the offer was more to make himself feel a little better about blackmailing him. He knew that withdrawing a sum near $2,000 would be extremely suspicious, so he immediately went to an electronics store and purchased a gigantic new super high resolution ultra flat television, which was calculated to use most of his nest egg. He had the set loaded into a cab, which he paid for in cash (“You don't have phone? What’s the matter with you?”), and got off four blocks away at a semi-shady pawnshop. They offered him $900 for the brand new television, and after some haggling he walked out with $950 cash. Ryan wasn’t sure this step was worth his time or the scowls from the store employees, but his laundering might pay off. Maybe someone investigating the situation would only see that he had purchased a television, a sudden splurge in a lifetime of relative frugality, without finding out that he had returned it. Ryan thought about the wad of cash in his pocket, and hoped that it would be enough to get him where he needed to go. The problem was, however, he wasn’t sure exactly where that was; he only knew he wanted to end up in Montana. (Wyoming and Montana seemed like they contained the only true country left in America, and the photos he had seen of Wyoming were much less enticing.) But aside from knowing he wanted to live somewhere inside the 147,000 square miles of the Treasure State, he was without a destination.

He decided that his first stop should be Pittsburgh, based solely on the fact that he liked pastrami sandwiches, and that the name Pennsylvania was similar to Transylvania. He knew that breaking his trip into parts would make it more difficult to track, but doing so multiplied the number of decisions he had to make. And then there were all the devices. Ryan’s fellow passengers, disheveled and forlorn, insisted on using their phones and tablets and watches to document every second of their intensely mundane trip to Pittsburgh, and Ryan knew that starring in one of their films could result in his automatic identification. He hunched in the seat, the collar of his jacket pulled up to partially obscure his face. He wondered if Blake had already posted a feed update, but there was no way to check.

He couldn’t decide if he had made the right decision by planning to stop in a large city. Cities meant more cameras, more phones, but it also meant herds of people to blend in with and hide behind. Ryan was tired of always being on the lookout, however, and surely a small town would provide a break from paranoia, assuming an overzealous patriot didn’t ruin everything.

The breaks of the bus squealed as the ancient steel beast slowed to a stop. Ryan held back from being the first off, but at the same time watched the people behind him to make sure he wasn’t last. The first thing he needed to do was to find sunglasses. He had almost bought some in New York City before his departure, but the great sense of urgency had pushed him onto the bus and the sunglasses out of his mind. Sneaking on the bus had been logistically simple, but anxiety-ridden.

He immediately eyed a rack of cheap sunglasses across from a display of low-fat corn chips. He approached the glasses casually and rotated the rack, keeping an eye on the other snack-seeking travelers moving about him. He spotted the most mundanely usual pair of glasses, straight black in wayfarer style, and grabbed a bag of the corn chips on his way to the register.

“Phone please.” The careless checkout clerk didn’t bother making eye contact as he waited for Ryan to confirm the proximity transaction with his phone. Ryan held out a stack of small bills, but the man didn’t notice. “Phone, please!” The man’s voice signaled annoyance, but his eyes remained locked on the sales system. A few people got into line behind Ryan, and they brought with them the pressure of an audience.

“I’m paying with cash,” Ryan blurted out, forcing the man to look up.

“Are you joking?”

“I found a few of these old bills in a drawer, figured I might as well spend them.” The lie seemed to work, and the man seized the bills and shoved them into the drawer. Ryan did some quick math and realized that he was due a dollar and a half in change, but decided to let it go.

Adorned in the flimsy wayfarer sunglasses, Ryan at last felt somewhat safe. Except the exchange with the checkout clerk had left him feeling unsettled, and now he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to be in a city. He noticed a mural of a map on the wall, its scale and features exaggerated, more art than almanac. Still, it reminded Ryan that he had forgotten to secure a map prior to leaving, and that his phone-free mind could only grasp the basic layout of the country, let alone a single freeway or byway. He looked up at the mural, Pennsylvania filled an eighth of the country. Surely a paper map was no longer available, and even if it was, the last thing he wanted was another exchange with a suspicious clerk. He scanned the room for anything unnerving, then sat down at a vacant table and began munching on the corn chips. “Someone smart would have planned the entire route before leaving,” he chastised himself. Though he wouldn’t admit it, his lack of plan wasn’t entirely out of negligence; it also came from a deep desire to be spontaneous. It was fun to be flying by the seat of his pants for once.

The doors of the rest stop opened, and a buzzing wall of voices filled the room. He looked up to see a swarm of college students dissipate among the fast food restaurants and bathrooms. “Alright, no more than fifteen minutes,” projected a middle-aged women to the herd. She was obviously in over her head. The women walked right by Ryan’s table, and muttered a simple pep talk as she passed: “Just make it to Lexington.”

Ryan immediately looked back up to the wall mural, which lacked a Lexington or even a clearly defined Kentucky. That was, of course, if the woman was even referencing Lexington, Kentucky; surely there were dozens of Lexingtons scattered around the surrounding states. But if it was the Lexington in Kentucky, it was more or less the right direction. He abandoned his almost-empty bag of corn chips and walked straight to the largest splinter group of college kids, who had unsurprisingly congregated in front of the McDonalds. Half of them held bags branded with a big letter M, the other half were waiting for their own. In a decisive move, Ryan stepped into the ordering line, not thinking about his inability to pay with a phone. Luckily for him, his patronage was rewarded with a heaping side of apathy from the teenager behind the counter, who probably wouldn’t have cared if he paid for his hamburger with a hand-written IOU. They once again forgot his change, but Ryan didn’t make a peep. Instead he shuffled over to the group, his soon to be busmates, and stood just near enough to appear as part of them. He had ordered based on what he guessed could be prepared the quickest, and this insight paid off as his number was called in a batch that included the remainder of the kids. As the McDonalds-goers made their way toward the rest stop exit, Ryan stayed close behind. And when they began mixing with other culinary tastes, Ryan easily merged, unseen, into the larger group.

Assuming there would be space on the bus was a gamble, but there was some logic behind it. Ryan had been on some similar trips when he was in high school and college, back when gainful employment and privacy didn’t matter. For a variety of reasons, there was always someone who dropped out at the last minute, which resulted in vacant seats for passengers to put their bags and feet on. Luckily, Ryan also knew that bus drivers only ever ask “Is anyone missing?” before departing, never “Is there anyone extra aboard?”

Ryan’s experience was proven true as he safely boarded bus two of three, just a few rows from the back. The interior lights turned off once the bus started rolling, and suddenly dozens of glowing rectangles were shining back at him. Surely some of them were recording, but hopefully the darkness would prove a reliable accomplice in making the footage indiscernible.

He sat next to a girl that seemed shy, and only glanced in Ryan’s direction once as he sat down beside her. He worried that she might try to strike up a conversation, or at least ask him what his name was, but she was much more interested in the sanctuary of her own phone. Luckily for Ryan, the rest stop’s food and caffeine binge was a ticking time bomb of sleepiness, and within twenty minutes most of the phones had been flicked off.

The girl beside Ryan came down with a case of the bobs,

and her head slowly lowered to Ryan’s right shoulder, hovered for a moment, then instantly jerked back vertical, only to repeat the process all over again. Ryan didn’t mind, it reminded him of going to the movies with Claire. No matter how excited she was for the film, or what time the showing was, she too would develop a case of the bobs the second the popcorn was polished. Ryan teased that it was the most expensive nap someone could take, but truthfully he didn’t mind it then either; there were few things that he enjoyed more than watching a movie, munching on popcorn kernel carcasses, with Claire’s head keeping his shoulder warm.

He wondered how she was doing. Surely she had found the note by now, or at least he hoped that she had. He wondered about contacting her, somehow placing an anonymous call from a borrowed phone at a random rest stop. But the image of Blake Phillips flashed in his mind, and once again he felt justified in keeping her in the dark.

Ryan glimpsed road signs every now and then, the headlights bouncing off the retroreflective list of city names. As Lexington drew nearer, the urgency inside Ryan made him more awake. It was 300+ miles between Pittsburgh and Lexington, which normally wouldn’t require a stop for fuel. But they became stuck in late-night construction traffic for two and a half hours, which Ryan knew had to put a strain on the gas tank. Soon his cross- fingered prayer was answered, and he glanced out the window as the bus moaned its way up an offramp. The green highway sign identified the exit as Blanchet, Kentucky.

CHAPTER TEN

Ryan’s visit played on repeat. Blake had never been blackmailed before, nor had he ever been forced to do anything he didn’t want to do. Most people replay a missed opportunity and identify what should have been done differently, but Blake’s brain was unforgiving, and these mental reruns quickly became an obsession. At first he went along with the ridiculous plan, loathing every second. He couldn’t believe he was doing anything to help pathetic Ryan Park, from whom he had so easily stolen Claire.

Blake still remembered bits and pieces of the day when he had ended the life of little Derek Bishop. He remembered seeing Derek’s body crumpled on the ground, and the resulting panic of parents and police. Most of all, he remembered the way the bat felt in his hand as it collided with the unprotected flesh and weak bone of Derek’s skull. What Blake couldn’t remember, however, was what caused him to pickup the bat in the first place, to grip it tightly and pull it back and swing it with all his might. He only remembers doing so, not why.

Blake awoke the fifth day after Ryan’s visit and knew that it was the last day he would play along. He despised being manipulated, being stripped of his power. Would Ryan even follow through with his threat? Blackmailing is usually the child of desperation, and although Blake didn’t know Ryan’s current location, he assumed that he had his hands full.

Blake had almost sent Claire a message several times, but he didn’t want to show his cards just yet; he wanted Ryan to suffer for assuming control over him. Judging by the messages Claire had sent to Ryan’s phone since his disappearance, she obviously cared a lot about him. Why he left her didn’t make sense to Blake, but that wasn’t his concern; whatever he did to unravel Ryan’s plan had to result in Claire hating Ryan. Blake scanned some of the past conversations between the two and made mental notes on how they spoke to each other. After a half hour of studying, he composed the following message on Ryan’s phone:

“I’m sorry I’ve been AWOL the past few days. I’m tangled up in something crazy.”

Claire had been able to stave off Diane’s concern for longer than anyone who knew Mrs. Park would believe. Diane was not a woman that waited, nor was she someone that typically faced problems alongside another; she usually relied on herself to get things done, and she got them done. Ryan’s ability to allude his mother left her frustrated and exhausted. She was in a coffee shop, sipping chai and pretending to read, when a message popped onto her phone from Claire.

She stood up from the table, abandoned her cup, and called Claire the second she hit sidewalk.

“What did he say?”

“Not too much, he just apologized and said that something crazy was going on.” For the thousandth time, Diane fought her urge to stop everything and contact the police. Claire sensed the tension, and followed up with a familiar refrain. “Diane, this means that we’ve been right the whole time not to go to the police.”

“Why?”

“If he was in trouble, would he have been able to send us a message?” Diane considered the logic behind this statement, unconvinced. “The fact that he reassured us at the beginning, and now again, shows that things haven’t taken a turn for the worse. Sure, he said something crazy was going on, but that doesn’t mean it’s something that we need to be worried about. Or at least not something that warrants contacting the police.”

“Okay, fine,” Diane’s reply came after a few moments of silence, “did you reply?”

“No, not yet.”

“We need to try to meet up with him. Offer help.” “Alright, just a sec.” Diane listened to the muted sound

of Claire typing out a message on her phone, her nimble fingers moving about the touchscreen with speedy precision. Then at once the sounds ceased.

“Okay, I’ll let you know when he replies,” Claire said.

“Thank you,” Diane said, “I’ll be waiting. Claire hadn’t included a mention of his mother in the reply, choosing instead a vague offer of help. She knew that Diane and her son had a complicated history, and she didn’t want to give Ryan any reason to decline help. Claire was actually tempted to cut Diane out of the picture altogether, but that seemed too cold-hearted.

The buzz of the phone restored her to the present. “Let me think about how you can help without putting yourself in danger.” It was the final word in the sentence, “danger,” that dropped a rock into the pit of Claire’s stomach. This fear proved fleeting, however, due to the follow-up message that then bounced onto the screen of her phone:

“I miss you.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

If you were to ask a sampling of people how long it would take to piece their lives together into a substantial whole, most would overestimate the difficulty of the task. Everyone likes to believe that their life is complex ecosystem of innumerable parts. The truth is, however, that most lives consist of a basic pattern of habits and preferences that can be assembled by anyone semi-skilled in a handful of minutes.

Whitney Call, despite a hatred of her job, was actually quite competent (“She would have already been promoted if she had a better attitude,” Mr. Murphy had written after an evaluation a few weeks earlier). She scanned Ryan’s profile for just a few seconds before she recognized red flag number one: his posts over the past couple days were inconsistent. Instant messages, video chats, phone calls; Freely integrated all of these into a single stream. For most Americans, Freely wasn’t just a social network, it was their primary method of communication. The inconsistent updates on Ryan’s profile contrasted starkly with his activity prior. This is what had landed Ryan Park’s profile on Whitney’s desk in the first place: the Liberty Act demanded that any suspicious Freely activity be promptly investigated.

And so she continued to dig. Despite the mundanity of her job, “the hunt” still sometimes managed to provide a rush of adrenaline, a force more powerful than patriotism.

Whitney soon spotted Ryan’s name on the profile of someone named Victoria Lightbody, tied to a shaky video that ended with Ryan yelling, “I hope you die in your disgusting sweat pants,” through an apartment window. Whitney watched a second video of Ryan on Victoria’s profile, this one filmed in an under-lit bar. With every video or post or public message Ryan’s story became more vivid, each snippet of information was a brightly-colored brushstroke on a decreasingly sparse canvas.

The government’s social network offered private messaging, and it reigned as the secondary method that people used to stay in contact. (Many people had all their conversations on their public profile, the concept of privacy to them was contemptible.) For those that did use private messaging, contract workers like Whitney were forced to submit an official request in order to gain access to a complete history of their conversations. The whole request process was automated, and usually only took no more than a few hours to be completed (it was never denied). Whitney clicked on the button that initiated the request for Ryan’s profile, and packed up her stuff to head home for the evening. She had already stayed half an hour past her usual departure time, and anticipated that the approved request would be waiting for her the next morning.

She arrived at home, toting a pizza for a boyfriend that was sprawled out on the couch. But as she watched him inhale the oozing cheese and sausage, she thought of work the next day and felt a twinge of excitement.

Whitney returned to her desk the next morning twenty minutes earlier than her shift’s scheduled beginning. A message waited once she unlocked the computer; approval had been granted just as she had expected. She scanned conversations, and made note of the names that Ryan seemed to speak with the most. She saw someone named Alexander Kirby, who Whitney pieced together as Ryan’s former professor and mentor. There were a few terse messages to Ryan’s mother Diane, her communication a typical flurry of motherly worry over every aspect of her adult son’s life.

Most recently contacted was Claire Monson, a girl which, judging by the public photos Whitney had already seen, was either Ryan’s current girlfriend or a recent ex (determining the status of a relationship can be challenging even for a trained detective). What Whitney didn’t see was any communication with the girl from the “die-in- sweatpants” video.

Most Americans are completely separated from the production of their food; vegetables and fruits don’t grow, but spontaneously appear on store shelves. Despite the onslaught of technological advancements throughout the twentieth century, however, an apple can only come to be on an apple tree. One of the never-ending challenges for every apple farmer is keeping their bounty aesthetically pleasing during the trip from tree to mouth. Nobody buys an apple that’s bruised, and farmers take every necessary precaution to make sure the fruits of their labor are up to snuff. The all-seeing eye that judges each farmer’s green thumb comes in the form of an automated sorting machine that processes thousands of apples a minute. Notwithstanding the speed by which these machines are able to sort through fruit, the thoroughness of the inspection is astounding. In the time is takes to sneeze, these machines take four high resolution photographs of an apple, each at a different angle. The onboard computer analyzes its color, size, and shape, notes any imperfections, then sorts it onto its rightful conveyer belt.

When it was discovered that one of the terrorists responsible for the 2016 attack had discarded many of his personal belongings in a public trash can, it didn’t take long for someone to realize that the same technology responsible for bruise-free fruit might be the key to a terrorist-free United States. Only a few months after the program debuted, politicians claimed that nearly 80% of everything American’s threw away was being inspected. Once analyzed, the waste’s metadata was cataloged and stored in a database to be used in future crime-fighting. The entire process was overwhelmingly expensive and resource-intensive, but, as the president reminded each citizen on multiple occasions, “You can’t put a price on safety.”

Once a security contractor like Whitney Call began investigating a case, it automatically triggered a query at the Federal Waste Department, which cross-referenced all the clothes and items on Ryan’s Freely profile with the FWD database. The system was still in its infancy, and as such Whitney had only heard about Federal Waste Department Alerts. Yet there one was, the notification blinking on the screen.

Whitney clicked, the small white arrow a skeleton key, and was immediately made privy to four photographs of a dull red sweatshirt, each from a different angle. A paragraph of accompanying information (and the unmistakable smears of fast food grease stains) revealed that the sweatshirt had been abandoned in the trash can of a Pittsburgh area rest-stop. Also included was security camera footage, which Whitney scrubbed through and caught sight of the man himself.

She then ran a location-targeted Freely search, an everyday query that anyone could perform without any security clearance. Tens of thousands of results streamed across her screen, which she then filtered by time and date to reduce down to hundreds. Among the photos and videos left were glimpses of Ryan Park, head down, sometimes blurry, but positively identifiable.

The discovery guaranteed it; Ryan was on the run. This documented behavior was suspicious enough for Whitney to escalate the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But then she thought of the possibility of a small mass of new life forming in her stomach. If she delayed escalating the case, momentarily, she would have enough time to piece more clues together. And that could mean a bonus. Diaper money. Formula money. She scrubbed through the footage, resolute that it held the secret to Ryan’s current destination.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The bus stopped with a snarl at Blanchet’s only gas station. The bus driver clicked on the intercom and grunted that it was the last chance to use the bathroom before arriving in Lexington. Ryan snuck past the girl in the seat beside him, her restlessness having given way to slumber an hour earlier. There were a few others who also rose from their seats with the driver’s announcement, which was something Ryan hadn’t factored into his spur-of-the- moment plan. This oversight was another reminder that he was frantically treading in shark-infested water.

The bus driver stared as a handful of passengers filed off the bus, her raised eyebrow mocked the fortitude of their bladders. No doubt she had made a mental note that there were six now missing from the rows of belt-free seats. Not four or five, but six. Ryan cursed himself for being in a situation where escape seemed impossible. If he became the focal point of attention, someone would surely snap a photo of the ‘mystery man’ that snuck onto their bus. Even a single photo’s metadata had the power to reveal Ryan’s location in a matter of seconds.

His stomach gargled with worry. The group entered a gas station that looked very much like every other small town station: junk food piled high, a wall of sugary drinks, hotdogs wrinkled with age. The most eager of the bathroom goers, an antsy brunette who was on the verge of panic, beelined straight to the lavatory, only to find it occupied. The checkout counter was vacant; their pitstop had caught the clerk in the middle of taking care of business. Ryan noticed that the five other people who had exited the bus with him weren’t acknowledging their compatriots at all; they still seemed hypnotized by the hours of scattershot headlights. This sleepy apathy was the opposite of Ryan, whose heart was attempting to beat its way out of his mouth. 007 he was not as he shuffled away from the pack.

A few steps away, in the back corner of the room, was a small closet with the door slightly ajar. It was difficult to see its contents with the limited light the crack allowed, but a glimpse of a mop handle argued in favor of cleaning supplies. “Now!” he told himself in his mind, “you can’t wait another second.” Adrenaline flowing, the three and a half steps to the closet were skate-on-ice smooth. He pushed the door carefully and confidently, and the single swift motion stripped the squeaky hinges of their vibrato.The scrap of light grew to a large mass, revealing a typical maintenance closet with cleaning supplies and a rolling mop bucket. He quickly moved to the small section of the closet’s unoccupied space and pulled on the edge of the door to close it behind him.

Concealed inside the closet, Ryan fought to downplay his hurried breathing. The uncertainty of the hiding place held his heart captive, he knew that the chemical-laced darkness was merely a mirage of safety. He concentrated on the sounds outside his tomb, listening to hear if anyone noticed his split-second dash. His eyes focused on the thin strip of light creeping in from underneath the ajar door, waiting for it to be snubbed out by the presence of a curious human body. But the light held steady, and he was unable to make any sound of suspicion (though the roar of a nearby slushy machine severely limited efforts of espionage).

Eleven minutes passed with a slowness only possible to someone in hiding. Ryan heard the sounds of a handful of students file in, and then out of what was likely a poorly- kempt bathroom. He heard one of the students buy a cellophane-wrapped snack, and another spill and offer to pay for a cup of coffee. And then came the final opening and closing of the door, and Motor Mart’s return to silence. Now the success of his escape hinged on a final line of defense; the pesky bus driver. Ryan’s heart quickened with the possibility of success. He realized that his tightly clenched fists were causing his fingernails to dig into his palms. No sound of a door opening, of an angry bus-driver or a student runner. His hands loosened on their own accord. Had the driver not realized that the number of people that boarded her bus was one fewer than the number that had exited a handful of minutes before? Did she care? What about the girl he was sitting next to? Ryan’s cockamamie escape had left behind it a trail of loose ends, but he was still inside a closet, and only by emerging could he begin the next leg of his journey.

He let out a deep breath, and pushed the closet door open with much less suavity than before. His eyes shot over to the counter, and immediately struck the surprised face of a middle-aged clerk.

“Whatchu doin’ in ma closet?” he said, each word battered and fried. Ryan laughed casually, his experience in advertising had molded him into a well-trained fraud.

“I apologize for taking you by surprise, I think you were in the back when I came in,” Ryan explained. The man’s eyes showed recognition that he had, in fact, been away from his post for a few minutes. “I get these really bad headaches sometimes,” Ryan continued, “and the only thing that makes them feel better is some time in the dark; light makes it worse.” The man’s shoulder’s slackened, and Ryan watched the tip of his tongue pick at his molars through his open mouth.

“Wulisee,” the man said, satiated by the lie. Ryan strolled towards the counter, and the man jerked his head toward the window. “Where’s yer car?”

“I came in a bus,” came the reply, without hesitation. “A bunch of us college students. They were in a rush to get to Lexington, and I never know how long these headaches last. I told them to go on ahead and that I’d catch my own ride the rest of the way once I felt better.”

“What skoo?” the man asked, determined.

“Smith College,” the lie shot out, and Ryan held his breath to see if it was accepted.

“There’s a diner over’n up,” he said, pointing behind his shoulder, “no morrun halfa mile. The busit stops outside, or maybe you’ll fin a good smaritan willinga help.”

Ryan had inched his way to the counter, and he now held out his hand. “Thank you so much,” he said as the man shook loosely, “I’ll probably grab some food there, if that’s alright. I apologize for stopping in without buying anything.”

The man shrugged it off. “Good luck gettin’ ta Lexinton.”

The man was right, the little diner was just half a mile or so away, and the walk to it was unexpectedly relaxing. Ryan could hear the distant hum of the highway as his steps etched a subtle path through the gravel on the side of the road. Unbeknownst to Ryan, his urgent Big Apple pace had slowed to a stroll. Overgrown weeds and grass stretched out to grab at his legs as he passed, and the chill of the morning had begun to give way to the settling day. He realized, with elation, that if he had to point to his current location on a map, he would be completely unable to do so. After a lifetime in a world without mystery, a world where everything is sorted and classified and archived, finding himself in the middle of the tame unknown was a thrill.

Ryan noticed that he was smiling, and tried to remember the last time that simply existing had brought a smile to his face. There was a purity in what he felt, a dismissal of the idea that he was a mere cog in a complex machine. He looked up at the handful of trees set back from the road, and visually confirmed that he was away from the prying eyes of a lens. He caught site of a small wooden house camouflaged by trees, aged yet seemingly well-maintained.

“How nice,” Ryan thought, “it would be to have a true home like that. Somewhere unchanging.” Ryan’s post- father adolescence consisted of he and his mother bouncing around to a handful of homes and apartments. He hadn’t felt truly at ease anywhere since sometime before that.

He panned across the scene and took a 360 degree mental picture. “I’ll remember this moment,” he lectured himself, “if I can find a place like this in Montana, it will justify this whole hair-brained scheme.”

Ryan glimpsed the diner in the distance, and the serenity of his walk melted softly away.

There were diners all over New York City, but none were like the one that Ryan now found himself standing in. Big Apple diners were predictably mediocre, with bland food that all originated from the same distributor. The prices were far too high, the portions far too small, and any nostalgia they once contained had been painted over long ago by order of the health inspector.

The Blanchet Diner, on the other hand, was a sight to behold. With its long formica counter and army of blue- cushioned booths, every inch of the chrome trimmed interior was unapologetically diner-esque. It wasn’t stubborn or self-aware, it just simply was.

Ryan stepped toward the counter, then thought better of it and sat down at the second booth from the door. The waitress, who approached and introduced herself as “Bradley,” couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Ryan immediately liked her, however, because she was lackadaisical in the service she rendered, and that was ideal for someone who wished to remain faceless.

Ryan ordered a coffee, toast, and eggs, an order calculated to be the most forgettably boring breakfast that a person could order. Ryan imagined Bradley’s hypothetical interrogation:

“No, I don’t remember much about him. Nope, didn’t order anything out of the ordinary.”

“Now I’m being smart,” Ryan concluded, congratulating himself with a sip of rich dark coffee. His stomach gurgled as he relived the luck that had been required to escape the bus. Though this adventure had taken place less than an hour earlier, he now dismissed the foolishness of his past self.

The clang of a hot plate pulled him away from mental self-crucifixion, and he looked up as Bradley, devoid of eye contact, topped off his coffee.

“Thanks,” Ryan said.

“Need anything else?” she asked. Ryan nodded his head no, then realized that she was looking not at him but at a phone cradled in the palm of her hand.

“No,” said Ryan audibly, and the apathetic server turned away from the booth, still tapping away at the screen. Despite his acknowledgement of the planning failures of the past couple days, he had to confront the uncomfortable reality that his current situation wasn’t much better. Once again, his feeble plan had led him to a place of unknowing.

He fumbled with the little plastic receptacles of butter and grape jelly, and dressed his sourdough toast with precision. The first bite reminded him that he was incredibly famished, and he inhaled the remainder of the bites ferociously. Few things taste better to the wanting palate than an imprecise combination of fat, sugar, and starch. He then turned to the eggs, which he ate much more conscientiously.

Each bite was accompanied by the dismissal of a potential plan. More than once, “Message Claire” flashed into his mind, but the thought was promptly swatted away like a fly on a potato-salad-or-death mission. For the second time since he had abandoned his life, he felt a deep- seeded longing for the company of his friend. Would he ever be able to contact her again? Surely an attempt at communication would ruin his chance of escape from the crowdsourced all-seeing eye. Maybe once he arrived at his final destination, maybe then he could sneak a message on a disposable phone.

The door behind Ryan’s booth opened and shut, and he realized that the fork he was holding was married to an empty plate, nothing but a few smears of ketchup to break up the bone white.

“Just the two of you?” Ryan heard Bradley ask. Seconds later, an older man and woman passed on the way to their booth. Ryan caught the woman’s eye as they walked by, and both nodded courteously.

Ryan was still far from feeling full, and he (remarkably) caught Bradley’s attention and ordered a side of bacon. Though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, the order wasn’t just for the purpose of appeasing hunger; he was afraid of the blank plate in front of him, the reminder that it was time for a next step.

Bradley brought the bacon and a check at the same time the couple next to him received their pancake short stack. Ryan listened as they decided what to order, which consisted of a humorous debate about carbs and looming doctor visits. But pancakes won out, and the man now overplayed how delicious they were.

The gas station clerk had mentioned that the diner was on the bus route, but as much as Ryan craned his neck he couldn’t see a sign outside that identified the route. Even if he did figure out where to wait for the bus, he had no idea which bus to take, or even where he wanted to go. Once again he pined for the convenience of his phone. Planning such a trip would have been easy with a tappable map and GPS.

He summoned a mental picture from the depths of his elementary school memory, and remembered that St. Louis and Kansas City were both to the west of his current location. Bradley approached to retrieve the check, and was un-phased by the waiting stack of paper bills.

“Do you have a bus schedule somewhere?” Ryan asked Bradley just before she could escape with her tip.

“Don’t you have a phone?” she asked, holding the answer.

A string of profanities ran through Ryan’s mind. “Yes,” he replied smoothly, “but it’s out of power.” The answer seemed to placate the questioner, who wordlessly walked behind the counter, rummaged around, and returned with a stack of dusty bus schedules on the table next to a dollop of spilled grape jelly.

“I’m not sure how accurate these things are; they’re a couple of years old,” Bradley said. “Where you going?”

Ryan bought some time to think of an answer by unfolding one of the schedules and pretending to parse it. “Kanas City, but eventually St. Louis,” he replied matter- of-factly. The look on Bradley’s face challenged this answer.

“You’re going all the way to Kansas City, then backtracking to St. Louis?”

Ryan realized that he had mistakenly switched the locations in his head. But who was to say that that wasn’t his plan? “Yep,” he said at last, not looking up from the schedule.

Audible whispers escaped from the booth beside him, then the bench groaned as someone slide across it. The male-half of the middle-aged couple appeared in the aisle, and he was smiling. “Hey there,” he offered his hand, “the name’s Bert Sutherland.” Ryan shook, and Bradley took the opportunity to retreat to the solace of the kitchen. “Sorry to pry,” said the man, finally letting go after a few bone- crushing seconds, “but I overheard that you need to get to Kansas City.”

“Yep,” Ryan replied, then decided to double-down on his story, “well eventually—”

“St. Louis, yeah, we heard that too.” Bert said. “My wife Joy and I,” he gestured toward an unseen spouse, “are actually from St. Louis, and are heading back that way in about an hour. Not sure if you are interested in a free lift, but it might be fun to have some company.” He looked back at the unseen spouse, “well not like you aren’t company, Joy, you know what I mean.” Bert turned to Ryan, “sorry about that. But what do you say?”

This time Ryan was the one that extended his hand, “the name’s Greg, and I’d love a lift.”

Bert shook his hand enthusiastically. “First pancakes, and now someone new to talk to,” Bert said with a smile. He pulled out his phone and tapped it a few times. “Alright, we’re all settled up here, let’s go.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Diane’s handling of her son’s silence continued to unravel. At first she had given Claire the benefit of the doubt, chalking up Claire’s sudden cessation in communication to a dead battery, or maybe a broken phone. But as the hours of darkness piled into a day, Diane’s propensity toward panic overcame every other thought in her mind. As far as Diane was concerned, Claire’s silence wasn’t circumstantial, it was intentional. It was diabolical.

Without Claire to discourage this escalation of pessimism, it wasn’t long before Diane contacted the police. She knew that doing so had the potential to get Ryan into trouble. But there was also the possibility that he was already in trouble, and that if she didn’t act she might never see him again. His mischievous streak aside, Ryan had never before blatantly ignored her.

Much to Diane’s dismay, the first police officer she spoke with on the phone wasn’t overly concerned. It was only after a series of transfers to alternate departments that she found someone who took an interest in her story.

When Freely launched, Agent Guy Daly was selected to head up the department that investigated suspicious behavior. This responsibility was a result both of his exemplary record, and the fact that his bum knee left him in need of something productive to do at a desk. At first there was more work than his department could handle, but over time his department’s budget grew, as did his team, until each agent was left with a manageable caseload. Daly was a true blue American, and proud of the fact that his department was fighting terror. Though much of the preliminary investigation was handled through contract workers, Agent Daly’s team took over once a case was flagged.

This naturally created something of a rivalry between the two groups, a one-sided rivalry that always landed in favor of the FBI. Try as they might, Whitney Call and the rest of the contract detectives never got an ounce of credit for protecting America, and were often in the dark as to the outcome of a case once it was transferred “up-the-ladder.”

When Daly was told that a woman named Diane Park was concerned about the disappearance of her son, his first reaction was dismissal; fixing a dysfunctional family wasn’t his responsibility. Even when the referring officer mentioned Freely’s role in proving the boy’s disappearance, Officer Daly was inclined to pass the case onto a contractor to investigate. But pure curiosity led Daly to search the boy’s name, Ryan Park, in their database, and onto his screen appeared a file consisting of security photos, Freely screenshots, and a twenty-two page report created by one W. Call. It took Daly just seconds to realize that this case should have already been escalated to their department, and that Ms. Call was a “dead man,” (as an agent whose office shared a wall with Officer Daly’s would later attest).

Since confirming that Ryan was on the run without his phone, Whitney had continued to make progress. She saw the messages exchanged between Ryan’s phone and Claire, and deduced that there might be an accomplice involved. The Liberty Act clearly established that using Freely under someone else’s name was legally defined as fraud, which meant the accomplice was guilty of committing a crime as well. Additional sleuthing revealed a handful of locations tied to the most recent activity on the phone, all of which were somewhere on Manhattan. Whitney didn’t have the necessary clearance to investigate that lead any further, but added the notes carefully to the case file.

Once she was granted FWDA database access, Whitney turned her attention to the Pittsburgh rest stop where Ryan’s sweatshirt was discovered. Since all high occupancy vehicles were required to register their trip with the state transportation department (another outcome of the attack), it wasn’t difficult to find the busses that had visited the rest stop around the same time that the security cameras captured the blurry photos. Whitney secured a list of possible routes, then did something that she had never really done before: she allowed herself to be consumed by work. And when her shift was over, she kept working. Fortunately, neither her coworkers nor her manager noticed this extreme deviation from habit, otherwise she would have been barraged by a flurry of distracting questions.

It was four hours after the technical end of her shift when Whitney finally stood up from the desk. She rubbed her eyes and dislodged a couple eyelashes, then lifted the jacket off the corner of the cubicle. She glanced back at the screen of her computer. It showed a small block of text, photographs, satellite images, and a heading that read “Blanchet, Kentucky.”

It was indeed one of the college kids that captured the only lead on Ryan’s destination since Pittsburgh. Whitney had reviewed all the departure and arrival footage of the suspected buses, and her discouragement was nearing a breaking point. But then she noticed it, an asterisk on the trip log of Trail Ways bus FJ8374, an unscheduled stop to refuel in a small Kentucky town. The photo wasn’t ideal, nothing but a quick snapshot that had been uploaded to capture an unscheduled stop in a Podunk town. It was equal in fidelity to an image of Sasquatch or a Yeti, but in the background Whitney was confident that she could make out the profile of Ryan Park.

Now Whitney stood at her desk, jacket coolly slung over her shoulder, ready to hit send on the carefully prepared case file. “Once they see this what I’m capable of,” she thought to herself, “a raise will follow. Maybe a promotion.” But, just as her finger hovered over the button that would launch the file into space and back again, a new message notification interrupted, a two sentence uppercut to her gut.

“Ms. Call,” it began tersely, “due to your willing rejection of protocol, you are officially on probation. You are expected in Washington D.C. tomorrow should you wish to maintain your employment.” Below was an address and a flight confirmation.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Claire’s phone buzzed with yet another message from Diane, the latest in a long string of pleading and jabs of guilt. Claire hadn’t replied for an entire day, despite a promise that Diane would be the first to know of any news. But the personal nature of the messages Claire had received made it easy to shake off her commitment, and each subsequent message that Diane sent now worked to cement her exclusion.

Aside from expressing concern, Ryan’s messages seemed to show growth. Throughout their relationship he had been caring and kind, but never overly sentimental. But now his messages dripped with sentimentality, and Claire couldn’t help but eat it up. They fueled her hope in the possibility of a second chance, a sequel to their relationship. Had something caused Ryan to finally dismiss his stubborn grudge over Blake and that whole mess? If so, what? Try as she might, Ryan wouldn’t tell her where he was, or what he was mixed up in, or how she could help. But if their line of communication was open, Claire reassured herself, it would only be a matter of time.

Blake wasn’t naturally prone to kindness, and the wispy messages he was lobbing in Claire’s direction left him without the ability to say much more. Despite the fact that he wouldn’t admit it to himself, the sting of Ryan’s threat had grown dull. He hadn’t forgiven him, no, he was incapable of forgiveness. He was, however, tired of exerting energy on a sappy conversation.

“Please know that when you are ready, I am here,” read the most recent text she had sent. Blake reflected on how truly kind she was. This observation may have led others to empathy, to ending the deception, but it just egged Blake on. There was a time when he actually wanted things to work out with Claire. Not because he cared about her, but because he wanted to appear successful. That was no more. “It’s time,” he thought, “to double-down and swing for the fences.”

Blake had some friends who would often partake in various controlled substances. (For a time he joined in, but quickly grew tired of the mental effects.) The friends claimed that Freely was actually built more for stopping the drug trade than for stopping terrorists, a conspiracy theory proven plausible by the kind of criminals the service was catching. As cases of Freely-caught drug dealers and users became well-known, the price of old Freely-free phones skyrocketed; to many, thousands of dollars was not an unreasonable price for the veil of anonymity. The old phones soon became impossible to find, and shortly after a wave of cheap “black-phones” hit the market.

Blake had one black-phone lying around in a drawer, and after a few minutes sipping power it awoke. A one sentence message to the right friend resulted in someone buzzing his door less than an hour later, and for a sizable chunk of money a second black-phone was his. He removed it from its shoddy packaging, turned it on, and inspected the contents. The ugly Freely-absent interface brought a smile to his face.

The next morning, Claire overslept and found herself scrambling to get ready for work. As she pushed the apartment door open with her shoulder, she was met with the subtle resistance of a light cardboard box on the other side. Wondering why the doorman had generously brought the box up for her, she closed the door on her curious calico cat and examined the unlabeled box. Someone with an inflated sense of self-importance might have seen this clue as a bomb or some other threat, but Claire’s curiosity protected her from fear. She checked the time and allotted herself five minutes to explore the contents before resuming her commute.

The weight of the box hinted that it was mostly empty, so Claire was unsurprised that gobs of crumpled classified newspapers were its primary occupants. She poked around with her hand, a surgeon searching for an abscess, until her fingers brushed up against the unmistakable anodized aluminum of a phone. Feeling very much like a secret agent, she removed it from the box and turned it over in her hand. She rummaged through the box again, in search of a packing slip, but met only two-for-one dry cleaning coupons. Without any other, she turned it on. The screen glowed brightly as it powered to life, and straightway a message blooped onto the screen:

“Claire? It’s me, Ryan.”

Her heartbeat increased at the sight of this message, and a smile formed on her lips. She typed a quick reply:

“What’s with the covert maneuvers?”

The answer came immediately, and pushed everything else out of her mind.

“It’s time to tell you...” Claire swallowed hard and sat down on the edge of the couch.

“First thing’s first,” the message said, “I know that the activity on my Freely profile looks suspicious.” Claire had noticed this, though she hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want to drive him away.

“Yeah...” was her simple reply.

“I’ve discovered some evidence that the attack may not have been caused by terrorists like we all think.” Blake was now drawing on fringe websites he had stumbled onto a few months back. Shocked, Claire didn’t reply right away. It wasn’t that these conspiratorial allegations were anything new, most Americans had heard similar theories even as the smoke was still billowing. But they were definitely seen by most as crazy, and despite his shortcomings, Claire had always thought of Ryan as pragmatic.

“I have a big favor to ask,” the messages continued. “But before I do, I just want you to know that I love you. I always have, and I always will.” Claire stared at the words, engulfed in the warmth only possible when you know someone cares deeply about you. Stoically, she resolved to do whatever it took to help him.

“I’ve only used my personal phone over the past few days to talk to you. I need you to get my phone, and claim that you’ve been talking to yourself.”

“Won’t I get in trouble?” she cut in, “using Freely under someone else’s name is fraud.”

“No, not if you say that I broke up with you, that I left my phone at your place, that you are suffering from a broken heart. They will dismiss your case as one of passion, and blame everything on me for losing track of my phone.”

Claire thought the plan over briefly. It was haphazard, and agreeing to participate was diving headfirst into the investigation surrounding Ryan’s disappearance. Her thoughts turned to Diane, and she wondered if she should at least give Diane a clue as to what was going on. But then the image of a frantic, desperate, woman reminded her of the likely result. No, Diane would just have to hold out for a little longer.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Claire replied. In her mind she saw the two of them meeting under the cloak of night to exchange the phone. Maybe a silhouetted kiss would be shared.

“Thank you so much. I’ll arrange for you to receive my phone at a random place and time, so the swap doesn’t draw any attention to itself.”

The scene of a covert rendezvous was smothered.

“Stick to the story until I contact you again,” the messages continued to pop onto the screen. “Then wipe your fingerprints from this phone, destroy it, and dispose of it in a public trash can.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ryan was back on the road and getting closer to Montana every minute. It had been forever since he’d ridden in an actual car. He thought of the cabs he rode occasionally in Manhattan: dirty, bathed in a subtle essence of vomit, without air conditioning, racing down each block only to brake hastily at the intersection. Neither that experience nor his ride on the bus earlier that day contained any of the freedom allowed in barreling unimpeded down the highway, the stereo amplifying whatever oldie Bert had selected on his phone.

“Ah, this one,” Bert said as each song began, nodding in approbation while his wife concentrated on the road. One of the songs faded to silence, and the track that took its place did so at twice the volume. Bert jumped, and his hand shot over to the stereo to turn it down, “Whoopsie,” he said with a chuckle. Joy scowled in his direction.

“It’s easy to forget,” Ryan thought aloud, “how much space there is in this country.” His words hung in the air like a peace offering. Joy elbowed her husband, and nodded toward the back seat. Startled, he turned the volume down further, and looked at Ryan in the rearview mirror.

“Sorry, you say something?”

“Oh, ha ha,” Ryan’s forced laughed was peppered with the relief that he wasn’t being ignored. “I was just saying that you forget how much space there is in this country.

Everyone talks about overcrowding, but then you drive through a place like this and realize how much room there still is.” Bert nodded and surveyed the landscape, his hand held above his face to block the sun.

“Don’t ignore the heart of America; there’s no limit to what it can accomplish,” Bert said at last. He transitioned from glancing in the rear-view mirror and turned his shoulders to make direct eye contact with Ryan. “A thousand years from now, there will still be more space out here than we know what to do with. And yet people will still be packed tight as sardines in places like New York City.” Bert turned back to face the oncoming road, and Ryan wondered about the reference to his home city.

“I almost forgot,” Joy said, breaking the silence. Her eyes remained fixed on the road, so Ryan wasn’t sure who she was speaking to. “Your phone?” she inquired, the words were pronounced with a cutting sharpness.

“What about it?” He said with forced nonchalance.

“Oh, right,” Bert chimed in, “at the diner you mentioned it was out of power.” His hand patted the molded plastic of the center console, “this has a wireless charger built in. Just sit your phone down and it should be good to go in twenty minutes, half hour tops.”

Ryan knew that his reply must come immediately to avoid looking suspicious. He seized upon a wily idea that appeared alongside the pixie dust in his mind. He stuck his hand into his front pocket, and did his best to convey the effort required to do so. Both occupants of the front seat watched in interest. He rummaged through the left pocket, feigned a look of panic, then repeated the procedure with his right pocket. His jaw dropped in stunned silence.

“What?” Bert inquired, the words laced with genuine concern.

“I can’t believe it; I think it’s still on the bench in that diner.”

“Oh no,” Bert replied. Ryan peeked at Joy’s face through the rear-view mirror. She was much less concerned than her husband.

“But it has a secondary battery?” she asked cooly.

“Uh, yes it does.”

“Oh good,” Bert said, his worry evaporating. Despite

every instinct of self-preservation telling him otherwise, Ryan felt the need to double-down on his lie.

“Yeah, with the tracking and everything, I’m sure I’ll be able to get it back once I’m in St. Louis.”

“Would you like to contact your carrier now? Not waste any time?” Bert held out his own phone. Lost and stolen phones were a pandemic prior to the attack, but the Liberty Act established a series of recovery measures to help maintain the integrity of the network. All Ryan had to do was sign-in on Bert’s phone to lock his own and flag it until someone in law enforcement could pick it up. The reserve battery would maintain the rescue signal for up to seven days.

“That’s alright,” Ryan said, dismissing the offer with a wave of his hand. “I appreciate it, but I’m not terribly worried. If all else fails I’ll just get a replacement. It was getting pretty beat up, anyway.”

“That’s right, you can pay for it with that wad of cash you’re packing,” Joy stepped back into the conversation. Ryan felt uneasy at the realization that she had noticed so much about him while at the diner.

“Isn’t that crazy?” he tried to play it down. “I found that bundle a few weeks ago in an old backpack. I might as well use it, see what it was like to live back in the day.” His subconscious patted itself on the back for the slickness of his story. He caught Joy’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and they didn’t reflect the same congratulatory spirit.

“I remember paper money well,” Bert said. “Lots of folks paid with credit cards, but there was a time, when she and I were much, much younger,” he gestured to Joy, “when paper was king. It’s sort of nice, actually, because you always know how much money you have with with you. None of those, ‘oh no, I’ve reached my limit?’ surprises.” The car fell silent, and continued in that mood for a few minutes. As had become the trend, Bert broke was once again the one to break it.

“I know this is silly,” he said, “but is there anyway I could maybe smell one of those paper bills you have?” Ryan dug in his pocket. “You remember the smell?” Bert asked Joy, rationalizing his random request. She nodded. Ryan handed a twenty up to the front, and Bert gave it a sniff.

“Yep, ha ha, there it is. You never forget that smell, especially when you’ve got a bunch of ‘em. You know what I mean.” He held it out to Joy, who humored him with a token sniff of her own. “It’s just crazy to think of a time when everything was purchased with little rectangles of paper,” he said, then handed the bill back to Ryan.

“Maybe, but now we just use zeroes and ones,” Ryan said. “And a lost phone is a lost wallet. So I can see the two-edge sword.”

“That’s true,” Bert replied. “We’re always quick to dismiss the benefits of the old way of doing something. Whenever something evolves, like cars,” he rubbed his hand on the dashboard, “we always want to jump right in, like a bunch of kids at a swimming hole. We don’t check for leeches, we don’t worry about that.”

Quiet once again overtook the car, and danced around the seats and occupants like smoke.

“Looks like we’re just a few more miles from town,” Joy interrupted the impact of Bert’s words.

“Town?” came a question from the backseat. Joy nodded toward Bert, signaling that it was his answer to give.

“Have you ever heard of Carmi, Illinois?” Bert answered question with a question. Ryan shook his head. “It’s just inside Illinois, a little town.”

“Alright,” Ryan replied, “and what are we doing there?”

The extended car ride had put him in a place where he felt comfortable bluntly asking the question. Bert rotated slowly, a smile hung on the edges of his mouth like the sticky remains of an ice-cream cone.

“You’re going to help us make a little money.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

4854 Delaware Avenue Suite 304

Washington, D.C.

Whitney had studied the address hundreds of times since it first arrived in her inbox. She tried to picture the sort of building that had a Suite 304, and imagined an unending sea of self-importance and manilla. It took fifteen minutes after first reading the message for Whitney to decide what course of action to pursue. Criticism is always difficult to digest, but when it sneaks up on you it can be devastating. Nothing destroys a person like believing you’re doing a task well and then being told otherwise.

The natural inclination for someone in Whitney’s shoes would be to swap them for a pair of cross trainers and never look back. But even more than she hated Mr. Murphy, Whitney hated the idea of updating her resume and brown-nosing strangers in desperation for a new job. The peculiar thing about the message was that it existed at all. Despite delusions of long-deserved praise and a promotion, Whitney knew that she was entirely replaceable by anyone with a pulse that was willing to submit to two weeks of monotone training and a pee test. Why not just fire her? Who at headquarters wanted to speak with her, to the point of paying for her plane ticket? This question was intriguing, and allowed her to ignore her boyfriend’s discouragement (“I’m fine with you making pepperoni pizzas again, as long as money’s coming in I don’t give a damn.”)

Now here she was, peering out the window of a trembling aircraft, watching Mr. Roger’s neighborhood roll by as the captain’s voice bellowed that seat belts were required for landing. Whitney wore a navy blue dress that was faded and mundane and lightly wrinkled, and black flats. Her stomach was a treacherous combination of nerves and emptiness with some complementary pretzels scattered in. The white dots below took shape, then grew into streetlights, cookie cutter homes, and shopping centers. Along the horizon sat the gentle brushstrokes of orange which signaled that it was all about to begin; the day’s first breath sat briefly in its lungs before the collective energy of a population forced exhalation.

Whitney stood nervously on the escalator, holding tightly to the aluminum briefcase that she had found at the thrift store to use as an overnight suitcase. The secret-agent- aesthetic had convinced her to make the purchase, but now it seemed silly as she thought of its mundane contents. Whatever a secret agent carried when on a mission, it most certainly wasn’t a ragged toothbrush and expired asthma medication.

At the bottom of the escalator, she was shocked to see a suit-and-tie driver holding a tablet with “Whitney Call” on the screen. She had always wondered about the sort of person that was important enough to have a valet waiting for them at the airport. Rather than feeling important, however, seeing the sign only escalated her unease; she felt like a death-row inmate minutes away from finality. All of the stories she had heard scrolled through her mind, of government agents simply snapping their fingers and making people disappear. Once at the bottom of the escalator, the word “RUN!” blasted across Whitney’s mind. But just as the muscles in her legs tensed, the driver holding her name made eye contact and said, “Ms. Call, welcome to Washington, D.C.”

Whitney’s legs relaxed, her shoulders slumped, and she replied with a dumfounded, “Yes?”

Riding in the back of the black town car, Whitney teeter- tottered between confidence and certainty of death. From beyond the tinted windows, she watched the bustling business crowd hurry down the sidewalk, dodging the outstretched arms of begging bums. The crowd pooled together and scattered like woodchucks into buildings and down subway stop stairs.

“Have you ever been to D.C. before, mam?” The driver’s question broke the hypnotism of the scene.

“How did you know who I was?” Whitney asked.

“Oh,” the driver forced a chuckle, “we use Freely to identify all our passengers for pick-up. Sometimes people don’t see the tablet.”

“No, I haven’t,” came a delayed answer.

“Well it’s not everything they say it is,” the driver’s tone was pleasant, and he made occasional eye-contact via the rearview mirror. “Self-consciousness rules this town,” the driver said, making one more attempt to connect with his hesitant passenger.

Whitney spent the remainder of the car trip in silence, attempting to parse the driver’s cryptic analysis of the nation’s capital. At last the car came to a resolute stop in front of a nondescript high-rise office complex, on what appeared to be one of the city’s slower-moving streets. Whitney slid a phone out of her pocket, “how much do I owe you?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it, it’s all taken care of,” the chipper driver replied.

Whitney scooped up her briefcase, muttered an inauthentic, “Thanks,” and stepped out into the crisp autumn morning.

From behind her, Whitney heard the car continue on down the road. She glanced up and down the street, and confirmed via peripheral vision that she was currently the only pedestrian on the block. The knot in her stomach wound tighter, and the adrenaline that she had been fighting frantically returned. Once again, the word “Run!” roared into Whitney’s head, and every single muscle tensed up as her gaze jerked from left to right in search of an impromptu route.

But once again her race was interrupted, this time by a pant-suited woman who stepped out of the front doors of the building. As the woman turned and walked toward her, Whitney inexplicably felt herself grow more relaxed. The woman held out her hand, “Ms. Call?” Whitney nodded, and they shook hands. “My name is Agent Pamela Daly, and I’m head of the Freely Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” replied Whitney, more question than formality.

“We’ll see if it is,” Daly said with a gesture toward the building. “Right this way.”

Whitney followed Agent Daly into the lobby, and waited while she swiped a phone to gain access to the elevator. From the drab decor to the dim lighting, there was nothing especially exciting about the office, but that didn’t stop Whitney’s adrenaline from peaking at the opening of every door. At last they arrived at an office labeled “Agent Daly” by a name plate on the door, and it creaked as Daly opened it and gestured inside. “Please, have a seat,” she said as she took her own seat on the other side of the sparsely adorned desk. Before either had time to speak, a man peaked his head into the office.

“Hello, Agent Patterson,” Daly said, with forced pleasantness.

“Is this her?” Patterson shot back.

“Whitney Call, this is Arnie Patterson,” Daly introduced them. Patterson put forth his hand, and Whitney shook it tentatively. “You’re welcome to sit in, Arnie. I was just about to get started.”

Patterson was already moving toward the vacant chair at the back corner of the office. “Well okay then, might as well. Make sure I’m up to speed on everything.” The chair squeaked as he positioned it and sat down. “Don’t allow me to interrupt,” he smiled, “I’m just a painting on the wall.” Daly turned back to Whitney. “A handsome painting,” Patterson added, but his comment was ignored.

“Agent Patterson is often my right hand man for cases like that of Mr. Ryan Park.” He paused for Whitney’s reply, but received just a nod. “I’m not going to mince words, Ms. Call, when I first discovered your reckless abandonment of protocol I nearly had you tried under the Liberty Act.” Agent Daly paused again, for effect. “Had I done so, you would have spent a very long time behind bars. The American people do not look upon terrorists with kindness.”

“Hold on,” Whitney interjected,“I was only doing my job. I’m tasked with gathering intelligence to counter a security threat, and that’s what I—” Daly held up her hand, and Whitney fell silent.

“That might be what you thought you were doing, Ms. Call, but on paper it could have been something entirely different. Your actions could be stacked against you.” Daly turned to her computer, and for twenty seconds the tense silence was littered with unpredictably-spaced clicks. A suppressed snicker broke the rhythm. “What, Arnie?” Daly asked without looking up.

“Oh come on, you’re really making her sweat.” At this, Daly looked up and stared at Patterson with an unflinching coldness; the temperature of the room seemed to drop by ten degrees.

“How about this, Arnie, how about you get the hell out of my office?”

Patterson’s smirk melted from his face. “Pam, there’s no need to—”

“Oh yes there is. I’ll let you know if I need anything. But for now you should get back to work.”

Patterson stood up, paused to think of something to say, then left the room in silence.

Agent Daly rotated her computer monitor toward Whitney, the report on Ryan Park glowed on the display. “I was about to say, that despite your disregard for following the laws of the country, this is some quality work.”

The surprising words of approval turned on a glimmer of light within Whitney. She sat up straighter in her chair, though she remained too nervous to reply. “I’m not sure why you spent all the time you did on this case.” Daly made direct eye contact, “Why did you?”

It took a beat for Whitney to realize she had been asked a question. “Sorry, what?” she finally responded, her voice squeaked the words.

“Why is this report so thorough? You must have spent hours on it. I’ve never seen a contractor put in this much effort.”

Whitney’s brain strained to calculate if she was being led into a trap, but the confused gears weren’t turning smoothly. “I don’t know,” she shrugged.

“Yes you do, and I’m not going to accept that you don’t.”

Whitney paused, and her mouth performed a wordless exercise as her brain thought. “There’s a few reasons, I guess. Partly, I sort of got into a zone. You know what I mean, when time disappears and the thing you’re working on is the only thing that matters.”

Daly nodded, “and you were hoping for some recognition, a raise perhaps?”

“Not really,” Whitney said. “Honestly, it did cross my mind, but it wasn’t what made me work late on the report.” Daly’s smile told Whitney that she was saying the right things. “I haven’t really,” Whitney continued, “I haven’t really ever done a great job at anything. Or at least not for a long time. It just felt good, if that makes sense.”

Daly turned the monitor away from Whitney’s gaze, and for half a minute clicking and silence filled the room once again. Whitney realized that she was relaxed, but like a napping cat she still remained poised for a start. Daly’s typing ceased, and Whitney felt a phone buzz in her pocket. Her hand shot down to swat it into silence like a mosquito.

“It’s alright,” Daly said, “take a look.” Whitney tentatively slid the phone out of her pocket and glanced at the glowing screen, which displayed, amid a mess of acronyms, “Case FW8348DS: Agent Whitney Call.” Her head whipped up and she stared.

“This is highly unorthodox, but I feel like you’re carrying with you the potential to be a great asset to my team. If you are successful, Agent Call, I can guarantee that you’ll never again need to worry about paying the bills. I’m not promising wealth, but security. I also promise that your achievements will be recognized and rewarded. And most importantly, I promise that your country will always support you. You will be required to make some difficult choices, but if you rule in favor of loyalty you will always be taken care of.”

Whitney was speechless. She began the trip convinced that she was traveling to her own execution, but instead stumbled onto her own surprise birthday party. For the first time in her violin-less life, she was excited for the future, nervous, but excited. Sure, the offer didn’t completely square up, but she wasn’t going to let it pass her by. “I accept,” she said at last.

A subtle smile once again appeared on Daly’s lips, then it was quickly extinguished by seriousness. “Before you can begin, you’ll be sworn in. I just want to emphasize that, well, it won’t be easy. You don’t find freedom on the discount rack, it commands a high price. This responsibility will test you, at times it will break you. But remember, loyalty above all else. If your loyalty to country never wavers, you have nothing to worry about.”

Ten minutes ago, this discussion would have caused Whitney to embark down a road of doubt and paranoia, but that was before her fragile ego had been buoyed up for the first time in years. And so, rather than reacting to Agent Daly’s words with the forlorn that they rightfully deserved, her eyes shined bright with excitement.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Claire surfaced at the 59th street subway station and glanced down at an address scrawled on the edge of scrap paper: “54th and 2nd.” After a lifetime of rule-following, being thrust into a world of secrets flooded her mind with sizable helping of Grade A paranoia. The lady on the subway that made eye contact as she looked up from her phone, the street preacher handing out pamphlets by the ticket machines; everyone was a mole, laying in wait to catch her in the act of aiding and embedding the terrorist war against America.

Claire walked the handful of blocks quickly, sneaking through the gaps between sidewalk salesmen and gawking groups of tortoise-paced tourists. She imagined someone after her, and every time she slipped through another opening in the crowd she chalked it up as a miniature victory. She caught sight of the “55 ST” sign that told her she was close, and scanned the upcoming block for a blue metal mailbox. It stood on 3rd avenue, just past 54th, alongside an army of plastic newspaper stands.

Claire could taste breakfast in the back of her throat. She tried to swallow it away, but her nerves were persistent. She slowed to a stop and pedestrians hurried past, cursing her as unthoughtful as they continued on their way. How would she obtain the phone from inside the mailbox without being noticed?

New York, like most large cities, presents a contradictory challenge for anyone doing anything in public; it is both impossible to remain unseen, and impossible to actually be seen. Most city-dwellers are impervious to sidewalk shenanigans, but who’s to say what actually registers as they hurry to work or the bar? Claire knew that she had to be swift and deliberate. The quicker her movements were, the less likely they would be noticed, and the sooner she could be on her way.

She quickly bolted to the mailbox, lifted the moaning metal door, and with her free hand felt the inside-left of the aged receptacle. She expected to brush up against a plastic-wrapped parcel, but was left wanting. Switching hands, she felt the inside-right, but again struck out. Suddenly very aware of the cumulative time she had already spent suspiciously rummaging, she turned and walked away, and made it half a block before the door banged shut. Did the phone break free from its bonds and fall into sea of letters below? Was Ryan caught in the process of taping it to the inside? A twinge of panic grew as she looked back at the mailbox and imagined Ryan being shoved up against it and arrested. She decided to try again a couple of minutes later, and force her hand deeper into the metal jaws.

She passed several minutes between a streetlight and a sidewalk nut vendor. Claire tried her best to appear casual despite the cinnamon-scented smoke that billowed in her direction. Her eyes scanned the bustling scene, then darted from the mailbox to the crowd in search of anything suspicious. She saw in her mind a police cruiser, lights flashing and sirens wailing, fly up onto the sidewalk and slam on its breaks. A team of Miranda-rights-reading cops poured out in clown car fashion, and she was swiftly arrested and taken to spend a lifetime in jail.

Amidst this imagined nightmare, her eyes caught hold of someone else’s, for only a second. Was someone watching her, staring? A large pack of rowdy tourists, complete with a microphone adorned tour guide that held a red flag in the air, interrupted Claire’s view of the onlooker. The group paused as the guide pointed to a building and rambled in a foreign tongue. Frustrated commuters and stroller-toting nannies complained and cussed as they attempted to go around and in-between, but the dam was too dense, and the pressure began to build. Foreign chuckles from the group indicated that the guide had concluded his anecdote with a joke, and they resumed moving just as the build-up was about to break.

The sudden rush of peeved pedestrians led to another gap in the crowd. Standing in the shadows of a vacant storefront was a homeless woman, leaning on her brimming cart and staring directly at Claire. They made eye contact, and Claire looked away as the the crowd equalized and the gap disappeared. Was the woman onto something?

Claire tried to focus on what she had to do next, but she couldn’t. The woman’s cold eyes had imprinted themselves in Claire’s consciousness, and the more she tried not to think about them, the more she did. Claire glanced back in the direction of the mailbox and reviewed each step required in her second attempt to obtain the phone— but the woman, those eyes! She stood just a few feet away from Claire now, having just crossed through the flow of foot traffic; it was as though Claire’s will was drawing her. The woman was saying something as she moved closer, then even closer, but it was impossible to understand her words against the sounds of city. The woman moved closer still.

“You mus . . . over . . . .” the woman gasped, and gestured across the street. Claire’s head whipped around in a quick circle, but it was a token glance which amounted to nothing more than a blur. Claire was tempted to run, to flee the woman’s unnerving gaze. But something stopped her, kept her feet cemented to the grubby sidewalk below.

The woman was close enough now for Claire to see the pronounced lines above her mouth and around her eyes. She clutched a worn walking stick in her left hand, and leaned on it mightily with every other step. She swallowed, and gestured with her walking stick. “Over there. The other mailbox.” Claire followed the direction of her pointing successfully this time, and saw the dull blue of a twin metal mailbox between breaks in passersby.

“How do you know?” Claire asked, “What do you know?”

Slowly, as if only one muscle had permission to move at once, the woman’s face evolved into a grin. Then she turned around, her walking stick balancing each step, and as she shuffled away cried out, “Be careful!”

Claire watched the woman expertly maneuver her way through the onslaught of people and back to the shade of the storefront. The woman’s gaze continued, and a chill ran down Claire’s spine. The knowledge that someone had been watching, that someone had seen Ryan deposit the phone and now Claire retrieving it, was unnerving to the extreme.

Before descending into the 59th street subway station, Claire caught site of a mostly vacant coffee shop and wandered inside. Only half of her was cognizant of her actions, the other half was entirely preoccupied by the thought of the yet-to-be-explored second mailbox, and the woman in the shadows that could see all. Once the woman watched Claire wander away without checking the other mailbox, would she fetch the phone herself?

Claire ordered a sweet tea lemonade, and it was delivered with a lemon slice on the edge of the glass. She sat down at a small table near the window, and twenty three minutes later took the last sip of the drink without internalizing its end. Her soul was engaged in the throes of battle, a battle that had been fought by countless human beings throughout the history of the species. Common sense and love waged war, and she alternated her support at a dizzying pace. It was a decision she thought she had already made during the initial trek to the mailbox, but now— did Ryan love her? Did she truly love him?

She tilted her glass back and forth and watched the ice cubes within tumble between glass walls. In her mind played memories of the two of them, moments calculated to evoke the strongest emotional response. She thought of the first time they had spent time together without anyone else present, after Jim Prescott’s party when everyone else had ventured out into the cold in search of another drink. She thought of their weekend escape to Washington D.C., a surprise which he had kept from her until just an hour before departure.

As these memories rolled by, each one led to the same conclusion: what else is love but a series of risks? She pictured the pain on Ryan’s face when he found out about Blake. Rather than stoking the flames of that memory, however, Claire suffocated it with the promise of reconciliation. No matter what came of it, no matter what punishment might befall her, inaction was simply not an option.

New York City is not a single city, but actually two parallel places that exist one on top of another. Every day at dawn and again at dusk, the streets slowly fade between two selves. And as the unbridled energy of day collapses into the sanctified unknown of night, the creaky century-old subway transcends them both.

Claire stood in the middle of a swaying car, holding tight to the trembling silver pole. She readjusted her hand on the cool, air-conditioned metal. A handful of other passengers dotted the sparsely populated car, each asleep or wishing they were.

For the second time that day, she climbed the steep cement stairs onto 59th Street. This time, however, she was met by a street that, despite being technically identical to the 59th Street of day, was now bathed in an apocalyptic aura. The sidewalk vendors had vanished, and the groups of tourists had been replaced by bands of raucous night owls, who huddled together and laughed as they shared stories of conquest. Were she one of them, Claire would surely be part of a different night, one of carelessness and quickly-forgotten fun, but instead she was nervous and determined and somber and isolated.

She walked five blocks and across one avenue, a lone soldier determined not to think of her fear. Though she was tempted, she forced herself to avoid looking toward the dark storefront where the woman with the cane had nested during daylight hours. Claire knew that a glimpse from the shadows of those omnipotent eyes might cause her to once again abandon the mission. She thought she could sense the woman watching her, but like a kid on Christmas Eve she was determined to maintain ignorance. Claire spotted the mailbox, dropped down from the curb, checked for speeding cabs, and scurried across the road.

She paused briefly as she clutched the shallow metal handle, scanned her surroundings yet again, savored a deep breath, and opened the door. This time there was no fishing around in the darkness; her hand immediately brushed against tape and bunched-up plastic. The woman had been right. Claire confirmed her solitude again, grasped the mass of plastic, and ripped the package out of its metal trap. She stared at the phone dangling in the plastic bag and realized the mundanity of her prize. It was just an everyday phone wrapped in plastic, but it also much more.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The past four hours of Whitney’s life were a blur of bureaucracy: blood tests, urine tests, a portrait in front of a pale blue backdrop, and a series of training exercises on everything from Miranda rights to chain of authority. Most new agents had a week to digest this firehose of formality, but not Agent Call. Throughout it all she struggled to scrawl down legible notes, and asked herself why Agent Daly had insisted on fast-tracking her initiation.

She tipped the paper coffee cup bottom up, and allowed the final remnants of liquid energy to trickle into her mouth. She had lost track of the number of similar cups she had consumed since the day’s beginning, her stomach was now a potent cocktail of acid and caffeine. But aside from a growling gut, and the feeling that her brain might be running low on storage space, Whitney Call was absolutely elated. She had been swept away by purpose, just as she had in that cubicle while compiling evidence on Ryan Park’s whereabouts. If someone were to examine her brain, they would find the synapses firing at a fervent rate, charting new cognitive territory with every bit of information.

When Whitney’s expedited training had at last completed, she was exhausted in a way only possible after hours of unrelenting mental exertion. She sat in an unwelcoming wire and plastic chair in the gray limbo of a nondescript room, of which Whitney had learned there

Deliver Us From Data 84

were dozens throughout the agency’s office. The empty cup sat abandoned beside the chair leg on the carpeted floor, its inside stained rich brown. Were it any other day, Whitney surely would have gladly climbed into the warm arms of sleep, but she was still far too excited about what was to come.

The door opened, and Daly entered. Only she didn’t shut the door behind her, it remained ajar as a second person followed. It was Patterson, the weasel of a man Whitney had met at the beginning of the month-long day, the man that Daly had unceremoniously booted from her office. Daly grabbed one of the chairs, and dragged it until it was sitting directly opposite Whitney’s. Arnie followed suit, his actions hesitant, his chair off to one side.

“Well done today, Agent Call,” Daly broke the silence with one of her rare half-smiles.

“Thank you, mam,” Whitney nodded. Patterson stared around the room like a child, and Daly looked up from the papers and noticed.

“You remember Officer Patterson,” the crescendo in the question brought Patterson back to earth. Whitney nodded, and Patterson returned the gesture. “Agent Patterson is going to be your partner in the Ryan Park investigation, Case FW8348DS.” Whitney nodded again, and Patterson struggled to keep a straight face. Daly continued, “he’s a good agent who has been with the bureau for over ten years —”

“Fifteen actually,” Arnie interrupted.

“I did say over ten years, no?” came Daly’s cool reply. “Anyway, good work today. I know there was more information thrown at you than one person could possibly hope to retain, but that’s where Agent Patterson here will be able to help. He’s been with . . . right right, fifteen years, we just went over that.” Daly paused to again shuffle through the folder, and Whitney felt the itch of expectation; was she supposed to shake Patterson’s hand? Salute? Thank Daly? Instead she did nothing.

“Well, what’s up first, Pam?” Patterson asked.

“Diane Park is probably the best place to start,” Daly

said. “She is very eager to share any information she has, and mentioned some other people when she called in.”

“We’ll get her on the phone right away,” Patterson said.

“No, it will be better if you visited her in person. You’re probably going to wind up in that area anyway sooner or later.”

“Which area?” Whitney asked, thinking about having to explain her extended absence to the boyfriend, then dismissing the worry as a nuisance.

“Miss Park is in Connecticut,” Daly replied, “Ridgefield.”

A mid-sized plane touched down at Connecticut’s Bradley Airport just three hours later, and among the impatient passengers and crying babies sat a man and a woman that were professionally dressed, spoke in whispers, and replied tersely (though politely) to the flight attendants who asked about sodas and snacks. There was something about the duo that conveyed purpose, even though neither their actions nor their sparse words served as credible evidence of who they were. Maybe it was the fact that they were not tempted by the doll-sized liquor bottles that sat in a special drawer on the flight attendant’s cart, or maybe it was that neither had made an attempt to remove their shoes or loosen their shirt buttons. Curious passengers imagined what they said to each other, whether they were speaking about oil contracts or arms deals or maybe an escaped criminal who had evaded the law for the last time. Were any of the onlookers able to understand the whispers, they would have realized how wrong their speculation was.

The second Patterson left the office, he matured by ten years; Whitney realized this immediately. Patterson reminded her of a misbehaving child, masterfully aware of which buttons to push on mom and what to say to dad. Take the scientist out of his laboratory, however, and his experiments no longer matter. When Patterson was around Officer Daly he presented himself as the opposite of professionalism, when he wasn’t with his superior he actually managed to incorporate a portion of that professionalism into himself. Whitney also noticed in Patterson a hint of paternalism that manifested itself whenever Whitney asked a question or muttered something about the case. Despite this change of behavior, Patterson was neither condescending nor domineering. Whitney was surprised, as the plane’s wheels screamed against cement, to catch herself thinking about how much she already liked her partner, and in turn how much she liked Agent Daly for pairing the two of them up. Whitney’s world had historically been one where humans treated each other coldly, and the humanity that had been shown to her over the past two days had planted the seeds of hope in the garden of her mind.

Ridgefield exuded the charm of so many New England towns, despite the fact that it was too populated to be called “quaint.” Beautiful Cape Cods on semi-private lots dotted the area, and seemed to protect the historic Main Street that stood like a aged forefather at center of it all. Touches of modernity were everywhere, but only if you looked for them, because if you didn’t then it was just as easy to look past them and into an era of horse and buggy simplicity.

“I definitely wouldn’t mind calling a place like this home,” Patterson said as they rode in the back of the car that had picked them up from the airport. It was that electric part of the morning that lived anxiously between night and day, filled with a potential that anyone who wants to can catch and tame. “Of course,” Patterson’s words continued to muddy the silent hum of the car’s engine, “I would have to be taking home Daly-sized paychecks to afford any of these.” He pointed to an ornate wooden mailbox they were approaching on the right side of the road. “That’s probably about all I could afford. Maybe if I folded myself up enough times, I dunno.” Whitney smiled at the joke, then realized it might be too dark for Patterson to see her appreciation and vocalized a tame chuckle.

“It is definitely early though,” Patterson continued, “really early. Maybe we should hunker down for a couple hours so we don’t catch the lady in bed.”

“Yeah, we could,” Whitney relented, “though if I had to guess, she’s been up for two hours already.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She just seems like a nervous person, and people with that sort of energy wake up early to make sure there are no monsters waiting for them in the light of a new day.” If Whitney had been looking at Patterson’s face instead of out of the window, she would have seen an impressed expression.

The car slowed as it approached the clean white home with forest green shutters. It was comparatively smaller than many of the other estates in the area, but even more put together. Surrounding the home was a carpet of lush green grass, and recently mowed according to the criss-crossed lines that were still visible. A detached garage was set back and to the side, and a scattering of oaks and maples stoically watched over the property. Whitney, who had always lived in crowded places free from personality, filed the scene away into the part of her brain reserved for wildest dreams.

“Looks like you were right,” Patterson’s voice pulled Whitney away from the scene. She looked at her partner, a question on her face. “About Diane being up already,” Patterson continued, “there are lights on.” Even though night was slipping away, enough stubborn darkness was still present to frame the illuminated windows. Whitney nodded satisfactorily, consciously humble over the lucky deduction.

The Park residence was secluded enough to make the arrival of every automobile an occasion, and the early hour further quickened Diane’s awareness of the car that had just pulled up outside. She had been waiting for the events which she anticipated were about to unfold. Diane Park was the type of person that always expected everyone to care about whatever was currently on her mind, and so the quiet of the past few days had been frustrating. But at last they had come calling, and she was willing to overlook their tardiness as long as they were ready to get to work.

Agent Call knocked on the door quietly, a 6:17 A.M. sort of knock, and both she and Patterson flinched when the door flew open just moments later. Facing them was a middle-aged woman wearing satin pajamas, a floral housecoat, and the alertness of someone familiar with early hours. It was then that three things happened, all at the same time: 1) Whitney’s mind went completely blank, 2) Patterson realized that it was up to him, and 3) Diane overlooked the incompetence of the bumbling duo standing before her and invited them inside for a cup of coffee. Needless to say, both agents were more than happy to oblige her request.

The offer quickly evaporated, however, with the introduction of a thick manilla folder that Diane produced from the living room side table drawer. “I’m sorry it isn’t digital,” she said, “I’m not a Luddite or anything, but paper is sometimes just easier.” She passed the bundle to Patterson, correctly judging the senior partner. Agent Patterson accepted the folder with the reverence of an awed Moses accepting stone tablets from the hand of God.

“We definitely didn’t expect someone to be so—”

“Prepared?” Diane punctuated Patterson’s stammering. “Thorough?”

“Yes, both. What exactly . . .” Patterson trailed off as he rifled through the documents. Agent Call felt the weight of conversation transfer to her shoulders.

“Can you provide a brief overview of the information you’ve collected, please?” Whitney said with an authoritative tone.

“It’s as simple as this: my son has gotten tangled up in something nefarious, something beyond his control. He’s a good boy, not one to rock the boat, and so that leads me to believe that he is being blackmailed or threatened or something to that extent.”

“And this started when?” Agent Call prodded, Agent Patterson’s head still down in the documents.

“Exactly a week ago. He stopped responding to my messages, so I made a trip into the city to make sure everything was alright. I met up with his girl, or rather his ex-girlfriend friend Claire.” Diane reached over to the stack of documents and shuffled through to reveal a cropped photo of a smiling Claire. “This is her,” each syllable was accented with her index finger.

“And you think she might be responsible?”

“I’m not sure,” Diane said, exhaling. “For a few days it seemed like we were working together to track him down. We were,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “a team, more or less.” Both agents nodded. “But then Claire supposedly spoke with him, and he indicated that he was in some sort of trouble.”

“Did she say what kind?” Patterson asked.

“She never told me. Maybe she never knew herself, I’m not sure. Maybe he never even contacted her.”

“And then what?” Agent Call asked.

“Then I hit a dead-end, with Claire as well as Ryan. Haven’t heard a thing from either since. I contacted the authorities, got out of that godforsaken city, and began collecting anything that I thought might be helpful to the case.” She gestured at the folder that Patterson was now just holding. The sheer quantity of content was going to require time to review. “I thought someone would contact me again, and I was right. It’s about time.”

Silence filled the room, and both agents attempted to judge the level of malice in her voice. Should their next words be consolatory or apologetic? Their deliberation proved unnecessary, however, as Diane wasn’t the sort to put up with extended silence.

“Regardless, you’re on the case now. And since I was so welcoming and forthright with the two of you, I don’t see it as out of line to request that you share all you know about my son’s current location. I’m assuming you know more than I do.” Whitney almost opened her mouth, then realized this question was made for the experienced half of the companionship.

“Well um, Miss Park, we would certainly love to, but it’s unfortunately against the law for us to disclose any information about a current investigation.”

The look on Diane’s face was one of disbelief. “I don’t think I understand, Agent, because it almost seemed like you just told a mother that she was not privy to know the location of her son.” Without hesitation, Agent Patterson leaned forward until his cheek was just inches away from Diane’s. He whispered something at a volume indiscernible to Whitney. The charmed words immediately broke Diane’s demeanor, and acceptance flowed from her eyes to her cheeks and mouth. “Well, you have my contact information, and you have the folder,”

Patterson nodded as Diane stood up to signal the end of the visit. The two agents followed suit. “Mam, we are very grateful for your hospitality, all that you’ve done to speed up the case,” Patterson said.

“Well be careful, and let me know the second you discover anything else about Ryan. He’s not one to rock the boat, and has always played by the rules. The last thing I want is for whatever’s been going on the last few days to mar his future.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Miss Park,” Whitney said,

forcing herself into the conversation while she still had a chance.

“It’s Misses,” Diane corrected.

And then the duo was once again in the backseat of the town car, winding their way down the charming roads of classic Connecticut.

“Looks like we are heading to the Big Apple,” Patterson said, interacting with his phone. “You ever been there?”

Whitney shook her head.

“It can be fun,” Patterson continued, “very unique place, that’s for sure.”

“What did you say to her?” Whitney asked. “It was like she melted.” Mischief manifested itself in Patterson’s eye.

“Oh, that. It, uh, it was a little trick that I have always wanted to try. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to work so well.” He paused for a Q&A, but Whitney looked on expectingly. Patterson cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Two great rivers meet in a city known for being the birthplace of blues. Your son is safely there.’” Patterson began to laugh, a great big guttural laugh that was undeniably contagious.

But Whitney stared incredulously. She wanted to be in on the joke, but not enough to pretend. “Sorry, I don’t get it.”

Patterson’s face lit up, as though Whitney’s words were a second punchline. “Neither do I! That’s just the point, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a load of bull.”

Whitney laughed. “What? But what happens when she finds out you were bluffing?”

“Someone like her, I bet she goes along with it, does a little research and finds a place that matches the clue and then rests her head tonight on a pillow of surety.” He paused, silently mulling something over. “Either that, or she does figure it out and swears unprecedented revenge on that scoundrel Agent Patterson!” The laughter returned, in waves, and this time Whitney joined in.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Driving through dozens of miles of cornfield-lined highway has a hypnotic effect. Enveloped by the relentless texture of barely broken gold, many a freeway philosopher has stumbled onto a great secret of the universe within the comforting arms of the American midwest. Ryan Park, however, was far away from this place of pontification. “Could you please tell me more about where we are going?” The question hung in the air and then melted away, unanswered.

As the car continued to barrel down the road, Ryan searched his mind for a method of escape. Images played in his mind of spies and mobsters simply opening the car door and rolling out, but the vehicle was traveling far too fast to consider such a death-defying feat. And even if he did abandon the vehicle, what would he do then? Run out into the cornfield and hide, only to be recognized eventually by a passing ag drone? “No,” he told himself, “I must wait to make a move until we arrive in a town.” There was a fragment of himself that believed his only possibility of escape would require the police, while another part of him (the same part that made an enemy of Victoria Lightbody, no doubt) had already self-identified as an outlaw. Surely any police officer he approached would immediately verify his identity, which would probably trigger an alert of his recent Freely inconsistencies. Ryan had a friend in college, or more of an acquaintance really, that from time to time would discuss how the government could fabricate evidence to shut up troublemakers. Ryan had never given these accusations much thought, as he’d never pictured himself as a troublemaker, but now the friend’s randomly recollected words carried weight. “What was her name?” Ryan pressed his brain for an answer. “Tabitha? Andrea?”

“Joy?” the name carried from the front seat and interrupted Ryan’s mental quest.

“Yes,” she replied, her distracted mumble a shabby acknowledgement of Bert’s attempt to get her attention.

“Are we getting close?”

“Of course we are. We aren’t going backwards. See for yourself.” Bert sighed as he retrieved his phone from the console and explored the screen. Ryan craned his neck to catch a glimpse of their current location, but Bert dimmed the screen too quickly.

Another dozen silent minutes passed, and the space between signs of civilization decreased. Farmhouses flew by every minute, then every thirty seconds, until they were welcomed to Carmi, Illinois by a sign adorned with the symbols for the Freemasons, 4H Club, and a handful of other organizations responsible for keeping the sleepy town from falling into permanent slumber.

As they pulled in, Ryan was swept up in the same comfort that a naturalist finds when swallowed up in the arms of a mountain meadow. He was a New Yorker, after all, and the site of buildings and brick, even just two stories high, soothed his nerves after spending so much time staring at blurred cornstalks.

They entered the parking lot of a small motel, just thirty or so ground-level rooms in the shape of an L and a front office attached to an afterthought diner. Joy shifted into park, but neither in the front seat stirred. Then at the same time, they turned to the backseat and looked at Ryan; he realized that it was the first time in their four hour trip from Blanchet that both of them had peered into the backseat at the same time. Bert’s ever-present 90% smile contrasted with the seriousness in Joy’s eyes.

“I am going to get a room for us, and then we’ll fill you in,” Joy said, all business. “Don’t try to do anything rash. We know you are probably worried, but so long as you are smart everything will be fine.” She opened the door. “You just wait here with Bert,” she added, and Bert nodded at the mention of his name. They watched her walk to the front office in silence, each step a crunch on the gravel parking lot.

“She’s right,” Bert said from the front seat, as if to himself. “There’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about, Ryan.” Hearing his real name was a shock. Bert cleared his throat, “Or Greg, rather.” He looked back in the rearview mirror, amused. The crunch of Joy’s footsteps returned, and they were soon in room 6, surveying the ancient, faded furniture that contrasted with television hanging on the wall. Bert rummaged behind the TV and unplugged the power cord as though it were a bathtub drain stopper.

Ryan fell into a boxy chair, somehow exhausted by hours of sitting. The bed squeaked loudly as Bert sat down on its edge. “Alright Ryan,” Joy said, still standing.

“How do you—”

“We identified your voice in Blanchet, at the diner,” Bert explained, holding up his phone as a visual aid. “Your story seemed fishy, and a voice analysis confirmed that it was.”

“Fishy? I just—”

“No, don’t bother,” Joy interrupted, “your story was easy to piece together. For some reason you abandoned your phone in New York, along with a girl and your mother.” Ryan failed to formulate a reply. “We don’t know,” Joy continued, “why you are traveling to St. Louis, or wherever you’re going. But the only thing that matters is that we need help, and you need to remain under the radar, and both of our success depends on your cooperation.”

Defeated, Ryan shrugged his shoulders, “What do you need from me?” Both Joy and Bert smiled at the straightforward question.

“You aren’t the only one trying to escape. Something, someone, whatever it is.” Bert said. “We may look like old codgers, and heck, we are, but we happen to know a thing or two about computer programming. Only our past has become a challenge as of late.”

“We sell identities.” Joy got to the point. “If a person wants to become someone else, start fresh, we help them. Sound familiar?”

“But what do you need from me?” Ryan repeated.

“Like he said, we have a history. There have been some close calls, and the next one might be the final pat of mortar between the bricks of our awaiting cell. It won’t be hard, your job, you’ll just interface with the buyer, collect the money, make sure the transaction goes smoothly.”

Ryan could see that this was more demand than request, and that any protestations would likely be ignored. That didn’t stop him, however, from trying. “But if you know my backstory, then you realize that there’s a chance someone’s already looking for me. I could lead the police or whoever right to you.”

“There’s definitely someone from the government on your trail,” Bert said. “We reviewed the traffic data for your Freely profile, and yours shows several visits from IP addresses where anti-terrorism contractors work, as well as some from Washington D.C.”

Ryan resisted the urge to react to this news, and instead feigned pragmatism. “Exactly, that’s just proof that you shouldn’t want anything to do with me. I’m poison for someone trying to hide.”

“Slow down,” Joy said with a tinge of uncharacteristic amusement, “the FBI deals with a lot of red tape, so it’s not like they’re laying in wait. By the time they show up, you’ll be gone.”

Ryan heard it immediately, the use of the word “you’ll” rather than “we’ll.” Whatever Bert and Joy’s longterm plan was, it didn’t involve him. And it didn’t seem likely that they would just let someone go.

CHAPTER TWENTY

New York City is everyone’s mistress. No matter how many Big Apple virgins touch down on JFK’s tarmac or enter via the expressway, the city constantly reassures that it exists solely for you. Allow yourself to get caught up in this egotistical notion (and most do), and there’s a magic to New York that is unrivaled by any other place in the world.

From the first glimpse of city that Whitney caught out of the airplane window, she was drawn under its spell. Even after landing gear rumbled and the duo faced the inconvenience of 8.3 million people, an enchanted Agent Call remained blind.

Patterson, on the other hand, had been to New York City several times. He enjoyed the good, despised the bad, and departed each time with a deep gratitude for his ability to do so. But when he noticed the stars in his partner’s eyes, he decided not to contradict her idealism.

“Do you agree?” Patterson’s question came in the back of a yellow cab that was steeped in a warm, acrid stench of body odor and combined with frequent stops to encourage motion sickness. Whitney’s gaze jolted away from the Eastside skyline.

“I’m not sure,” she was barely listening, and hesitantly made eye contact with her backseat companion. “Is it like on TV, where you have to ring the doorbell just to get into the apartment building? That could make a surprise tough.”

“It is like the movies, unfortunately,” Patterson replied. “Sometimes you can sneak in behind someone, or the mailman, but we probably shouldn’t make that Plan A.”

“What’s the alternative?” Whitney asked. “Try contacting Claire and cross our fingers that she’ll respond? Tip her off that she’s a person of interest?” These questions brought the conversation to silence, which butted up against the foreign words that the driver shot into his phone’s hands-free earpiece.

“I just don’t know,” Patterson said at last, and Whitney strained to recall the subject of his reply. “She’s what, 23? I don’t think she’s a bad egg. From everything Miss Park said, it seems like she may have got caught up in something she didn’t understand, then panicked.”

“Makes sense,” Whitney said, more interested in the towering spire of the Chrysler building than debating the moral fortitude of someone they had never met.

“Alright, well why don’t you see if she’s available sometime early tomorrow?” Patterson offered Diane’s meticulously prepared folder, and Whitney was suddenly aware of what was being asked of her. She gingerly accepted the book of documents.

“Do you have any tips? On what to say?”

“Nah, you’ll do fine. Just avoid anything that might sound accusatory. Assuming this girl cares about her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or whatever, all you have to do is make it clear that we want to help him. That’s it.”

A few minutes later the cab had moved onto other passengers, and Whitney paced the aisle of a nondescript diner with Claire’s number glowing on her phone. As Whitney waited for an answer, three booths adjacent were subjected to Whitney’s nervous walk-and-talk.

“Hello,” a friendly voice finally said on the other end. Whitney’s footsteps quickened.

“Hello, yes, hi. My name is Agent Whitney Call, and I am currently working to help find Ryan Park.” Whitney braced herself for the possible ending of the conversation, but was surprised to hear, “It’s a pleasure speaking with you.” Her face must have telegraphed this disbelief, because it caught the interest of Arnie, who sat behind a pile of glistening pancakes.

“Great, I’m glad to have reached you,” Whitney said. “My partner and I, Agent Patterson, are doing all we can right now, but we would appreciate being able to sit down and speak with you for a few minutes.” Then, realizing the bad taste that the last few words possibly held, added, “so we can help bring Ryan home as safely and quickly as possible.”

“Yes, of course, anything. When and where would you like to meet?”

They set the meeting for the next day at early lunch time, at a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint that Claire assured was away from prying ears. When the call ended, Whitney wore a look of utter stupefaction.

“What?” Patterson asked, well into the second pancake and alternating heaping bites with sips of $5 milk.

“I just didn’t expect it to be so easy,” Whitney said. “She was actually excited to meet with us.”

“Hmmm,” Arnie considered as he chewed.

“I mean, she definitely doesn’t seem like someone with something to hide.”

Arnie swallowed loudly, and rested his fork on the edge of the plate. “Or she’s guilty. I’ve seen it before. Some people think cooperation is the best way to escape suspicion. But we’ll know when we have the opportunity to look her in the eye. Assuming she actually shows up.”

“I think she will,” Whitney said, and she sampled the first bite of the lukewarm Mexican omelet in front of her.

Call and Patterson stood outside the pizza joint, feigning preoccupation while they kept an eye out for Claire. They aimlessly tapped and swiped their phone screens, both of which were illuminated with Claire’s Freely profile. Her featured photo was her smiling face in the midst of a backyard barbecue, a cropped-out companion beside her.

“Call,” Patterson said, breaking the silence. Whitney looked over at him. “I think it makes sense that you take the lead with Claire. You definitely have more,” he smiled, “in common, with her. My gut tells me that she’ll tell you a lot more than she’ll tell me.”

“Okay . . .” Whitney replied, her heart beating quickly with the news. “But what should I say, exactly? Or maybe a better question is what shouldn’t I say?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it too much,” Patterson replied. Whitney cursed him under her breath for being so accommodating.

“Okay . . .” she repeated.

“Just be honest with her. Don’t overdo it, obviously, but tell her that we’re concerned about Ryan. About her. We want to help. And then just listen.”

At that moment, a woman crossed the agent’s path and entered the pizza place. Her dark oversized sunglasses birthed a wordless conversation between Patterson and Whitney, a ping-pong of facial expressions that eventually confirmed suspicions of her true identity. In an act of unchivalrous chivalry, Patterson stepped out of the way and let Whitney open the door. Claire was standing in the front, having just realized that she didn’t know what either of the two agents looked like.

“Hello Claire,” Whitney ended the confusion. Claire turned around, removed her glasses, and flashed an obviously forced smile.

“Hello, Agent . . .” She extended her hand to the mysterious strangers that knew much more about her than she did of them.

“Whitney Call,” she laced the words with her own smile, and they shook hands. The ritual was repeated with Agent Patterson, and then the greeter led them to a small table in the back corner of the restaurant. A waiter approached the table tentatively, but then retreated when he realized that they were still getting settled.

“Well, Claire,” Whitney started, then stopped. She took a breath, opting for silence over stammering. “Well here’s what we know so far. Your friend Ryan has been gone for somewhere around a week. During this time, his Freely updates have been random, and we don’t have any idea where he is. But we’re worried about him.” Claire’s eyes met Patterson’s, and he looked away. “The two of you have been close friends for a while, so we, Agent Patterson and I, were thinking that he might try to contact you.” Another pause. “You’re not in any sort of trouble; we’re just legitimately concerned. We just want everyone to be safe.”

“Thank you, Agent Call. Patterson,” she added with a nod in the direction of the silent partner.

“Just Arnie’s fine,” Patterson said with a smile. Claire nodded, then turned back to Whitney.

“I appreciate your concern, both of you, and that you want to help Ryan. I have an embarrassing confession to make, and I hope that you’ll stick to what you said about me not being in any trouble.” Both agents leaned toward the front of their chairs, Whitney repeated Claire’s words in hopes of memorizing them. Then she remembered that the phone in her jacket pocket was already recording the conversation. Claire stopped talking, and for a few long seconds tried to figure out what to say next. The server caught this pause out of the corner of his eye, and energetically approached the table.

“Hello, you folks get a chance to look at the menus? Ready to order?”

“I’m afraid, not,” Patterson replied sternly. The neglected server turned away.

“I still like Ryan,” Claire said, “I like him a lot. But I’m sure you already figured that out.” Both agents answered her query with a shrug of acceptance. “Anyway,” Claire continued, “it’s because I care about him that I did something I shouldn’t have.” She paused, and in the silence Whitney felt the unease of a fisherman with a rainbow on the line but too much line out.

“Don’t judge yourself too harshly,” Patterson spoke his first real words of the meeting, “everyone makes choices they wish they could take back. Hell, sometimes it seems like I make more of those choices than the good ones.” Patterson chuckled, and the two women wore looks of amusement.

Claire took a deep and exaggerated breath. “Just before Ryan disappeared, he left his phone at my house. I thought it was an accident, it’s happened a couple of times in the past, so I didn’t think much of it. Sometimes we go through stretches where we see each other nearly everyday, and it was night when I found it, so I figured I would probably get it back to him the next day.”

“Did you try to let him know where he had left it?” Patterson asked.

“No, like I said, the whole thing had happened before, so I wasn’t worried about it.” She paused and cautiously looked at the agents, anticipating another follow-up question. Whitney thought she could see the cogs of Claire’s brain rev-up with every sentence. “A few days passed without talking to him, which was strange. And, well, for some reason I got the idea to pretend like he was still there, with his phone, and that we were talking back and forth.” This admission was met by four raised eyebrows, and Claire responded by lowering her head.

“Look, there’s no need to beat yourself up,” Whitney maintained, “what’s done is done. And it’s a completely understandable thing to do, we’ve all probably done something similar. But do you still have it? His phone?”

Claire bent down and reached into the dark abyss beneath the tablecloth, rummaged, withdrew a black phone, and sat it on the table. Patterson reached out and picked it up.

“Thank you for bringing it with you,” Whitney said, “it makes things easier.”

Patterson abruptly stood up. “It’s okay if we contact you again, should any other questions arise?” he asked.

Claire took the hint and stood up as well, relief emanating. “Oh yes, of course. I’m very worried about him; where he is, if he’s safe . . .” Whitney extended her hand, and they shook. Then Claire picked up her purse, smiled politely, and made her way to the door.

“Didn’t want to pay for her share of the pizza?” Whitney asked, amused.

“What?” Patterson asked.

“I guess just I expected hours of interrogation over basil and mozzarella.”

Patterson chuckled, “I like my interrogations like my women: short and sweat-free.” He chuckled again, then met Whitney’s eyes and stopped. “Sorry, never mind. I guess I just realized that with Claire, what else was there to say? She’s making a claim that, if it’s true, stops our case in its tracks. And if it’s not true, then she just lied to two federal agents and probably wasn’t going to reverse course while sitting in a pizza parlor. She met us here, she’s cooperating. There’s no need to press her. Let’s see what we can get from the phone and go from there.”

Whitney considered this logic, and accepted it in spite of her rumbling stomach. “So what’s the plan now?” she asked, unaware that she was staring at a piping hot pie that had arrived at the table beside them.

“We should probably get back to the hotel immediately and get to work, don’t you think?” Whitney looked away from the pizza, internalized her partner’s words, and dutifully stood up. A chuckling Patterson remained seated.

“What?” she asked. “Let’s get started.”

Patterson made eye contact with their server, who eagerly returned to the table. “One large regular pie, please.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Two hours later, the agents emerged from a haze of cheese and dough, and returned to the hotel room. Diane Park’s file was scattered about the bedspread in several, haphazard piles. Two pairs of shoes lay discarded on the stain-resistant carpet floor.

Detectives of yore would go days between morsels of evidence, praying for a torn receipt or half a muddy shoe print. In a post-Freely world, however, the challenge was not finding that sliver of evidence, but wading through the thick mire of needless messages and photos that surrounded every case. Freely ever-threatened to overwhelm law enforcement’s meager manpower.

It took just a matter of minutes for the shoeless sleuths to complete an unfruitful first pass on Claire’s profile, including her private inbox. The black phone that Claire had turned over was equally as unhelpful, as it had been programmed not to store any of the metadata about sent or received messages. Already facing a potential dead-end, Whitney decided to venture further into Claire’s past. Her eyes scanned through photos at the stop-and-go speed of a diner perusing a convoluted menu; someone else’s memories were just tuna melts with or without tomato. But an eleven-month-old conversation caught her eye. It was between Claire and Ryan, and seemed to capture their breakup. Whitney realized that, though she knew that the two were not currently a couple, she hadn’t ever ventured

107 Deliver Us From Data

to guess why. Many couples remain friends after-the-fact, but most signs in Ryan and Claire’s friendship pointed to the possibility that something still existed between them, a hope of a spark. As the full picture appeared in front of her, Whitney knew why.

“Looks like Claire cheated on Ryan,” Whitney said, breaking the unintentional, air-conditioned silence.

“Yeah?”

“Nearly a year ago. Some guy named Blake. I don’t know, it’s always tough to try and piece together the remnants of a relationship. But Claire was pretty devastated.”

“Really?” Patterson asked, amused. “Even though she was the one that cheated?”

“That makes it all the more devastating. She didn’t give up on him, Ryan, even when he wouldn’t reply. Which occurred for a quite a while.” Whitney interrupted herself with some on-the-spot calculations. “It was four weeks at one point between his replies. But that didn’t stop her. She still sent a message every day or two, without fail. Nothing possessive or pleading or anything, and sometimes just a sentence. But Ryan is definitely very important to her.”

Silence fell on the room as Patterson attempted, for the second time that day, to digest the feast that sat before him. Whitney returned from the digital past, and began second-checking more entries on Claire’s profile.

“That aligns with how she acted this afternoon,” Patterson said. He picked up his phone and scrubbed through the audio of the afternoon’s conversation. “I’m pretty sure she said something along those lines.” His finger tapped the virtual play button, and the ambient noise of the pizza parlor poured out of the bite-sized speaker:

“I still like Ryan, I like him a lot,” Claire’s captured voice repeated, “But I’m sure you already figured out. Anyway, it’s because I care about him that I did something I shouldn’t have.” Patterson sat the phone delicately on the bed. Whitney, a satisfied look on her face, nodded in agreement.

“So we’ve verified what she told us about her feelings for him,” Patterson said. “We know at least part of what she told us was true.”

“She loves him,” Whitney concluded.

“Maybe,” Patterson said, “we have no reason to doubt it. But I feel like there’s something else to it, a second force that’s almost as powerful at persuading someone to make illogical decisions.” The question floated in the air between the stale scent of cleaning products, leftover pizza, and feet. Finally, Patterson put the mystery to rest. “Guilt.”

Whitney nodded, wisps of understanding expanding within her mind. Then, at last, the light switch flicked on.“She did something she shouldn’t have. Because she cares about him.” Whitney looked at Patterson, who looked confused. “She wasn’t talking about sending messages to herself. The ‘something I shouldn’t have done’ is lying to federal agents.”

The detectives worked into the evening, though they both knew that they had already accomplished all they would that day. Sometimes the mind becomes so weighed down that it requires the stillness of night to cleanse its palette. Once the morning arrived, they took advantage of the hotel’s pitiful continental breakfast of unripe fruit and undersized, oversoft bagels (“You have to taste a real New York bagel,” Patterson reassured, “these putrid little pieces of dough don’t even count.”) After a few token bites, Patterson turned to Whitney and nonchalantly said, “I think it might be best if we split up for a little while.”

At first Whitney wondered if she should be offended by her partner’s desire be rid of her. But she dismissed that worry in favor of the hunch that she was being tested, or even the possibility that Patterson might just want some time to enjoy the city without feeling like he was holding up the case. The freshly-caffeinated agents agreed to meet back at the hotel for a late lunch, and Whitney stuffed her tablet and half of Diane’s file into her bag and headed out onto the street. She had a destination in-mind, though truthfully she wasn’t sure if it actually existed.

It took Whitney several minutes (and many inquiries to passers-by) to reach this destination: an enclosed football field of enchanted oak and marble. Ever since the first time she had seen a photograph of the Rose reading room, it had lived in the “Beautiful Places” file in her brain. Indeed her first response to a suggested New York City trip was a rush of adrenaline brought on by the thought that she might finally get a chance to see it in-person.

Her first step into the hallowed hall was delicate, as though every sinew of her body was paying its respects to the grandeur of the intellectualism symbolized within. She counted more than 30 large tables, and then turned her gaze heavenward and for several minutes admired the murals and ornamentation that adorned the mighty ceiling. The space awakened within her a spiritualism that she did not know was there; kindling had met a spark, and a dancing flame quickly grew into a mighty bonfire. Standing within that room, which millions before had overlooked and taken for granted, Whitney’s perspective on life experienced a sudden about-face. Undirected gratitude washed over her as she fell into a wooden chair at one of the open desks. For the first time since that night many nights before, when blood and the crack of bones blotted out all hope, she felt that the best moments of her life lay ahead.

Agent Patterson, in the meantime, had planned an afternoon consisting of exactly what Whitney had suspected: he wanted to enjoy the city, take a break from work, and at the same time challenge his wide-eyed companion. He felt the need to decompress, and was confident that progress would accompany Whitney when they reunited that evening.

Arnie Patterson had started at the Federal Bureau of Investigation during his final year of college at Penn State. The offer to work for such an elite organization came as a fig leaf in what is often the most stressful period in a student’s life. As a psychology major with a computer science minor, Arnie wasn’t exactly brimming with qualifications, but his grades were adequate and he was either too sly or too lazy to have a criminal record. He whole-heartedly joined their recruitment program, which was essentially a propaganda machine. Patterson received his first assignment while his diploma was still in the mail, and was soon made privy to the terrible truth that accompanies full-time employment: most jobs are unfulfilling, soul-sucking cancers. Of course, were he being honest with himself, he would admit that he never expected to have an exciting job. He had coasted through primary education, and despite his high school teacher Mr. Grove’s daily prophesying, proceeded to coast through college as well. As such, he greeted the disappointment of working for the FBI with a double-dose shoulder-shrug. His performance had since been adequate, nothing more or less.

He knew that an assignment to train a new agent was usually a hail-mary, thrown with the hope of igniting a fire under an apathetic career. He was no more Daly’s right- hand man than he was the president’s, but he accepted the case nevertheless. Despite a career spent one notch above complacence, he still retained a pride for the work the bureau was doing. The attack cemented this pride by justifying the job the FBI was doing, and training was an opportunity to score another soul for his team.

Patterson walked east, toward the river, savoring his lackadaisical pace. Locals flew by him on both sides, mostly impervious to distraction thanks to the headphones crammed in their ear canals. An attractive woman in high heels and a short skirt walked a yappy dog and talked endlessly, but Patterson couldn’t tell if she was talking to herself or if someone was on the other end of her headphones. A storekeeper rolled up the steel gate that every night protected the hookahs and nudie mags visible in the oversized windows. Patterson turned back, hoping for one more look at the woman. She was bent over the damp cement and attempted to scrape a half-runny dog turd off the ground with a plastic-bagged hand.

Once he reached the river, he mentally tested his geography: Roosevelt Island in front of him, Queens beyond that. Bikers and joggers flew past on a smooth asphalt trail, the peacefulness of the water almost succeeded in hiding the endless honking coming from FDR. For several minutes he simply existed, then a twinge of guilt displaced the calm. What clue or breakthrough would he show his greenie partner at lunch?

It wasn’t just efficiency that caused him to end their meeting with Claire so quickly, but a lack of confidence in his ability to conduct a successful interview. He had never been skilled at applying the subtle pressure needed to break through a blank face. Claire was lying, there was little doubt in his mind of that. And even though she had admitted to “willful identity fraud using a social network,” that wasn’t going to help them make any real progress on Ryan’s disappearance. For that they needed more evidence, and Patterson hoped that his junior might be able to fill in that gap.

Whitney thumbed through Diane’s file, which generated a meager breeze across the countertop. She tapped her phone, which displayed a time of 3:19 PM. She scrolled to the message from Patterson, sent nearly an hour previous, and double-checked the details: “Yamada Ramen. 67th and 1st. 3.”

After an afternoon of mental exertion, complaining about a few minutes of downtown seemed ungrateful. At the same time, she could barely contain her enthusiasm as she pretended to read the menu in front of her, written in broken English and protected by water-spotted plastic. The petite Japanese server walked by for the dozenth time, impatient with the customer who dared to wait until her friend arrived to order. Authentic ramen was not something that Whitney had ever had the privilege of sampling, and the whole notion seemed ridiculous. Ramen was something meant to be tolerated, not savored, and it definitely had no business costing more than fifty cents a serving. She eyed a poorly lit photo of breaded chicken on page three of the menu, and decided that it was more likely to align with her tastes. The hinges on the door squealed and brought Whitney back to reality. It was Patterson, who greeted his partner with a nod.

“You been here long?” he asked as he sat down on the stool beside her. Whitney straightened the papers and sat her tablet on top of them.

“Nah, not too long. I’ve just been deciphering the menu, taking in the ambiance.” One of the cooks, a few feet away on the other side the counter, belched loudly.

Patterson smiled and picked up a menu. A battle waged within Whitney, enthusiasm vs. common courtesy. Could she wait until they had ordered to tell him the news? Patterson flipped through the menu without bothering to read the Papyrus font. He sat the menu down and took a drink of water from the cloudy cup that had been waiting.

“Well, did you have any luck?” he looked at Whitney, then took another sip.

Whitney smiled. “Yes, actually, I did.” The enthusiasm of the words packed a punch, and Whitney mentally reminded himself to tame down the volume.

“Nice, that’s just what I was hoping to hear. Tell me all about it.”

Whitney brought her tablet to life, and with a few taps prepared for an impromptu presentation. “So at first I was looking at—” the unveiling was interrupted by the appearance of the server, who was in a hurry to make up for lost time.

“Hello,” the woman feigned pleasantness. “Can I get you anything to drink besides water?” Both agents shook their heads, and the server gestured to the menus lying dormant on the counter. “Then you are ready to order?”

“Yep,” Patterson said. “One order of TanTan each, please.”

In an instant the order was scrawled down, the menus collected, and the server gone, and Whitney realized that she would soon be sampling high-brow ramen whether she wanted to or not. The resulting silence signaled a return to her lunchtime presentation, and once again she turned on the tablet.

“The only thing I can remember from my high school English class,” she began, “was when the teacher talked about the theories that Shakespeare was a fraud. You’re familiar with those?”

Patterson nodded.

“The whole thing is based on a computer analysis of his works to look for similarities and differences in his writing style. They call them word prints.”

“I remember something like that,” Patterson said.

“The theory is that every author writes uniquely enough that you can look at two pieces with a computer and determine if they were written by the same person. Basically it’s a finger print made of adjectives and nouns.” Patterson nodded. “So I started looking,” Whitney continued, “going through her messages, Claire’s, from the past few months. I basically tried to perform my own analysis, find consistencies in the way she writes.”

Whitney looked at her partner in anticipation of an additional comment, but was met with yet another encouraging nod.

“I even contacted someone at MIT to see if they can help with full computer analysis, and am waiting to hear back. But even without it, there were a couple of clues that make me think Claire was not having a conversation with herself: the way that she always uses full punctuation and capitalization, and how the messages that she was allegedly pretending to send from Ryan only sometimes had complete punctuation.” She pointed to an example of two sentences on the tablet screen.

The server appeared again, this time holding two giant, steaming bowls of ramen. “Two TanTan,” she recited as she placed one bowl in front of Patterson. Whitney scrambled to close the computer and make counter space for the bowl. She abandoned the tablet unceremoniously beneath the stool.

Patterson was already a few slurps into his dish. “Maybe she is just really observant, and intentionally copying his style?”

“Yeah, I thought of that. And without the full analysis it’s impossible to say for sure.” Whitney slurped a taste of her own, and was surprised that the flavor was nothing like those little foil packets.

Patterson used the chopsticks to pile another coil of slippery noodles onto his spoon, and gulped the whole thing down.

“There’s something else, though, something even more interesting,” Whitney added in between bites of the soft- boiled half egg. “I cross-referenced the location data, and the messages were coming from separate IP addresses.”

Patterson swallowed, leaned the chopsticks and spoon against the rim of the bowl, and wiped his mouth. “That’s it,” he said cooly.

“Some of the messages were sent within minutes,” the volume of Whitney’s voice elevated, “but each was coming from different areas of the city. It’s just not possible that a single person sent both.”

“You have all this documented?” Patterson asked. Whitney nodded, “On my tablet.” She reached under

the stool to retrieve it, but hesitated with the thought that Patterson might want to finish eating before they talked details. Patterson handily finished off his ice water, tapped his phone a few times to confirm payment, then stood up from the counter. “Well done, that’s all we need. Let’s go.” Whitney scrambled to retrieve her belongings as Patterson headed toward the door.

The air had chilled rapidly in a short amount of time, and both were surprised when it slapped them in the face. Whitney’s stomach growled, while inside an impatient server took two bowls of ramen, one full and one empty, back to the dishwasher.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ryan wasn’t afraid, just worried. To some, those feelings are one in the same; does fear not build itself upon a foundation of worry? To Ryan, however, fear required inevitability, and for some reason he felt very much in control. Sure, he was in a dangerous situation, but for some inexplainable reason he maintained the surety that everything would work itself out. This confidence increased as he learned more about his two captors. Aside from demanding that he help them in their black market pedaling of manufactured identities, the duo remained far too grandparently to be legitimately threatening.

“That’s it?” Bert asked across the table. The three of them sat in Carmi’s only restaurant, a dingy place that, rather than printing a new menu every year, simply stapled an additional piece of paper to the existing offering. After hastily fanning through eighteen pages of endless fonts and colors, Ryan had decided on “just a hamburger,” which led to Bert’s incredulity.

“That’s all I feel like,” Ryan explained.

Bert and Joy ordered a plate of this and side of that, and then Joy turned to Ryan. “There are a lot of people that are unhappy with their lives. Their digital lives, specifically,” she said at a hushed volume. “More people than most would guess.”

“There are probably—” Bert attempted to interject, but stopped himself at the site of his wife’s stink eye.

“Everyone goes along,” Joy continued as if nothing had interrupted her, “with this whole Liberty act thing, keeps up with appearances. But for every ten ‘I don’t have anything to hides,’ you’ll find a person who’s on their last leg of sanity thanks to the type of world that Freely breeds.” She looked at her husband in anticipation of another interjection, but he added just a nod. Ryan wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask questions, or if he had any to ask.

“This sentiment isn’t news to you,” she continued, “you aren’t the only one who wanted out. Once a person admits that their greatest desire stands in direct contradiction with society, deviancy becomes the only option. If you spend any time looking for a solution in the back-alleyways of the internet—” her voiced fluctuated the sentence into a question.

Ryan shook his head. “I never looked online for a solution. All the tracking and everything.”

“Well if you had, you would have stumbled onto a service like we provide. We’re not the only ones. The best ones, maybe. People want a new life, and we help them disappear. But to actually live a new life, you need to have an identity. John Doe doesn’t have much to live for, he can’t get a job or a driver’s license. So we help them escape, and—”

Joy was cut off by the return of the waitress, who balanced a series of plates in Ed Sullivan Show fashion. The food was distributed in an awkward silence, and Bert muttered a soft-spoken, “Thank you,” with the placing of the final plate. Ryan lifted the bun off his hamburger to dress it with lettuce and tomato; the dull gray patty let him know what he was in for.

For a couple minutes the only sound coming from the table was chewing, dipping, sipping, and the scratching of cheap silverware on cheap plates.

“She’s right, you know,” Bert finally said between mouthfuls of shoestring french fries, “we really are a lot like you.”

This reassurance was amusing, but predictable. Ryan had figured out that, whether it was intentional or not, Bert and Joy operated in classic good cop/bad cop style. It was Bert’s job to soften Joy’s demands and make them more palatable.

“We actually played a part in the development of Freely, after it was acquired by Uncle Sam,” Bert said, not looking up from his red palette of ketchup. Joy shot him a Sophia Loren look out of the corner of her eye. Ryan could no longer withhold comment.

“So you’re partially to blame for this whole mess? I wouldn’t say that makes us that alike at all.”

Bert looked hurt. “Look, we’re not proud of it. We were at the time, but then, well—”

“Something happened,” Joy cut in. “We’re not going to get into it right now,” she gave her husband another icy look.

“Of course not,” Bert continued, “but just know that it put us in a very similar situation to you. We basically hit a dead end in our lives, lost friends, our jobs, had no way of digging ourselves out.”

“When everyone knows your business . . .” Ryan said.

“Exactly,” Joy agreed, eager to bring the topic to a close. “We realized that we could use our knowledge of the Freely code, of how the government verifies Freely users, and make some money helping people escape.”

The topic ended with all three of them turning their attention back to their plates. The waitress returned to the table.

“Did we save some room for dessert?” she said, determined to be cheery.

“I’m fine,” Joy said, then looked at Ryan.

“One slice of apple pie, please,” Bert replied eagerly, his index finger confirmed the desired quantity. The waitress nodded, then she turned toward Ryan.

“I’m okay, thanks,” he said. The waitress made her

escape, and the pie appeared in front of Bert just seconds later. The sight of it made Ryan regret declining his own slice; the poor excuse for a hamburger had done little to satiate his hunger.

“After you help us,” Bert said in between bites, “we’ll get you your own. A new identity.” Ryan looked at Joy, who confirmed this offer with a nod. Bert licked his fingers.

“We just need help with a handful of transactions in St. Louis. That’s it,” Joy said. They spoke as though they were offering Ryan an entry-level job, like he would have the weekend to think over the offer and make a decision come Monday.

“How do you create a person out of the blue?” Ryan asked incredulously. “What does it consist of? Do they have hobbies? They have to have their own friends, right? Someone on Freely without any friends would be suspicious.”

“How many ‘friends’ do you have on Freely?” Joy asked, the word ‘friends’ coated with disdain. “Hundreds? Thousands?”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know, somewhere around 2,500, give or take.”

“You have 2,674,” Bert said, the last morsel of pie having just ventured into the dark beyond of his gullet.

“Close enough.”

“You just forgot one hundred and seventy four people. How many friends, real friends, can a single person actually have? Twenty, fifty; whatever it is, I’d bet that it’s less than 174.”

“So we might all be Freely friends with someone that didn’t even exist a week ago?”

“Fabricated people, fabricated friendships, what’s the difference?” Joy said. She dropped the paper napkin onto her plate and stood up.

The musty hotel room transformed into an impromptu classroom, and school began for a boy whose knowledge of peddling fabricated identities was nonexistent 24 hours prior.

“It’s not complicated,” Bert assured him, “at least your job isn’t.”

Most people identify themselves by their relationships, preferences, knowledge, and experiences; we are what we love, what we do to put bread on the table. Most of us see ourselves as complex and interesting and one-of-a-kind; this sentiment is contradicted by the fact that the majority of humans repeat essentially the same series of decisions between birth and death.

A person, according to most governments, has nothing to do with preferences and choices, but numbers. A woman is not defined by the heartbreak she experienced when she was 24-years-old, but the fact that she was born at the moment that corresponded with Social Security Number 574-28-9928. She’s the 98th percentile in scholastic achievement, perfectly average in her debt-to- income ratio, and carries 1 incident on her criminal record. Each morsel of data, expressed as a random combination of 1’s and 0’s, comprises what Uncle Sam defines as Amelia Jackson, or Everett Croft. We are binary beings, just as much as any 1950’s android antagonist.

Bert and Joy understood this truth early on, just days after beginning their assignment to turn an existing social network into a firehose of voluntary anti-terrorism intelligence. “The quality of Freely’s data is contingent on the surety of its source,” they were reminded frequently. Layers and layers of checks were programmed, an accuracy goal of 99.5% exceeded. Rather than users seeing the multi-step verification process as unnecessary or intrusive, they celebrated it as secure. They were excited to do their part in the war on terror, and if it required blood types and bank accounts, so be it. Bert, Joy, and the rest of team received endless accolades for their work, and for a while they patted themselves on the back.

“There was someone else on our team, another programmer, and he thought that he was permanently in our shadow.” Bert explained. “To be completely honest, he sort of was. He contributed a lot to the project, but just isn’t one of those people that comes to mind when accolades are being handed out.” Bert looked toward Joy to add to the description, but she remained mute. “Anyway,” Bert continued, “he had just gone through a messy divorce, and hated us even more because we worked together. So he decided that he could get us out of the way by trying to ruin our marriage.”

“And it almost worked,” Joy interjected.

“He went into my profile, and made it look like I had been using Freely to carry on a secret affair,” Bert said. “Of course, it wasn’t secret enough that Joy didn’t discover it.”

“I was livid at Bert for a couple weeks; even thought about poisoning him,” Joy added with a smile. “But he kept insisting that there was something fishy going on, and that he knew nothing about it. For some reason I trusted him, and looking in the database I found some out of place code that corroborated his story.”

“What did you do to the guy?” Ryan asked.

“Well that’s the funny thing, we didn’t do anything,” Bert said. Ryan stared at the answer, perplexed.

“The whole thing made us sick. It made us realize that we had made a big mistake by choosing to be involved with the project in the first place,” Joy explained. “We thought that the more secure the platform was, the more accurate the data, the more it would assure the truth. What we didn’t realize, is all it really did was pour fuel on the lies.”

“And that’s part of the reason that we do this, to help people escape into new lives,” Bert continued. “I mean, well, there’s a lot of money in it, that obviously doesn’t hurt. Greater risk, greater reward. Economics 101.”

“Why not try to destroy the system from the inside, hack in and corrupt all the code or something?” Ryan asked.

“There are far too many checks in place to allow something as far-reaching as that,” Joy said. “And there’s a slim chance we wouldn’t be tried as cyberterrorists should we be caught.”

The extent of Ryan’s role continued to be explained into the next morning. The trio munched on stale muffins and sipped bland coffee as they pulled out of Carmi, pointed toward St. Louis. In the back seat, Ryan wrestled with the task that had been forced upon him. Aside from leaving New York to start a new life, he wasn’t the type that reveled in rule-breaking; getting tangled up with two middle-aged terrorist-enablers was not the best way to fly under the radar. If he was ever caught, the last thing he wanted to do was carry with him a list of additional crimes.

At the same time, however, he found it hard not to agree with their sentiment, at least the non-opportunistic half of it. That they had come to identical conclusions about Freely was a fact not lost on Ryan; was there a chance that he would be in their exact shoes if he too had a background in computer programming?

“Won’t a brand new Freely profile look suspicious?” Ryan had asked, but the question was met with confidence. “It won’t be a bare profile,” Bert assured him, “that’s part of the service we provide. There will already be dozens of photos and videos that support the life we’ve created for them.” Ryan toyed with a follow-up question, but

stumbled with how he should phrase it.

“It’s a matter of being thorough,” Bert said, reading his

mind. “I’m not too bad at photo editing. We’ve probably created well over 100 identities at this point, and we learn a little more with each one.”

The more Ryan learned of the steps required to create an

identity, the more justified the price tag seemed. The duo planned for every minute detail, they understood what was required to make someone disappear. Ryan started through the checklist of the steps yet again, but interrupted himself with a nagging thought that he was being taken advantage of. Didn’t he deserve at least a token cut of their proceeds, since he was the one putting himself into danger to complete the transaction? After all, they wouldn’t receive any payment whatsoever without him there, right? Ryan thought about how much easier it would be to start his new life with a nest egg of money. What would it be like to not have to worry about essentials like shelter or food? Maybe he was looking at it all wrong; he wasn’t their partner, he hadn’t agreed to any of it. His cooperation thus far had been founded upon intrigue and the shared desire to contradict the world Freely had created. But why did their first conversation revolve around what they knew about him? Was the whole arrangement a sort of understated blackmail?

This vein of thought soon combined with the hum of the engine to lull Ryan into an unrestful sleep. His dreams were feverish: a patchwork of money, back alleys, knives, and blood played and replayed through his semi-coherent brain. It was a stern “Ryan,” that came from the front seat and eventually saved him from his nightmares, just in time to glimpse the Gateway Arch against the late morning sky.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Anyone familiar with the laws of the United States knows that “the right to remain silent” is a pivotal element of the legal process. And anyone who has ever faced the fear of a uniformed police officer telling you that you are under arrest knows how difficult it can be to actually remain silent.

Claire didn’t put up a fight when Agents Call and Patterson showed up at her apartment that evening with two NYPD officers. She buzzed the door open, and even though seeing the visitors made her feel like throwing up, she forced a pleasant demeanor. But once the cold touch of metal wrapped itself permanently around her wrists, and once the officers finished listing off the rights that Claire knew from the movies, the pleasantries were replaced by a stream of poorly-thought-out lies.

If the detectives knew the whole story, it’s likely that they may have felt a twinge of admiration for the brave girl who was determined to stick to her story. She was unwavering in her decision to stand by her friend, and even in the backseat of the squad car remained unflappable. Every false confession and story was recorded by the cameras worn by the NYPD officers, and the phone sitting in the breast pocket of Patterson’s slurp-stained shirt. Every word was a witness for the prosecution, so that when she was reminded she should contact her lawyer, he simply shook his head and told her that she had already condemned herself.

Mere minutes after her booking, the Freely correspondence of anyone connected to Claire was automatically subpoenaed. 21,386 people woke up the next morning with a nondescript message informing them that Claire Monson was now in custody under suspicion of being a terrorist. Her little brother was the first in her family to see the message, and soon the whole family had gathered at the parent’s house to repeat to each other, “I don’t understand.” Claire had gone from no criminal record to an alleged mastermind overnight, and everyone that heard the news knew immediately that the story just couldn’t be true. Unfortunately, Claire wasn’t helping things.

Determination is at times an admired virtue, and at other times the mark of insanity. Regardless of the subject of a person’s determination, each hour that passes within its grasp is one more layer of mortar on the hardening masonry of their resolve. If the Claire of a week prior visited Claire the inmate, surely she wouldn’t have believed what stood before her. Nevertheless, Claire remained focused on Ryan throughout the ordeal. She wondered about his safety, and held tight to the appreciation that she was able to help him when he needed it. The demeaning nature of jail, the unwelcome glances of her cellmates, nothing could shatter the illusion that she was doing the right thing.

And so it might have continued, Claire locked away with her lies, detectives circling like sharks. Neither would have relented until the slow moving arm of American justice crushed Claire’s insolence with an unforgiving fist. It might have continued, but it didn’t, thanks to the ever- present ego of Blake Phillips.

Blake had also read the message just seconds after it arrived. He averaged only a couple hours of sleep per night, thanks to his always active mind and the endless distraction provided by his glowing phone. Stories of true crime were kryptonite to his rest, which resulted in ever- present circles under his eyes. Especially captivating to him were the stories where a murderer or rapist somehow disappeared into thin air; the thought of getting away with such an act was both exciting and perplexing. Was it just pure luck? Or something more? Did they have an attribute he could develop? “Not like I want to murder or rape anyone,” he assured himself.

Moments after reading the message, he realized that his plan had worked even better than expected. He had hoped that law enforcement might contact Claire, but never dreamed that she could wind up in jail. He thought back to when he and Claire were together, her thoughtfulness and willingness to sacrifice on others’ behalf. “There’s a chance,” he thought, “that her loyalty had driven her to defend Blake’s ridiculous story, and in doing so slapped the cuffs on her own wrists.” He had the power to ruin someone’s life. This realization carried with it a punch of adrenaline that forced him out of his bed and into a fit of feverish pacing. He had entered into an exclusive world, one that he was familiar with from fairy tales but had concluded long ago was unreachable. And the more he thought about it, the more something sinister took hold of him, something that lay dormant slithered to life.

The remaining hours of the night passed quickly. But the sun that eventually peeked into Blake’s half-blinded windows was overshadowed, the hope that it carried extinguished by proximity to a soul that was pitch black and sticky and free from empathy.

Even as he gloated and congratulated himself, Blake knew what was missing; no one else knew about his genius. What good was getting away with something if no one knew? He reflected back over the hours spent studying those that he deemed as truly great, those that he looked up to the way most of us admire explorers and vaccine- discovers. The mere fact that he was able to read their stories meant that they had been shared. The holder of a charred match easily escapes the burning house if everyone blames a faulty furnace. But then the furnace gets the credit.

Deep inside, Blake felt a twinge of something unexpected, new. He felt an excitement that most people only feel a few times in their life, when they decide to get married or procreate or move across-country or tell their boss where to stick it. It was a determination, a realization that the opportunity had been placed in front of him to truly make an impact in the world. The difference, however, between the adrenaline now coursing through Blake and what most of us experience, is that his was rooted in the drive to make others suffer.

The subway ride to the police station was filled with the purpose of a recent grad on his way to a first job. Blake stared at the souls around him with spite. He would soon be a name muttered by lips across the city, someone people feared.

“I’m here to visit Claire Monson,” Blake said calmly to the officer at the front desk. The woman’s fingers tapped wildly on a keyboard, yet her eyes remained fixed to the monitor.

“And who are you?”

“I’m her friend, we used to be together.”

“Just one second, I’m verifying your identity and

relationship to Miss Monson,” the woman said. Her fingers flew across the keys, then stopped for several seconds. “It looks like she is in a temporary cell, 17C,” the woman began another barrage of typing. “Officer Bryant will be out momentarily to escort you to the visiting area.” Then she added, still without eye contact, “You are about to enter a high security area, classified as such under law 448WKA, and therefore you are voluntarily subjecting yourself to an increased risk of bodily or emotional harm or death. Do you verbally acknowledge the waiver of any New York Police Department responsibility in your well- being, and grant full and unequivocal surveillance permission?” The words were rattled off at the speed of repetition, the silence allotted for Blake’s answer was dead air. At last the officer looked up from the monitor. “Sir?”

“Yes,” Blake shot out, not sure what he had just agreed to.

Some environments are unique in the fact that they are experienced by few, but known by all. The visiting area of a jail falls under this category, to the extent that Blake immediately knew what to expect when Officer Bryant opened the heavy metal door leading into a drab metal visiting room. The thick glass divided it in half, and ancient handsets sat on isolated hooks, the reminder of a method of communication forgotten by most. There was one other visitor, a young girl that barely seemed old enough to meet the 18+ requirement. She was speaking to a man, an inmate with eyes more distant than even twelve inches of bullet proof glass. The girl’s unintelligible pleas fell on deaf ears.

On the other side of the glass, which was scratched and streaked and flecked with a revolting cocktail of dried bodily fluids, appeared Claire. She looked directly at Blake, forced a subdued smile, then was lead to the metal stool across from his. Both held receivers to their ear, but nothing was said. This silence persisted for a few moments, during which Claire reflected on how grateful she was that one of her friends had bothered to visit, even though it was her ex-boyfriend and she would have preferred someone else. Blake was taken aback by Claire’s dark appearance, but delighted that his plan had transformed her from a smiling bastion of optimism into something so broken. He tempered his enthusiasm and forced a look of sympathy.

“So, uh, are they treating you well?” he said at last.

“Yes. Well it’s jail, after all, so I guess the bar really isn’t too high. Or ‘bars’ I guess I should say.” She smiled at her joke. Blake was unsure what to say next, just that he wanted it to pack a punch. Claire fidgeted with the metal cord of the receiver.

“You’re a jerk!” the girl a few stools down from Blake had had enough, and made an unsuccessful attempt to throw the receiver through her boyfriend’s skull; it exploded into a mess of circuitboards and wires. The guards on both sides of the divider jumped up, one wrestled the irate woman into the hall, while the other escorted the calloused inmate. Blake and Claire looked at each other, he more surprised than she. The visiting room door squealed open again.

“Hey, visiting time is over. We gotta’ clean this mess up,” the voice of the guard startled Blake. He scanned the clutter, nodded acceptance, then looked back at Claire. A smudge on the glass blocked her eyes.

“I just wanted to say, that, um, I’m glad you enjoyed the present I left for you at 59th street.”

By the time Claire realized the implication of this statement, Blake had gently cradled the receiver and retreated out of sight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Blake’s visit to Claire was the equivalent of sauntering up to the Grand Canyon and timidly peaking over the edge. His revelation to her that he was the one responsible for her incarceration was a fearless leap off the rocky wall into the infinite space below. That he hadn’t been able to see her reaction didn’t leave him wanting, but rather powered his imagination. He pictured a variety of reactions, from an explosion of tears to utter stupefaction (her actual response).

For someone like Blake, who had known for most of his life that he was someone to be feared, breaking free from the self-control he hated brought an immense feeling of relief. For the first time in his life, he had unleashed the evil he carried upon another, and he swore to himself that it would never again be caged. The trip back to his apartment was an elated blur.

Once he arrived, it was impossible for him to sit on the couch or bed. He paced, endlessly, tirelessly, for a better part of three straight days, while his brain struggled to choose its next attack. Then all at once, like a little white roulette ball coming to rest, a name appeared: Andy Brookman.

Andy had idolized Blake since they met in Freshman Biology. This is not a black mark against Andy, as the outward Blake was often suave and charming. Andy watched as his friend would confidently ask a girl to go get coffee, or tease a professor for arriving late to class. They started hanging out on weekends (Blake’s first invitation was the best day of Andy’s Freshman year), and Andy was amazed at Blake’s organization. He always had the perfect amount of drinks and ice on-hand for the inevitable spur- of-the-moment party. Soon, however, Blake grew tired of his one-man-fan-club. As the semesters progressed they stopped hanging out altogether, but Andy had sent Blake an out-of-the-blue Freely message just a few weeks earlier.

“Hey man, just moved to the city!” it said, “we should get together sometime and catch up.”

Blake had dismissed it at the time, reminding himself that he had decided never interact with Andy again. But the escalation of things with Claire, the feeling of finally being able to let his aggression run wild, had created a divide between who he was a few weeks ago and the person he was now. Andy’s endless enthusiasm was alluring in that it presented a challenge; what would it take to eliminate that smile?

“Hey Andy, it’s great to hear from you. Just found out my evening’s free, want to get together?” Blake knew the reply even before the message was sent. And he knew that it would come quick. He was right on both accounts.

“That sounds great,” the message appeared less than a minute later. “Where are you exactly? I’ll meet you near your place.”

Blake had just a few hours to plan, to prove himself worthy of the darkness that had embraced him. It wasn’t that he was having a hard time thinking of something to do to Andy, it was choosing. A disturbed mind can travel a million miles in the duration of a sneeze, and the vivid images of gore and brutality that played like a movie in Blake’s head were all immensely appealing. Occasionally they battled with what remained of his common sense, but that fight was far from fair.

“Yeah, I remember her, what a nightmare!” Blake shouted across the table. It was covered in the remains of a southern feast: buttered and deep-fried and served in unassuming crock-ware. The second diner was small and dressed in a tweed jacket. He chortled without apology, his face wore

the platonic ideal of a grin.

“There was that one time,” Andy tried to contain the

laughter building inside of him, “when I didn’t write my Shakespeare paper.” The word ‘paper’ shot out of his mouth with a chuckle, his attempt to hold it in made him momentarily asthmatic.“And you passed me your bio homework, and old Crawford gave it a B!” That was all it took for the laughter to break through the barrier; Andy leaned his head back to maximize the power of his guffaw. Blake followed his tablemate’s cue, though his laugh escaped at a much lower decibel.

“I can’t believe she gave you an B; my actual biology professor gave it a C!” Blake added, triggering a second eruption from Andy and another set of gazes from putout onlookers.

“It just proves,” Andy sipped his beer, “that she really was as blind as we thought.” Both became silent as they snacked on the tempting morsels still left on plates. The energy of the evening began to dissipate, it rose toward the rafters and made its escape into the brisk autumn night. Blake chucked his crumpled cloth napkin onto the table, and Andy followed suit. Both leaned back and sighed and tapped at their phones, their Pavlovian reward for a completed meal.

“Whoa, did you hear about Claire?” Andy said.

“No, what about her?”

“Looks like she got arrested. Wow. I never would have

expected that,” Andy shook his head. “That’s crazy,” Blake replied dismissively.

133 Deliver Us From Data

“Weren’t you guys dating for a while? I can’t believe you didn’t know,” Andy looked up from his phone.

“Been trying to cut back, I guess. On Freely and everything. Wow it’s already 1:30?”

“Yeah, I should probably go see if the C train is still running. Head on home,” his face made it clear that this was an action he dreaded.

“Where are you at again?”

“Ha ha, all the way up near Inwood. But not far enough into Inwood to be nice. It was the only place on Manhattan I could swing.”

A thought weighed on Blake’s mind, which caused him to bite the side of his cheek. “Well hey, I’m literally like two blocks away. I have a comfy couch. Why don’t you crash there for the night so you don’t get murdered and dumped on the tracks or something?”

Andy’s eyes widened, Blake might as well have offered a litter of pawing puppies. He laughed. “Really? Man, that’s too nice of you! I would love that.”

They paid, wrapped up in coats and scarves, and headed out onto the chilly street. Groups of people were scattered about despite the late hour, weaving in and out of the bustling bars.

“Do you like living here?” Andy asked. He was a couple paces behind his friend.

“New York in general, or Chelsea?” Blake replied.

“Oh, ha ha, either one I guess.”

“Chelsea’s fine, lots of good food. It kind of dies down

in the evening, but if you know where to go it’s not a problem. And I love New York, I can’t see myself living anywhere else.”

Andy nodded his head. “That’s cool,” he said, “I’m still not totally sure about it. New York. I mean, ha, don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredible place. I’m still just trying to figure out if it’s the place for me.”

Their quick arrival at Blake’s building ended the conversation, prematurely according to Andy. They made their way up the three flights of stairs, and Blake opened the door to his apartment with the subtle revelry of an unveiling.

“Wow, this is great,” Andy said. “Way nicer than my place, ha ha.” Blake produced a blanket and a spare pillow from the top of the closet, and after the obligatory introduction to the bathroom, both made their way to bed. Andy fell asleep quickly. Blake did not.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Ryan stared down at the bright screen of the phone. His breath distorted the numbers momentarily, then the fog faded to reveal “$125,000.”

“Alright, it looks like it went through successfully,” Ryan said. He wore a heavy coat, the kind made for spending time in the shadows of buildings during an especially chilly fall. The woman standing before him couldn’t have been much older than her mid-thirties, and every action she took was peppered with nerves. She wore a baseball cap low on her face, and spoke so quietly that Ryan had to strain to make out her words.

“The next step is for me to destroy your old phone,” Ryan said. The woman gave it up without discussion, and he proceeded to pulverize it between his foot and the damp asphalt. The woman flinched at the sound of crunching glass and silicon. Ryan picked up the pieces carefully, then swept the remaining fragments into the Tyvek envelope in his left hand. He then tucked that envelope under his left arm, fished into a second envelope, and withdrew a visibly worn but whole replacement phone.

“This is yours,” he said as he handed it to her. “That’s the most important part of your new life, so take care of it. Your identity, plane tickets to your new life, everything is ready to go.” The woman nodded again, and Ryan handed her a single folded sheet of paper. “Here are the necessary details that you need to know. I can’t let you take this paper with you for security reasons, but I’ll give you a couple minutes to make sure you memorize everything.”

“Can I make notes in the phone?” the woman asked, her eyes peered at him from underneath the hat brim. “I’m not very good at memorizing things.” Ryan thought about his training, and the first three transactions that he had already completed without a similar request.

“I’m afraid not,” he finally concluded. The woman didn’t protest.

A couple minutes later, Ryan wished her a obligatory “Good luck,” and the two of them parted ways. She melted into the muted camouflage of the city, and Ryan wondered if she would be able to successfully make the jump to her new life.

“How did it go?” Joy asked once Ryan had walked the handful of blocks back to their idling automobile. He climbed into the backseat and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Fine, no hitches.”

“Good, good,” Bert said, “let me see the payment phone.” Ryan handed it up, annoyed that after three successful transactions he still couldn’t be trusted without Bert’s confirmation. “Yep, everything looks good,” Bert said, and he dropped the phone into the console cupholder. Joy wore an invisible smile. “Just one more and we can call it a day,” Bert said.

Several minutes passed, and the car made its way through industrial streets and low income neighborhoods. The location of the final drop was not discussed, and Ryan wondered if the messy route they were taking was the result of a navigational error, or for his benefit. At last the car slowed to a stop in the pebbled lot behind a convenience store. Husks of yesterday’s junk food danced in the breeze, dropped suddenly to the ground, then jumped up again. The short autumn day had passed quickly, the afternoon would soon succumb to a token evening before darkness took hold of the city.

“Alrighty,” Bert said as he looked down at his watch, “Looks like maybe another couple minutes before the gentlemen shows up.”

“Where am I meeting him?” Ryan asked.

“You’re going to walk around to the front of the store, then up Park. You’ll pass a couple streets on your right, and the third is Haven.” Bert’s directions were accompanied by his own brand of improvised sign language.

“Okay . . .”

“There will be a self storage place on Haven, a small joint with just a few dozen units. You’ll meet him at the back of the lot, red sweatshirt and baseball cap.” Bert handed two envelopes into the backseat. Ryan took them without comment and opened the door.

“Be careful.” Bert said, “We’ll go get a nice meal when we’re done.”

“I should hope so,” Ryan thought as he shut the car door and started walking around to the front of the store, “I’ve helped them make over half a million bucks today.” He passed a bum who was wedged between a metal garbage can and the graffitied store wall, and Ryan tightened his grip on the two envelopes underneath his right arm. What would he do if the man jumped up and tried to take the packages? Prior to exiting the car for the first transaction, Joy had given Ryan a small handgun, a Ruger designed to be hidden inside a waistband or handbag.

“You shouldn’t have any problems,” she had said, “we’ve done this dozens of times and never had cause to protect ourselves. But it’s always good to be safe.” The words were the first that Joy had spoken to Ryan that carried any hint of concern.

“Stay safe, and don’t let anyone except for the customer get ahold of what’s in those envelopes,” Bert added in his grandfatherly tone.

But Ryan passed the bum without so much as a word coming from the bundle of blankets and cardboard. Ryan exhaled, relieved. He didn’t even know if the gun that now sat in his left pocket was even loaded. Was it nothing but a prop for intimidation? Was the safety on?

Ryan thought for the millionth time of the hypothetical cabin that awaited him, how the crunching of nacho cheese dusted wrappers would soon be replaced by the crunching of leafs. Maybe he would carry a gun for protection from a scavenging brown bear.

A few minutes later, Ryan approached the self-storage facility. It was as dingy and unwelcoming as the rest of the neighborhood, only instead of sporting bars over its windows it bypassed windows altogether. He wondered what sort of treasures it contained, how many of them decomposing. A man in a red sweatshirt and baseball cap stood toward the back of the lot, and Ryan approached him tentatively.

“Looks like rain,” Ryan said, fishing for the anticipated response.

“You never know, this fall’s been crazy,” the man muttered without feeling.

“Alright, first thing’s first, I’ve got to do a quick search for safety reasons.” The man complied with Ryan’s amateur pat-down, which was uneventful.

“Great, now I need you to initiate an anonymous transfer in the amount of $125,000 to this address,” Ryan held up the payment phone, a string of digits on the screen. The man silently tapped at the screen of his own phone, and moments later the payment phone vibrated in Ryan’s hand. He verified the amount, then proceeded with the routine: smash, collect, hand over, take back. Ryan slid the single piece of paper back into the envelope, and shifted his weight in preparation for a swift departure.

“Stop right there!” a second man appeared around the corner, he held a gun and walked briskly in their direction. “Put your hands on your head!”

“A sting,” the word appeared in Ryan’s mind, momentarily muting the shouts directed at him. The first man, the one in the red sweatshirt, stood beside his co- conspirator.

“I said get your hands on your head!” the second man screamed, now just a few paces away from Ryan and growing increasingly angry. “Hand over that phone!” The remnants of the day’s sunlight glinted on the barrel of the man’s gun.

Perhaps it was adrenaline, perhaps it was the culmination of a lifetime of untested bravery, but something flashed in Ryan’s mind, displacing the word “sting.” At once, all he could think of was the handgun that currently resided in his left-front pocket; its weight against his leg fluctuated from invisible to incredible in a nanosecond.

Ryan shoved his left hand into the pocket and dropped down onto his right knee. Identifying a threat, the second man made good on his own promise of force, and proceeded to unload the clip of his gun. Somehow, Ryan’s movements proved perfect for dodging the unforgiving lead. Several bullets breezed past his head, one pierced his right shoulder. The force of the hit knocked him backwards, and he almost fell over. Reversing his momentum, Ryan pushed himself back upright, against the howling pain that now engulfed the right side of his body. In the same motion he aimed his own gun, unsure if there were bullets within, and rapidly squeezed the trigger. Three shots rang out, eclipsing all else, and embedded themselves within the man’s brain. He collapsed immediately to the ground.

The partner lunged for the gun that had landed with a hard clang a few feet away. Without thinking, without hesitation, Ryan unleashed two more bullets; they cut through the air without mercy and eagerly ripped through the man’s chest and caused his latest breath to be his last.

Ryan slid the gun, now feverishly hot, back into his pocket. Ever more conscious of the pain in his shoulder, Ryan grunted and forced himself upright. He spun around, looked for witnesses, and caught site of a few people poised tentatively on their front porches. Ryan was three steps into a run when he remembered the evidence that sat somewhere amidst the gore. He retrieved it quickly, the paper envelopes and phones already crimson-soaked. He scooped it all into the cradle of his semi-functional right arm, then ran from the bodies that were splayed out awkwardly on the ground. Two pools of blood ran together and mixed with the motor oil and acid rain.

The blocks between the storage facility and the waiting car stretched into miles as Ryan traveled them. At one point he stopped to switch the mess of envelopes and phones into his left hand, which allowed him to pick up the pace without fear of dropping the bundle. He was supremely aware of the people he passed, waiting at bus stops and smoking in driveways. He wondered whether they noticed the blood splattered about him.

When he finally turned into the convenience store parking lot, he noticed that the bum had vacated his spot, perhaps in search of a shelter to protect him from the oncoming night. Calamitous sounds now escaped from behind the lot, of breaking glass and desperation. Ryan’s pace slowed, he pressed himself against the dumpster, then peaked tentatively around its metal wall. The doors to Bert and Joy’s car were open, and a man rummaged in the trunk. Squinting to focus, Ryan thought he saw an arm dangling from the driver’s side door.

The man threw the contents of the trunk to the ground, and removed the carpeted false bottom made to conceal a spare tire. What he discovered again proved unsatisfactory, and he slammed his fist against the side of the red, clear- coated aluminum. He turned in Ryan’s direction, and swiftly stomped away from the car. Without thinking, Ryan shoved himself between the garbage container and the brick wall. He huddled there, muscles spasming, as the man’s footsteps passed and became one with the neighborhood.

Worried that the man might return, Ryan emerged from his hiding place and hurried to the car. It took just a couple steps to confirm that there was indeed an arm dangling from the driver’s side door, and a few more to verify that its owner was Joy. The inside of the vehicle was so covered in gore that it was difficult to comprehend. Glossy red splatters covered the dashboard, roof, seats, and every other visible surface. Both Bert and Joy sat slumped in their seats, gaping bullet holes visible in their foreheads. Ryan felt the urge to check Joy’s pulse, to verify that Bert’s chest wasn’t moving; at the same time, the horror that proximity might make him part of the grizzly scene kept his feet cemented in place. His ears caught hold of a sound, a small vibration that was possibly the result of firing a gun inches away from his ear. It reminded him of the sound that spilled milk made as it jumped from the kitchen table to floor. Leaning (but not stepping) closer, Ryan strained his ears, and the change of perspective revealed the source of the sound.

Joy’s death wasn’t the result of a single bullet, but several, a cluster of three or four in her chest. Though her black sweater did its best to disguise the wound, the trail of blood leading from her chest gave it away upon closer inspection. The course it ran was direct; down her stomach and across her denim pants before dropping the remaining foot to the floor mat with a gentle, barely audible, drip.

Understanding the source of the sound turned his stomach and attacked the stability of his knees. He dropped his head and rested forearms on knees and took a series of deep breaths. Whatever he did, it had to be fast, it had to be deliberate. Cops were sure to swarm within minutes, and nothing was more important than escaping their suspicion. He glanced at the arms of his jacket, and realized his own conspicuousness. A large and growing red spot covered his right jacket sleeve and part of his chest. Additional blood, presumably not his own, was smeared and splattered about the remaining fabric. His left arm still cradled the assortment of envelopes and phones. For a few seconds he weighed the risk of dumping it all, then thought better of it and slipped the working phone into his pocket. The rest went into the trash.

He wanted to check his throbbing shoulder, but the imagined sight of speeding squad cars pushed him anxiously away from the morbid scene. He thought he could in fact hear sirens, but they were too faint to know for sure. He started to run, now less encumbered thanks to the lightened load. The blocks ticked by as he created a mental checklist. First, get to a safe place, then bandages and a fresh set of clothes. He wondered about the possibility of slipping into a clinic or doctor’s office, but that would be too much of a gamble. They would surely report someone with bullet wounds, or at least demand a hefty sum as hush money. And he didn’t even have—

Ryan slowed his stride to a walk and gingerly removed the phone from his pocket. He stopped completely, scanned the block for onlookers, and flicked the phone on. The display lit up with the payment ID number, a reminder of the aborted deal. At the bottom of the screen, below the identifier, was something that quickened Ryan’s pulse and lowered his jaw. Under the section labeled “Current Balance” was the number $625,000.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It took Claire’s family a couple days to gather the required bail, during which her mother refused to eat a single bite of food. Despite the many authoritative fingers pointing guiltily at her daughter, Trudy Monson refused to believe that any of it was possible. Visiting her daughter in jail was a torture beyond anything the poor mother ever imagined, as was seeing her daughter sealed off from the world and surrounded by the cruelty of incarceration. The hours passed slowly between that first visit and Claire’s release, and Trudy noticed a profound change in her daughter in that 53 hour period.

The optimistic Claire, long-suffering and slow to complain, had become unstable. As they walked out onto the bustling street, Claire back in the clothes she had worn two days previous, Trudy looked closely into her daughter’s eyes. They were cold and detached, something that Trudy had never expected to see in her daughter, something that almost bought her to tears.

Blake’s visit had occurred a few hours previous, and in the time between his bombshell and being set free, much had poured through Claire’s mind. At first, she was convinced that she had simply misheard Blake’s final words. After all, why would he go out of his way to toy with her, and then follow it up with a visit to claim responsibility? Claire knew that there could be a cruelty in Blake, but this unprovoked attack was beyond what she thought him capable of.

She eventually relented that she had heard the words

clearly, but doing so forced a confrontation of their significance. She deconstructed the days since Ryan had disappeared, the silence eventually broken by a string of uncertainty; there was no denying it, she had been strung along by her own hope. Claire’s stomach dropped as she replayed her own naive participation, her mailbox mission. Even when her lawyer made a brief appearance, Claire was too disgusted in her own foolishness to mention anything about Blake.

Then there was the realization that Ryan had indeed vanished without a trace several days before. Was he hurt? Had there been an accident? Why hadn’t he said anything at all, done anything to quell her concern for him? But as Claire dwelt on the fact that she had been had, and far too easily, her sympathy for Ryan faded. He was the one that had set her up, whether it was intentional or not. If he had never left, or had made a single effort to contact her or tell her he was okay, Blake wouldn’t have been able to follow through with his pernicious prank. Claire struggled with these thoughts as the cab inched her and her parents to the train station.

“Maybe it would be best,” her mother suggested, “if you came home for a few days, let this whole thing die down?” Claire agreed, though she knew that part of her mother’s suggestion came from the desire to observe her daughter for signs of instability. Truthfully, Claire admitted to herself, she was unstable.

Once at Penn Station, they purchased their tickets, loaded onto the train, and chose a seat for the two and a half hour trip to Poughkeepsie. The train wasn’t scheduled to depart for another twenty minutes, and Claire closed her eyes in an attempt to hijack a nap, but they soon popped back open. Both parents were reading on their phones, her father was probably deep in a World War II era biography, her mother was likely working on the latest bestseller. Claire minimized her movements, hoping that the glowing screens would keep them from looking up at her with a face filled with concern. Her own phone was still in her mother’s purse, she realized, where it had been since being handed over by the discharge officer at the jail. “I should have just left it,” Claire wished. She didn’t want to touch a phone again, not after it had helped to unravel of her previously pleasant life.

The thought struck with the force of a meteor, tearing through the topsoil and shaking the ground: why did Blake have Ryan’s phone? It didn’t make any sense; they weren’t even remotely friends. Her anger towards Ryan encouraged her to ignore the question altogether. But she couldn’t, there was simply no scenario she could think of in which Ryan would have willingly handed his phone over to Blake.

Claire lunged toward her mom’s purse, and both parents jumped. Her startled father jerked his head upward and flung the reading glasses off his face and onto the floor with a clang.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded. Claire ignored the question, and instead hunted through her mother’s purse.

“What are you looking for?” her mother asked. She wanted her purse back, but was too worried to take it. Claire fished her phone out and stared at the digital keypad that showed on the screen.

“I need our lawyer’s number, what is it?” Claire asked. Her parents look at their daughter, then each other, then back at their daughter.

After a few taps and a couple swipes, her father said, “Here you we go, you ready?” Claire nodded. “Alright,” he continued, “it’s 212-384-2847.” Claire lightning dialed.

“Mr. Schwartz? Yes, this is Claire Monson. I think I can prove what happened to Ryan. Yes, yes.” Claire stood up from the seat and started moving toward the door. Her parents watched her, confused. “Sorry,” she said, “but we need to pay another visit to Mr. Schwartz.”

“You should have told me about this earlier.” Mr. Schwartz said from the other side of his mahogany desk. “You should have called me the second he arrived. I can’t believe they permitted him to visit in the first place, given the fact that you were almost on your way out. I’m going to have a word with the district judge about it, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said, “I’ve been in a daze for the past couple days. It just took a while to sink in.”

“Well that’s understandable. No one blames you, of course. I’m just glad you put two and two together before you were all the way back in Poughkeepsie.” He nodded toward Claire’s parents, who were sitting in two leather chairs against the back wall of the office.

“Can we prove what the boy said, Schwartz?” Claire’s father asked.

“Surely there’s some sort of audio monitoring in the visiting rooms,” the mother added.

Mr. Schwartz nodded his head methodically. “It’s a crap shoot, quite honestly. You’d think the whole jail would be wired, and it usually is. Is the equipment functioning correctly, did the mics actually pick up the conversation, these are other questions altogether. He looked from the parents back to Claire. “You are certain there’s no other way Blake could have gotten ahold of Ryan’s phone? Perhaps he was spoofing the metadata, playing a juvenile prank?”

“No,” Claire shook her head, “they were never friends. At all. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense.” The words reassured her own doubts as much as the doubts of the man sitting before her.

“Well here’s the good news. I’m going to pull the audio and video surveillance. Even if we strike out as far as obtaining a record of his statement goes, the fact that he visited you at all is suspicious. I think I might be able to obtain a search warrant based on the evidence of the visit alone, but we’ll have to see.”

The search warrant was obtained quickly, and around the same time Whitney had the urge to check on the progression of Claire’s case. She found out that Claire was out on bail, which wasn’t a surprise for someone with no priors and a loving family.

Though Whitney and Patterson had been able to prove Claire’s fraudulent testimony and an impedance of justice, Ryan was still missing. Regardless of how they arranged and rearranged the containers of evidence, they were stuck. Agent Patterson had accepted his role in the case as a passive one, a fact that he justified with the fact that his partner was still a greenhorn. Truthfully, he simply felt they deserved a little downtime.

While her partner embarked upon a little on-the-job vacation, Whitney continued to pour through case files and Freely data. She double-checked the facts and imagined hypothetical scenarios. The adrenaline of the chase and the addicting nature of hard work had caught hold of her, and nothing could satiate her desire to be actively engaged. In the course of this restlessness, Whitney stumbled upon something that made her pause: A search warrant request filed under the name B. Phillips. “There are eight million people living in this city,” she rationalized. But the address seemed familiar, and in less than a minute her suspicion was confirmed: This was the same man that had dated Claire Monson.

“Hey Patterson, get this,” Whitney called over to her partner who was drowsing on the twin bed.

“Yeah?” came a half-hearted reply.

“Yeah. A search warrant request for the ex of Claire Monson.”

“When did it come through?” Patterson sat up from his reclined position.

“That’s the thing. Just a few hours ago.” Patterson sat up the rest of the way and stared, a dazed look on his face and his head cocked slightly to one side.

“Something has to be going on, right?” said Whitney.

“Seems like it,” Patterson replied. Sitting on the side of the bed, he slipped his shoes on.

Local police officers usually show some hesitancy when the FBI moves in on their case, but Patterson and Call made it clear that they were “just along for the ride,” and their willingness to take a backseat proved valuable. The only conflict occurred right after the two agents first arrived at the police station, with Whitney’s demand that “Someone should have told us that Miss Monson had a visitor!” This rebuke was met with a shrug, and both parties quickly moved past the criticism. Soon, a simple plan was laid: a team of six (four cops plus the two detectives) would storm Blake’s apartment in the middle of the night, in search of any shred of evidence that might tie him to Ryan’s disappearance.

City cops face the unique requirement of having to get inside an apartment building without first alerting the residents. In the suburbs the police can just knock on the front door, in the Big Apple you first have to get through two sets of ground level doors, guarded by a doorman or at least an intercom. Luckily, the landlord of Blake’s building was the cooperative type. “We do background checks on all the tenants,” the landlord assured them, “but you never know. Whatever I can do to make sure no doors are broken down or anything, I’d be happy to do. Just want to avoid any sort of trouble.”

They decided on the following night, which proved brutal for anyone stubborn enough to find themselves out on the street. The wind was relentless, it carried upon it the spiteful cold of the Polar Vortex. No amount of layering could keep it from reaching a person’s shivering core. It forced the usual loiterers inside, and made a city of millions feel deserted. It was the sort of cold that that softly embraces those without shelter and lulls them into a sweet sleep from which they never wake.

The team hurried their way toward Blake’s building, and along the way they spoke in monosyllabic fashion for fear that anything more would be swept away by the wind. A food delivery bike rode past, and the rider was padded like a snowman. A single brown paper bag sat in the bike’s front basket, the allure of greasy Chinese food always trumps a tortuous night. At last they reached the building, and met a stout figure who was cowering in the entryway of a darkened restaurant.

“Mr. Callahan?” one of the senior police officers named Grant asked.

“That’s me,” came a reply. “You’re late. I’m pretty sure my toes already broke off and are now rattling around in my shoes.” Grant and the others chuckled, but the streetlight that illuminated Callahan’s face revealed a complete absence of amusement.

“We’re sorry to keep you waiting in this ungodly weather,” Grant said, “we really appreciate you meeting us.”

“Like I said, I’m just here to make sure there’s no damage to my building,” Callahan replied. “Let’s get to it, then.”

The apartment building was typical for New York City, narrow and comprised of five punishing flights of steep stairs. Callahan unlocked both entryway doors, and held the second one open as six others shuffled past. The group made their way up the stairs single-file, softening each footfall in an attempt to preserve the element of surprise. Once they arrived on the fourth floor, the group hovered on the landing. A sliver of light at the bottom of Blake’s door informed them that the person inside might be awake.

“Call, Patterson, get up here,” Grant whispered. “We flood the place the second Callahan opens the door— don’t want the jingle of the doorknob or something giving us away.” Whitney and Patterson moved past the officers, and took their place behind Callahan. Down the hall, the door to another apartment cracked open, then quickly slammed closed. “Damn,” Grant muttered.

Three days and thirteen seconds later, Callahan had finally retrieved the correct key from a janitor-sized keyring. He slid it into keyhole in one motion, like someone that had spent a lifetime fighting to open stubborn doors. The lock mechanism clicked, and Callahan stepped out of the way.

Grant looked back to confirm that all was a go, and received a nod from the five behind him. He threw the door open with might.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The blood rushed from Ryan’s head. His heart raced as he looked back down at the screen, unable to believe the number he saw. He was rich. He had all the money he needed to get to Montana. To buy the cabin that insofar had only existed in his imagination.

Then he remembered that he still looked like the survivor of a slasher film. Across the street and a block away, Ryan saw someone moving in his direction. He started towards the man, who was bobbing his head to the music pumping through headphones. As he got closer, Ryan could tell that the man was probably in his late thirties, and that he was a good six to eight inches taller than Ryan was. He wore a navy blue pea coat. Now just a hundred yards away, Ryan tried and failed to make eye contact. The man looked down at the sidewalk as he jammed out, oblivious to the blood-soaked person before him. Ryan continued, unflinching but growing nervous.

At last the man looked up, and his face cycled through a range of reactions: confusion, understanding, fear, panic. Just as it seemed like he might run away from his grim sidewalk companion, Ryan held up his left hand.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Ryan said. The man took a step back and gingerly removed his headphones. “I’m sorry for startling you,” Ryan repeated, taking a small step forward.

“I don’t want any trouble, just let me go my way,” the man said, taking a few steps of his own backwards. “Neither do I,” Ryan forced a smile, aware that it probably made him look like a psychopath. “I just need a coat.”

“It’s cold,” the man pulled the thick canvas tighter to his chest.

“I’ll pay you $500 right now for it,” Ryan countered. The man’s face softened, then flashed with a question.

“What sort of trouble you in?” the man asked.

“$1,000? How does that sound? Give me a payment ID.” Ryan removed the phone from his pocket, and the man flinched. He stared at Ryan, looked over his shoulder and around the block, then back at Ryan.

“You promise no one will come looking for me?” the man asked. Ryan replied with a shake of his head. The man took a step towards him, and reached into his pocket to retrieve his own phone.

The door to the drug store chimed as Ryan walked inside. The clerk looked at him, then back at the magazine she was reading on her phone. Ryan pulled his pea coat tighter, and snuck a glance at his right shoulder: still no sign of blood. He grabbed a plastic basket and made his way to the first aid products, a measly array made for skinned knees and toothaches. Ryan dropped a few packs of rolled gauze into the basket along with medical tape, a plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and some nonstick pads. The store’s section of tourist souvenirs trumped their first aid supplies, and included shot glasses emblazoned with the state seal and first names from Aaron to Zach. Ryan brushed passed a selection of St. Louis arch miniatures and grabbed a couple garish T-shirts of the arch and a large blue sweatshirt that said “Established 1764” in a faux vintage typeface. He added a few candy bars and a bottle of ibuprofen and made his way to the counter.

The clerk looked at him with suspicion as he unloaded his collection of medical products, but said nothing. Ryan pointed at a cheap phone enclosed in a plastic display case behind the counter.

“And that phone too, please.”

The clerk scanned it and added it to the odd selection of items. “$228.82,” she said. Ryan took a breath and removed the phone from his pocket. He swiped the screen, and held it a few inches from the payment terminal. It beeped.

“You’ll receive a message with your receipt,” the clerk said, scooping up the bag and holding it out to him. Ryan tried to take the bag with his right arm, but winced as pain screamed through his shoulder. Without making further eye contact, Ryan scooped up the bag with his left hand and exited.

Back on the street, Ryan again surveyed his shoulder for signs of red. He thought back to what the clerk had said about the receipt, and wondered what address it would have been sent to. Would the detectives investigating Bert and Joy’s murder receive a clue from beyond the grave? That the payment went through at all was a relief, but he worried that his six digit stash could be siphoned away at any time. Ryan sat down his bag of supplies, and pulled out the new phone. It took just seconds to transfer the money from the old phone to the new, and then the final piece of evidence (other than his shoulder) from two murder scenes was pulverized underfoot.

Three storefronts down from the drug store was a pizza restaurant. Ryan entered and saw the bathroom sign.

“Do you need a table?” a man asked.

“Yes please,” he said, looking around the restaurant. “Just for one?”

“Yep.”

Ryan sat down at a small table for two, and put the

menu on the table without looking at it. “I need to use your restroom,” he said to no one in particular, then picked up the bag and made his way to the back of the restaurant. Cleanup was hurried, imprecise, and painful. Once his coat, jacket, and shirt were reduced to a mound in the sink, Ryan got his first clear look at the damage on his shoulder. Though at first the wound seemed catastrophic, a paper towel and the peroxide quickly deescalated the severity of its appearance. Luckily for Ryan, the bullet had struck his shoulder not in the middle, but at the edge, a graze. It was difficult to discern with fresh blood streaming, but he thought he found the exit point.

He emerged just as the server was debating knocking on

the door. A mountain of gauze now covered what he hoped was a sterile wound. He felt ridiculous in the oversized T- shirt and sweatshirt, but immensely glad that he no longer had to worry about crimson spilling through his clothes. The peacoat rested over his arm, which concealed a blood- soaked shirt, jacket, and few dozen paper towels.

“Is everything okay?” the server asked, seeming genuinely concerned.

“Absolutely,” he replied with a smile. “I’ll have the pasta with pesto and chicken.”

Ryan held his breath when it came time to pay, worried that transferring half a million dollars in one transaction might have triggered some sort of freeze on the funds. But the payment went through without a hitch, and Ryan left a $100 tip and exited quickly.

Back onto the street, the neighborhood had undergone a transformation. Though it was almost dark, the last remnants of daylight held on above the horizon. Ryan’s wound was bandaged, his stomach was full, and he had access to more money than he could ever imagine needing. Sure, he looked like a zombie that had wandered through a tourist trap, but once he ditched his stained clothes he would be free of evidence that could tie him to the awful events of an hour before. He acknowledged the ridiculous lack of foresight that encouraged him to embark on this adventure, and how lucky he was to be alive. Still, after everything, Montana seemed closer somehow. Across the street, a sappy young couple held hands as they walked by. They didn’t look over at Ryan, or anywhere else so deep was their infatuation. Claire’s face appeared in Ryan’s mind, the profile of her sitting on the couch reading a book on a lazy Sunday afternoon. He saw her stop reading, look up, and smile. A pain surged through Ryan that had nothing to do with the sensation coursing through his shoulder. He forced his brain to move on and his eyes to look away, and hurried over and made a deposit in the large metal garbage container behind the restaurant.

As darkness squeezed the remaining life out of the day, he reminded himself that he was very far from being able to relax. He was still in the middle of St. Louis without a defined escape route, and traveling by plane was still not an option. Even though he could now pay for any form of transportation in existence, he couldn’t verify his identity without raising eyebrows. And then there were the endless cameras watching every inch of every airport and train station, the miles of winding security lines.

If he could only just buy a car of his own, a discrete car the equivalent of a burner phone, he could drive it to Montana and then abandon it on the side of some tree- lined road. But between taxes, insurance, and registration, buying a car required even more red tape than flying in a plane.

Ryan rammed his hands into the loose pockets of his Saint Louis sweatshirt, and his balled up fists triggered a ripping sound that spoke to the garment’s quality. He thought about the peacoat, the thick canvas that he would liked to have kept if it wasn’t saturated with blood. He imagined the man arriving at his destination with a story about a crazy guy, who must have been a cold-blooded murderer, that bought his coat for a thousand bucks.

Would he tell anyone other than his friends? Would the exchange wear on him until he eventually told a police officer?

Most great ideas appear at your door not as screaming strangers, but familiar friends; Ryan’s next thought appeared with this whimper. If it worked with the coat, why wouldn’t it work with an automobile? What person, especially someone down on their luck, would turn away twice the invoice price for a no-questions asked departure from their car? And once they had sold the car, surely wouldn’t the fear of laws broken keep them from telling anyone important?

Nighttime finally had the city fully within its grasp, and all the cars on the road were reduced to headlights: tall headlights, headlights that hovered just inches from the ground, strong, dim. Ryan wasn’t sure what vehicle he should be on the lookout for; several years of city-living had successfully stripped from him any knowledge of fuel efficiency and dependability. It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself, it wasn’t like he was browsing the lot.

He began walking again, this time toward the residential section of the neighborhood. Maybe, with the help of lucky timing, he would run into someone in a driveway or garage just as he had with the coat. Some of the meager houses were dark, in most others TVs glowed behind closed blinds. Inside, families and friends were talking and drinking, arguing and laughing and calling it a night.

Ryan pulled his sweatshirt tighter, not as a reaction to the temperature of the air but to something internal. He thought again about Claire, about some of his buddies from ad school. He even thought about his mom, who was surely tumbling down a bottomless pit of anxiety thanks to his disappearance. The world he left had seemed so dreary, so hopeless with its eager abandonment of all privacy. People like Victoria had no understanding of what it was like to see years of work torpedoed by pure happenstance, to watch certain future melt into oozy uncertainty.

A couple of uneventful blocks soon ruled out a plan based upon coincidence, and as Ryan’s impatience increased, so did his fearlessness. He saw a house on the left that looked especially lively, and hopped up the steps of the front porch with a sales pitch ready.

“Who’s there?” the voice exploded through the cracked-open front door.

“I have a question,” Ryan shot back.

“Go away!” came the response. Ryan hesitated, unsure whether he should accept a zero and one record without further protest. But when no further sounds escaped the house, he turned and descended the concrete steps. A few houses down, a woman stood outside her front door smoking. Ryan caught her eye while still on the sidewalk, which made for an awkward few steps to get within conversation range.

“Hey, how’s your night been so far?” Ryan asked with a smile.

The woman punctuated a shrug with a drag on her cigarette.

“I don’t mean to bother you, umm, but I’m looking for a car,” he turned toward the driveway. “I saw that one and wondered if it might be for sale.”

The woman dropped her cigarette and flattened it with the ball of her foot. “You don’t want that hunk of junk.”

“It doesn’t run?”

“No,” she replied, “it runs. But it’s got almost 200,000 miles. Burns oil like mad.” Ryan paused, unsure whether to keep pushing or cut his losses. The door behind the woman squeaked, and out came a man which Ryan guessed to be her significant other. He looked as though his mouth carried a giant wad of phlegm that he longed to expectorate.

“Whatchu doin’ out here talkin’ to my wife in the dark?” he asked, his tone that of sacrilege.

“Oh, ha, no no, nothing like that.” Ryan flashed another smile, “I just need to get somewhere, and I don’t have a lot of time. I’m wondering if she, or you, or whoever owns that car would be willing to sell it. I can pay right now, a solid price.”

The man’s head tilted to one side as he eyed the precocious boy that stood before him. His mouth was still working on the invisible loogie. At last a twinge of amusement appeared on his face. “Let me get this straight. You show up at,” he pulled out his phone to check the time, “nearly nine o’ clock at night, and say that you want to buy our beat to hell Camry, and that you are willing to pay extra for absolutely no reason?” A toothy smile broke on the man’s face. “Come on, kid, what you trying to pull?”

“Nothing, I promise. I just really need a car,” Ryan’s heart beat like a woodpecker, his used-car-salesman-charm evaporated. He took a single step away from the couple. The woman looked on, emotionless.

“Nah, there’s something going on,” the man replied at an escalating volume. He held up his phone and aimed the camera at Ryan, who was now several steps into a slow- motion retreat. “Hold on,” the man growled, “I want to get a photo so I can remember that random October night when a freaky tourist appeared on my porch and offered to buy my Camry!” The phone’s digital shutter clicked several times, and the man laughed a deep, cold, forced laugh. Ryan turned and ran down the sidewalk.

It took fifteen minutes of walking for Ryan’s heart to stop racing. His shirt absorbed the sweat, which acted as a chilly conduit for the building wind. His mind was filled with a mess of thoughts, each more critical and self- deprecating than the last. “Maybe I can get on a bus,” he thought, “maybe I can luck into a negligent bus driver that won’t verify my ID, just like before.” He kicked a small pebble as he weighed his options, it clacked against the cement with a sharpness that contrasted to the cloudiness of his mind.

After walking for another five minutes, Ryan saw a woman in a driveway, rummaging through the trunk of a car. Even though he very much wanted to walk past her, to abandon his ridiculous plan and let it rot in the gutter, something made him walk towards her. He accented each footstep to avoid startling her, and she looked up as he approached.

“Hello!” Ryan said, aware that he was taking a page from the Jehovah’s Witness playbook.

“Hi,” the woman replied. Her head slowly lifted from the shadow of the trunk, and Ryan looked for any sort of clue that he could use to convince her to make the sale. She was mid-40s, early 50s at the oldest, with kind eyes set against abundant winkles.

“Sorry to bother you, mam,” he smiled self- deprecatingly, “I’m just in a bit of a pickle, unfortunately.”

“What’s the matter?” her face showed concern, but she remained firmly within a shell of skepticism.

“I won’t bore you with the details, but I need to get back to Columbus. Ohio. That’s where I’m from.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any money,” she said, then turned away from him.

“No, it’s not like that,” he said, forcing a chuckle.

She turned back towards him, her eyes asking “then what is it like?”

“My mother is in Columbus, and, well, she hasn’t been doing too well lately.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” cracks had begun to appear in the woman’s defense.

“Yeah, me too. I’ve had a bit of bad luck, car trouble. I need to get to Columbus by tomorrow morning, because there’s no telling how much longer she has left. My mother.”

The woman took a single half-step toward Ryan, and he knew that she was almost onboard.

“I don’t have time to wait for the dealerships to open, or deal with any of the documents or anything, but I need a car. I saw yours, there, and it seemed like it would be a great ride.”

“I can’t—”

“I’ll pay you for it,” he cut her off, “whatever it’s worth, a little more even.”

She sized him up, her brain filled with dollar bills and empathy.

“I’ll have to miss work tomorrow without my car, plus there’s taxes and everything,” she said at last, and Ryan knew he had his ride. $15,000 later, and he was on his way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

In the 26 years of Blake’s life, there couldn’t have been a worse moment for a swarm of police to burst into his apartment. When they did enter, guns drawn and fingers on triggers, they found Blake holding a large kitchen knife over a boy which none of them recognized. The trembling knife was suspended just a few of inches above Andy Brookman’s sleeping throat.

“Back away and put the knife down!” Officer Grant screamed.

The decibel level of the demand caused Andy to go from REM to awake in a fraction of a nanosecond, and his immediate reaction was to sit up. Luckily, his neck didn’t get the chance to be caressed by cold metal. Once he understood the situation (a comprehension that occurred quickly), he froze in horror. “Dude, what are you doing?” Andy eked out. Blake didn’t reply as he savored the terror in Andy’s eyes.

Grant moved toward Blake, her gun still up. “Put it down!” she repeated and she inched toward Blake. One of the other officers moved with her, until they both were within arm’s reach of the knife-wielding mad man. In one swift motion they secured the knife, tackled Blake, and pinned him face down on the polished wooden floor. Andy jumped up immediately, unable to fight the waves of adrenaline surging through his body.

“What the hell were you doing?” Whitney asked, but Blake’s eyes were glazed over, unfocused. Handcuffs ratcheted tightly into place. Two of the officers tried to console Andy. Sirens echoed from the street below, the sound waves bounced between brick buildings like a pinball.

Blake remained hypnotized by the unseen.

“Who is that?” Whitney asked, her voice now surprisingly calm. Blake eyes moved slowly and met Whitney’s. Patterson and Grant leaned closer.

“A buddy from college,” came Blake’s barely audible reply.

“What were you doing? Why?” Whitney tried for a follow-up. But Blake’s eyes disengaged, then returned to a place far away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Nothing compares to the 70-mile-per-hour freedom possible only on the roads of the American west. Ryan firmly gripped the steering wheel of the Buick as it brought him ever-closer to freedom. He was unfazed by the faint smell of gasoline that crept in through the air conditioning vents, or that the car was out of alignment and pulled severely to the right. But as city gave way to suburbs gave way to irrigated fields and then desolate prairie, so did the muddled mess of St. Louis fade into a distant place within Ryan’s mind. He had never pointed a gun at another human, much less pulled the trigger; that Ryan Park was laid to rest in a dumpster in a lower-class St. Louis neighborhood. The half a million dollars that rested in the cup holder was nothing but a fragment of a dream that bridged the gap between two lifetimes.

By now it was painfully obvious that his entire plan, to escape from the world he despised and the technology he thought too invasive, was steeped in ignorance, rashness and desperation. But rather than beat himself up, every mile that ticked by on the odometer was a “but;” a quantifiable snippet of proof that despite his oversights, he was moving increasingly nearer to the pie-in-the-sky dream that encouraged him leave New York in the first place.

When “Welcome to Montana” zipped by, unbridled excitement escaped Ryan through the accelerator pedal. He drove at 95 miles per hour for five minutes, causing the car to rattle as though it were one direct bump away from being reduced to thousands of disjointed, sparking parts. Ryan didn’t know where he was going exactly, nor did he feel like it as was a good idea to consult the phone that had unintentionally become his travel companion. It may have already been tracking his location, but he wanted to play it safe and use the phone only for payments.

The city of Bozeman kept returning to him for some unexplainable reason. He hadn’t ever known anyone that lived there, or visited there, but a random hunch was the only thing he had to go on. Time passed quickly as he shot up I-90. Mountains peaked through the clouds in the distance, grandfatherly with their peaks dusted in white. The sprawling fields on both sides of the road were lush green, a return to the coloring he had recently surrounding him while in Farmland, America. Homesteads passed by with increasing frequency, until at last he had arrived in Bozeman, Montana.

Bozeman is a case study in the modern American West, where fourth generation ranchers rub shoulders with refuge San Franciscans, and organic grocery stores are erected beside livestock feed lots. Though the number of vehicles that buzz up and down its streets are ‘far too many” for the old-timers, most residents are united by the lust to live a life where elk can wander through your backyard while you’re asleep in bed.

Pulling into town, the elation of arriving collided with Ryan’s growling stomach. He considered using the phone to find the best place in town to get a meal, but instead elected to drag the main roads, which took him past doctor’s offices, grocery stores, and a number of restaurants that didn’t pass the drive-by test.

As the road became residential, Ryan turned down a side street to make a U-turn. Just as he was about to pull away, a small establishment caught his eye. Its walls were logs, and it had no name aside from an 8.5x11 piece of white paper stuck to the inside front window with “Restaurant” typed on it. The window itself was too hazy to see inside, and there was no indication that the place was even open. But something about it was a siren’s song, and he knew that he had found his lunch spot.

The door creaked painfully as Ryan opened it. The moment it took for his eyes to adjust from the bright outside created a cross-fade transition. Once he could make out the interior, he realized that it matched the outside in every way: log walls bare except for a unlit fireplace, and not an ounce of decor. The cheap tables and chairs were few, with a pile of napkins as the centerpiece. Needless to say, he loved it immediately. As he reveled in the establishment’s authenticity, a woman appeared from around the corner. She greeted him with a friendly nod.

“Waiting for somebody?”

“Nope, just me today,” he said.

“Well, have your pick,” she gestured toward the open tables, and Ryan made his way to a cozy one in the corner. The menu came on a single sheet of paper, stained and creased and free of ornamentation. It listed 5 entrees, all of which were centered upon a considerable helping of meat. The woman approached the table with a sweating glass of water.

“Any questions?” she asked.

Ryan gulped the water, which was refreshing despite its cloudiness.

“I think I’m going to go with the bison steak,” he said. “We serve ‘em medium. That fine?” she replied.

Ryan emerged from the restaurant half an hour later and five pounds heavier. The bison had made for what was, without exception, the most delicious steak he had ever eaten. At first he was amused that it was served in the middle of a chipped white plate accompanied by just a wilted sprig of parsley, but after one bite he understood why presentation was of no importance.

The one thing that marred an otherwise delightful lunch was the nagging thought that he still had no plan for obtaining a place to live. What’s more, he had to avoid the usual online house-hunting tools for fear of leaving a juicy clue for anyone on his trail. When he arrived back at his car, he heard a familiar squeak. He turned around and saw the woman from the restaurant, waving his phone in her hand.

“I don’t suspect you want to leave this thing behind,” she said.

“Wow, no, thank you,” Ryan replied, taking the phone from her. She gave him another nod, then turned to head back inside. Just as she reached the door, an impulse struck.

“Hey, just a minute,” he said. She turned back to him, her face a question mark.

“I’m, um, I’m actually not from around here, and I’m looking for a place to live.”

“There are a lot of places around here. Bed and breakfasts, and even a Holiday Inn,” she said.

“Well I’m actually looking for something different, something a bit more remote.”

Her eyebrows raised.

“I’m a writer,” he flashed a smile, “from back East, and I’d actually like to buy a place to get away and work on my latest writing project. I’m looking for something small, but out of the way so I can focus.”

The woman stared at him for an uncomfortable duration of time without saying a word, then ran her pink tongue over her aged pink lips. “So you have some money to spend, is what you’re saying.” She snuck a peak at the ancient Buick.

Ryan forced another friendly smile, and added a chuckle. “Yeah, I have a little bit. Not enough for the Overlook Hotel or anything, but something small.”

The dirt road grew bumpier as it extended further away from the city. Every so often Ryan would hit an especially deep pothole and wince as the poor Buick screamed. A few car lengths ahead was an equally old pickup truck, the woman from the restaurant (Gladys Smith) at the wheel. Despite the similarity in age between the two vehicles, hers handled the washboard dirt with ease. Its back tires generated a stream of dust that rose from the ground to the perfect height to coat the Buick’s windshield. The sun hung low in the sky, signaling the imminent need for headlights should the caravan continue.

After a drive of somewhere around an hour, the truck slowed and turned onto a second, fainter dirt road that was tucked between some trees and brush. As Ryan made the turn, he saw it for the first time: in a clearing, surrounded by quaking aspen and a few ponderosas, sat a small wooden cabin. Though it wore several decades on its exterior, it was dressed in wooden plank siding rather than the log cabins of the restaurant. Three wooden steps, smooth from decades of boot soles, led to the front door. Weathered green trim framed the paned windows. In short, it was old, worn, eccentric, and everything Ryan had imagined.

Gladys got out of her car, and Ryan followed suit. He followed tentatively as she unlocked the door and headed inside. Once again a book cover judgement was proven correct: the interior was a perfect complement to what he had seen from the outside. A small wooden table, utilitarian but handsome, and two matching chairs sat at one end of the room. A twin bed sat at the other end, piled high with wool blankets that had likely not been washed since the cabin was erected. A black metal stove completed the trio of furnishings, with a modest pile of wood stacked beside it. It was surprising how beautiful it all was; a result not of the pieces but the simple perfection of a whole. Gladys went from this to that, scooting in a chair, fluffing a blanket, peaking into the door of the stove, then latching it. At first Ryan thought she was simply readying the place for a new owner, but then he realized that he was witnessing a farewell. He stood in the doorway, not wanting to disrupt a ritual that seemed sacred. After several minutes she turned to him and made eye contact for the first time since arriving.

“Seems like everything’s in order,” she said.

“Bathroom?” the pitch of Ryan’s voice escalated the word into a question.

A look of amusement appeared on Gladys’ face. “In back. Outhouse. We can go back and take a look if you—” “Nah, that’s okay,” he said.

“No electricity, you probably noticed, you’ll have to get a generator for that. A lantern, matches, and other supplies are under the bed.”

She pulled her coat a little tighter and took a step toward the door, which was Ryan’s signal to follow suit and head outside too. Darkness had moved in for the kill, and a twinge of fear made him temporarily panicked about the whole plan. Luckily, he stopped short from asking if she’d like to stay until morning. Then he remembered that the deal wasn’t yet done.

“I think you mentioned around two,” he said.

“You still feed good about that?” she replied, looking not at Ryan but the cabin. He wondered what memories he was buying.

“I do,” he said, entirely unsure if the price was preposterous or fair. “I can transfer it to you right now.”

“I guess there’s probably some forms that need filling out, to make things legal,” Gladys said. Ryan hesitated, not anticipating this obstacle.

“Or not,” she countered, reading his silence.

Then the deed was done, and Ryan was watching the taillights of a truck as it pulled away, leaving him, for the very first time, entirely alone and completely disconnected from the world.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Whitney was unhinged. After a string of days that stunk with a failure only possible through unrewarded obsession, she had ceased responding to calls from her boyfriend. Patterson had returned to headquarters, reassigned, and Whitney assumed that she would soon receive a message directing her to move on as well. She knew that, if Patterson were telling the truth, the case was probably already under review. In her mind she pictured a couple office lackeys who rifled through digital evidence without care. “Those idiots have no idea what real detective work is,” she thought to herself.

She was exhausted from combing through endless crime reports, arrest records, and hospital databases. The microscopic grain of optimism that kept her searching broke her heart every time it was proven wrong. Despite the millions of cameras tied to the crime database, ever- watching for the facial features of Ryan Park, she had gotten nothing but false positives. She knew that the chances of finding Ryan decreased with every minute that passed, that he was probably dead, his body dumped in a river or dumpster somewhere, or ravaged by animals off the side of a rural road.

Diane Park now contacted her twice a day, sometimes through voice calls, sometimes over Freely messages. Diane’s energy was never ceasing: she wasn’t at all pessimistic on the possibility of seeing her son again. There were a few days when she was angry, when she blamed every source of her son’s hypothetical harm on the detectives’ incompetence. Whitney stopped answering the calls then, only resuming after a half-hearted apology Diane had made a few nights later.

“I just really think you need to look into his friend Paul,” Diane would say. Or, “Abby, have you talked to Abby?”

Every time she suggested a contact, Whitney actually did investigate it, albeit reluctantly. After most of the people replied with something like, “Ryan Park? I don’t think I’ve talked to him since eighth grade,” Whitney knew that Diane was just fishing. But Whitney also knew that that wasn’t necessarily bad, because in the event that she wasn’t able to find Ryan, whoever reviewed the case would see due diligence.

“Any luck?” the message appeared in the corner of her screen. It was from Patterson, another one of his “just- following-up” messages that came through from time to time.

“Nope, you?” Whitney replied. Patterson promised that he would continue working on the case here and there, but Whitney knew that nothing meaningful was likely to come from his half-hearted searching. She liked Patterson, but it didn’t take long to figure out that he continued working not because of the thrill of the chase, or the desire to do a good job, but because he was so close to retiring with full benefits.

“Maybe,” the message appeared. Whitney rolled her eyes.

“Yeah?” Whitney said, playing along, “well lay it on me.” “Can you do a call?” came Patterson’s reply.

“Sure,” Whitney typed each letter slowly, then hit send.

On the screen, the message icon morphed into that of an old telephone handset, and Whitney tapped on it.

“Hey there,” Patterson’s voice poured loudly from the speaker.

Whitney pressed the button to turn down the volume.

“How are you doing?”

“Not too bad, you know, same stuff, different day,”

Patterson said, and his partner smiled. “So this is a long shot, but I just got briefed on a new case that they’re pulling some of us onto. This whole messy thing. Incredibly, no good video footage exists of the perp, just something from far away. That’s why they’re pulling a bunch of us onto it, because there’s not a lot to go on. I suspect Gwen’ll assign you to it also once you wrap things up, which I’ve heard will be soon.” There’s a pause as Patterson lets his warning sink in.

“What happened?” Whitney asked, downplaying the threat.

“Oh, you know, just a quadruple homicide. A couple thugs met a couple of magicians—”

“Magicians?” Whitney interrupted.

“Sorry, I forgot we never went over that one. It’s what we call people that peddle new identities. Cause they create them out of thin air, like a magician”

Whitney nodded her head even though her partner couldn’t see. “There are a lot of them?”

“Nah, just a few. They cause a whole bunch of panic, though, that’s for sure. What if the terrorists start using them, that sort of thing. But anyway, this deal didn’t go down too well. Four people are dead, and another is on the lam. Like I said, it’s this whole messy thing.”

“Well I don’t know, Patterson, that doesn’t really sound like Ryan. He doesn’t have a record, remember?”

“That’s true, but the low quality video makes it look like it could be him. I’ll send it over. Just a second.”

In just seconds, a grainy, cropped video appeared on the screen. She tapped to play it and knew immediately.

“Wait, where did you say this was at?” Whitney asked.

“I didn’t,” Patterson said. “But it’s outside of St. Louis. Real shady area, that’s part of why we don’t have much to go on.”

“Maybe it’s time to leave New York City.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mornings hold a magic unlike any other part of the day. Within the morning sits a distillation of everything that awaits in the upcoming hours. During this blessed time, even the most farfetched thoughts seem real enough to taste.

Ryan’s first morning in his cabin was the greatest morning he had ever experienced. He awoke early, not because of a blaring alarm clock or unrelenting traffic, but from the sun that gently caressed the right side of his face. He wondered what time it was, and then immediately realized that it didn’t matter. He was on his own schedule now; no longer was he beholden to a calendar. He was, at last, living on his side of the mountain.

It was chilly inside the cabin, so the first order of business was a fire in the stove. Though his fire-starting experience was minimal, he started one using an admittedly excessive number of matches. Soon the small room was glowing with heat, and Ryan cracked the door to dilute it.

Windows are typically used for glances: what’s the weather like? Who is walking out there? Did the mail come yet? Yet Ryan spent ten straight minutes simply looking out the window, watching the trees sway in the wind and two squirrels battle over something small. He took stock of everything he could see, reveling in the deep satisfaction that it belonged to him. How far his land extended he didn’t know, but he would soon find out.

Before following Gladys to the cabin, he had stopped by a ranch supply store to purchase a pair of boots, some gloves, a couple pairs of stiff jeans, and a coat. He also grabbed a small collection of highly preserved food. He had no real idea what he needed, of course, so he just followed along with what he’d seen in the movies, knowing that he could easily make another trip to get additional supplies when the need arose. Either way, it was great to no longer be a walking St. Louis tourist trap.

When it did come time to get additional gear, as it soon would, he was unsure how to go about it. Making frequent appearances in public was surely a bad strategy. He couldn’t be sure whose phones were and weren’t recording at any given time, and he no longer had anywhere to run. Montana was the place he had run to, and he was determined to stay. A weathered old felt hat waited on a hook on the back of the door, a bonus that he hadn’t seen until after Gladys had left. “I’ll wear that,” he thought, “close to my face. It’s no guarantee, but it should make it much harder for me to be recognized.”

He spent a solid part of the afternoon simply wandering, taking stock of anything interesting on the property. There was an old trunk of a tree, splintered and blackened from a lightning strike, and a few gigantic ant hills, abandoned for the season. There was a small crevice between two large rocks, which Ryan quickly dubbed “the cave” because he could fit inside of it with a minimal amount of contorting.

He eventually met a fence, rusted barbed wire that stood slouched and slack around the property. It was easy to hop over, and even touched the ground in some places, but Ryan despised it. He had tasted freedom, real freedom with all its threatening teeth, and he refused to let it be tempered. He walked along the back fence for half an hour, waiting for an intersection, but soon his stomach was growling and he decided to finish the survey at a later time. He thought of the baked beans, processed potatoes, and Spam that awaited him, and escalated his steps into a jog. The interior of the cabin had cooled down considerably in the time since he had left, a result of the lack of insulation in the cloudless sky. But in no time at all it was once again warm and accented with a mouthwatering combination of smells.

And so the days passed. And then the weeks. Despite the certainty that his physical appearance was sure to raise suspicion, several supply runs proved uneventful. And just as it often happens if you give it the chance, Ryan learned countless lessons from the simple act of living and enjoying life.

For a while he thought he really would write a novel, and even got so far as to list a few dozen plot ideas. But for the first time in his life he was no longer under the threat of time, and the notebook of ideas was abandoned in a dusty corner underneath the bed. He would return to that project at some point, he assured himself.

His idle mind drifted to Claire, first in passing but then frequently. Then all the time. She was his best friend, after all, and when he was honest with himself he knew that one of the reasons he had left her in the dark was to satiate the grudge that burned inside him. They could have been happy if she didn’t— but she had. Forgiveness always seems so simple when it’s someone else that stands in need of it. But when it’s staring at you, unblinking, waiting, nothing is more difficult.

His stubbornness aside, Ryan wished he could at least say something to her, or anyone for that matter. He still had the phone, and with the generator he made sure that it remained charged. But he wore the battery down frequently typing out unsent messages to Claire. These messages were one-way conversations, with Ryan imagining a series of replies and even the development of inside jokes. But he was unable to push the button to send even a single message into space.

Ryan wandered the property less and less often, and eventually was going outside only to use the noxious outhouse that leaned slightly to the left. He knew that there was a lot more to explore, and that he was going to explore it someday soon, but that day didn’t need to be today. Or tomorrow.

One afternoon, a group of mule deer caught Ryan’s attention from the other side of the window. It was a ragtag herd, gaunt and gray, and Ryan watched intently as they moved slowly along the snowy ground, hunting for a sprig of something edible. Later that day, when the sun was at the proper angle to cast a mean cross-shadow, an array of hoof prints became visible, and Ryan studied them scrupulously. The prints were scattered about haphazardly, marks of desperation, but they spoke to the solidarity of the beasts. Dreary as their lives were, with their exposed ribs and dull pelts, something instinctively told them to keep moving, that spring would arrive someday soon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It took Ryan fifteen seconds after seeing the black SUV to register that its appearance should be worrying. Initially, he couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect of having a conversation with the car’s driver. He didn’t know exactly how long it had been since he started his life at the cabin. Two and a half months perhaps? Three? Whatever it was, the absence of anyone to talk to was slowly driving him insane. He vocalized every thought that appeared in his head, and employed a handful of different voices in his ongoing one-way conversations.

The winter had settled in, and over two feet of snow sat atop frozen earth and was untouched around the cabin aside from a well-worn trench between the door and the outhouse. It was cold, unforgiving, and Ryan became fixated not on the beauty of the trees dusted with white, but the starkness of the monochromatic palate. Physically he was safe from the cold, the stabbing mountain wind. But mentally he was no more alive than the mouse mummifying in the trap under the stove. And so, his initial response to the black car was not one of concern, but excitement.

It rolled to a stop, the delicate snow crunching as two and a half tons of steel was distributed through four rubber tires. A pit formed and grew in Ryan’s stomach as a man and a woman stepped out and into the snow. They wore the suits not of business but of work. The woman’s face showed a look of amusement, or satisfaction, or both. Her stomach featured a distinct round bump that indicated a baby was just a couple months away.

“You Ryan Park?” the woman said.

“Yes.”

The man and woman’s faces both broke into unstilted

smiles. “I’m Agent Whitney Call. This is Agent James Harrington. We’ve been looking for you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Three thousand, six hundred, and fifty days: a period of time that can only be properly understood when written not in numbers, but words. Ryan’s incarceration, like most, was one of despair and abandonment and hopelessness. Daily he was forced to confront the reality that he was no longer a human, but an animal caught in a cage; food in, waste out, but neither caring nor creativity nor any of the other things that define a human made an appearance. And why would they? He wasn’t a human, after all, the prosecutors had made sure that everyone in the courtroom was aware of that fact. What kind of person abandons his friends and family, kills two men, and then leaves two acquaintances to die in their own blood? Ryan actually lucked out with just a ten year sentence, which was the result of a well-delivered argument by his lawyer in favor of Stockholm syndrome. “He was a hostage,” the lawyer had argued, “trapped physically and mentally.”

In the midst of it all, a single question plagued Ryan’s mind, unrelenting: Why did his life inside a cell contrast so intensely with life in the cabin? Surely the objective observer would deem both abodes similar more than different, but the cell brought on a sickness within him unlike anything he had ever experienced.

Yet at a certain indiscernible point, a microscopic kernel of hope reappeared as though it were self-generated. It did not blossom, for nothing in prison blossoms but anger, but neither did it die. Ryan seized upon it tightly, forcefully, until somehow his sentence was over and he found himself once again wearing the clothes he had purchased at a ranch supply store in Bozeman, Montana.

“How are you doing?” Diane Park asked, mid-hug. “Pretty good,” Ryan replied, “just sort of in a daze.” “Understandably.”

They got into her car, a sedan that was purchased while Ryan was locked away. As Diane shifted into drive and began down the road, Ryan felt a brief moment of panic, that he was somehow getting away with something, escaping.

“I got you something,” Diane said, reaching back behind the seat to rustle through a bag and box. From behind her, like a kindergarten magician, she unveiled a phone. Ryan recognized it from the ads he had seen while inside; it was the latest and greatest, faster, lighter, with a screen too bright to ignore. Ryan took it from her and turned it around in his hand, feeling the smooth glass and cold metal.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I just thought it might help you get back into the swing of things, reconnect with some of your old friends,” she said.

“If they want to,” he said.

“Look,” Diane looked at him seriously, “you made a mistake, that’s it. It’s not like you are a psychopath or anything.”

The next few minutes passed in silence. Ryan continued turning the phone around in his hand, imagining the only conversation he really wanted to have. Last he had heard, she was engaged to be married. Regardless, he doubted that she wanted to see him. Claire had written him a handful of messages while he was locked away, which he had answered quickly but poorly. It was obvious that he had done irreparable damage by leaving, and he couldn’t blame her for having a hard time forgiving him.

They stopped for an early dinner at a restaurant directly off Exit 297. Ryan took the phone in with him, still resisting the temptation to turn it on but enjoying the feeling of having it with him nevertheless. The weight in his pocket made him feel whole.

The end